June 2, 2009
I can’t find them. I’ve looked everywhere. New York State English standards kind of get there, but not really. National Council of Teachers of English doesn’t do much better. They focus on means. I want to know what the END is. Why do we make our kids sit there and cram language, from the alphabet to iambic pentameter, down their throats? Who is talking about this in our schools?
I am.
Try these on. They’re rough and raw, and the more feedback I get on them, the better.
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1) We read and write to satisfy our basic needs: to survive.
2) We read and write to explore our universe: to reflect upon our past; to compare, refine, and imagine ideas in the present; to dream and hope for the future.
3) We read and write to think critically: to understand the sources of ideas, their influences, and their intent.
4) We read and write to communicate: to document our experience in and with the world; to foster compassion and understanding for that experience; and to participate fully in the community of human beings.
5) We read and write to act: to challenge, change, and improve our world.
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A last note: Deb Meier teaches her students via a framework of the Five Habits of Mind: Evidence, Viewpoint, Conjecture, Connections, and Relevance. I think I’ve hit all of those in the proposed Big Ideas above, but…?
What have I missed? What needs elucidating? Comment, comment, comment.
June 2nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
The Finns do a pretty good job, I think: http://www.oph.fi/english/page.asp?path=447,27598,37840,72101,72105
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 am
Thanks Tom. I’ll take a closer look at this. I should specify that my search has not been (should have been?…) extra-national.
Update: Dang, Tom. That’s a punch to the gut, isn’t it? Think the 46-state movement towards national standards might look something like this? Or is that optimistic?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:24 am
I just skimmed the Finnish literature/composition objectives and they are not different from the objectives in Georgia (and, I assume, in the rest of the U.S.).
Dina, I think the objectives you’ve written are a bit different because they include a focus on interaction and action, not just studying literature for literature’s sake.
If we were to use your objectives, we’d be equipping our students with practical, real-world skills (more business/technical writing and less literature analysis; more grammar focus and less content-only grading; more real-life texts and less fiction). Your objectives are closer to how I teach.
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
I’ve been reacting from my gut lately. Your post made me sigh happily and whisper “yes.” But that’s all I’ve got on this last day of the school year when too many changes are heading my way. Thanks.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I can’t help but answer “why do we read and write?” from the hyper-logical direction.
We read because it’s an optimal way to learn. We learn because knowledge gives us options. Having more options gives us a better chance of coming out of every situation the way you want your life to be.
So, if you do read, and you do learn, you’ll give yourself more options, and your life is more likely to be what you want it to be.
Conveniently, this can also address the problem of not knowing what you want to do with life: focus on learning, so that when you identify something you want to do, you’re more likely to have options that will help you in that direction.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
We read and write to sense that language as a medium is thick and opaque and transmits texture and flavor to whatever message is communicated, to see that no linguistic rendering of the world is transparent or neutral or uniquely privileged. We read and write to realize that there always are plural accounts of everything, that the present fits into more than one story, that the multiplicity of perspectives is irreducible, that a narrative always is underdetermined by the “data.” We read and write because words not only reflect or reference our thoughts and feelings, but also enable new thoughts and new nuances of emotion, because language is constitutive of our world.
June 5th, 2009 at 6:44 am
While I liked Dina’s ideas for the “justification” of reading and writing as subjects in the curriculum, H’s struck me as reflecting much of what is wrong with the teaching—emphasizing non-communication and the failure of communication in writing
June 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Hi Kevin – then you’ll be relieved to know that my unclear writing is not a product of the American education system anyway, and that I don’t teach English – so there’s nothing to worry about
Just ignore and add your own suggestions below; this thread is too interesting to stop at this. I particularly like #4 above, especially the part “…to foster compassion and understanding for that experience…” – how can such writing be taught? Is it better taught through literature, or rather through technical/expository writing?
June 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I have not taught literature, but I taught technical writing to computer scientists and engineers for about a dozen years. I found that California high schools and even college composition classes did not teach much about writing clearly and concisely.
I think that one of the goals for “English” classes in elementary and secondary school should be the 4 C’s:
clarity, completeness, correctness, and conciseness. The weight applied to each varies with the intended audience.
Another problem the students had to overcome is that they had only learned to write for one audience—the teacher. That is the hardest and most useless audience to write for. Constructing assignments so that the students have a real audience (other students, politicians, school administrators, …) who actually have an interest in learning what they have to say will do more for improving student writing and clarity of thinking than any amount of literary analysis.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Kevin – for all (apparent?) disagreement, I like your approach a lot. You might also enjoy Eric Hoefler’s take on it. I still think it is a worthy goal to try and make students see that no matter how clear, concise and complete you try to be, there is more than one way of telling the story (try reporting the same incident from the perspective of a Democrat and a Republican, a mother and a daughter, a billionaire and a homeless person – the differences will not go away even if all are skilled writers who are committed to clear communication and correct and honest narration). How to prioritize in a real-world teaching situation where many students come in without the ability to string together a sentence, though… I don’t know.
June 6th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I’m not sure I’m disagreeing with others here, so much as requesting more emphasis on the basics of writing and less on the higher-level literary analysis. I’m not trying to run down literary analysis, but it is rather pointless if the students don’t have the basics of communicating in writing down.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Love this thread. Thanks. Here’s what I’m gathering.
a) I need more emphasis on the idea that language is constructive: it not only names, but *creates* internal and external reality. Point of view is especially important in considering this idea.
b) Kevin/H: I don’t think your respective emphases are actually mutually exclusive; they only highlight the different ends for language as a means. Any curriculum that forsakes one for the other, OR does not make clear the connection between both, is impoverished.
Kevin, I actually feel as if our middle school curriculum is swinging in an opposite direction from the one you worry about. We’re becoming all non-fiction, all pragmatism, all functionalism. This is wicked important, of course, but not at the expense of The Diary of Anne Frank, or learning how to appreciate, write, memorize, and deliver poetry.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
My son just finished 7th grade, so I’ve seen one middle school curriculum from the parents’ perspective. His “English” class had way too much vocab and grammar drill, and too little writing. They did a lot “dyslexic-friendly” projects (make a poster of dogs for Call of the Wild, make models of the internment camp for Farewell to Manzanar, …) and rather few essays.
They did almost nothing about the structure of an essay or how to do citations (they got just the 5-paragraph essay structure). The teacher had the students reading aloud (mumbling, the one time I overheard it) for a big chunk of the period. You’re right, though, that they did no poetry (reading or writing) all year.
He had more writing in his ART class than in his English class! He had almost as much writing and more poetry (reading and writing) in his Spanish 1A class. Even his science class had more writing in the first semester.
This rather light-weight English class fit with my perception of the prior training of students in my tech writing classes—lots of hand-wavey “discussion” with little real training in the proper construction of papers and arguments.
Luckily, he had an awesome history teacher, who taught them how to write a research paper with proper citations, how to look for and use primary sources, and how to structure an argument and provide support. She also had them doing several different forms of presentation (fake newspapers, research essays, historical fiction journal, …). The history teacher covered everything that the English class should have covered, in addition to American history using largely primary sources from colonial times to 1960s. I realize that not all teachers can do as much (nor would I want them to—the homework load from the history class was easily 3 times that of any other class). The contrast was pretty remarkable though, between an almost college-level history class and an English class for the nearly illiterate.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
My seventh grade English colleagues do an awesome poetry unit with their classes. The kids do some really neat work and they even share with me (their science teacher) their work. The themes the students address can get really serious and thoughtful, and I have to admit I am surprised who connects the strongest with their words.
Because the students are so engaged I did a science review poem project right after my colleagues finished their poetry unit. We collected the students work into a booklet to give out. The idea worked well enough that we want to expand it next year.
I think each discipline gains a lot from the other’s perspective and practice, especially in supporting students being able to adequately express their ideas and observations. As teachers we need to create opportunities for that to happen.