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.

Day 4: Rules, Rules, Rules

I didn't post yesterday because my students were just writing their essays over their summer reading. I gave them a choice of 3 topics related to the reading (conflict, choices, defend or support the book as summer reading), and they had to chose one. I also gave a 4th choice for the "slackers" and new students. They had to tell me about themselves as students. While the they all worked quietly on this (I allowed a minimal amount of talking if they needed to clarify a point with a friend), I graded their summer reading objective test. It was a productive day!

Today was fun. I gave the students in my LA classes 25 minutes to finish whatever they needed to finish on their summer reading essays. Most of them used their time wisely and finished. For the other 1/2 of class, we did a board activity similar to the "Chalk Talk" that we did on Tuesday. (Like I said on Tues., I don't want to give up on an activity just because it's not perfect the first time!) This time, we wrote "Classroom Rules" on the board. The students brainstormed class rules that they've heard before, and what they wanted to change about those rules. I agreed to be flexible with the rules IF students gave me something in return. The students chose the top 5 rules that they had a problem with, and through our discussion, 1st period came up with the following:

1. Teacher will give 30-second grace period on tardiness
* Students will work bell to bell
2. Teacher will allow students to use iPods quitely during individual work time
* Students will participate fully during group work time
3. Teacher will allow students to leave textbooks in classroom
* Students will come during advisement to finish work
4. Teacher will not give homework from the textbook
* Homework can be a worksheet or short writing assignment
5. Food, Drinks, and Gum are allowed
* Everyone will help clean up everyday

These seem pretty sensible to me! The experiment worked really well except in my 6th period SOPH LA (S) class. They just weren't interested in the activity. I had to pull 3 rules out of them, and their homework is to come up with 2 more rules, or they have to follow whatever rules I decide.

In LDC IV today, I had the students do their "I Am" poems. I showed them three of the best from last year (nicely written, beautifully illustrated), and told them to get to work. Most of them wanted to take them home to finish for homework, so they could make them look really nice. I noticed that the students have self-segregated. Asians/Hispanics. I've made a list to pair them into non-native language speaking pairs, and am going to think of some speaking and writing activities they have to do together in order to practice their English. Their tendency to stick to their "own kind" is why they are in LDC IV to begin with: they don't practice their English enough!

Tomorrow, I am introducing the students' research project to them. We'll see what kind of feedback I get from them....