A Further Iteration Idea for Classic Literature Studies

Three weeks in, and I already have to mix it up. My Classic Literature Studies program is already not working out the way I planned. This is why we embrace flexibility as teachers!

I'm not sure if it's just my school, or region, or country, or generation, or what, but my students are not "getting" classic lit.

My mind immediately goes back to the foundation of the project as a whole. The basis of Lit. Research and CLS both were to same question: Why do we teach classic lit in schools? The answer was that these are books every high schooler needs to read so that we, as a society, maintain a level of collective consciousness. That is to say, every person (at least in America) reads these books so that we have a common set of knowledge to draw upon. If we make a reference to Romeo and Juliet or To Kill a Mockingbird, we can be relatively sure that it will be understood.

I had a small class of seniors today, so we talked about it together. We really, actually talked this time. I had been letting a one-sided lecture suffice for this topic, but this time I opened up and welcomed feedback. The consensus they reached was, "Well, that doesn't matter because these books suck. Why are we forced to read these books when so many better books exist?"

And I get it. I completely get that. In fact, I have friends that question my commitment to teaching classics, as well. A common refrain from my husband whenever I mention literature is, "So, when are you going to teach The Name of the Wind?" Another friend always opens his mouth and then just shuts it because he knows he won't get a satisfactory answer from me; he's already tried.

To some extent, I'm still stuck in I-have-to-do-things-the-right-way mode. I'm afraid of being shunned both by my school community and by English teachers as a whole. I'm afraid of being outed as "not a REAL English teacher" if I don't dedicate myself to teaching the "proper" things.

But... isn't that what I do? Isn't that my whole schtick? Isn't the basis of professional career as a whole to question tradition (as Millennials are wont to do) and give my student what really matters? Have I really gotten so confrontation-shy?

At the same time, I still don't feel like I'm ready to drop CLS completely yet. There is still the matter of the collective consciousness that I felt so strongly about. And there is still the matter of my constituents (namely, my students' parents) wanting to keep the classics in the classroom. So it's not out the window yet. I'm just going to mix it up some more.

A story came across my local NPR channel on my drive to work this morning about how a recent study shows Kansans' desire for schools to teach a shocking 70% non-academic skills, "like teamwork, communication and persistence," over the traditional math and reading curriculum. Hearing that was just what my sore little heart needed to hear. I've been so stressed recently trying to force my curriculum to work. It was a relief to hear that others across my state are embracing a more liberal education again. I reached work in a brighter mood, ready to make some changes, ready again to challenge the status quo. I started brainstorming as my students wrote in their notebooks.

First, why do we need the change? What's been going on?

For a little over a year, I've been trying to teach classic literature as such:

-At first, I tried the most traditional route: Assigning one or two chapters of reading homework at a time and giving quizzes the next day. The students hated it, and so did I. They were forced to maintain the speed I set, which slowed many of them down and rushed the others quicker than they could handle. The quizzes seemed like an inauthentic mode of conversation, and most of them felt like I was just trying to "catch them" not reading. But when I tried NOT giving quizzes, most of them didn't read at all. The whole thing seemed inauthentic, in general, because that's not how we read when we read for pleasure, a chapter at a time, then stop and recap. Well, not most of the time, anyway.

-Thus, Lit. Research. I tried making reading optional. They didn't have to read the book, but they did have to know about it. The students had to look up the books on the computer and develop a summary paragraph listing an "elevator speech" of the most important things it encompassed. And they could still read if they wanted to, though I only had a couple of students read a couple of books the entire year. It seemed like such a good idea, but the students were lazy and I wasn't very good at enforcing my expectations. For the most part, they printed a page from Sparknotes and called it good. Thus, they didn't truly comprehend the books or the messages within, and I was again frustrated.

-This year, I've been trying to take the middle road by giving them only short excerpts to read. (Again, the whole book is available, but not mandatory.) It's three weeks in, and I can already tell that it's not going to work. My students still resist reading anything I put in their hands if at all possible. But now I've come across a new problem I didn't realize I had last year--they don't comprehend the text. Even the first excerpt, which I purposefully chose as an introduction to the book, no prior knowledge necessary (though we did, of course, go over some background information beforehand) led to complaints of, "I don't get it." They don't want to read, and when they do read, they don't understand what they're reading.

After realizing that the text wasn't coming alive for them, I started reading the excerpts to my students. I have mixed feels about this process already.

I was going to make a claim of "Everyone likes to be read to" and link it to an article confirming said claim, but then I realized that that's a bigger point that I can actually do a lot of research on. I could write an entire post about using read alouds with high school students.

So, until that point, suffice to say that part of my new plan for CLS includes read alouds. It seems to be the only way that I can get the "boring, old" text to come alive for my students, apart from movie adaptations (which I'm always weary of, personally). More on my mixed feels when I sort them. Until then, I'm reading Classic Lit to my students and discussing as we go along.

And for the rest of reading? I've been thinking about getting more classroom involvement in self-selected reading, most likely along the lines of a creative project once per quarter. Perhaps a video or a podcast or something? It seems a little daunting, honestly, but we'll start out small. They still have AR point goals and half an hour a week of class time to read. I just want to do more with that.

On Shakespeare

Last year, back when I gave teaching to the text (hah! puns) a shot, I noted that I had developed strong feelings about teaching Shakespeare. Well, you know, so has just about every English teacher in America, I think.

The basis of my feelings are this:

1. The language of Shakespeare is outdated and almost as difficult for students today to navigate as Old English.
2. Yes, the themes and motifs Shakespeare presents are still prevalent in modern times, but other texts (ones where students aren't distracted by what is essentially a foreign language) present them better.

Dana Dusbiber puts it eloquently in her editorial reprinted by the Washington Post.

It seems that Dusbiber and I, however, may be in the minority, at least of those who have vocalized their opinions. Most of what I see online are die-hard Bard fans who criticize anyone who would even think of skipping over that portion of English lit.

They do have make some good points, though. Here are some examples, one, two, three, and four from the Folger Shakespeare Library's blog, another from that same writer's personal blog, and one from a blog titled Talk Like Shakespeare. Okay, so maybe that's not the most unbiased of resources. Here's one in response to Dusbiber's editorial, and here's one from an author of what appears to be trashy novels from that one time he was on the school board. Neither of those are as eloquently written, but they still have their merits.

The only point that matters to me at the moment, though, is that Shakespeare is, indeed, mentioned in CCSS. So yes, I should teach the things I'm passionate about because the students can pick up on my passion, but I also need to include Shakespeare. It fits into the Classic Lit curriculum well, anyway, and I can teach it in my own way.

Just because the language aspect is difficult doesn't mean we need to shy away from it, I know. We do difficult things because they're difficult, after all. It's just something that needs to be taken into consideration. It should be, "When we study Shakespeare, we're studying a foreign language. Already knowing modern English, this language is pretty easy to pick up, like Spanish, but we need to think of it as a foreign language because people we live with wouldn't understand us if we started speaking like this."

With that as an introduction to set the mood, here are some other things I need to keep in mind to do:

-First, we DON'T need to read the entirety of the play together, like I tried to force last year. We also don't need to act the entire thing out, which I feel a little compelled to try. Those things aren't me. They aren't they way I teach, and they will never come off as genuine. Instead, I can select short but important passages to focus on. We can dissect them, which will be a little tricky but still good for us. We can translate them into our own words.
-We can even practice performing them, just those small little sections.
-This "Living Iambic Pentameter" activity looks fun.
-We can even trade Shakespearean insults.
-Remember to use the Folger Library as a resource.
-And maybe some of this "Teaching Romeo and Juliet" stuff?
-Some Youtube videos about Elizabethan theater, the Globe, and pronunciation that makes more sense.

I got this. No big deal.

Preparing for Iteration 2 of Literature Curriculum (From Lit Research to CLS)

The original concept for Literature Research was to teach two distinct things--both Literature and Research, as the name implies. It was to teach Literature, as public perception says an English teacher should do, while concurrently incorporating research skills. The thought was that 21st century students need strong research skills, and thus I planned to have students using them frequently.

The first problem with this last year was that I didn't demonstrate how to research as well as I should have. I often had students printing off or copy/pasting Sparknotes and calling it good. So that's my bad. I didn't actually teach research skills. Noted. Lesson learned. Next year will be better now that I've recognized this.

The second issue I'm faced with now as I develop my curriculum for next year is that my parents and principal want more gathered material to present during lessons. That's fine. I can understand and work with that. It's just that the more material I gather for students, the less they need to find. That's not a bad thing, it's just less "research" they are required to do.

It's when considering this fact that I realized that Literature and Research don't actually go together as well as I previously thought. Trying to put both together, one always sacrifices the other. I can either have a good literature program, full of all the gathered material to distribute during lessons, or I can have a good research program where students need to find the material on their own. I can't have both together in this instance. And I need to teach both literature and research, so it's time to uncouple the two.

Thus ended the concept of Literature Research.

But that's not to say that the whole thing is dead. It's only time for an evolution.

The second pillar of the Lit. Research program was that students need to understand the concepts of classic literature. They need to be able recognize titles and authors and connect them to plot points, characters, and quotes, and that pillar still stands. Without the other, in fact, it becomes the focal point of the program. That point will be what my new literature curriculum is based on.

I referred previously to the "collective consciousness" that Americans (or English speakers?) have surrounding literature--that knowledge that we all have about certain classic texts. It's part of our culture, and it's present everywhere. You can find references to literature in movies, TV, popular music, video games, and everyday conversation. Classic literature is the birthplace of cliches. They hold stories and characters that everyone knows, and if a reference or satire is made of them, it is under the impression that any member of the English-speaking audience will understand it.

This is what I intend to impart to my students. This is the foundation of my literature program. It has less to do with reading classics just for the sake of reading them or because of tradition and more to do with seeing literature as a part of our culture.

I'm not mourning the end of Lit. Research. I'm happy that I attempted something new, learned from it, and can now try a second iteration. And in fact, it's rather liberating recognizing that I needed to uncouple the two in order to make them better. Onwards and upwards! (I wish there was a cool new name I could think of for it. I like those sort of things. It's too bad "Cultural Literacy" is already a thing and that "Literature Literacy" sounds weird. Meh. I'll keep thinking!)

Edit: Okay, I decided on a name--Classic Literature Studies, CLS!

Experience with Assigned Reading in High School

Although I had developed a revolutionary idea about how to teach literature, I still only had the confidence of a second year teacher. Just like last year, when faced with the challenge of forming my own curriculum, I fell back on that which is commonly accepted. When I asked myself, "What does one learn in a high school English class?" the answer came, "Literature." I knew I disliked this truism just by remembering my own high school experience. I remember thinking to myself, "Why are we reading so much in English class? If I wanted to read, I would have taken a literature class! I want to be learning grammar!" (I was a strange child...)

And yet, it is what it is. That's what's expected. I'm to give each student a classic novel, assign pages to read each night, and give quizzes in the morning. In the classroom I inherited, there are shelves full of book sets for me to do just that. That's what parents, administration, and my fellow teachers expect. It's not that I can't stray from this model, it's just that if I do, I'd better be prepared to explain my pedagogical philosophy immediately. And we all know I'm working on building the confidence to do that.

Plus, well.. how can I know for sure that I don't want to teach literature in this way if I don't even try? There's no reason that I can't assign a book and still do Lit. Research at the same time. We'll just try it this way first, I resigned.

So I sorted through what I had available, gave questionnaires to determine what my classes had previously read, considered what I read when I was in high school, and eventually came up with my assigned reading:

* Romeo and Juliet for freshmen because I had heard somewhere that freshmen all over the country are assigned Romeo and Juliet.

* To Kill a Mockingbird for sophomores because I had heard the same thing about it, but the sophomores hadn't read it last year as freshmen.

* A Midsummer Night's Dream for juniors because I arbitrarily felt like they needed some more Shakespeare and I didn't have Hamlet or Macbeth (which was weird). A Midsummer Night's Dream was always my favorite Shakespearean play, anyway, so no hard feelings.

* And Fahrenheit 451 as the dystopian novel for seniors because I think one of the big three (451, Brave New World, and 1984) are typically assigned junior or senior year. And I adore dystopian novels.

With no evidence on which to base my hypothesis, I think most traditional high schools give students a Shakespearean play each year. (When I was in high school, I was assigned Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Macbeth, though most of my friends were given Hamlet in place of MSND.) This plan didn't give my students Shakespeare each year, but.. well, I worked with what I had. (More on Shakespeare to come... much more. I've developed some passionate feelings on this topic.)

Well, it seemed like a good place to start! Definitely a plan a good little teacher would come up with. I passed out books and took down the numbers written on the inside cover on a sheet of paper next to their names, like a good little teacher. I assigned the first few pages to read as homework, like a good little teacher.

But that's about where my commendable organization ended.

My first mistake was relying too heavily on having each class do something similar each day. I wanted writing assignments for each class on the same day, to stay at about the same point in each book, and finish up at around the same time. This is an obvious mistake. Not only are the classes at different reading and comprehension levels, but they're reading different materials. Of course it's not going to take as long to read 451 as it is to read To Kill a Mockingbird. Yep. A little more planning would have settled this out, and it's not insurmountable in the future, just a little messy the first time through.

Mostly this was difficult having two classes reading Shakespeare and two not. This meant that I definitely couldn't do comprehension and discussion the same way. The constant gear switching was irksome, but eventually there was some semblance of organization. After a little trial and error, it wound up like this:

* A passage by passage analysis of Shakespeare with class notes. Mostly this boiled down to asking what happened in the section we read, prompting if any important details were forgotten in the response, and writing on the board for students to copy. I tried to only write student wording, but occasionally I had to ask for clarity if I could tell not everyone understood. I feel like this was an acceptable way to go about Shakespeare, though surely not the best. Students were responsible for reading and translating the original text, but I could point out any passage that needed further exploration. I assisted in the creation of notes to assure everyone's comprehension, but it was still in their words.

* Discussion circle of 451. 451 lends itself nicely to discussion, and I enjoyed the conversations it brought up, though I could tell the seniors didn't really get into it. Towards the end, they got lazy in their reading and I had to start giving quizzes to ensure they actually made it through the text. That still wasn't quite motivating enough for about half of them, though. They had made up their minds that they greatly disliked this book.

* Daily quizzes and discussion of the responses for To Kill a Mockingbird. My sophomore class is my most trying and challenging group of students, and this was my attempt at being stern with them.  Many saw their grades decline drastically during this time. But still, I think maybe I'm okay with it, as it was an authentic and direct consequence for the action of not reading the assigned reading. Their grades clearly showed which students read and which didn't. I had a few students fail this semester, and though I'm not sure I'm okay with that, those students were the ones that didn't do the work. (Bah, THAT'S definitely a concept I need to revisit at some point. Just typing it gives me an unpleasant feeling.) But regardless, after the quizzes, the responses were discussed, so that even the students that didn't read knew what had happened in the selected chapters. And I DID try to give straightforward questions on the quizzes. I tried my best to avoid any sort of thing that could be seen as a trick question.

Also there was the fact that the last time I read these books (with the exception of 451) was when I was in high school. So I suddenly found myself with four books to read and lessons and quizzes to plan immediately and concurrently. It was a tough month. I got through it, but it definitely could have gone better with planning.

My biggest problem, though, was that the students all hated the books. I had a couple freshmen liked Romeo and Juliet once they got past the language barrier, and one sophomore really enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird. The rest read begrudgingly, if at all. And that's no way to read. I hate seeing reading as such a chore.

One issue there was with my lack of planning again. I think I took too long getting through the books, and by the end, everyone was tired. But they had hated the books long before that, so it was more of an additional problem than a main one.

Perhaps it could have been a lack of autonomy. I told them what to read. I've spent a small amount of time since then perusing articles about English classes run solely on choice literature. As I've said before, my school does AR, so I'm not as concerned that my students get choice reading, because it's already happening.

But perhaps I could get them to do more response work to their AR books, like book reports or writing that copies the style of the text or reflects deeply on the concepts presented.

Or perhaps I could do small reading groups for self-selected classics from the shelf. That seems doable, but what would I do the first time a student came to me three pages into A Scarlet Letter and said they hated it? Could I allow them to put it back, or would I make them lie in the bed they had made?

Regardless, I think a bigger issue is at hand that I'm ignoring.

One thought that crossed my mind at some point during a comprehension-checking discussion was that some of these students just... really didn't get it. Maybe they weren't ready for it... but no, that's ridiculous. These are high school students we're talking about. They are practically adults, and if they aren't capable now, they never will be. Besides, what about high expectations for my students? Readiness isn't an issue.

But at the same time, I was certainly understanding the assigned reading at a different level on this, my adult read-through, than I did at their age. Was I asking too much for full comprehension from someone with as little life experience as they had? But maybe that's just it. Maybe it's more about providing new experiences. But, if that's the case, couldn't there be a better way? Videos or something? My students seemed so disconnected from the books I placed in their hands.

I certainly think it's asking a lot for a deep connection to a text from an entire class, despite how few students are in my classes, in particular. The more students, the less connection to the lesson, it seems.

Woah, that's quite a statement. The more students involved, the less individual connection to the lesson.

Okay, okay. That may be profound (or maybe it isn't at all), but it's not the issue we're here to discuss today. Focus, Holly. The point of that statement was that reading is a personal thing. I can understand small group, because small groups can dissect and analyze in a way that one person alone can't, but if you add more students that aren't invested, it detracts from the commitment of the others. It removes them from their magical connection with the text. Or, put another way, using another concept I also haven't written about, it takes them out of their flow.

So we've discovered two things: if I'm assigning reading, it must be self-selected, and it must either be solo work or small group work.

And still I'm ignoring it. I keep avoiding a point my mind keeps trying to bring up, and it's this: why are we reading these books in the first place? If my students are disconnected with the text while trying to get through a whole book, why force them? We know students don't learn well when they're being forced. I'm giving them the Lit. Research project to make them aware of the collective consciousness Americans have of literature. My goal is to supplement each material we discuss with an abridged selection of the original text so that they get exposure to different styles of writing, I just haven't collected them all yet. I'm also encouraging reading the full texts on their own. As of yet, only the freshmen have taken me up on that offer, but the offer still remains for everyone.

And as for the experience thing. If my job is to provide experiences and various perspectives to consider, I must find various was to do it, not just from "classic" texts. They just don't hold the same weight for students today as they once did.

The real question is this--is it worth my time to do it again? Honestly, at this point, I have to answer, no. It's not. I really don't think I'm giving my students any positive experiences that they couldn't get on their own, and the negative ones I'm giving weigh much more heavily.

And what of making students do things they don't like to build character? Well, I could argue that in college and the adult world, there will be plenty of things they have to do that they hate, and there's something to be said for developing the skill of persisting in that way, but... well, why does it have to be reading? Yeah, I know that in college and the adult world there will be a ton of dry, boring material to get through. But, on the other other hand, I'm doing that with the articles of the week. So! There's my answer for that, and I'll completely dismiss the entire argument because it makes me uncomfortable. I don't like forcing students to read books that they don't enjoy, because books should be entertaining. Articles and other nonfiction materials are sometimes dry but necessary. If a book is boring, stop reading it.

The other argument I anticipate is, "Reading classics in English class is tradition," and it's hard for me not to just dismiss that, as well. I'm not here for tradition. I'm here for results. Tradition wasn't working for us. It's a new age, and we have new techniques to try. We have new and exciting work ahead of us. (Honestly, is that not a tag line of my entire blog yet? I'm setting it as that right now.)

Well, is that it, then? Do I have my pedagogical philosophy prepared? Am I ready to explain myself to colleagues, parents, and administration? If not quite yet, I should be soon enough.

The only thing left is to decide what I am going to do with our time together, if not this. Eh, there's still five days left before winter vacation is over.

Notes from a Week of Exploring Teaching the Core

Ooooh my goodness, my brain is so full of all of the things. Dave of Teaching the Core is a wonderful writer, but his blog posts are so chock full of all of the great information I want to learn and links to other pages that are also full of information. He's pretty prolific, too, so there are already so many posts he's published I want to read through. But I don't just want to read them, I want to devour them. I want to scour them for every morsel of useful information, analyze them, and decide how I want to use them.

I feel as though I'm at a big feast, and every time I finish a course, Dave just brings out another plate full of deliciousness and sets it in front of me expectantly.

I have all of the tabs open in my browser. Tabs from Teaching the Core, tabs for other Teaching the Core posts the original ones linked back to, tabs from awesome resources that those blog posts linked to, tabs from interesting articles that those links linked to... *groan* So let's try to get a little more organized, shall we?

Article of the Week and Making Annotations

It didn't take me long after finding myself in this click-hole to realize that I wanted/needed to implement this in my class. I'd been trying to find some way to incorporate more nonfiction reading but was hesitant to try something like this because I didn't want to start printing off a lot of pages. 1) because I'm a hippie and don't like "wasting paper" 2) because it seemed like a slippery slope to worksheets, and 3) because we live in a digital age and why print off something that could just be viewed and manipulated online? But all of these reasons were immediately out the window when I started reading Dave's blog. Hush, now. It's worth it.

Next semester, we may be getting Chrome books (one for each student), but until then, if we don't have print off articles, how could we make annotations? (I'd considered allowing them to write lightly in pencil in their books, but I hadn't gotten that desperate yet.) Annotations? Oh yeah, that's that "close reading" I'd been hearing so much about in CCSS articles. I learned about it for the first time at the summer conference I attended and didn't quite understand what all the hype was about. Alright, we're teaching kids to make annotations while they read. I do that when I read, so it made sense to me. It seemed like there was something more to it that I was missing.

Turns out, "close reading" is a super conflated buzzword that people are looking too much into. Dave recommends just sticking with teaching how to annotate and leaving it at that. Sweet, that's probably what I was going to do, anyway.

Links about annotation:

TtC - Purposeful Annotation - What annotations are and how to use them

Harvard Library Reasearch Guides - Six Habits for Thinking-Intensive Reading - some useful guides on how to annotate to share with students

TtC - Close Reading - Dave's original post on the matter, which he says is outdated but still has some interesting things, such as a modeling video

Articles of the Week

The Article of the Week is a child of Kelly Gallagher, one of Dave's heroes. We take a nonfiction article from an authentic source, read and annotate it, and then write a paper responding to it. Sometimes we can share our thoughts in a Socratic circle or debate. Awesome. I can't wait to get started.

Links about AoW:

TtC - There and Back Again - What AoW is, how to get started, and how Dave adapted Gallagher's work to fit his own needs

TtC - Articles of the Week - Backlog and current articles to get'cha started

Kelly Gallagher - AoW Archive - Gallagher's AoW backlog
TtC - Getting Started with AoW - more information

Argument:

Teaching students to make a claim and support it with evidence. 

Links about argument:

TtC - They Say / I Say Two Paragraph Essay - a basic way to introduce argument writing

Amazon - They Say / I Say by Graff and Birkenstein - the book Dave referenced above

TtC - Argument and Debate - what and how to (including video!)

TtC - Popup Debates - a debate starter kit Dave sells

And~

Links to other stuff!:

B10LovesBooks - Erica Beaton, Dave's coworker who also runs a sweet blog I need to explore further

B10 - Whole Class Novels vs. Choice Reading - This is part 3. There's so much to consider...

Jim Burke - Verbs to Live By - a phenomenal chart that defines and explains frequently used academic verbs in easy-to-understand language

Baka desu yo - 6 Things the Most Organized People Do Every Day - Just a reminder on how to stay focused and in control. Not sure if it's something to show to students or if it's just for me.

And there we have it! Not the most productive post, but at least it helped clear my head and leave some bread crumbs to come back to later.

The Literature Research Project

I haven't been teaching my high school English classes with textbooks this year. That was a conscious decision I made going in, and thankfully, I had the authority to make it. But then, of course, came the questions of, "Well, if not textbooks, what then?"

The first concept that I explored (and still am) is the novel.

I should preface this with the fact that my school does, and has for years done, Accelerated Reader. So I know that my students are reading (and if they're not, then that's a separate issue to be dealt with on its own). I know that they're reading choice books, and I know that they're reading at least 30 minutes every weekday. With that in mind, reading isn't the same problem as it is in other schools. I'm not tasked with the goal of making sure students read for the sake of reading. I know that they're already doing it.

I questioned myself, Why do English classes read what they traditionally do? You know what I'm talking about--the standard curriculum. Romeo and Juliet and To Kill a Mockingbird in Freshman year, Gatsby in Sophomore, etc. Why?

Is it just for the sake of tradition? I was made to read this when I was your age. I disliked this idea and played with it in my mind for a while before I was able to put it into better terms.

I like to think that it's to create a shared American experience. More of a, kids all over the country your age are reading this, so you need to, as well. Something to create a liberal education and collective consciousness of society.

A liberal education is easy to explain: it's a good idea to take a look at a wide variety of topics and voices in order to widen your perspective and understand more about the world. Everything is interconnected, and something you encounter in one discipline (or in one book) might provide insight or help solve a problem in another area of your life. There are some good lessons in the books that have already been chosen for us. (That being said, they shouldn't be left unquestioned. If something seems outdated, it requires further scrutiny and replacements should be considered.)

But "collective consciousness" is a little more difficult. To understand it, I found myself asking the question that every student asks, "When will I need to know this?" It's a question of authenticity, a valid question indeed, so I answered:

When will these novels and literature themes come up again, hypothetical student? Well, first of all, you might need to know them in college when your English 101 and 102 professors expect you to be familiar with them.

Pfft. Alright, sure, but that's still an artificial reason. What else you got?

Okay, let's consider. Because these are books that the rest of America knows, everyone makes references to them, and, likewise, everyone understands those references. You will probably encounter these references your entire life--a conversation with a coworker, a news report, a song you hear on the radio, a movie you're going to see. 

Ah. So that's what is meant by collective consciousness. Central themes that we know as a society. Common stories that we all know and can discuss together.

So what's really important here? The ability to know the books in America's collective consciousness and understand references to them.

But as our society grows, so does our collective consciousness. Every year, there are more and more books added to our pool of material from which references are made. At this point in time, I doubt there are very many Americans, if there are even any at all, who have actually read all of these books that are considered important enough to make references to.

Now, what I'm about to say next is considerably controversial, but that's why we're here at Non-traditional Teaching, right? So bear with me.

What if English class didn't mandate that students read a limited, select few books cover to cover, but instead guided them to conduct research on a wide number of books so that they understood a larger amount of material present in America's collective consciousness?

Thus, my Literature Research project was born. This concept was intriguing enough to dive head first into. It was exciting!

My first step was to discover what all was encompassed in the literature realm of America's "hive mind," if you will. The first thing that came to mind was a silly quiz I'd seen on Facebook titled something like, "Which of these 100 classic books have you read?" I couldn't find the precise one, but in my search for it, I discovered countless other lists. I had hoped to find a good, comprehensive one, but that didn't happen. They all came up short somehow, and none of them included everything I expected it to.

I finally settled on a list of Assigned Reading in High School on Goodreads (this one? I can't recall). It was quite extensive, and there was no way that we would have the time to cover everything, so I had to pare it down.

I decided that my seniors, being the closest to departure into "the real world" should have the most to research. One book per week would be 31 books. (I needed just a few weeks to get settled in. Next year it could be more if we begin right away.) Juniors would work on the project every other week and have 16 books under their belt, and Freshmen and Sophomores could do it just once a month and have 8.

But then as for the actual book selections... That was a difficult decision, and it finally came down to my own discretion. I scoured the list and picked out the 31 books that I, personally, had heard the most references to in my adult life. Who am I to make those sorts of claims and decide what is in the collective consciousness? I know, but someone had to make a decision. I hated doing it, but it was my project, so it might as well be me. And besides, doesn't every English teacher do that each year by determining which material to share with her class? Not that that makes me feel any better about it, but it is what it is. I organized my 31 books into a weekly schedule. Step One finished. Books decided upon. Here's the finalized list for Seniors. Underclassmen have some of the same books, just not as many. (Click to enlarge.)

Now for Step Two. How to guide my students to knowledge of these pieces of literature? Well, as an adult, how do I learn something I want to know about? Google, of course! Wikipedia is a great place to start because it usually summarizes everything up nicely in one paragraph at the top, and if I want to go deeper, I can just keep reading. There's also Sparknotes, if I want to go chapter by chapter, and blogs and articles that analyze different aspects that are interesting.

But, of course, it may be a book that has been on a student's To Read list for a while, and he wants to just read the whole thing on his own. Awesome. The scheduled date is listed for their convenience.

Finally, we'll come together and discuss our findings as a class.

By these three methods (or four, as my students mentioned watching movie adaptations, as well), the student should have enough information and be prepared to contribute to a larger, societal conversation about the piece of literature.

Here is the handout I prepared for Seniors. I did make it sound more about the "being prepared for college" reason than the "being prepared for contribution to America's collective consciousness" than I stated here. I was still trying to figure things out.

Yes, the bottom refers to a couple of books read in class. More on that later.

Well, it's been six weeks, and though the Freshmen and Sophomores have only done it once, the Juniors have had a little more experience with it, and the Seniors have gotten into a good flow. There are two dates for each book listed on the schedule, a Thursday and a Friday. I give the Thursdays for researching (on laptops borrowed from the computer lab), and on Fridays, we discuss what they found and they each write up a one-paragraph summary.

The research itself was a little tricky to get into, as the students weren't quite sure what they were looking for. We worked up this list together:

The summaries have been rather difficult to get perfect. I'm not sure if it's because it's something they're still not quite used to yet or if I'm grading them too hard.

I did have one full credit paper turned in, and I was so excited, I took a picture that we've used as a model since:

I've also been urging in the direction of a specific format, even though that's something that typically bugs me about teaching writing. (Students should be able to write with their own voice! etc., etc. That's another topic entirely. I digress.) It should start out with the title of the book, the author, and the publication date, then go into just a couple of sentences of plot, and finish up with some historical context. It's not necessary to follow this format, but some of the students found it helpful.

When I grade the summaries, I make some comments about what information could be included or excluded, and they keep everything together in their notes. We haven't had any tests over it yet, but there will be a few little ones where students will need to remember enough key information to write a summary from scratch, and then a comprehensive one at the end of the year.

I'm not sure if I'm going about this in the best way yet, but we'll see how this goes. I'll report back with more information when I have it!

Educational Magazines and the Case Against Textbooks

Last year was my first year teaching, and I was pretty lost most of the time. One thing I regret doing was automatically accepting and teaching from the provided textbooks (mostly MacMillan/McGraw Hill stuff). Sure, I improvised when and where I could, bringing in additional material where necessary, but we still did the textbook thing. I promised my principal that we would get all the way through the textbooks, and that we did. I pushed us through.

I'm not sure that the third graders got much from last year and our mutual trudge through Textbook Land. But that's okay, because I certainly did.

Want to know what lesson I learned? It will definitely come as a shock to you. It's this:

Children. Hate. Textbooks.

There, I said it. Surprised, aren't you? 

I know, whatever, Holly, this is a fact that everyone knows. But somewhere along the way, I got caught up in "doing my job" and forgot. So just to make sure that we're all on the same page, I thought it worthy of repeating.

Children find textbooks boring.

Somewhere within the first couple of months of school, the word mundane came up in someone's silent reading book, and we talked about it as a class. Having this word in their vocabulary, my students used this adjective to describe everything we did in the textbooks from then on.

What can we do with this information? We can first recognize that children that are bored or that are forced to do something they don't enjoy aren't learning as much as they could be. I would even argue that they're learning not much at all, or perhaps they're learning entirely the opposite lesson that you wish to convey, such as, "Science is boring and stupid, and I hate it."

Of course, I could use this opportunity to argue that any tool is only as useful as the one who uses it. Perhaps in the hands of a truly skillful teacher, a textbook wouldn't be so bad. But alas, I am not quite yet one of those, and I have the tendency to think that the teachers who use textbooks successfully are in the minority. I could be using this time to research how to properly engage students while also using a textbook, but that seems difficult and... well, kind of traditional and boring. So instead, I'll do what I do best and question the whole system.

Before I left the school, my principal asked for a recommendation on what to do about textbooks and curriculum for next year. Well! That was certainly one document I didn't mind typing up! I'm sure he was actually looking for something along the lines of, "This book is fine, but this other doesn't match Common Core standards. Here's a different one that I found that is CCSS aligned," but that's not what he got from me.

Instead, I recommended purging all textbooks in favor of subscriptions to educational magazines for all students.

There are a number of benefits. We'll start with what will make your administration happy--They are directly aligned with Common Core standards. (They have to be, in order to sell, these days, so that's an easy one.) CCSS urges an increasing amount of nonfiction in the classroom, and magazines provide age-appropriate nonfiction articles on a regular basis. 

On top of that, the articles typically relate in some way to current events, providing a good basis for authentic learning and discussions.

Got digital readers in your classroom? Perfect. A lot of magazine subscriptions can be delivered digitally. No digital readers? No worries, they also come in paper version.

But I think the most important point is that these magazines are specifically designed to attract students' attentions. Most have full color photographs with eye-catching headlines. They use authentic language that doesn't scare students away and also doesn't come off as trying too hard. (I know that in many instances, I tend to shy away from something designed specifically for children, but this isn't one of those instances. These magazines don't come off as patronizing or trying too hard to be cool, at least the good ones. They were designed properly.) As a para, I worked in a few classrooms that used educational magazines, and the students devoured them, cover to cover. Effective, indeed.

Alright, so what magazines am I talking about? Give us some examples. Here are the ones I found, though this may not be a comprehensive list:

• Time for Kids. This may currently be the most widely used educational subscription magazine, at least in my experience. I even remember getting these when I was in elementary school. Full color photographs. Different issues for different grades: K-1, 2, 3-4, and 5-6. Available in print or digital copy. Weekly issues. The content in these magazines is mostly current events, which are usually science or social studies, along with a little bit of fluff. Cost is $4.00 to $4.50, depending on how many copies you buy.
• Scholastic Classroom and News Magazines. (See all available.) A range of magazines for PreK through grade 12. Cross-curricular for younger students. Older students' issues are available for current events, language arts, science, math, fine arts, life skills, Spanish, French, and German. Issues are weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Prices range from $5 to $10 per issue. 
• Studies Weekly. Separate issues for Science, Social Studies, Health, Character Education, Heritage, and Math, and for each grade level, K through 6 (math only available for grades K through 2), though some grade level issues overlap. Color comic-style illustrations with the occasional photograph. Available in print or digital copy. Weekly issues (hence the name). Some are magazine style, others (specifically the older grades) are newspaper style. A specific selling point for this one is how it directly aligns with CCSS. I get the feeling that this one is all pre-written, no current events, and stays the same (or with minor adjustments) each year. So, a textbook with comic book illustrations, in a newspaper format. Huh. Some issues cost $1.75 each while others come in sets, $10.78 for 1-9 copies, $5.39 for more than 10 copies.

The other thing I recommended to my principal was using literature circles to teach language arts. I had an entire cabinet full of sets of books that I never touched, regretfully. 

Literature circles to teach language arts. Current educational magazines the introduce topics in science, social studies, and current events. Student-centered project-based-learning assignments that cover everything else (including math and writing). 

And we're still using textbooks, why?

Word Harvesting

In February of this year, I had the opportunity to attend a professional development seminar by Tim Rasinski. He's a great and inspiring educator, but the thing that held my attention was something he mentioned only briefly, and that was an approach to vocabulary he called Word Harvesting. He read an article about a school whose test scores went up so tremendously that they were audited to see if the tests had been altered in any way. The scores were authentic, and, after looking into it, were found to be attributed to this style of vocabulary instruction. I'll come back to this story after I talk more about what Word Harvesting is and how to implement it.

During the seminar, Rasinski read the first few pages of the Caldecott and Newberry award winning children's book Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, asking us to note any words a child might not be familiar with. In another demonstration, a hypothetical class studied one poem a week, picking out words to study. In both instances, students use authentic texts to focus on words they might otherwise read around. The next step is to put these words on a word wall and discuss their meaning. Afterward, the students and teacher use these new words in everyday conversation.

One of the things that intrigued me the most about the aforementioned article about the school with improved test scores was that classrooms walls became absolutely covered with chart paper recording these harvested words. I have a sort of pet peeve about creating artificial classroom environments, but this an example of a truly authentic environment. What better way to decorate your communal space than with words you mean to (and want to remember to) use on a day-to-day basis? And what better way to demonstrate to your students how important vocabulary is than to help them fill their environment with it? I found that to be a very powerful message.

So when I started student teaching with my 4th grade class, I wanted to implement this into our schedule.

The students were incredibly excited about it to begin with. The classroom teacher did not have a word wall to begin with, so I didn't have to "change the rules" of it, which I was a little nervous for. Rather, I began fresh with a blank bulletin board and explained our process. I handed each student a sticky note to either keep on their desk or use as a book mark (I'm the type of person that would use it as a book mark). I told them that I would normally tell students to write down any word they didn't know the definition of, but that because I wasn't sure how many of those we were going to find, I wanted them to write down any word they found interesting and wanted to add to their vocabulary. (Turns out there were actually a lot of words they came across that they didn't know.) We talked briefly about our academic vocabulary vs. daily vocabulary ("the words we know and understand vs. the words we actually use when we speak"). I reminded the students to write relatively small so that multiple words could be recorded on the same sticky note (and to remember to record the page number and book from which they found the word), but left the pad of sticky notes where they could access them at any time.

The 4th graders were excited to find interesting words and to announce their words to the class. Because so many wanted to share every day, I decided to call name sticks so that each child got a fair chance to share. I had the students state their vocabulary word, find the word in the online dictionary projected on the SMARTboard, and read the definition aloud. I wrote the word on a standard-sized index card while they did so and stapled it to the bulletin board. Then we discussed the word and attempted to use it in sentences.

The first problem was that once I called a name stick, the other students, disappointed, checked out. They seemed not to care about words their classmates found, only their own words. They didn't want to create sentences with the new words, and at times I couldn't even the student that gave the word to create an original sentence using it. How could I have made this more interesting? Probably by solving the second problem.

Which was in using the vocabulary words in daily context. I recognize that this was absolutely my fault in failure to model properly. I can only clearly remember using one harvested vocabulary word in everyday speech. I know it's difficult, but I now see that, for the entire method to work, the teacher must devote special attention to using the words her students have harvested. I know that's the critical point that I missed. It's tricky and requires flexibility and concentration, but it's absolutely necessary.

A third, smaller problem was the time required to discussing and defining harvested words. I say it's a small problem because while it does take time, so does anything worth doing. I found that I needed about 3-5 minutes per student/word, and on the days I did it, I usually only got around to two or three students. Perhaps the process would have gone faster if we devoted more time to it and got into the swing of it.

From 4th Grade Student Teaching

Resources:
*Unfortunately, although I emailed Rasinski for the article he read from during the seminar, he did not respond with a link or title.
*Vocabulogic -- Word Harvesting: Using Authentic Literature as the Source for Vocabulary Learning (Rasinski)
*Center for Development and Learning -- Word Harvesting: Using Authentic Literature as the Source for Vocabulary Learning (written by Tim Rasinski)
*Essential Strategies for Word Study, a book by Tim Rasinski and Jerry Zutell
*Word Knowledge - Harvesting Words, a Scholastic PDF from the above book

Alternative Orthography and Alphabet Reform

When I was younger, I took up learning Japanese. The first step in learning a language is usually to learn correct pronunciation, and when learning languages with a non-Roman alphabet, it is common practice to spell words using your own familiar alphabet. Japanese written as such is called romanji (lit., Roman letters). I quickly discovered that while reading Japanese romanji, there were very few questions about how to pronounce the words I was learning. The only discrepancies between different transliterators of Japanese text seem to be dropping a silent 'u' when it follows an 'o' (similar to words like colour and favour the Queen's English), and spelling the hiragana (Japanese phonetic alphabet) character ち as 'ti' or 'chi.' Learning Japanese this way struck me as remarkably easy, especially when compared to the difficulties of learning English spelling. Suddenly I started questioning. Why IS English one of the hardest languages to learn? Why do we have so many rules with so many exceptions? Why do we have silent letters? And above all, why does our alphabet have letters with two to three or more sounds as well as redundant letters?

Allow me to explain the last question from a student's prospective. When learning words that include an 'a,' how, as a five-year-old, am I supposed to know whether to pronounce it as in add, ale, or all? How can the same letter even make three different sounds? And when I'm trying to spell a word that has a particular sound, how am I supposed to know if that sound is a 'cuh,' as in 'cat,' or 'kuh,' as in 'kat'? And when I'm in the middle of the room, am I in the 'center' or the 'senter'?

I am not even close to the first person to wonder these things. From the beginning of written language, alphabets have changed so frequently, it's difficult to read texts from more than 300 years ago in almost any culture. But in our modern society, changing something as much of a foundation as our alphabet is unheard of and often deemed ridiculous. And yet, even in modern times, there have been some radicals that have aimed to do just that. With minimal research, here are my findings on alphabet reform.

Our first radical is none other than lovable Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Along with being a founding father of our nation, appearing on our money, inventing every day objects such as bifocals, and doing innovative work in electricity, politics, civics, and so on, Mr. Franklin was interested in orthography. In 1768, he wrote A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling, which included a phonetic alphabet, removing the redundant letters c, j, q, w, x, and y and adding six new letters he felt were sounds that needed to be represented. These new letters included Ŋ (eng, pronounced ng), as well as a letter for the 'au' in 'caught,' the 'sh' in 'she,' the 'u' in 'umbrella,' the 'th' in 'thought,' and the 'th' in 'this.' (And before I go on, let me explain that the difference I see between the last two characters is the placement of the tongue. That one sure had me confused for a while.) The letters are mostly modified lower case h's, and the resulting text looks a little jumbled and confusing. Franklin's alphabet wasn't very popular, obviously, and it doesn't look as simple as I think the ideal alphabet should, but I definitely think his effort is noteworthy. The removal of the redundant letters is the most important part of this system, but I don't think every vowel sound was represented. Franklin doubled some vowels to make different sounds in his reform, spelling 'dear' as 'diir,' etc. This is one approach, but I don't think it is effective enough. I also think the letters should be more distinct and different from one another than his modified h's.

Next comes an alternative alphabet that as actually been used in schools. Initial Teaching Alphabet (ITA) was invented in 1961 by Sir James Pitman, whose grandfather also invented a shorthand alphabet. It has 44 letters, which includes Latin letters as well as letters for sound blends, etc. It is meant to be taught to little ones just learning to read in the hopes that it will be less confusing than traditional orthography. The hope is that they will learn the basics of reading with ITA and then have enough interest to make the switch to traditional reading and writing themselves. There are also rumors that it helps with reading disorders such as dyslexia and dysgraphia. In practice, it does seem to help with spelling, and even comprehension somehow, but only temporarily. The problem comes when it's time to switch to the “adult” alphabet, which confuses almost all of the students who had just gotten the hang of one system of writing and are now thrown into another that is very different. Not to mention the students who were on their way to reading normally with help from their parents at home but were completely left behind in the classroom. ITA also lends itself to spelling errors later in life to those students that relied too heavily on spelling words exactly as they sounded.

ITA seems to have started off with a good basic idea, considering how difficult reading and writing is to very young children. The trouble lies in the tradition, which doesn't seem to be very well thought out. It was originally mildly popular throughout England and parts of Australia and the United States, but is only rarely used today, probably because, apart from confusing students, it is an expensive program to fund, as the class requires all new textbooks. I haven't seen many instances of ITA text, so I can't speak on the appearance, but the letter system, despite all of the hype about it, still isn't perfect. K and C both appear in the alphabet, still making the same sound, and some sources list a backwards Z (as in 'daisy,' they claim) which seems to make the same sound as a regular Z.

Finally, I have saved the best for last. A system called Unifon was created by Dr. John R. Malone in the 1950's to, you guessed it, have one character for “one sound.” It lends itself to reading so precisely, it has been compared to a pronunciation guide in a dictionary. The letters are familiar, using 23 letters of the traditional alphabet and creating 17 more that are very similar to their traditional counterparts. There are three ways to say the letter A, as I have mentioned before, and in Unifon, all three look enough like capital A's that you can tell that they are going to make an A sound, but are different enough that once you learn the difference between the three, they can be easily distinguished. With minimal practice, you can read any Unifon text, and once you can read it, the transition to writing is simple because every word is spelled exactly as it sounds.

Like ITA, Unifon was created to be used as training wheels for young children just learning to read and write, but unlike ITA, Unifon has an easy transition plan into traditional English. Because the letters look so similar to the “adult” alphabet, the only things a student needs to adjust to is the weird spelling rules and lower case characters. Proponents of Uniform claim that it's just as useful to ESL and illiterate adults as it is to children, and that children can master the system in three months, while English-speaking adults can become fluent in less than one week.

I truly see this as the best form of alternative orthography because of its simplicity and familiarity. There are no redundant letters for once, and 40 does seem to be the magical number, at least in today's American English. For some reason, since it's creation, Unifon has been used in few schools with even fewer professional writings about it, most likely because it has been outshone by ITA. Most of its proponents seem to be non-activists on the internet that don't put their love of the system into effect in the real world. Therefore, I don't see it, as someone on the Unifon website declared, overcoming traditional orthography any time soon.

Notice: As a teacher in a public school, it is not my agenda to teach alternative orthography. However, as an educated instructor, I wish to be informed of different methods of teaching.

Sources:
Onmiglot
Wikipedia
Unifon Homepage

Whole Word vs. Phonics

Consciousness and day-to-day life is something that I awoke to around when I was six years old. Before that, everything seems hazy and dream-like. I don't remember learning to read, because it must have happened before this time. What I do remember though, is a big emphasis on phonics. The Hooked On Phonics commercials are forever implanted in my mind, “1-800-ABCDEFG, Hooked on Phonics works for me!” A typical problem-solving technique that I use or would tell someone to use if they didn't know a word is, “Sound it out,” which is the basics of what the Phonics method tries to teach. This is the only way that I knew how to teach reading.


So imagine my surprise when I began my co-op career last year and was introduced to a new concept, Sight Words. What? Words that kids just automatically know? It sounded like a cheat sheet. It sounded like teachers weren't teaching reading anymore, they were GIVING students the answers! I was repulsed.


Since then, I've done a little research on the Whole Word vs. Phonics debate, and while I haven't fully accepted it, I understand some of the theory and reasons why it is taught.


The Whole Word (also called Look-and-Say) approach to reading has been around since the 1830s, when it was invented by Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet. A number of popular children's authors have written using this technique, including Dr. Suess and William S. Gray, the author of Dick and Jane. It is a theory based on memorization, rather than learning specific sounds of letters.


There are instances where I see this method as being completely acceptable, specifically in cases where words don't follow the rules of phonics like weird letter combinations (au in aunt), or silent e's, or when to use a 'k' or a 'c'. When is a vowel pronounced as a long or short sound? English is a difficult language full of anomalies and exceptions. Rules to reading English are complex college-level material certainly not fit for a kindergartener. Teaching reading is a daunting task indeed!


I still maintain that sight words seem like the easy way out. There is only so much that a child can memorize. In my limited exposure, students don't fully understand the reading that they learn through the Whole Word approach. In a class where I work, kindergarteners are given four-page books with lines of simple sight words to read. For instance in one, the pages said “It can go fast” and “It can go slow” and showed pictures of fast and slow boats, cars, and trains. The students read the content of the book fine, but the problem came with the title of the book, “Fast or Slow.” No matter how many times I asked, every one of them told me that the title was “It-can-go-fast-it-can-go-slow.” When given these sight word books, the children aren't reading the words in front of them! They are merely memorizing and reciting.


But what more can you ask from a five-year-old, I suppose. A five-year-old not involved in the Whole Word method couldn't be asked to read even minimal word books like that, could they? At the very least, I see one major benefit of this strategy: children gain the confidence to read. They can go up to their mothers and say, “Look, I can read!” even though they are reciting four simple lines that they repeated 15 times in class. They are no longer hesitant about books, and have the basic knowledge of how letters form words that they can use when they are older and ready to actually learn phonics.


Schools today use a combination of Whole Word and Phonic approaches, and I need to learn how to work with both if I am to be as effective as possible. Here are two fantastic ideas about sight words that my school uses:


Sight word game: Write the sight words on one set of notecards. On another set of note cards, write action words in which to perform while spelling the words: clap, dance, say in a spooky voice, say in a kings and queens voice, sing, etc. One student at a time will pick from both piles, and all of the class spells the word. For instance, if the word was blue, and action word was “Say in a spooky voice,” the students (as well as the teacher, modeling for the shy ones) say in their scariest voices, “B... L... U... E... That spells blue~!” Be careful, this game makes kindergarteners VERY bouncy!


Sight word practice: Rainbow words. Little ones need all the practice they can get with writing, especially sight words. Write the sight words of the week (I've seen it done in a crosswords fashion, just to make it look more like a game), photocopy, and have the students trace the letters in different colored crayons. It's a great way to practice spelling (or just tracing the letters, for those that need a little more help), and the kids will think it looks pretty.