Gladly Would I Teach

As a child, I was terrified of those days when teachers assigned ORAL book reports. I loved to read, but the thought of standing in front of a class and talking about what I had read frightened me. In fact, I used to be so afraid of speaking in front of a class that I would become sick and miss one or two sick days when the oral reports rolled around. My favorite ploy was to bargain with the teacher. In a couple of instances, I convinced teachers to allow me to read two books instead of one and write two book reports instead of delivering an oral report. At the time I thought they were the best teachers on the face of the Earth.

Usually, however, the teacher refused to bargain and made me stand in front of the class and speak. I trembled, mumbled, and stumbled through my speech as I fought back the tears.  I become nervous today just thinking of those days when a podium in front of the classroom served as my biggest nemesis. Sometimes I had teachers who encouraged me, sometimes they told me i was being silly, and some never even noticed my fear. I have never forgotten those experiences.

I wish I could say that I overcame my fear of speaking in front of groups as I grew older, but I still can’t stand it.  Through the years I have become better at public speaking, but I still shudder at the very thought that I must deliver any type of presentation.

My students are delivering their first presentation to the class this week. A few of them are excited, but most of them will simply endure the assignment. I also know that I have a few shy students who will worry and make themselves sick over the speech just as I did so many decades ago. I still make these fearful students give a speech, just as I’ll make them get up in front of the group a couple of additional times during the semester because I want them to improve and want them to learn that they can indeed speak with confidence. I try to provide a safe environment and encourage them because I want them to leave my classroom and move on to college with the knowledge that they will be just fine if they take a future class that requires presentations.

I assign speeches because I know public speaking is a skill students need to practice.

The little girl in me, however, feels their pain and wants to console them and tell them they can write a research paper instead.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a teacher.

Here is the post I wrote to students to help alleviate their fear:

Nervous About Making a Speech?

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Next week my seniors have to make 4-5 minute speeches to the class. It’s an assignment I include just to give students the experience of researching a topic, creating a professional PowerPoint and delivering a speech.

To make it interesting for students who give the speech as well as the kids who have to listen to all of the speeches, I allow students to select their own topics and submit them for my approval.  Kids who really enjoy history select history topics, science kids select science topics, etc. Sometimes students research a contemporary topic or topics about contemporary culture. I’m always fascinated by the variety of their topics.

A week before we begin the topics, however, I still have students who have yet to submit possible topics. I have a rule that I will select the topic for students if they do not have an approved topic at least one week before they must give their speeches. A few years ago, I asked Michael, one of my most creative students to make a list of good topics. When I assign a topic to a student, I hold my pen over Michael’s list, drop the pen, and whatever it lands on is the topic I give the student who has procrastinated and failed to submit a topic.

I love Michael’s list, and each semester I usually have at least one student who wants a challenge who asks me to wave my pen over the list and find him a topic.  Here’s Michael’s list of topics. Students are required to research the topics; they can’t just make up stuff for the speech (although that might be funny).

1. The history of the stapler
2. Fun with Global Warming
3. How I know that the moon landings are fake
4. Movie monsters and their effects on the ecosystem
5. Famous stamp collectors (or rock collectors, or marble collectors)
6. Stuff you can eat that you wouldn’t think is edible
7. The ten greatest people named “Hubert” to ever live.
8. How AAA batteries changed America
9. The creation of elevator music
10. The magical land under the kitchen sink

I’m open to new topics to add to my list!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

One of my favorite writing assignments is National Public Radio’s (NPR) This I Believe. Based on a radio series that started several decades ago, students write a 500-word essay that expresses ONE of their beliefs. The best papers illustrate beliefs with stories and lots of examples.

Some of the student essays are funny, and some are poignant. Almost all of them are thoughtful. Although some students charge through the assignment quickly and whip out something with little analysis or thought, most students have a hard time narrowing their beliefs to only one concept they wish to express.

I spent all morning grading their papers, and this batch of papers is probably the best group of papers I have ever read for the This I Believe assignment.

What do teenagers believe?  Teenagers’ optimism always rejuvenates me. Here is the list of beliefs from this semester’s students. The NPR format asks writers to name their belief, usually starting or ending the topic with “This I Believe.”

If you would like to use the NPR’s This I Believe assignment, please see the NPR website:

This I Believe

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Here’s the final student-created Public Service Announcement I’m going to post. The assignment was wide-open. Students had to choose a topic and create a 30 second to 1 minute video to convince students to do something (or not to do something). The video had to exhibit two types of appeals (ethos, pathos, logos).

I’m always amazed by the creativity of students. Here’s a funny PSA. This time I posted it on Schooltube so it can bypass my school’s Internet filters.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Throughout the semester, I require students to research contemporary and often controversial, topics. Students must read a variety of sources and then present their findings to the class or share the information they uncover in a paper or project. Although the topics are quite limited in its early days of development, a new Google service may become a tremendous research aid in the future.

Google Living Stories allows users to access one URL where they can track stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post. Currently, the only topics available are health care, swine flu, global warming, the war in Afghanistan, executive compensation, and a couple of stories of importance to Washington, DC.

Readers who click on a topic can then follow the timeline of the topic, read news stories and editorials, watch videos, see important quotations, etc. all on that topic. Google Living Stories provides a quick primer on topics, but the sources are so extensive, that it appears to be an excellent research tool.

It’s new and limited to a handful of topics and pulls sources from only two newspapers. However, as Google adds sources and topics, Google Living Stories may transform into one of the most important sources we have for tracking important developing stories.

As I played with the website, I, once again, thought about how the Internet is changing how we conduct research. Initially as I looked at Google Living Stories, I did not like it because it provides students with sources without requiring them to search on their own. I quickly changed my mind, however. One of the Internet’s greatest strengths is the ability to perform quick searches and deliver sources that once took individuals days to find. Sure, students don’t have to search as long as students of the past, but the time they save from searching can be spent in reading and analyzing more sources (including graphics and videos) than we ever thought possible.

It’s early in development, but I like what I see so far in Google Living Stories.

All week I am monitoring student debates. Working in pairs, students select a controversial topic, research it, and then participate in a 30-minute debate. What do they debate?

• Capital punishment
• stem-cell research
• year-round schooling
• tracking in schools
• school uniforms
• legalization of marijuana
• surragacy
• the drinking age
• immunization
• gun control
• nuclear power
• child curfew laws
• electoral college
• outsourcing
• drilling in ANWR
• human cloning
• illegal immigration

I’m already worn out, and all I have to do is listen, monitor, take notes, and assign a grade. Exhausted, I finally figured out why these debates wear me down. For four and a half hours a day I’m following debates about serious topics, serious topics that rarely lend themselves to humor or levity.

I sit, ponder, worry, and gasp, shrinking under such weighty topics.

When third period rolled around yesterday afternoon, four of my brightest students thrilled me with a new topic: Should parents lie to their children about Santa Claus?

They included research about St. Nick and the purpose of the Santa stories and explored the problems with children believing in Santa. The debate was fascinating, and, afterward, Cori and Caitlin, the students who argued against Santa Claus informed the class that even though they had debated against Santa that they had every intention of one day sharing Santa Claus with their own children.

Most of all, we laughed, and I needed that laughter after so many serious topics.

I’m trying to remember today’s topics.

I’m hoping the Easter Bunny makes an appearance!

A few years ago, Stephanie Barber, an innovative Special Education teacher at my school, created a unique program to help her students. She opened a coffee shop that is run by special-needs students. Each morning before school the students prepare drinks and food and then sell them to students and faculty members.  During first period the students also make deliveries to the classrooms of teachers who submit orders.

As a treat, each Friday I allow my students to order coffee and drinks from the Mountain-Top Cafe, and our order arrives about thirty minutes later. Because the cafe has been open for years, students throughout the school know about the cafe and the students who run it. Each Friday when our order arrives, we are usually greeted by two extremely vivacious students who distribute the drinks and collect the money.

The special-needs students are always happy and often greet my students by name. One of the sweet aspects of our Friday deliveries is the naivete of the students making the deliveries. Regardless of what we are doing in class, the students announce their arrival as if what they are doing is the most important thing we all will do all day. I often wonder if they might just be right.

It is impossible to keep from smiling as these students enter the room and talk to my students. They might walk in right when we are taking a quiz when the room is silent, but that doesn’t prohibit them from greeting everyone.  Last Friday when the students arrived, one little girl walked up to one of my AP students and stated loudly, “Hi, Lauren! How are you?” Lauren, who two minutes before had been totally engrossed in a vocabulary quiz, stopped what she was doing to talk to the student.

One student who frequently stops by to deliver coffee always has to talk to my students about the posters on my wall, thinking that the students in the class may not notice the posters.

As the students leave my classroom, many students call out to tell them good-bye or to thank them, and we then return to our work.

I often wonder who profits the most from the Mountain-Top Cafe. Does the program provide the most help to the special-needs students who learn to interact with the public, to make deliveries, and to count change?

Or, are the advanced students, students who at times are so stressed-out about academics, school work, college admission requirements, helped most be coming into contact with naive children who are always happy and so appreciative of the simple gestures of friendship that so many of us take for granted?

What a wonderful program!

We are in the final two days of school before having a week off for Thanksgiving Holidays!  We are all tired and ready for a vacation. It’s the perfect time, however, to do something a little different in class.

As an English teacher, I talk about writing every day – from discussions of literature and an author’s style of writing, to analysis of various writing strategies, to reviews of grammar and usage rules, to construction of timed-writing responses and research papers, and to oral reading of student papers in class. Amidst all of these lessons about proper writing and preparing students for the writing assignments they will face in college, it’s easy to lose sight of the most important writing that students will complete during their lifetimes: personal writing.

I suspect that we spend so little time on personal writing because we assume that students know how to write personal notes. With today’s influx of technology, however, I’m afraid emails, instant messaging, and other forms of digital correspondence may replace personal correspondence if teachers don’t step in to teach the need for personal correspondence.

Today as Thanksgiving approaches, I’m teaching students how to write thank-you notes and then giving them time to write thank-you notes in class. I’m going to encourage them to write a note to their favorite elementary or middle school teacher. I picked up cheap cards from the dollar stores.  If you want to include this activity with your students, here’s the handout I’m distributing to my students.

Writing Thank You Notes

Mention the word "research" to most teachers, and we all think of research papers. We know we need to require our students to complete more research activities, but there is a limit to how many research papers we can actually grade. (Can you tell I spent the majority of my weekend grading research papers?)

I designed an extensive group research project several years ago that is one of my favorite assignments for students. Working in groups of 3 or 4, students must research both sides of a controversial issue and then create a portfolio of the research that they find and deliver a 20-minute presentation to the class. The purpose of the assignment is for students to complete extensive research, to annotate at least 20 sources, and to deliver an interesting and informative presentation over the information they learned.

Although I designed the assignment for accelerated high school seniors, the project could be altered and used with younger students or maybe even used as is so long as the teacher prepares students for each facet of the project.

The portfolio contains

• Printed copy of the PowerPoint for the presentation
• Printed copy of a brochure that students create for distribution
• Copy and analysis of a survey that students must administer online
• Copy of all sources students find
• Annotated bibliography of at least 20 sources
• One case study
• One editorial cartoon about the topic
• One photograph related to the topic
• A work log for members of the group
• Self-evaluation of each group member
• For AP courses students are also required to create an AP synthesis question on their topic.

While this group project requires hours and hours of work from students, most students enjoy working on the project because they are allowed to select their own topics and read and discuss the research with their peers. In essence, they do their best to become experts on their topic so they can teach the class. The assignment is valuable because it requires students to read critically, research, prepare an oral presentation, annotate sources, integrate technology, create visual aids (PowerPoint and brochure), work together as a group, and field questions from members of the class.

If you are interested in assigning a similar assignment, my course website includes the handouts and rubrics I use:

Panel Presentation Group Assignment

via www.boston.com

"Business leaders complain that many of today’s engineering graduates, trained as abstract thinkers, have too little grounding in the actual practice of working with others to deliver innovative products amid time and budget constraints."

Teachers of gifted and academically advanced students know the importance of teaching students to work together in groups, particularly those students who prefer to do all of their work alone.