In my university career I have had the great privilege of working for the University Learning Centre in the Learning Communities office. We have often talked in the office and in presentations about that formative educational experience first year university students have when they realize common threads running through all their classes. What a student learns in Psychology 121 might have great overlap with what they learn in Philosophy 133, which in turn has deep connections to what they study in Physics 115. Learning Communities seek to strengthen these connections because they can be powerful tools for learning.
Both Gallagher and Appleman emphasize this same kind of connection. Although, in the case of a secondary classroom it is often a connection between the reader's experience and the text that is explored rather than an interdisciplinary (or multidisciplinary) link. Gallagher emphasizes that links must be made to past experience to make text meaningful for students. He cites several examples of how scaffolding can and must be used to prepare students for reading, suggesting that "[a teacher's] job is to be a tour guide through the complexity of great books."
Appleman goes further, suggesting that links between the while links between the reader and the text can yield meaning, it is the connections between text and theory can be revolutionary. Theory can enrich the meaning of text by moving what Hannah Arendt calls the "Archimedian Point" beyond a particular worldview. In the sociology of science, Thomas Kuhn calls this a paradigm shift. In a high school English classroom, we call this moving beyond a Reader Response model. Applemen emphasizes the importance of this movement, quoting Bonneycastle: "If each of us only pays attention to individaul experience, the communal basis for the discipline will disappear." Students must connect the literature not only to their own experiences, but also the the experiences of others (and the theory arising from experience of others, e.g. feminism, critical race theory, etc.) .
I want to suggest two more connections we can add to the list. Students must connect their reading to their writing and to their speaking skills (including rhetoric and dialectic). After all, these are also part of what we teach in secondary ELA.
This week I stumbled across what I think is a spectacular article on teaching writing to high school students. It is an American article, but quite applicable. It can be read in its entirety here. The article hits on several points that Appleman makes. Among these are the argument that typical approaches to ELA such as Reader Response represent "a pedagogical pendulum that has swung too far, favoring self-expression and emotion over lucid communication." The article, argues that we need to return to the structural elements of language -grammar, particularly syntax and parts of speech- to ensure that students are actually understanding what they are reading and are able to structure sound, logical responses to it. The central principle of this approach is to make sure students understand the purpose and use of things like conjunctive adverbs, which are used to... you guessed it, connect arguments.
This week I was also able to attend a lecture and workshop with Sarah Georing, a philosophy professor at the University of Washington who specializes in using philosophy in primary and secondary classrooms. The way in which she is able to do this is remarkable, and is very similar to what an excellent teacher might do in secondary english class. The activity was as follows: do a group reading of a children's book; complete a think, pair, share; categorize the questions as a group; and have a group discussion moderated by Dr. Goering's probing questions. The results were incredible. I was shocked by the remarkably high level of discourse sparked by a children's book among teachers, professors, administrators, undergraduate students, and grad students, both trained and untrained in philosophy.
The thing I want to pull from this activity is how Dr. Goering suggests facilitating the group discussion. She advocates having a list of prompts for students written on the board. Every time a student is called on to enter the discussion, they must start with one of the prompts. These prompts are taken almost verbatim from the prompts in the article I linked to; they are: "I agree/disagree with _____ because..., I have a different opinion..., I have something to add..., Can you explain your answer..."
These prompts serve to connect students' oral arguments to their writing; they must speak in a way that they would write. The prompts also encourage students to acknowledge, process, and engage directly with other points of view. The activity is completed with a reflective writing piece, connecting all the elements that we as successful english teachers should be empowering our students with. By facilitating an activity that connects reading, writing, and speaking, we create a whole learning experience that is greater than the sum of its parts. As with Learning Communities courses, by focusing on the overlap between these skills, the learning of all three is enriched and reinforced.
Sounds like I could have found the workshop beneficial. I notice when I write, I am like a totally different person. I use words that are nonexistent from my spoken vocabulary. I like to contribute this to a lesson I learned in one of my creative writing courses last year: my prof asked us if we "lived" as a character when we wrote. A few people spoke up and described their alter-ego's with great detail including a past. After letting his inquiry sink in for over a year, I have found that inner character. He has a name and a troubled past. The point to this little vignette is that I personally do not speak like I write. There is a void between the two modes of communication that I acknowledge is there. But I agree that we as teachers should try to lessen the gap and make students more articulate in their speech, especially with the dependence people have with emails and wall posts. I wonder what the numbers would be if we polled the country to see how many houses had long distance plans on their telephones and how many had unlimited high speed internet?
ReplyDeletePaul you've raised some incredibly valid points. I had to go away from your post and really think about what you have written before I was able to formulate a response. Thank you for sharing the link to the article, too. Taken together you have given me a great deal to think about. Like many of the reluctant teachers in the article, I am guilty of of assuming that students are incapable of writing coherent essays. Having just reread Orlowski's essay regarding social studies teachers in BC, I'm going to suggest that we're guilty of applying a combination of genetic and cultural deficient discourses in justifying our attitudes towards a student's ability to write, read and speak English in an effective and persuasive manner. Furthermore, I acknowledge my own inability to speak effectively. I have always found it easier and safer to express myself through my writing than in my speech. Our education system rewards writing though, doesn't it? When students are called upon to respond in class it is usually a short, factual answer to a teacher's question. Rarely are we exposed to or graded upon questions that really force us to formulate a well-thought out verbal statement. Before reading this post and the linked article, I thought that the phrase "think before you speak" referred to making sure you didn't say something stupid or discriminatory. But now, I think it means we really need to think about what we are about to say, just as we think about what we are about to write, so that we can express ourselves thoughtfully and completely. Too often, students speak the first thing that comes into their heads (I KNOW I am guilty of this) and just like a failed reading response it has no real import to the discussion or the learning that is supposed to be taking place. This is where the discussion prompts and the reader response context activities become important. They force us to channel our sporadic thoughts into something that more adequately expresses our opinions. Although I had never really thought about it, Paul, I agree with you that ELA needs to be about more than just reading; effective writing and speaking are integral parts of our language and should have equal representation in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWhat a challenging article. A couple thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Sometimes I feel like this teacher: “At teachers college, you read a lot of theory, like Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but don’t learn how to teach writing.”
2. A mentor of mine once explained education to me this way: "There's two ways of thinking about education. Some people say the teacher is like a pitcher and his job is to fill up the little cups. Other people say we have to make the little cups thirsty. We come from a tradition that affirms both." I think we should affirm both. The idea that writing should be "caught not taught" undermines the first way of thinking about education. It puts the onus completely on the students. That's not fair to them, nor, do I think, will they get thirsty enough to fix the problem.
3. It was refreshing to hear some good things about standardized tests! They really helped these teachers to pinpoint problems.
4. When I read your post I was skeptical about the discussion prompts, but when I saw them in context within the article I was shocked at their effectiveness. I'll have to remember to use them.