I missed posting about it on the exact date (can’t believe I did that), but my blog turned three years old on June 25, 2008.
Happy (Belated) Birthday, Blog!
Image via PappaJack
The Teacher’s Daybook, 2008-2009
I just pre-ordered my copy of Jim Burke’s handy planner, The Teacher’s Daybook, updated for 2008-2009. The planner will not actually be released until July 10. Usually, it is released much earlier, and I wonder if some of the changes made didn’t cause a delay in publication. The planners usually run from July to June of the year specified, so I can’t help but think there was a problem this time.
I actually mocked up syllabi for this fall yesterday. Why do I want to go back to school so bad when I just started my summer? The Folger Teaching Shakespeare Mini-Institute! I am really excited to teach three Shakespeare plays this year — Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth, all of which, interestingly enough, are included in volume one of the Folger Library’s Shakespeare Set Free series. As a participant of the institute, I will be receiving a copy of this volume. I already have one, so I plan to donate the older copy to a colleague and keep the new one. I am not sure what the difference between the one I already have and the new one is (aside from the cover). Does anyone else know?
If you can only get one volume of the series, this volume is the one I recommend because it contains two of the most frequently taught plays — Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth — both of which are frequently anthologized in 9th grade texts and British literature texts respectively. It is my hope that if Folger produces another volume in the series, they will consider creating a unit for Julius Caesar, as when I have had to teach that play (twice), I have had difficulty in coming up with creative ideas, although it looks like there are some good ideas on the Folger’s Web site. There is a great idea for the scene when Cinna the Poet is attacked by the plebeian mob that we did at the Mini-Institute, but I don’t see an identical one on the Web site (here is a similar one).
Well, I need to tell myself to enjoy this break from teaching. I am twenty pages from the end of Wuthering Heights, which I am actually reading in its entirety for the first time (sorry Mrs. Keener — it wasn’t personal — I just couldn’t keep up with the reading schedule!) and Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them was set aside while I finished up with end-of-year business (and I mean “busy-ness,” too), and I feel I have not been a good participant at the wiki. And I need to read the summer reading books assigned to my students (or at least the ones I haven’t read yet) so that I can make assessments for the books.
Techy Addendum: I have been getting a 500 Server Error when I post to this blog that says there is a misconfiguration on the server. No problems posting at all, so it must be related to something that happens after I post. No problems when I edit posts. I am not sure what is causing it, and trying to figure it out over the last couple of hours hasn’t been fruitful. Please let me know if you are having problems commenting. Comments are held in moderation, so your comment might not appear right away, and that is not a bug. However, if you get a strange error message (such as a 500 Server Error message), please let me know.
Accessing Austen: How Rich Was Mr. Darcy?
Quite apart from reading and appreciating Jane Austen’s language, it has been my experience that students have difficulty understanding her world. For example, is Mr. Darcy really rich? After all, £10,000 doesn’t sound like a lot of money. What’s a pelisse anyway? What’s with all the letter writing? What’s up with all the tea? Of course, these questions probably barely scratch the surface, but you get the idea. In this new series, utilizing Jane Austen blogs and Web sites, I intend to attempt to gather resources that will help high school students access Jane Austen’s world.
Money (and its lack) is referenced often in Jane Austen’s work. In fact, the first line of Pride and Prejudice, references money: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Indeed, two single men of good fortunes appear in this novel — Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Mrs. Bennet, excited at the prospect of one of her daughters snagging Mr. Bingley, says, “A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!” [I love Mr. Bennet’s reply, but as it doesn’t touch on my point, I shall restrain myself from expounding upon it.] Exactly how much is that? To modern sensibilities, that doesn’t sound like much of a fortune. The wonderful blog Jane Austen’s World has a post, “Pride and Prejudice Economics: Or Why a Single Man with a Fortune of £4,000 Pounds Per Year is a Desirable Husband,” which describes several monetary references in Austen’s novels and letters in modern terms. Mr. Bingley’s £4,000 a year would be £135,840 in modern terms. If your students are American, they’re most likely still in the dark. Currency converters abound all over the Internet, but my handy converter on my iGoogle home page says that this sum is currently equal to $265,841.29. Not too shabby. Not insanely rich, but certainly extremely comfortable and wanting for nothing. So what about Mr. Darcy’s £10,000 a year? Roughly £339,600, or $664,603.21. Well over half a million a year certainly puts Mr. Darcy in the upper echelons of society, not to mention this sum is only 4% interest on his entire “vast fortune.” And the poor Dashwoods, who had to get by on only £500? Well, they’re certainly not well off by anyone’s measure, but they (sadly) pull in about the same amount as a teacher’s starting salary in many areas of the country — about £16,980, or $33,230.16. Jane Austen’s World also has an interesting discussion of Marianne Dashwood’s assertion that £1,800 to 2,000 is a “moderate” income.
This post is the first in a series on teaching Jane Austen’s novels.
Folger Shakespeare Mini-Institute
Last week, I participated in a Teaching Shakespeare Mini-Institute with the Folger Shakespeare Library. If you ever have the opportunity to participate in one of Folger’s institutes, seize the opportunity. You will not only learn great practical methods for teaching Shakespeare and learn about Shakespeare and his plays, but you will also develop professional ties to amazing educators from all different backgrounds.
Much of the Teaching Shakespeare Mini-Institute’s methodology will be familiar to teachers who use Folger’s popular Shakespeare Set Free series. Our focus was on Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We began the first four days with a lecture from either Barry Gaines, professor at the University of New Mexico, or Christy Desmet, professor at the University of Georgia. We also had curriculum sessions twice a day, seminar discussions, and performance classes taught by Laura Cole from the New American Shakespeare Tavern and Caleen Sinnette Jennings from Folger. Our culminating project was performance of a scene on the stage of the Shakespeare Tavern, which was an amazing experience. Here is a video of my group’s take on the scene when the Mechanicals in MND are receiving their parts from Peter Quince.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/WRzrvPXxPqk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
We all went to the Shakespeare Tavern to see Laura as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, which was a great experience. The actors were kind enough to stay late for a Q&A with all of us, and the Tavern was generous with great seats. If you live in the Atlanta area (or even just Georgia or nearby) and have never been to the Tavern, do yourself a favor and go. You will not be disappointed. Laura was brilliant, and the rest of the cast was also a delight.
I had an amazing time, learned a lot, and made new friends. I am still processing everything I learned, so please be patient as posts about the experience will come out as I think it through and make connections.
Here’s a picture of all of us on the stage at the Shakespeare Tavern. Click the image to see a larger version.
Fitzgerald Scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli Dies
It is hard to imagine how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legacy would be different today if not for the loving attention of Matthew J. Bruccoli, who died Wednesday, June 4 of a brain tumor. In the Great Gatsby Treasure Hunt that I adapted from Valerie Arbizu’s work, students are introduced to the wonderful Web site created for Fitzgerald’s centenary celebration, for which Bruccoli was responsible. Of all of the literary scholars I have read, my affinity has always been deepest with Bruccoli because I understood and shared his affection for Fitzgerald. I know I have been deeply grateful for Bruccoli’s contributions to Fitzgerald studies. My understanding of and affection for the author has improved because of Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Read more about Bruccoli’s passion for Fitzgerald and his Fitzgerald collection.
Changes
Nobody’s complained about the absence of my weekly reflections, but I suppose I feel the need to explain anyway. Our last day of school was today. This week was finals week. I have been crazy busy because not only am I finishing up the year, but I’m also moving classrooms and wearing a new hat, which has taken up some time this week. My department chair is leaving us, and I was offered and accepted the position of English Department Chair. I have never been an administrator of any sort, and I always said I didn’t want to be, but I do want to do this job, and I want to do it well. As department chair, I will take on duties such as managing department issues (professional development, book orders and inventory, ensuring department tasks are done), facilitating meetings between my department members and parents (if necessary), serving as a liaison between administration and my department, planning and conducting department meetings, and probably a lot more stuff I don’t even realize I’ve taken on.
OK, I admit I am excited and honored. I didn’t think I would be in this position a few years ago. Initially, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it because I wasn’t sure I could do it. Over the last few weeks, however, I have decided that as long as I approach this new position as I always tried to approach my job and I do the best job I can do, it will be fine. I actually am pretty good at the paperwork and bookkeeping elements of teaching. What will be new for me is being in a position of some authority.
I am looking forward to this new challenge. My school has offered me a great deal of freedom and support to grow as a teacher. In the four years I have been there, I have written an English Journal article, made a presentation at a statewide conference, offered professional development to my colleagues in the faculty, connected with educators all over the country and the world through blogs and wikis (with the support of my administration when many schools discourage blogging), and genuinely felt embraced and valued for my contributions in way I have never felt anywhere else. And it has only made me want to do more. I have done more in the four years I have been at my school because I have been able, through their support, to do more.
So… onward and upward to even more great things!
New Teacher Assistance
My friend and colleague Lauren, who returned to teaching this year after working with administration at my school, has started a blog called New Teacher Assistance. Lauren’s self-proclaimed audience is new teachers, but we can all learn from her insights.
Welcome to the edublogosphere, Lauren, and watch out — I might recruit you to help me with my GISA presentation on using blogs and wikis for professional development!
The Power of a Positive First Impression
I e-mailed my adviser at Virginia Tech with a question about registration. She wrote back in what I thought was an unnecessarily irritable way because I had used the wrong e-mail address to contact her, and because she was upset about that one detail, the tone of her whole reply made me feel as though I had bothered her when I was only trying to seek help. I didn’t get a positive first impression of the person who will not only be my adviser through this program, but also who will apparently be teaching all my classes, and it made me think about how teachers unwittingly start off on the wrong foot with students, leading to self-consciousness and insecurity on the students’ part. I know in my case I immediately felt discouraged about my decision to go to Virginia Tech, but I am hoping perhaps she was cranky for some other reason and won’t make a habit of snapping at me when I have questions. It can be hard to be patient when you’re a teacher, and the students asked something you just answered five minutes ago, or they could find the answer if they just read the handout, and it can be hard to put ourselves in the shoes of our students. We should really try, though. It’s hard to be vigilant about each interaction we have with students, but it is so easy to tear down and so hard to build up. I would hate for my students to have the kind of first impression of me that I have of my professor.
Write Beside Them: This I Believe
The main message I took away from the second chapter of Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them is that writing teachers will not be effective unless they are also writers. She says, “We don’t learn many things well just by following directions” (7-8). However, it was this remark that struck a chord with me: “[T]he instruction has to come during the process of creating a piece, not in polishing the product, or nothing changes. That’s a crucial error I was making for years” (8). I think perhaps focusing on the product and not the process of creation may be why students flip to the last page to look at their grade.
Kittle compares learning to write to teaching her son to drive. Parents wouldn’t send their sons and daughters out on road without being in the car with them, modeling first by “talking [them] through [our] decisions” (7). The important thing to do is model writing: “If we don’t model smart thinking in writing, our students will write like kids who’ve read the driver’s manual but still hit the curve too fast and just about send us to the hospital” (8).
It’s interesting — I recall modeling writing poetry for my students years ago. I slapped a poem in progress on the overhead and walked through developing it. I remembered that it worked really well, too, and it’s a wonder I didn’t try other types of writing, too.
What Kittle learned are three important truths about teaching writing:
- Teachers needn’t be writers — “just someone trying to write” (9). The process of modeling and thinking through a piece was the important part. I would argue that Kittle was mistaken in not thinking of herself as a writer. Our students don’t, either, and that’s why they think they’re no good at it. One of the questions I often ask on a writing inventory I give my students is “Are you a writer?” Almost none of them think of themselves as writers. We make these arbitrary definitions of words like “writer”: writers are published and other people (important people who should know) consider them to be good. Writers are people who use writing to communicate. Period. We can all consider ourselves writers.
- The books we read are great models of the product of writing, but it is the teacher’s job to model the process of writing. We don’t see the effort that went into selecting the words and stringing them together. We don’t see the painstaking process of editing. All we see is a great piece of polished writing. No wonder it looks daunting.
- We can learn how to teach writing by doing the writing ourselves. Think how much easier it will be to plan for writing assignment instruction if we’ve already struggled through the assignment ourselves.
A few years back in order to better teach my students how to write a research paper, I wrote one myself. It was probably the most effective thing I had ever done in terms of teaching the process; however, it might have been even more effective if the students could have seen me do it. If they had seen me locating resources, taking notes, putting my notes in effective order, and outlining my ideas, it might have been even easier for them to figure out how to do it. Well, there is always next year, and with my next class, I will write research paper beside them.
Write Beside Them: It’s a Wonderful Life
I began Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them, and even though I am posting at the Learners4Life wiki, I wanted to keep my own reading journal here. In this chapter, I felt Kittle outlined some of her core beliefs:
- Standardized testing does not rule how she teaches writing in her classroom.
- The single greatest influence on a child’s learning is the effectiveness of a teacher.
- We don’t tap into our students’ passions; therefore, they don’t care about what they write.
- Students try to figure out what we want and deliver it — they believe there is a correct way to write.
In some ways I am fortunate that my school does not used standardized testing to dictate curriculum. It is important for our students to do well on the SAT and AP tests, but we do not have to contend with testing requirements of NCLB as a private school. I am, however, glad to see that Kittle, who does have to contend with standardized testing, doesn’t let tests determine all of her instructional decisions. I would argue, however, that if a good teacher makes sound instructional decisions that truly teach her students what they need to know to be critical readers and effective writers, then the standardized test scores will follow. I think perhaps Kittle included these thoughts to appeal to teachers who might be afraid to try her methods and are used to teaching to whatever test they have to worry about.
Kittle echoes research I have read elsewhere regarding the influence of a teacher in a student’s learning. It is both empowering and daunting to know that teachers can have such an impact. Teachers have a lot of responsibility, and I think sometimes we feel helpless in the face of all the problems our students have, testing, and other constraints.
Why aren’t students motivated? Why won’t they revise? How come after all the time I put into commenting on that paper, he just turns to the last page to find the grade?
If you ask them, they’ll tell you. We aren’t tapping into their passions. (3)
I could have written the first three sentences. In fact, I have often lamented about the fact that students don’t read my copious comments and focus on the grades. My students are motivated, all right, but too often it’s a grade that motivated them instead of a desire to be a good writer or to learn. In fact, one of the reasons I was attracted to this book is that I hoped I might be able to learn how to tap into my students’ passions so that grades will no longer be the motivator.
Kittle quotes the literacy biography of one of her former students — a man who entered university to major in writing:
My childhood love of books fizzled when I entered junior high — all of a sudden I was in an environment where I had hours and hours of required reading, so much homework about boring subjects that I had no time to read what I wanted to read. With this went the writing — we never had “freewrite” time anymore, I always had to write what the teacher wanted, the “right” thing, what needed to be done for the grade. Creativity was gone. (4)
His comments could have been written by any number of high school students who once loved school and enjoyed what they were learning only to discover at a certain point that they had to basically play a game — figure out what the teacher wants so she’ll give me an A.
I don’t want my students to feel that way. I want them to enjoy writing, but also learn how to do it well at the same time.
I have created pages for each chapter and student focus in Kittle’s book over at the Learners4Life wiki. It’s not too late to join us. If you want to go ahead and start reading, like I did, feel free. I have posted a tentative reading schedule that allows for members to obtain copies of Kittle’s book and still finish before school begins again.