Thinking Thematically

Almost two weeks after finishing my thematic unit on The Color Purple and culture, I am still reeling from the experience. I was so absorbed into the process of integrating so many different subject areas and cultural studies into one cohesive unit, that I didn't realize until I was done that I was having fun. I had read the novel several times, but I really don't think I got to know the characters until I finished writing activities and finding articles for students to read so that they could get to know the characters better. I learned in education class that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I think this rings true even for lesson planning. Getting to know the music of the era, the fashion and the art was a real tool that helped me to understand the novel better. I loved assigning an essay that criticized the novel in order to give students a chance to look at it critically and make up their own minds. After learning how to write a thematic unit, I can't imagine ever wanting to teach literature another way. In the Lyon education program, we often talk about educating the whole student. The cross-curricular lessons I planned for the unit on The Color Purple are the first I have ever written that I think really do that. Now that I have learned how to do this, I am excited to put it into practice in the classroom, especially since I learned from my mentor teacher that I will have the opportunity to write two thematic units this upcoming semester!

What have I learned?

Looking back on this semester, I realize I have been exceptionally hard on myself. It's easy as a student teacher to hold yourself to the same standard as your mentor teacher, who has significantly more experience teaching. Sometimes I think I forget the "student" part of my title. But looking back, I realize that my experience this semester would be much more successful if I framed it differently. Rather than focus on the things I have done wrong, I think I should focus on what I have learned. My education has been plentiful. I have learned simple things like classroom housekeeping, how to keep grades in a grade book and work simple classroom technology. I have learned about cross-curricular lesson planning and integrating the liberal arts into the English curriculum. I have attended professional development classes and learned about the CORE curriculum which is replacing Frameworks in Arkansas. I participated in the planning of a long-term activity in the form of the Renaissance Faire that my mentor teacher puts on every year with her AP and tenth grade classes, and in her annual study of a Victorian Christmas. Having access to several very successful high school English teachers, not only those in the school I student teach at, but Batesville as well, and also several former English teachers, I have learned how to take bits and pieces of what all of these capable teachers do and make it my own. This is probably the most important lesson I have learned. Nothing under the sun is new, but finding ways to present the same information differently, and possibly more effectively, has been a very valuable lesson, and the contacts that I have made have helped me to form valuable connections in the education community before I even have my own classroom.

Content students, or content areas?

This week we are beginning a unit on A Victorian Christmas, and we began this by decorating for Christmas. I was really impressed by the way my mentor teacher approached this. She set up a roaring fire with Christmas carols on the DVD player, and encouraged the students to come in and help decorate. I was amazed when the students got excited and jumped into the festivities. A few students needed to be encouraged, but most of them were engaged right away. Before long we had students decorating, setting up the tree, stringing lights, singing along with the Christmas carols, and pouring apple cider. This really impressed me, because this same group of kids was all full of snarls and sarcasm two days before when I tried to encourage them.

This situation caused me to reflect about the parts of teaching that have nothing to do with content. Yes, our content areas are important, and if we don't teach them, we are not doing our jobs. However, students' overall well-being has to be taken care of before they can learn. This is something I learned in Practicum. But I never would have thought of decorating for Christmas as a means to ensuring my students' well-being. I would have thought of it as extra, something nice, but not necessary. With CORE Curriculum banging at the door, and state visits, it is easy to overlook the smaller, more subtle needs that our students have.

The difficulty for me lies in knowing when something is extra or frivolous, or when, like the Christmas celebration, it is something crucial that is needed to get students in the mood for learning. I suppose that this is the kind of thing that teachers learn with practice, and get a feel for as they get more experience in the classroom, but it is so frustrating when you watch seasoned teachers make these decisions so easily and effortlessly. It makes me wonder if I will ever have that ease of giving the students what they need without wracking my brain.

School Spirit

Throughout the school year, students have asked me to come to their sports games, and since I've been in class most evenings, this has been impossible. I really wanted to see my kids in action, so I was excited when one of  the seniors came in and told me there was going to be a game on a Saturday about a month from the current date. I was actually surprised he was so interested in me attending; before this time my rapport with the seniors wasn't very strong. In many ways I was more of an observer than a teacher in that class. But he definitely cared, and he checked back with me about once a week, reminding me about the game.

Last weekend the day arrived and my husband and I went to see them play. I knew the kids would be excited to see me, but I had no idea how excited I would be to see them. I was surprised by the sheer number of my students on the team. I knew many of my students were on the team, but there were really only one or two students on the team that I didn't know. The kids made the word "teamwork" sound like an understatement. Knowing, as I do, that they have grown up together since they were very young, I shouldn't be surprised, but it was almost as it they read each other's minds. I was proud to see them so passionate about something, and so successful, but the experience left me with one question-- how can I make them feel that way about English?

Keeping Current and Fresh

I have been working so hard to fit in my internship, that I think I have forgotten there are options aside from the techniques that my mentor teacher uses. I was once again reminded of alternative teaching methods when I came across the article 'Transforming English with Graphic Novels: Moving toward Our "Optimus Prime" Transforming English with Graphic Novels: Moving toward Our "Optimus Prime"', by James Bucky Carter, while working on an assigment for an education class. This article backs up a theory my husband posited to me years ago-- that of using the graphic novel to get students interested in reading.

When he first suggested this idea, I feared that the graphic novel would be similar to the young adult fiction phenomena. When I was in high school, I fell in love with Christopher Pike books. I loved his storytelling and became absorbed by his characters, but the books were far below my reading level and I finished them in mere hours, so my literacy skills weren't challenged at all by this reading. In a similar way, many high school students today fall in love with the characters in Twilight and Harry Potter novels and read nothing but these stories. While reading something is better than reading nothing, when Lit Lab teachers allow students to read only what they like, which often happens to be books that do not challenge the student, it is difficult for the student to grow as a reader.

That said, I was surprised when I visited KIPP Delta a few weeks ago and saw students reading a graphic novel in a tenth grade English class, and I was even more surprised by the complexity of the material and the depth of the themes the students were studying. This concept was in the back of my mind when I began to work on an assignment summarizing an article about my discipline and I found Carter's article.

Not only does the article give examples of how Carter, an avid comic book fan for most of his life, used Captain America and Spiderman to help teach his students-- high school and students studying to be teachers-- to study complex themes, but he spells out several ways to use the graphic novel to teach complex books that students find less appealing. He even shows the reader how to teach difficult, controversial subjects to a younger group of students and explains how graphic novels can be used in this process.

Needless to say, I am looking at the process of teaching literature a little differently now. I ordered several graphic novels off of an internet bookstore and have begun looking for an appropriate graphic novel to contrast with "The Color Purple" in my thematic unit. I am again looking at more controversial, interesting topics to grab students' attention. Carter's article has helped me to remember why I wanted to teach in the first place. The field of literature is ever-changing, and as a teacher I need to respect that, and my curriculum needs to be ever-changing as well in order to impact students in a positive way and help them to feel as passionate as I do about what we are reading.

Oh, to Be a Blogger

 

I truly treasure my personal blog Treasure Chest of Thoughts...please, check it out to preview my topics of the day.

I am attempting to post more often, but "real" life tends to get in the way!  My topics, though, tend to develop out of whatever is on my mind at the time.  I do usually attempt to link to various noted sites and to include a photo, usually found in Google Images, to which I hyperlink.  That's right:  must give credit where credit is due!

You might consider inputting topics in the tag box below.  This more ensures that other readers will find your posts, for as they type in topics (or your tags), they will be directed to your blog post.  You are, then, a truly published author!

Now, type, type, type!  Put your thoughts in black and white!

Do you ever get the feeling that teachers are being saddled with more responsibility for student learning than students are? I do. This statement may sound whiny, yet I strongly feel it is true. I know as a teacher I'm supposed to hold myself accountable for my students' successes and failures, and I do...to a certain extent. Yet I cannot help but feel that students are no longer being held accountable for their own performance.

Last week my boyfriend shared a post with me from a blog he follows (to view the post click here). The writer of this blog has taught Latin from middle school up to the college level and often shares his views on education. This particular blog post presented an interesting view on this topic, and came at the perfect time. I had been frustrated for several weeks by the lack of interest and concern some (by no means all) of my students have exhibited in the classroom. While I understand and agree that as educators we must be held accountable for what is taught and how it is presented, I feel we are doing these students a great disservice by not holding them accountable as well. Educators can only do so much, the rest is up to the student.

To wrap up this post, I'll leave you with a quote from Ernest Dimnet, "Children have to be educated, but they also have to be left to educate themselves."

Attention-Span Injustice

Mrs. Gillmore's last post was incredibly relevant to my week. I assigned a story from the textbook (which is one that has to be covered; it wasn't a particular choice of mine) about Apartheid. I was shocked and dismayed to find my students had never heard of it. The kids were bored, uninterested, and some were even angry with me for making them read such "boring" material. I tried to explain to them the injustice of Apartheid. I might as well have been speaking Greek.

I started thinking about how I was presenting my information. On Thursday I came in with Multiple Intelligence and Learning Styles tests. I told the students I knew they were brilliant, but I wanted to see what kind of brilliant they were. This, and a recommendation from a friend who grew up in rural Arkansas (since I grew up in what might as well have been another country) seemed to break the ice. After breaking them up into learning styles groups, I began a worksheet on stereotypes. None of them knew what a stereotype was.

I finally got the idea of Apartheid across by asking the students how they would like it if some rich people came from somewhere else and told them that they no longer owned their farms and took away all of their independence and rights. They definitely got fired up by this, telling me exactly what they would do to those people. When I asked what they would do if there were too many of these people, or if they were armed, or they threatened to hurt the students' families, I saw the wheels turning. I am not claiming that they immediately became enthralled by the history of Apartheid or enraged as I am over the injustice, but they were listening. They actually tried.

Even though it took all week, this was a victory for me. Now that I know the students' learning styles and what they find interesting, I assigned an activity I think they will find more fun for this week: role-play.

Discipline of Desks

Please read the following poem and contemplate on the meaning of this expression:  "discipline of desks":

Outing


Out the back past buses
out a gate
we crossed a dry field
chatting in twos and threes
then poked and scratched
along the thick wood's edge.

Three girls giggled with their heads together,
whispering about the smell of leaves.

By the ball field
the sticker bushes parted,
shallow ruts
led beneath the trees
up the hill.
We gathered wild roses, black-eyed susans,
ferns and thistles
lavender
and burrs.

Boys scrambled recklessly ahead.
Some stood like paintings of explorers,
one foot set firm atop a mound of dirt.

Stopping still, we listened for the cheeping
of crickets and the clicking of a leaf.
falling through leaves
--not the click of pencils
no locker slams
or voices in the hall.
We dreaded leaving,
imagined hours on the sun-dappled hillside
watching the leaf showers, counting saplings,
watching birds chase-dance through light and shade.
with the smell
of heated dust.

Time between bells
with the discipline
of desks.
-David Burk, English Journal, March 1992


To be honest, I had never quite placed such a connotation on the meaning of school desks.  Maybe because I have always enjoyed school?  Maybe because I am not really the "outdoor type"?  Give me a book any day!

The desk, though, is a discipline tool. A cage.  "Sit down."  "No one out of their seats."  "You do not have permission to get out of your seat."  And the directives go on...and on...and on....

Then, we line the desks in rows...military style, further discouraging conversation, a tool which we hope the students have mastered, especially after attending thirteen years of this institution we label as an education in America.

But my students sit at tables.  My desks are arranged in lit circle format.  Is this better?  ANSWER:  What do the students DO at these tables?

• As I write this, I am picturing my classes over the last couple of days, where I had them working in groups, but guess who still did too much of the talking?
• As I write this, I am thinking of too many students who looked bored.  Bored!  Really?  I spent a lot, let me repeat....A LOT of time preparing that lesson!  Being bored in my class is not part of the legacy as a teacher that I want to leave behind.

Now picture this,  a classroom in our building that has tables with NO chairs.  Why?  According to that teacher, they work at the computer stations and then use the tables to confer...without sitting down.  Without the discipline of the desk.

This leads me to my next personal challenge as a teacher:  to increase the amount of inquiry within all my classes within each of students and between the brains sitting in those desks.  Ooopss...just transformed that desk into a neuron-growing machine!  "Our minds thrive upon the driving process of inquiry--our striving to find and figure out what seems strange, unusual, or novel." ...from John Barell's Developing More Curious Minds.

The Theory of the Iceburg...according to Hemingway:  "If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water." - Death in the Afternoon, Scribner's, 1932, Chap. 16, 192. (Source)

My proposal: 

• Teach one eighth of the time.
• Students inquire 7/8's of the time.

Okay..seriously?  Those numbers make me a bit nervous.  That GOLD person inside me is going to have to practice being quiet!
Goals:

1. Students become engaged in group inquiry projects.
2. Culminate this nine-week unit with a Socratic Seminar.
3. More and more open-ended questions.  Then....
4. More wait time.
5. No...wait...wait for it....give them time to think...

 NOTE to Student Interns in Methods for Secondary English 2011:

• Plan...begin right now...to Never Work Harder Than Your Students.
• That's right...do as I encourage, not as I have taught in my 20+ years of teaching!
• I have you to thank for the inspiration for this post, for as I was pondering on our next class, I came across the above poem.  So...thank you! 

Not sure that I will ever look at a desk in the same way!
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Poem retrieved from Poems by Adolescents and Adults, "School Life,"  Chapter 5, pp 108-109.

Another movie reference...

Teaching at the high school level always makes me think of The Breakfast Club. It is so funny to me that from the very first day in a classroom you can get a fairly accurate idea of who is who. You can identify the "jocks," the "smart kids," and the "class clowns," but the first and easiest ones to identify are the behavior problems. This is not to say that these students will necessarily fit into only one of these categories, or that they will never move from one group to another. It does mean that by making these quick, admittedly stereotypical, divisions you can focus on the students who you know will need more academic help than others as well as those students who will have behavior problems.

My first week in the classroom I recognized a student as fitting into both of these groups. After reading a sample of his writing I assumed that he was an average student. His writing was not amazing, but was on par with most of the students in his class; however as I spent more time in the classroom I realized that his behavior was less than desirable. For example, when class work is assigned I often walk by his desk long after the assignment has been given and realize that his paper is completely blank. He is tardy almost everyday and always has some excuse for leaving the room during class. As if this were not bad enough, he often distracts those around him from their work as well. The worst part is that he seems to be almost completely apathetic. He could care less whether or not he passes an assignment.

One day when I asked him why he never did any work, he said that he can not comprehend anything he reads. While I believe him, I can't help but feel that a large part of his problem is his lack of effort. While there are many strategies that could help him better comprehend what he reads, none of them will help him if he does not employ them. Yet at the same time, is it all his fault. I believe the answer is no. When teacher after teacher gives up on a student's ability to learn, how can we expect that student to believe in his or her own ability to learn? That self fulfilling prophesy gets us every time.

The most frustrating part of this story is that this student is currently being tested for placement in special education classes. This student transferred into the district in the eighth grade. What does it say about our public school system that a student can get to the tenth grade and reside in two different school districts (both for fairly long periods of time) before someone realizes that they are struggling?

Delivery

I had my first observed the lesson the other day, and I am noticing a trend. The more I prepare, and the better my lesson plans are, the worse my delivery is, and the less I am able to stick to the plan. I prepared a really thorough lesson for my first observation of the year, and when my teacher came to observe, I found myself more nervous than I usually am when I "wing it" and kind of unsure. The students had studied, were extra respectful and attentive, and did a wonderful job of showing how "on the ball" they were. I have never been prouder of a group of students I have taught. Unlike the last time I had a lesson I felt like I flubbed, this time it was not the students. (Last time they were just not on the same page as me. This time, if they weren't, they jumped to my page-- they were ever eager to keep up with me.) I over-planned the lesson and ended up having to cut out a few things, and forgot a few things in my harried state.

What I want to understand is, why, when I am so prepared and have such a clear idea of how things will go, do things always go much less smoothly than when I just plan an idea of what I will do so that I can see where the kids take it? I want to prepare good, strong lesson plans and deliver them effectively in the classroom. Is this counter-productive to my teaching style?

One of my favorite movies from childhood is The Pagemaster. In case you haven't seen it, the movie tells the story of Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin), an odd young boy who is practically afraid of his own shadow. This causes strain between Richard and his parents, who just want their son to be normal. While running an errand for his dad Richard gets caught in a thunderstorm and, fearing the lightening, takes refuge in a library. In the library Richard meets the quirky librarian, Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd). This meeting is one of my favorite scenes of all time. In this scene Mr. Dewey gives Richard a library card, saying, "Richard Tyler, consider this your passport to the wonderful and quite unpredictable world of books." Of course the movie has the predictable Hollywood ending (Richard gains some courage and discovers the value of reading), but the Mr. Dewey's quote has always been what resonated with me.

During the first week of school Mrs. Taylor planned a "genre scavenger hunt" in the library. The activity had several purposes: to introduce the students to a variety of genres, to help them pick a book for their first book project, and to familiarize them with the school library. I was so excited about this activity when Mrs. Taylor told me about it, but seeing it in action was much not near as exciting as I had expected it to be. It seemed that none of these students had ever actually checked a book out from the library, and further more, none of them knew how it worked, nor were they interested in figuring it out! No one had ever given them their "passport." Then, third period (a 10th grade Pre-AP class) rolled around. Although this class seemed more interested than the regular English 10 classes did, there was still a lot of apathy.

I was so disappointed...until I saw something that really restored my faith. Students are only allowed to check out one book at a time. One of the students in the Pre-AP class approached the librarian's desk with two books in hand. At first she looked at him kind of quizzically, then a look of understanding overtook her. She looked at the student and said, "Oh, I know you'll finish both of those in time to return them." After that I knew I had to talk to this kid. Talking to him on the way back to the classroom, I realized that at the age of 16 he has read more than I have at the age of 21. This includes more of the classics (including Shakespeare...yuck!). From that moment on, I have always referred to him as The Pagemaster in my mind. This experience also helped me decide that one of my goals for the year, and in my future career, is to instill a love of reading in my students. I want to be Mr. Dewey.

(On another note, one of my students discovered this week that my last name fits perfectly into the Oscar Mayer jingle. I can only hope that I don't have to hear "Oh I wish I was a Niemeyer wiener" for the rest of the year...)

Who I am

I don't know exactly when I started to want to become a teacher, but I'm pretty sure it was before I even had one. From Nursery school on I would take home my assignments, erase or white out the work I'd done, photocopy them on my dad's Xerox machine, and make my friends and family "play school." This was a game I took very seriously.

As I got older, the games lessened, but I had many teachers who influenced my aspirations. In high school I was the girl that the nerdy kids wouldn't even hang out with. I was bullied badly. This only encouraged my goal to be a teacher, because we had many teachers in our school that looked the other way at times like these, or even participated, and I was determined not to be one of them. I had one teacher who never allowed it in his classroom, was always there to listen, and played chess with me and let me read his personal books of poetry. I don't remember much of what Mr. Bierling taught me, but it is probable that he is one of the reasons I didn't end up on the ten o'clock news, like so many other bullied kids of my generation.

Unlike Mr. Bierling, the Spanish teacher and Economics teacher in my school pretty much encouraged the bullies to pick on the less fortunate or less popular students, and instead of letting this dampen my spirits, I told myself if I became a teacher, then my students wouldn't have to deal with teachers who were unfair or unkind in that way.

In high school, I taught Sunday School at the local Presbyterian church, and after I received my Associates in the Humanities, I was a teacher's assistant in a nursery school classroom. These experiences only added to my desire to work with children, but helped me to realize I was much better at getting across to junior high and high school students, rather than little kids.

I took a break from college when I got married, but it was my husband who convinced me to go back. At this point I had started to doubt my ability to be a good teacher, and he really pushed me not to run away from it. Throughout high school and early college, I was torn between English, Spanish and History. I knew I wanted to teach, but I really didn't care what I taught. When I finally got to Lyon College, it was there that Dr. Ronald Boling and Dr. Helen Robbins helped me to see the depth of the English language and just how much fun interpreting literature could be.

I have been influenced by many teachers, both in what I want to emulate and what I definitely do not want to mimic, but my high school experience, while extremely negative, probably had the most impact on my life because it showed me just how big of a difference one person can make, and helped me to realize that I can be that one person for someone else's child.

"In the schoolhouse..."

I couldn't really tell you what it was that made me want to teach in the first place. I have wanted to teach for as long as I can remember, almost like a natural compulsion towards education. I am not, however, naive enough to tell you that I have not been influenced by a number of great teachers.

My love of learning began early on. I was raised in Jonesboro, Arkansas and was lucky enough to be enrolled in a Catholic elementary school there. In this setting my teachers focused on developing not only our minds, but also our characters and morals. I have never encountered a group of educators who more fully embody the quote by Henry Golden, "In the schoolhouse, we have the heart of the whole society." In forming my own ideas and philosophy about education I have struggled with some ideas; however, the idea of educating the whole child has remained at the forefront of my mind, regardless of how my other ideas may change.

The next huge influence on my decision to teach was Mr. Rousey, my high school Geometry teacher. It was Mr. Rousey who showed me that learning does not necessarily have to take place in a formal environment. I'm not exactly sure how he did it, but Mr. Rousey could get us to learn things (whether we wanted to or not) without any of us even realizing it. I left his class with a thorough understanding of Geometry, yet his teaching methods were so sly that, to this day, I don't have a clue what they were.

The most recent influence on my ideas about education is Dr. Tebbetts. One very important thing I have learned from Dr. Tebbetts is that how you say something to your students is just as important as what you say to them. His enthusiasm for his subject area shines through into every lecture he gives and is infectious. For example, when I took his Western Literature class I found out we would be reading The Odyssey...again. Honestly, I was dreading reading it. The drama of the ancient Greeks had never been of much interest to me. However, by the second or third assignment I was excited to read it. Dr. Tebbetts's fervor, combined with his ample knowledge base, allowed me to look at Odysseus's voyage in a new, exciting way. I genuinely hope that I will be able to do the same for one of my own students someday.

As I said previously, my ideas about education have changed quite a bit over the years thanks to the shaping and molding of some fantastic educators. I believe that this process will continue as I enter the profession, and I aspire to influence a student in the same way these teachers have influenced me.

Why I Am Who I Am

Before I begin, please welcome Elizabeth and Jill to this blog!  Throughout this semester, they will also be posting.  To encourage our blogging here, I have asked that we each share the reasons, the justifications for this chosen career...a teacher of English.
_____________________________________

Many people should be thanked for their assistance in my becoming who I am right now in my career, for as Hillary Clinton's book persuades...just as it takes a village to raise a child, so it takes a conglomerate of individuals to build a twenty-year career.

First, to my high school English teacher Mrs. Smith, my heroine, absolutely without a doubt, I would not be an English teacher had it not been for the example she sat every day of every week.  She worked us, holding us to higher expectations than most of us wanted, yet she loved us, and we knew it.  If she called today, I would stop my life and be there for her.  As would many of us.

Second, to my college instructors Dr. Tebbetts and Dr. Wray...one being the extreme, energized, definitely a sage on the stage of my life, the other, solid, direct, forcing our writing styles to become what they would not be. Because of them, I inherited a much more solid literary background, one recognized when I later attended grad school and was told that I must have graduated from Lyon (or some high quality program) because of the caliber of my work.  Yes, I stood a little taller!  Thank you, Dr. Tebbetts, Dr. Wray...and the late Dr. Oliver.

Third, to my peer Lisa Huff who shared her love of technology as a tool, which then began the big change in my presentation methods.  This blog (and several others) and multiple wikis are a testament to her. Professionally, I have grown and now freely assist my peers as they take baby steps, steps that, to them, feel like giant leaps at times, all in an endeavor to better prepare all our students for the "real" world or, as the latest jargon encourages, to be "college and career ready."

Many more names should be mentioned here, for I have many to thank for the gift of my career, for without them all, I would not be who I am today.

Method by Method

Welcome to Secondary English Methods!

I look forward to reading your thoughts and witnessing your growth as a student intern throughout this semester.

The purpose of this class, as the above header states, remains to assist in your making connections from the various education and English classes you have completed (or are currently enrolled) to "real life," the class in which you are interning, and your own classrooms in the very near future.

Let's get started!