How to Use Your Summer for Lesson Planning

The National Writing Project is putting on a Connected Learning MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) this summer.

I first learned about Connected Learning through an #engchat on Twitter led by Seecantrill.  So far, as I understand it, Connected Learning uses digital tools to break down classroom walls - learning takes place in the classroom, but continues outside the classroom, thanks, in part, to social media and other tools that can be used to share ideas.  I don't know if that's completely right.  In fact, just now looking up what NWP calls it, it's much more than that: "Connected Learning is a model of learning that holds out the possibility of reimagining the experience of education in the information age.  It draws on the power of today's technology to fuse young people's interests, friendships, and academic achievement through experiences laced with hands-on production, shared purpose, and open networks."  Here's their infographic that explains it so much better than I do.  [UPDATE: I forgot to mention my one concern with this - around 25% of my students don't have cell phones/text/data plans or computer access outside of school.  So all of their out-of-classroom learning needs to take place face to face?]

So week one was to make a "How To . . ."  This was a good "get to know you" activity - some made "makes" that were "How to be so-and-so."  Others taught a skill they knew something about.  Here's mine (better late than never):


This week is learning through the use of memes.  I believe mine is academic, and should appeal to the students I had last year:

It appeals to my interests, but I don't think I can ask my students to make a meme on the sentence of the week and call it connected learning.

Look out for more memes here and whatever makes I'm assigned in coming weeks.

American Literature Units

Next year I'm teaching American Literature to juniors.  The last time I taught the course was my first year teaching, so there are quite a few things I'd like to do differently.

This will also be the first summer I've had a solid job set up for next year.  I won't be spending my time completing applications for dozens of districts or signing up for licensure tests to add endorsements that are contingent for my employment.

So, because I'm a little sick¹, I already started putting together a basic year-long plan aligned with standards.

I was feeling good and wanted to nail down some overarching questions for the full year, because that would be cool.  Overarching questions are like essential questions that cover the whole year - the "so what?"  I had one, but I wanted some other ideas and decided to consult some literature from my undergrad to make sure I remembered how to select overarching questions.

So I pulled out Teaching English Through Principled Practice by Peter Smagorinsky and found the section on overarching questions, which gave me some ideas, and looked through the chapter on year long units².

Smagorinsky (2002) states there are three ways to set up a years worth of units.  There are all out teacher selected or where students craft all the units.  Then, there is the middle ground:

In this approach to choosing a curriculum, the teacher sets up a menu of possible topics, allowing the students to select eight or so for their year's study . . . This approach has the advantage of giving the students choices in their learning while operating in a framework of topics that the teacher considers culturally and educationally important (p. 36).

I had considered doing this my first year teaching, but Smagorinsky (2002) warns against it:

It is often a good idea to wait a few years before taking this approach so that you will have several units prepared, rather than having to write many new units from scratch in your first or second year on the job (p. 36).

After teaching for five years in three different districts, I'm ready to skin this chicken.  Peel this potato.  Gut this fish.  I am all over this like ham on cheese.  And apparently in need of a snack.

Here's where you, my dear readers, come in.  Having taught American Literature only once, and for just a semester, as a first year teacher, I need a list of American Literature units.  I've got 26 ideas right now on this Google doc.  Some are bad, some are better.  I also need texts I could teach with them.  No idea is too questionable.  From this I can put together a final list and say to my students in September⁴, "Choose your top ten."

Works Cited
Smagorinsky, P. (2002). Teaching English through principled practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

1. You can use the common interpretation or the student vernacular. Go back.
2. My current favorite quote from this book: "You'll probably end up teaching the selections in an order quite different from their order in the anthology.  Such is the life of the maverick" (p. 87).³ Go back.
3. I teach mostly with mavericks . . . wait, doesn't that go against the definition?
4. Yeah, that's right, suckas!  I don't start school until after Labor Day!⁵ Go back.
5. Makes working until mid-June worth it.

December 5 Hike

I often find when I need to work out what I'm going to teach in the next week¹, a hike in Portland's Forest Park typically puts some grease on the cogs and get my wheels turning.

Today's is going to be a doosey.  I just posted the paper I wrote this week on teaching reading from a constructivist method for my Theory of Instruction class at PSU.  I'm a pretty sick² individual to post a graduate paper on my blog, but you are sicker if you take the time to read it.  Basically, here's the problem: at secondary schools, students are often forced into a one-size-fits-all remedial reading class if they don't meet benchmark.  They lose an elective and are not happy about it.  They take their anger out on the class and teacher by totally blowing both off.  The teacher notices they have little control of the classroom and plan their lessons around a direct instruction model because it gives them more control over the class.

Constructivist lessons would be more fun for teacher and student and might do a better job of teaching the skills. Constructivist lessons increase motivation, but require a certain critical mass of motivation to get off the ground; otherwise, students take the time to "socially create meaning" about the top ten list on Z100 rather than the reading strategies the teacher is asking them to practice.

How do I get my students to that critical mass?

On top of that, I have a colleague who gets her students to work by making their lives uncomfortable and unpleasant if they deviate from the assigned activity.  I used to be of the same mind until an administrator asked me to only punish students who disrupted class; student who choose not to learn have that right.  But my colleagues students all have "As" and know their reading strategies.  My students are receiving zeros.

Is my job to make them do the work³?  In the long run, what will be the greater benefit to the student?

1. Read "day."  [Go back.]
2. I mean sick in the conventional rather than the contemporary meaning.  [Go back.]
3. Can I really make them do anything?  It would seem my colleague does by making the alternative less desirable.  [Go back.]