Tag: Instructional Strategies

Figure It Out: A Reading Comprehension Lesson

~ Sarah Powley ~ 4 Comments

I’m a big fan of structuring lessons so that students can figure things out on their own. In the education world, what I am talking about is sometimes called the constructivist approach, sometimes called inquiry-based learning, sometimes called—well, whatever the name, lessons learned this way usually stick—and in the act of discovery, students are empowered as learners.

Here’s an example of what I mean: a reading comprehension lesson involving allusions—in this case, in the context of one of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird. The goal is to show students how allusions enrich the meaning of a text—how to spot them, how to decode them, how to make meaning of what is frequently an analogy.

For example, take this dialogue between Scout and Jem, in Chapter 2:

“Don’t worry, Scout, “ Jem confronted me. “Our teacher says Miss Caroline’s introducing a new way of teaching. She learned about it in college. It’ll be in all the grades soon. You don’t have to learn much out of books that way.—it’s like if you wanta learn about cows, you go milk one, see?”

“Yeah Jem, but I don’t wanta study cows, I—”

“Sure you do. You hafta know about cows, they’re a big part of life in Maycomb County.”

I contented myself with asking Jem if he’d lost his mind.

“I’m just trying to tell you the new way they’re teachin’ the first grade, stubborn. It’s the Dewey Decimal System.”

Students might be vaguely puzzled by “Dewey Decimal System,” but they could just as easily pass right over the reference. If they do, though, they miss the humor in Jem’s misnomer. That’s the way allusions work, I explain to them. They aren’t necessary to understanding the plot, but knowing that Jem is confusing a library cataloguing system with the education reformer John Dewey is funny. Furthermore, in this short passage, we get a glimpse of Jem as an occasionally annoying big brother who isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Since this is a sibling type many students know first-hand, this depiction of Jem rings true and helps some students to directly and immediately identify with Scout.

That’s the concept. To get started with the lesson, I print and cut into slim strips a list of other allusions from To Kill a Mockingbird, put the strips in a hat, and pass the hat around the room. Students “draw” a strip, and I tell them that the first part of their assignment is to figure out the literal meaning of the words on the strip. (The same strategy could be used with any text that is heavily allusive. I’ve used it with Shauna Seliy’s coming-of-age story, When We Get There, and with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, for example.)

This part of the assignment used to be more difficult than it is now. Years ago, before Google, before Wikipedia, before the website To Kill a Mockingbird: The Student Survival Guide (www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/), I’d take my students to the library so they could look through books and print encyclopedias to find the answers. Some of the allusions weren’t so easily identifiable, so I’d allow them to ask other people for help—other people but me, that is. My lips were sealed—except to suggest books they might check or to provide hints that would send them in a fruitful direction. After they knew what they had—sometimes a parent would, understandably, just tell them—they’d have to find at least two print sources that explained the allusion and then summarize the meaning and document their sources.

I still ask my students to do this, but thanks to electronic searches, it’s the easy part of the assignment now.

The next step is finding the allusion in context. They’re spread throughout the novel, so while I distribute the strips early on, it will be late in the story before the task is completed by everyone. Once the students come upon their allusions, they write a paragraph explaining the allusion’s purpose in the text. This can be challenging for young readers; nevertheless, they often make amazing connections and articulate insights that astonish me.

Some allusions, such as “Maycomb County had just been told it had nothing to fear but fear itself [my italics],” help the reader establish the time period of the story. So do items like “linotype machine,” or “flivver,” or “Ladies Law.” Other allusions establish place: “Jitney Jungle” and “Bellingrath Gardens,” for example, make explicit that this story takes place in the South. These allusions authenticate what the author has already told us: the setting is Maycomb County, Alabama. Some “place” allusions supply deeper background information as well: “Stonewall Jackson ran the Creeks up the creek” is a reference to the intersection of Alabama history, Native American history, and Finch family history.

There are some tougher ones, though, like “Lord Melbourne,” a British parliamentarian who loved the ladies. When Uncle Jack tells Scout about Lord Melbourne in response to her asking him what a “whore-lady” is, he reveals his discomfort in discussing adult topics with children. His circumlocution, of course, contrasts with Atticus’ straightforward responses to his children. Thus, the allusion to Lord Melbourne (which is obscure for most readers, not just 9th graders) helps to build the character of both men. A student could have read the paragraph, been temporarily confused, but ultimately not concerned, because the allusion does not advance the plot. And yet, “getting” the reference to Lord Melbourne deepens the reader’s understanding.

So does this one, another reference made by Uncle Jack: When he and Atticus are discussing the upcoming trial of Tom Robinson—whom Atticus has been appointed to defend—Uncle Jack remarks, “’Let this cup pass from you,’ eh?‘” Untangling that one means linking the Biblical reference to Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane—O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:39)—to Atticus’ wish that he didn’t have to step into the role of defense attorney in what he knows will be a losing battle. He knows as well that defending Tom Robinson will stir up the town: His children may be the targets of people’s vitriol, and he could lose them in a backlash. Nevertheless, in the same conversation with Uncle Jack, Atticus is clear. He says that he couldn’t ask his children to obey him if he didn’t defend Tom. He will comply with the court order. A student could, of course, explicitly make the Christ symbol connection—but, more likely for a 9th grader, the student who understands the allusion will see the analogy between Christ’s situation and Atticus’ and understand that the comparison supports the picture of Atticus that has building throughout the story: He will do what he must. He will do the right thing.

But the task of building meaning isn’t over. It isn’t enough, to my mind, for a student to know only his or her own allusion. Sometimes, depending upon curriculum needs, I’ve had students report out on their allusion while the others take notes, but this process takes more time than I often have. Recently, I’ve accomplished my purpose much more expediently by posting the students’ work on the walls of the classroom.

Each paper has three parts: the paragraph from the text where the allusion appears, the explanation of the allusion, and then the paragraph about its purpose or how it enriches the meaning. The students circulate around the room, pen and paper in hand, and take notes on what their peers have written. This takes about one class period. I keep silent, read over the students’ shoulders, check the written work to be sure the students have explained their allusions clearly and correctly. Misunderstandings are infrequent, I find. If something isn’t quite right, it’s usually easy enough to question the student on the side, and he or she will see the confusion and make the adjustment on the spot.

By the end of the hour, each student has compiled a list of allusions and their meanings. In essence, they have taught each other some pretty sophisticated vocabulary and deepened each other’s understanding of the text. They’ve also learned a valuable reading skill: how to identify and figure out an allusion. A short matching quiz the next day confirms that the “vocabulary” has been learned (Most kids score 100%), but more importantly, the students come away understanding what an allusion is and how one works in a text.

Imagine how tedious this would have been if I had stopped in our reading to explain every one of these connections. I would have grown tired of the sound of my voice—and the kids would have yawned. Openly.

Instead, they figured it all out on their own, taught each other, and know they can do the same thing independently with the next book they read. That’s empowerment.

This Enormous Business

~ Sarah Powley ~ 1 Comment

For thirty-one years, my school year began with the opening sentence from Harper Lee’s matchless story of courage, compassion, and coming-of-age, To Kill a Mockingbird. It was nothing short of privilege to introduce 9th graders to Jem and Scout, their father Atticus, and their playmate Dill; to rural Alabama in the 1930s; to racism and injustice in the days of Jim Crow; and to the idea that in coming face-to-face with an unvarnished and painful reality, one comes of age.

Sometimes that moment of truth is called a “confrontation experience.”

When the trial is over and Tom Robinson is found guilty, Jem is confused and upset. He cries first, then broods, questioning Atticus intently as he puzzles through the injustice of the verdict. Miss Maudie, the children’s insightful neighbor from across the street, bakes a cake the next morning, but alters her custom of preparing three small cakes—one each for Jem and Scout and Dill—and makes only two. Jem’s portion is to come from the big cake. In this way, she signals her understanding that Jem has grown up: He has emerged from the experience of the trial, changed. Many students—as Jem himself does—miss the significance of that culinary symbolism.

So just after my students have read Chapter 22, the chapter with the cake paragraph that begins “It was Jem’s turn to cry,” I introduce this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. I project it on the ENO board and read it aloud once, all the way through.

One Wants A Teller In A Time Like This

One wants a teller in a time like this

One’s not a man, one’s not a woman grown
To bear enormous business all alone.

One cannot walk this winding street with pride
Straight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed,
Knowing one knows for sure the way back home.
One wonders if one has a home.

One is not certain if or why or how.
One wants a Teller now:

Put on your rubbers and you won’t catch a cold
Here’s hell, there’s heaven. Go to Sunday School
Be patient, time brings all good things–(and cool
Strong balm to calm the burning at the brain?)
Behold,
Love’s true, and triumphs; and God’s actual.

Occasionally, a student will “get” the poem immediately, but the majority of my 9th graders are mystified. Why am I introducing this poem? What does it have to do with the story? Focused on the verdict itself—which they are eager to talk about even though they had predicted it—they don’t think of the impact of the decision on the children.

“Who in the story do you think this poem could be about?” I ask.

“Atticus,” someone always guesses. “He lost the trial.”

So. They got the gist of the poem. It’s about someone who is depressed.

“But Atticus knew he would lose—and he thinks they’ve taken a step forward because the jury deliberated for two hours,” someone else corrects.

“Tom? He lost and now he’s going to prison.”

“Boo.” Another guess.

“Miss Maudie.” A wilder guess.

Funny—if they’d examine their own reactions—shock, outrage, grief—when the verdict is announced, they’d see immediately that the poem points to Jem.

But Jem is not the “hero” of the story—or even an important protagonist like Tom Robinson or Boo. We’ve talked as a class about the symbolism of the mad dog and related rabies to the mental disease of prejudice. We’ve focused on character development and identified Atticus as the hero. We’ve examined Atticus’ definition of courage in the Mrs. Dubose chapter. But, besides noting that the children are catalysts for action and establishing that Jean Louise (the adult Scout) is a reflective narrator, we haven’t talked much yet about Jem and Scout. So far, they haven’t been a thematic focus.

I suggest that we take the poem apart, line by line. From this moment on, I am largely silent. I simply cover the poem and proceed to expose one line at a time. With its lovely “reveal” function, the ENO board helps me with this technique, but I used to do the same thing with an overhead projector. Baring even that, I could write the poem on the board, one line at a time. The strategy captures my students. They are good detectives, and they eagerly put their skills of observation to work.

First, the title: enigmatic, evocative, puzzling. Why the capitalized ‘One’? And then, it turns out, the title is the first line. The first line stands alone, the students notice. Why?

Then the phrase, “One’s not a man, not a woman grown.”

“So it’s not about Atticus.”

“But what is ‘this enormous business’?”

“It doesn’t say.”

“Whoever he is, he’s walking a crooked path.”

“He’s lost.”

“Unsure.”

“Confused.”

“He—or she—can’t find his home, maybe doesn’t have one.”

“Is this about a homeless person?”

“No, I think it’s about safety. Home is safety.”

“It’s about certainty. This person is uncertain.”

“Something terrible has happened.”

“Look at those words–‘if or when or how.’ Those are question words. This person’s questions are unanswered.”

“But why is ‘Teller’ capitalized in the next line?”

“He wants someone to answer his questions. To tell him the answers. A Teller.”

By this time, several students realize it is Jem’s reaction to the verdict that I am focusing on. I can barely contain them from blurting out their epiphany, and epiphany it is: They squirm in their seats; their arms pump up and down; their faces convey urgency. Others catch on. The class knows.

But what is this last stanza? Look: The font changes. And how are all those things connected?

“‘Rubbers’ are boots,” someone says. “What do they have to do with Sunday School?”

“’Heaven and hell’.” That’s Sunday School.”

“They’re opposites. Like black and white, or right and wrong.”

“Oh I get it! The new font is the Teller talking!”

“Yes! The Teller is telling the person what to do.”

“What to think.”

“How to behave.”

“That’s what he wants. A Teller.”

“Yes. A Teller makes things simple.”

But then the font changes back.

“What’s ‘balm’?”

“Like lip balm. A salve.”

“Oh! It’s ‘One’ again—questioning the Teller. It’s ‘One’ not finding an answer.”

“Not accepting an answer.”

“And the Teller speaks again, telling him everything is okay.”

“Except he doesn’t believe it. Whatever has happened is so bad, he even questions God.”

“Wow.”

And then, silence.

When we resume talking, students are quick to say—and confident now in saying—that “One” is anyone, so the poem can apply universally. “This enormous business” is unspecified for the same reason—and that means the poem can apply to many situations.

Too many of my students have already experienced tragedy, grief, and despair in their own lives. They make the jump to divorce, separation, untimely death, to betrayal by a friend, to abandonment by an adult—to myriad experiences that could force a person to confront an unpleasant truth—and come of age.

And then they know how Jem felt.

Silence again.

Quite often, someone in the class offers a final idea.

“You know, this may be about growing up, but even adults feel this way sometimes. My mom did when my dad left.”

How right that observation is. There is no time limit on innocence, no age limit on hope.

“So it could be about Atticus. He could have felt that way and then resolved his feeling by thinking the two-hour delay in the verdict was a step forward.”

It could be, indeed. Enormous business can level us all, even a hero.

I love teaching this lesson and the technique of “unveiling” a poem. As students pick out the clues, they build meaning and expand their understanding beyond the text. They see the relevance to the story we are reading, but they can apply the meaning of the poem to their own lives as well. They think deeply about an idea—in this case, the transformative effect of a confrontation experience.

What else is wonderful is that they figure the poem out for themselves.

I don’t tell them anything.

Last Lesson: Love Lesson

~ Sarah Powley ~ 2 Comments

The climax came on Thursday with the Unsung Heroes celebration in our school library. A packed room, our heroes all there, each of them introduced by the students, who were keyed up and jittery, naturally nervous to speak in public. Sheet cakes, flowers, and picture boards decorated the room. Reporters stood at attention and interviewed the students after the program; cameras followed their every move. An audience of parents and grandparents, friends, school administrators, and at least 50 other students (most of whom had completed the Unsung Hero project themselves, last year and the year before) congratulated them. Lots of attention. Lots of emotion.

It would be natural for Friday to be falling action, for the students to feel the let-down that comes when something they’ve worked on for so long has come to an end. For me, too, Friday was likely to be falling action. But I have learned that the best way to handle emotional turbulence is to hold steady—in this case, to stay focused on a goal.

Of course we debriefed for a few minutes when the 9th graders came to class, but it wasn’t long before their comments became repetitive. I brought them back to Romeo and Juliet, which we had been reading before we took time out to plan for the party. Specifically, we came back to the structure of Shakespeare’s sonnets. My purpose statement—the learning objective—was on the whiteboard: Identify these terms (rhyme scheme, quatrain, heroic couplet, turn, meter, scan, iambic pentameter) and explain the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet.

The students turned their attention from chatter to task.

So let’s review first, I said. What’s a sonnet?

The predictable, imprecise answer: A 14-line poem about love.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

I gave pairs of students 14 strips of paper—Sonnet 18, cut apart and jumbled up. Their task was to reconstruct the sonnet according to the rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg. Of course, they already knew what quatrains and couplets are, and by discovering the sonnets embedded in Romeo and Juliet, they’d already learned Shakespeare’s typical rhyme scheme. So finding the rhymes was easy. But then they were stuck. The three quatrains were out of order. At that point, I intervened.

There’s an internal structure, too, I said, a specific logic to the sonnet. A sonnet doesn’t sprawl, loose to the page. It’s very precisely organized. Shakespeare’s sonnets work like this: Condition stated (the first quatrain); Condition Expanded (the second); Reversal, signaled by the Turn (the third); Summation. Find the turn, I directed—the word that signals a shift in thought. Ah: But. Now paraphrase the lines, summarize the quatrains. Then you’ll be able to put them in order.

You are more beautiful—and your loveliness more permanent—than a summer day, and summer itself does not last long.
As the beauty of a summer day can be diminished by heat or clouds, so the beauty in everything eventually fades.
But, not you. Your beauty will not be lost nor will you die because my poetry will capture you for eternity.
As long as life persists and people read this poem, you will be immortal.

You’ve got it! But that’s not all. There are 14 lines—now count the syllables in each line. Ten. Yes, ten in every line–arranged in iambic pentameter.

What’s that?

The ENO board—the interactive whiteboard—made it easy to mark the syllables, to show them what meter is, what scansion means: unaccented, accented; unaccented accented: 5 times per line. Now read it aloud, exaggerating the accented syllables. (I modeled—imagine that!—and they joined in.)

It’s rap!

Yes! Same rhythm, but now read it the way that Shakespeare would. Draw out some syllables, elevate the pitch on others, emphasize some words, minimize others: Sheer poetry.

So what’s a Shakespearean sonnet? A 14-line poem about love, written in iambic pentameter with an abab cdcd efef gg rhyme scheme, composed of three quatrains and a couplet, arranged to reveal a progression of thought in which the poet states a condition, expands upon it, turns (or reverses) the thought in line 9, and sums up the idea in a concluding heroic couplet.

And then, as if on cue, the bell rang.

We’ll have falling action all next week, too, as we do what normally happens in the denouement. We’ll tie up loose ends and review for final exams. Students will wangle for points, and some will panic, a bit too late to do much good. But this was the last instructional day, my last day to introduce new material and structure a lesson to learn it. That the topic today was the sonnet is an irony that hasn’t escaped me—for teaching has been what I have loved to do since I was a child playing school. I, as much as the kids, could have been overwhelmed by emotion today, but holding steady, keeping myself focused on the objective—keeping the kids focused on a purpose—produced in the end what I wanted—what I needed—for an ending: a lesson that was a love poem all by itself.

Teach Me How

~ Sarah Powley ~ Leave a comment

Once, in Rwanda, I was working with the English teachers in a secondary school in Kigali on the rules for punctuating compound sentences. I had handouts, visual aids, and even a graphic that illustrated a fairly clever way to remember the rules. But, I had run out of practice sentences. We were in the school library at the time—a room with very few books but many long tables and benches to accommodate the 50-60 students in a class. As I pondered how to produce more practice sentences quickly—without the aid of a blackboard—I glanced at the shelves and saw, to my surprise, a familiar text—Writer’s Choice—a book I had used in my own high school in Indiana some years before. In fact, a whole class set—two class sets—were neatly arranged on the shelves. I got up from my seat at the table and retrieved a copy for myself and one for each teacher.

The texts had been sent from a school in Florida to this school in Kigali as a charitable donation. A gracious one, indeed—but the books had never been used. They’d been on the shelves since they had arrived. The English Department Chair shrugged when I asked her why.

I didn’t belabor the point. I just turned to the index and searched for the page numbers that corresponded with compound sentences. We all turned to the appropriate page, and I resumed my lesson.

When I was finished, the teachers began asking questions. Did this book teach capital letters? Did it teach spelling? What about other comma rules? Could I show them how I found the sentences I had been looking for? It dawned on me, suddenly, why these books had not been used. These teachers weren’t accustomed to using textbooks in the first place, but more importantly, the books themselves were baffling. They didn’t understand how our thick and elaborate American textbooks are laid out: sequenced chapters with the rules and their exceptions, each rule followed by several dizzying sets of practice sentences and quiz sets; elaborate but confusing color-coding; distracting sidebars; and suggested links to related lessons located half an inch farther into the text. They didn’t know what an index was.

Once I showed them how to use the book, the teachers were absorbed, turning the pages avidly, asking each other questions, discovering with delight the explanations for rules they themselves weren’t sure of. It wasn’t long before the English Department Chair turned to me and said, “I see now that these books are very useful.”

An impromptu lesson in how to use a textbook was more critical—and probably more lasting—than the fancy lesson I’d prepared on compound sentences.

That experience with the Rwandan teachers sticks with me because it reinforced something I’ve known for a long time but sometimes lose sight of: Process is as important as product. Mastery of process yields confidence, an attitude that is, for a young learner, far more important than content knowledge. It is confidence that enables a student to shoot for the stars. Students reach high when they are comfortable with what they’re doing, comfortable with the process. Actually, don’t we all?

It’s intellectually interesting to identify content we want our students to learn; it’s fun to develop the blueprint for a culminating project. But it’s easy for us to overlook the importance of teaching processes. How to use a database. How to run the grammar checker. How to summarize. How to use Turn It In (an online plagiarism prevention site). How to give a speech. How to make a poster aesthetically pleasing. How to write a business letter. How to set up a Works Cited page.

Sometimes the process we need to teach is a basic one. For example, part of the Unsung Heroes project (which I wrote about a few weeks ago) is learning how to write a handwritten letter. My students write thank you notes to their heroes for the time spent interviewing them and invitations to the celebration we hold when the book is published. I insist they do this on stationery, in ink, by hand. Every year I have to teach my students how to address an envelope. I used to have to show them how to find an address in the phone book. Now it’s how to find an address online. But now they know—and they won’t shy away from handwritten notes in the future. In fact, they think they’re pretty cool.

Other times, though, the process is complex. For example, English teachers are charged with teaching research skills so students can produce what used to be called “the term paper.” What we are teaching our students is a very lengthy process: choosing a topic, finding resources, reading and understanding those resources, evaluating them, writing an annotated bibliography, formulating a thesis, combing the readings for evidence to support the thesis, and then writing the paper itself–clearly, coherently, correctly—even elegantly. And finally, that miserable Works Cited page—how to do that systematically so the bibliographical entries match the internal documentation. It’s an enormous process, and at my school, we lead the students through it at least once each year. Their papers often reveal that they don’t quite understand their topic. They may treat it superficially or focus on something trivial. But really, these fledgling scholars are to be congratulated at the end: they’ve gained experience with a difficult and lengthy process that will be second nature to them when they get to college—where the content will really matter.

Sometimes we forget how important it is to teach the “how-to” part. We have a way, in our eagerness to share our own excitement about a topic or an idea, to presume in our students skills they don’t have, just as the people who sent the textbooks to Rwanda presumed the teachers there would know how to use them. We sometimes assume familiarity, make assignments our kids don’t know how to approach, or confuse them with complexity. In our enthusiasm, we don’t break a process down—or we skip teaching it altogether—and leave our students puzzled rather than confident. I’ve done it myself too many times—but I’m learning. Teaching well is a process, too.

Night in Rwanda

~ Sarah Powley ~ 3 Comments

2009.04.15 Honors 9 Pattern of Genocide 016I have taught Holocaust literature—Night, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Children of Willesden Lane—for many years. But I cannot teach these books in the way I usually teach literary works of art. Granted, these books are not fiction, so I am spared having to chart the plot line. I know there are motifs and images and definitely themes—but my point has never been, in teaching any of these accounts, to reveal the writer’s technique. Putting such a text under the microscope of literary analysis would distance the students from the story, and I want them to hold close the visceral response they all have when they read, say, Night. Discussing Wiesel’s imagery as if he had sat down deliberately to craft a work of art instead of to tell his horrifying story to an unconscious world would be—to my mind—a sacrilege. As story, his journey through hell penetrates our unconsciousness and sears our souls. Ironically, what I could do would destroy its impact, and that I cannot do.

But the Holocaust must be taught. Genocide must be admitted and discussed. Here is what I do instead.

Most students, when they first learn about the Holocaust, do not immediately see the connection between the tragic events of WWII and their own lives in the 21st century. They think that genocide is a distant horror. But we, the adults, the teachers in the room, know about Darfur, where genocide is so fresh. We know about Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and other places that in recent history have served as the stage for mass murder.

I have been to Rwanda. My first trip there, in 2006, was undertaken specifically to study the genocide of 1994. I wanted to understand the causes and the chronology of the Rwandan genocide to see how it compared with the unfolding of the Holocaust. I learned very quickly that genocide doesn’t just happen. In fact, it follows a pattern, one that I have taught to my students ever since. (I am indebted to Gregory Stanton at Genocide Watch for his work in revealing this pattern, though I simplify it somewhat for 9th graders.)

Genocide always begins with prejudice. A power group, for a variety of reasons, marginalizes, discriminates against, isolates, and ultimately demonizes a minority. The climax is the killing, followed by a strange denouement, denial.

My students read Night first. They read it without a lot of preface, and they are full of questions during the three short days it takes them to finish the book. By the end, they want to know more, and it is then that I send them on a research mission. The students work collaboratively to construct poster essays that will reveal the pattern of genocide. They draw straws to form groups, and I give each group a title for the poster—the name of a stage in the pattern—and a few keywords to get them started. For the next several days, my room resembles an art studio—construction paper, scissors, rubber cement, watercolors, and magic markers dominate the landscape. Kids cluster around the tables, lie on the floor. They labor over their posters, placing pictures precisely and writing captions that capture the essence of the photographs they’ve downloaded. They know that what they are researching and presenting in their posters is too important to treat superficially, and their posters powerfully illustrate the progress from prejudice to mass murder. Pattern of Genocide 002 2009.04.15 Honors 9 Pattern of Genocide 020 Pattern of Genocide 004

We put the posters on the board and discuss the order in which they should be hung: Prejudice, Legal Discrimination, Separation and Isolation, Preparation for Killing, and Extermination—and the one that could be hung anywhere and everywhere along the continuum: Propaganda.

Then, after a brief introduction, I instruct them to repeat the research—this time researching Rwanda. They create, again, poster essays that depict the progress of the genocide there—from the identity cards issued by the Belgians when Rwanda was still a colony to the hate radio broadcasts that mobilized the Interahamwe.

Pattern of Genocide 012They hang the posters side-by-side on the whiteboards in my classroom: the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. I am not interested in discussions of scale—it’s not that kind of comparison. I am interested in the pattern.

By studying the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide side-by-side, my students come to see that neither was an aberration of history. By studying the pattern, they realize that genocide has its roots in attitudes that show up in day-to-day interactions, the kinds of discriminatory behaviors they themselves encounter not just in the evening news, but in the lunchroom, on the playground, in the halls, in gym class. Sometimes we call it bullying.

My students come face-to-face with the pernicious effects of prejudice in their study of these two genocides, and they understand the importance of speaking out against ethnic jokes in the lunchroom, bullying in the halls, discriminatory laws in their state and country, and unfolding events in places like Sudan. They understand the moral imperative to be inclusive rather than exclusive, to accept rather than reject.

My students see that they can work to prevent genocide by voicing opposition to the prejudice they encounter and by engaging in activities that promote peace and understanding—both locally and globally. Sometimes it is as simple as writing letters to their Congressional representatives, to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the President. We live in a democracy where it is our right and our duty to let our voices be heard, to be “upstanders” for justice, not voiceless bystanders in the face of evil—and this responsibility becomes real for them.

This past week, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Elie Wiesel and President Obama spoke about genocide prevention. In fact, on the very day my students and I were having a discussion about what they could do personally to combat the forces of prejudice and discrimination, these two men were discussing what the nation could do. I watched the video that night at home: My students had said many of the very same things these compelling leaders had said. I showed the video the very next day.

Genocide survivors tell their stories—in books, films, and essays—not to create works of art that will make them famous, but with the hope that the lessons of their nightmares will not be forgotten, that people of conscience will work to stop incipient genocides before they occur and to speak out against ongoing tragedies. Teaching our children what they can do to combat evil in the world is work that teachers can do, must do.

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Spring is the Best Season

~ Sarah Powley ~ Leave a comment

Once, at a conference for American teachers and teachers from the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, I met a teacher from Kazakhstan whose students had won a national recognition for their performance in competitive debate. This, in a formerly Soviet state—a country that had once upon a time brooked no controversy, tolerated no dissent. She gave a presentation about her strategies to mystified Kazakh colleagues whose shy, meek students would not disagree with them on the smallest of matters. How, they wondered, could Kazakh students, raised to be voiceless and compliant, come to debate their peers so skillfully as to win a national debate contest?

“That’s just it,” the teacher explained. “We began with the smallest of matters.”

The first topic of debate the teacher had put before her students was this: Spring is the best season.

“Spring is the best season,” the teacher declared. “Raise your hands if you agree with me.” Every hand went up.

“Raise your hands if you disagree.” No one raised a hand.

“No one disagrees?” she asked. “There is nothing about spring that you don’t like?” She waited. Finally, one tentative hand lifted.

“Well,” a little girl offered hesitantly, “in the spring, there is mud.”

And that is how this wise teacher began: small.

Students “debated” whether a particular food tasted good, whether a book was worth reading, whether a clothing style was attractive. In increments, she led the students to genuinely controversial topics and deeper, more incisive arguments until finally, they were debating serious topics in formal forensic style. She had had to warm the students to controversy, show them that nothing was to be feared from disagreement, and then teach them the skills of debate: researching and analyzing an argument, evaluating evidence, developing a claim, formulating effective support, using concession to advantage.

American teachers today are tasked with preparing students for a new kind of standardized test. Students will be asked to read and respond in writing to a variety of documents they will be given on unannounced topics in science, social studies, the arts—really, any area. On the new tests of students’ proficiency in the English Language Arts—coming in 2014-2015—students will need to read documents on the spot, formulate a claim, gather evidence from the readings to support their position, and use all their skills of analysis and evaluation to write a cogent, coherent essay defending their position. (At least this is what we are hearing now will be the format of the new assessments.)

What this means for instruction in the language arts classroom is a much more intense focus on reading and writing, with particular emphasis on argument.

Let’s leave politics aside. Ditto opinions about whether this is a valid way to assess a student’s progress or whether scores on these tests should be used to determine a teacher’s effectiveness. For now, too, set aside questions about the logistics of evaluating these writing-intensive tests and reporting the results in a timely fashion.

The immediate question is this: Are these skills students should have?

We live in a contentious society. Prominent people use public platforms to spout unsubstantiated opinions. Politicians twist the meaning of other people’s remarks, make snide insinuations, and sometimes tell blatant lies. Even ordinary people become irate without cause and seek redress for their grievances before they even try compromise or consider reconciliation. Would it be good to train our students to question claims, spot flaws in logic, evaluate evidence, counter arguments and expose specious claims? It would. If future citizens cannot read with understanding, write clearly and coherently to varied audiences, talk back to statistics, question authority, speak truth to power, and argue responsibly, where will our democracy be? To my mind, the new agenda is not an issue. It may even have evolved as a solution to the temper of our times.

But are we teaching these skills now in our classrooms? Can we do it?

Getting there will be easier than it was for the Kazakh teachers because our students don’t have to be led to argument. They love to debate and don’t back away from controversy. They’ve been raised in the land of free speech and exercise that freedom without trepidation. What my students need help with is what this new curriculum mandates: reading, writing, and thinking clearly. The new Common Core standards, subscribed to by forty-six states, present an interdisciplinary, grade-by-grade outline of the skills our students need to be “college and career ready” (new education-speak for “prepared for the future”) and the ones our country needs them to have to remain in its right mind.

We can do this—and we will. One step at a time. One grade at a time. One skill at a time. Start small, start young. Spring is the best season.

Love Happens

~ Sarah Powley ~ 2 Comments

I am an English teacher, but I spend my days drawing triangles and circles: sometimes imperfect ones, but identifiably, these basic geometric shapes.

Once, during college, I created a unit on utopian literature for a hypothetical 12th grade class. I assembled a glorious reading list that chronicled the history of the topic, covered all the major writers, and led my fantasy students to explore related issues in depth. The list was long and comprehensive. But that’s all it was.

My professor wrote a single sentence at the bottom: What will the students do?

I hadn’t a clue. I think they were supposed to learn through osmosis. I wanted them to fall in love, as I had, with the texts and the ideas, but I had no sense of how I would orchestrate that love affair. I just supposed that they would open their books and read—and tumble head over heels into an embrace of what I thought was quite wonderful.

It was another teacher who taught me about the triangle. You start with a clear idea of what it is the students should learn, determine the instructional methods that will best lead them to grasp those objectives, and then assess their learning. Objective, Instruction, Assessment. You don’t test what you didn’t teach, and you don’t teach what you won’t test. A triangle is stable just because there are three points. Introduce a fourth—say, content that is irrelevant or a test question over something you didn’t teach—and you destroy the integrity of your lesson. It’s a simple concept, and though it is second nature to me now, I still keep that triangle foremost in my mind every single day—whether it’s a lesson, a unit, a semester plan, or even a whole course that I’m putting together.

In the beginning, my objectives were limited, even superficial—or they were too grand. It takes time to analyze content and pick out the important concepts. Over time, I learned to identify the gaps in some students’ learning and figured out how to remediate those students while I was accelerating others. I learned to anticipate what every student would need to understand big ideas and then to sequence my instruction accordingly.

I learned strategies that reach students disposed to every learning style, that accommodate exceptionalities, that differentiate for ability, that touch every level of learning–or at least I try to do all this. A smorgasbord of instructional strategies exists, and I still try new ones and invent others as much and as often as my ingenuity, stamina, and the available resources allow.

Finally, I learned to write assessments that match the objectives precisely and to select appropriate methods for assessment. The standardized format—multiple choice—usually isn’t the best way to test depth of knowledge or critical thinking. Essays work often, but not always. Some situations call for performance tests. Choosing the right assessment tool is a learned skill, too.

Crafting the perfect triangle has been the work of a lifetime.

And that’s only the half of it. A student can learn from a teacher who is technically skilled, but a student loves learning when the teacher loves the student, too. The geometry of a successful classroom includes a circle that, like the arms of parents around their children, makes the students feel important and secure, a circle that opens them up to learning.

I have to be ingenious, though. Some students resist being included in the classroom circle. Was the poet Edwin Markham thinking about a reluctant learner when he wrote this: “Love and I had the wit to win/We drew a circle that took him in”?

That’s what I do all day—entice students into the circle. And that’s where the art of teaching lies.

Some would say mine is the task of Sisyphus. True, I start over every single day. Always something technical could be improved, some interaction with a student could have been better. I reflect each night: If I would just…whatever it is…I’d have it!

But. Rolling the rock was a punishment for Sisyphus; for me, it’s a privilege. Sisyphus started over every day resigned, perhaps resentful; I begin each day with hope—because every day, every year that I teach, something wonderful happens: Kids fall in love with learning.

Some people think teaching is easy. You just stand in front of the class, tell them to open the book, and boom: Love happens.

No, you start with a triangle…