The Traditional English Class

The end of the semester brings out the even more reflective side of me. I find myself analyzing my practice and especially my pedagogy and I’m really struggling with the idea of the English classroom and curriculum.

I was blessed to teach an amazing group of grade 12 university level students this past semester. Over the course of the semester, I have been wondering if there was more I could have done to help prepare them for post secondary. What I keep coming back to is a discussion the class had in September. I asked them how many are planning on taking English in post secondary and only 1 out of 26 are even considering taking an English course let alone choosing it to be their major! So why is it that we force these bright students to take a literature based course that potentially has very little bearing on what they will be doing next year? If I put myself in their shoes and was forced to take a grade 12 math course, I would not have gotten into university…

I’m not advocating that we should get rid of the English discipline, but I think we need to revisit our concept for how and what we teach. I really think we need to personalize English classes for our current learners.

One way I think we could add the personalized touch to the university level is to find out what our students are planning on studying in post secondary. We then group them based on their post secondary aspirations and ask them to research proper writing techniques for their respective discipline and prepare a seminar for the class. Next, on a bi-weekly basis, we ask them to research current articles or read blogs from accredited sources or experts in their chosen field. Finally, we ask them to blog about their reading. We are still encouraging critical thinking but we are engaging them in their future field of study rather than focusing on so much critical analysis of literature.

I know this is a radical way of looking at an English class, but I keep coming back to the idea of personalization and that I can do more to help prepare, engage and motivate my students for the future. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Personalization of Learning

I have been blessed with some absolutely fabulous classes this semester who, on a regular basis, blow me away with their creativity and depth of thought. In my 4UI class, the students are presenting their third part of the ISU assignment which is a group project about a novel of their choosing.

The third part of the assignment is complex and requires students to create questions in a variety of styles about their novel then provide answers, find a famous quotation that relates to their novel then create a journal prompt and write an exemplar, choose three characters from the novel then select a relevant quote which they will then use to deconstruct and analyze the character and finally, design and create a creative connection to the novel (poem, song, art, etc.)

My students have been presenting their work and I am overwhelmed by the products I am receiving! We watched a very funny discussion between Stephen Harper and a fictitious character from a novel, listened to a couple of poems, viewed a gallery of art created in the style of children, looked through two scrapbooks and listened to an explanation of a piece of art. The art really caught my attention as the two girls who created the piece are quite talented and they decided to not only paint a beautiful piece, but they added in the challenge of having it be in the style of a famous painter. They chose Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” as their inspiration and the result is beyond my greatest expectations. They aligned the various characters to represent the social hierarchy of the novel (The Other Boleyn Girl), they used the physical appearances and body language to demonstrate how the characters felt about the others around them and they put objects on the plates to represent the characters’ personalities. Such phenomenal depth of thought, character analysis and communication of ideas all without writing a single word!

I would not have seen this from an essay. The beauty (both literally and figuratively) of this assignment was that the students created a project that complimented and showcased their strengths. Projects like these completely solidify my beliefs that we need to be incorporating this personalization of learning into education as the outcomes are amazing.

Here is a photo of the beautiful artwork by my students.

Grading vs Feedback

Many of the education blogs I read have been lamenting the idea of grades and I’m feeling the same frustration…

My 4UI class completed an amazing ebook project where they analyzed characters from Hamlet using some kind of creative avenue. (I will share the finished ebook here soon.) Even though the finished products are absolutely amazing, I have been procrastinating on “marking” them. I have given a lot of feedback to the students by praising both their depth of thought as well as creativity, but assigning an actual grade has been mentally taxing on me as I’m worried that it will detract from the learning that took place during the project.

The students wrote reflective pieces about the task and their feedback is really inspiring. Many students discussed how they had never thought about characters this way and enjoyed sharing ideas with students from @richfarm’s school. They also discussed how they learned a lot about real world collaboration and accountability (which in all honesty might be the most beneficial aspect of the project) but I’m worried that assigning a grade (even a good one) will devalue the learning that took place.

As these are 4UI level students, I will obviously be assigning a grade, but it leaves me wondering about its consequences…

Unexpected Moments

Yesterday I had one of those unexpected but totally amazing moments that only people who work with students can experience. I teach grade twelve college level English and one of the many things I love about my students is the relationship I have with them. I feel like we have a community in that class and they feel comfortable asking me questions about life outside the walls of our classroom.

I have a small class and make it a goal to talk to every student every day about class, but also about their outside interests and consequently, many of them do the same for me. It’s really quite humbling that they are interested in my life and even though many people criticize this generation as being selfish and narcissistic, this one action demonstrates to me that they, collectively, have strong character and are going to be responsible citizens.

I really don’t understand the constant criticism of this generation. They are good kids and I think sometimes we just need to take some time to talk with them to realize this fact.

Not the “Dumbest Generation” in my books

Today I was introduced to the book, “The Dumbest Generation” by Mark Bauerlein and although I’ve only read a short excerpt, it has me fuming. The excerpt I read suggests that students have too much choice and personalization due to the Internet, social networking, video games, et cetera and that they are then unwilling to engage with anything outside of their personal interests.

What I find frustrating about this concept is that while this may be true for some students, I don’t think it’s the majority and it really bothers me that he’s painting our whole next generation with the same brush. In fact, he talks about not trusting anyone under 30 and when this book was published, I was under 30! Sure, I’m interested in technology, use Facebook and Twitter, but I also am curious about a lot of other things on life and I know from talking with my students that they are too.

It’s worrisome for me that the next generation is being viewed in such a negative fashion. I’ve worked in education for seven years now and I’ve taught some absolutely amazing students and it makes me sad to think that they are going be judged in this manner just because of the generation in which they were born.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Teaching Lessons from Sesame Street

Over the Christmas break Lexie and I indulged in a few episodes of Sesame Street. What I didn’t expect was that I would observe good teaching strategies along with the silliness of the characters. Two segments really stood out to me:

Super Grover 2.0 – the new and improved version from when I was a kid.
-> according to the Sesame Street site, ” The focus this season is math and science learning, so Super Grover 2.0 zooms in with some fabulous advice: Use all your senses to explore the world around you, and ask questions and experiment to find the answers. “

Abby Cadabby’s Flying Fairy School
-> “Problem-solving is always the lesson of the day at Abby’s Flying Fairy School! In these segments, Abby and her classmates show that overcoming challenges and finding solutions doesn’t require magic—just logic, reasoning, and a little bit of cooperation!”
-> she also uses “Twinkle Thinks” (think alouds)

Good reminders for heading back to the classroom on Monday.

New Year, New Blog Style!

I’m a firm believer that change is good so my blog has undergone a makeover

Why Shakespeare?

I’m probably going to stir up some controversy with this post, but I’m reading The Happiness Project and one of the mantras the author, Gretchen Rubin, continually mentions is “Be Gretchen” so I’m “being Jamie” with this blog post.

As an English teacher, something I’ve been wondering for a long time is why do we teach so much Shakespeare? And, why does it seem like the focus is on decoding the language rather than deeper thinking about the characters, motivations and themes? Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoy Shakespeare. I think Hamlet is one sick and twisted character and the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet gets me every time, but I know that not many of my students enjoy Shakespeare the way I do yet they are subjected to it almost if not every year in many high schools.

Why aren’t we allowing students to spend more time reading what they consider to be engaging? I know it’s more work on our part but I think the pay off would be much higher and we would likely find some really interesting reading material based on our students’ individual passions. Also, why does reading have to be a play or novel? Why couldn’t it be blogs or online magazines like Zite or even just news articles? I’ve learned so much in the last month alone from accessing Zite on a daily basis and I can see numerous possibilities for such a service in the classroom environment.

In conclusion, I guess where this questioning comes from is that I believe the English classroom has the potential for personalization that some other more content driven disciplines may not and I feel like we are doing our students (and ourselves) a disservice by not exploring these ideas.

What do you think?

Happy Holidays! Stepping out of my Comfort Zone

This morning was the annual Southwood Christmas assembly and as per tradition, (so I’ve been told) the new staff members had to participate in some fashion. Now most of us are good with making fools of ourselves in a classroom context but it’s a different story when you’re acting. It’s a very humbling experience and it caused a bit of self reflection on my part.

What I learned: (or was reminded of while filming)
- stepping out of your comfort zone is hard but… trying something different is good for the soul
- laughter makes difficult situations more entertaining

What I learned while editing:
- editing is a great creative outlet for me
- I had to think outside the box and I enjoyed the challenge

What I learned while seeing the video played for the students:
- they appreciate seeing us in a different capacity
- they appreciate that we can laugh at ourselves
- the students get to see us as people with faults and that it’s okay to make mistakes (gotta love a blooper roll)

In conclusion, an experience that I thought would be painful (I’m not the most outgoing person) turned out to be a great reflective event. I absolutely love when life does that to me!

On a different note, I wanted to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and best wishes for a wonderful 2012!
Jamie

Breaking Down the Walls

One of my goals this year was to break down the walls of my classroom and through the wonder of Adobe Connect and todaysmeet.com, we were able to have a conversation with Danika Barker’s class. Danika’s class is tweeting in character about the play, Hamlet, (@danikabarker/brevity-2-0) and since we are studying Hamlet, it was the perfect opportunity for a conversation.

Some highlights:
-my students got to share some of their interpretations of the characters and ask why their opinions differed from Danika’s students
-our students had a conversation about Ophelia’s character through todaysmeet that I didn’t even know about until our debrief discussion (I was too busy trying to share our verbal questions and listen for Danika’s responses to spend too much time monitoring the back channel)
-my students praised Danika’s students playing the “diggers” for their comedic abilities
-my students were able to offer some constructive criticism for some of Danika’s students
-we have planned to connect again after the holidays to discuss how the rest of the play

Overall, what I think was really poignant about the class was that the students were interacting about the play, but we also delved into discussions about social media and how they believed their characters would have acted if they had access to Twitter. I really enjoyed the depth of thinking and listening to the conversations that unfolded by giving the students this opportunity. Thanks again, Danika