Alien Pedagogy

I always work hard to “sell” a book to the class. Here are some strategies that I used this week:

Thriller Sales Pitch

“I was looking at this copy of Jurassic Park last night and I almost started to read it. But then I thought ‘Be careful! If you start it, you won’t go to sleep tonight!’ Thrillers are really dangerous, but if you’re willing to risk it, a lot of people enjoy them.”

Inspirational Sales Pitch

I read the back cover of The Last Lecture to the class and then introduced three other books that also bring us hope in the face of adversity.

“Mature” Reading

Some books I marketed as being written for adults instead of teenagers (Procession of the Dead, by D.B. Shan is a more mature version of his teenager stories, though we have those as well). I also marketed Tom Clancy as a more mature version of Horowitz’s books.

Children’s Books

I picked up The Tale of Desperaux and Tales of Beedle Bard, but sold them as books that one reads for the fun of it. In fact, I’d already read Beedle Bard by the time I got the book to the school.

The English Department gave me funds to buy books this week. Of 19 new books, 18 have been signed out.

Reflections:

• Three students brought in books to donate to the classroom library.
• Books that weren’t new were also signed out.
• Many students simply do not understand the diversity of books. They don’t want to read because they haven’t been convinced that there are books that they will enjoy. Spending twenty minutes introducing the plot of a dozen books is very useful.

The Honors class watched the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet this week. We consistently challenged the film’s plot and conflict. I invited students to make fun of the movie while watching it.

So after pushing play and establishing the gang colors, I told the class that we were “going to meet the Prince of Verona soon. Remember that authority is represented here by gigantic hats.” Everyone picked up who the Prince of Verona was and made the connection that he was about to lay down the law on future brawling.

Instead of a few students giggling during balcony scene, we as a class joked about the exaggeration of it. When Romeo cries out “fire-eyed frenzy be my conduct now!” we — who had all read the summary — shouted at the screen to tell Romeo to go home.

By the end of the film, I found students were doing a better job of recording key quotes and their response through interpretation and analysis also improved. By inviting them to challenge the film, their verbal participation and note-taking improved.

Finally, although we had a lot of fun at the film’s expense, there were still tears aplenty after the final scene.

Tyler Cowen asks what people do to stay sane, and there’s a good list here. Here are some of my strategies for keeping up with my workload:

• Know when you can work – For me, that’s the morning. This is more important than any other thing that I do to add productivity.
• Know when to take a break — for me that’s every fifteen minutes.
• One can of coffee.
• Headphones in the faculty room.
• Things
• Bob Dylan music.
• Finish marking every day and enter grades every morning.
• Water.
• Sleep.
• Exercise.

Shakespeare has a dirty sense of humor.