Restless Reading Syndrome

libraryRestless Reading Syndrome. I made the term up because I get it sometimes in between books.

You might know the feeling. You’re not sure which direction you want to go in — whether toward the breezy ease of a YA book or the chewy challenge of a classic — so you cast about, reading opening sentences of this book and that before casting them aside.

That’s where I’m at right now in the dwindling days of the school year, having just finished the cleanly-written but frankly-depressing Graham Greene novel, The Quiet American.

I do not lack for books in my “To Be Read” pile, that’s for sure, but TBR stacks often reflect past moods and passing enthusiasms. For instance, I went through a reflective phase over the winter — the perfect season for it — and bought Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace, Fanny Howe’s Indivisable, and St. Augustine’s ancient showstopper, The Confessions. Cheerful stuff, eh? I’ve set them aside for another time when Contemplation raps at the door.

If I’m in the mood for memoir, there’s Out of Egypt by André Aciman sitting here. A definite maybe, as the saying goes. What about Les Miserables? I said I’d read that hefty doorstop this summer, and the summer equinox is but six days away…

Nah.

In the well of my nightstand sits Theodore Zeldin’s An Intimate History of Humanity. At one point, it looked like a fascinating slant on history. At this point, though? Gimmicky.

And all these swift opinions without having even sampled all of these titles. But that’s one of the hallmarks of Restless Reading Syndrome. You grow unreasonably fickle, like a pouting child at the library who refuses to look at the picture book his cheerful mom keeps trying to read to him.

Last night I visited the bookstore, like a hypochondriac pining at the apothecary. I picked up Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s long historical fiction about Henry VIII. But really, do I want to put up with an ego like Henry’s at a time like this? No and thank you.

Then there was a new book by Dan Brown, Inferno, but I haven’t even read any old books by Dan Brown. Still, I appreciated the allusion to Dante. Restless Reading Syndrome is like the sixth circle of hell, after all. I see Virgil on the cliffs mocking me from afar, shaking his learned head.

Ah, well. In the immortal words of the proverb: “This too shall pass.” It always does. I settle on something (or other) and the floodgates break open anew, washing me in words, renewing my soul, baptizing me once more into the world of books.

It’s just, for now, I can’t find a candidate to get me there. It’s lying around somewhere, though. Maybe on a bookshelf. Maybe on my little-used Kindle. Somewhere, somehow, a book has my name on its lips — its warm hand outstretched, waiting for mine, patiently biding time before we take some memorable stroll together.

Meantime, if you have any great recommendations, let me know.

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

How Am I Doing? Feedback for Teachers

feedbacksYes, feedback tells us where our students are in the learning process at any given moment, but what about feedback for where teachers are in their learning curves? We are constantly learning, right? This means every day is Halloween. You guessed it — we’re all dressed as walking oxymorons (teacher learners) every day we burst through those doors and prepare to say good morning to our bosses (the students, not the administrators).

If you’re interested in how you did this year, you can use The Measures of Effective Teaching Project’s teacher survey some time before the close of school. For us, that’s the last week of June, thanks to the one-two punches of hurricane days and snow days. Global warming — you gotta love it! Puts your backs to the July wall, it does.

The METP, compliments of the Bill Gates Foundation, measures teacher performance via the so-called “7 Cs”: care, control, clarify, challenge, captivate, confer, and consolidate. Items on the survey come in pairs under those Cs in that exact order. Thus, numbers one and two are “care” prompts, numbers three and four are “control” prompts, etc.

An anonymous teacher survey on these fourteen points will provide a quick snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses — feedback that can lead to corrective action for next year. Introduce it seriously and tie it in with everything you’ve been preaching about constructive criticism during peer reviews in writing. The students will rise to the occasion and circle numbers with honesty (a kind of pencil, you see).

Sure, you may get outliers either way — students who mark you high on all counts because they have Eddie Haskell Syndrome, and students who use it to settle some scores, but the bulk of the responses are what you’ll be interested in. Trust me. The data will enlighten.

Some teachers like to add questions on the back for elaboration. This can be as simple as soliciting comments or asking students to be specific by commenting on the two highest and the two lowest ratings. Of course, handwriting has a habit of routing anonymity, but students can be told to write differently if that is a concern.

Worried about your tender ego? Don’t be. You’ll get more positive than you expect. Like a sixth sense, students know effort when they see it. And they appreciate it in their way. You’ll never know it unless you ask for it. That and where you still have further to go. Thus, the two-way door we call feedback.

You know what they say: What’s good for the goose is worth a gander. Or something like that….

 

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

All in the Family — Idea of the Week #71

birthJust back from the Great State of Vermont (motto: “Keep Vermont Green — Bring Money!”), and I bought half the cheddar cheese and maple syrup stock in the state — just in case a hurricane strikes and we are reduced to the bare necessities. Being surrounded by family this weekend reminded me of how much we love to talk about them (behind their backs as well as to their faces). And, as talking and writing are first cousins, such discussion brought family-related topics to mind. It was a nice piece of synchronicity, then, when I got home and stumbled upon this opinion piece on being an only child published in the New York Times.

In my experience, kids who are born to large families fantasize about being only children and kids who are only children dream about having a dozen brothers and sisters. It’s similar to the thoughts married and single people have — if you’re single, the grass looks greener on the married side of the fence; if you’re married long enough, you begin to look back at the singles side of town and reminisce.

I would love to be more scientific about this by interviewing my students about their opinions on being part of a large or small family, but why do the heavy lifting for them? After reading and marking up the Times article, I’ll hand out clipboards and paper and have the students interview each other. For starters, I’ll provide these questions:

  • How many brothers and sisters do you have? Do you think the number is about right, or would you prefer more or less? Why? What about the genders of your siblings? Are you happy with the mix, or would you prefer a different ratio? Explain.
  • If you’re an only child, do you like it? What are the advantages and disadvantages? If you could have a sibling (or many siblings), how many would you want and what would be the brother-sister mix?
  • What are the advantages to being part of a large family (if you have one)? If you’re an only child, what do you think the advantages are?
  • Do you think you’ll get along better or worse with your siblings as you grow older? Why?
  • How do siblings help or hinder your relationship with your parents?
  • What traits would you guess are typical of first borns and only children? Of middle children? Of youngest borns of the family? Why?
  • Your turn: Generate three more questions on this topic — ones that you are genuinely curious about and want answers to from classmates.

From here, students can read and mark up the Times article. After discussing the author’s opinions and comparing them with responses to the class interviews, students can take a look at this simple article on birth order from Dr. Oz’s web site. The culmination of this activity? Have your only children in each classroom take center stage for follow-up questions mixing results from the article with content from the articles. Then find the student(s) with the largest number of siblings and give him or her the same royal treatment.

Your students will enjoy the reading, the interviewing, the writing (if you assign a brief expository piece where they state their findings for the school paper or another authentic source of publication), and, most of all, the attention.

Heck, it doesn’t matter where you are in birth order, attention is a precious commodity — #3, in fact, behind cheddar cheese and maple syrup.

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

Variation on Letters To Next Year’s Students

comicSome of our students are wise beyond their years. I once told a class that today we would be writing letters to next year’s 8th graders. After explaining the assignment thoroughly and answering any questions, I gave the class around a half hour to write. One boy finished early. Very early. His paper was as white as a fair-weather cloud with blue contrails through it.

“Trouble?” I asked. “Stuck?”

“Nope,” he replied. “Done.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I wrote my letter — see?” He pointed below the “Dear Incoming 8th Grader” greeting to where he had written a single K. “It’s a letter.”

I mulled this over. “But you chose the wrong one,” I finally said. “That K earns you another single letter. Can you guess which one?” He smiled. Alphabet humor struck a chord. And ultimately, his joke having won its audience, he went on to write his letter — many of them, this time.

You need not wait for a wise guy to appear out of the East with some novel take on this assignment, however, to see it in a different light. Instead you can get the same information by offering creative students like him a variety of genres to work in. Allowing choice plays to the students’ strengths. It will also add variety to the opening week of class in the fall — the one dedicated to new students reviewing “graduated” students’ takes on the 8th-grade curriculum, teacher, routines, assignments, papers, required books, etc.

Using the same criteria found through the linked post above, here are some options you can offer. Know, however, that the assignment may take more time in some cases.

  • If you have artistic students, give them the period to create a multi-paneled cartoon. One character will serve as a “guide” to another who is visiting 8th Grade Land (or some other creatively-named place). Key information will be provided by speech bubbles above the cartoon characters’ heads or at the bottom or the panel. Hopefully you will like how you’re depicted in the comics!
  • If you have poetic types, let them explain the highlights and pitfalls of the year in a poem. It can rhyme, sure, but free verse will give your young poets more elbow room. While explaining a few terms they learned this year, the poets might even mention enjambment while practicing it.
  • Students love to talk. It follows that they might like writing this assignment as a script. Tell them it’s perfectly all right if they make you a character, but remind them that you will be reading the play before opening night. Next year, you might even put a few new students up front to perform the skit. You need only make as many copies as there are characters.
  • A speech would be great, but how can you get your old students back? The solution? A podcast saved on your computer. If you have the technology, I’m sure a few radio fiends would love to write something (in class) they can record (at home) and e-mail in.
  • Speaking of technology, if you have the cameras and something like iMovie, a group of students can write a script to be filmed. Yes, they can even provide a tour of the very room your new students will sit in next year. Like Alfred Hitchcock (only a lot thinner), you may make a cameo appearance if you wish. Soundtrack is optional, but fun.
  • Students could write a children’s book with minimal illustration. I envision a journey, where the brave protagonist (read: author) journeys through forests of papers, swims lakes of speeches, climbs mountains of books, and ultimately reaches a rewarding goal at the end of the trip. Stapled together, this simple yet alluring book would make a fun read for next year’s crew.
  • In the same vein, students could work in groups to produce an alphabet book. Each student gets a set of letters to draw, minimally illustrate, and write a caption under. “O is for the Opinion Column you will write on a current event.” “P is for Ponyboy, a boy who likes movies and books. You will meet him in The Outsiders.” Watch out for the letter Z: “Z is for sawing wood, which you will do a lot of during MCAS practice. Zzzzz.”

As  you can see, the variations are as infinite as your considerable imagination. And let’s face it, you have to have an imagination to get into this business. That and more patience than a doctor (play on words for you…).

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

What’s in a Name?

babyIs it sinful to ruminate about September in June? As they say in Rome: “Mea culpa, my friends.”

It happens like this. I’m reading some on-line newspaper or other, and I come across an article that would go well with an existing assignment — either one I use religiously each year or one I go to when I’m in the mood every other leap year.

In this case, I stumbled upon a neat piece about baby names that reminded me of the assignment I often give to students on Day One of the new school year. I pass out copies of Sandra Cisneros’s “My Name,” a vignette in The House on Mango Street, read it aloud, then discuss it a bit.

It includes the famous passage uttered by a little girl named Esperanza: “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing. It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine.”

Later, she adds: “At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. but in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name — Magdalena — which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

“I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.”

Analysis, however, is not the primary purpose here. Writing is. I read with the students, discuss a few examples of figurative language to see how much they recall coming in from seventh grade, then assign a one-pager for homework. Many students silently react, “What? Writing homework on the first night?” But they never speak up. It’s the first day, remember. Everyone is a church mouse.

Then the Evil English Teacher drops the other shoe: “By way of introduction, you will be standing before the class and reading these aloud tomorrow. I will call on three listeners after each paper is read. Their job is to point out favorite passages, brilliant sentences, or great examples of word choice.”

The church mice try to keep their best poker whiskers, but alarms are blaring inside their eighth-grade heads, I can tell. But really, it all goes smoothly the next day and, after an outgoing type has broken the ice by volunteering to be first, fun is had by all. Better yet, I learn a lot about my new crew of students — and quickly.

What questions do I send them home with on that first night? Ones like so:

  • Interview your parents. Find out how you got your name. Were other names in the running? Why were they not chosen?
  • Do you like your name? Why or why not?
  • Does your name have a special meaning in another language or culture? If so, what is it — and is it a match with your personality?
  • Do you prefer traditional names or rare ones? Why?
  • What nicknames have you been tagged with? Do you like them? Why or why not?
  • If you could name yourself, what names would be in the running? Why?
  • Read over Cisneros’s metaphors for Esperanza’s name. Then come up with some original ones for your own. What are some words that you associate with your name? What is it like? How does it compare to your brothers’ or sisters’ names? It’s OK to mimic Cisneros’s sentence structure for this paragraph of your paper. Just make your metaphors new and interesting.

Generally, I tell students they can pick and choose which questions they wish from the list. Some choose to do all of them and use them as structural guides for paragraphs. No one ditches the assignment and comes in empty handed. This is the first week of school, after all. Plus they are being called up to center stage. No one likes to say, “I don’t have my homework,” in front of everyone else and the teacher during the first week of school.

This assignment wins the “100% Genuine” sticker — kind of like the “Organic” label at the market. For students, it’s interesting to write about themselves. Which brings me to the article linked above. It, too, is interesting. This Social Security site is addictive unto itself. What names were popular when? You can watch your name climb and fall like bulls and bears on a Dow Jones chart. My name, big in the 60s, is in hibernation with the bears, for instance. Probably for good.

Bottom line: I now envision this assignment growing. Night One: Read the on-line article. Write down three things you learned or found interesting. Follow at least three hyper-links found in the article. Add three more cool facts you picked up for each of those leads. Bring this list to class for sharing tomorrow. Night Two: Do the writing assignment as detailed above (where I used to start).

You see, after discussing the article, with everyone excited about the topic of baby naming, giving them the “My Name” assignment will be a natural. Same thing, yes, only on the heels of this ice-breaking newspaper article. There might even be less sturm and drang, which in German means “outright panic,” when they are told they will be orators before the class the next day.

So there you have it. And don’t you just love it when the first couple days of planning are done for you? The syllabus can wait during the first week, as can the classroom expectations. Let them idle at the syllabus stop or something. It’s better to model expectations through instant work ethic, listening (to each other) skills, and respectful feedback. That’s “Show vs. Tell” for teachers, my friends. They say that in Rome, too. Only in Italian.

(And now back to our regularly-scheduled June….)

 

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

Clichés and the Movies ~ Idea of the Week #70

fastsI have written before about student similes that are so tired they look like they just ran a marathon in 90-degree heat. Hey, it’s where we all start as writers — with the comfort of the familiar.

Clichés are a young writer’s security blanket. Our job as teachers is to wean them off the warmth, to show them first how to recognize stale goods when they think of them and then how to avoid the banal through original expression. Thus does word choice help us to dodge such predatory plagues as the trite tiger, the platitude puma, and the bromide bear.

This week’s idea, an expository one-pager, taps into the topic of clichés by focusing on students’ love for the movies. Will they use them less as writers if they can recognize them as film-goers? As you will see, recognizing predictable fare in film is a first step toward noticing them in books. From their, students will reconsider their own word choices as writers.

Thus, given a chance to write on a topic they love, students will be motivated to express their opinions, whether by group or as individuals. Though you can approach this assignment in from any angle (a camera metaphor for you), here are some possible steps:

  1. Remind students of (or introduce them to) the terms “cliché,” “formulaic,” “platitudes,” “trite,” etc. Distinguish between the parts of speech and nuances in meaning; then explain how these tired and predictable words (in writing) and scenes (in television and film) occur so frequently that they become exasperatingly familiar.
  2. Focus on films by first having students brainstorm various genres (romantic comedy, science fiction/fantasy, action, thriller, superhero, cartoon, western, etc.). Provide your own example of one cliché that always occurs in one of these films by describing it in some detail. For instance, if a landing party on Star Trek includes the stars and one nobody actor, you can bet that no-name will be killed by some menacing threat on the planet before you can say “Beam me up, Scotty!” Groups may focus on one genre or more than one. If you wish, create a graphic organizer with columns — or simply have students draw columns on paper.
  3. After students meet, come back as a class to share the predictable fare as you copy them on anchor charts or type them onto the Smart Board. Students will get excited and have a few laughs as they nod and agree with each other. They might even become a bit indignant as they consider how unoriginal films they pay to see often are.
  4. Now pose the question: Why do directors and producers keep serving up such reheated goods? Is it disrespectful to audiences, or do audiences expect and even crave predictable occurrences (e.g. the good guy winning every time) when they go to the movies? Allow some academic discussion here. It’s a fun topic that will build fodder for the paper.
  5. Tell students you will share a recent CNN special feature on Clichés in the Movies. Before you do, ask students to predict how many of CNN’s clichés they came up with in their groups. This anticipatory question will make them all the more attentive as they view the slide show and say, “Yep! We got that one!” or “Of course! How could we forget that?”
  6. Now assign the expository one-pager. Tell students they are to write a 500-word column for the school paper (if there isn’t one, say the local paper) either bemoaning formulaic plot devices in film or defending them. Encourage them to write about clichés their group came up with and CNN didn’t. Better still, challenge writers to write about a new one missed by both the groups and CNN.
  7. As the teacher, you may have students write individually, in pairs, or as a group. If you go with the group, have them wordsmith together with everyone writing the same thing. Tell them in advance you will randomly call on one person from each group to stand up and read their first draft, so it is essential that everyone listens, contributes, and writes the same thing.
  8. In future classes, allow for some peer review and revision.

It’s spring, also known as Captain Video season. He’s the superhero that kids love because he rolls video in the classroom each June. But you can still teach expository writing — even in wilting heat — and generate enthusiasm among your students by visiting the topic of clichés in the very films Captain Video keeps in his DVD library. Conversely (or, additionally), you can add this to your expository line-up for next year. Students will enjoy sharing their expertise. It gives them reason to write.

The follow-ups? Fairly obvious — what applies to the movies implicates books as well. Do students notice predictable plot devices in certain genres such as fantasy, dystopia, or mysteries? What about in series? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or a somewere-in-between thing?

Discuss. Write. Help them to become discerning consumers of entertainment. It’s a doorway to critical thinking that every student can walk through and enjoy.

 

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

Teaching Writing (in Prison) ~ Saturday Book Review

notebooksI loved True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall, and now I’m going to miss it. You know the feeling. You get comfortable with an author’s voice and with his characters, you feel like you’re riding shotgun cross-country and you’re best buds, and then WHAM, you’re suddenly left roadside in Iowa while your friends speed off to California alone (where all finished books go to find themselves). Sad. Bittersweet. But, for the purposes of this review, let’s emphasize the sweet.

Maybe I loved this book because it is about an author who serves as a writing teacher in a Los Angeles Juvenile Hall where kids (mostly charged with murder) are awaiting trial. I teach writing, too, but boy howdy these guys make my public-school crew look like choirboys (and any teacher who is whining about his or her kids’ behavior should give this book a look-see, apples and oranges be damned).

Salzman brings these confused kids to life with his fine ear for dialogue. It’s especially illuminating when the boys egg each other on to write, then read aloud what they wrote. Their writings are in italics and are insightful, to say the least.

How do teenagers become murderers? Why do they succumb to the siren call of gangs? It’s all here, and while the entries are edifying, it’s the badinage that I like best. Salzman provides all of the put-downs and back-and-forths typical of teenage boys and a lot of it is lovingly vicious and hilarious. I laughed aloud more than once.

In the end, there’s a bit of sadness, though. Not just because the book is coming to an end, but because you become involved in some of these kids’ lives. Salzman is at least careful not to oversentimentalize things. He includes the perspectives of the victims and their families and often provides society’s counterpoints to some of the boys’ angry diatribes about their fates. He understands his responsibilities as an author to do so.

That said, a terrific read — unexpectedly so. Isn’t it always the way? A book you have absolutely zero expectations about takes you by storm. I’d recommend it as a summer read for teachers who feel aggrieved and picked upon. If this doesn’t provide a healthy dose of perspective, what will?

True Notebooks is also a testament to the power of writing. If you thought inspiration and reflection could not take root in prison, think again. To write is to think, and thinking humanizes us.

I like to think the “boys” in this book got that much from Salzman’s classes. In creative writing, you create yourself as much as you do narratives. It’s how souls seek both voice and moral compass.

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

Assigning Distraction as the Main Attraction

distractSometimes I’m almost Biblical in my lamentations about the scourge of modern distractions our students face each day. We want them to continue their educations at home, to make reading a part of their daily lives, to inspire them to move worlds through the power of the pen (or keyboard), yet we constantly feel trumped by the technological candy students possess. You know, the empty calories of video games, the Internet, television, and “smart” phones.

But what if we made this disadvantage an advantage and assigned students the task of writing about these distractions? The New York Times’ Learning Network’s “Reading Club” did exactly that recently when it asked students to “take a hard look at their own digital tendencies —how many texts they send and receive, how many times they check social media, how often they get sucked in to online worlds while studying, reading or even having face-to-face conversations.”

“How,” the Times asks its young readers, “do all these distractions affect your ability to interact and process information? Do you lose clarity? Do you forget things?”

This article offers some of the editors’ most interesting replies to the questions, and it set me to thinking (as most things do). Wouldn’t this make a cool expository assignment? It would provide a check on your Common Core to-do list, for one, and it has a built-in motivation factor in that students get to write about one of their favorite addictions.

In one surprising response, a student complained that teachers using technology as part of their homework assignments actually feed the beast. Unintended consequences, I’m sure, but give an ear to this student’s humorous truthfulness:

Even with the best of intentions, I often find myself dreading when I will have to turn my computer on to complete my schoolwork, knowing full well I will fall into a trap of gifs, cat-clips, and whatever outrageous maternity outfit Kim Kardashian has chosen to wear today.

Cat-clips??? This is worse than I thought — I just assumed that people gave cat videos (of all things) a wide berth. Apparently not!

Another student treats the assignment like a confessional. Her mea culpa includes ways she uses technology to try to contain her technological addictions. Talk about fighting fire with fire:

However, as much as “technology” seems to be the culprit these days, it can also provide some solutions. As I mentioned above, I think we can begin to unlearn some of the habits we’ve developed, and there are already some programs popping up that can help us do so. I’ve installed two main applications on my Mac — SelfControl and RescueTime — that are helping me with this. SelfControl allows me to create a “blacklist” of Web sites to block (my usuals are Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and Twitter) and a timer to set for when I can have access to the Web sites again. (And by “block” I mean seriously block … shutting down the computer or taking out its battery won’t do a thing.) The timer serves as a great, hovering countdown, reminding me that I should be working and doing nothing else until my next break. RescueTime runs in the background, and it records the amounts of time I spend in all of my programs, providing me with a “productivity summary” at the end of each week. This way, I can diagnose where I’m losing most of my time on my laptop. A typical working session for me involves slapping on a 90-minute SelfControl block, putting my iPhone face-down and on silent, and playing some white noise from simplynoise.com into my headphones.

Is my solution over-the-top? Maybe… but so are the distractions we live with. “Productivity in the Age of Twitter” might involve a lot of self-discipline (and perhaps a hand from some neat apps), but I think it’s possible to avoid distraction in short bursts. And maybe one day we’ll be trained enough to not need the drastic disciplinary measures anymore. There’s hope.

Using the Times responses (and linked articles) as exemplars,  you could light a fire under otherwise reluctant students, inspiring them to use the expository skills you’ve been teaching to reflect on their favorite addictions. They know it’s not good for their academic healths, yet they can’t resist.

In this case, they get to explain the problems (and delights) they face in some depth. What’s more, some will argue that the technology isn’t as big a villain as it is painted out to be. Do I see a little persuasive writing creeping in here? It always does.

Whether it is in the dying days of this school year or in the rarefied air of gung-ho August and September when school starts anew, consider the prompt, “In this day and age, is avoiding technology’s distractions an option?” Here is a list of links with just about every angle on this topic you can think of.

So go ahead. Get distracted. Then get writing!

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

English, the Toughest Subject To Teach

mathenglThis isn’t rocket science — or is it? This article from the New York Times won’t tell English teachers anything they didn’t already know — teaching reading is more difficult than teaching math, at least if scores are to be believed. The article focuses on charter schools in Troy, New York (main industry: launching thousands of ships), but I’m sure it holds true everywhere.

Things are going on in math, yes. But everything is going on in reading.

For instance, there’s the issue of vocabulary. Students have a low threshold for unknown words — hit too many and they’re like Napoleon out of Russia, sounding the retreat. And what about background knowledge? Try teaching that in a year. Sentence complexity? It may be Charybdis to vocabulary’s Scylla. Also mentioned in the article is “density of text.” I’m almost sure this has something to do with William Faulkner and James Joyce.

Here’s an interesting quote from the article: “… in the 1980s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley found that by the time they are 4 years old, children from poor families have heard 32 million fewer words than children with professional parents.” There they are again, lurking in the background of all we do — Socio and Economic. It’s why we must continue to preach the gospel of reading at home, no matter what. It’s why the ease and convenience of classroom libraries are essential to literacy.

As for background knowledge, it is broken down into cultural, historical, and social references here. How much do students understand the rich and diverse, shared references of literate people? How many middle school students (heck, high school students) would understand my allusion to Scylla and Charybdis above? Or if I said the loss we took in last night’s game was like Little Big Horn, would they understand the magnitude of our defeat?

We see the nature of the beast when we consider how much of students’ “free time” at home is sucked up by video games, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, cable television and movies, and ironically-named “Smart” phones. (“Texting” is not the text English teachers have in mind when they speak of “textual evidence.”)

So, if you feel like you have one of the hardest jobs in the world (much less the school), take a hint from Miss “I’m Nobody” Emily Dickinson and “don’t tell” — just know in your heart that it’s true. You cannot move worlds in a year. You cannot turn students into master readers and writers between September and June. But you can certainly advance their skills in dramatic ways. You are literature’s salesmen and, let’s face it, a lot of great writers have given you plenty of tempting goods to market.

Still, it’s tough. Popular culture works against you. That’s why, each morning as you look down at the dog while heading out the door, you continue to say, “Time to fight the good fight, Bowser.”

It’s what you do. It’s what defines you. You are that rare breed known as an English teacher.

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF

Secrets of the French

pamelaThe more you truck in metaphors, the more cognizant you are of their ubiquity. When I went to dog training school eight years ago to turn our  “noble savage” puppy into a civilized canine, I realized after one session that it was actually “owner training,” and that the whole exercise was a metaphor for teaching. Firmness, calmness, firmness, consistency, firmness, fairness, firmness, kindness, firmness, caring. Woof.

Now, having finished Pamela Druckerman’s (pictured with children) Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, I see that parenting can be a metaphor for good teaching, too. Treat your students like the French treat their children and life will all be magnifique (read: better than your average Monday).

Those French. They sure know how to whip a kid in shape from the get-go! If Druckerman is to be believed, French parents make French teachers’ jobs a cinch. There, the kids have the Gaul to grow up respectful, independent, considerate… and healthy (read: thin). None of this entitled, whining, lazy, rude stuff you often find in chubby America and (according to Druckerman) England. Oh, no. The French know a chose or deux (read: a lot more than we do).

How do they do it? Glad you asked. It’s the raison d’être for Druckerman’s book! I’ll just share a few highlights. Let’s start with civility, shall we? In America, “please” is the magic word, but in France, in addition to s’il vous plaît , there are three others: thank you (merci), hello (bonjour) and good-bye (au revoir).

Druckerman goes on at great length about French parents’ insistence on bonjours. All children must say it. Adults do, after all — to waiters, salesmen, taxi drivers, and anyone else they might deal with on a daily basis. “Saying bonjour acknowledges the other person’s humanity,” Druckerman writes.

She continues, “In the United States, a four-year-old American kid isn’t obliged to greet me when he walks into my house. He gets to skulk in under the umbrella of his parents’ greeting. And in an American context, that’s supposed to be fine with me. I don’t need the child’s acknowledgment because I don’t quite count him as a full person; he’s in a separate kids’ realm. I might hear all about how gifted he is, but he never actually speaks to me…

“… in France, kids don’t get to have this shadowy presence. The child greets, therefore he is. Just as any adult who walks into my house has to acknowledge me, any child who walks in must acknowledge me, too. ‘Greeting is essentially recognizing someone as a person,’ says Benoît, the professor. ‘People feel injured if they’re not greeted by children that way.’”

Unlike most of my students in the morning, this section spoke to me. I immediately thought of the fall in school when all of my new 8th graders attempt to enter their homeroom by walking by me in the hallway without a word — as if I were a stump or something. This is not OK. This is not civilized.

Where I come from (the French province called Connecticut), we greet each other when we meet. “Good morning!” “Hello!” “How’s it going!” “Good to see you!” Something! And so, I train my students. We say good morning when we meet everyday and good-bye when we part. Part of the social contract, it’s yet another example of how little things loom large in life.

Later, Druckerman riffs on French parents’ legendary strictness — at least by American standards. When she asked French parents why, many spoke of its necessity. One father offered words of wisdom that should resonate with new teachers: “We have a saying in French: it’s easier to loosen the screw than to tighten the screw, meaning that you have to be very tough. If you’re too tough, you loosen. But if you are too lenient… afterward to tighten, forget about it.”

In other words, the thought of what Druckerman calls a “child-king” is foreign to France. Who wants to negotiate, to offer alternatives for dinner, to chase them around the park, to lose an hour getting them to bed? It cannot be a happy experience for parent or child. (We’re reasonably sure it isn’t for parents, anyway.)

Reading this brought to mind students who seem bewildered when they face a teacher who does not brook any questioning of his authority. It’s clear that they rule the roost at home: that their parents get dragged into long negotiations that they will eventually lose; that their parents bend, retreat, surrender; that their parents reliably back their children up no matter what misadventure the youngsters get into. Is it any wonder these spoiled goods become outraged when they run into real authority, a person who refuses to genuflect at the altar of their entitlement?

That said, French parents pick their battles just as good teachers must: “French parents do speak sharply to their kids. But they prefer surgical strikes to constant carpet-bombing. Shouting is saved for important moments, when they really want to make a point. When I shout at my kids in the park or at home when we have French friends over, the parents look alarmed, as if they think that there’s been a serious offense.”

Personally, I think a teacher should shout about as often as a driver beeps his car’s horn — almost never, and only then for safety reasons. Shouting quickly gets old and loses its value. Like milk gone bad, it curdles into whining in the ears of the students — whining that is readily ignored.

Druckerman offers much, much more, including how French children learn to eat whatever is served at a very young age (vraiment!). For one, they are not obsessed with snacks and snacking. There is but one snack time for French children, the goûter, at four thirty P.M. sharp, so no teacher has to tolerate slurping and chomping while trying to teach (or while burning 15 minutes not teaching).

Of course, this assumes children are getting three meals — healthy ones, too. As a rule, French children eat fruit, not fruit roll-ups, or any other processed foods that are marketed mercilessly by Big “Food” in the States. And yes, kids in France might yearn for a snack before the 4:30 goûter, but they quickly learn the meaning of “Non!“ and the patience of waiting — valuable skills, as we know, in an adult world that doesn’t exactly cater to our every whim.

Also, the French typically serve meals in courses. This means cut-up fruit or some form of vegetable is on the table first while kids are hungriest — and they are because they are not inhaling snacks all day. Thus, as the cook (Mom, Dad, or even one of the kids when he or she is old enough) continues to work on the next course in the kitchen, les petites eat. Despite themselves, French children sample good food at a very young age and learn to like it. They do not throw tantrums and demand the same food (e.g. hot dogs or boxed mac and cheese) every night, as if the house is a restaurant and their parents are waiting staff.

I admit Druckerman’s book is best suited for young or expectant parents, but there are relevant thoughts for teachers as well. Ask any teacher who has “kids” in school and “kids” at home. It’s similar in many ways and, philosophically, parenting can be considered a metaphor for teaching. You know: Firmness, calmness, firmness, consistency, firmness, fairness, firmness, kindness, firmness, caring.

Woof. And au revoir.…

 

Print Friendly Print Get a PDF version of this webpage PDF