No Child Left Inside

A fellow teacher at my school sent this short video link to the school list serve.
The basic idea is that teachers should base their lessons around the outdoors because we have so much to learn from the natural world. I usually teach a class with funny items (a wool slipper, an ipod song, a gummy bear) and ask students to practice writing with sensory details. It would be simple enough to take them outside the classroom and duplicate the activity with a flower petal, a lady bug, or a crunching leaf sound. As mentioned in the video, science class steps easily outside, but I worry a little about making the stretch from the English curriculum.

Acting for inspiration

Teaching Shakespeare at the end of the school year is a tough job. Several classes floundered. Some succeeded. In general, the classes that worked well centered around lifting Shakespeare off the page and slipping him into their mouths. Today I watched a group perform act 1.2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream set in a fantastical pub called "the wood." Students brought a cooler as a prop that produced blue soda in glass bottles to serve as a beer substitute. They strolled around the classroom, gesticulating casually with blue bottles, taking sips when appropriate, and reading easily off scripts. I was moved. Their intonation demonstrated an understanding of what they were saying--a striking student accomplishment considering the difficulty of Shakespeare's language
I had dreams last week about letting down students because they won't all close the play knowing how to wax poetic about themes of the moon and eyes. Hopefully positive associations with Shakespeare will linger with them and buoy them next year as they approach Merchant of Venice, another of Shakespeare's plays.

Writing with lists

I have been experimenting with more directed assignments. Generally I ask students to write a 1 page paper a week about anything they want because a) it forces them to become creative about their topics and b) they invest themselves in what they write. Two weeks ago I saw a marked bump up in the quality of writing amongst my students and it appears to be related to writing with lists.

Here was the assignment:

Lists are powerful. Lists are a good-writers trick to get people to believe you know what you're talking about. Lists are basically a ton of examples. Examples are cool.

You have now entered into the last quarter of your freshman year. I expect you to show me you can do creative, thoughtful things with words. I expect improvement from last semester. Don't bore me.

For this assignment, you can write about whatever you want, but you must include at least one list somewhere in your piece. It should be marked with an asterisks*. Read the examples in the "examples of good lists" resource in moodle to get some idea of what good lists are capable of. Go nuts. Show me what you can do.

-1 point for having a lame list
-2 points for writing about something you don't care about
-1 point for making me eat fig newtons in order stay awake to read your paper
-1 point for punctuation mistakes
-2 points for turning it it late with no chance of re-write.
-1 point for an untyped paper.

Your paper should be at least one page single spaced. Print it and bring it to class.


Examples of good lists:

1. The room was, without the kitchenette, about twelve by fifteen feet, and, crowded as it was (in addition to the bed, table, and breakfront, it contained a dresser, desk, coffee table, end-table, and easy chair, a TV set, two stand-up lamps, two small bookcases, a green leather hassock, a newspaper rack, an old costumer for their coats), Sam liked it. [Jay Neugeboren, Sam's Legacy (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), p. 19.]

2. Here she was, seven years his wife, he thought he knew her inside and out, every quirk of her handwriting, inflection of voice; her passion for strawberries, her ridiculous way of singing; the brown moles on her shoulder, the extreme smallness of her feet and toes, her dislike of silk underwear. Her special voice at the telephone, too--that rather chilly abruptness, which has always surprised him, as if she might be a much harder woman than he thought her to be. And the queer sinuous cat-like rhythm with which she always combed her hair before the mirror at night, before going to bed--with her head tossing to one side, and one knee advanced to touch the chest of drawers. He knew all these things, which nobody else knew, and nevertheless, now, they amounted to nothing. The woman herself stood before him as opaque as a wall. [Conrad Aiken, "Impulse"]

"Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

In this short video Sir Ken Robinson argues that yes, schools do. He suggests that being successful means developing your natural talents. It takes some experimentation to figure out what those talents are, and schools should provide resources, mentors, and space for that kind of experimentation.
The video is funny, well-done, an ultimately made me want to buy ballet slippers for the repressed dancer in, well, all of us. Part of my brain insists students must learn specific skills for the job market that lies ahead, while the other half admits I have no idea what kind of job market awaits in 2016. It seems the only three things I know will help them in any profession are:
1) critical thinking skills
2) creative thinking skills
3) exposure to authors, books, and ideas that demonstrate the heritage of great thinkers that our students inherent simply by being human.
Sir Ken Robinson's lecture speaks directly to #2 listed here.