This is my 12th start of a school year. I enjoy this time when the new school year awaits like the potential of a blank page (or blog space). Experience has taught me well. I know that if I jump into the "meat" of the curriculum too soon my students will not be as successful. No, these first three weeks have not been about TAKS tests or grades. These first weeks have been about establishing a framework for how we will "be" in this space. What we have learned is essential to the thinking and learning my students and I will do for the rest of the year. Yes, I am starting to feel that gentle tug of anxiety because I have yet to take a "real" grade, but you know, I've decided this year, I'm going to trust the process. I teach children not content. I believe my job is to apprentice my students into the academic discourse, and for many of my students my job is to help bridge the gap between two different worlds.
I have thought quite a bit recently about translation/critical literacy, and my practice is informed by this way of thinking. This year I want to guide my students to learn to think and work together to accomplish tasks. I have been fascinated with this notion of writing as a tool for thinking, learning and getting things done. To help my students understand this way of thinking, last week, I brought in a tool box. For warm-up I displayed the open box on my overhead cart. On the broad, I wrote, "What do you notice?". I then gave each table a different tool and asked them to think together while jotting down several "noticings." After the discussion of the tools: their uses, their surface features, we discussed how writing was also a tool.
The following day, on the board I wrote "Think about this in your writer's notebook: What does 'being smart' mean? How are you smart?". I let the students guide the discussion and only intervened when "talk rules" were being broken. I wish I had videotaped or audiotaped the discussions. I was very pleased with the discussions in both my Pre-AP class and my on-level class about this topic. My students had many definitions of smart. Some students believed that being smart was being quiet, listening to the teacher, and getting their work done while others took the stance that "smart" was making good choices. A few students said that smart came for experience while others challenged this definition thinking that people were born smart. I also got a few other responses that I found interesting. One student said, "I think being smart means a lot of things. It doesn't just mean school smart either; there's other types of smart." Another student said, "I don't think there is a smart or dumb; there's just different ways to look at things." We finally talked about how one way of thinking about being smart is knowing how to use tools in certain ways. We also talked about how we all know how to do things that others might not do. I am certain my students are beginning to think about writing differently after our discussion. I think helping my students look at the practice of writing as a way to get a task done will help to demystify writing and ground my students thinking.
This notion of tool use and intelligence will be the foundation for our inquiry together. I don't believe these revelations would have been possible in a classroom operating from a decoding/analytic literacy paradigm. Now, our district is pushing grade level curriculum alignment for all subject areas. I'm resistant. If we are pushed or pulled (more like yanked) by district policy to align language arts instruction to a specific plan-- that I have to teach a specific TEK on a specific day, I don't think I can continue to stay in this profession. Math is already organized in this way, and we have yet to see improvement. We need to stop being so concerned about covering everything and trust the process. Quality over Quantity, Please!
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4 comments:
Oh, Brian, you just really made me miss being in the classroom. I loved having conversations like the one you described with my students. We had one like this last year after a student questioned why others saw those who attend our school as "stupid." They asked, "Is it because we don't do well on the TAKS test? Because, I think that test is stupid!" They continued to talk about their "street smarts" and how, in the past, they didn't even try on the test since it doesn't count in the 9th and 10th grades. I find it interesting how they protest the test by not trying.
Likewise, I find it difficult to plan with teachers who are adamant about only working under the decoding/analytic model. By not allowing kids to express their individual thinking in unscripted discussions, I think we lose them. And when education ceases to be relevant to their lives, they stop coming to school.
By not allowing kids to express their individual thinking in unscripted discussions, I think we lose them
I agree, but with some conditions, some of which rojoag hinted at in his "talk rules." In the spaces we create for students we don't necessarily want every student to express his/her "individual thinking" if that thinking makes the space unsafe for other students. Then it becomes a question of which students we lose.
I think this might also draw in our end of class discussion about students writing about "feelings." While many English teachers think that is natural, and an essential part of learning, we can perhaps identify with those parents who push back against that when we are challenged by students who bring racist, sexist, or homophobic views into the classroom.
Which means that the English classroom is an inherently political and contested space--basically ripe for transactional/critical literacy.
Me too, missing the classroom. I really like the idea of authentic questions, and noticing, and working together. I think what you're doing is more like what they'll be facing in the real world, collaborating and thinking alongside others. Plus you're doing things that they don't expect--every teacher seems to do the same kinda predictable stuff at the beginning of the year. Never underestimate the element of surprise, kids are surprisingly jaded these days and for good reason.
What a wonderful way to start the year! I love the toolbox warm-up. In fact, I may steal it from you. I relate to your comment about the impossibility of teaching under a decoding/analytic literacy paradigm. As I was reading Myers, I couldn't help but think...Thank God I entered into education when I did. Though we are often pushed towards a "one size fits all" approach, I became a teacher for those moments in the classroom where we use a piece of literature or share a piece of writing as a means of discussing where we come from and how we want to live in this world...experiences where my students have been empowered to use their voices to think, and to share, and to make a difference. After reading Myers, I have learned that although I have not always had the freedom to teach and learn in this manner, my best teaching and learning experiences have occurred when I have experienced, encouraged, and led students in the practice of translation/critical literacy.
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