Alien Pedagogy

One of my co-workers has heard students express enthusiasm for my class. She wants to observe me.

The thing is, the reason the students think so highly of the class is that learned through unusual activities and reflection in September. That first impression created an association at the start of the course that has kept students invested in learning.

Motivation in the bank.

Now, we’re working on small details, things that don’t come so quickly. The pace is slower, and it’s not the best time of the year to observe.

For example, we spent half an hour expressing comparison-contrast analysis of Romeo and Juliet and “Romeo and Juliet in Bosnia” in compound and complex sentences yesterday. The students were willing to engage in the process, even though my sales pitch was “Now we’re going to try to express comparison-contrast analysis in single sentences!”

I’m cashing in on the trust and the motivation that I banked at the start of the year.

(For the record, that sentence-writing activity was productive. We began with simple comparisons, moved to plot/ character comparisons, and ended with text-to-text comparisons. There was a ton of 1:1 teacher-student interaction during the activity, which drove the process and produced learning.)

Circle of Connections takes different aspects of your text and put them in a list. From there, students will draw a  circle of circles and then place each word in a circle, connecting them together with their thoughts. This activity was not effective when I started with nine circles, but what I did this week was more effective.

I started the class discussing “random” (the slang usage). We shared some “that was so random” moments (my random moment was the ending of Ong-Bak 2). From there we made a list of random words and then tried to explain how Romeo, fate, or tragedy could be connected to a watermelon, a computer, and “WHAT?”

The challenge: We made a list of Romeo and Juliet ideas, characters, and quotes. I drew three circles on the white board and asked if anyone could come up with three words that I couldn’t link together, which hooked the class while modeling how the activity is done.

The students then took up the challenge with three circles, then five, and finally nine.

I used this activity to help students collate and consolidate our ground work on Romeo and Juliet before moving on to essays, projects, and tests.

I was taught this activity back in university. Some readers may know it by another name, though Juliet would be quick to remind us that the activity’s more important than the name.

I have a method of debate that has worked well for me.

There is at least one judge / debate. Ideally there are six students per team and every student has a role (state your team’s argument, rebut the other team’s argument, conclude the case for your team). Each speaker is given two minutes.

The class starts with a resolution, such as “Romeo and Juliet could have prevented their deaths.” From there, the teams are given time to prepare their case and I use this time to train the judges and help them prepare for moderating a debate (ex/ make sure that you know what the person has said. Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification or to guide the student through introducing their points, citing evidence, and concluding. Be fair, polite, and confident).

The debate ends with a reflection period (What skills are necessary to do well in this activity? How do you feel about your performance in this activity?), which the debaters will reflect upon and share with the group. While this is happening, the judges prepare their comments (one note of achievement and one area for improvement).

Finally, everyone journals something they’ve learned during the activity. This activity tends to produce quality journal entries.

Much depends upon the character and social skills of the judge. The grade the judge has in your class is far less important.

The Honors English students are adapting Romeo and Juliet for a 21st century Hong Kong setting.

Amusing ideas so far:

• Instead of the Capulets and Montagues? A 7-11 employee falls in love with a Circle K employee.
• The balcony scene will instead be a couple taking a self-photograph (kind of like this).

They will tell the story photographically. Among other objectives, I hope to use this assignment as a forum to explore the influence of culture on a text as well as to discuss the concept of Shakespeare’s “enduring greatness” if we’re able to do so much with his core conflicts. We’ll return to this assignment when we discuss archetypal characters while reading The Odyssey.

I have also challenged the students to come up with a symbol of fate besides stars. We don’t see those in Hong Kong.

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.