One of the big things I enjoyed watching my students do this week was a reconstructing Grimms’ fairy tales activity. I searched out a bunch of pretty short (a few paragraphs) stories. I printed them and cut them up sentence by sentence, then taped each sentence to a note card. Each group was given a packet of cards (one story) to put back together. The context for this activity was chronological order, something I wanted to touch on before sending them out into the world to write their personal narratives. They seemed to enjoy the activity and were eager for me to come by and check their work. I think I’ll use it again.

They also did phenomenally on the vocabulary quiz. (You can check out the word list on my classroom blog under information for students). We went over the words every day, though, and spent far too much time doing it. There was also an issue with me being to ambiguous about the word ambiguous (what are the odds?) So, I clearly need to be prepared with more examples.

We read David Sedaris’ essay”Us and Them” and I was a little disappointed that they weren’t into it more, but you live and learn, right?

I was surprised that the one day this week I didn’t put up a journal prompt, the kids were asking where it was. I thought they’d be relieved, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I also had them respond one day to a racially charged painting by Norman Rockwell, “The Problem We All Live With”). They handled the subject well, all of them were very mature about it, which also surprised me.  Here’s a link to the painting
with commentary (not mine). We went from discussing this painting into reading Frederick Douglass’ narrative. We definitely had some ups and downs this week. I still have a long way to go before I’m proficient in classroom management. But we’ll all float on, good news is on the way (and  to avoid setting a bad plagiarism example, that’s Modest Mouse which has been in my head and under my skin all week).

There are some things I need to be sure to clarify for my classes next week. Clarity is a huge issue, because what makes perfect sense inside of your head doesn’t always still make sense when it leaves your mouth, and even if it does, that doesn’t mean that it makes sense to thirty teenagers who almost speak a different language anyway. Written directions for their journals and how they will be graded will be forthcoming.

So, because it was certainly an issue for me this week, how do you handle classroom management? What is your go-to move? What have you tried that didn’t work out at all? I’m particularly curious about how to structure my writing workshop without creating a huge problem. How do you go about group work without it becoming an issue?

So, the question this week is whether books should be banned. If you look at most lists of banned or challenged books, what you’ll inevitably find is that those listed most consistently are also the works most often taught in high school English classrooms. Romeo and Juliet, The Diary of Anne Frank (Really?! Are you serious?), Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Clockwork Orange, As I Lay Dying (That was on the pacing guide from last week), Catch-22, The Canterbury Tales, and more, more, more. It’s surprising how many of these works are among the most valued pieces of literature. If these are failing to make the cut somewhere, what is?

English is a dangerous thing. A professor told me that once while I was slam in the middle of fretting over discussing topics that may be offensive to students, I think in that case the conversation had to do with ways to address the issue of race in the classroom. And it’s a reasonable concern. Among the most complained about books is good old Huckleberry Finn, no doubt for Twain’s liberal use of the N word (it’s all about context and tone!) But here’s a scenario…Some 17 yr. old boy gets ISS for a day and checks the book out of the library to read while he’s In-School-Suspended (i.e. jail for the academic environment). So, he spends his day (and as English teachers, we should be so lucky) reading Mark Twain. But he doesn’t know how the word is meant. He or she is unfamiliar with satire, unfamiliar with the time period, and unfamiliar with the work of Mark Twain. Would he or she have a better understanding of what the book was actually saying by reading it outside of the classroom? The truth is that a lot of students would get it, but some would not. Judging by the list, I would say we have almost a moral obligation to teach the dangerous works rather than stifle those authors. It is, after all, a controlled environment. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’d drag Lady Chatterly’s Lover into the classroom. I was embarrassed reading that one in college. I had one of those professors who liked to have students read the naughty parts out loud. Awkward. But I wouldn’t hesitate to teach The Catcher in the Rye, I wouldn’t even be opposed to teaching some of the Harry Potter series. I’d draw the line at Twilight, but I wouldn’t frown on students reading it in my classroom for Sustained Silent Reading, at least not outwardly.

So, where do we draw the line with questionable texts? Who actually gets to decide that? Who should decide that? That’s the question of the week.

Building relevance is about the only way to make disinterested high school students care about one of their classes, especially if it’s not a subject that they like in the first place. Some students are in the bag from the start, they crave the approval of authority figures and are eager to please. Students without such motivation present more of a challenge, at least if the teacher has not specifically worked on making that subject relevant to their lives.

With English, this should be easy. After all, those careers we all dream of when we’re young? (Gonna be a rock star, an actress, a sports announcer, a historian…okay, so maybe nobody dreams of that last one,) they all inherently involve English. Even more modest life choices, college student, graphic designer, stay-at-home mom, these things, too, are relevant to English, because language is the mode of communication regardless of the topic.

But I’m still seeing students nodding off in class. How are we failing to build enough relevance to keep them awake for 90 minutes at a whack?

For starters, we have to examine the nature of the beast. I think teenagers might be biologically predisposed to not care, or at least not to get enough sleep. It’s a bummer for teachers, but not something that can’t be overcome. I’ve been told that squirt guns, jumping jacks, and standing on one foot for awhile are not great ways to ensure that my students aren’t sleeping in my class. That leaves me with two options as far as I can tell. I can work on making the class more interesting, or I can make loud noises at random. But loud noises startle me, so I think I’ll go with the former. The question, then, becomes how can an English teacher make class interesting enough that students feel like it might not be the best one to sleep through? I’m basing my steps to a more engaged class on what I’ve observed in the schools I’ve been to.

Step One: Don’t allow students to sleep, even if your life is easier when they do. If a teacher doesn’t care, how can the student?

Step Two: You’ve got the students awake…now what? Get to know them. The beginning of a semester is a perfect opportunity for this; you might do one of those nice, fluffy, and warm personal narrative assignments about their favorite memory. I had good luck with the photo-assignment personal narrative because it allowed the students to write about something they were deeply invested in–themselves. What do they really care about? Music? Movies? Sports? Comedy? Computery-computerness? The smell of puppies? Each student is bound to have an interest, and if you work to find those interests out early on, perhaps through a series of short writing assignments, you can look at the composition of your class and tailor your lessons to their interests. This would have to be done primarily by allowing them the freedom to choose their own topics, which is what I plan to do when we get to the research paper. And I think you have to let them see you being excited about reading their writing, so that they, in turn, are kind of excited to write it. So, step two is tap their interests and weave them into the curriculum (while being encouraging and enthusiastic). If you can apply some of those student interests to works that are already required reading, all the better. But, that brings me to the next step.

Step 3: No normal high school student could possibly want to read Moby Dick. How is a 135 chapter book primarily centered on the logistics of whaling back in the day supposed to be relevant to modern teenagers? Change the white whale into an internet predator who victimizes teenagers, turn Ahab into a harassed teenager himself,  and that might work. But it wouldn’t be Moby Dick. Step three, then, is to carefully examine each text you plan to teach. What does it offer to the student? Can they relate to it? Does it illuminate some truth that they can grasp without you spoonfeeding it to them? Does it inspire them to write themselves? Can you examine it for craft and style that students might be able to imitate while they’re getting their sea legs? I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the Pitt County pacing and instructional guides, and with the novels they recommend, I’ve found the answer to be no, not so much. Mostly I’ve been looking at the guides for ENG III, American Literature, so that’s example I’ll include.

Today’s Question: Pick one of Pitt County’s Pacing Guides for high school English Language Arts (Pitt County Schools ELA Pacing guides)and take a look at that bad monkey. Do you find titles that would be nearly impossible to build relevance for? Have you found ways to build relevance for some of the more difficult works? How? If we, as teachers, can find no way to make a piece of literature relevant to students, should we even teach it? Should we teach anything at all on the basis of, “Well, it’s what they put me through when I was in high school?” So, if there were no repercussions, what works would you axe with a smile? Why? Which works are you adamant about, that no child should be allowed to leave that particular classroom without having read?

For those who teach the old stuff, how do you address the issue of relevancy in that case? I’ve heard a couple students ask “Why are we doing this?” and almost invariably the teacher had no good answer. “Because you are” or “Because I said so” build no relevance whatsoever. Why are we reading the Scarlet Letter? I don’t have a good answer for that, and I’ve never heard a good answer given by others. Invariably, the justification would be something like exposing teenagers to their home culture, especially in the earliest days of America. That may work as a justification, but it doesn’t help build relevance for the students. They simply hate it, and I don’t blame them, because it doesn’t matter at all in life whether or not you’ve read The Scarlet Letter. What matters is that you got something from it, you enjoyed it, were surprised by the plot twists, had always wondered what they did for adultery back in the day, or have always felt compelled to take in American lit right from the start. Most students don’t.

I’ve included the pacing guide that I’ve been referring to. For this semester, I’ve chosen The Crucible, Ethan Frome, Of Mice & Men, and The Great Gatsby along with textbook selections and shorter works I’ll bring from outside of class. I’ve selected these because I can work with them all under a broader theme, love as a dangerous thing, but also because I can teach these materials with enthusiasm, and I believe I can find ways to create relevance using them. I’m not afraid to admit to colossal failure, so I’ll let you know how that works out. But, in the meantime, what works for you? How do you tackle the thorny issue of relevance?

English III

1. Linguistic Intelligence: the capacity to use language to express what’s on your mind and to understand other people. Any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or other person for whom language is an important stock in trade has great linguistic intelligence.

Since it’s impossible to teach an English class without nurturing this type of intelligence, I’m going to skip it for the moment. That’s not to say it isn’t important, but rather that helping students improve in their ability to communicate effectively is the main purpose of high school English classes in the first place, and therefore, we’ll be examining this particular issue in depth pretty much for the duration of this blog.

2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or to manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.

Here’s a difficult one, where can we find a place for numbers in English? Some people  (like me) would stomp their feet and scream “No! Figuring out grades is bad enough, numbers belong down the hall, sandwiched between Chemistry and the computer lab!” This is maybe not the most beneficial response. You’re going to have students who would prefer math to English any day of the week (hey, don’t look at me, I don’t get either!) We have to address the needs of these students, even if the mere thought of math causes us minor convulsions.

One obvious way to incorporate math (as well as the students’ musical aptitude) is through meter in poetry. I never liked poetry in high school myself, and I think that’s because nobody ever really taught me to appreciate it until I went to college. As an English major, I was forced (kicking and screaming) to take something like four or five classes that focused primarily on poetry. Shakespeare, for example, is something that most high schools require students to read each year, but it’s so far removed, at least in language, from the modern student that the only thing they’re really learning about Shakespeare is to hate the man and to approach his work with nothing short of grim dread. In spite of student apprehension, teaching Shakespeare is a perfect opportunity to incorporate many of the intelligences described by Gardner.

For example, you could divide students into groups based on the results of one of the many tests out there that measure which intelligences students are strongest in. Example of Multiple Intelligence Assessment.

Students who consider themselves more mathematically inclined may do well on a project where they’re required to explain scansion to the class with examples. I’ve heard that good teaching means being lazy as far as doing nothing for the students that they can do for themselves. I’ completely okay with that. It’s our job to teach students to be capable members of society, which means being able to acquire knowledge on their own when we aren’t there to help them anymore. Besides, students with this particular intelligence may do a better job of explaining Shakespeare’s meter than I could. This would work with other poetry, too, like Wordsworth and Spenser.

Another way to incorporate math into literature is to provide students with a few pages of famous sentences, well known lines from Shakespeare, lines from Poe’s “The Raven”, or famous first sentences like the opening line of Pride and Prejudice. It could be an ongoing project to examine the components of these famous sentences, compare the structure, word order, maybe even the number of syllables in order to define what sets such sentences apart. For example, what does “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” have over, “Romeo, Romeo, why are you a Montague?”

This particular intelligence doesn’t only cover the mathematically inclined, but the logically inclined as well:

“the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system”

Hmm. That sounds a lot like plot to me. In fiction, the plot must move forward based on the logical outcome of the things that came before. Wharton’s Ethan Frome starts with the narrator observing Ethan Frome from an outsider’s perspective. One of the things the narrator notes is that Ethan walks with a limp. Therefore, the limp must be explained before the novella’s end.

Asking students to infer upcoming events in whatever piece of literature they are reading  will help them hone their logical skills. They will need to pay close attention to detail and use both inductive and deductive reasoning.

Let me define those real quick (from Naked Science:)

“Deductive reasoning arrives at a specific conclusion based on generalizations. Inductive reasoning takes events and makes generalizations…Many people distinguish between two basic kinds of argument: inductive and deductive. Induction is usually described as moving from the specific to the general, while deduction begins with the general and ends with the specific; arguments based on experience or observation are best expressed inductively, while arguments based on laws, rules, or other widely accepted principles are best expressed deductively”.

Sherlock Holmes (thanks to Mrs. Livermore for the idea) could be a great way not only to teach students what these two forms of reasoning mean, but how to use them. Mysteries in general would provide this opportunity, as well as allowing for an examination of the literary conventions regarding that genre. And I’m willing to bet some students might enjoy reading such works, at least more than Shakespeare!

3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence: the capacity to think in music; to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have strong musical intelligence don’t just remember music easily, they can’t get it out of their minds, it’s so omnipresent.

Again, I have to give the nod to poetry here. Poetry is like music just waiting for the sound. But it goes both ways, songs are poems put to music. I think you’d be hard pressed to find many high school students who don’t have musical preferences, and examining their favorite (classroom appropriate) songs as literature allows the teacher to make English relevant to his or her students while giving students freedom to express themselves through the music they love. I remember such an assignment from my own high school days. We all brought in a song and the lyrics written on poster board, then we explained them to the class after listening to the song. Afterward, the class discussed what meaning they’d gotten from the lyrics. It was one of the few projects I actually got excited about doing, and it seemed like almost everyone in the class felt the same way.

It seems like in most English classes there’s some sort of culminating project. Mostly, it ends up being a research or literary analysis paper. I would prefer to cover those items earlier in the semester so that we could close with a creative culminating project that would give students some choice about what they’d like to do by providing prompts that address the various intelligences. For example, students could write and perform a song for their culminating project, or write a poem using proper meter.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body (your hands, your fingers, your arms) to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dancing or acting.

Or maybe, for the culminating project, they could do an interpretive dance, perform a Shakespeare monologue, or choreograph the sword-fighting scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Kinesthetic Intelligence is another one of those intelligences that seems like it might be difficult to implement in the ELA classroom. But it’s not as hard as it sounds, you can utilize this intelligence in small ways often, like by having students getting out of their seats to write on the board, or by holding fishbowl discussions where several students are in the center of the “fishbowl” and other students must get up and tap them out of the center to have their say.
More about fishbowl discussions

Expecting high school students to sit still and be attentive for 90 minutes straight is just asking too much. Therefore, whether they consider themselves kinesthetic learners are not, we should still try to find ways to get them up and moving in all classes, even if it’s just to keep them attentive.

5. Spatial Intelligence: the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind — the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences.

I’m just dying to use this one. So many of the stories we read in English classes have to do with a journey that could be fun, engaging, and productive for students to map out. They could draw Usher’s house from Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” based on his description. They make a scale model of Grendel, or illustrate one of Chaucer’s tales. Students could make an informative poster as part of a research project, or an album cover for the music they wrote for the final project. Two students could collaborate on a story, one as writer and one as illustrator. Students could photograph places that catch their interest and try to reproduce the setting with words alone. There are so many ways to integrate language and art that it seems like it can be done almost effortlessly.

However, I don’t think I’d ever force them to make a scale model of, say the Globe. Unless somebody really pushed my buttons. That’s right, class, you know you’re in trouble if I make you do scale models of The Globe. I think it’s important for artistic projects to relate directly to the text and therefore aid in comprehension (seeing those models of Shakespeare’s theater probably never helped anyone understand Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech any better,) or at least should be an artistic project that relates to English, but that the student has chosen for him or herself. Purely my own opinion, and no offense intended to anybody who really enjoys making scale models of old theaters.

6. Naturalist Intelligence: the ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) and sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.

Well, I think this is where I call it a night. This is another one of those intelligences that seems difficult to utilize on the surface, but probably most English teachers do it without even knowing. Students strong in naturalist intelligence are categorizers, classifiers, and list-makers. Such students might find it helpful to chart out character traits to determine whether a character changes during the course of a piece of literature or remains the same. Such students might also do well with required assignments like comparison and contrast essays, or learning the elements of fiction than applying that to their reading.

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: having an understanding of yourself; knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves. They tend to know what they can and can’t do, and to know where to go if they need help.

I think that we should always be teaching to both the intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences, because they are both so important outside of the classroom. Doing this almost goes without saying, intrapersonal is giving students the ability to be independently successful in class, while interpersonal teaches collaboration and teamwork. By giving both independent and group assignments, students have to learn to function in both areas.

8. Interpersonal Intelligence: the ability to understand other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is especially important for teachers, clinicians, salespersons, or politicians — anybody who deals with other people.

See above. Short version: group work/collaboration.

9. Existential Intelligence: the ability and proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.

Ah, the big picture. Isn’t exploring the unknown what English is really all about? Fiction is really a documentation of some larger truth, while nonfiction is a record of “ultimate realities.” But the big questions are the risky questions, the ones that lead to the sticky subjects that we like to avoid (perhaps I’ll get into that more in another post). The important thing to remember is that we aren’t there to answer these questions for students. We’re there to teach them how to find the answers for themselves. As long as we’re willing to forget our own opinions about the big questions at least temporarily, then we can approach them freely as an open discussion rather than dictating what students ought to believe.

The main point here is that there are ways to utilize all these intelligences that can be both fun and engaging for students and teachers alike. Mind you, I never said that my ideas were the fun and engaging way to go about that. They are only thoughts and ideas. As somebody preparing to step into the field in a week, I’d love to hear your ideas on the subject. Two weeks from now, I’m sure I’ll be absolutely desperate for them. Please feel free to share.

And Now! The big question for the week: Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligences is pretty well accepted by the academic community, yet remains unproven scientifically. As teachers, we are encouraged to ground our methodology in data-based research. Where does that leave us with Mr. Gardener? How much time or effort should we devote to touching on all the various intelligences as frequently as possible? Was it something teachers were already doing anyway? Is it just another tool in the already overstuffed educational toolbox? Do you utilize the multiple intelligences in your own classroom? How, why, or why not?

What we are going to do: We will discuss at least one topic relevant to teaching high school English each week. For example, the first week, we’ll be looking at Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and how we might apply them in the English Language Arts classroom. Once a week, we’ll be working on the topic of writing both inside and outside of the classroom. And I’m fairly certain that at some point each week I will find it necessary to pose one of those sticky grammar questions, like how do we refer to things now that the generic he doesn’t quite cut it anymore?

I will end each post with a question about teaching to encourage parents, experienced educators, and students to weigh in. Comments, suggestions, questions, and answers pertaining to teaching high school English or writing are welcome here.

I will add links to resources for teachers that are useful and (that oh-so-important phrase for teachers!) free to use. I will also include links to things useful to those who teach writing, such as contest information, links to literature, deadlines, writing markets that might be of interest to students, ect.

Here is why we are going to do this stuff: It will provide an opportunity to model behavior for our students such as collaboration, research, respectful discourse, involvement outside the classroom, and technology skills. It will also help us grow as teachers.

Here is how we are going to do it: By sharing ideas, opinions, experience, information, and resources. We will discuss methods that work (and by work I mean show measurable student improvement) and methods that don’t (at least not as they were carried out). We will revisit our teaching methods to seek out our own shortcomings and how to fix them. We will talk about writing and how to approach it in the classroom, as well as how to make it seem like less of a chore for students. We’ll try to figure out which aspects of English instruction are absolutely necessary and which are superfluous.

You may also occasionally correct my grammar, as need dictates.

To be completely honest, I also have several ulterior motives. For instance, I plan to have my students create their own blogs. I once stood in front of the class and said, “I wouldn’t ask anything of you that I wouldn’t do myself.” It felt really good to say that, and I think it’s a fair way to go about the business of teaching. I will use this blog as an example when I introduce that particular ongoing project.

Hi Class! See how each posting has a title? What? You mean Introduction isn’t a great and awe-inspiring title?! Why not!? Let’s talk about it in class.

This blog will also keep me consistent in my own writing. I expect this coming semester to be hectic, but I want to show my students the importance of making time to write.

So, to go over it again, each week we will discuss topics that relate to writing, teaching writing, and teaching high school English.

The purpose of this blog is to help us grow as English teachers, and to provide a place where teachers can exemplify the behaviors we desire of our students.

We will do this by being informed ourselves, and by sharing our experiences, information, ideas, and opinions in a professional manner.

I look forward to working with you.