Stories from the Front Lines

These are some of the email anecdotes I have gotten from two teachers who are using TLS in their classroom. 

From Perth, Australia:

* Three students chose to stay in at lunchtime to ensure they got their homework
done for next lesson! NEVER happened before.

*I have students visiting me before school to clarify or go over homework that is
due so they can make sure they have done it right

* Students are giving me homework BEYOND what I have asked for...I threw a
creative question in for Wendigo. What happened when Sam and Dean were kids to
make the Winchester boys hate camping so much? I asked for two paragraph
response, I've had kids hand me a three page short story!

*Class discussion evoked strong responses but one kid whom I have always had
grave concerns about attention wise; after I asked the question why do you think
Dean has a fear of flying (apart from the element of humour injected into the
episode) and he immediately stuck his hand up and said "It's because he's not in
control Miss, Dean hates not being in control." I was beaming from ear to ear,
this is real engagement and thinking about characterisation and what motivates
our fears.

From Daleville, AL

*One class went all out creating a Class Hunter's Journal and designed it on the computer and is really detailed with keeping up with it. My honors kids have already gotten impatient and said they were just going to start writing their own episodes, so I got to talk about the fan fiction a little earlier than planned, and I'm going to let them start that for some extra credit now before I assign everyone a fan fiction assignment. So, my two weeks have been a little crazy, but successful. My principal even came in and watched part of the pilot episode with us and then said to me later that he thinks this is going to be a good thing.

*Oh! Also, my kids were picking out allusions that you didn't have listed and I didn't even catch either. It's awesome!

*My honors kids are super amazing. They've even been making Facebook posts to discuss journal topics that they didn't have enough time to talk about in class. We just wrapped up our 1st 9 weeks and everyone save one student did well in that class.

All of these stories sound like lots of my experiences so far and I am so thrilled it's working.  We are all waiting for the "real" proof, but it is so much fun to come to a class each day where the kids are excited to learn and I so believe they are!

Kick In The Head, Poetry, and 206 No Exit

Drama One Act Competition this week so things have been crazy!

We are doing the poetry unit transitioning into The Odyssey.  That's not to say there is no prose, but more poetic language than not.  Additionally the students are doing a poetry project I call, "Kick In The Head."  The title comes from the book it is based on.  Kick In The Head shows 29 different poem forms.  So I present them all and the kids have to write one example of 25 of the forms.  Further, 10 of them need to be about Supernatural (this helps give them theme and maybe I'll get a neat anthology out of it...)  The idea is to get them to try and play with poetic forms. 

206: No Exit is one of my favorite episodes.  I pair it with Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" and another poem about relationships we have with our parents, though from the parent's view.  No Exit is fascinating to to me because I think it is so much about the nature of the relationship between parents and children and mothers and fathers and the roles they play in our lives. 

The kids should have gotten it today, but as I was at competition and part of it was that I wasn't comfortable with a substitute teacher doing it, but, honestly, I wanted to be the one to do it with them...  The directions I left for my sub (the kids did skill drills for the day) were the most type A I have ever given.  This whole program is changing the way I look at my class, how I teach, my expectations and who I am in the classroom, even, I think.  Who knew?

Also I have been getting some amazing reports from other teachers.  I am clearing it with them first but I hope to post some of their anecdotes soon....  Amazing stuff.

Last, I will be presenting at NCTE after all on Moodles.  That just blows my mind.  I can't wait!

You Tube

It's funny considering that I am a teacher specializing in using visual media to teach literature but I don't much care to be on film myself...  Between my tall stature (I'm just over 6'3 barefoot) and broad shoulders (my good Scottish and German ancestry is sort of apparent in my build) and general self consciousness film is not my favorite conveyance.  I'll give speeches in front of thousands...  I have even, a time or two (a long time ago, mind) but don't make me sit in front of a camera.

That said, a new friend of mine, a Mary Moline, interviewed me for her blog: ilovehatemycity.com.  The videos are also accessible on youtube.  Just type Teaching Literature Supernaturally in the search engine on the main site.

So, granted only from the waist up, you can see me discussing my experiences with TLS so far.  Feel free to check me out there. (I watch and pretend it's a greatly similar looking cousin talking who sounds just like me... )

We are on break this week, so that's about all I have to offer...

Oh, and I was officially invited this morning to present at the NCTE conference in Nashville this November.  I will be presenting a post conference workshop called Moodle:From Scratch about, (oddly enough) Moodles.  I will be using my TLS Moodle as the example for the workshop.

Episodic Graphic Organizers: What I am learning...

One of the key pieces in TLS is the Episodic Graphic Organizer or EGO.  There are questions, vocabulary, notes, setting, prediction, characterization, writer and director "boxes" that the students fill out while watching.  Graphic Organizers are a big part of the Learning Focused Schools philosophy or sometimes they call it "Best Practices."  The idea is that by having students create a graphic representation (with words, but lines, categories and boxes) of their comprehension they will have better comprehension and better recall.  There are MANY studies on this idea.  There are also a couple that say/show that gifted students categorize information differently, uniquely and therefore are not helped by the Graphic Organizer philosophy.  I find that if I let them create what fits their needs, it works for them too...  Anyway, the point is about the TLS EGO....

So, what I had been doing was having the kids hold them and turn them in to me in big gluts.  The grading of which was KILLING me.  Additionally, I was disappointed to see "holes" where kids were not doing work consistently (and seeing it too late to do anything about it).  I was sure though that grading them on the spot, every time would be just as time consuming...

I was WRONG (I know, it happens, shhhh, don't tell anyone.).  Having the kids turn them in at the end of each episode is working REALLY REALLY well.  With a specific, immediate deadline (versus the more nebulous, "at the end of the unit.") the kids are more focused and on point.  Plus I can give them much more immediate feedback.  With more complete work and fewer holes it is also easier to grade.  So, what I am doing now is grading them and putting the score (out of 50) in the corner right away and passing them back.  I don't record the grade in the grade book, though.  The students can make corrections (highlighting them so I know they added) and turn it in at the end, but that's easy too now because the grading is primarily done and added up already.

The notes I am seeing are really impressive.  Yes, 1/2 to 2/3 are repetition of what is being pointed out as we watch, BUT (!) there is often extension of the idea and there are more frequently occurring original notes as well.  They really are becoming Critical Watchers and they catch a lot. 

Now if we could improve a couple of the little darling's handwriting.  I've don't think I've ever read so much student handwriting at one time (now three times a week).  I see an increase in my eye-glasses prescription in my future.  :)

Also, I see things I do want to change about the organizer.  Rather then have them list signifigant characters I think I'd like to add a section about conflict, antogonist and monster specifics.  I think I hav also hit (with the midway point) the reorganizing, reconoitering, re-evaluating portion of my "experiment."  Glad I have the next week off from school (Fall Break) I feel another sleepless writing/planning marathon coming....  Oi Vey!

Midway Point!

Yesterday I finalized grades for the quarter in my classes (with the class only being a semester long, that is the midterm grade) and was pleased to see that of 50 students only 4% were failing.  This 4% are frequently absent and consistently do no work...  The rest of the class, while they have good days, better days and not so good days continue to consistently achieve.  The trouble with this assessment of course is that I am biased to believe they will achieve, but, my tests are pretty much the same as the past years and the kids are doing well on those...  The biggest sticking point is still written expression, but we continue to work on it. 

Today the hiatus ended and the kids picked up with Season 2 episode 1, In My Time Of Dying paired with Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death."  I was excited and happy to see how many saw the connection and recognized the metaphors and personification and then noticed the same thing in the episode.  The class discussion of Dutch Angles in filming and noticing the lighting choices was particularly touching.

Several students came to admit to me (I think this makes five total) that they had watched the episode on their own, earlier, despite their promise not to, BUT (!) and this was a huge flourish on their part, that was it.  They hadn't seen tomorrow's.  We will be watching three episodes this week.  Then we have a week long Fall Break. 

Oh!  I also heard from a teacher in Alabama about how her class is having extended discussions on Facebook about their journal topics because there just isn't enough time in class....  How cool is that?

Learning To Talk

We learn to talk as babies by listening to the talk around us.  It takes us a while (8-9 months) to make reciprocal sounds with any significant meaning.  It then takes another two years before we are close enough to fluent to make ourselves understood to those who do not know us and/or share enough of our experiences and mannerisms to know what we are saying.  Then it is another 3 years before we are truly fluent in our language.  If a child is exposed to multiple languages at a very early age (infancy) they will often not speak until later, though, they are often more effective speakers earlier, in multiple languages.  There is, however a phase, where they briefly are VERY difficult to understand while they separate the different languages.

The point of all this is that as I am watching my students learn, this process is a lot like talking to babies.  They understand, they make the leap, but they are only sporadically expressing themselves and their thoughts meaningfully.  I keep waiting for the great flip of the switch when the fluency will come.  We are about halfway through.  If this is working (and I believe it is) it should be soon. 

We are reading/watching/discussing Romeo and Juliet right now.  First we critically read the entire play.  We watch the "Old" Zeffirelli version tomorrow.  Then we watch the "New" 1996 version staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.  The students are comparing the three pieces, examining intent, interpretation and meaning. 

Next week we begin Poetry, followed by The Odyssey.  These will be facilitated by Season 2 of Supernatural.  In My Time of Dying (Season 2, Episode 1) will be connected to Emily Dickinson's poetry, specifically the one that begins, "Because I could not stop for death, it kindly stopped for me."  The episode will also be used to review film methods (as this episodes was one of Kim Manners finest, IMO) and discuss metaphor (the Impala as Dean, etc).

The kids are eager to get back to watching episodes.  Some have even confessed to me that they couldn't wait and "cheated" by watching it on iTunes...  Then they explained that they can see now that they were right that John was a Sage Archetype because....  Their babbling made sense for a minute....  

I continue to sit, listen, grade papers and teach (not always in that order) and wait for the onset of fluency.