One thing that struck me repeatedly at this conference was the teachers’ enthusiasm for the classics. I really like the classics, but I was surprised that so many teachers had set up a curriculum that implies literature ended in 1925.

We spend a great deal of time talking about how Shakespeare is relevant, but I was surprised by how many of the teachers struggled to identify relevant authors who are writing today. Shouldn’t we work just as hard to support contemporary authors by modeling to students that they are capable of producing highly literate texts that affect our lives?

So I’ll close by asking which contemporary texts you’d add to the AP syllabus.

(I patched this together from literacy circles and a book club presentation I attended at the EARCOS Teachers Conference.)

The Process So Far

We began by building background knowledge, interacting with photos, videos, and articles. At this point, we focused on identifying and summarizing important information.

When we began to read our novels, we began marking the text to identify important information and then summarized the text in bullet points at the start of each chapter. I modeled this, then the class worked in pairs, and then moved to individually going through this process. Compared to double-entry journals, this is a speedy process of recording personal response.

We then used our chapter summaries to begin generating group discussion. Because the students have read the text and identified the important information, they suddenly find that they have something to say about the books they’re reading.

The discussions have gotten better over the course of this week, especially after we worked on verbal and non-verbal strategies for creating an effective conversation. We also spent time thinking about what we thought made effective discussion of literature.

We’ve spent two weeks on this process, as recorded here. It has taken us through the exposition and much of the rising action. It has allowed us to build comprehension and identify conflicts. We’ll explore them in more detail next week.

Review

Though it’s May, my class is full of energy. Better yet, that energy is focused on the text we’re critically reading. Very few students are falling behind in their reading.

For many of my students, this is the first time that they have had something to say about a book beyond “it’s good” or “it’s nice.”

We began with a focused group discussion on whether it’s ever OK to give up, re-read the section that we’d study intensively and then groups began to identify key words and concepts required to analyze “The Lotus Eaters.” We listed the best concepts (more than once including drugs, responsibility, escape, obedience, home) on the board and from there went on to do RAFT writing (which I use based on recommendation from Jim Lerch, though Dr. Rojas also mentioned it at the EARCOS conference).

• Role – Odysseus
• Audience – His men who are high on the Lotus
• Format – Persuasive speech
• Topic – Why they should return to the boat

The students wrote. They were required to use at least five of six key concepts written on the board. They then read aloud. From there, they wrote the values The Odyssey attempts to convey.

Reflection:

• Student questions on theme were insightful.
• Student questions on grammar revealed more desire to take risks than usual – they manipulated tense and even used prefixes.
• Voice happened.
• “How do you think Odysseus would feel when he sees his men lazing about?” led to stronger readings.
• The values and evidence discussed in the final activity demonstrated a strong understanding of the text.

On the whole, it was quite an enjoyable lesson for students. It was also effective.

Could this be used as an argument for elinating Shakespearean literature from the curriculum? Instead of spending so much time scaffolding the language, we could be using that time to actually teach students how to read and analyze.

I’m not denying that Romeo and Juliet is popular with students, but is this a question worth considering?

Unwind was lent to me by one of my former students and I’ve told all of my classes about this book. So far the enthusiasm has been pretty incredible. I’ll have to get funds to buy it for my library now.