Category Archives: Literacy

My Case for Homogenous Groupings in High School

Posted by on
Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Social Issues

TBg4YM By Mark

I look with envy at my peers in the math department.

Sure, I know they have the same issues I have as an English teacher: kids who don't turn work in; hours of planning, prep, and grading to do; a state standardized test looming over our heads.

But, there's one thing they have that I really want.

You probably won't find many Algebra II students who cannot do basic work with monomials and reverse order of operations. In Geometry, the kids are all likely equally confounded at first by the mysteries of Pythagorus. In Algebra I, more often than not I think the kids at least have basic number sense.

Or, perhaps it is better put this way…

In that Algebra I class, there's probably not a kid sitting there running advanced differential equations through his head while everyone else solves for x. If that kid were spotted, you better believe that his teacher would bump him up to somewhere that he could be both more challenged and better served.

But in an English 9 class, just because their birthdays fell within a given year, a kid who can immediately spot the nuances in Scout's narration in To Kill a Mockingbird and by the end articulate how the novel is a coming-of-age tale about the collapse of childhood illusions is sitting next to a kid who still thinks Scout is a boy and Atticus is African-American.

Continue reading →

Knowing vs. Thinking

Posted by on
Education, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Mathematics

I read an article a couple of weeks ago that really caught my attention. Unfortunately, when I went back to it – or at least TRIED to go back to it, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had read it. Darn. It was about the use of technology in the classroom and how, if we aren't careful about how we use it, we might actually be doing more harm than good to our students' ability to think critically.

What technology and the use of the internet can give us is instant access to amounts of information so vast that our ancestors couldn't even have dreamt of it. Yes, I am a Google fanatic, and even as an English teacher who refuses to spell "relief" any other way, I have been known to use "google" as a verb. However, when I recently assigned my students a research project, I was reminded of how dismaying it is to see how they confuse "finding information" with "thinking" and "learning." They are great at cutting and pasting information into beautiful PowerPoint presentations or blogs or webpages. What this lost article pointed out and what I have fought against in my classroom is the ease with which technology negates the need to actually think. I require that for every sentence of fact, students are required to present two sentences of their own analysis, but often students are willing to settle for a lower grade in order to avoid the "pain" involved in activating their brain.

It reminds me of a conversation I once had with one of my daughter's elementary school teachers who felt it was unnecessary to require kids to memorize the multiplication tables or spelling lists because they would always have access to calculators and spell check programs. I tried to explain how understanding the concepts underlying the equations and word structure was just as important as being able to solve the equations or spell the words correctly, but she was in complete disagreement, stating that there are plenty of other areas where the kids can be asked to "think," and that if we skip some of the rote memorization, we can move on to more and better concepts. I understand the point she was trying to make, but recognizing patterns in equations or word formation is basic to analysis of any kind.

While we're touting the use of technology as "best practice," we have to be conscientious that we are not substituting flashy presentations and clever sound bites (or bytes) for true critical thinking, which is fundamental to the success of civilization.

P.S. If anyone read that article and could lead me back to it, I would greatly appreciate it!

I, for one, will miss the WASL.

Posted by on
Assessment, Education Policy, Literacy

The other day I was interviewed for a profile in our school newspaper. I tried to answer most of the questions from a perspective more professional than personal, and the stumper was this: “If you could have one wish, what would it be?” After an evening of pondering, I realized my answer was so simple that I was surprised it didn’t jump to my mind immediately. I would wish that every student have a desire to learn that matches my desire to teach them.

As an English teacher at a low-income high school, I know that in some cases, I am the only provider of inspiration to achieve beyond the minimum requirements; many of my kids have grown up with little or no intrinsic motivation to be high achievers in school. How does this relate to WASL? When my tenth graders heard that the WASL was going to vanish, I heard questions that astounded, confounded, and frustrated me. One young man asked, “Does that mean we don’t have to write any more essays?” The question itself drew a cheer from his peers. The fact is, the WASL provides a measurable and achievable extrinsic motivation that many of my students need.

Continue reading →

Sam I Am Meets the Teacher

Posted by on
Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Literacy

by Tom

I’ve always believed that preparation is the best way to compensate for an inability to improvise. Improvising in the classroom scares me. Which is exactly why I tend to be somewhat extreme in regards to lesson preparation. I still engineer every lesson to the minute, even after twenty-four years on the job.

That includes our 30-minute silent reading time. I carefully teach my students how to select books from different genres at their independent reading level. I make sure they have time to share and tell about their books, I make sure to give them lessons on decoding and comprehension strategies. I do everything I’ve heard I’m supposed to do to make the most of this 30 minute time. And it works pretty well.

Well, almost…

Continue reading →