Pursuing our Interests

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything here. I always have good intentions, and then the reality of each day seems to suck up all the time. Today, however, I read an amazing blog post and felt inspired. Sometimes that's all it takes for us to start on something: an inspiring moment. The blog post I read is titled: Dreams When We're Awake, and it is found on a blog I follow called Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Here is the link: http://bit.ly/i1blfC I found this post to be very inspirational. The writer is a teacher from Southern Georgia who thinks in a similar way to me, when it comes to the purpose of education. She writes about how getting her students to write about topics that they were passionate about started a ball rolling that lead to a conference for like minded teachers and students in Qatar. Very cool. But more so because right now, in my English classes we are working on this very thing. Each student is pursuing a topic that interests them so greatly they want to focus on it for a two month period of time. This project came about as a result of listening to speakers like Will Richardson and reading blogs from forward thinking educators. To me, English class should be about the teaching of how to communicate ideas. In doing so the students will read, write and create media content. These are skills upon which they can build as they move through the school system and eventually into the workforce. While there may be times when the whole class can benefit from reading the same thing, there are also times when students need to be empowered and take responsibility for their own learning. I look forward to sharing the results of these projects.

Challenging myself as a Reader

One of the changes I have made this year, in terms of assessing the personal reading of my students, was to add the row in the rubric that targets challenging oneself as a reader. I know from my own reading experience that it is easy to get sucked into the world of only reading certain genres and particular authors. This makes me lazy when I read because I know what the author will do, or what to expect from reading so many other similar books.

My students, and their parents, have asked, "How do we challenge ourselves as readers." Here is the beginning of an answer.

The first thing to do is to read outside your comfort zone. Pick up books in genres you may not be familiar with. Explore new authors. This was the goal of the "Around the Library in 14 Genres" contest held earlier in the year. The amazing thing to me is that when you branch out and try new reading materials you discover so many wonderful things. I, personally, don't really enjoy mystery novels, and yet some of the most enjoyable books I have read in the last year have been in that genre. I have read the first two books by the late Steig Larsson. You never know. You may discover that you actually enjoy what you thought you didn't.

Drop into a library and browse through the shelves. Some books may just jump out at you.

"...kids are good at connecting ideas and making things their own. If we provide them the supportive environment and tools to foster these connections and ideas, schools are doing their jobs.”

Steven Berlin Johnson

We've been trying to do just this, at least in the grade 8 English classes I teach. Inspired by a video I saw on ted.com, by an Educational researcher named Sugata Mitra, [His talk centred on the child-driven-education.] I have had my grade 8 students working in groups over the last month on a number of activities centred around improving their understanding of certain Literary elements like plot structure, irony and symbolism. It was wonderful to see the groups stand up in front of the class and teach each other through a variety of different media. We saw giant books, pop-up books, slideshows, puppet shows, skits and videos all used to communicate the student's learning.

Which brings me back to the quote with which I started this entry. I like to think that the environment within the grade 8 English classes has been the one described in that quote. Let me know.

D/I workshop

I was away from school today because I was attending a workshop on Differentiated Instruction. Much of these strategies are things good teachers do anyway. Still, I found the speaker, Karen Hume, very interesting and upbeat. She was very knowledgeable. (Of course, she is a former teacher-librarian.)

What I walked away from the day with was the desire to try out some of these strategies. The overall message was a positive one. We should want to try these things because we want all of our students to be as successful as possible. Knowing that students and all of us really, learn in different ways, it would be irresponsible of me, as a professional, to not try everything I can to help my students succeed.

So look out, students. Some new strategies are going to be making an appearance in our English class.

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education Video on TED.com

Grade 8s, this is the video that inspired your current assignment. It is worth watching.

A New Year, a New Beginning

Now that we are half-way through September, it seems like a good time to stop for a minute and think about how we are going to spend the year. I am lucky enough to teach three English classes this year: 7F, 8G and 8H. I will attempt to use this blog to write about things that relate directly to what we are doing in English class. Hopefully you will let me know if the content I put on this is relevant, and also to suggest things that can be placed here. I look forward to learning with you.

April's post:

Many of you have read "The Shepherd's Granddaughter", one of the nominated titles for this year's Red Maple Reading Program. You may also be aware of some of the controversy that has recently arisen concerning this book. Here is a link to an open letter asking for the book to be withdrawn from the Red Maple Program: Open Letter to Ontario's Education Minister. Here are some of the responses to this letter: Censorship Controversy Heats Up , Not Wise to Ban Children's Books , Jewish Groups Say... .

After reading the articles what do you think? Should the book be pulled from the competition because an organization dislikes its content? Who should decide what books get to be part of a competition like the Red Maple? Who should decide if a book is suitable for a school library? Are you old enough to read controversial books and decide for yourselves? How would you go about finding more information about the subject so that you could make up your own mind?

I think these are interesting questions and I would like you to weigh in with your thoughts about this topic of censorship. One of this month's posts needs to be a response to this issue.