Alien Pedagogy

The major assessment of our poetry unit was a presentation.

Students were given a variety of tasks to prepare for this assignment. Here are the ones that were meant to prepare them for the presentation:

• Class reading of “Ballad of Birmingham” that focused on identifying three poetic techniques, an interpretation of the theme, and the identification of key quotes. We began with making a plan to read poetry strategically before we began to read.
• One class to form partners, choose poems from the poetry collection, and make strategies for reading those poems.
• One class of reader’s theater to push the idea of reading poetry creatively as a group.
• One class to create a point-form outline of analysis.
• Class reading of “Woman Work” that streamlined our reading process that began with “Ballad of Birmingham.”
• Homework Assignment: Finding Poetic Techniques in Popular Culture (the best was an analysis of the logo of a laxative)
• One class of Bob Ross notes on speaking skills.
• One class that required students to in pairs organized a speech that related to one of ten slides shown to them at the start of class.
• One class to link their outlines to slides.
• Presentations.

Almost every task in this unit was designed to maximize student success in the major assessment. So as long as the major assessment is directly related to our curriculum goals (and I think it is), then this may qualify as the most focused unit I’ve ever taught.

The major assessment of our poetry unit was presentations. Students were required to use Power Point and I gave them a few general principles to guide their use of the famous program.

• The speakers should draw their audience’s attention. The Power Point is just a tool.
• Therefore:
• Avoid animation.
• Avoid images unless they are relevant.
• Do not mix images with text.
• What you say out loud should be greater than what you present on the screen.
• Look at your audience or your partner and avoid looking at the screen.

On the whole, most students seemed relieved that they didn’t have to put on a show with Power Point. The ones that did use PPt as an anchor (ex/ Analysis of Simile // “A bell is tolling, fading, fading / just like love”) tended to spend more time analyzing how the figurative language worked and they maintained better eye contact and body language.

A few pairs chose to animate their Power Point and it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that their critical thinking was less developed. In spite of the effort that they put into their PPt, their mark on the scoring card was reduced because of this.

So far, my (just) 4 weeks unit on poetry is going well. Students are working through how to read poems and what sort of language and sentence structure they must use to express their response to poetry.

I’ve stressed that students be able to interpret the theme and analyze the poet’s use of at least poetic devices.

It sounds kind of dry, but improvement is happening. Atwell suggests that students become better readers by reading.

Taking this approach, I’ve invited students to analyze two poems written as a class (World of Warcraft and a random one) and two poems from the textbook that speak to a similar theme. Students chose another new poem to analyze as a readers’ theatre, which doubled as a preparation for their speaking skills in the poetry presentation.

I used to dislike English tests, but I’m beginning to like them (I’m not a fan of the Elements of Literature tests). The unit test will present students with a new poem to interpret and analyze, and a similar question will make it to the midterm.

Each class, I introduce how a lesson and task are designed to help the class succeed in their independent reading and analysis of poetry. They’re on board.

I’ve had some success inviting the English Language Learners in writing club to write Austin Kleon’s blackout poems.

Some tips from Austin Kleon as well as my experience:

• Scan for attention-grabbing words.
• Choose one.
• Build phrases around that word.
• You can use a marker or you can scan the document and use paint or photoshop.

Good luck.