Polarizing Debates in English Class

One of the best parts of teaching English are the discussions and debates in class about the literature.  My Juniors classes had some energetic, lively, and loud debates about some issues that arise in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  In Education circles, this strategy is called Polarizing Debates, where the topic chosen has no right or wrong answer and can put just as many people on one side of the issue as the other.  The goal when debating is to state why you chose the side you chose, but also to try to get those on the opposing side to switch over to yours through your compelling argument. 

We debated issues such as the responsibility of parents, the root of evil and whether or not people are born evil or benevolent, and who is the bigger monster in the novel:  Victor Frankenstein or his creation.  Students would walk into class and the first thing they would say is, “Are we debating today?”

 Now as I move to Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations with those same Juniors and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with my Sophomores, I look forward to more and more debating.  I hope to debate issues such as their own expectations and aspirations in life and whether or not money is required for happiness.  I teach at a school where expectations are, in fact, high.  So, it is definitely an interesting discussion to see how my students will respond to where Pip and Gatsby went wrong in trying to achieve wealth.  I have a feeling there are going to be some very spirited discussions.  I can’t wait! 

Selling the Romantics



If any non-English teachers has ever wondered what it is like to teach Romantic Poetry…I can tell you that it is very similar to being a Used Car Salesman.  I mean, why bother with something old, unstylish, and outdated when you can get the newer, sleeker, cooler model?   The one with all the snazzy buttons and things that light up….when, for pretty much 100 years, all you really need are the basics:  wheels, engine, windows, etc.  Here is where we need all the old-timers to help me spread the “they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to” sentiment. 

It really is the same with Romantic Poetry.  Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Emerson, Thoreau and many others were just trying to say what these following memes are trying to say now:

 

 

To them, nature was something we were sometimes “out of tune” with and that we had “given away our hearts” for the acquisition of things.   Today’s generation with their faces in their phones need to be reminded of Thoreau’s famous lines “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” 

Here is an article that proves what these Romantics were saying all along about nature being a teacher and a healer:

Doctors Explain Why Going On A Hike Changes Your Brain. How It Works Is Fascinating
http://www.wimp.com/what-hiking-does-to-the-brain-is-pretty-amazing/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=story/

 The bottom line is that the used car can get you to the same place as the newer one can.  Truth is, sometimes I want the new car, too.  There are some fantastic modern poets out there.  That’s the awesome things about both poetry and cars, they can both get you from point A to point B, older versions and the newer ones.  The new versions are great, but sometimes it’s best to stick with the classics. 

If only…

This week, I am reflecting on some of the things I wish could come true as we head into the 4^th marking period (yup, that means the countdown to summer vacation has officially begun).  4^th marking period means, 3 down, just 1 more to go.  We all see the light at the end of the tunnel.  But, we still have ¼ of the curriculum still to cover.  That being said, here is my

If only…

o   my students would see me and treat me exactly like they treat their coaches when it come to their writing  (*remember, I teach at an all-boys school) and I am wholeheartedly trying to “improve their game.”

o   the parents of my students would be okay with their students learning from their mistakes more and not trying to swoop in and explain to me why they made the mistake or that it was my fault that they made the mistake…can we just be cooler that making a mistake and learning from it is a critical part of education?  

o   my seniors would realize that I 100% get their Senior-itis, and even had it more that they did when I was their age…however, we still have 3 weeks left and I am not going to spend those three weeks having us all look at each other or not doing anything.  We can take it down a notch and they can enjoy their final weeks as high school students, but we are still going to do some work.

o   those same Seniors would understand that their Senior-itis is contagious!  And if we all caught it, well…

 

The Week Before Break

One of the benefits of teaching at a private school is that we sometimes get more time off for holiday breaks.  This is the last week of instruction before our 2 week Spring Break which everyone needs and deserves.  But, there are a few things that need to be considered when we do not see our students for two weeks. 

Here are some of them:

 

 

1.   They will think every day this week is the day before break.  Monday will feel like Friday.  Tuesday will feel like Friday.  Wednesday will feel like Friday.  Thursday will feel like Friday.  And Friday will feel like, well, better than Friday. 

 

2.   Students will be in state of incredulous wonder in every class where a teacher is still instructing and working through the curriculum. 

3.   Teachers will want to get any important tests, projects, etc. done before the break to avoid any gaps in learning the material. 

4.   If you add #2 and #3 together, you get teachers vigorously trying to finalize parts of their curriculum and students who either joining them in the fight or looking like cartoon figures with two question marks instead of eyes. 

5.   There will be countdowns.  Teachers will be doing the counting down more than students. 

6.   Teachers will need to decide what to assign for homework over this long break.  There are two schools of thought on this.  The first is to let break be break and let students spend time with their families without the stress of homework.  The second is to assign something that they can actually get done because they might have some time on their hands.  I do assign homework (reading or an essay) but it is not due the day they get back.  It is usually due 2-3 days after, so students can choose whether they would like a homework free break or to get it done when they have some extra time to do it. 

7.   Not only will the classrooms feel different this week, so will the hallways, the
    cafeteria, and the library.

The week before break is a certainly a special week in the school year.  In order to get to our long break, we will embrace what will be a long and crazy week.   And this year, when we get back to school after break, we will have about 2 months before summer break.  So, there will be more even more counting down.    

 

One of my favorite activities to do with my Sophomores is called Vocabulary Challenge.  The have to choose from 50-75 vocabulary words and create a story that makes sense and shows that know the meaning of the word and can use it appropriately. 


So for instance: 

     This will not receive credit:  The girl show a great deal of apathy.

     This will: By constantly rolling her eyes and sighing loudly, the girl   
     clearly expressed apathy at her mom’s lecture. 

We do this challenge once a marking and students can earn Extra Credit for using more words (and we all know how much they love Extra Credit).  I tell the students to feel free to use sports, cartoon characters, movie figures, etc. to make their story interesting.  Because of media and it being an election year, several students have even tackled satirizing politicians for their stories!

The creativity and the humor in some of these stories is the best part of it for me when I am grading them.  However, they are also upping their vocabulary game manipulating such words as charlatan, pernicious, pusillanimous, adulation, sycophant, grandiloquent, harangue, galvanize, juggernaut, just to name a few, into their stories.  (You can now also see how they can have fun in the political spectrum with these words!)  I have to place a 1 page maximum on the story or some of them would write 2-3 pages. 

Vocabulary instruction and assessment is predominantly memorization, even when we know that our goal is building.  And, we know the students making flashcards and quizlets…we tell them to!  This activity takes the assessment a step beyond memorization and it is one of the activities my students anticipate and really enjoy doing.  After I read them all, I compile a list of all of their story topics and then read 2-3 really creative or funny ones to the class. 

Here is a list of some of the story topics that they have fun writing:

o   the 1985 Celtics vs. the current Golden State Warriors

o   a noxious gas actually coming from a culinary school improperly disposing of eggs

o   a farmer trying to win the annual pumpkin competition

o   a charlatan trying to pull off a hoax on a genial couple

o   a restaurant date ending in an altercation

o   a boy who loves the WWE, but his mom thinks it is a fallacy

o   a myriad of people trying to get the new iphone

o   a letter to 007 about planting a bomb in a clandestine location

o   a yachting trip the faces a formidable storm

As you can see, they are very creative with their topics!

 

When Teaching English Becomes Math, Part 2

I knew everyone would want some news on how I was faring underneath this pile of Junior Research papers, ha ha ha!  So, here is the latest report: 

I am down to the final 17 papers to grade!  I would like to have them finished and back to students in one week, Monday, March 7^th.  So, if I read 3 a day, I can do it!  The thing is, something (or many things) will happen that will cause me not to be able to do 3 per day and I will have to redo this very complicated (for an English teacher) Math equation several times before all is said and done.

That being said, I would like to comment on the papers I have read so far.  I am so proud of my students.  Writing a Research Paper is tough!  It is extremely labor intensive and requires the components of many parts to come together in a final product.  Also, many people often forget that writing is a skill – just like shooting a basketball, ice-skating, or cooking.  Just like running, trying to lose weight, or making hand-crafted birdhouses.  Sure, there are a few people that are naturally good at it.  But, all the rest of us, have to keep at it.  We have to keep writing, keep revising, keep reading about writing, keep editing, keep brainstorming, keep going to the Purdue OWL website when we have questions about MLA formatting, keep on keeping on!  And as with most skills, the more you keep practicing, the better you get.  No, you may never be Steph Curry, Bobby Flay, or whoever is the world-renowned maker of handcrafted birdhouses, but you will get better.  I promise, you will get better. 

 
 

The papers I have read so far are very good!  I am looking forward to reading the rest. 

And now I will channel my inner-Dorothy and click my ruby slippers together, because if my Math is right, “3 per day, 3 per day, 3 per day…”   and I am done! 

When Teaching English Becomes Math

Right now, I am in the process of grading 43 rough drafts of Research Papers for my Juniors on the topic of societal fears and the hero or solutions that these fearful societies need to overcome the fears.  They are very interesting papers.  My students have put a tremendous amount of time into these papers.  I actually really enjoy reading them and providing helpful comments, suggestions, and feedback so that they can make revisions and turn in a more polished final draft. And, they are really quite interesting to read. But, the whole process becomes amazingly and ironically mathematical.  Here is how:

o   I have 43 to grade. 

o   I spend about 15-20 minutes on each paper.

o   That equals 3 papers per hour (and that is if I do not get distracted)

o   That equals approximately 15 hours to grade them.

o   Not to mention that I used a pretty specific rubric addressing 10 Research Paper Skills I would like my students to master.  I need a calculator to determine the grade.  And that is how teaching English become weirdly, insanely, and sometimes irritably mathematical.

 

And now for some funny memes and comics that may or may not make the grading of these papers easier…