By Kate Harpel New school year. New schedule. What’s not new is my yearly need to scrap almost everything I did previously and try something new. It’s a vicious cycle and one not made any easier by the addition of an infant. As a teacher who delights in making teen slang uncool and engaging learners with unexpected connections to the things they love (like the Fallout: New Vegas easter egg *cough*allusion*cough* depicting Indiana Jones’s skeleton in a refrigerator), I found it hard to keep up with popular culture while measuring my life in late night feedings and dirty diapers. One pop culture phenomenon, however, rose up and revolutionized Broadway--Hamilton: An American Musical. I gave Hamilton a shot with my on-track sophomores, and believe me it was not an easy sell when I announced that we would be studying a musical. We also had to have “the talk” about why writers use strong language and why this particular language was critical for the authenticity of this reimagining of the Founding Fathers; needless to say, my students didn’t mind the language. While the experience was nowhere near perfect, I found by the conclusion of the unit that my students and I had learned more than we had bargained for. At the end of the school year, I caught a few of my sophomore boys making Hamilton references, and a few remembered the rap battles fondly despite hating them during the unit. If you are willing to give it a shot... Here are a few ideas inspired by and adapted from a curriculum I purchased from TPT seller, Barraug Books and Curriculum authored by Deborah Aughey as jumping off points:
There is so much that you can do with Hamilton: An American Musical. Feel like doing character analysis? Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton are perfect foils. Want to dive into historical documents? The Federalist Papers would be excellent fodder for close-reading protocols, and The Declaration of Independence would be a great talking point for analyzing “The Schuyler Sisters” or vice versa! Want to prank your students? A strategically placed, handwritten love letter would be great for you to secretly share with the students. Take one of Hamilton’s love letters to his wife and paraphrase it so that it sounds like something the students would write; they will go ham (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself) over Hamilton affectionately calling his wife a nut-brown maid or as I called her, a Cocoa Puff. Whether you choose to give Hamilton a shot or not, consider trying something new this school year. My students much preferred analyzing lyrics and videos as opposed to classic literature, and while we still do the latter it was fun to make those text-to-text references in the year. This fall, I may not do a full Hamilton unit (unfortunately many of my sophomores have me as juniors in American literature next year), but I will certainly incorporate more media analysis in an attempt to further engage and challenge my students. Somehow we’ll make it, in the words of the Schuyler sisters: What will you be giving a shot this year? Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook!
And for the complete Hamilton curriculum that inspired this post, be sure to check out Barraug Books and Curriculum. Kate Harpel teaches English and Mythology at Hedgesville High School in Berkeley County. She is a West Virginia native, a graduate of the Benedum Collaborative 5-Year Teacher Education Program at West Virginia University, and has been teaching for the past four years. A full time mother to a one-year-old, a full-time wife, and a full-time teacher, Kate spends her elusive free-time in the company of mochas, YA literature, and Netflix.
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by Jeni Gearhart
“I am not a teacher, but an awakener”—Robert Frost What a beautiful description of the art of teaching. Teaching is the act of awakening our students to a new way of understanding their world. By sharing texts with our students and by teaching them how to analyze the world around them, we open their eyes to a deeper understanding of life. Of course, that awakening isn’t easy. Sometimes the act of teaching feels more like shaking someone in a coma. Or, perhaps we are that angry buzzing alarm clock. Either way, the act of being an awakener is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly difficult. In a college humanities class, I was introduced to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I’ll give a brief summary for readers whose memory of Plato is a bit rusty. There is a man who has been imprisoned in a cave for his entire life. Behind him is a fire, so he has seen the shadows of objects such as “man” or “horse” on the wall. One day, the man is released from the cave by another man. He is taken outside where he is blinded by the sunlight. When his eyes adjust, he sees real men, real flowers, and real animals. He sees the world as it truly is, as opposed to his former (incomplete) knowledge when he was in the cave. Do you see some connections to education? Does this make you think of any books or stories? Hopefully it does, because this archetype of awakening, or enlightenment, is everywhere. A few years ago, I decided to share Plato’s story with my AP Language students when we read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Like most dystopias, Bradbury’s novel is an “awakening story”. Through his awakening, Guy Montag comes to a different (better) understanding of the world and makes the choice to leave the figurative cave of ignorance permanently. After reading and discussing Fahrenheit 451, my students read a version of Plato’s allegory. I often give them a print text, but I also show them this video that visualizes the story (fair warning, it is badly animated, but it tells the story well). TED-ed also visualizes Plato’s allegory in this video, but it is not as thorough. As we read the text and watch the video, we discuss the following:
After the students feel comfortable with the allegory, we discuss how Plato’s allegory relates to Bradbury’s novel. Montag, too, is unknowingly imprisoned by his ignorance. He is awakened when he reads the banned texts that he is hired to burn. He is then given a “choice”, to return to his ignorance by continuing his work as a fireman, or to become a rebel. Characters such as Faber and Clarisse also help his awakening, functioning as his guides to a new reality. After discussing these connections, I ask my students to recall other stories that follow this pattern. I often share a clip from The Matrix since this shows a fairly obvious retelling of the allegory. To solidify the connection, I ask them to identify the following in their allegory connections:
All of this generally takes 1.5-2 periods. Then, the fun part. Creative writing. I do not often give my AP students time to write creatively, but this assignment is worth it: Plato’s parable, “The Allegory of the Cave”, is a very well-known story in Western Culture. Is the story still transferable to the ideas of today’s society? How would Plato tell “The Allegory of the Cave” today? Your task is to retell Plato’s story in a different context. Be creative in how you tell this story. You may make any changes that you choose, but you must make sure to include the following elements:
The stories that my students turn in for this assignment are phenomenal. Several have placed the allegory on other planets. Others have told stories of literally imprisoned characters coming to terms with their previous choices. Several have told stories of drug addicts becoming clean, or of people removing themselves from toxic relationships. One student wrote a story about a little girl who was abused as a child and thought it was “normal” until she met another family that showed her what real love was. Many students told me later that this was one of their favorite assignments of the year, not only because they got to be creative, but also because it opened their eyes to this archetype that is present in so many stories. Our goal in our classrooms should be to expand our students’ understanding of the world. We should challenge their understanding and help them to grow through the difficult process of authentic learning. In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo, “All I’m offering is the truth, nothing more . . . I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” As teachers, we do the same. We provide students with truth in the literature that we hand to them. It may be fiction, but it offers truth nonetheless. We are awakeners. What stories or experiences “woke you up”? Do you teach stories with this archetype? Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook! Jeni Gearhart teaches 10 Honors English and AP English Language at Hedgesville High School in Berkeley County. Originally from Western PA, Jeni loves West Virginia and has taught all five years of her teaching career in the Wild and Wonderful state. She a not a hipster, but adamantly proclaims that she liked coloring books before they were cool. When not wandering the internet for new teaching ideas or grading papers, Jeni likes to drink coffee and devour good books. by MK Jarvis Every good teacher reflects. We ask ourselves things such as what went right or wrong with a lesson, how could we tweak our classroom management, or could we possibly stop eating the donuts the 6th grade team insists on bringing in every Wednesday. I’ve just completed my second year of teaching, and this summer I’ve been thinking a lot about how I survived the last two years. A great administration and wonderful co-workers (with or without donuts) are definitely at the top of the list, but there have been a few master educators who have given me great advice. My first year of teaching was phenomenal. I’m not bragging. I’m was as surprised as anyone that I made it through in one piece, believe me. I heard from so many other teachers how their first year was their worst year. They told horror stories from the trenches: crummy, unsupportive administrations, back-stabbing co-workers, and misbehaving students and all their shenanigans. At times during the year, I was embarrassed that all those things weren’t happening to me. I had landed in a middle school with a stellar admin, helpful, friendly co-workers, and misbehaving students and all their shenanigans. Hey, two out of three, right? So how did I survive among those rotten little middle schoolers? I owe my survival largely to my principals and my team. They made life so much easier. They paid attention to me and any problems I had and supported me when things seemed to be going awry. However, I know there was something more to my survival. When I was thinking through what I might want to write for this post, I kept coming back to the reasons I had had such a great first year. Certainly, the staff at my middle school were heroes, but what else had made it so? What experience had I brought to the table that made my maiden voyage into teaching so much different than other new teachers? I’m sure it was the master educators I met in the beginning of my journey. The wise words they imparted, whether it was off the cuff or in response to a crisis I was having, have stayed with me. On many days and in many situations, I have found myself remembering them or repeating them to others. I read somewhere when I first started taking classes for my certification that teachers were the most generous people. They were willing and happy to share experience and wisdom they had collected along the way. I found this to be so when I met my first master teacher. Mrs. Gillian (rhymes with chillin’ or villain depending on how you behaved in her class) had 30 plus years of public school teaching to her credit and was currently teaching struggling writers at a local university where I was working as a writing tutor. When I decided to finally take the plunge into teaching, she appeared like a guiding angel with all the advice a burgeoning teacher could want or need. I had thousands of questions and “what if” scenarios for her to address. She never seem to tire of my inquiries and often stayed awhile after her classes to help me with assignments and projects. One of the things I was most nervous about was actually being in front of a room full of students. I’m not a bashful person, but thinking of all eyes on me really freaked me out. Would I buckle under the pressure? How would they react to me as a teacher and a person? Would they be compliant? Would they boo me off the stage, throw spit wads at me, or ignore me completely? Her advice was simple: “Walk in like you own the place.” She was simply telling me to put my shoulders back and my chin up, but the words she used were so much more commanding. She told me I should act like I know what I’m doing, and if I’m convincing enough, the students will believe it and buy into it. A few days before school started, “walk in like you own the place” became my mantra. I practiced how I would walk into the room, what I would say, and how I would say it. The first few weeks were difficult, but that technique helped immensely. My knees didn’t buckle. I kept my shoulders back and my chin up. I could have been nominated for an Oscar. At the end of the year, one of the students asked me how long I had been teaching. When I told her just a little over a year, she didn’t believe me. Perhaps my next career will be acting. Similar to the famous athletic shoe slogan, “just teach it” means what it says. Take the bull by the horns, get on with it, jump in with both feet. I had to throw out timidity and pull up my big girl pants and teach. Again, I was lucky enough to meet up with a veteran teacher with years and years of experience. Mrs. Williams took me on as a student teacher, and while we sat in her immaculately clean portable classroom with rugs on the floor, curtains on the windows, and encouraging quotes stenciled around the top of the room discussing what I would be teaching during the next six weeks, I hinted at lesson plans she might have in mind. She took mercy on me and offered her plans for the week ahead and the materials that went with them. While I looked it over and asked question after question, she simply stated, “Just teach it. Get up there and teach it.” So I did. I swear I can still hear my steps to the front of that portable echoing off those clean, white-panelled walls. The kids were staring, waiting for me to speak. Mrs. Williams watching, but trying to look busy and unconcerned. The first part of the lesson was a rubric, so I handed it out and started going over it. Something happened. Something beautiful. I knew I was in the right place at the right time doing what I had always wanted to do. Magic. I folded the rubric in two and advised the students to only concern themselves with the 3s and 4s on the rubric because who would ever want anything less than an excellent mark. The students folded their rubric and relaxed a little, Mrs. Williams did concern herself with other things, and I just taught the lesson unafraid and with joy. Mrs. Dow, master teacher and butterfly enthusiast, had a penchant for snazzy sneakers and velour track suits, had flawless classroom management and graded papers faster than any teacher I had ever observed before or since. I often think of her paper grading prowess when I am slogging through stack after stack of essays exhibiting deplorable writing skills and sloppy handwriting. How did she do it? At first glance her room seemed a bit messy and disorganized, but I quickly found out it was only an illusion. She was über organized and knew exactly where everything lived and belonged. Mrs. Dow had been my son’s ninth grade English teacher and the assignments he had been given in her class were both challenging and engaging. My son complained about how difficult the work was, so I knew she had to be an excellent teacher. I wanted to meet her. I wanted to student teach with her, so I went to the school and asked her if she would consider having a student teacher lurking around. She agreed. By the end of the first day, I was mesmerized. Everything in her class ran smoothly. Students complied with requests, completed assignments and turned them in, students listened to instructions and went to work. What magical spells had she cast upon these children? A couple of weeks into my stint with Mrs. Dow, I had given back papers that I had graded. A student approached me after class and said she hadn’t received her paper back, but she was sure she had turned it in. I assured her I’d have a look on my desk to see if her paper had accidentally been shuffled into another stack. At planning, I looked everywhere for the paper and did not find it. I asked Mrs. Dow what she did when she lost a paper. Our conversation went something like this: Me: I think I lost so-n-so’s paper. It wasn’t in my stack when I returned the graded papers last period. What do you do when you lose a paper? Mrs. Dow: (brows raised, chuckling) Don’t ever let them smell blood in the water. Me: (growing fearful, beginning to sweat) What do you mean? Mrs. Dow went on to admonish me about what I should and should not ever say to a student and one of those things is “I lost your paper.” She told me that most of the time the paper is still in the student’s binder and they would eventually find it. Did the student find her paper? Yes, she did. Have I found in the short time I’ve been teaching that more times than not the paper is in the binder or the locker or the backpack or perishing in the no name basket? Yes, I have. On the surface, this advice seems to tell me I have to protect or defend myself against student treachery. In a way, it is, but more than that, it tells me I have to stay organized. I have to be careful with the trust the students have in me and do my darndest to do right by them. The advice tells me to stay on my toes and do what is required of me to the best of my ability. These tidbits of advice are a little zany, I admit, but I’ve applied it all and it’s worked for me. I plan to always remember the words of the masters. WVCTE is wondering do you have words of wisdom, no matter how crazy, that have carried you through the school year? Encourage us by leaving us a comment, Tweeting us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connecting with us on Facebook! This morning, I rolled out of bed around 8 o’clock. My seven year old was already deeply immersed in her craft project and my five year old slumbered on, mouth agape and arms thrown gloriously overhead, like a bizarro world roller coaster snapshot.
The house was still. I headed for the coffeepot, searched for a mug to match my mood, trading in my favorite Vonnegut for a sunshine yellow, and poured an easy cup. I sat down and read a book for a while and then thumbed through a book of Natasha Trethewey poems as the morning sun poured in. I washed a few dishes and tidied up a bit. I mixed up some waffle batter and relished in the sizzle of batter dropping onto the hot iron. I buttered and syrup-ed fresh waffles for my kids and got sticky snuggles after breakfast. I love these human moments of summer break. I love seeing pictures of my teacher-friends planting their gardens, building benches, vacationing with their families, joyously reading away the day with their bare feet soaking up the sun. I see my colleagues committing time to self-care, and it’s inspiring. It gets me thinking -- why do these moments seem to be reserved only for summer break? My catch-phrase of the 2016-17 school year became, “I know I’m doing too much, but so far I’ve kept it all going.” I guess acceptance is the first step, but I realized that if I was seeing life as “keeping it all going” I should probably re-evaluate. The good news is, I have because... This year, I choreographed two show choirs, was a club advisor, taught Sunday school, blogged regularly, helped build my school’s STEAM Academy, taught two packed sections of an AP course, and rocked out as a mom to my seven-year-old and five-year-old. I made time to hang out with my husband, family, and every now and then, friends. This is not braggery or martyrdom -- this was my inability to say no. And you know what? I’m exhausted. Notice I didn’t mention any self-care in that last paragraph? No yoga, no reading, no cooking or crafts. Remember #OneWord2017? Mine was FOCUS. I knew that in 2017 I wanted to focus on what was essential. That drive led me to the book Essentialism. As my friend and fellow teacher Liz Matheny says of the book, “It’s a game changer.” The philosophy of Essentialism according to Greg McKeown is simple: the disciplined pursuit of less, to do the right things with your time, and to take control of what and how much you do. And McKeown challenges, “What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?” My enduring understanding from Essentialism is, if some thing -- some project, task, relationship, or commitment, isn’t a definite yes, then it’s a definite no. This logic brought such clarity to my life, both personally and professionally. But what I’m learning is something we already know: being an essentialist teacher is difficult. The profession demands much more than what is essential, and many teachers, myself included, have a deeply rooted desire to contribute their time and talents to more than one worthy project. Being an essentialist teacher is difficult, but not impossible. How do we pare back to the most essential? What are the right things to do with our time as educators? What is your definite yes? For me, it is essential that students in my classroom are safe and loved, that they share in a community of learning that is positive and prosocial. It is essential that I know them and they know me, that I am vulnerable with them so we can develop honest and necessary connections that allow us to explore the meaning of literature, and oftentimes life, which occurs when great literature and our life’s experiences intersect. Well-designed lessons and intentional teaching are also essential. A student’s discovery of meaning in literature and their exploration of their own authentic voice in writing is essential. Their ability to ask questions, to examine a writer’s craft, to notice subtleties in literature that make meaning, to play and experiment with language and to feel safe and supported doing so is essential. Inviting students to innovate and problem solve and consider their role and ownership in their own community and state -- all this is essential. For me, being an essentialist teacher is to remember and recommit to the one job I’m there to do -- to teach and inspire students. And of course there’s more. I have more professional “Yes”es -- writing and reflection and professional connections and learning. And I wonder, on this beautiful summer day and lazy morning, if we commit to professional essentialism, will it relieve us from just “keeping it all going”? Will identifying the right things we do with our time professionally allow us more human moments not only during summer break, but all the time? My friend Jay from Moving Writers says, “Teaching is a human endeavor." It is essential that we remember this, too. WVCTE is wondering, how do you balance work and life? What is essential in your classroom? Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook! I'd love to hear from you! -- Karla BY: LIZ KEIPER The bell rings. Freshmen begin to file into my room as they would any other day, expecting to start some Greek story called The Odyssey as I have hinted the previous day, but as they pass me at my door, they pause. Some of them smile, some of them comment, “Umm,” or, “Nice!” or, “What…?” but most of them just give me a strange look. Must be because their English teacher is wearing a toga. Since this is (unfortunately) a rare occurrence in their lives, upon entering the room, I do feel the need to explain my attire. I tell them that I’m wearing a toga because, “You have to wear a toga to go on a quest!” “Wait… we’re actually going on a quest?” they ask. “Yes!” I reply. “There will be obstacles and heroes and prizes to be won! Let’s go!” And I begin making my way to the Wellness Center, 30 squirrelly freshmen in tow. Little do they know that they will learn so much, and dare I say, more than they expected to learn, about quests. When we get to the large, enclosed gym-like space, I split the students up into groups. I have a set of three towels and a blindfold for each group on one end of the gym and a bed-sheet toga, piece-of-twine belt, and plastic laurel crown on the other end. I explain that, working in teams, their quest is to start out at their “home,” which is the end of the gym where they currently are, and to travel to the far end of the gym where one of them will become a Greek hero. However, the floor is hot lava, and in order to avoid losing body parts and such, they must travel on the magic lava-resistant towels that I have conveniently provided for them. Also, because this is a quest fashioned after epic tales, we need some archetypes, so I’m throwing in a blind character for good measure (we previously brainstormed archetypes and how they surface in modern culture the day before), so one character is going to be blindfolded, but they can’t step on the lava either. When the team reaches the other side on the towels, one character must don the toga and laurel crown, and after becoming a hero, like all good epic heroes, he or she must return to their home a changed person. Oh, and the group to do so first gets CANDY. So, get your GAME FACES ON, kids. Ready, set, GO! ***** I leave about 15 minutes at the end of the period for us to journey back to the classroom, bestow lolly-pops on the winners, and talk about our quest. As I’m handing out the victors’ spoils, I give them a few questions that they need to answer about the activity that they just did. “Questions?” they ask. “But, we were just competing for candy! We didn’t learn anything from that!” Oh, young grasshoppers, young grasshoppers… I pass out a paper to each student with the following questions:
Then we share their answers to number 4. Turns out that they were actually learning a whole lot about teamwork and their own role in the success or failure of a group, while during the activity, they thought that they were just competing for high fructose corn syrup on a stick. And actually, that’s the entire point of a quest. The quester learns something along the way, usually about him or herself, which they did not expect to learn at the outset. Here I must pause and give credit where credit is due. This concept of The Quest is heavily influenced by Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. If you have not read this book, drop whatever you are currently reading and read this because I promise that it will change the entire way that you think about symbolism and archetypes in literature and will add depth to your reading that will in turn impact your students. Foster claims in How to Read Lit that there are five main elements of any quest story:
Really, all quest stories involve these elements. Take for example, the movie Finding Nemo, which in fact I analyze as an exemplar with my class…
When we get to number five, a conversation ensues about what Marlin learns about himself through this experience. My students have come to the conclusion that he learns to not be overprotective, he learns to value what matters, he learns about appropriate boundaries, or he finally finds closure for his wife’s death and learns to forgive himself. Pretty cool for a kids’ movie about a fish. But that’s because it’s not just about a fish—it’s a quest. And these elements of the quest apply to most quest stories, from The Odyssey to The Canterbury Tales to the short film Home Sweet Home (which is also great to use to teach quests). This activity has opened up doors for my students in terms of preparing their minds to be looking for teachable moments throughout the story of The Odyssey. Instead of it just being a cool story about a hero defeating monsters, witches, and whirlpools, it becomes a tale of leadership, friendship, fallibility, temptation, choices, loyalty, and the struggle of man against fate and the natural world. My students begin looking for what Odysseus is learning, or if he truly learns from his adventures, and more importantly, what they can learn from them… in other words, themes of the story. At the end of the day, themes are what is important about literature anyway. I tell my students that the themes are the good stuff—if you’re not reading to learn something about life from a story, what’s the point? English class isn’t just about who did what in a story; it’s about what the author is trying to say about life through what the characters do. So, if I can set the stage for my students to contemplate themes and big ideas throughout The Odyssey by giving them some lava-resistant towels, a plastic laurel crown, and some candy, it’s well worth it. And of course, I get to wear a toga while I’m at it. Because Toga Tuesdays are the best. WVCTE is wondering… 1)How do you engage students with themes in a text? 2)How would or could you adapt this idea to connect with a text that you teach? Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook! By Toni Poling I am a reader. My house has more books in it than some libraries. I am frequently knocking over a stack of books from the top of my night stand in my desperate attempts to silence my alarm in the morning. I enjoy reading books on my iPad, but if I really like a book I will buy a hardcopy so that I can loan it to others. I read indiscriminately; I read incessantly; I read passionately – just the way I want my students to read. As the parent of a soon-to-be second grader (he is counting down the days!), I can honestly say that the elementary school teachers do a fantastic job of creating a culture of literacy in our schools. From brightly colored word walls to bins overflowing with books to accelerated reader charts, our younger students are surrounded by a world that revolves around literacy. One of my son’s best moments this year was when he achieved the reading goal he had set for himself. How we celebrated! So, what happens between elementary school and high school that dampens this enthusiasm for reading the written word? Kelly Gallagher has a theory. In Readicide, Gallagher describes what he calls “the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.” Ouch! I must admit that the first time I read that I was rather offended. How could this respected educator blame me for my students’ lack of interest in reading? Then I thought about how I was assessing my students’ reading. Was I assessing for learning? Were my assessments authentic? Did they help students make meaning through the texts we were reading? The answers were all, unfortunately, no. Time to make a change. For years, my students had been reading student choice books (we can all agree that choice books are vitally important, can’t we?), but my assessment method was lacking. Some students dutifully read the book to get the grade; others tried to fake their way through the assignment. Neither fulfilled my English teacher’s desire to create lifelong readers. I was at a loss on what to do about this, until I started getting subscriptions of The New Yorker for my classroom. If you aren’t a fan of The New Yorker magazine, you should be! Not only is it a source of entertainment, it’s a treasure trove of contemporary literature! The cover of each issue is a beautiful example of visual text and my students and I spend time each month analyzing the meaning of the cover. I’ve even used covers as visual sources for essays in AP Language. Inside each issue is an original short story, sometimes by a well-known author, and original contemporary poetry. These are usually great sources for AP Literature. Perhaps my favorite part of The New Yorker, however, is the monthly book review. It’s my go-to source for finding new books and new authors and has been for years. When I started utilizing the magazines in my classroom, I also found that my students were reading these same book reviews and making reading choices based on them! When it was time for our next student choice book, I decided to utilize a mentor text to provide guidance for a new assessment model. My students were going to write book reviews in the style of The New Yorker. Each student received a handout with guidelines and a rubric, along with one of four sample book reviews from the magazine. Students were placed in cooperative learning groups based on which sample they had received and the groups did a close reading of the book review. They were looking specifically for summary/synthesis, analysis, and personal connection to the text. Students used different colored highlighters to identify the three main parts of the book review. As a whole group, we looked at each’s group’s work under the document camera and discussed what was different about each sample and what was similar. Then students wrote their own book review on their student choice novel. Admittedly, the first try at this was a little...rough. Students wanted to fall into the old trap of ending the book review with “everyone should read this book!” It took a couple of rounds of rewrites before we were all satisfied with the final products, but those final drafts were really good! Not only did students mimic the quality writing found in their mentor text, they also showed true engagement with their book and a depth of analysis that had been lacking from previous assignments. This assessment was truly an assessment for learning.
Since this first round, I have refined the assignment based on needs of individual classes. Some classes need more instruction in the analysis portion while others struggle with the elevated syntax and diction expected in the assignment, but they are ALL reading, and isn’t that the goal? Perhaps, however, the most unexpected reward from this assignment is that other students are making reading choices based on their peers’ book reviews. They are learning from one another. They are modeling excellent literacy skills for their peers. They are becoming readers. WVCTE is wondering how you assess for your students’ learning while maintaining a culture of literacy in your classroom. Leave us a comment, Tweet us your thoughts @WVCTE, or connect with us on Facebook! |
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