Teaching Proper Pair/Group Learning

In all of my classes, I'm trying to incorporate more pair or group learning.  I've found, in some cases, that I'm having to teach my students how to work properly as a team.  Most pairs/groups do very well.  There have been those teams who do not perform well together.  I've found two main reasons for this lack of productivity:
1.  The individuals have a personal aversion to each other (for whatever reason), and do not want to work together.
2.  The individuals are too friendly and get off task easily.
3.  The individuals refuse to communicate because of lack of fluency with English, embarassment because of their language ability, etc.
4.  The classic: one person does all the work and everyone else copies his/her paper.

In response to questions like: "Miss, can I work by myself?" or "Miss, can I switch partners or work with that group over there?"  I've come up with 3 rules--The 3 C's of Team Work:
1. Communication (about the topic)
2. Cooperation (to stay on task)
3. Collaboration (to do the work)
If they do these 3 things within their team, they will be successful in the end.  Plus, these three rules take care of all of the problems listed above! I tell them that they MUST learn to do things things to be successful English speakers and students.  If I see a group not following the rules, I threaten them with a lower participation grade for that day.  (I don't actually give participation grades, but the threat works anyway.  LOL)

So, with that in mind, here's what's going on in my classes this week:

SOPH WORLD LIT
I thought we were moving into Oedipus the King, but I forgot that we have to do Sundiata and African proverbs first!  So, this week the students took their test on Gilgamesh and "Noah," and were then introduced to the next unit: Epic Heroes and Tragic Heroes.  Today and tomorrow, they are working in small groups (3 people), to learn about proverbs.  In the text, there are 4-5 proverbs each for 6 different African countries.  So, the students are choosing 1 proverb from each country, discussing what each means, and creating a table on poster paper to show their understanding of that proverb.  On the table, they list: the proverb, their translation of the proverb (its lesson), and a picture to represent the lesson.

They are actually doing much better at the translations than I thought they would!  It's been fun to listen to their conversations about phrases like: "One falsehood spoils a thousand truths."  :)  Their understanding of proverbs will assist them as we read  Sundiata in this unit.  The epic story teaches a couple of important lessons through the use of proverbs.

LA II
These students have been working on the usual textbook, activity book, grammar book, and writing assignments.  Their focus on their work since the seat assignments has improved a bit, and I'm realizing that there are a few students whose language ability is FAR below most others in the class.  Classes that contain students with such varied levels of ability are taxing on the teacher because 1/3 of the class is yelling out "Miss!  Miss!  Come here please!" because they have questions about improving their vocabulary, extending their sentences, and other big language concepts.  Another 1/3 of the class is quietly on task, doing what is asked of them, making a few mistakes, and needing minimal guidance.  The lower 1/3 of the class is yelling out "Miss!  Miss!  I don't get this!" or are sitting as quietly as possible so the teacher doesn't see that their assignment is all wrong because they had to write something--anything--just to look like they understood and could keep up with everyone else.  It can get frustrating, and sometimes I catch myself getting irritated.  But as soon as I think of how hard they are all trying, and the fact that they are at least on task, I can take a breath and focus on helping each student in the way he or she needs.

LDC III
This class did not do well on their prepositional phrases handout earlier in the week, so I handed back their graded papers and asked them all to do corrections on a separate piece of paper.  But THIS TIME, they had to label the parts of speech in the preposition phrase (e.g. prep, article modifier, noun).  I do not play when it comes to grammar.  Especially when it's something basic like prepositions.  Come on!

Anyhow, today the class separated into pairs to do an introduction activity to a supplemental text called "The Navajo."  The handout asked them to look at different parts of the book (the title, TOC, headings, glossary...) and answer questions from that basic information.  It was interesting to see how many students did not know what a "heading" was.  These types of activities may seem basic, but are obviously necessary to help them learn/remember how much information is provided in texts.

There were a couple of pairs that weren't working well together, so I had to manage those situations and remind them about the rules of the 3 C's of Team Work.  In the end, though, they all did a great job of completing the assignment as a team.  Those who need a bit more practice will get it tomorrow because they'll continue working with their partner to read Chapter 1 aloud and complete a comprehension handout. :)

JR AMERICAN LIT
Students in this class will finish their autobiography projects this week and turn them in on Friday.  Using Google Docs to help the students edit their work as they went turned out to be very successful.  I was able to pinpoint recurring problems for various students and offer one-on-one tutoring to assist them and help them improve.  For instance, one student had whole paragraphs that only included commas until the end of the paragraph!  I sat her down and gave a brief run-down of proper punctuation for simple, compound, and complex sentence.  Then, she looked at her own paragraphs and inserted appropriate punctuation where needed.  Not all students particpated in the process, but that was their choice.  Those who did participate were very excited about the opportunity to improve their writing by using the process of proofreading and revising.

As for the content of the class, we've been studying journals and narrative accounts of the earliest explorers and settlers to North America.  The texts contain somewhat antiquated language, so I've given students the adapted versions from the Reader's Guide text companion.  These are great because there are questions that make the students analyze sections of text as they read.  It slows them down, and forces them to focus.  Right now, they are working on of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford: his narrative account about the journey on the Mayflower and their first experiences in the New World.  Next week, we'll finish this unit with a slave narrtive by O. Equiano.  This is one that the students often have strong reactions to because Equiano was such an impressive person and talented writer.  Even today, his descriptions of his experiences get the students talking about how unfair it was for Equiano and others like him!

This Week's The Bad/The Good:
The Bad: I am SO TIRED of telling students to sit down in their chairs, get out their materials, and be ready to start class when the bell rings.  Even if I am standing at the front of the room, obviously ready to speak, students don't seem to understand the cues and continue walking around, carrying on conversation, stuffing their faces with chips/candy, etc.  I've had to start handing out detentions for people who aren't seated at the ring of the bell!  I told them: "The bell is not a magical sound that only teachers can hear.  You hear it, too.  It's more for you than for me, so be seated and ready to learn as soon as you hear it!"  So aggrivating!!!

The Good: I've had quite a few former students contact me or stop by in the past couple of weeks.  One sent me a Facebook message that said: "You were the best teacher I ever had.  I know that now.  And I regret sleeping so much in your class."  LOL  :)  Well, at least he finally learned the lesson, right?  A couple others have stopped by just to talk about their lives and how things are going.  Others have contacted me for letters of recommendation for jobs or college.  On days when my CLASSES are not going so well, these are the things I should think of because being a Lit/ESL teacher is not just about teaching content.  It's also about caring for these individuals and being another adult who helps guide them.

The Beginning of a New Year

In General

This week has been a whirlwind of paperwork and getting the students on a routine. I know I've probably said this before, but when teachers complain about paperwork, we are NOT talking about grading papers. We are talking about other paperwork that would keep an assistant busy while we did all of the things that people normally associate with teacher work. Despite the chaos, I've had the best start to a new school year of my career!

World Lit

It's my goal to correlate my world lit class with the world history curriculum so my students have a better collective and individual store of prior knowledge of the cultures we study through the literature. My dept. chair, Ms. W, is the sheltered world hist teacher; she gave me a copy of that course's curriculum and a student copy of the textbook. As I started planning lessons for the class, I flipped through the first unit in the world hist book and saw that they learned about cave paintings as they began their study of the world's earliest civilizations. I thought: "What better way to start our unit on ancient literature than to have the students reenact the earliest form of story-telling!" So, I asked my students to think of a story that is passed down from parents to children in their culture, and to write down as much as they could remember of that story. I borrowed some transparencies of cave paintings from Ms. W--the same ones the students had seen in her class the day before--and we discussed what stories the pictures might be telling. I even mimicked some caveman grunting to illustrate for them that pictures were probably the most effective form of communication for these people. :) For the following 2 days, the students worked with acrylic paints, sponges, and paint brushes to recreate the message of the traditional story they chose. Next week, I'll post pics of some of their creations! They'll present their pictures to the class and tell the stories that go along with the pictures. After that, I'll use their stories to discuss oral tradition: stories that are passed through the generations by telling and retelling through spoken words.

So far for this course, my 1st period is doing well and are actually a lot of fun. They've been working hard, have cooperated, and have had a great sense of humor all week. My 6th period, though, saw Mean Ms. Greene today as I told them off for their immature behavior (a culmination of their misbehavior during the rest of the week. I actually had a student in that class come up to me and say, "Ms. Greene, you should do to these immature people what you did to me last year."

To which I jokingly asked, "What, A___, you mean take them outside and yell at them some more?"

"Yeah, Miss. Seriously. I'm glad I'm not like these kids anymore. When you explained what I was doing, I changed." I never gave him credit for it, but he did change. I guess it was a good lesson for him to learn.... (score 1 for discipline!) :)

LDC III

I've never taught this class before and am glad I'm not alone. Ms. W is teaching it also, and we've been collaborating on what to do. We've set up a schedule for each week: writing day, speaking day, vocab day, reading day, and Romeo & Juliet Friday. The LDC classes are meant as companion classes to the LA classes and LDC III goes with FR LA. However, the shelter teacher for that class found last year that she didn't have time to fit novels and plays into her schedule, so she asked us to pick up the slack. I can't teach these texts as I would for an LA class (frankly, that's not my responsibility), but this does give me the opportunity to make learning Shakespeare all about having fun. :)

This class has good kids in it. There is a nice mix of cultures, and it seems like everyone knows each other already and get along well. There's one boy who says he's probably the only Chinese student at our school. ...I'm pretty sure he might be right. LOL

LA II

This class is the 2nd level of English for our ESOL students. In the beginning, the most important thing I can do in these types of classes is assess the students' English ability. We've been working with simple past tense verbs, and I'm seeing that most of them are good with conjugating, but they are still having a bit of difficulty with sentence structure when it comes to making sentences negative past tense and asking questions in the past tense. So, we'll continue working on this next week before we move on to the next lessons. I was told that this class might be a handful because of a few particular students, but those students have been very sweet so far. A couple have actually been very helpful (collecting folders, putting books away...)!

American Lit

The curriculum for this class begins with Native American origin myths: stories that try to explain the how and why of natural phenomena. So, before we begin our study of these works, I had the students work in small groups to create their own origin myths for well-known natural occurrences like the Grand Canyon, Amazon River, and Sahara Desert. They worked on these for a couple of days.

One cool moment happened when I walked up to one group in the middle of what looked like a heated debate. I was worried that their creative differences would stall progress, so I went over to mediate. As I walked up, C____'s head whips around and she asks, "Miss! Wasn't it in Gilgamesh that the gods were so mad at humans that the sent a flood?!" (She studied Gilgamesh with me last year in World Lit.)

"Yes! It was!" I replied with a huge smile on my face.

"See, Miss! I remembered." Then she told her group, "We can't use that idea because someone already did." She was so proud of herself. This particular student has struggled with staying focussed in her classes and hasn't done as well as she could. I think this year will be different for her, though. :)

To start our study of Native American lit, I picked up a couple of illustrated books from the Media Center that show many aspects of N.A. life. I'm going to put together an activity this weekend so the students can use our textbook and these other books to become more familiar with the cultures from which these origin myths stem (a scavenger hunt or something similar). Then, they might appreciate the stories' themes and subjects a little better. I'm sure that they're learning about N.A.'s in American history, so this should build on that prior knowledge.

Final Thoughts

This first week has been tough: my feet are killing me, I am exhausted by 2:30PM, and I feel like there is only enough time in the day to move from one priority to the next before falling into bed at night. However, I know I am where I belong for now. When my students from last year and the year before (this is only my 3rd year at this school) come to visit me with smiles on their faces and ask if they can be in my class again, I know that everything I put them through while I have them (lectures about life, constant essay writing, taking tests that rival those given to honors students, and reading literature without giving in to complaints that it's just too hard or too stupid to read) is all for the best. They know I do it because I care.

This seems to be the secret ingredient to being a successful educator. Not only do you have to know what you are doing in your subject area. You have to care...with your whole heart. And, as stated above, sometimes you have to show that you care through stern words and a little harsh discipline. :)