English Language Arts - Methods and Madness

Winter Reading

2006-12-28T12:08:00.000-05:00

I am currently catching up on some pleasure reading (as well as education related reading as well) over this break and wanted to recommend a great book I started today: Frank McCourt's (author of Angela's Ashes) "Teacher Man". Beautiful account of a teacher's life from the first day in the classroom through a thirty-year career. There is much that I can relate to already (he attended NYU for his teaching certification), and other experiences that I am sure I will come across soon enough. Check it out.

Ongoing Reflection Part III: Independence

2006-12-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

Third Theme: Independence

What are some ways I could give students the reins, so that they are in charge of their work process?

How can I help students creatively work through problems?

Ongoing Reflection Part II: Risk

2006-12-11T16:49:00.000-05:00

Second Theme: Risk

What frightens you as a teacher?

What risks do you take to overcome your fears?

Ongoing Reflection: Environment

2006-12-11T16:22:00.000-05:00

This and the next two posts come from Rembert and Lydia's Best Practice Presentation in section 3. The two of us have had conversations over the past few months about ideas & concepts within teaching and learning that interest us. As we’ve been teaching we’ve also had real-life situations in which to examine those ideas in relation to actual students. Rembert and Lydia picked three broad themes from our conversations; we invite you to consider them for yourself and to add your own thoughts. We posed questions in class relating to each theme, and hope that you will now post your reflections to this blog so that we can all continue these conversations as we strive to develop disciplined habits of mind.

First theme: Environment

How do you plan lessons and activities that allow both student and teacher to actively process, discover, and evolve rather than transmit from some old, dead place?

How do you address your students’ vulnerabilities in the class—either physical, intellectual, or emotional?

Not A Lover of Lit

2006-12-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

On several occasions, Tim talked about how we were problably lovers of literature growing up and that we were nerds who knew and loved grammar. Tim also talked about how we loved in class lit discussions and this was the impetus for us to teach.

Here's a dirty secret: I hated Enlgish growing up and I almost flunked out of high school.

Growing up, English and science were my two least favorite subjects. I despised writing in English class. I never understood the "rules" of grammar and always felt like moron in class. I used such tricks of the trade as miniscule handwriting and passive voice to get by. I thought my teachers were mean spirited old people (most of my teachers retired by the time I finished freshman year of college). The selections sucked, and the in-class discussions sucked even more. (To this day I still hate "Lord of the Flies.")

In all fairness, I was an avid reader growing up. I had a voracious appitite. I think I read 40 books one summer (2nd grade, I think). I enjoyed talking about books with my friends. However, in class discussions of books and short stories were an entirely different matter. I remember answering pointless questions at the end of each story. I remember feeling that the stories themselves were more pointless than the questions. It all seemed like busy work to me. By my early teens I discovered a passion for rock-n-roll, so I no longer had time for reading or even televison. (To this day I still despise TV, but that's another topic.)

After I graduated from high school, I started to read for pleasure again. In high school, my friends read "cool" books such as "Naked Lunch" and "A Clockwork Orange." I felt that I had to keep up, so I read them. My friends and I would listen to Thelonious Monk or Beethoven while arguing over the significance of passages in the texts we were reading. My junior collge English classes were not as enlightened. In fact, they bore a striking resemblance to my high school and middle school English classes. Bo-ring.

I remember hearing that upper-division English classes at four-year colleges and at univiersities were more interesting than the lower-division classes at my junior college. I eventually signed up for classes at Mississippi State University and discovered that being an English major was more like the expereince I had with my friends rather than the experiences I had in class. I also became friends with several of my professors. Over beers, we would argue about literary theory, politics, literary genres, literary history, and whatever else was on our minds. It was a liberating expereince.

Even more liberating was my evolution as a writer. My professors were not fooled by my use of passive voice. They did not see it as flowerey and cool. They saw it as pretentious and boring. I spent many hours--both in class and during office hours--learning my craft. Now I understand grammar and writing, and successfully teach them to freshmen in college. I am more than prepared to teach high school.

I believe that my experinece will guide me as a teacher. I see that disjointed exercises don't work. In-class discussions are important, but they have to draw out what is already inside the reader; not to simply answer a question for the sake of answering a question. Rather than worry about if my students are enjoying the material, I want to make sure they see why they are studying it. Rather than make them write essays "because I said so," or even because "this will help you in the future;" I want them to feel joy in expressing themselves. I want to see that they can formulate and express an idea. They don't have to like it, nor do they have to have fun; but they do need to find the joy within. Otherwise English is a series of disjointed readings and BS discussions.

Let's talk about sex.

2006-11-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

Today, I threw someone out of class for ignoring my numerous requests that he stop using the word "fag" to describe one of his groupmates. When students at my high school (XX school name removed XX) are asked to leave class, they report to the Wellness Center, a room staffed by a couple of counselors with street credit who attempt to get to the bottom of behavioral issues in a productive manner. I had privately asked the student to cease; I explained that many people, including myself, found it to be an insulting word; I told him that I was available after class to have a serious discussion about these issues, if he so chose. Well, he made the wrong choice, and got himself removed. This is not the first time that this word and others like it have been casually hurled around the classroom or hallways. And yet, no one in authority seems to want to touch the issue at all, in any meaningful way.

Does anyone on this blog teach at a school where homophobia among students is seriously dealt with? How so? My school has a clearly-stated and -posted rule banning hate speech of any kind, but the message has seemingly not yet reached the 9th grade. (I don't know about other grades.) Is there a way for schools to address the developing sexuality of their students in a mature fashion, and without crossing boundaries? It's a confusing time for all students, and I'm wondering what place these conversations have. Homophobia is certainly not the only problem that appears in the teen years; sexism and mistreatment between the opposite sexes are just as rampant. Why is more not being done to provide some kind of sensitivity training?

Thoughts?

A Blog about Teaching Writing

2006-11-28T08:25:00.000-05:00

Check out The Science of Teaching Writing. "Camdaram" is a middle school ELA teacher who has interesting posts on the teaching of writing in his classroom. I always learn something new!

Short Story Suggestions for 7th Graders

2006-11-28T06:07:00.000-05:00

Every Friday my CT and I do a read aloud with our 7th graders, and we're running out of short story ideas. We're focusing on memoirs right now because we're doing a unit on non-fiction. We find ourselves in a Catch 22 situation because we need material that isn't too racy (our first read aloud was "First French Kiss" and, while they loved it, they could barely contain themselves) but is still more literarily sophisticated than they could read themselves (which is why we're not reading "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and the like). I've looked through the previous posts and I don't think I would feel comfortable reading about things like sexual abuse when we (purposely) don't really allow time for discussion or written reflection. I guess what I'm asking for are memoir texts at a high school reading level that are age-appropriate for middle schoolers. Suggestions? Anyone? Anyone?

--Cheryl

Adding Links to the Blog

2006-11-13T15:25:00.000-05:00

As you can see, we can add any useful links and website to the list on the left-side.

You can post any url or website you would like to this list by replying with a comment to this posting that has the url or website information.

:-)
Sasha

Amy Hempel.The Harvest

2006-11-05T16:07:00.000-05:00

Here is the link to the full story from our Best Practice presentation, since I don't see it on here yet. :~)

"The Harvest" (Amy Hempel):
www.pifmagazine.com/SID/413/

Short Stories!

2006-10-27T08:33:00.000-05:00

Hi classmates!

I am teaching a short story (Fishers' "Miss Cynthie") on Wednesday and am looking for a creative exercise the class can do in pairs or groups. I just used chart paper so I am trying to steer clear of it. I am not really teaching the literary elements of the story since its a humanities class. I am instead using it to talk about the Harlem Renaissance and the effect of performance art on society. Can anyone think of anything? Thanks

Candice

Character Development Worksheet

2006-10-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hi all. Here is a worksheet I've used in my class to help students with character development. If you use it, make sure that your students understand that this is to help them develop their characters in their own minds. Make it clear that you do not expect them to use all of these elements in a their writing. One student asked me why he had to write about his character's shoes size and favorite film. ; )

Stephanie P

To the Fun, Education Theater Majors: Any tips on teaching Greek tragedy?

2006-10-16T19:14:00.000-05:00

Hi, Educational Theater Majors:

I am getting ready to teach a unit using Antigone. My Grade 9 English class is heterogeneous (mixed abilities), generally uncomfortable with getting up in front of their peers to perform, and will likely get bored with the subject matter quickly. I would really like to try to get them out of their shells and engage with the text as dramatic performance.

Can anyone offer ideas/ways to:

1) make Greek tragedy engaging and appealing
2) warm up to drama (e.g., are there drama activities out there that would work especially well for Greek tragedy?)
3) recommend some good books for educational drama activities (someone recommended Games for Actors and Non-actors)

Many thanks,
Liane Hill

Memoir Text Recommendation

2006-10-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

Hi all - I know in class a number of us are working on memoir unit plans and I wanted to recommend a memoir text that my CT passed on to me. The text is Learning to Swim by Ann Turner. The memoir is a collection of poems written about a specific period in the author’s life and the sexual abuse that she suffered at the time. It is a quick read (only about 113 pages in total) and very accessible for students. Also I found it very refreshing, as this was a memoir written entirely in poetry form. Very unique and the imagery is amazing. I highly recommend it and I found it powerful and moving.

Just be advised that this text deals with adult topics (molestation) so I'm not sure this would be appropriate for middle school, but I would feel comfortable using it in a high school setting. But again, this depends on your students and the school environment.

I included a link to Amazon.com for Learning to Swim incase you wanted more info on the book (and I guess you could purchase it there if you wanted to...) Just click on the title of this post and it will take you to Amazon.com (high tech! And no, I am not a paid employee of Amazon.)

I would really like to hear any more suggestions on memoir texts that go beyond the usual suspects (i.e. The Color of Water by James McBride and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - both very solid memoir texts, but I'm looking to expand my library to pull from).

Thanks,
Jen

Help with Group Activities

2006-10-15T16:55:00.000-05:00

I am working on a character study unit with my 8th grade class. They are all reading different novels and I am modeling for them with a short novel in verse. I am trying to incorporate more group activities into my lessons but am struggling because they are all reading different books. I have tried the "partner talk" activity, but have found that they don't have very meaningful conversations about their books.

Any suggestions would be great!

Help with Dialouge

2006-10-15T16:23:00.000-05:00

Hi all,
I am planning to give a lesson, this Thursday, on how to include dialouge in personal narratives for a 7th grade English class. I plan to model my own personal narrative for them, making it very juicy and emotional, which I hope will engage them in this basic concept. Is this my only outlet for creativity in this lesson? How else can I model dialouge for them without boring them to death? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jesscia

NYU Library Online Database How To

2006-10-15T09:21:00.000-05:00

We've been discussing where to find readings for our students. One excellent source is the NYU Library online database. It contains thousands of short stories, books, and poems along with the usual scholarly articles, news pieces, and research papers. But, most importantly, it's free as long as you have a valid NYU NetID. You can even go to the computer labs on campus and print out the stories for free.

The easiest way to get to the database is to log in to NYUHome like you would to access Blackboard. Click on the "Research" tab at the top of the page. (The link is marked in the picture below with a red arrow.) On the research screen you will see a list of databases on the right hand side of the screen under the title, "Article Search." Click on the link at the bottom of the list, "More databases and texts..." (Marked by the red arrow at the bottom right of the picture below. Click on the picture below for a close-up view.)

The "More databases and texts..." link will take you to the NYU Libraries website. You will see a list of links at the center of the page. Click on "Databases A-Z / Find Articles." (Marked with a red arrow in the screen shot below.) You will be asked to log in using your NYU NetID and password if you are off campus. (Log in just as you would on NYUHome.)

This link -- after you log in -- will take you to a page titled, "Find: Articles via Databases." You can jump to articles that cover specific subject areas by selecting a title from the pull down menu and clicking the start search button. You can also jump straight to the Arts & Humanities databases by clicking the link at the top of the list in the box at the bottom right corner titled, "Databases in:". (This link is marked with a red arrow at the bottom right of the screen shot below.) To find a database by title, click on the grey tab, "Databases by Title," at the center of the page. (It's also marked with a red arrow in the picture below.)

The "Databases by Title" page allows you to search for a specific database by name. Just type the name in the search box at the center of the page. You can also browse the databases by first letter. Just click on the first letter of the database name under "Databases A-Z". For instance, if you are looking for the "Literature Online" database, click on the letter "L" under "Databases A-Z". ("Databases A-Z" is marked with a red arrow in the screen shot below.)

Clicking on "L" will take you to a list of all databases that begin with the letter L. One useful database under on this list is the "Literature Online" database. You can read a description of the database by clicking the "about" link next to each database name. Click on the "Connect" link to go to the database itself.

If you connect to the "Literature Online" database and then click on the "Authors" link under the "Search" menu in the upper left corner of the database home page, you will go to the database search page. Here you can search by the author's name, the years she lived, her nationally, her ethnicity, the literary movement she belongs to, and the literary period she wrote during.

Some other useful databases are:

African-American Song: an online resource that documents the "history of African American music in an online music listening service. The collection contains a diverse range of genres such as jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives, among others."

Black Short Fiction: database of short stories and poems by African-American authors.

Humanities Full Text (Wilson): Full text of Humanities research papers, short stories, poems, and fiction.

Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama and Fiction: "Latino Literature (LALI) contains approximately 48 plays and 13,000 pages of prose and poetry by Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and other Latin writers working in the United States. Works are in English, with a few works of particular importance presented in Spanish."

Library of Latin Texts (CLCLT): "CLCLT is the world's leading database for Latin texts. It contains texts from the beginning of Latin literature (Livius Andronicus, 240 BC) through to the texts of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It covers all the works from the classical period, the most important patristic works, a very extensive corpus of Medieval Latin literature as well as works of recentior latinitas. The complete works of writers such as Cicero, Virgil, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas a Kempis can thus be consulted. The texts have been taken from the Corpus Christianorum series and from many other leading editions"

Literature Online: "The Master Index gives access via author or title keyword searches to all of the literary databases contained in Literature Online and also to all indexed third-party e-texts. Further Web Resources provides structured access to other websites of related interest to the main databases. They are grouped into eight time periods and sorted by general category. LION also includes full text Literary databases and Reference works."

Hope this helps. Enjoy!

Book Recommendation

2006-10-14T12:54:00.000-05:00

My unit with the ninth graders is centered around The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls' memoir. It's a GREAT book; I definitely recommend it for pleasure reading, but I would also recommend it for a classroom read. The "chapters" are nice and short, which is very ideal for assigning homework (our students get reading quizzes every day, so this book will help them remember the important details from each mini-chapter), and the details Walls includes provides a wonderful foundation for creative writing activities. :~)

I was dubious about teaching a book that isn't "tried and true," but I think the students will enjoy reading the story of a "real person."

a little help from my friends

2006-10-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

Hi all,

So I'm going to be teaching my class the novel The Lovely Bones starting next week. There is a part in the novel when the idea of photographs is discussed and I wanted to piece together an assignment that would tie into the ideas that are talked about in the book.

This is a quote that sort of introduces these ideas:

"He knew that no one ever looked the way they did in photos. He know he didn't look as wild or frightened as he did in his own. He came to realize something as he stared at my photo -- that it was not me."

There are several parts in the book that the narrator discusses photos capturing people how she wishes they always could be, capturing a different side, and exposing different elements of their soul.

I want my kids to have an assignment where they discuss and perhaps bring in pictures and talk about photos and why we rely on them for so much. Whether it be in history or in our own personal lives.

I'm hoping people could give me some ideas on how to make this come alive.

Thanks!

Nonfiction books for teens

2006-10-10T20:45:00.000-05:00

I am working on a nonfiction reading unit for my 8th grade class and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for nonfiction books for teens. I am particularly looking for collections of short stories that deal with teen issues. Something with a little edge would be great! Any ideas would be incredibly helpful. Thanks in advance!

Teachers in Time Inc Mags

2006-10-09T23:25:00.000-05:00

Okay, in my other free time I will try and get you some good stuff for Merchant, Alex!

But for all of you guys... a nice way teachers are getting noticed in Time Magazine soon...
A Teacher-friend sent this to me from the Teachers Count site.

Time Inc. to unveil TeachersCount campaign
Next week at Time Inc. headquarters, the TeachersCount National Social Marketing Campaign will have its official launch. At this event, each of the current ads in the campaign will be formally unveiled in front of an audience consisting of the editors and publishers of Time Inc. magazines, representatives from TeachersCount and Jones New York In The Classroom, and members of the press. The tagline of the campaign is, "Behind every famous person is a fabulous teacher."

Each ad features a celebrity with his or her favorite teacher and a few inspiring words about teaching. Currently, the campaign includes the following individuals:
Laura Bush, First Lady, and Charlene Gnagy, her second grade teacher
Edie Falco, Emmy Award-winning actress, and Sandy Valerio, her high school music teacher
Marg Helgenberger, Emmy Award-winning actress, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Mariann vonRein, her English teacher
Virginia Madsen, Oscar-nominated actress, Sideways, and Suzanne Adams, her high school theater teacher
Jeremy Piven, Emmy Award-winning actor, Entourage, and Joyce Piven, his acting teacher and mother
John Sexton, President, New York University, and Charles Winans, his high school teacher and long-time friend
Tony Shalhoub, Emmy Award-winning actor, Monk, and Tom Power, his acting teacher
Michelle Snow, WNBA player, the Houston Comets, and John Alemany, her Spanish teacher
Bradley Whitford, Emmy Award-winning actor, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and David Ward, a high school teacher

As a result of this launch, the ads will start appearing throughout the Time Inc. family of magazines with great frequency, so keep your eyes open!

Help me!

2006-10-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

I am doing The Merchant of Venice with my students this month. We are tying it into the course's overall theme of "Making a Choice; Making a Name." I am looking for some supplementary texts (short stories, poems, songs, etc.) that relate to making choices, individuality, Shakespeare, and The Merchant of Venice. If you know of anything, please let me know. All ideas are welcome. Thanks.

ReadWriteThink

2006-10-07T19:39:00.000-05:00

So I keep talking about this website... I've been politely informed that I should post it. www.readwritethink.org. It takes a little searching sometimes but there are some great resources for lessons, ideas, activities, etc. for all levels. I am particularly enamored with their interactive online tools, such as an online character map. If only I could get each of my kids a computer! But anyway, it has some good stuff.
-Staci

English Language Arts - Methods and Madness

2006-10-06T12:15:00.000-05:00

English Language Arts - Methods and Madness
Mr. V.'s Quote of the Week:

If students don't learn the way you teach, then teach the way students learn.

Symbolism Ideas??

2006-10-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone! I am teaching a lesson tomorrow and I want to focus on the symbolism in The Sun Also Rises. (There is really only 1 symbol...bullfighting and a couple of aspects that go along with it..steer etc). Any creative ideas I can do with the lesson. I am already showing a video clip of the paso doble (its a humanities class). Any writing activities or group work you can think of to make the lesson more fun? Thanks!

Candice

Best Practices/Teacher to Teacher Model Paper

2006-10-02T11:34:00.000-05:00

This is the paper I wrote as a model for the Best Practices/Teacher to Teacher presentation. I believe Anne is going to post hers. We both have different styles, so you can see your options. Hopefully, though, you will also see what is expected of you. Please see Anne or I with any questions.

We All Need A Little Pick-Me-Up :~)

2006-09-30T16:33:00.000-05:00

I'm a huge fan of Calvin & Hobbes, and since we recently reviewed parts of speech with my ninth graders, I thought this would be applicable. I hope everyone is having a great start to our 3-day weekend!

To Be a Teacher, Part Four

2006-09-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

What can you tell me about your experience as a teacher with a disability (especially with regards to discipline and noise level)?

This is actually a hard question to answer, because I don't know where to begin. On the one hand, I don't think my experience has been any more easier or difficult than any other teacher, especially in my first few years of teaching. After all, every teacher goes through the trial-by-fire that is the first two years of teaching. But I definitely had a unique set of classroom management issues.

I grappled a bit with how I should approach the issue of my deafness with my students. I tried pretending it didn't exist, I tried being very upfront about it and now, I seem to have settled for something in between in which, I don't avoid the subject but neither do I constantly bring it up. I try to act natural and crack wise about it. One of the handiest teacher attributes I've picked up over the course of my life is the ability to make fun of myself!

Probably my biggest annoyance is that kids assume I can't hear them, and when I do call them on it, flat out deny that they were talking. An administrator once suggested that I just ignore them...bad idea, since they already think I can't hear them...ignoring them would just prove their point. On the flip side of that coin, because I am so attuned to noise and distractions, even the quietest conversation will catch my eye and I'm working on just letting those small things go.

I've also had kids mouth their words to me, and when I ask them to use their voice, try to pretend that they were using their voice but I just couldn't hear them. Good thing I'm not deafer than I really am, or I would have been driven crazy by now.

So, I guess this sums up to one big piece of advice: you need a sense of humor. Any teacher with any kind of unusual attribute (a lisp, bad fashion sense, etc) needs a sense of humor.

As far as discipline goes, handle it like any other teacher. Follow through on your expectations and rules, and make it clear that you won't let them take advantage of you. I actually find that my students are pretty helpful--they repeat PA announcements, let me know if a student is asking for my attention, someone at the door, etc.

Noise level is a hard one. Every teacher, deaf or not, has their own threshold for how much noise he/she can tolerate. One way that I gauge, though, is if they are doing an activity that requires little or no conversation and I can hear them, I say to them, "If I can hear you, you're being too loud." LOL. It works pretty well.

I still think, though, as I said in an earlier post, that a large part of classroom management, deaf or not, depends upon your personality and how you relate to the kids.

Education Carnival

2006-09-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

The Education Carnival is a great round-up of posts by teacher-bloggers, with a wide range of topics, from policy to the classroom, published every Wednesday. It's a good introduction to the "blogosphere" and who knows, you might find a favorite teaching blog/resource. The hosting responsibilities are rotated, and this week, the carnival is hosted by The Median Sib. Enjoy!

Lesson Plan

2006-09-19T11:10:00.000-05:00

I might as well get the ball rolling on this blog thing. It is like when a family sits down to dinner and there is this big platter of turkey and no one wants to take the first piece. Everyone is waiting for someone to take a piece so I will. Come to think of it, it is nothing like that because there is no food, but the dinner table is a metaphor for this blog. That leads me seamlessly (well not quite) into my lesson on 'extended metaphor'. This is the first lesson I ever taught to a group of students that were not students with IEPs and as fate would have it, I got to teach it 5 times in one day playing with it until I eventually came up with this:

OBJECTIVE: How does this poem teach us about extended metaphors and playing with conventions?

DO NOW: Take out your notebooks, and write about your thoughts and feelings when a teacher says, "Ok class, today we are going to be reading poetry". (5 minutes of writing)

Then...Let's share our thoughts about poetry; teacher puts thoughts onto the blackboard.

Review Literary elements:
Tone, Metaphor, Extended Metaphor, Point of view, imagery, Conventions

Next...pass out copies of poem: "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins (from his anthology POETRY 180, to class. you can find it here: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/ . Talk about Billy Collins, assembled a book called "Poetry 180" intended for high school students. The book, a "complilation" of poems by different authors, explain how this is what is meant by the term anthology. He wanted poetry to be accessible to anyone and make people love poetry again.

Then... Read poem out loud, ask for voluntreer readers and split up poem. Have students think about Collins' ideals as they read/listen. Discuss specific passages of poem based on students' response. What is this about? What is being compared? How does this poem challenge and/or support your ideas about poetry from the "DO NOW". Can you see how those thoughts you had were poetry conventions?

In groups, come up with the answer to the questions: What is the extended metaphor in his poem? Why did Collins choose the images he chose?

Homework: write about one of your favorite songs. Are songs poetry? Talk about metaphors in that song.

Blog Help/Support!

2006-09-17T13:56:00.000-05:00

If you need any assistance in or have any questions about using the blog, signing up for the blog, or have any general issues or comments, don't hesitate to contact me (Sasha Giacoppo) at email: asg273@nyu.edu.

It would be my pleasure to help you use and learn about the blog!

To Be a Teacher, Part Three

2006-09-17T09:32:00.000-05:00

When planning curriculum for the new year, how do you plan and determine what's most important?

This will all depend on your school. Some of us are lucky enough to work in a school where the curriculum has already been created, and it's left up to you how to teacher it. Some of us work in schools that are not as organized. My school is somewhere in between. We have a "curriculum" that lists books for each grade, as well as the standards and skills that should be taught, for each grade. This is where I begin, because the list of books reflects what we have available in the book room. I tend to teach around novels, so I'll pick the books that I want to teach, then go from there, in planning what skills I want to teach as well as themes. Other teachers begin with themes in mind, and pick books accordingly. For example, Identity and the Self is a popular 9th grade theme and the tendency is to read lots of memoirs.
This is really where the Internet and your colleagues come in handy. I poke around and find out what kinds of things other teachers teach and what materials they use.
For the actual planning, I like to look at the big picture, then plan the individual days. I print out blank calendar pages from iCal, and I sketch out what I think will happen each week, each month and each marking period. It's important to be flexible and to make your plans adaptable. I get a tentative program in June, and end up with something completely different in the Fall, when school begins. In June, I was programmed for freshman Ramp Up and sophomore honors classes. I ended up with integrated Freshmen (Special ed and General ed, team-taught), an AP class and seniors. See what I mean?! I also take into account whatever workshops I've taken that I want to incorporate into my teaching. This summer, I took a great writing institute and I've planned around the methods that I learned and want to use in my classroom.
In my 6th year, I'm now at the point where I have a hefty collection of lesson plans (despite having lost two years of plans when my hard drive crashed--moral: make a back-up of everything!). My new goal is to go through those lesson plans, keep the ones that I think worked, or could work better with some tweaking, then organize them into a binder, the idea being that I won't have to spend so much time creating units and individual lesson plans.

A great resource for English lesson plans: Web English Teacher. You can also check out the many English teacher wikis (such as Tim's). Sometimes I just google "syllabus" or "curriculum" for whatever grade and see what comes up.

What is an effective first day activity?

Some teachers like to begin with ice breakers and doing community building activities. Other teachers are lazy and just do administrative stuff like filling out delaney cards. I like to begin right away with the work. I think it sets the tone for the year and lets my kids know that we do serious work in my classroom--no dilly-dallying. This year, I began with a provocative essay that we read in class as an introduction to the major work for the marking period--writing personal essays. It's really up to you and depends on your school's opening week schedule. In my school, we had a full day right from the start. Other schools have shortened periods for program distribution and such. I think the important thing to remember is that the first day of school is the kids' first impression of you. They will make up their minds about you before the end-of-period bell rings!

The students I teach are primarily Chinese. I am trying to introduce different kinds of literature to them, but they don't have the historical context. How can I provide this without it becoming a history class?

I think it is a huge mistake that schools compartmentalize subjects. In real life, the disciplines of English and Social Studies are intertwined and inseparable (as in the Liberal Arts). Chinese or not, historical background has to be introduced when reading literature, since a piece of literature often derives its meaning and significance from the time period in which it was written. When I read essays with my students, I often begin by giving them a brief background. For example, last week, we read essays by Zora Neale Hurtson and Richard Wright, both of which were written in the late '20's and early '30's. I reminded my students that this was the time period between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, in the South, no less. My advice is to keep the background brief, to help establish a context. If the historical context is absolutely critical to understanding a piece, then go more in depth. I wouldn't worry about your classroom becoming a history class...the best classes are the ones in which connections are made across the disciplines.

What were your most helpful resources as a first year teacher?

Other teachers! I picked brains, looked through lesson plan books, checked out teacher sites, and observed teachers in action.
I also had my big, fat binder of lesson plans that I created with my cooperating teacher during my student teaching stint, so definitely hold on to everything you use during student teaching--it's a gold mine.

Good Article on Authority Stance/Management

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I've been looking around for inspiration on the above topic, and found a decent article. This is a teacher whose class I'd like to be in! I was particularly struck by her second to last point in Principles of Survival #1 ;-)

Hope this link/post thing works (in a technical sense). Jumping in here!

Lydia

To Be a Teacher, Part Two

2006-09-16T09:48:00.000-05:00

How does a new teacher get it all done? Do you have organizational and/or time management tips you can share?

I'm a procrasinator, big time and I get my butt kicked all the time because of it, by the massive amounts of paper I let pile up, while I watch TV for hours after school, completely drained by my day. So, I try to use my day wisely. Every teacher (I think) gets three periods off from teaching. Use those periods during the day to catch up on your paperwork, in between all the dashing around you might have to do (making copies, administrative stuff, what have you). I grade papers every spare moment I get, so that I don't have to do it at home, so I'll do it on the train, I'll do it in the morning while waiting for my first class to come in, and so on.
Stay on top of the paperwork. Grade papers every day, because the bigger that pile of paper gets, the less likely you are to tackle them. You can also make your life easier by not collecting every single assignment, or by adopting a check system (check, check-minus, check-plus), and reviewing the work in class instead of correcting every single paper (you can make note of things the kids struggled with and address those in class). For low stakes assignments, like quizzes, I do the old swap and score...the kids swap papers after the quiz, I put the key on the board, they mark 'em and give it in. Save your grading energy for the major, high-stakes assignments like essays and exams.

As for organizational tips, Staples and the Container Store are your friends, my friend. Get a Staples Teacher Rewards card (for every x amount you spend, you get a Staples check). Every teacher has their own organization style. Mine is folders, lots of them. My bag is essentially my file cabinet, so I buy file folders, and stick them with the long, open end up in my bag. I can see the tabs easily and put stuff out. I have one folder for each of my classes, plus a folder for hand-outs, and one for master copies of my hand-outs (keep all your originals in a separate place, so that you don't accidently give away your original of a handout and have to make/print out a new one). I also have a binder that holds my lesson plans, 10 blank calendar pages (printed off of iCal), and documents related to planning, such as my school's English department curriculum, state/city standards and copies of sample syllabi that I've collected from teachers I know and the internet.
If you don't have your own classroom (I have 4 this year!), you will want to choose your school bag carefully. I prefer a roomy shoulder bag that will fit my file folders, plus all my other supplies (chalk, tape, pencil bag, etc). A bag with lots of pockets comes in handy, as well. You'll also want to develop some sort of system for knowing where things are. For example, when I print stuff out at home to be copied at work, I make it a point to put those papers in my binder and get into the habit of checking my binder as soon as I walk into the office, to make sure I don't forget to copy something. (I can be incredibly spacey and addle-brained, and for a teacher, that's definitely not a good thing!)
I'm a total office supply geek and I'm very particular about what notebooks I use (moleskines), what kinds of folders I use (I like the poly folders because they are durable and can withstand daily abuse), pencil bags (I found a little, barrel-shaped bag at The Container Store, made of poly, with a top zipper for easy access, plus the shape makes it easy to fit binder clips in there), and paperclips (binder clips in fun colors). It sounds silly but if your organization tools are aesthetically pleasing to you, you'll be more likely to use them!

[posted with ecto]

To Be a Teacher, Part One

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[Some of my answers were getting long, so I've decided to break them up into more than one post and post them over the course of the week, in no particular order or classification.]

I can hardly believe I'm in my sixth year of teaching, because I can remember my first year like it was yesterday. It was a classic trial-by-fire case, since I was hired to replace a teacher who left in October. Apparently, she had absolutely no classroom management skills and inspired quite a bit of ire in her students. The final straw came when a student stabbed her in the hand with a pencil. Not a good thing for a new teacher to find out! Needless to say, I approached her former students with much trepidation. My fears of being assaulted turned out to be unfounded and I learned a powerful lesson-- personality is everything. The teacher I took over for was a reactionary, authoritarian, and had no rapport with her students. She clashed early and often with her students. I've always been a "lover, not a fighter." I definitely inherited my mom's hippie tendencies and I belong to the school of thought that says you should treat kids like human beings, and talk to them as such. This has worked really well for me, bringing the kids up to my level, as an adult and expecting them to interact with me as such, and they do. That's not to say that I didn't have big classroom management issues but those were mostly related to my not being able to hear (more on that later).

All your questions are so familiar to me and for a lot of them, I knew the answers immediately!

What is the number one "golden nugget" of advice you would give to a first year teacher?

Don't take it personal. Really. Their misbehavior, their unwillingness to do homework, the talking in class--it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. I learned this hard way and it's easy to beat yourself up for not being some kind of "superteacher". I find it best to take it in stride and shore up the reserves of your sense of humor. (Of course, feel free to take it personally when they behave like perfect angels.)

Having said that, I know for every teacher out there, there's a different "nugget," so take a look at this great post from A Shrewdness of Apes.

I am not a morning person! Do you have any suggestions for retraining?

My first instinct is to say, coffee, honey...lots of it. But it is definitely an important thing to think about. When you see those kids in the morning, you need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to set a good tone for the rest of the day. This year, for the first time, I'm on what they call an "early schedule" at my school...and that's putting it nicely. I'm up at 5 am and out the door by 5:30 to catch my train, so I can be at work by 7 (I usually get there around 6:30, 6:45 and my first class is 7:15). I'm a morning person to begin with, but still, the adjustment has been hard. I haven't had a schedule like this since high school (those little, yellow no-doz pills were my friend then, sadly, but not an option now). One of things I've had to accept that is that my body absolutely cannot handle all-nighers anymore (ah, old age...). My solution has been to go to bed early. It's really the only way. I played around with my bedtime a bit and found that if I put myself to bed by 10, I'm okay with waking up at the asscrack of dawn, as we like to say. Of course, this is a totally personal thing and you'll hit on your own bedtime.

[posted with ecto]

Teaching...and learning

2006-09-14T12:21:00.000-05:00

This is an interesting article from the NYTimes about the experience of teaching:

September 10, 2006, 10:00 pm
On Thinking About Talking About Teaching

By Bill Evans

It’s like there are two worlds: the world of talking about education and the world of doing it. As a classroom teacher, I live mostly in the second. It’s a human place, filled with kids. It’s noisy and lively, and its basic transactions are emotional and verbal. It is a realm run riot with relationship – experimental, exploratory, expansive, inclusive. And it’s at least a two-way street. To teach my students effectively, I have to understand who they are. I have to listen to them, and not just what they say on the surface; sometimes, I have to be able to listen beneath the surface. I have to be able to hear and act on what my students mean in a given situation and not necessarily get hung up on what they say. And it works the same way on their end. The better they know me, the more they can understand what on earth it is I’m trying to get them to do. If content is The Mystery, then language Points. As a class, we communicate our way to the lesson’s door, and then everybody gets to knock on it.

What I’m trying to say is, there’s something extremely tentative and fluid about the classroom situation. It is never, ever a sure thing. A teacher does his or her best to stack the odds in favor of success, and a consistently high level of success is definitely attainable, but a classroom is not a machine. Learning is essentially a private, almost secret, inner event, and schools are extremely public and social arenas that attempt to facilitate that event’s occurrence. Ideally, the friction between these two realities creates sparks. But learning is stubborn. It happens on its own schedule. It is extremely difficult to understand what one doesn’t understand, to see what one simply cannot see, and that’s the soil that learning sprouts out of, at least initially. But not to get hung up on horticultural metaphors — fortunately, learning is also explosive. Those sparks can do the trick, and do; I’m here to attest to it.

If teaching has taught me anything, it’s that learning happens. I’ve seen it repeatedly. I’ve grown to trust the process, and the longer I teach, the more comfortable I’ve become with the fact that I, as teacher, don’t seem to be in charge of this process at all. I am much more a witness, and when I’m really good, a facilitator.

The truth is that given enough time, support, interesting material, cheerleading, and practice, there’s no telling how far a student can go towards mastery in a particular direction. I do know that initial talent is not a necessary indicator of future success. I’ve watched kids with real language issues in their early years become the best eighth grade writers I’ve ever seen. And it’s not just drive or persistence either, although drive and persistence are surely gifts. Nothing beats liking it. Nothing beats being into it. If, as teachers, we can illuminate and clear those twin passages, well, then we’re getting somewhere interesting.

It is not true that people pop out of the god’s head fully formed. Likewise, the self one presents to the world, especially as a teenager or soon-to-be teenager, is in effect an image, a flexible theatrical presentation. Self, skills, abilities, direction, no direction – in short, who we are and what we do are all up for grabs. Very little is definitive. Very little is etched in stone, as the saying goes. I try to remember this at school, because it helps keep me tolerant, and open, and curious. I’m still working on relaxed. So far, calmness is a virtue that eludes me

Welcome to the English Language Arts Course Blog!

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This blog will be the online center for the ELA courses in the Teaching & Learning program. Once you sign up and log in, you can add any content relevant to the course, including:

Class Readings
Course Assignments
Weekly Journal Submissions
Lesson Plans
Resources for Teaching
...and much, much more!

You will also be able to comment on other students' work, share your insights and experiences with others, and engage with your peers in an online environment.

We hope you find this blog to be fun, enjoyable, and a meaningful component of your learning experience!