Gladly Would I Teach

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Despite budget problems, my district next year will adopt new high school English textbooks. For the past five – six years, I have used The Norton Reader for AP English Language, and I love it. The book is filled with a variety of essays on different topics and with different writing styles. Since the textbook is a college textbook and only available in paperback, our poor books are heavily worn, and many of them are falling apart. I hoped that we would be able to adopt the new edition for next year. The new edition didn’t even make first cuts!  I don’t know why; we were never asked to contribute our opinions of the books we are now using.

I wanted the new Norton Reader, but since a brand new book designed specifically for AP English Language was available, I wasn’t worried because I knew the new book would be excellent, and I looked forward to taking a good look at it. Since this textbook is touted by AP English Language teachers for its thoroughness and its concentration on teaching AP English and also preparing students for college, I knew it would be a great book.

It isn’t The Norton Reader, but it is excellent, and I set it aside to read during the summer. I knew I would need to recreate many of my plans and assignments, but I was excited to implement the changes.

Yesterday I found out that the county textbook committee adopted a different textbook for AP English Language, a book that was not even available when I looked at the AP books. I flipped through it today and was so disappointed. Instead of a challenging college textbook, the book is a watered down college book that includes vocabulary sections and scores of reading comprehension questions that emphasize literal recall. Most of all, the book contains few of the rich essays that my classes enjoyed discussing in the past.

I’ll use the textbook because I have no choice, but at a time when everyone is encouraging teachers to increase the rigor of classes and to demand higher standards from our students and ourselves, I am perplexed that we would select a lower-level book. What a disappointment.

I’ll still spend part of my summer reading the new textbook. It certainly will not take nearly so much time since it is so simple, and I’ll use the new book in the fall.

Over in the corner of my room, however, I suspect I’ll find the room to store a class set of my beloved Norton Reader.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Based on standardized test scores, this year my school has focused on improving our students’ reading comprehension. Every now and then we have been shown scores and have been encouraged to increase the amount of reading that we require, particularly the reading of nonfiction texts. We’ve had staff development on how to increase reading comprehension and have been asked to document reading activities. Recently, we were told that scores from our upcoming spring tests will measure how successful we have been this year.

We weren’t asked why our students reading comprehension scores have declined. If we had been asked, however, I could have immediately explained part of the problem. Until this year, my school embraced “Quadrant D” learning, or learning that is performance based (at least that’s how it was described to us). We brought in “experts,” who are no longer in the classroom, and they taught us what we needed to do to engage our students in more meaningful learning.

Kids don’t need to sit around and read and discuss Shakespeare, we were told. They need to be up moving around and performing Shakespeare or working on group activities, or working on computers. Traditional reading and writing activities were strategies of the past that no longer worked with today’s students.

So most teachers, particularly the young teachers with little experience that would have helped them filter the  suggestions from the “experts,” jumped on the bandwagon and constructed lessons that allowed students to spend more time performing, more time drawing, more time acting. Reading and writing declined.

Now our students’ reading comprehension scores have declined, something that any veteran teacher could have predicted (and did predict) years ago when we drifted away and decreased how much reading and writing we required from students. Our kids were so engaged, just not engaged in reading and writing.

I am reading Diane Ravitch’s new book The Death and Life of The Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. In the introduction, Ravitch chastises educators for jumping on the latest fad without any proof that the fads work.

We will continue to chase rainbows unless we recognize that they are rainbows and there is no pot of gold at the end of them.

Our kids declined in reading because we chased a rainbow that seemed so happy and colorful and enticing. Well-meaning people chased rainbows, and our kids suffered. I would like to hope that we have learned from this and that we won’t jump on the bandwagon of the next greatest fad, but I know we will.

Why do we always think that the “experts” who have little contact with children know best how to teach them?

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Earlier today I read John Spencer’s interesting blog  about books that make students uncomfortable: books should make you feel uncomfortable

John mentioned that he disliked To Kill a Mockingbird, and many of us jumped in to defend the book. Atticus would have been proud! To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite childhood books. As an adult I still enjoy it because the novel gives a glimpse into Truman Capote’s childhood, and I love Capote.

One of John’s assertions is that English teachers often select “safe” literature, and I think most of us would agree that we frequently must assess what novels we want to teach, whether the books are appropriate for our students, and whether or not we have the strength, time, and perseverance to defend the book if a handful of parents complain.

We all have our horror stories.

Two decades ago I taught Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to two classes of ninth-grade honor students. Because I knew I might have a few parents complain about the profanity in the book, students had to have parental permission to read it, and I offered a substitute selection for parents and students who objected to the book. In the letter I explained that the book contained profanity in order to develop the characters.

I was happy to discover that all of the parents supported me and signed the permission forms. Several of them included notes thanking me for including Steinbeck’s little gem because it was one of their favorites.

A few days later, however, I was startled to discover that one child’s parents were unhappy and requested a parent conference. I was young, inexperienced, and uncomfortable when parents challenged anything I did. At the beginning of the conference the parents stated how upset they were that I assigned such “trash.” They then pulled out their copy of the book and showed me that they had highlighted all of the “dirty” words in the book. The book was awash in yellow highlights.

I listened calmly and never objected to anything they said even when they told me that such “trash” might be appropriate in some homes where parents do not emphasize high morals, but they would not tolerate the book in their home.

When they finished their tirade, I stated emphatically that I understood their concerns, and, although I thought the book was appropriate for students, I would never teach the book without parent permission. I then explained my process for obtaining parental permission and whipped out the permission form the student had turned in the previous week. “Here’s the form Mark gave me. As you can see, your signature is at the bottom of the page. Obviously, one of you gave your permission or your son forged the signature. I believe this is a problem you need to resolve in your own home not  in a conference with me.”

In the South, we would say that the parents came in on their “high horse,” intent on showing me the evil of my ways.

They limped away from the conference on a donkey!

End of conference!

I’m sure the parents would have liked to have berated me for assigning such an evil book, but they were so embarrassed by their son’s forgery that they didn’t say anything except a very weak “I’m sorry.”

I kept that highlighted book for years, but I must have tossed it aside one day when I no longer thought it was strange for a parent to spend so much time hunting and highlighting objectionable words.

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I was excited about class on Friday because we were going to discuss Wallace Stegner’s “Town Dump,” a beautiful essay about his Canadian childhood. Students generally like the essay because of Stegner’s vivid descriptions of the items he finds at the local dump. Since the essay is told through the eyes of a seven year old, it is easy for the reader to understand how fascinated the young boy is with a catfish who may be the devil, or the leeches that cling to his skin, or the mounted goat’s head that he takes home until his mother makes him return it since it is full of moths.

One of my favorite sections of the essay is when seven-year-old Stegner writes a letter to a company and receives a form letter as a reply. The “windowed envelope” from people who are “his truly” becomes a treasure that the boy carries around for days.

At the end of the essay, Stegner asserts, “The dump was our history and our poetry.” Usually, students enjoy discussing how a dump is our history because it holds everything we have ever used and how the dump is like poetry in that it holds items that are memorable but not useful. We then continue the discussion by telling about items that we own that other people would consider unimportant or useless but we keep them because they are important to us.

Usually!

Yesterday, when I asked students what they thought of the essay they had read for homework, most of them had not enjoyed it.

“Why?” I asked in disbelief. Although most of them could supply explanations such as it did not tell a story, or they couldn’t relate, or they didn’t enjoy his philosophical views, some students answered unemotionally , “It was boring.”

“It was boring!”

Nothing kills a teacher’s enthusiasm faster on a Friday afternoon than to hear a student reduce a marvelous work of literature as “boring.”

Some days teaching would be easier if I turned off the lights and showed a movie, even a boring movie!

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Our semester ended before Christmas, and I had to say good-bye to all of my students. Because my school operates on a block schedule with four 90-minute daily class periods, I am only allowed to  keep students one semester. (I hate block schedules, but that’s a different blog topic for the future.) Next week I will meet 75-85 new students.

Because my seniors have finished their English requirements, they will complete little reading and writing next semester. To encourage them to keep reading, however, I have started a voluntary reading group for AP English students. We will read one book each month and then meet before school to discuss it – no quizzes, no tests, no papers – just reading and discussion.

I invited all of my 84 first-semester students to participate, and so far 26 of them have joined the group, not bad for seniors in their final semester of high school!

I want the group and reading to be fun and profitable for students; therefore, I need to select books of high interest that will “speak” to 17 and 18 year olds a few months away from college.

In January, we are reading John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, a book that most teenagers enjoy and have fun discussing. For February, I’m considering Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, a poignant book about racism in South Africa.

I’m looking for suggestions for other books that I can introduce to these students. They are all excellent readers and good students. Because they have volunteered to participate in a book group, they also obviously enjoy reading.  I may suggest one book each month for the entire group or offer 3 suggestions and let them choose the book they want to read.

When you think back to your high school and college years, what books resonated powerfully with you?  Can you remember a book that you could not put down or a book that you considered powerful because it opened your eyes to a new world or situation that you had not considered previously?

I would appreciate any advice or suggestions.  Since I know senioritis will start nipping at these students in the next few weeks, I want to make our reading group as meaningful and engaging as possible.

Thanks!

  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.

I received an email yesterday from a teacher who wanted to know if I would share my lesson plans for teaching In Cold Blood. I had to apologize to her for not sending anything because the plans that I have for teaching the book are all inside my book. I don’t type up plans for teaching; I just put everything I need inside the book itself. Until I received the email yesterday, I had never given this concept much thought.

Years ago, I created plans and typed everything to make it look pretty, but each time I made changes to the plans, and, after awhile, I realized that making plans and typing them up was just spinning my wheels because it wasn’t a valuable way for me to prepare to teach. Besides, since I’ve been teaching for decades, I also had to endure the conversion process: from typewriter to early computers; early computers to Windows based computers, and on and on and on. Those of you who are really young probably don’t understand this part, but in the first 10-15 years of personal computers, many files were not compatible from one machine to another.  It was painful!

Today, the only plans I have for teaching a book are located inside the book itself. I write/circle/underline/highlight/colorize and decorate my book with sticky notes of everything I need to teach. It’s a system that works really well for me.

First, I buy a popular HARDBACK edition of the book (one that students often also purchase). While paperbacks are fine, I prefer hardback books for teaching because I will indeed teach from that same book for decades. Paperbacks fall apart after four or five years of teaching, and I don’t want to have to transfer over my information.

What notes do I include?

• In the first pages of the book, I list  the items I want to go over with students before they begin reading, including any warnings about the book, information about the author, publication information, things I want students to pay attention to as they read. I always begin by emphasizing why the book is a classic or why it has become so popular.
• In the opening pages of the book, I also list the reading schedule I will use. For example, if we will spend three weeks on the book, I list which pages we will read the first night, second night, etc.  Then, each time I teach the book, I only need to supply dates.
• Before each block of text for nightly reading, I include notes about what I want students to pay attention to that night or the purpose for reading that night.
• On each page in the book, I highlight important information and terms or descriptions of people, etc. If there is something on the page that I definitely want to review with students in class, I circle the page number. (As I discuss the book, I always look for circled pages so I know what to go over in class.)
• On pages I will review with students, I write the corresponding page numbers for other editions of the book that students might use.
• I highlight or mark pages that I want to read aloud in class. These may be “Aha” moments or prose where music should play in the background.
• On each page or at the end of the block of reading, I write discussion questions that I will use in class.
• At the end of the book, I write the quizzes that I will give in class after each section of reading.

Each time I teach a book, I add more information to my book. After a decade of using the same book, the poor thing is covered with highlights and notes, but I have everything I need for teaching in the same place. As a result, when I prepare to teach the book for the umpteenth time, I don’t have to flip through file folders of information or computer files of handouts. All I have to do is take my book home with me. It contains everything I need to teach the book.

Except tests – I still keep them under lock and key!

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

A few weeks ago, I posted information about an exciting class discussion procedure called World Cafe. I used the approach yesterday for the first time, and the group discussions proceeded much better than other forms of discussions that I have used in the past. If you are looking for a new or perhaps more productive way to place kids in groups and have them discuss a work of literature or a topic, take a look at World Cafe.

My Original Post on World Cafe

Yesterday I used a modified World Cafe approach when I had my students discuss the essay “Best In Class” by Margaret Talbot. Since the essay analyzes the problems many schools now face when designating a class valedictorian, I knew the essay would spark a wonderful discussion for seniors. Since I have more than 25 students in each of my classes, it is difficult for all students to participate productively. I knew that students would discuss more if I allowed them to work in small groups, but, as we all know, sometimes those groups are not nearly as productive as we would like, and students don’t have the opportunity to discuss their ideas with students outside their small groups.

I knew this was the perfect opportunity to use the World Cafe approach. I modified the procedure slightly to fit my class situation. I created 5 groups simply by having students count off by 5s. I then gave each group a different question to discuss in their groups. I reduced the time that students had to work in each group to only 10 minutes so all students (except the table leaders who stayed in the same group for the entire discussion) had the opportunity to go to each group and discuss the designated question.

At the end of the period, we all came together as a class, and I asked table leaders to summarize the main points that came up in their groups as well as interesting ideas that students interjected.

Throughout the period, most students were on task and interested in the assignment, and they seemed to like moving from group to group. By the 4th or 5th round, some of the students felt they were repeating themselves in discussions because there was so much overlap in the questions. Next time I will probably need to write better questions that don’t overlap as much or shorten the last couple of rounds.

Most importantly, the process worked so well that I will definitely use it again and keep refining for my students. Whereas I did not include table cloths or paper for students to doodle and write out some of their ideas with this assignment, I definitely want to include that in the future.

If you teach high school and want to give this approach a try, here’s a link to the essay my students read for homework as well as the handout that I distributed to my groups (one handout per group).

Best in Class by Margaret Talbot

Best in Class Group Assignment

Never before have students been so immersed in nonfiction works. From online newspapers and magazines, to Wikipedia, to even social networking sites, students have greater exposure to nonfiction than fiction. While most schools do a good job of teaching students how to read and analyze fiction, poetry, and drama, most students need much more direction in reading and analyzing nonfiction.

Most English teachers, however, think nonfiction reading is a skill that Social Studies and Science teachers should teach, and most teachers outside of English Departments fail to realize that reading nonfiction is quite different from the reading that most students complete in English courses. Reading and analyzing nonfiction is such an important skill that it should be taught and reinforced in all courses.

One of the best methods for including more analysis of nonfiction is to give students an article  and have them write a one-paragraph annotation for the article. While the difficulty level and length of the article will differ based on the grade level and course, writing an annotation is an assignment that almost all middle school and high school students can and should complete.

Steps for Writing an Annotation

• Give students a copy of an article or essay to read. For their first attempt at an annotation, make sure you provide an article that is short, easy to understand, and of sufficiently high interest. The article may appear in your textbook or it may be a duplicated article from a newspaper or magazine. For English classes, the article most often will be a persuasive essay or an essay that presents an argument. For other areas, the article may be primarily informative.

• Ask students to read the article carefully and to highlight or underline (if not in a textbook) the major points the author makes.

• Teach students to write the proper citation for the article based on the format you require for your class (MLA, APA, University of Chicago, etc.). This should be written at the top of the page. If you do not normally require students to write formal citations in your class or if you have younger students, you can require students to write only the title, copyright, and the author of the article.

• Next, have students write a one-paragraph summary of the main points the author makes in the article. Limit students to approximately one-half of a page, depending on penmanship.This is a difficult step for many students, even our best students, because they want to list each piece of information they find instead of summarizing the main points succinctly.

• At the end of the summary, tell students to write 2-3 sentences that state the usefulness of the article and note possible bias that the student might have located. For example, students might write that the article gives a good explanation of a new procedure, or it presents the author's beliefs about a complicated issue, or the article is not sufficiently informative because the author tells only one side of an issue, or the article is not a good source because it includes out-of-date information. The final sentences where students evaluate an article will be the most difficult sentences for most students to write initially.

• After writing annotations, allow several students to share their work by reading their paragraphs to the class. Many students who struggle with this assignment initially may learn best by seeing or hearing sample annotations.

• Finally, students will benefit from discussing the article in class.

Reading and annotating articles improves reading and writing skills while also improving students' ability to work with complex subject matter. With repeated practice in reading and writing annotations, students will become much faster and more proficient in reading nonfiction texts of all types.

If you want an article to try an annotation with your students, try one of these:

Growing Up Scripted

If Anne Frank Only Knew

Pat Conroy's Letter Against Censorship

To All the Girls I've Rejected