Following a session at NCTE on using picture books at all levels, I was interested to see how my high school students would react to the idea. I chose "Explorers of the Wild" by Cale Atkinson to connect with our study of Homer's The Odyssey.
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Now that I have your attention... today's Teach Like a Pirate question is "What could I write on my board for this lesson that would spark a conversation or create a buzz even before the bell rings?" Words are powerful tools and I've never actually been a fan of the "now that I have your attention" gambit when the attention-getter has nothing to do with the upcoming discussion. However, if you can create that buzz and have it lead directly into your lesson I am all for it.
Continuing with my lessons on persuasion, propaganda, and fallacious reasoning, I thought about Dave Burgess' prompt to think of something that will create buzz in the classroom before class has begun. Students will be asked to spot fallacies as part of this lesson. I rather expect that projecting the statement that "Women are smarter than men." at the front of my room as students enter will generate a bit of buzz. This buzz can lead us into a discussion. At the appropriate time I will complete the syllogism - Marilyn vos Savant is listed by Guinness as having the highest recorded IQ, therefore it is obvious that women are smarter than men. Students will then find the fallacy in this reasoning. Returning to the important idea of movement, I will then have students in groups of three form "living syllogisms" as we discuss major premises, minor premises, and conclusions. I may also have students create a rhyme to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that teaches some of the major fallacies. So other thought-provoking questions that create buzz - which also leads into the topic of the day could be:
I wish my daughter were in that class - when that is what crosses my mind when I am reading about a particular style of teaching and specific classroom examples, then I know I have found an idea worth emulating. Like many teachers, I was that easy student who sucked in the learning, listened to instructions, paid attention, and accepted responsibility for my grades... and then along came my own children. My daughter in particular is not anyone's idea of an easy student. She is lively, gregarious, in-your-face, challenging, and a total crack-up-good-time gal... as long as you don't demand that she do something she doesn't want to do. Making it through to graduation was an exercise in cherry-picking the classrooms she would find the most success in attending - often it was a matter of would she survive, not even so lofty a goal as would she thrive. Throughout the experience I couldn't help thinking that it just shouldn't be so hard! I know that my experiences with her education has made me a better and more empathetic teacher. Every mother's child deserves the best I can give him or her. The Teach Like a Pirate question of the day... how can I add movement to this lesson? We've all read the studies that the more senses you engage of your students the more likely they will add what you are teaching into their long-term memories. Sometimes the kinesthetic learner seems the hardest to adjust to in our classrooms and yet that is exactly what my daughter is. She's got to move it! I remember when she was four she taught herself two of the quintessential childhood skills - tying her shoes and riding a bike. One day she asked me to come outside and teach her to ride a bike - I was in the middle of something and told her I'd be there in ten minutes. Ten minutes later when I went outside she said, "Never mind Mommy, I figured it out." I had a genius on my hands... and then she went to school and had to sit in a desk for long periods of time. So how do I incorporate movement? One of my favorite kinesthetic lessons is the living iambic pentameter that a colleague passed along from the Folger Shakespeare company. It is easy and it is memorable - you get 10 students in front of the class and give the first student a big letter "I" and the second students a big "AMB" and then alternate the same words until all ten students have a card. The "I" students read their card softly and the "AMB" students read theirs with power... then you go down the line several times "i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB-i-AMB." As a class you discuss what they are hearing and eventually someone will mention the sound of a heartbeat... the romantic meter of love! You talk about the fact that there are five sets of "I-AMB"s making it a PENTAmeter. Students remember what an iambic pentameter is after that. Of course a drama will lend itself easily to movement as you have students acting out scenes. In finding a new way to add movement to an upcoming lesson I looked at my lesson on fallacies where we are analyzing commercials and creating commercials of our own - there is movement already inherent in the activity, but most of it was taking place outside of the classroom on their own time. I wanted to find one more way to engage the students in an activity that got them out of their seats in the classroom. I decided to add an opening tableau to the activity. Each student will think of one of their favorite commercials and when I tap them on the shoulder they will go to the front of the class and freeze in a pose that they think represents that commercial (of course I will want to add music to this activity and I need to think of just the right song). After the entire class is part of the tableau I will take a picture and then send them to their seats. I will upload the photo and project it for the class to observe as we discuss their choices and their impressions of the commercials they were representing. I can't help but find myself thinking - if more teachers were teaching like pirates where my daughter was attending school, maybe it would have been easier to find classrooms in which she could actually thrive. A song comes on the radio and immediately you are mentally in another time and place. If you are with someone you have known long enough you may begin your next sentence with - "Remember when..." Jitterbug by Wham! starts playing and I can feel my hair getting bigger and my clothes turning 80s florescent in my mind. There is such an emotional pull to music that it engages our minds and senses in a way that few other methods can. One of the questions posed by Dave Burgess in Teach Like a Pirate is: How can I incorporate music into this lesson. I think that most teachers have used music in one fashion or another in their classroom, but to actively consider what music should be playing, if any, as your students enter your classroom is worth more conscious consideration. Rather than just use music when it seems like the obvious choice, how do I find ways to make it the obvious choice in a lesson?
With that question in mind I went back to my opening lessons for this coming school year and considered it for each lesson. For the first day of school, while the students work on their play dough creations (refer to Burgess book for more information) I will play "Who Are You?" by the Who. I am also planning on asking students what school appropriate songs they have at the top of their playlists and possibly use those as class entry music to better connect with each student. I had decided to do this after an experience I had riding in a car with some students. I decided to play my playlist for them. Two of the students sang along with the songs they knew and asked questions and one student put in her earphones and listed to her own music. I realized that I saw my music as an extension of me and that the students with the headphones was inadvertently "rejecting" me. With that little personal reflection I considered the idea further and realized that we could get to know the people in our class a little by learning what was on their playlist. Next I turned to my second lesson plan for the year which leads us into propaganda, persuasion, and critical thinking. As we start our lesson on propaganda, we will be more direct in the use of music and its role in propaganda. I will play "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith and we will spend time discussing how music plays on our emotions and opinions (Did you know that Yankee Doodle Dandy was the British attempt to make the rebellious colonists look foolish - but it backfired? As we tie this into Animal Farm by George Orwell - some music from the Russian Revolution would also be appropriate. If I ask this TLAP question with each lesson I prepare I may find more creative and unusual ways to incorporate music to help students connect with the curriculum or simply create a mood for a particular time period or concept. On Twitter today someone posted a link to songs that were inspired by literature. As an English teacher I found the length of that list rather impressive, especially as I could think of some that were left off. My son likes to share music with me that he thinks I will like and a couple years ago he shared "My Name is Alice" by Shinedown. It is based on Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll and I loved it. I enjoyed it so much I looked for a way to share it and I used that song with my classes when I've taught post-modernism. I have used "I'm Sexy and I know it" -the Ricky Martin/Glee version as my students presented their tableau based on Beowulf's boasting (some serious strutting took place by those who had represented Beowulf in the tableau. So whether you want to take a trip back to a personal memory or create a memory for your students - take a look at what is on your playlist and ask yourself - How can I use music to teach a p I love this New Yorker cartoon, and sometimes the best place to teach a concept actually is "inside the box" or rather in your classroom - but sometimes the best way to engage the students' imaginations and senses is to take the learning outside. Dave Burgess in Teach Like a Pirate suggests asking yourself while you are lesson planning "Where is the best place to teach this concept to my students?" Well designed field trips can be wonderful, but are often not feasible and we have to be creative about how we take a "field trip." A unit that I have taught in the past that I loved involved visiting a local elementary school where my high school students interviewed a partner and worked with their grade-school collaborator to write a children's book. They were fully engaged in the learning process to make sure that their partner got the best book possible from them. They learned about appropriate diction and voice, precision of language, sensory images, plot elements, dialogue, and creating engaging images to complement the story. The elementary school was up the street and we were able to walk there, work with the younger students, and walk back within our time period. My students loved it and the elementary students loved it. Most of my students chose to make two copies of their book so that they could keep one for themselves as well as give the required book to their partner. Last year a colleague and I had the students create their own poetry/art with museum cards. We hung their pieces out in the commons area of our school and then we took our students on a "field trip" museum walk to view the poetry art and to respond to what they saw. Not only did the learning incorporate poetry and presentation, students were motivated by the fact that their work would be on display where the entire student body would be passing it multiple times a day. This year I am planning to help my yearbook students get to know each other, learn more about some of the basic yearbook skills, bond with each other and with their editors, by having them doing a type of "scavenger hunt" competition. I will be dividing the staffers into groups of 5-6 and including an editor with each group. Each group will complete tasks such as which group can build the most creative structure using toothpicks and marshmallows, the first group that has 100% of its members that can name every person in the room, best t-shirt design (winning design will become this year's staff t-shirt, best photo (they'll do a mini photo scavenger hunt within this), best headline, etc. These activities will move between the classroom and the rest of the school to complete. I hope to report back here on how it went. While we cannot ignore the box - we must be aware of its parameters, functions, and strengths - we should ask ourselves if the box is the best place for the lesson we are teaching There is something atmospheric about old photographs. This photo was taken circa 1919 in Brooklyn New York of my husband grandfather shortly after he arrived from Italy. I am passionate about a number of activities, two of which are photography and genealogy. The excited squeals I emit when discovering an old family photo is probably usually reserved for amusement rides for others. At family events and vacations I have become the de facto photographer. So today's Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess (@burgessdave) is: Completely ouside of your profession, what are you passionate about? Incorporating photography into my teaching is something I have done many times. Of course in my yearbook, graphic design, and journalism classes that is hardly pushing the envelope as it is a core element of the curriculum. Bringing it more often into my English classes is something I intend to try. I have sat in the doorway on the first day of school with my digital camera and snapped photos as each student entered the room. It puts a twist on the get-to-know presentations when I project their photo on my SmartBoard while they tell the class a little about themselves. Great photography tells a story - it can also inspire story telling in students. It can evoke a time period and its clothing, automobiles, architecture, etc. much more effectively than a PowerPoint bullet point. A greater challenge is genealogy. How do I incorporate my passion for our roots and where we come from? I am certainly open to ideas and suggestions. I have used my passion for genealogy as an example to prod students into their own passions when they choose an area of research. When you are passionate about your topic you will dig into places you wouldn't have thought about for a topic of lesser import to you; you will spend your free time actively searching; you will seek out experts; you will talk to anybody who is willing to listen about what you have found; you will learn new skills if they aid you in your search; and you will continually try to improve on what you have already discovered. One of my central goals as a teacher is to spark that intellectual curiosity in my students. I have taught more than 20 years and it is still a challenge for which I haven't found the magic bullet solution. I am always look for ways to see that spark light up in their eyes and know that they can't wait to go home and dig some more on their own. To have them come rushing back the next day eager to share what else they learned about the topic is an event I want to see happen more regularly. There is something infectious about enthusiasm and passion. My father taught math and PE at the junior high across the street from where I grew up for over 30 years. Yes, there are many childhood photos of us cleaning up the TP from the yard where students had affectionately draped our trees in rolls of white. One of the personality traits my father taught me was the power of projecting a positive attitude. I loved how he responded to the ubiquitous inquiry of "How are you?" Almost always his response was, "I'm awesome. How are you?" And yes, he expected you to interpret his response in more ways than one. He had a seriously strong self image - he still does and it inspires me. Why be merely "fine" when you can be "awesome"?
Dave Burgess @burgessdave asks "Within your profession, but not specific to your subject matter, what are you passionate about? What is it about being an educator that drives you? What ignites a fire inside you?" I love my students. I have a passion about reaching and teaching and watching the growth and achievement of my students. I want the time spent in my classroom to enhance and ennoble these young men and young women and provide them with the tools and inner belief in their own ability to learn and move forward with their goals in life. I desire their success and joy in their futures. I am constantly looking for ways to help them ignite their own passions so that they will take off in their own education and learning where ever they go. I want them to be able to be able to tell me when I ask them how they are today, tomorrow, and ten years from now, "I am awesome." Much of my effective teacher develop comes from books that I have read. So when someone I follow on Goodreads mentioned Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess I couldn't resist the title and I added it to my "to read" list for the summer. Of course as soon as I did I started seeing it mentioned in my Twitter feeds as well. After reading the book, it seemed like an appropriate impetus to get me to start blogging again.
Recently I encountered the parent of a former student and I told the parent how much I enjoyed her daughter as a student. The parent told me that her daughter's comment on my teaching was that I was "very passionate about what I taught." Maybe that is why the core idea of Teach Like a Pirate appealed to me. "Light yourself on fire with enthusiasm and people will come from miles around just to watch you burn!" I may not have entered the realm of showing up in costume like Mr. Burgess, but I am extremely passionate about teaching and my subject matter. One of the most useful methods for me in Mr. Burgess' book was the questioning technique he presented. As I read I found myself responding to his questions in my head. Since I was reading on my kindle in a car on the way to the Oregon coast (absolutely gorgeous by the way), I didn't get a chance to write down my responses. To commit myself to this effort and to get myself back on my blog, I decided to make my process public by blogging my responses. So on to question number 1: Within your subject matter, what are you passionate about teaching? Some of the courses I teach or have taught include: English, Graphic Design, Journalism, Yearbook, and Debate. I am passionate about all of these - but I thought I'd focus in on a few. I am passionate about communication, argumentation, and critical thinking in my course subjects. I also love teaching drama and poetry. In Graphic Design and Yearbook I am most passionate about photography and typography as means of communication. If I can pull drama or poetry into a lesson I do. I make use of typography outside of my graphic design and yearbook classes by what I hand out or show my students in English. Everything we do is a form of communication and most communication has an element of persuasion or argumentation in it. I could wax poetic and dramatic about many subjects in English. It might be easier to narrow the list on what I don't have a great deal of passion about and that would be the proper labeling of grammatical usage. I have always been a bit more of a descriptivist than a prescriptivist when it comes to grammar (too bad the test makers are all prescriptivists). I am hard pressed to get passionate about the ability to label a gerundive or participial phrase, etc. - or to find a real-world application to this ability outside of the linguist field. Yes, I will admit to having told my students the answer to their question about why they were learning this was "it's on the test." I am open to suggestions for a better response. I have met English teachers who love the sentence tree and promise me that there are some students who are better able to write a correct sentence after diagramming many sentences. I cannot confirm or deny the veracity of this statement as I have not conducted any such experiment. If you have any thoughts on what YOU are passionate about, or suggestions for how to answer my students on why they need to know the proper label of all things grammatical - please comment below. --Debbie I love words. Finding just the right words to elicit the desired response is an art form. The wrong words can screech like nails on a chalkboard or simply fizzle like an inept firework. One of the aspects of Twitter I have come to appreciate is the sharing of well-phrased quotations. Usually I appreciate the words and move on, but at times I am moved to re-tweet, favorite, and save for later. I occasionally wonder what a collection of these particular quotations would say about me. With that in mind, here are a few of the more recent Tweets that moved me to ponder and re-tweet:
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