Gateway Prep and Prufrock Talk

For those of you who are not high school teachers in Gwinnett County, let me explain: the Gateway is a document-based essay exam given to all sophomore students. The test is given in three subject areas, and the tests are categorized as Social Studies/Langauge Arts and Science/Language Arts. The two essay exams are given on two separate days (Tues and Thurs). As you can see, the students are graded on their LA skills twice. Now, with as much writing as we do in LA, most students pass these portions of the tests with no problem. The only time my ESOL students have issues is when their English skills are still lower than expected for Sophomore students. Most students also pass the SS portion without much trouble. It is the Science portion that gives many students headaches. For many of them, it is difficult to write about science.

Thus, in my SOPH LA class, we are in the middle of Gateway prep. I actually enjoy teaching this unit because it's basically a culmination of everything I've been teaching the students about writing all year. So, it's cool to see all of their work come to fruition as they work on practice prompts, group-work essays, and individual-work essays. For the past week, we've been working on a group-work SC/LA practice test that has to do with Biology ("The Ecosystem and Food Webs"). I'm taking them through the entire process of Gateway testing. We began by looking through and reading the entire test (the students are given a scenario, 2 writing task choices with bullet-point topics, and a variety of documents to use as concrete detail), then we brainstormed in outline form how much they collectively new about both writing tasks so they could see how to visually assess which topic choice would be the best for them. Afterward, we reviewed the format of an introduction paragraph and got started with our writing!

I'm trying something new this year: as we group-write this essay, I'm projecting everything they do on the overhead screen from my laptop. That way, as students call out sentence ideas, revisions, or and questions, they see every change and every addition. Every day, they learn something new about what to do and what not to do. Plus, they are seeing the importance of revision...something they previously thought was the same as editing. I'm finding that it's one thing to tell students how to write well, but it's a whole other thing to show them how to write well. Of course, the success of this activity is yet to be seen, but I already feel confident in saying this is something I should continue to do in years to come.

The thing that makes this successful, in my opinion, is that I give students sufficient "wait time" as they are processing the Gateway topic, the information in their test packet, and what I say to them. If I ask them to think of a topic sentence for the first body paragraph, and to look to their thesis statement and writing task information for help, I'm not afraid to give them 1-2 minutes of wait time to get their thoughts in order. In our education classes, you know they always tell us how important wait time is, and it is so true! Many times, if students are silent, teachers think they need to fill the quiet with extra explanation or rephrasing. On the contrary, students often need us to just quiet down to let them think. :) It is the greatest feeling to set my students up with a task, give them a little bit of direction, and watch them come up with the answers or solutions themselves! When I know they can do it on their own, I know I have done my job.

...Not to leave out my JR LA class, today we began our study of T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Modernism is my absolute favorite literary period, and my students are always shocked to learn that it's the darkness, dispair, and disconnectedness that draws me to it. "But Miss, you are so nice! Why do you like such depressing things?" LOL I have no idea! To me, though, Eliot is tops. Once my students know that I would name my first-born Eliot (with one L, of course), they know that they better respect the poet's work.

To take them through "Prufrock," I give them two documents: a copy of the text and a handout that walks them through explicating the work stanza by stanza. On the copy of the text (by the way, yes, it is in their textbook; but you can't really study Eliot without marking up his texts!), they highlight and take notes on the imagery, simile, symbolism, and vocabulary he uses. This helps them better understand how the tenets of Modernism are exceptionally represented in this poem. On the handout, we answer questions about the text together.

Students are always overwhelmed by Eliot when they are first introduced to his work. So, it's always a bit of a bumpy start. By the end of explicating the first stanza, though, most of them are hooked and are taken in by the genius of this man's style. Of course, that always makes me very happy. :)

Student-Teacher Conversation:

"If there were any author who I would marry because of his genius, it would be Eliot."

"Miss, didn't you say that already about Langston Hughes?"

"No, D__. I have a crush on Mr. Langston Hughes, but that's different."

"Yeah right, Miss. You just say that every time so we'll treat the literature with respect. That's what you say right? 'I love this author's work, so treat it with respect.'"

"That's definitely what I say, D__. I'm glad you remember it." :)

Can We Read More Stories Like This?

This is the question I was asked today during 3rd period JR LA. We are in the middle of A Raisin in the Sun, and the students are loving it! I don't have to give instruction to take out their books or force students to read lines...they are all one step ahead of me by taking out their books when the bell rings, calling out the page number to each other for where we stopped reading the previous day, and volunteering (sometimes a little TOO insistently) to read lines for their favorite characters.

The language of the play is simple enough that I don't need to explain much to my ESOL students. They keep up with the dialogue, and there's actually been quite a bit of laughter during the exchanges between characters. Sometimes, I'm surprised that the students are paying close enough attention to get some of the more subtle comments, but they are!

A couple of days ago, I picked up the made-for-TV version of the play. I watched it a few years ago when it first aired on ABC, and it was a decent production. The women were strong and convincing, but P. Diddy did not pull off Walter's character, in my opinion. Anyhow, I asked the students: "Would you like to read Act I and watch the video of that part, then read Act II and watch it, or would you rather just read through the play and watch the movie afterward?" The decision was unanimous: "No, Miss, the movie will ruin it! Let's read it all first and then watch." I was floored....

I haven't done anything special to teach the book. We're reading it in conjunction with our study of Langston Hughes's poetry (with particular attention, of course, to "Dream Deferred"), but we're simply reading, answering some discussion questions, talking about the characters' motives and feelings, and taking a test in the end. The students will probably write a short essay to expand on the themes of the play, but other than those things, the characters and words are what make this piece so easy to teach. The students truly connect to it, and that is a wonderful event to witness.

As for my SOPH LA classes, we are completing our study of Inferno this week. The students say they have enjoyed reading this text and appreciate that Dante would have such vision and imagination to create such places in his literature. There are only a few Cantos in our textbook, and we only read Cantos I, III, and XXXIV; but I also gave the students a tour of the entire Inferno as I discussed in my previous post. As we read each Canto, I put up on the overhead projector "reading check," "literary analisis," "critical viewing," and "critical analysis" questions which I have taken from the margins of the textbooks. We'll read a section of the Canto, I'll summarize what has happened or what was said, and then we'll answer these overhead questions together. The students have not once complained about copying these questions and answers. In fact, they are asking questions, adding comments, correcting each other, making literary or historical references, and making jokes as we analyze the Canto.

After we finish reading the Canto and the discussion questions, the students answer certain "Review and Assess" questions from their texts. These they have to do on their own because they require deeper thought, and I want them to challenge themselves. We go over them together, though, and peer grade their work.

This Friday, the students will write chunk paragraphs about a topic related to Inferno. This will be part of their test on this unit. On Monday, they will take a 50-question multiple choice test to complete the assessment. After that, we'll get to work on a practice Gateway Exam (with a focus on medieval life). Then, the last few days before Spring Break, I think I'll reward the students with a viewing of What Dreams May Come, a film that uses some of the ideas of the afterlife and punishment from The Divine Comedy.

Quote of the Day:
"Mrs. Greene, it's hotter than the 8th circle of hell in here! Could we turn on the A.C. please?" Yay! Literary jokes! :) This student was one of my lowest performers last semester, but with Julius Caesar and Inferno this semester, he has been on top of his game and has a high B in my class now!

Hell and Harlem

This past week was a lot of fun for me! I think it was fun for my students as well. For my SOPH LIT class, I introduced them to Dante and his Inferno. First, I asked them to look at the "Prepare to Read" page in their textbooks that gives information about the author and work, and they used a cluster graphic organizer to take notes on these two topics. After that, the students had to answer 7 anticipation questions so that I could gauge their background knowledge of some of the themes and motifs.

Through these anticipations questions, I found that most of my students had no knowledge of the "7 Deadly Sins." So, the next day, we spent class time talking about these deadly sins: what they mean, what they are also known as, and how these seemingly natural human responses and actions (anger, hunger, lust) could become so intense that they would be considered sinful. The students were very interested in this discussion and asked great questions! After this, we only had about 10 minutes of class time left, so I showed them the first few slides of my "Journey through the Inferno" PowerPoint slide show (on which I'd worked for 6 hours last weekend!). Through these slides, the students were introduced to the main characters, Limbo, River Ascheron, and boat-keeper Charon.

On Wed and Thurs, I took my students through the rest of the slide show. As they learned, they had to take notes on a handout I entitled "Highway through Hell." I listed each Circle, Ditch, and Ring in the Inferno, and the students had to take notes about what type of sin landed a soul in that particular level, what their punishment is, and who some of that level's residents are. They didn't complain ONCE about the notes! In fact, while they were taking notes, they were asking questions and making comments. It was a lot of fun (and well worth the 6 hours of prep)!

On Friday, we read the version of Canto I that appears in our Reader's Companion workbook. This has a combination of original translated text and paraphrased sections, so it's a little easier to read. This allowed the students to focus on learning and practicing the important concepts of interpreting allegory and identifying magery. They said that they would prefer to read the entire original translated text out of the textbook than reading these adapted versions. ...Of course, they'll get that chance next week as we continue our study.

In my JR LA class, we finally began our study of the Harlem Renaissance. On Monday, I started us off with a PowerPoint show of the history, people, and culture of this period. I printed a handout with blanks where key words or phrases are in the original slide show, and the students took notes as we went through the slides. They enjoyed and had many questions and comments about the visual arts that I included in the show. Toward the end of the presentation, I mentioned that jazz and blues were key music styles during this time, and found that some of my students were familiar with jazz, but none of them knew the blues! I had to remedy this....

On Tuesday, I brought in some songs performed by Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong. All of them were recorded live performances, and I told the students to imagine being inside of the Cotton Club (they'd seen pics of this club during the slide show on Monday) while we listened to them. After these songs, I played some contemporary examples of jazz and blues songs (of course I had to introduce them to my beloved blues!) so they could hear how music evolved in 40-60 years. After we listened to the music, we read "The Tropics of New York" by Claude McKay and discussed the tone and theme of the poem.

Wednesday through Friday, we studied the poetry of Langston Hughes (some of my favorites!). We discussed how Hughes uses words to capture the rythm and spirit of Harlem in "Juke Box Love Song;" and how the themes of hope, pride, and disappointment are apparent in poems like "Harlem," "Dream Deferred," "I, Too," and "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." With each poem, I stressed that Hughes's poems were short, but he packed SO MUCH meaning and heart into every line. With that in mind, we explicated each poem, getting closer to the heart of meaning for each one. The students enjoyed this and appreciated the Hughes's depth. For homework, each student had to choose one of these poems and write a contemporary version of it that was applicable to his or her life experiences. I expected resistance to this assignment, but they were all eager to get started. I even showed them my own version of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers":

"The Woman Speaks of Trees"
by Ms. Bobbie Greene

I have known trees:
I’ve known trees as ancient as the sound of the waves and older than the gray, granite rock of the mountains.

My soul has grown deep like the roots of the trees.

I climbed the sycamore when the stars were young.
I built a fort in an old walnut and it protected me from the storms.
I looked upon the massive roots of the banyan that seemed to hold up the clouds above.
I heard a coconut fall from a palm as the black earth baked in the early summer sunshine and the salty breeze cooled the herons in their canopy-top nests.

I’ve known trees:
Ancient, mossy trees.

My soul has grown deep like the roots of the trees.