Assignment: Inductive / Collaborative Learning

Last week's classes went well. Despite having to prepare 2-3 lessons each day, I felt more comfortable than my first week. So comfortable, in fact, that I used two of the techniques we could choose and reflect on for this week's blog.

First, the inductive "lesson," which was really more of a gesture towards inductive teaching in an otherwise decidedly deductive lesson. On Tuesday, the students were supposed to compose their own persuasive speeches, after hearing and reflecting on some examples on Monday. Instead of giving the usual dry outline of what their speeches should look like, I thought I'd give them an example of a persuasive speech on the overhead and try to coax/trick them into producing their own outline. In this I was fairly unsuccessful, as I couldn't get the answers I was really looking for and (maybe too hastily) resorted to providing them myself. I tried every variation/simplification of the "what is the speaker trying to do/make you feel here?" question, but at best my students would only offer bad paraphrases of the sections I'd make them read.

So, conclusions:
1. Inductive teaching takes more time. This wasn't really an appropriate occasion to use the strategy, because my lesson plan allowed very little time for a collective puzzling out of the speech's outline; I was much more concerned with giving the kids enough time to write their own speeches. To do the technique justice, I would've had to wait these kids out, let them realize what the speaker's intention really was.
2. It needs questions, good ones. My students may not really understand authorial intention that well (beyond the standard "inform, persuade, or entertain" they were taught--deductively!) and they needed better questions than the ones I was asking. If I'd thought it out more ahead of time, I'm sure we could have built from those paraphrases they were giving. But I also should've given them...
3. Multiple examples. Probably why that segment was more like inductive-lite and also why it didn't work. If I'd shown them a few other speeches and compared each section (attention-grabber, overview, etc.) it would have (hopefully) become much more obvious what I meant by "what the speaker is trying to do." Really, without multiple cases, I don't even know if that bit qualifies as inductive at all. Maybe just misguided.

Thank goodness "collaborative learning" (or "working in groups") fared a little better. I used it for our period on revising the persuasive speeches, the same lesson, I might add, for which I was being evaluated. So daring. The plan was to break the class into pairs (I chose them) and have students take turns presenting their speech to their partner, while the partner evaluated their public speaking. After each speech, the speaker did a self-evaluation, while the partner answered some questions about the content/argument of the speech. I collected the self- and peer-evaluations as assessment.

All in all, I think it went swimmingly. As Joe pointed out in his evaluation, the major setback for the lesson was the fact that only half the class had rough drafts to be revised. I decided to move those students who hadn't written a draft yet to one side of the room and make them work on the drafts quietly for the period, while helping the others through their revision activity. Essentially, then, I was teaching two classes, one supposedly silent and one necessarily somewhat noisy. It wasn't perfect, but I think both sides were fairly productive. If I had to do it again, I'd definitely make the no-draft kids serve as peer evaluators for the kids with drafts and then make the whole class write silently for the rest of the period, either revising or composing the first time.

But as it was, the group activity went well. It was a good move to get both speaker and partner to write an evaluation and I was truly impressed with the partner's comments. Biggest lesson from collaborative learning--explain the procedure in excruciating detail. I'm still getting used to what I can expect from middle-schoolers in terms of understanding directions. I did the whole role-play example thing beforehand and got exasperated, "We get it already" looks from some of the kids, but they still needed some reminding and re-explanation to know what they should be doing.

Finally, a Hallmark sentiment to close on: I can't say what the exact causal relationship was last week between my enjoying the teaching better, sleeping more, feeling more confident in front of the class, and planning better/faster, but another good thing wrapped up in all that was the fact that I found myself really, really liking the kids, even the little jerks and sassy mcnasties. Some are bright, some aren't; some want to do well, some couldn't care less; but they've all got their moments.

Assigned: Questioning Techniques

I used cold-calling, with limited success, in my lesson on tone and imagery. I don't think students were less engaged; it's quite possible they were paying more attention to what their classmates were saying because they might be randomly called on. But to be honest, I can't really give too much detail on the class' response because I felt less in touch with the classroom environment when I was cold-calling. Part of the problem was just physical/logistical. In juggling a dry-erase marker, a sheet of notes, and a stack of cards with names on them, I repeatedly found myself in awkward situations where I wanted to write something on the board and/or glance at my notes and call on someone immediately afterward. Instead, I'd have to put one of the objects down, shuffle the cards, and then pick a name, creating a few moments of silence in which I might lose the class' active attention. This was in no way helped by the fact that--in a strange version of randomness--I drew the same 3 names over and over again.

I'm sure I'll try cold-calling at some point during the school year and I plan on trying out concept tests in another lesson this summer, but this first trial was not encouraging. If cold-calling means I'm less attuned to my students' level of engagement, I'd rather use my own method of quasi-arbitrary questioning. Sure, it opens me up to complaints from the kids who always raise their hands and aren't always called upon, but I think I'd get those anyways.

The most revelatory thing about this experiment was that it drove home how bad my classroom management (and my teaching in general) got toward the end of this week. Awkwardness with cards or not, I shouldn't be getting so flustered or unperceptive that I can't tell how a new technique was received by my students.

On a closely related note, the first student I cold-called for a response to "This Is Just To Say" (Who do you think Williams is writing to?) refused to say anything, until I prodded her a second time, and then declared that "it was a stupid question." Okay, unrepentant trigger-puller-lunch-eater that I am, I wrote her name on the board. She probably deserved to jump straight to one check (a call home) for the severity. As discussion rolled along, students participating more or less and generally not responding as well as I'd hoped, I decided the noise was getting too high and gave a few verbal warnings. Not much lasting effect, so I resolved to take a sacrificial lamb: unfortunately, the first person to talk after this mental resolution was the same girl. Check #1. Needless to say, she didn't like that, said she wasn't talking, and gave me enough lip to earn Check #2. Detention. Hooray.

As sacrificial lamb, she did her part; the room was basically quiet for the rest of the period. But I did feel like I had been a little too arbitray, a little unfair. When I gave her the detention slip after lunch she crumpled it up, may not have even put it in her backpack. Now, the girl most definitely has problems. Anger, etc. She's actually the oldest in the class, 16 and making up 7th grade English. But what I found out after dismissal (and after she got a 2nd detention for cursing me in front of Ms. B) is that she's also taking care of her step-dad (the only man who's ever treated her nicely) because he was shot in the stomach on Tuesday and is refusing to eat unless she makes him and because her mom won't take care of him for some reason. As Ms. B (whom she told all this) told her, all that still doesn't excuse her bad behavior. But golly if it doesn't explain some of it.

We're told to let whatever negativity we receive or whatever negative results we get just slide off our back--our students will forget about it and we'll do better next time. That's going to be a hard attitude to keep, as I don't forgive myself easily. Thankfully, forgiving ourselves doesn't mean we forget why we failed. This week, the axe will fall earlier and with greater consistency. And hopefully, as a result, with less frequency!

Assignment: Focus Paper Response

My immediate response to Elizabeth Savage’s focus paper on white segregation academies was dismay. She--along with Dave Molina, who also discusses the academies and offers a similar explanation for their longevity--describes the determination of whites in Mississippi to perpetuate segregation by founding and fleeing to private schools that effectively bar blacks from attending. Perhaps the grimmest revelation in Elizabeth’s paper is how much political support these white academies have received. She traces a lineage of state-sponsored organizations that have worked to shore up the legal legitimacy of and public support for these academies, from the Legal Education Advisory Committee that was created soon after the Brown decision, to the State Sovereignty Commission of Gov. James Coleman, to the present-day Council of Conservative Citizens, which counts Trent Lott as an honorary member.

Elizabeth also suggests that these academies are finding support within the public school system. While students in the public schools are overwhelmingly black, the administrators who staff the school boards and district offices are predominantly white. Many of these white administrators send their children to these private academies and—if they thus feel a greater responsibility to these private institutions than the public schools—they are ideally positioned to keep the cost of public education low for the white population, by minimizing school spending (and consequently the income tax).

I’m in no position to agree with or dispute Elizabeth’s claims, since I’ve been here for less than a week and haven’t ventured outside of Oxford except for summer school. But despite my dismay, I don’t doubt that the kind of corruption and entrenched racism she depicts could be the law of the land. The adversity that poor black children in Mississippi are up against seems systemic. I remember using Google maps a few months ago to find the school I’d be teaching at. There are two middle schools in Cleveland, one on the west side of the train tracks, with the Cleveland Country Club and Delta State University, and the other on the east side. It was no surprise to find that I’d be teaching at the one on the east side, that over three-quarters of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, that its average class size is well above the state and district averages, and that 100% of its students are black.

It was sad to hear Ashley and ‘Vette say that their highest goal is to get out of Hollandale and out of the Delta. You’d like to think they could go to college and change their hometown, change the way things work. But I don’t blame them for wanting to leave it all. And I’m at a loss as to how anyone might go about changing something so insidiously backwards and well-supported as this quasi-institutional racism.