Today one of the classes in my credential program is having a synchronous online discussion in lieu of a regular class meeting. Like a class conducted via instant messaging. I'm a complete nerd about such things, and tend to get really excited about doing mundane things in new technological ways. The moment they invent virtual vacuuming and dusting, I'll be there, man!
The virtual class should be interesting, and hopefully fun. I'll post some reflections here afterward. I wonder if I should wear pants.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Dove Catcher
A fellow teacher and blogger asked me about my approach to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. With thanks, today's entry is for you, Poppy.
Catcher was the third unit I did with my freshmen this year--which is to say the third Language Arts unit I've ever done. Without the benefit (or constraint) of master teacher tutelage, I relied on of our school's stated focus for freshman English--character composition--for a central purpose.
Then I thought about what I wanted the ending assessments to look like. I decided that an essay about some aspect of Holden's character would be appropriate, and then a creative project that would allow students to write their own informal narrative in the style of Holden.
Given those two objectives, and the focus on character composition, the unit kind of wrote itself backwards. I divided "character" into four parts: Decisions, Observable traits, Values, and Environment. Don't ask me where I came up with these parts, but they seem to work, and their acronym spells DOVE. Decisions and Values clearly go into what makes a book's character who he is. Adding Environment makes sense as well, since there is always interplay between a character's past and present Environments and his Values and Decisions. Those three work really well together, and the students seem to get the flux and flow between them.
Observable traits is kind of a catch-all for the sundry and assorted character attributes that the author gives a character as a means of revealing something about him. For example, Holden has these really nice Gladstone bags. That's not exactly a Decision or a Value, but it has a bearing on those things. It's something you can observe that informs who Holden is. I tend to think of Observables as the et cetera bin.
I modeled taking "DOVE notes" for the class as we read the book together in class. The students all had pages in their notebooks dedicated to taking DOVE notes. Each major character gets his own page--in the case of Catcher, Holden is the only major character, and the subject of the upcoming essay, so note taking was pretty uncluttered.
Whenever we came to a spot in the story where Holden reveals some aspect of his Values, or makes a significant decision, etc., I would get up and make a note of it on the board thusly:
(V) Holden wants to protect women, fights Stradlater (75)
Interestingly, for me at least, such observations can often be ambiguous: the fight with Stradlater can also be viewed as a decision. I used such ambiguities as a way to let the students hash out their differences in perspective. In the end, I usually suggested they used both (V) and (D). I mean, what's the harm?
By the book's end, the students generally had about two or three notebook pages covered with DOVE notes and page numbers. This is the part that really made me happy: I was able to show the students how easy it is to create a well-supported persuasive essay from their notes because they had Holden's character diced up into four categories and had page numbers for everything.
For the informal narrative assignment I brought in some models from blogs and so forth and discussed with the students how effective personal narratives reveal aspects of the writer's values, decisions, and environment through the telling of a story from her life.
Finally, I started the unit with a Salinger bio, some context-setting literature about World War II, a description of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (which I argue is central to Salinger's work) and Salinger's short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."
Oh, and for fun, get some Bebop music to play at the beginning of class. It's period specific, and sets the tone for Holden's world very well. Enjoy.
Catcher was the third unit I did with my freshmen this year--which is to say the third Language Arts unit I've ever done. Without the benefit (or constraint) of master teacher tutelage, I relied on of our school's stated focus for freshman English--character composition--for a central purpose.
Then I thought about what I wanted the ending assessments to look like. I decided that an essay about some aspect of Holden's character would be appropriate, and then a creative project that would allow students to write their own informal narrative in the style of Holden.
Given those two objectives, and the focus on character composition, the unit kind of wrote itself backwards. I divided "character" into four parts: Decisions, Observable traits, Values, and Environment. Don't ask me where I came up with these parts, but they seem to work, and their acronym spells DOVE. Decisions and Values clearly go into what makes a book's character who he is. Adding Environment makes sense as well, since there is always interplay between a character's past and present Environments and his Values and Decisions. Those three work really well together, and the students seem to get the flux and flow between them.
Observable traits is kind of a catch-all for the sundry and assorted character attributes that the author gives a character as a means of revealing something about him. For example, Holden has these really nice Gladstone bags. That's not exactly a Decision or a Value, but it has a bearing on those things. It's something you can observe that informs who Holden is. I tend to think of Observables as the et cetera bin.
I modeled taking "DOVE notes" for the class as we read the book together in class. The students all had pages in their notebooks dedicated to taking DOVE notes. Each major character gets his own page--in the case of Catcher, Holden is the only major character, and the subject of the upcoming essay, so note taking was pretty uncluttered.
Whenever we came to a spot in the story where Holden reveals some aspect of his Values, or makes a significant decision, etc., I would get up and make a note of it on the board thusly:
(V) Holden wants to protect women, fights Stradlater (75)
Interestingly, for me at least, such observations can often be ambiguous: the fight with Stradlater can also be viewed as a decision. I used such ambiguities as a way to let the students hash out their differences in perspective. In the end, I usually suggested they used both (V) and (D). I mean, what's the harm?
By the book's end, the students generally had about two or three notebook pages covered with DOVE notes and page numbers. This is the part that really made me happy: I was able to show the students how easy it is to create a well-supported persuasive essay from their notes because they had Holden's character diced up into four categories and had page numbers for everything.
For the informal narrative assignment I brought in some models from blogs and so forth and discussed with the students how effective personal narratives reveal aspects of the writer's values, decisions, and environment through the telling of a story from her life.
Finally, I started the unit with a Salinger bio, some context-setting literature about World War II, a description of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (which I argue is central to Salinger's work) and Salinger's short story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."
Oh, and for fun, get some Bebop music to play at the beginning of class. It's period specific, and sets the tone for Holden's world very well. Enjoy.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Safest Sleep Soundest
I just finished the first week of my Romeo & Juliet unit, and we haven't cracked the book. I haven't even handed them out yet. I have no idea if this is unorthodox, I'm floating in obscurity at my school. I don't have a master teacher, but from time to time I have a chat with one of the other English teachers. The reviews I get from the observers in the administration are glowing, so I know that my approach isn't just a random birdwalk with no reality. Students are learning, reportedly. But this is all new to me, and I'm on my own so I have this ongoing insecurity.
In any case, Romeo & Juliet have TONs of supplementary material, including several great films for newcomers to Shakespeare, (e.g. Standard Deviants' Introduction to Shakespeare, Looking for Richard, My Shakespeare, Shakespeare behind bars, and myriad editions of the play). So I've been running classes with the first half dedicated to frontloading vocabulary and learning trying out iambic pentameter, and the second half to watching and discussing some of these productions.
Actually, I don't think it's going to take us long to get through the actual reading of the play. I'm going to run the play like I used to run Shakespeare plays as an undergrad: watch the video with the book open in front of me, and stop every five minutes or so to make notes on what the heck is going on, who in the hell just got stabbed, and what it means.
It may be that I'm hitting my stride, but I have to say that so far I'm enjoying even more then Catcher in the Rye. Which is saying something.
In any case, Romeo & Juliet have TONs of supplementary material, including several great films for newcomers to Shakespeare, (e.g. Standard Deviants' Introduction to Shakespeare, Looking for Richard, My Shakespeare, Shakespeare behind bars, and myriad editions of the play). So I've been running classes with the first half dedicated to frontloading vocabulary and learning trying out iambic pentameter, and the second half to watching and discussing some of these productions.
Actually, I don't think it's going to take us long to get through the actual reading of the play. I'm going to run the play like I used to run Shakespeare plays as an undergrad: watch the video with the book open in front of me, and stop every five minutes or so to make notes on what the heck is going on, who in the hell just got stabbed, and what it means.
It may be that I'm hitting my stride, but I have to say that so far I'm enjoying even more then Catcher in the Rye. Which is saying something.
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