Social Studies & Seating Charts

For my last observation I had the opportunity to visit Jake Long's class at Biddeford Middle School. I will be student teaching with Jake starting in January, so I was particularly interested in this visit.

Jake is the English teacher at BMS' recently created STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) Academy. Space is limited in the academy, and students must apply for entry. Therefore, the classes tend to be comprised of highly-motivated learners. Since the focus of the curriculum is towards the sciences with less time for the humanities, it means that Jake's English Language Arts class is actually a combination of English and Social Studies (and he has to teach a math class, too!). Though it is challenging to cover as many standards as would be possible if the classes were split, it does provide the opportunity to combine the subjects in interesting ways. For example, the focus of their social studies unit is understanding how different technologies impact different eras in history (from the medieval ages, through the Renaissance, to the age of space exploration), but this unit is further enriched by having the students read speculative short fiction about fantastical technology by authors like Ray Bradbury. I'm really excited to start thinking about how English and literacy lessons can connect to science and technology, so instead of finding the STEM program too narrowly focused, it is actually encouraging me to view English in a whole new light!

During this day, Jake also changed the seating charts for all his classes. He does this once a month to encourage the students to work with new people. For the new seating chart, he grouped the students based upon their book preferences. He then let the new group (4-5 to a table) decide on a book that they all wanted to read together. It was a cool idea to group students based upon the kind of books they loved to read, and the kids were visibly excited to be given the freedom to choose what book they wanted. If you make reading enjoyable, all the other stuff -- the nuts and bolts -- comes so much easier.

I am looking forward to joining these dynamic classrooms in 2017!

Propaganda & Witch Hunts

This post is from an observation at Biddeford High School, where I had the opportunity to observe three different English classrooms:

The first class was an 11^th grade American Literature class with Nick Wilson. Mr. Wilson used Google Classroom to provide resources and student documents. I found that the use of Google Classroom was a common link between all three classes I attended. Mr. Wilson reviewed the entire summary of the day’s course work (including what would be assigned for homework) at the very beginning of class so that students could ask questions before diving into the individual assignments. Following this overview, students broke into small groups to work on vocabulary exercises. Mr. Wilson was frequently encouraging his students to communicate with one each other, even requesting that they make sure to say hello to one of their fellow students when retrieving their vocab books. The class progressed with an explanation on annotated reading and a video on colonial history. Mr. Wilson would often pause during his instruction to check that the class understood the concepts; this was usually assessed by a show of hands.

The second class, with Ms. Jayne Sheltra, was a 10th grade English class learning a unit on propaganda. The entire class time was spent in small groups, with 4-5 students reviewing commercials on their chrome laptops and determining what elements of propaganda would be utilized. Ms. Sheltra told me that this lesson would then be used in the larger context of learning rhetoric and in their reading of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

The final class was with Ms. Veronica Foster, where her class was about to begin Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”. She introduced the topic by activating background knowledge around the concept of “what is community” and the students’ current knowledge of the Salem Witch Trials. She then had the students go around the room to different stations that included pertinent information to the story (the town layout of Salem, religious and philosophical views of the time, etc). 

On Writing & Parents

Last week I observed tenth grade English classes at York High School. They were working on revising essays they had written at the start of the school year based upon a book of their choice that they had read over the summer. The essays had purposely been set aside for a number of weeks before being revisited, as this was an editing recommendation presented by Stephen King in his book On Writing, which the students have been reading in class. Another recommendation from the book is to keep a “writer’s toolbox”, which includes basic concepts like vocabulary and grammar, but also more complex ideas like elements of style and form. The students keep their own “toolbox”, which is basically a personalized list of the various writing rules and literary devices they can incorporate into their own writing; it also serves as a place to track their own writing strengths and weaknesses.

            I think the toolbox is a helpful exercise for the students to self-assess their own writing, and I am a fan of On Writing myself. I actually love to read books on the craft of writing, in general, and I think it would be wise to expose the students to other examples of the genres. Even though Stephen King’s book is very good (and he is a very well-known and successful author), it is clear from reading many different “how to write” books that every author has their own strategies and advice, and every novice writer has to find the style and methods that work best for them. By just studying one book, I would be worried that a student might feel constricted by trying to emulate King’s approach to writing too exactly. As we’ve learned, differentiation is key, and it is important that students be exposed to multiple methods of learning.

            However, that is a relatively minor complaint, and I think the main thrust of the lesson is beneficial for producing better student writers. The students also each write a letter to Stephen King at the end of the unit, which is a nice way to make a further connection beyond the walls of the classroom.

            In between classes, I spoke with the teacher about the school’s grading system, as York High School still grades on an A-F scale, in contrast to the other schools that I have been in that are moving to a standards-based assessment approach. The teacher said that one of the biggest obstacles to changing the system is the parents, who seem primarily concerned about getting their children into college, and don’t want to rock the boat with any changes to the grading system that might impact those chances. I asked her if she generally found the parent-teacher relationship to be a difficult dynamic. She said, in most cases, it is very respectful as long as there is frequent and proper communication. Most of the time she said the parents just want to make sure that you actually like their child. It was another good example of how important it is to foster kind and empathetic relationships as a teacher.

Craft Time & Peardeck

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.

Essay Editing & Apathy

I have been observing various school districts in an effort to see which one would be the best setting to complete my student teaching in the spring. Most recently, I observed a ninth grade English teacher's classes at York High School.

The class began with a review of a short story that the students had read for homework. Before the teacher got into the specific questions about the text, she asked them what they thought of the story and if they liked it. I thought it was a good way to get them talking about the book. Too often teachers don't even bother to ask if their students like what they are reading; though as we learned from the "Garfield Survey" exercise, enthusiasm for reading is one of the best predictors for success.

Most of the students had enjoyed the story, which was an ironic twist on a classic fantasy tale where the dragonslayer ends up eaten by the dragon. The questions that the teacher asked about the specific characters and themes in the story served as a quick formative assessment of the students' grasp on what they had read.

Following this exercise, they moved onto editing essays that discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the literary devices in a novel they had read for independent reading. The teacher provided them with a checklist of what an exemplary essay should include. It was a good way to set expectations, so that they can provide the best work for their summative assessment (in this case, the completed essay).

The teacher also made a point of telling the students that for their initial draft the most important thing was structure. They could even use boring language (like "firstly", "secondly", and "thirdly") as long as the structure was correct, and that they would work on incorporating more creative language in a separate step. It was a good reminder that sometimes you have to work on once concept at a time, instead of trying to get your students to get every element of an assignment right on the first try.

One of the classes was co-taught by a special education teacher, as this particular class included nine students (out of a total of 19) with an IEP. Unfortunately, the special ed teacher was absent that day, so a substitute was filling in and I didn't get to see how that dynamic typically worked. I would be interested in learning more about how teachers and ed techs works together and communicate to address student needs and assess their progress.

In my conversations with the teacher afterwards, she said that one of the biggest challenges that she runs into is student apathy. She has moved to having students do more work in class instead of as homework (over half of the class was given over to letting the students work on their essays while the teacher went around the room to help them individually), because a lot of the students won't even bother to do the work otherwise, and then there is nothing to assess! It's gotten to the point where the parents are also making excuses for the kids, saying that they don't do their work because they are "tired". The teacher thinks it is a growing problem, and is unsure how to address it.

Memoirs & Small Moments

For today's observation I sat in on three 10th grade English classes at South Portland High School. Even though I was observing students at the secondary level, many of the basic concepts of early literacy applied to this environment. For example, the students will soon begin working on memoirs, and one of the challenges poised by the teacher was to zero in on a small moment and stretch out those details into a compelling story, just like we are now doing in our own class!

To prep the students for this assignment, the teacher first had the class read conclusions from three sample memoirs (one-page memoirs written by students from an earlier class year), and evaluate and rank the conclusions relative effectiveness. After a short, classroom-wide discussion, the students were then given the full one-page memoirs to read. They then assessed the conclusions again in the context of now knowing the full story.

As part of a formative assessment, the students turned in a paper with their comments on each of the conclusions. The teacher also made the point that in order for the small moment to succeed as a piece of memoir writing it should lead to a change in the author or new understanding or result in the transition to another stage of life. It was a great way of illustrating how the basic idea of stretching small moments, which can be learned in elementary school, can also be applied to the secondary level when more advanced ideas, like memoir writing, are being discussed.

Another nice organizational touch I observed is that the teacher had posted all the English learning targets for the semester up on the wall of the classroom, and then put arrows by the current skills being covered. It was a great way to show the overall goals of the class and how these concepts interrelate, while still focusing the student attention on what skills are being covered in the moment.