We're Done Reading the Book, but Our Learning is Just Beginning

Since Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury has been a part of the Accelerated English curriculum for six years now, I have always wanted the students to do a project with the allusions in that book. The time has come for my dream lesson plan to be scheduled into an actual unit.  

For a quick summary, Guy Montag, the main character in Fahrenheit 451 is a firefighter in Bradbury's dystopian novel set in a future time of war. Firefighting has evolved to burning homes with books and even the owners if they refuse to leave their books behind.Throughout the course of the novel, many literary allusions are casually tossed around like frisbees just out of reach of the students' perception.  So after we finished reading the entire novel, it was time to teach them how to catch those allusions.  

First, students were individually assigned a set number of pages from the book(to avoid repetitious subjects), and they had to individually post allusions found on schoology.com under the discussion section so all students can access this information. 

From the students findings, I created this task to kick off the next phase of the project:

Directions:  Choose a pair listed below.  Research them. Find out pertinent information (who, what, where, when, why as best you can.  In your own words, post your information as a comment beneath the subject on the Schoology.com discussion.  The goal is for others to read the discussion and find out important information about your subjects. Be thorough yet concise.

____________1.  Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Darwin

____________2.  Walt Whitman, Alexander Pope,

____________3.  William Faulkner, Arthur Schopenhauer

____________4.  Bible (Old and New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

____________5.  Hercules, Albert Einstein

____________6.  Antaeus, Aristophanes

____________7.  Luigi Pirandello, Thomas Jefferson

____________8.  George Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer

____________9.  William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln

____________10. John Milton, Gautama Buddha

____________11.  Sophocles, Mahatma Gandhi

____________12.  Aeschylus, Confuscius

____________13. Eugene O’Neill, Thomas Love Peacock

____________14.  Jonathan Swift, The Constitution

____________15.  Marcus Aurelius, Ecclesiastes

____________16.  Dante Alighieri, Little Black Sambo

____________17.  Benjamin Franklin, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

____________18.  Nicholas Ridley, Gulliver’s Travels

____________19.  Plato, Plato’s Republic

____________20.  Henry David Thoreau, Hamlet

____________21.  Thomas Paine, Cambridge

In class, I drew names out of a box and one-by-one students chose their topics (I had everyone write down who had which topic to help them all keep track).  Now students are in the midst of finding out who these people and references are.  In the next step, each student will select reading material by one of the authors or titles mentioned.  After that is completed, we will begin synthesizing all that we have gathered from the novel, the individual reading pieces, and tie it to our experiences as humans in the year 2014. Part of this process will include exploring questions like are these books worth saving?  Is knowledge of them dangerous?  Why is the society in Fahrenheit 451 so fearful to let people think for themselves, to feel their emotions?  Why is the goal to cram people full of distractions that keep them from thinking about someone other than themselves?  Is our current society like this? What does our society fear people will do? Is knowledge dangerous?

Ignorance of the allusions weakens the whole experience of reading the book. We finished reading Fahrenheit 451, but the learning is far from over.

Out Like a Lion

March 30, 2012, the last school day of the month, went out like a roaring, rampaging lion in my Composition II class.  Ironically, after yesterday's post, I thought, aaaah, I have teaching figured out.  Apparently, that idealistic arrogance was brought to humbling reality when yesterday I limped along like a first-year teacher (to those teachers who had marvelously smooth, intelligent and poised first years, please don't tell me, at least not until April). My first year of teaching was a thundering storm of natural and unnatural disasters from every possible NSEW direction combination that can ever, has ever or will ever be made, but before my post traumatic stress disordered memory kicks fully into gear, I suppose I should report yesterday's classroom failures--I do this not to torment myself, but provide examples of failure's necessity for improvement.


The day started fine.  I'd say until fifth hour rolled around, the day was a breeze.  But then came the unexpected monsoon during the dry season--chat and snack in Composition II.  I thought chat and snack would be a success.  I had promised to celebrate the end of the position paper unit filled with researching, annotated bibliographies, 12-15 page papers, pages long revision checklists--basically every English teacher's ideal unit of student growth, learning, and achievement--would be a nice transition to the next unit: the proposal to solve a problem.  So I had my 18 quotes from a variety of problem solvers copied and ready to go.  I even patted myself on the back for being a pale shade of green because I saved at least a twig from a tree by only making 25 copies, and to be 100% honest, I even expected student praise for that (I firmly believe in having high expectations so students have to rise to meet them). Anyway,  the plan included students furnishing the snacks and I proudly presenting the main dish:  the chat.  Who can resist discussing great quotes like    "The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. (John Foster Dulles, Former Secretary of State) or "Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?'" (Marcus Aurelius).


Students dropped off their snacks before school, and one brought little smokies in barbecue sauce.  The smells made the other classes hungry when they entered the room.  I expected to hear students wonder why I was so mean to them and never allow food in their classes which is why I reminded the freshmen in homeroom that we have birthday treats and the freshmen in class about our "Inner Party" party after we finished reading 1984.  I ignored the sunshine's blatant sign of the most destructive storms that ever hit the classroom causing treacherous ruin to lesson plans and irreparable damage to students' delicate attention spans:  beautiful spring weather on Fridays.


Fifth hour is right before lunch.  The students prepared their buffet.  I was even smart enough to have students hand out the chat sheets. Thoughts of life's pleasantness rolled through my mind just as the summer breeze pushes clouds aside to clear the sky. Then the freeze pops started dripping, the cup of barbecue sauce had to be confiscated so a student would not get paid $5.00 to drink it during class, the glass of Hi-C punch had to be wiped off the floor.  Granted, students did share an example or two about selected quotations, but then food returned to being the lesson plan.  The students were happy and helpful; all was not lost.  Messes happen. Plans change.  I decided how to modify 7th hour's chat and snack to meet the Iowa core. Winston Churchill's wise words  "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" moved me forward with renewed energy.

The bell rang, lunch  was eaten.  I looked forward to the next class being conducted in a discussion-friendly circle of desks.  This time we set up the buffet, I passed out the chat sheet, we discussed for ten minutes.  Full of the confidence I feel when a weather warning times out, I sent the students to the decadently sweet banquet of student-brought cupcakes, ice cream cake, donuts and sugary HI-C.  They came back to our circle.  They ate.  They talked.  They talked.  They talked.  Discussion in the school setting of course means one person talks and everyone else listens.  But they talked without even expecting a response.  They talked. They talked. There was NOOOO listening happening. Sure, I quieted them down, but the same pattern returned.  I refused to cower to this storm; my mind returned to solution mode.


The entire 8th hour class must have skipped lunch because the students were downright angry when I told them we had to chat for twenty minutes before their buffet could be gobbled.  After holding my ground, and sending a student back to his seat when he impulsively rose to cut the rest of his fudge, students halfheartedly followed my directions while saving their glares for me and their attention to the food table which held center stage in front of their eyes.  Finally 2:20 rolled around, and my deep disappointment in the entire Composition II chat and snack failure was written in all of my actions and comments.  The students ate happily, and I admit it, I sulked a little. I visualized dainty tea party and intelligent conversation, not starving students gobbling food while the devastatingly most dangerous temperate spring Friday of any March 30th ever experienced in 2012 beckoned them with its advertisement that this day was not meant for scholarly discussion. But by the end of the period, the mess was cleared, the students were happy. Like the thunderstorm that breaks the humidity, the bell rang releasing the storm of open campus students to their weekend.


The day is done.  March in the classroom is done.  Marcus Aurelius's wise directive to toss away the bitter cucumber is enough to soothe the roaring lion.  As for the stormy setting to this day's events, before I headed to take tickets at the school play a beautiful rainbow filled the sky in a boldness that made me say "thank you" and reminded me to have hope in the future.  Monday is a new day, a new month, a new unit.  Learning shall return to room 67.

Why Read Shakespeare?

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012

Why Read Shakespeare?

1. Because Shakespeare will challenge you to go beyond your reading comfort zone.
2.  Because you will learn new words and phrases.
3.  Because you will have firsthand expertise at understanding Shakespearean references in songs, movies, and books.
4.  Because you will remember this literature.
5.  Because you will get used to paying attention to punctuation marks, signal words, and clever word usage in order to comprehend the complex sentence structure.
6.  Because you will get used to interpreting figurative language.
7.  Because the themes in Shakespeare's work still abound.
8.  Because you will research the references you do not understand (a.k.a. independent learning)
9.  Because even though you know how the plays end, you will be mesmerized by Shakespeare's telling of the tale.
10.  Because you can be inspired to be a word wizard in your own writings.
11.  Because there's nothing like knowing you had to work hard to comprehend, and you did it.  That kind of confidence comes only from taking on a challenge.

Schoology

Thanks to the helpful technology professional development day at SLHS on January 4th, I decided to set up a Schoology account for my students in Creative Writing and 9th hour Advisory.

Schoology is a free way to communicate with students in an online classroom of sorts, but it is more than that. Teachers control everything from who enters the class--there is a code to give to the students--to the questions and discussions online which students respond to, so the site is monitored.  It's part school because it is a way for students to individually take online quizzes, submit assignments, have discussions, etc. . . but it is also part social with a place for sending messages, updating personal biographies, and sharing pictures with their peers. If I post a question like "What were you assigned in each of your classes today?" Students can answer, and build a community of learners online. Since I'm a novice, I've only used online quizzes, assignments, inbox messages and discussions, but I look forward to learning how to use links, uploading, and more collaborative commenting features.

What I like so far is keeping in touch with my advisory group.  I teach some of these students in Accelerated English, but most of them I do not, so if I don't get a chance to conference in-person with them about their grades, homework, and questions they have, Schoology allows another avenue for me to do so. Of course there are bugs to work out, like what to post where, how to share comments, and keeping the students on task, but for the most part this site helps me challenge and communicate with the students and more importantly for the students to voice their opinions, questions, knowledge and goals.

Fall Semester 2011 Top Ten Moments

#10.  Writing recommendations for students I know will become future success stories.
#9.    Working beside Ms. Gunn, a great addition to Storm Lake High School.
#8.    Being planked during 8th hour Composition class  (I wish I had a picture).
#7.    Being amazed by the Accelerated English students' in-depth blogging assignments over five novels supplemented with current events, poetry, allusions, vocabulary and pictures. This task was nearly trumped by the My Antonia newscast done early in the semester.
#6.  Working with the first hour Elements of Writing students who researched and wrote about their interests, which created interesting writing. I learned about the Illuminati, skateboarding, dance, an underdog football player, music, the lady in black, and many others.
#5.  Teaching Introduction to Literature. The 5th hour students were a refuge in the middle of the day.  Who would have thought that explications and critical analyses during a pre-lunch class could be so relaxing and intellectually stimulating?
#4.  Having a new advisory group. It is the beginning of a four-year bond.
#3.  Watching the Composition students learn to objectively and confidently critique peer and their own written work. The profiles challenged them, but the outcome is a wonderful heirloom and achievement.
#2.  Learning what makes the students tick, and noticing how they find ways to reach the goals they set for themselves.
#1.  Being reminded once again that students want to learn.  They may complain, procrastinate, seemingly ignore, or even dread, but when it comes down to it, they want to be proud of actually accomplishing tasks they were not sure they could master.

Accelerated English Project

I dreamt up a new challenge for the freshmen, and all of it will be shared online.  It is the first time I have approached an assignment this way.  Students will have temporary blogs where they will share the nine parts of a project encompassing the five novels we have read so far this semester:  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, My Antonia, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Outsiders. 


On Friday I revealed the assignment's directions so the students will be able to come to class on Monday, grab a computer, and get to work for the next two weeks.  They will also need to work outside of class to meet all of the requirements.  I asked the students to read the entire set of directions before asking any questions aloud.  When it was time to answer their questions, the inevitable "Why?" came up.  Well, there are many reasons why.

After the initial anxiety wears off, I hope the students look closely to see what they would have missed if they had not completed this project.  I'm asking the students to find pre-1900 poetry that connects to the novels in some way. This will expose the students to literature they search for on their own, but more importantly,this will help students practice their thinking and communicating skills by sharing the connections between the novels and the poems. To counter the past, I want the students to find current (as in happened during the month of November 2011) news that reflects the issues that are found in the novels we have read.  Stories change, but conflicts humans face will always occur.  It's one of the reasons we read literature--to reflect on the causes and effects of human experiences. Poetry, news and novels have much in common despite their varied purposes.  Toss in a Works Cited, along with some well-written explanations, and the students are on their way to communicating complex thoughts in writing.  To balance all of that written work, I want the students to create a collage of pictures and then analyze what the images from the five novels reveal about their similarities and differences.  There are other parts to the project--explaining allusions, writing book reviews, and determining whether or not each book can be classified as a bildungsroman-- that will enable students to practice reading, writing, critical thinking, and researching, but they will also practice the life skills of time management, organization, following directions, and communicating with more than just the teacher.

When this project is all said and done on November 21st, I hope the students will know that there is not one right way to fulfill this task.  I also hope that the students will share their blogs with their classmates, so all can see the unique fingerprints students leave on the assignments they complete.

The students have asked me to complete this project too, but I can't start until Monday the 7th(their rules). They seem to think the task is so impossible that even I won't be able to complete in the time allotted.  But I already know they can do it.  Cheers to this project merging so much more than literature.

Good Students of Life

This year I advise twenty freshmen (and they are stuck with me until they graduate--hahahhaha).  I look forward to the day when I see each and every one of those students cross the stage to receive their diplomas.  These students, with both burdens and talents, need direction, boundaries, nurturing, encouragement, and goals to reach.  


My wish is that this year's freshmen become good students of life.  I want them to know they need to be advocates for themselves.  It is a sign of strength to ask for help when they are stuck. I want them to know that confidence comes from facing fears, from using obstacles as new avenues not dead ends.  I want them to see the moment as an opportunity, not something that can be saved for later.  I want them to use their gifts and talents with 100% effort, and if they don't, I want them to know a fresh start is only a decision away. Finally, and most importantly, I want my advisees to see they are no better and no worse than any other person.  We all have minds and hearts, hopes and worries, gains and losses, so why not treat each other with respect and open mindedness?


Good students of life show up, follow through on commitments, and have a good time doing what needs to be done because life is too short to stop being a student, which is a privilege and a responsibility that includes much more than doing homework and getting good grades.