We have heard that student success in a rigorous course is essential. But what does rigorous look like? What will help prepare students for college and the real world? How can we get students actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge and not the pursuit of grades?
Here are a few suggestions:
Independent reading
Why must the entire class be in lockstep with a teacher's favorite? Why turn off reluctant readers with Silas Marner? A student will grow bored and despondent if the reading level is too high or too low, and it often remains far too low for far too long to adjust to the rigors of college.
My daughter Madeline in eighth grade was reading in class the easy Tangerine while at home she was reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. She was bored in class. As adults, can you imagine being forced to listen to music or watch a movie that isn't suited to your sensibilities?
More informational texts should be available and encouraged. Students of mine have loved Bill Bryson, Hampton Sides, and Sebastian Junger. Studies show that boys gravitate toward nonfiction. My father-in-law, a retired Penn State professor with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reads various books per week, but guess what? No fiction. And he's the smartest man I ever met.
Students should write almost every day
It makes sense. It's practice. Assignments should include expository essays, narrative essays, creative nonfiction, rhetorical analysis, synthesis papers, short stories, free verse and sonnets, data-based questions, and research papers. Not everything has to be picked over with a red pen. Often teachers avoid assigning papers to avoid the avalanche of grading. Writing in class is like running on the field for practice; it builds confidence and skill for when the game does count. A valuable source for writing more and evaluating less is Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers.
Challenging reading
Students should read challenging texts in their entirety, like an in-class analysis of satire in "A Modest Proposal" or the persuasive appeals in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Unfortunately, with many new textbooks that are aligned with the Common Core Standards, content takes not just a back seat but a trunk ride, with "extended activities and assessments" taking the driver's position. In the Mirrors and Windows program, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is reduced to four pages. Ralph Waldo Emerson's monumental "Self-Reliance" receives a few shout-outs. Henry David Thoreau's Walden is eight pages; a sip, not a long drink. His "Civil Disobedience" is a single page. A watered-down version would not persuade Mahatma Gandhi or King. Is it any wonder that SAT reading scores are so low? Textbooks are not even necessary: These works are available online.
Emphasize classical rhetoric
My Advanced Placement students know the difference between anacoluthon and anadiplosis. They can recognize anaphora and logical fallacies, like ad hominem. They know how to create persona through ethos and create syllogisms to create sound arguments. They can deconstruct a complicated speech or essay and write an analysis of its rhetorical and stylistic devices. This should be happening in all English classrooms, even at an early age.
Why was it fine for tender William Shakespeare to study the prose of Cicero and debate the definition of virtue? When did the paradigm change? Students like Emerson left Harvard the same age as many children now enter Harvard. Rhetoric was the basis of classical educational training since the days of Socrates. Why has it been reduced to a single AP class at junior year? It needs to be more than an empty word thrown about by politicians and spin-masters.
Give English teachers more training in teaching writing
In college, the English and communication departments are separate; in my undergraduate classes, I never had a class that taught me how to teach writing. I'm a writer, so I know the process. But I cringe when I hear teachers and SAT test-prep counselors preach formulae writing. No writer ever begins with wondering how many paragraphs to write. The magic number is not five. And what writer ever ends an essay with "In conclusion"? No one who wants to be published, that's who. Imagine Lincoln concluding The Gettysburg Address with "and in conclusion ... "
Give up vocabulary drills
Stress deep reading, writing and debate.
Perhaps the changes to the SAT will prompt high school teachers to rely less on vocabulary tests that last for 60 minutes and where the final grade is disproportionate. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emerson, and Shakespeare never opened a vocabulary book. They opened Homer and Euclid and Cicero.
Let me give you an example: Every night before bed, my daughter Nancy compiles a list of unfamiliar words. Last night it was "bivouac" and "sherpa." Another night it was "eclat," "atrocious" and "rambunctious." This type of deep reading is where the words are seen in action, not removed to the safety of the margins to be labored over for a 100-point test.
The best advice for teachers, given to me by a good friend, is: "It is best to be a guide on the side than a sage on a stage."
Teachers, step back, observe and watch the wonders of a student-centered classroom. If you're working harder than the students, there is a problem. It's the players who are running and catching and dribbling and sweating, not the coach.
Editorial on 10/04/2015