Technology and Younger High School Students

For the past few days I've been thinking about my British literature class.  I love teaching this class.  I have these students first period, and every day they come to class ready to learn something new.  I haven't seen a head on a desk since the start of the year, and the students behave more like a family than a classroom full of students.  So I've been asking myself a few questions:  Did I create this environment?  Are they simply used to working this way because they've had classes together for so many years?  Maybe both parties contributed to creating such a collaborative atmosphere.  Are these students unique in some way?  What am I doing differently this year that has made this course so much more fun?

I am noticing that the students this year seem to enjoy discussion; however, they are not necessarily apt to discuss their ideas in a traditional classroom environment.  They prefer to discuss topics online.  I mentioned in an earlier post that these students blogged The Canterbury Tales, and the project was very successful.  I felt as though my students had a greater understanding of the characters than students in the past.  Now we are reading The Taming of the Shrew.  I posted some discussion topics on Moodle and told the students that I will assess their posts.  Students are reading ahead and then posting comments in the forum.  Some of them are chomping at the bit to read more of the play.

My challenge this year and next is to motivate my ninth graders in the same way.  There are huge differences between ninth and eleventh graders, but there must be some simple ways for me to motivate them.  I find that many of the activities I use with my eleventh graders do not have the same effect with my ninth graders.  For instance, they are less apt to participate in online discussions and seem more comfortable with traditional approaches.  Why?  All the research I've read contradicts the experiences I'm having.  They seem so afraid and self-conscious.  I want them to have more fun and be less inhibited.  I wish I could pair them with my eleventh graders for a day.  I wonder what the interactions would look like.  I wonder what they would learn from each other.

Dilatory

I've been dilatory in posting lately.  One of the constant struggles that teachers face is balancing the different aspects of our lives.  I like to blog about my experiences in the classroom, but the undertow of the daily workload often pulls me under.

Since the beginning of the school year, I have done some extensive revising of my lesson plans.  Trying new activities keeps the material fresh for me.  One of the units to which I applied a very different approach is the Canterbury Tales.  Instead of reading the work out loud in class, writing papers about assigned characters, and creating posters to depict the characters, we created a blog.  Each student chose a character from The General Prologue and blogged in that persona.  I was apprehensive about the project from the time of its inception until about the middle of the project.  I had no idea how my students would respond to the idea. 

Since I was the first teacher in the district to use blogging in the classroom, I wanted the project to be well-received by the students, and, more importantly, I wanted the project to reflect their learning.  It did!  I think the project was a great success.  My only wish is that the blog could have been public.  Our district is very concerned about security, which I understand, but I wanted the students to have a true blogging experience with a varied audience--a world audience. 

I also tried Socratic Circles for the first time this year.  Usually when I implement a new strategy, I use my eleventh graders as guinea pigs.  They adapt more quickly than my ninth graders, and they are often more verbal about their needs.  Consequently, implementing new strategies with them becomes a valuable learning experience that prepares me for using the same lessons with my ninth graders.  This time, however, I tried Socratic Circles with my ninth graders.  In fact, I haven't yet done Socratic Circles with my eleventh graders.  My ninth graders responded well to the experience.  The most common comment I received in verbal and written feedback was that they wished they had more opportunities to discuss literature with their peers because doing so helped them understand the literature on a deeper level.  If that's not a reason to use the strategy more, I don't know what is!

I'm teaching Taming of the Shrew right now.  If you teach the play, but you haven't seen the BBC's version from the Shakespeare Retold series.  You should watch it immediately.  My students loved it!  They say it's helped them understand the play on a deeper level.  They also said they now appreciate the timeliness of Shakespeare.

I'm having a great year with my students.