-- Human language is... the symbolic manifestation of what the human race has been in the past, is now, and is in the process of becoming.

                                                (Tchudi and Mitchell, Exploring and Teaching the English Language Arts, 1998)

 

            The English classroom is a hallowed space.  It should foster a depth of understanding about the human struggle throughout the ages, and it should engender in its participants a respect and reverence for the written word.  Today’s world is a fast paced, ever changing and complex place to live.  Students in today’s classrooms are bombarded with multi-media images and peoples’ increasing access to, and the increasing speed of the internet constantly reinvents the way in which we perceive our world.  Kids today also watch a lot of movies and spend many hours in front of the television, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Considering Tchudi and Mitchell’s quote, these dynamics represent the human race now, and what it “is in the process of becoming.”  Still, it is because of the rapid pace of teenagers’ lives today, and the ease with which they can absorb disconnected bits of information, that English teachers must find new ways to present materials in order to maintain student interest, while at the same time keeping standards and ensuring every student understands how to read, how to think critically, and how to write well.

            In order for students to learn how to slow down and critically process language when reading a novel, poem, story, article, essay, or play, and for them to learn how to apply rhetorical strategies when writing an essay, research paper, or creative piece, the classroom needs to become a sanctuary of sorts, a community where the expectation is to be immersed in the language arts, the desire is to construct understanding, and the goal is to apply this understanding in authentic ways.  This all begins with the teacher.  Burden (1999), postulates that classroom management is best facilitated by an orderly and prepared teacher.  By explaining procedures and modeling appropriate behavior, especially in classroom discussions and before group assignments, the teacher can foster a safe environment with clear expectations, an environment that is comfortable for students and inspires academic accountability.

            Accountability is something that is ultimately out of the hands of the teacher.  However, this is not to say that a teacher can’t have an affect on students’ ability to self-legislate.  When students feel that they have some control over what they will learn and how they will learn it, a teacher gets buy-in.  According to Systems Theory, power is never in the hands of just one person, even if that person is the teacher in a classroom.  Power is exercised by all members in a community, and the same is true for a classroom.  In order for students to truly appreciate and hopefully love reading, they need the opportunity to chose the books they read and be afforded class time to read them.  When prioritizing, reading will generally come after television, socializing, sports, games, etc.  Students today have complex lives that extend beyond school; they need class time to develop an affinity for reading.  They also need an opportunity to chose the writing topics and genres that most interest them.  Atwell (1998) believes in a classroom that is essentially a writing and reading workshop where collaborative learning through authentic assignments is key.  Without neglecting the classics of literature or the school curricula, a teacher must allow students to participate in developing classroom assignments, rubrics, and even choosing texts when possible.  Students need feel, proportionately so, that they have some control over their own education.

            However, students can not exercise control over their own education if they don’t have the necessary skills.  When it comes to reading, the process used by good readers must be revealed to students.  Tovoni (2000) is one of many writers to use research-based methodologies to understand what a good reader does to make meaning.  The strategies she discusses are the foundation for a successful English class.  Readers need to be visualizing as they read, they need to be asking questions, making predictions, making connections and checking for understanding as they read.  Only with this foundation in place can students then consider the literary elements of a classic novel or poem.  By using sticky-notes, reading guides, and other visual organizers as they read, students gain a metacognitive understanding of the reading process.  As students progress through school, these processes will become internalized, but must be constantly revisited so that they can hone their reading skills.

            When it comes to writing, students also need to understand the process used by good writers.  Newkirk (1993), Zemelman and Daniels (1988), and Fletcher (1993), have all written extensively about the writing process.  Students need an array of pre-writing strategies to begin accessing background knowledge, they need to have a command of the language and know a variety of grammatical structures, transitional words, and aesthetic techniques to convey meaning artfully, and they need to be able to see their writing as the essential part in a communicative process.  Writing workshops develop students’ critical eye and help them learn the value of revision.  When a reader doesn’t “get” something, or if they see gaps in an argument, are confused by awkward syntax, word choice, punctuation, or paragraphing, and they learn how to express their confusion and offer alternatives, the writer learns what needs to be fixed.  The writer also learns a lot from reading other students’ attempts to communicate effectively.  Ultimately, by creating “A Community of Writers” (Zemelman and Daniels, 1988), a teacher can help students develop their writing skills and also foster an understanding of the process, which will effect continued growth beyond the classroom.

            In a classroom, understanding should be developed socially.  Students learn best in collaborative situations where meaning can be built on the firmament of diverse perceptions.  Putnam’s research (1997) has shown that cooperation, rather than competition, can actually improve academic performance across the board.  High-achieving students think more critically about a topic when aiding lower-achieving students.  The lower-achieving students receive the needed assistance from their peers, helping their performance as well.  By facilitating classroom discussions and group activities that require and inspire individual participation, a teacher can help students construct an understanding of the material together.  These collaborative processes will prove useful in life as well, with many of the jobs today requiring team-work on a regular basis.

            Classroom discussion are another way to facilitate the social construction of meaning.  Socratic seminars, where the teacher facilitates discussion about a topic by asking provocative questions, are best facilitated with a classroom participation grade.  When students feel they have something to offer in a discussion, their level of enthusiasm increases and they learn more about the topic.  When they know they are going to receive a grade for participation, they take the discussions more seriously and try to make connections, offer interpretations, and make clear arguments.  It is important for the teacher to act as a facilitator only, clarifying students’ points and leading the class to use each student’s idea as a starting point for wider and deeper thinking.  Students may want to debate, but it must be done so with respect and for the purpose of developing a clearer understanding, not undermining a peer’s position.  The teacher need not confront an overzealous student, however; they should simply counter with a question to get the group thinking more deeply about the topic.

            Deep thinking is a groping process and should be built into the class framework.  This means students need time before an activity to activate background knowledge and develop a purpose for reading, discussing, or writing.  It also means that students need time after an activity to reflect upon what they have learned.  Allverman and Phelps (1998) explain that in an increasingly more diverse classroom where students’ individual experiences and knowledge is so varied, the teacher must activate each student’s prior knowledge and build on that in a classroom setting.  This means taking the time to discuss what the students already know and also re-activating that knowledge on a daily basis through short reviews.  Reid and Golub’s Reflective Activities (1999), chronicling teachers’ approaches for ensuring that students have a meaningful understanding of a given text or topic, provides examples of how the teacher can help students build meaning.  Rosenblatt’s notion of aesthetic reading (Tchudi and Mitchell, 1999), is reflected in these approaches, asking students to relate the text to their life, engaging the text on a more personal level, and allowing time for students to reflect on the material before, during, and after reading a text.

            A journal is an excellent way to keep students involved in a text or topic, especially when the lessons involved last for two or more days.  It has been said that you can not know what you know until you write it down.  This is where writing to learn, an expressive-mode of writing that is not meant to be evaluated, comes into play.  According to Zemelman and Daniels (1988), writing to learn is a “short, spontaneous, unedited, exploratory, personal writing that’s used not to affect and audience but to channel, crystallize, record, direct, or guide a persons thinking.”  It is more structured than free-writing, another expressive-mode of writing, but it takes many forms.  By using a journal and teaching Cornell notes, webs, concept maps, listing and other forms of diagramming, note-taking, and short free-writes, students will have a variety of methods to hold their thinking.

            Lastly, wrapped up in the idea of what should be taught, as opposed to how a teacher should go about teaching it, is the issue of the classics of our literary canon.  Some might say the literature of the dead white male is losing its poignancy in our post-post-modern world.  Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Joyce and Eliot; Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Twain, Whitman, and Cummings, all authors accepted by the scholars that define the canon, are being replaced by other less known minority writers and more contemporary work, including adolescent literature.  In many ways this is a necessary advancement, but the classics should still be taught.  Relevancy is a matter of perception, and as an English teacher it is my job to help students realize the relevancy of the literature that has defined the western world.

            “Literacy” includes an understanding of our English heritage and the great writers in the English language, though other voices in American and world literature have their place.  Gollnick and Chinn (1998) highlight the Anglo dominance of school curriculum and discus the nature our dynamic and ever changing world.  The voices of different cultures in this country have been rediscovered, and many long-since silent voices are beginning to make a big noise in the world of writing and other mediums of expression.  I believe as an English teacher I need to focus on the art of expression in a more multicultural manner, using film and other media to highlight the changing mode of the American language arts, but not at the expense of the classics.  For better or worse, the classics of the canon are every student’s due inheritance, and it is my job to introduce them to these works.