Making it Matter Through the Power of Inquiry (Wilhelm and Smith)
Notes from Reading:
- We are most fully engaged and happy when we are in the flow–when we are experiencing something so intensely that nothing else matters.
- FLOW
- Competence and control – make choices, state opinions, create something in order to display individual identity (creating independent learners)
- Appropriate challenge and assistance to meet the challenge (scaffolding; zone of proximal development)
- Clear goals and immediate feedback
- Immersion in the immediate (relevancy)
- The importance of the social (well they are teenagers after all…)
- “As teachers, we must:”
- structure instruction to directly and explicitly address issues of genuine importance
- expand notions of text and curriculum, and what counts as meaningful reading and learning
- expand notions of competence, especially student competence, and find more ways to celebrate, name, and extend it
Building the Textual Lineages of African American Male Adolescents (Tattum)
Notes from Reading:
- African American male adolescents are among our nation’s poorest readers.
- The same rules of engaging disinterested readers still apply; engage by using relevant texts, share purpose, etc.
Breaking It Down:
During our last TE 802 class of the semester, we discussed some of the reasons we write–to communicate, to explore, to connect, to digest, to argue, etc., etc. Likewise, in thinking about why we read, many of these reasons continue to apply; according to Wilhelm/Smith’s essay and Tatum’s reading we read based on the relevancy and importance of the reading material to our lives. Our learning is increased when it is relevant and challenging–something that certainly seems to have motivated my own literacy learning. It is essential for students to see themselves, to see their lives and obstacles and joys reflected in the texts they read. Unfortunately, however, the connection between the texts used in a classroom–typically canonical texts written by “dead white men”–and students’ lives is not immediately apparent for the student being forced to read them.This seems particularly true in my senior English classroom, where, according to the Detroit Public Schools pacing chart, I’m expected to teach the history of British literature from the Anglo Saxon period to today to my students, who are allAfrican America. Certainly this does not mean that the texts we study are irrelevant; to a certain extent Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Macbeth, and Gulliver’s Travels have lasted this long because of their universal relevance (although something may be said about the fact that they became a part of mainstream literature because they were (a) British, and (b) written by people in positions of power or in close proximity to those in positions of power). However, this does not mean that my students’ see themselves and their lives reflected in the texts at first glance. And according to Wilhelm/Smith and Tatum, it’s no wonder that engaging them in this pieces is difficult at times. Nevertheless, I am gradually learning how to climb over this enormous obstacle–one that I imagine I will face consistently throughout my career–thanks to a little bit of inquiry in the classroom.
With each unit of study, I have gradually tried to push against my students’ resistance to reading the assigned texts by trying to incorporate the components of FLOW. With Beowulf, we did a lot of reading in class, connected their experience with the text with the new movie with Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins, and used small group work regularly for literary analysis. This was fairly successful–for some of my students. I had one student several weeks later explain her level of anger by saying she was about to go “Beowulf” on someone. Recently, as we began discussing Macbeth, I was excited to see another female student compare Beowulf to to Macbeth. Obviously, they had definitely engaged in the text and were continuing to connect with it. As we moved into Canterbury Tales, I continued to use similar techniques, incorporating Shrek as a hook to illustrate satire and then building on this. Despite the excitement that I saw in class, I was surprised at the end of the unit to have several students comment on how much they didn’t like Canterbury Tales (I like it after all–why shouldn’t they!?). And these students were several of my male students. Thinking about this in relation with Wilhelm/Smith and Tatum reminds me that even when my students appear engaged in class, appear to be excited about a text–that does not necessarily mean all of them are. As I evaluate the gender composition of my class, about 30% of my 95 students are male and of that percentage, about 50% consistently demonstrate familiarity and interest in the texts we read–meaning that between 15-20 of my students are disengaging at some point. And this is just for my males…consequently, reading Wilhelm/Smith and Tatum is certainly relevant to my teaching at this time.
As we have moved into Macbeth, I have definitely tried to incorporate greater levels of inquiry in the class as well as thinking about how to scaffold students’ learning with a difficult text. How do I ensure that those 15-20 male students are connected with the text? How do I continue to pull in my remaining students? In evaluating which students are typically disenchanted with reading, it is useful to note that the majority of them are either dance majors or music technology majors at my school (demonstrating higher levels of kinesthetic and audio intelligence?). Fortunately for me, Aileen recently shared Flocabulary with me and as I dug around online, I found their rap version of Macbeth. Playing this for my students this past week worked as a very successful hook into Macbeth and allowed to incorporate the prereading strategy of prediction. What was even more exciting was the fact that several of my male students that I know have checked out in the past were very interested, asking me, “Who is this?” when I played the song.
As I have moved into this unit, I have also tried to think about how to ensure that a unit on the Renaissance and Shakespeare is relevant to students’ lives as well as to ensure that our purpose in the unit was not just to understand Renaissance history or Macbeth, but examine something that seemed a little more relevant–and examining power in society and how power affects people seems to have struck a chord with my students, particularly in relation to the upcoming elections and the Kilpatrick fiasco in Detroit. Last week, I used the idea of an opinonaire to get my students to start thinking about the essential questions in our unit–and as I wrote in a previous entry, it led to such an excellent class period and an engaging discussion between students–where I know I was spending the majority of my time listening and facilitating to ensure everyone engaged in the discussion. As a quick run down of that lesson, I wrote eight sentences on butcher paper with an “Agree” and “Disagree” column under each and then posted them around the room. Students then spent about eight minutes rotating between posters marking how they felt. And then we discussed–with students understanding that at some point, I wanted to hear all of their voices. Anyway. This discussion laid an important foundation for our unit, and so after compiling the results recently, I distributed them to my classes–with the Macbeth scene guide printed on back (thanks Christine!). Hopefully, we will be able to consistently come back to this and to use that discussion to frame our reading of Macbeth. And hopefully that means I can tap into some of the energy and engagement from that lesson as we read Macbeth in order to ensure FLOW in my classroom–by showing my students–especially those disengaged males–how relevant Macbeth really is.
Other ways I will be incorporating FLOW and Tatum:
- Scaffolding reading of Macbeth to build my students’ ability to read independently
- Acting! Allowing my student to construct skits of their own using prewritten scenarios and later using Macbeth.
- Coming back to the essential questions: (1) How does power and ambition influence people? and (2) How will you achieve your ambitions?
- Engaging in the text in large and small group discussions
- Continuing to incorporate the rap song, technology (podcasts and blogs), and other online resources to develop relevance of text and our writing about the text
- Incorporating important relevant current issues–the election and Kwame Kilpatrick situation to demonstrate relevance
