I returned to Mrs. Gay's 10th grade English classes at South Portland High School for my most recent observation. In her first class, the students were working on character charts for Animal Farm, and Mrs. Gay went over how the characters in the books were based upon major figures from the Russian Revolution (she also had the class repeat the word "allegorical" together). The students were then instructed to make a poster of one character of their choice, detailing that character's external and internal traits and how they changed over the course of the story. This formative assessment wasn't being graded on artistic merit, but she encouraged the students to draw pictures on their posters and get creative. Mrs. Gay later explained to me that she tries to throw in a more "arts & crafty" project every so often, because it tends to be more fun for the students, and engagement is a little bit better than the normal essay writing exercises.
I also asked her how long she typically spends on a book, and she told me the maximum time she will give is six weeks. Any longer than that and students completely lose focus and the unit drags on too long. Also, if a student can't read a book in six weeks, it probably means they aren't going to try to read the book at all, no matter how much time they are given.
In the other class, which was beginning a unit on persuasive essays writing, she used a really cool tool called peardeck. Basically, she would pose a question on the projector (i.e. "Do you think the school start time should be changed from 7:30am to 8:10am?") and the students, via their iPads, could identify what side of the issue they supported, which would then give way to lively classroom debate. The students could also type comments, which would then appear on the screen. The class seemed to really enjoy this exercise, and it definitely sparked some interesting conversations, and best of all it worked as a perfect segue for a discussion on defending a position and finding appropriate supporting evidence. It was a great program, and something that I hope I can use as a teacher in the future. It's been interesting to see the different types of technology and programs now being used in classroom to promote literacy and writing concepts.
Wow Will! Great post! I really appreciate how your teacher is incorporating different assessments other than writing. I feel that it is important to reach every type of learner and think that changing the assessments is crucial for this! I also like how your teacher uses technology in the classroom because many students, especially in high school, are used to using their phone. We can use that as a tool to teach and connect better with the students. I find it interesting that she allows 6 weeks for a unit. That seems to be a pretty long time, but I am not that familiar with English units. I think you connect your topic nicely to some of the topics we discuss in class. We have discussed supporting evidence, key details, and defending a point. Overall, I see many of the applications of what we talk about in class, and enjoy reading your posts! :)
ReplyDeleteI’m so glad that Mrs. Gay has a limit to how long she spends on a book, because I know that when I was going through high school, spending too long on one thing made me less interested in what we were learning. I tended to also only remember what we did to “learn” the material, and I don’t actually remember what I was supposed to learn.
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