New Jersey English Journal 2013 Issue
4 Call for Manuscripts 5 From the Editor Dana H. Maloney
TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS IN AND FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: WHAT AND HOW?
6 From Literature to Literacy Heather D. Rocco 11 Teaching English in the 21st Century: An Integrated Approach Patricia Hans 16 Tweet This: Helping Students Transfer their Digital Media Skills to Complex Reading Tasks Jennifer Beach and Stacia Keel 23 The Creative Imagination and Its Impact on 21st Century Literacies Jeffrey Pflaum 30 i-teaching in the 21st Century Liz deBeer 33 Hip to Be Square Liz deBeer 35 Literary Instagram: Shakespearean Imagery in Social Media Gregory Vacca 37 From Sound Bites to Sound Learning: Engaging One-Click Kids in Long- Term Study Jessica Rosevear 39 Have You Been MOOCed? Ken Ronkowitz
GENERAL INTEREST
42 The Young Adult in Literature -- Feeling It! M. Jerry Weiss
New Jersey English Journal 1
46 If You Could See What I See Mary Ann St. Jacques 51 One Book, One College: Cumberland County College’s Approach Walter H. Johnson 53 On Language and Rarity Vanessa Rasmussen 59 A Lesson Dashed Gary J. Whitehead 63 Is That It? Dana H. Maloney
POETRY
10 Working/Mother Anne Wessel Dwyer 29 High School in Reverse Gary J. Whitehead 34 An Ode to the Timed Essay Andy Hueller 38 On Repeatedly Rereading Shelley’s Frankenstein Vanessa Rasmussen 62 Hurricane Joe Pizzo 64 Public School in the Year 2031 Joe Pizzo 66 Writing Process Dana H. Maloney 68 Shakespeare In the Park Washed Out: A Villanelle Marcia Holtzman
Cover design by Jonathan Kielmanowicz for New Jersey English Journal
2 2013 Issue
New Jersey English Journal 2013 Issue New Jersey English Journal is a peer-reviewed publication of the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English (NJCTE). This journal is intended to serve our members through the sharing and showcasing of research, best practices and ideas related to K-12 English Language Arts education.
Dana H. Maloney, Editor Editorial Board Patricia Hans James F. Nicosia, PhD Laura M. Nicosia, PhD Joseph Pizzo Patricia Schall, PhD Gregory Vacca, EdD M. Jerry Weiss, EdD Solange Resnik, Copy Editor Jonathan Kielmanowicz, Graphic Designer
NJCTE is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. NJCTE Executive Board: President: Laura M. Nicosia, PhD, Montclair State U , Vice-President: Susan C. Reese, Ocean Twp. H.S. (emerita) , Past-president: Patricia L. Schall, PhD, College of St. Elizabeth, Past-president: Joseph S. Pizzo, Black River M.S., Recording Secretary: Patricia Hans, Ridgewood H.S., Membership: Joyce Washington, Sojourner Truth M.S. , Treasurer, Webmaster: James F. Nicosia, PhD, Parliamentarian: Maria Schantz, EdD, Montclair State U (emerita), Chair, Writing Awards: Michele Marotta, Journal Editor: Dana Maloney, Tenafly H.S., Chair, Teacher of the Year Awards: Julius Gottilla, Union Catholic H.S., Past-president ex officio: M. Jerry Weiss, EdD, N. J. City U (emeritus), Past-president ex officio: Marcia Holtzman, Metuchen Dst. (emerita)
New Jersey English Journal 3
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: 2014 ISSUE OF NEW JERSEY ENGLISH JOURNAL
2014 Issue of New Jersey English Journal: The Classroom and Beyond
We invite you to respond to the theme of “The Classroom and Beyond” by considering such questions as:
How does one define the classroom today? How are ideas of the classroom being redefined and reimagined? What is the value of the face-to-face classroom experience? What needs to happen, and what can happen, in the classroom? How can, and/or how must, we connect the classroom to the world and/or to the future beyond the classroom? How does the idea of "college and career readiness" impact our classroom practice? How can, and how do, teachers supplement classroom teaching? What is the experience and potential of a cyber classroom?
In addition to submissions that respond to the theme, we also welcome general submissions and poetry. Submissions will be accepted between April 1 and December 1, 2013. Submissions must use MLA formatting.
Send queries and submissions to [email protected].
4 2013 Issue Dana H. Maloney From the Editor
o be an English Language Arts educator in the year 2013 is to feel the tectonic plates of change shifting beneath one’s feet. At times one feels as if nothing is as it once was: New teacher evaluation systems are changing the definition of “teacher effectiveness”; the Core T Standards are re-defining learning goals and even content; and the ever-changing possibilities of technology are changing the ways students receive and send communication. In many schools and districts, SMART Boards have replaced chalkboards, and iPads have replaced books. Gone is the old-fashioned paper gradebook or even the idea of closing the classroom door to the world; with the electronic gradebook and online content, the classroom has become open to, and even interactive with, the world . Of course, our students have changed too: These digital natives come from – and live in – a world different from the one in which their teachers were raised. These students are fully connected, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They live in a world of change, with new apps replacing old ones by the day and with constant access to “trending” stories on Twitter. They receive never- ending streams of new information in ever-changing forms; most recently, Snapchat and Instagram seem to have replaced much of their texting; social media have largely replaced one-to-one and face- to-face communication. With smartphone access to the world, these students never stop producing and receiving information. In the fully connected global society in which we all now live, our students face a difficult economy. In this context, it is not surprising that “learning for the sake of learning” is questioned; the new Standards and related assessments remind us that learning needs to be directed toward “college and career readiness” (as defined by the Core Content State Standards and its related assessments, including the soon-to-arrive-in-New-Jersey PARCC). So how do we, as English Language Arts educators, define and redefine English Language Arts teaching in the context of so much change? How do we maximize the opportunities presented by this world, to empower our students as insightful readers, as critical thinkers, as skillful writers, as impactful speakers, as careful listeners – and more? According to the many voices captured in this issue, the answer is found in a combination of old and new: The writers of the articles, essays and poems in this issue convey passion for literacy development and for student development. The writers express many important thoughts on how we can help students develop and deepen their abilities to communicate with others and with the world. These writers express passion for literary texts, for the life-affirming and life-changing experiences literature offers to students; they also offer new perspectives on how texts can be taught and how skills can be developed. They also express many new ideas on teaching and learning. As you read the many wonderful articles, essays and poems found in this issue of the New Jersey English Journal, I hope you also notice and appreciate the passion of the writers. These writers are problem-solvers; they answer the questions of “what” and “how” with a variety of wonderful solutions. These are educators who truly care about the discipline of English Language Arts education – and about the students impacted by such education. Many thanks to all of the people who worked on this issue of the journal, including all members of the editorial board and the two student interns who helped put the journal together. Above all, thanks to the writers for sharing your words and ideas with us. We hope you enjoy this issue. Please consider sharing your ideas with us. See page 3 for our 2014 Call for Submissions. We would love to publish your words and ideas in our next issue.
New Jersey English Journal 5 Heather D. Rocco From Literature to Literacy: Shifting the English Classroom Focus
hen you ask an English teacher, “What Students need to read and discuss texts are you teaching?”, she will often reply that better fit their interests and/or their reading W with the title of a book. levels so they can increase their ability to infer “I’m teaching The Stranger now.” meaning, study language, and evaluate literary The response, though, should really devices. I must also provide students with reading sound more like, “We’re studying why and how experiences that allow them to build fluency and authors use particular diction and syntax to stamina so they are prepared to be informed generate tone.” This answer reveals a focus on citizens and successful college students (Kittle 20). literacy rather than on pieces of literature. While These goals cannot be accomplished if students whole-class novel study may play a role in English slug through a text that may be above their classrooms, English teachers need to re-envision reading level or is completely of no interest to their instructional units from studies of literature them. In their Phi Delta Kappan article, “Farewell to studies of literacy. English teachers need to give to Farewell to Arms: Deemphasizing the Whole students reading options so students can develop Class Novel,” Douglas Fisher and Gay Ivey argue their literacy skills. that whole-class novel study is “neither standard- Many secondary teachers teach one novel centered or student-centered,” as the standards at a time. We were taught this way when we were focus on literacy skills not particular texts and in high school. We were trained to teach this way students cannot meet these skills because the texts when we were in college. In 1999, I remember often do not interest them or are too difficult to eagerly approaching my first teaching position read (495). In her book, The Book Whisperer, armed with binders of novel units and lesson Donalyn Miller argues that “Teaching whole-class plans that required all students to read the same novels does not create a society of literate people” books at the same pace all year. Chapter by (123). While I have not abandoned whole-class chapter, scene by scene, and stanza by stanza, my novel studies (yet), I believe we must create students completed the readings I selected, English classrooms that provide more balanced answered the questions I asked, completed the literacy programs and give students respectful activities I designed and wrote the essays I options for reading that challenge them and assigned. While some students truly enjoyed the inspire them to keep reading. work, most students simply allowed me to pull Contemplating this shift of English them through the whole-class novel study with instruction can appear daunting. Yet, if teachers little resistance and (even worse) with little start slowly, implementing one instructional enthusiasm. I knew I was doing something methodology at a time, it will not be so wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. overwhelming. The best strategies with which to After attending dozens of conferences begin are literature circles and free reading. These and reading hundreds of professional texts, I methodologies allow students choice, while they realized the answer lies in the differentiated also allow the teacher to build purposeful lessons instructional model that Carol Tomlinson around literacy objectives. discusses in her many books. By requiring all students to read the same text all the time, I Literature Circles assumed “one student’s road map for learning is Literature Circles provide students a identical to anyone else’s” (Tomlinson 2). I must guided choice of text to read. While many provide my students with authentic, respectful iterations of literature circles have emerged over learning experiences to improve their literacy, and the last fifteen years, I rely on Harvey Daniels’ this includes allowing them to choose the books book, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book they read. Clubs and Reading Groups, as the seminal guide to implement productive small group studies of texts.
6 2013 Issue From Literature to Literacy: Shifting the English Classroom Focus
Literature circles offer students guided reading size. I want between four and five students in choices and allow them to direct their each literature circle. I give a book talk for each conversations about text in small groups of peers. title and pass around copies of the books for The teacher must release his control of the students to peruse. I also post links to professional discussion. Instead, “the teacher is now available to and reader book reviews on our class web page. take a facilitative role, and if kids are struggling, to Usually for a homework assignment, I ask them to give individual attention while the rest of the rank their top three book choices and write a brief students work along in their kid-led group” explanation as to why they have chosen it. (Daniels 37). Literature circles give teachers more Despite what some teachers claim will time to confer with students, assess student happen, students do not choose a text simply progress and individualize instruction more because it is the shortest option. After my pep talk precisely than frequent whole-class novel studies about how great it is that they can decide what allow. they want to closely study for the next three When considering utilizing literature weeks, students feel empowered to choose a book circles, a teacher must be clear on what literary that best suits them. I ask them to rank their top skills he wants students to develop and practice as three choices, so I have some flexibility in the they read. I have used literature circles for many groupings. Most of the time students read their different units that focus on a variety of literacy first or second choice. skills. I have used literature circles to conduct Harvey Daniels, of course, provides genre studies, allowing students to explore key teachers the best information on how to manage components of the genre in their literature circle the day-to-day progression of literature circles. I texts. I have utilized them for theme studies, find they work best when students have the requiring students to examine how an author defined roles he suggests. Daniels offers many crafts his/her message through story. I have also variations of how to make good use of the roles used literature circles for author studies, including group role sheets, individual role sheets, presenting many texts by the same author so and journals (100 - 105). No matter how teachers students can seek what they texts reveal about the implement lit circles, they must be student- writer. No matter what common thread ties all of centered. Students drive the conversations. the literature circle text options together, I am Students set the reading assignments; they are clear as to which reading skills my students will more accountable to their circle peers, really, than develop as they read. they are to me. If students are unprepared, the Once a teacher is clear on what his group suffers, and students do not want to let instructional objectives are for the literature down their peers. circles, he should select appropriate texts. I am However, teachers should not view fortunate enough to work in a school district that literature circle days as ones they spend at their supports such purchases. If teachers do not, desks grading papers. They are “kid-watching with though, there are several ways to get the right care, balancing between challenging each child and books into the right students’ hands. The best way sustaining, above all, the love of reading, writing, is through the library. The interlibrary loan system and talking about books” (Daniels 37). in my county is a great resource. With a little Throughout the literature circles, teachers move advanced notice, your school or town librarian can about the classroom, listening into the discussions, help you track down four copies of the books. If assessing students’ comprehension, and offering books are not an option, teachers can use guidance to encourage careful contemplation of literature circles to explore different short stories, the text. articles or poetry as well. When selecting texts, Teachers also incorporate mini-lessons teachers should consider students’ reading into literature circle days. These lessons provide proficiency levels, their interests and their reading students the instruction they need about particular history. Literature circles will not be effective if a reading and analytical skills as well as give them teacher chooses six options, none of which the the opportunity to immediately apply their students can, or want, to read. learning to a text. Harvey Daniels and Nancy I usually present the five or six book Steinke have written an excellent book, Mini options to my students, depending on my class
New Jersey English Journal 7 Heather D. Rocco
Lessons for Literature Circles, which outlines many from buckets, curl up on a carpet or sit at their sample lessons. desk, and read. Some might argue free reading is a Recently, my twelfth grade students necessary component of elementary classrooms as participated in literature circles in which they read students are learning to read, but middle and high True Crime books. My goals for the unit included school students have mastered reading examining how writers use research to craft a comprehension so free reading wastes time. Yet, narrative around true events, how writers build aren’t we always learning to read? As students tension with diction, syntax, and structure, and explore new subject areas and new interests, they how writers utilize foreshadowing to keep the need to learn how to read increasingly reader engaged. Whether my students were sophisticated texts that allow them to explore reading In Cold Blood, Midnight in the Garden of Good these ideas. By not making time in daily lessons and Evil or The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, all for free reading, we show students their own students participated in ten to fifteen minutes reading lives are not valuable to their school lives. whole-class sessions in which we examined It is a dangerous message. models of foreshadowing, for example, in various In her recent book, Book Love: Developing texts. Within their literature circles, then, students Depth, Stamina and Passion in Adolescent Readers, dedicated time to identify examples of Penny Kittle states, “If students...enter college as foreshadowing in their texts and evaluate whether practiced non-readers, they will likely become part or not it is done effectively. As I visited with of the large number of students who will not groups, I inquired where they saw the device used finish. Something has to change in high school to in their books and offered more support when prepare kids better” (21). She is right. We do not students did not demonstrate a thorough prepare students to build the reading muscles they understanding of this literary technique. (Daniels need to meet the demands of higher education. As 37). she explains, average college students read “200- I have also utilized literature circles for 600 pages each week” (20). If they spend four teaching poetry. I provide students several poets years of high school reading 25 to 30 pages a from which they could select. After ranking their week, they are woefully unprepared to meet this preferences and getting assigned their groups, expectation. students engage in a very focused, in depth study With only rare exceptions for school- of one poet’s work. Throughout the unit, I give adjusted schedules or assessments, my class begins mini-lessons on poetic form, line breaks, imagery, every day with ten minutes of free reading. My rhythm, and more. They search their poet’s works students cherish these ten minutes. I cherish to see how he or she utilized these techniques in watching them read. Nine minutes and 30 seconds the poems. into our reading time, I announce, “Start looking for a place to put your bookmark.” Thirty seconds Free Reading later when I say, “Okay, it’s time,” I secretly smile Frequently I hear English teachers at those students who are still reading the pages proclaim, “These kids don’t read on their own even as they ever-so-slowly close their book anymore.” They insist their students from the covers. good old days were readers, voracious ones at When we discuss their reading lives, too that. But these kids these days, according to many many of my students quietly confess they cannot teachers, do not read. I do not know if they are remember the last time they read a book. “Not right. Perhaps they are. However, my response is even for English class?” I inquire. usually, “How much time do you give them to Their eyes drop to the floor. “Nope. Not read a book of their choosing in the class?” Often even for English class.” I hear how they don’t have time to include such a However, ten minutes a day is all some of luxury as free reading time in their classrooms. them need to rediscover or create reading lives. They have curriculum to cover. They have books My students tell me they find themselves thinking to teach. It should not surprise middle and high about their free reading books and can’t help but school teachers that kids don’t read. In elementary pick it up at night or on the weekend to keep classrooms, most teachers incorporate some time reading. I encourage them to read 20 minutes or for free reading. Students get to choose a book so outside of class as well, and many do. After
8 2013 Issue From Literature to Literacy: Shifting the English Classroom Focus reading Penny Kittle’s text Book Love, I recognized read and analyze texts they chose, they can apply the power in asking students to record how many difficult analytical work to books that better match pages they read each day (28). As they review their their reading levels. Most students are amazed that weekly data of how many pages they have read, authors they enjoy use the same techniques as they gauge whether they are ready to tackle the Camus or Fitzgerald. In their astonishment, reading challenges that lie ahead of them in though, I see validation. Their reading lives co- college. They set reading goals, committing to read exist with their school lives. Their reading lives, 100 pages in one week, quite a jump from the 17 they learn, are important. pages they started the year reading in the same amount of time. When they reach this goal, the Balanced Approach pride they feel lasts longer and inspires them more In my classroom, I still teach whole-class than any A they receive on a test. Next week, they novels. This year we will read three whole texts want to read more than they did the week before. together. They will participate in three literature Next month, they want to read a book that circles. They will also read hundreds of pages challenges them a bit. They feel ready for it. They from books they select for free reading. are. Their reading muscles grow stronger every Additionally, they participate in an extensive day. inquiry project where they choose what to study, As we engage in other literacy studies, I and therefore, read. Each writing assignment gives invite their free reading books into our work. them three or four choices from which to select, When we study point of view, for example, I’ll ask and I always leave them the option to design their students to think about the point of views used in own, as long as it meets the objectives I will their books. They might write about how the assess. I design my lessons with clear objectives point of view in their English text compares with and an open mind to design a “student’s road map that used in their free reading book. I’ll ask them for learning” (Tomlinson 2) to help them master to think about which perspective they prefer and these skills. why. I’ll ask them to think about how that A student in my class recently said, “Ms. information can inform their future reading Rocco, I have never been given so many choices choices. When we study inferences, I’ll inquire about what and how to learn before.” how their authors reveal information in interesting Slightly startled I asked, “Vin, how does it ways. They will search through their books and make you feel to have options?” find a passage that does this exact thing. They’ll His wide eyes and gaping mouth told me include these lines in the journal entry, maybe I had asked him a really stupid question. “It’s using them later when composing an analytical awesome.” essay. In Book Love, Kittle also explains how she I no longer subscribe to the belief that uses their free reading texts to teach the qualities every student must read [insert book title here]. I of writing (65), analytical writing (107), and more. do believe every student, though, must read. If She notes, “Jumping into analysis when students English educators focus on literacy rather than are still trying to figure out plot can be frustrating” literature, we will build dynamic communities of (107). In an English classroom that only teaches readers and writers. If we present students with one novel at a time, then, many students spend choices, including what they read, we will achieve nearly every day feeling frustrated. When students this goal.
Works Cited
Daniels, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse, 2002. Print. Daniels, Harvey, and Nancy Steineke. Mini-lessons for Literature Circles. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004. Print. Fisher, Douglas, and Gay Ivey. "Farewell to A Farewell to Arms: Deemphasizing the Whole Class Novel." Phi Delta Kappa 88.7 (2007): 494-97. JSTOR. 1 June 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. Kittle, Penny. Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2013. Print.
New Jersey English Journal 9 Heather D. Rocco
Miller, Donalyn. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Print. Tomlinson, Carol A. The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999. Print.
Heather D. Rocco is the Supervisor of English Language Arts, Grades 6 - 12 in the School District of the Chathams. She is an active member of the Conference on English Leadership (CEL), the leadership constituent group for the National Council of Teachers of English, and serves as the 2013 Program Chair for CEL’s Annual Convention to be held in Boston this November.
Working/Mother
At the daycare you wait in the chair by the front desk, kicking your yellow rain boots, your blonde hair, fine and feathery, damp from the early morning downpour.
Your father had forgotten your shoes - the ones I nearly drop as I thrust them toward you.
“I need you to help me tie them,” you murmur. I glance desperately at the clock and the woman behind the desk; Someone will help you, I say before I dash back into the rain.
Here, I say to my students that morning, Here are my books of poetry. Here are Yeats and Auden, Pastan and Plath. Read them and find a poem that makes you feel your heart beat. They stare at me as if I am an oddity wandering in their adolescent world of lust and longing.
That night before bed, I slide my fingers across your chest, searching for the rhythm of your small heart. You pull my hand Closer, closer As if to forgive me.
- Anne Wessel Dwyer
Anne Wessel Dwyer has been a teacher at Madison High School for eight years. She previously taught at Columbia High School in Maplewood, Wallkill Valley Regional High School, and St. Vincent Academy in Newark. Anne lives with her two sons, Aidan and Hogan, and her husband, Patrick, in South Orange.
10 2013 Issue Patricia Hans
Teaching English in the 21st Century: An
Integrated Approach
t was a cover that paid tribute to an era that texts have proven to be “more powerful than our brought us back to 1943 when Newsweek first own life experiences” (Hobbs, 2007, p. 6). In I appeared on the newsstands. The words “last this age of multiple literacies, we print issue” emblazoned across its page brought back the same feeling I had when I saw the end of need a broader definition of what Planet of the Apes that revealed a broken Statue of constitutes knowledge and literacy Liberty lying on its side in the sand and realized to teach and empower our students that this ape dominated land was America. On December 31, 2012, Newsweek published its last to become active thinkers, instead print issue. Gone are the afternoons curled on the of passive ones in dealing with this couch reading, devouring words, turning the pages explosion of media. This requires that in anticipation. Today we scroll, not turn; today education, specifically how English is taught, the words on the cyber-page are secondary- depart from the 19th century model of literacy to images, bearing the messages. an integrated approach of study, which defines a Over the years, faced with a shrinking text as one that imparts meaning expanding the readership, newspapers and magazines have called definition of literature to include multiple it a day—closed their doors and stopped printing literacies. Through an integrated approach of and publishing altogether; however Newsweek has study, students can be taught to critically analyze not stopped publishing; it has gone digital, “the constructed nature of media texts to [assess] blogging away. On January 2nd, 2013, I stood how media representations reinforce the before my Literature and Media class, holding the ideologies of dominant groups within society” last issue of Newsweek, and stated, “This isn’t just (Tobias, 2008, p. 9; Buckingham, 2003). about the end of print journalism; it is about the Integrating “media literacy pedagogy into English end of the way we communicate— about the way classes is not just pragmatic,” suggests Tobias in we think.” The days of carrying folded books in light of Buckingham, it “‘implies a far reaching, your back pocket—freeing them at the correct philosophical and political challenge to English: it hour to allow yourself to delve into inspired is an argument for fundamentally rethinking what moments spurred by the words of Faulkner, the subject is about,” (Tobias, 2008). The written Fitzgerald and Hemingway—are waning. In this text does not have a monopoly on narrative; all media laden world, images overshadow words, forms of media representation contain a narrative exercising their powers of persuasion. that needs to be broken down. Over the course of 2012, particularly Today the texts that are throughout the election campaign, the influence of the media over the electorate was considerable studied in the English classroom causing people to believe in media messages and should include all “forms of vote against their own self-interest. The meta- symbolic representation” to allow narrative in political speeches and in broadcast students to examine closely how news remains elusive to most viewers, as do those underlying messages in films that reinforce media messages are constructed in stereotypes, fueling a racially divided society a narrative form, how symbol entrenched in fear of imminent violence. Our systems use codes and conventions students are these viewers; without education, they are susceptible viewers. to shape messages, how media As an adolescent, trying to find who you messages have embedded values are and what your role is in society, proves to be a and points of view, how different complicated, if not impossible, task because media
New Jersey English Journal 11 Patricia Hans people interpret the same media to the dumbing down of society and the loss of message differently, and how most the imagination. In Fahrenheit 451, the reader presumes media messages are constructed to that the world he has encountered is the world of gain profit and/or power (Hobbs, the future; however, it is not. The world in 2007, p. 41). Approaching each media text as Fahrenheit 451 that forbids the reading of books a narrative allows students to analyze and examine and creative thinking, and numbs the mind a text closely and empowers them with the ability through the constant bombardment of endless to decode meaning to facilitate an understanding advertisements and slanted news broadcasts fed of themselves, and their roles in society. This is through public speakers, personal “seashells,” I- particularly important as television, film and news pods, and television walls is our world. How media exploit stereotypes and misrepresent groups frightening it is to think that Ray Bradbury had the of people whose “values and ideologies” are prescience of mind to see some 60 years into the inconsistent with the dominant culture. future. Bradbury did foresee the negative impact In addition to misrepresentation, the that television would have on society particularly “portrayal of violence, sexuality, or anti-social with respect to education in that it would take behaviors in television, film, and video games away time from reading, thinking and learning. justify the need for media education to help In 1985, Neil Postman in Amusing students become more aware of the negative Ourselves to Death echoed Bradbury’s claims and influences” and mitigate them (Tobias, 2008, p. 7). argued for the need for “media literacy pedagogy FCC studies in 2008 have shown that viewers who by pointing out television’s negative impact on are exposed to a steady stream of violence over a education, politics and religion” (Tobias, 2008, p. period of time become desensitized to violent 6). According to Tobias, Postman promulgates acts. While calling for stricter restrictions to that our culture’s “principal mode of knowing protect the young viewer, showing our students about itself” is television, and the medium’s how the image is constructed to elicit its effect is portrayal of “violence, sexuality and anti-social one way to get them to view the image as behavior,” and the values embedded therein that synthetically constructed. There have been too serve to create and enforce societal myths make many shootings—too many deaths—to not begin television dangerous. to discuss this in our classrooms. In 1992, J. Francis Davis argued in the From Pedagogy to Education: An Historical Overview Power of Images: Creating the Myths of Our Time for the Because “media literacy pedagogy defies need for a critical approach to teaching media definition,” one must look to media trends to literacy to learn how myths emerge and function determine how media should be approached in a in a modern society. Every day, every hour, we are course of study (Tobias, 2008, p. 2). Since the bombarded with media messages. After “long 1920’s, pedagogues have studied the media exposure to patterns of [media] images” we begin carefully and have made “dire” predictions with to create and live in a world fashioned by our respect to its “potential power,” and its effect on perception of those images. When viewed in individuals. Until the 1940’s, the media was multiple contexts, the message in the image perceived as “negative” stimuli impinging directly becomes a perceived reality, and then it becomes a and homogenously on all persons receiving them’” myth woven into our consciousness and our (Buckingham, 2003, p. 6). The result was to cultural tapestry. Today, according to Davis, we “discriminate and resist” the corrupting influence are being sold fear. With the wars in Iraq and of the media (Tobias, 2008, p. 3). In the 1950’s, Afghanistan, with terrorist alerts plastered all over media education had emerged to counter what the news, with mass shootings, and violence was perceived as “a powerful and persuasive pulsating in the media, the idea that “the world is influence” (Tobias, 2008, p. 3). This is what Ray a dangerous place and we need guns, police and Bradbury believed and in 1953 Fahrenheit 451 was military to protect it” is real. It is the heightened penned to address the negative influences of awareness that the media creates in reporting a technology, specifically television, in providing a story to generate interest, raise ratings and sell passive activity that bombards the viewer with newspapers that fuels this idea (Davis, 1992, p. negative stimuli that Bradbury deemed would lead 2). This is the myth of fear, which since 9/11 has
12 2013 Issue Teaching English in the 21st Century: An Integrated Approach been perpetuated by some to maintain power; p. 9). This would cause students to integrate however, real power in materialistic America lies visual texts with print literature, yielding a unified in the hands of corporations simply because we package for study that counters corporate buy into the myth that: “the good life consists of influences, and to study a visual text through an buying possessions that cost lots of money, and ideological lens, as a literary text would be studied. happiness, satisfaction and sex appeal are Both mediums are united by stories that contain imminent and available with every consumer metaphor, symbolism, point of view, tone and purchase” (Davis, 1992). And to some extent, we mood, characterizations, theme and an audience, all believe us; we are slaves to labels. Because our but not necessarily emphasized in the same students are today’s largest group of consumers manner. with fragile identities, it is imperative that we teach While it is important for students to our students to view the media through multiple analyze the film to become aware of changing critical lenses. perspectives and political commentary, it is more important for students to know how such change A Twenty-First Century Approach to is effected through the medium. For this reason, Teaching Media Studies creating counter narratives would instruct students Sister Souljah in the Coldest Winter in the deliberate synthesis of visual and print text, Ever states in her commentary that follows the and carrying out those counter narratives would novel that Santiaga, the exceptional businessman cause students to address injustices in society. This and drug ring entrepreneur, and father of Souljah’s critical approach to teaching the media asks protagonist, Winter Santiaga, models himself after students to explore what they know, how they Al Pacino’s character in Scarface like every other know it, and how this knowledge is contextually young aspiring thug in the inner city. After seeing situated. From this perspective, students could the movie many times, Scarface becomes his reality study how the media works to repress, and how he sees himself in the world. According marginalize, and invalidate certain social, or to Tobias, studies link “violent and aggressive racially defined, groups. behaviors in people to violent images in movies, television and video games and have given rise to From Theory to Classroom what many call the cultivation effect” (p. 8). In Reading the Media, Renee Hobbs Young men raised in an inner city environment documents the integration of a print literature view Scarface as a hero figure, and after based 11th grade English curriculum at Concord repetitious viewings come to see the movie as High School in Concord, New Hampshire with a their world. Sister Souljah’s intent in writing the visually based media studies curriculum. The year novel was to debunk the myth of the thug that that Hobbs began her research and Scarface, a product of hegemonic ideology, was documentation was 1999. During that year, deliberately created to control cultural English teachers constructed integrated units that perceptions. And this is what students need to focused on enlarging their definition of the text to know in order to negotiate a multimodal world in include all forms of symbolic representations. which identities are created and destroyed. Today, in 2013, focused on empowering students A critical thinking approach with skills to critically analyze media texts, all 50 to media studies requires that states have set down new media literacy standards. students create their own counter Renee Hobbs’s text is a necessary for any teacher interested in integrating media education narratives that take the form of print into the English curriculum as it takes us through ads, public service announcements, the construction process, emphasizing how music videos, documentaries, teachers can forge their own units that embrace guiding themes such as: gender, class, and race screenplays and film, and representation in advertising; film and television; “challenge ideologies and propaganda and persuasion; reality and social stereotypical misrepresentations in identity in film and television; meta narratives in existing media texts” (Tobias, 2008, the news, journalism and political speeches; changing perspectives and point of views that
New Jersey English Journal 13 Patricia Hans arise when a literary text is made into a film, and which is more focused and streamlined preparing how storytelling works in the media. While the them for writing in college and beyond. Current integration process was an inspiring revolutionary reading selections from The New York Times, The endeavor, the teachers were concerned about the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Atlantic and effect such a curriculum would have on reading Harpers are essential. Pete Hamill’s News is a Verb and writing skills. In the end, Hobbs’s data is the required text. Hamill is indispensable as he revealed that students “measurably strengthened raises issue with the role of journalism, their comprehension skills as readers, listeners and distinguishes between the tabloid and the more viewers in responding to print, audio, visual and stellar publications as The New York Times and The video texts” (Hobbs, 2007, p. 148). Furthermore, Washington Post, and defines the role of journalism Hobbs, in her final analysis, adds that “over all in our lives. Teaching our students to be involved students had a more sophisticated understanding concerned citizens is the goal of this unit, but this of how authors compose messages to convey importance must not dwarf the need to help meaning through their use of language, image and students see how identities are constructed, and sound and how readers respond with their own how race and gender through media meaning making processes as they interpret representation give rise to false perceptions. messages” (148). Based on Hobbs’s study, I Teaching how propaganda in initiated the writing of a curriculum that could be a democratic society works through integrated into an English curriculum, or stand on its own as a full-year course. the art of selling, and its effect on In the end, I developed a full-year upper individualism and freedom is crucial level course that closely examines the role that to prepare our students to be critical popular culture plays in the development of identity, and how literature and media thinkers. We begin with Brave New World by representations shape our understanding of reality, Aldous Huxley, and the accompanying articles that the world in which we live and our roles in it. The are included with the novel. Then I allow the course was designed to develop student critical novel to speak through student surveys and a PBS literacy and writing, to promote critical thinking, Frontline production titled: The Merchant of Cool. to challenge students’ existing beliefs and to Being There by Jerzy Kosinski; One Flew Over the empower students with the tools needed to Cuckoo’s Nest ; and Team Rodent by Carl Hiassen negotiate a complex global environment by contribute to concluding discussions on examining the narrative structure and its manipulation and power. Unconscious Persuasion representative symbols and messages encoded in is an essay written by Huxley that suggests we are film, television shows, news journalism, nothing more than the clones in his Brave New advertising, and contemporary and classical World. This unit allows the student to step in literature. psychological and sociological areas as we The year-long curriculum is divided into investigate the process of individuation proposed four unit segments. Units can stand alone by Sigmund Freud, which causes us to ask: how facilitating their integration into any English does one become an individual in a consumer- curriculum at the high school or middle school based culture? levels. The first unit titled: “Journalism and the Critics of integrating media News Media in the 21st Century” focuses on the studies into the English curriculum role of journalism and the news media in fostering fail to understand how identities, democracy in America. Consideration is paid to para-journalism, why the news gravitates toward attitudes and philosophies are entertainment and sensationalism, and the future manufactured. For example, today’s films of news reporting. Particular attention is paid to still work to reinforce power relationships writing. Students learn how to write ledes, and exploiting stereotypes that were forged in the study the effect a particular lede will have on a 1930s. The image of the mammy and minstrel news article by writing various versions of the antics were reinforced in the films of the 1930’s same article. Students learn how to distinguish and 1940’s, and continued into the television between the academic essay and the news article, programming of the 1950’s and 60’s. In 2013,
14 2013 Issue Teaching English in the 21st Century: An Integrated Approach
African Americans are still not portrayed in roles an enticing unit on gender construction can keep that identify them as conflicted characters with any class intrigued. But what students want to real life problems. How is race constructed in engage in is discussion on or about Twitter, America? A historical approach to studying race in Facebook, and the myriad of apps that are America through film, together with readings emerging daily. What role do these play in our “Mass, Media and Racism” by Stephen Balkaran, lives? and Stuart Hall’s “Race, The Floating Signifier,” “Ghosts in the Machine,” was the title of initiates the conversation. If our goal, as the magazine section of The New York Times, dated educators, is to ensure a future freedom of racism January 9, 2011. Behind the white letters that and exploitation, then our students need to emerged off of the page, like the voices on the understand how film, television, and the news internet that will last forever, were tiny pictures of create and perpetuate stereotypes by creating their families. On the bottom of the cover page ran the own written and visual narratives. It is imperative line: “It is possible to live forever on the internet, that, as English educators, we redefine what whether you want to or not.” When I die, the literacy is in order to address the negative effects picture I placed on my Facebook page will still be of a rapidly advancing technological world. there, as will my comments. Perhaps my blog In the fall of 2012, both Time and Atlantic pages will still be there, even the ones I wrote devoted issues to the role of women in America years and years ago. I will still be alive; the thought today, which became an interesting study in light is frightening. People will still send me email of congressional discussions on women’s rights, messages; I can live forever on the internet. The violence, equal pay and abortion. Margaret internet gives us life, but it also Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale delves into all of these issues, and together with Simone takes it away. What we have to deBeauvior’s The Second Sex and essays like decide is how much. “Motherhood Who Needs It?” by Betty Friedan,
Works Cited
Barthes, R., 1972, Mythologies, in J. Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, A Reader, Edinburgh: Pearson Limited, (pp. 261-269). Davis, J. Francis, 1992, Power of Images: Creating the Myths of Our Time, Media Values #57 www.medialiteracy.org/readyroom/article80.html Hall, Stuart., 1982, The rediscovery of ideology: the return of the repressed in media studies, in J. Storey (ed.) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, A Reader, Edinburgh : Pearson Limited (pp. 111-114). Hobbs, Renee, 2007. Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English. New York : Teachers College Press; Newark, DE: International Reading Association Lipschultz, Jeremy, & Hilt, Michael. “Editors’ Note: Defining Media and Information Literacy Amid Change. “Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education 9.1 (2009). Sister Souljah, 1999. The Coldest Winter Ever. New York: Simon & Schuster. Tobias, J.A. (2008). Culturally Relevant Media Studies: A Review of Approaches and Pedagogies. (http:/www.utpress.utoronto.ca/journals/ejournals/simile (November 2008) Snead, James, 1994. White Screen; Black Images. Routledge: New York.
A 2007 New Jersey Council for the Humanities Teacher of the Year and veteran teacher at Ridgewood High School, Patricia Hans teaches American Studies as well as Literature, Identity and the Media. The latter class grew out of her doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University, and inspired this article, which Pat hopes will encourage all teachers to teach toward the future.
New Jersey English Journal 15 Jennifer Beach and Stacia Keel
Tweet This: Helping Students Transfer their Digital Media Skills to Complex Reading Tasks
hey are the “digital natives”: They’re the a real need for English teachers to understand and smart-phones-permanently-attached-to- embrace the tools of the “digital native.” T their-thumbs generation; they’re masters of The first thing we needed to do was social media: tweeting, texting, and updating their decide which types of social media to focus on. statuses on a minute-by-minute basis. To do this, we needed to understand what exactly We are the English teachers, asking them the students were doing online. Should we focus to read about characters from long ago, asking on Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Google them to analyze and think, rather than just “like” searches? Wikipedia? Texting? Should we consider or “comment” on things. texting a type of “digital media”? What about As a literacy specialist (Stacia), and as a Tumblr? Pinterest? Is there a website that students literacy teacher (Jenn), one issue that has use that we adults don’t even know about? confronted us recently is how to engage these Realizing we didn’t know enough about students—these “digital natives”—and how to the digital lives of our own students to know what help them build their reading, writing, and analysis to focus on in our planning, we designed a simple skills. We have experience using technology in our paper survey asking about internet and social classrooms; we know that the high school English media usage that we could give to Jenn’s classes. classroom is very different from when we both And yes, we see the irony in a survey for the began teaching. We didn’t have class websites or teenage digital native that is on paper. Many of the online grading programs back then. Our students students pointed this irony out to us, a teachable didn’t email us at midnight for clarification on the moment about the concept of irony. We were reading assignment due the next day. We didn’t already connecting digital skills and reading have to deal with requests from students to be analysis skills, and we hadn’t even started planning their “friend” on Facebook. our lessons yet! While embracing instructional technology Our survey opened our eyes and humbled to enhance our teaching, we realized that we were us. Teenagers and their forty-something English just using new tools to teach the same skills. teachers might both be using social media, but Technology served as a “gimmick,” rather than a there are distinct differences in our uses. We were tool to help students gain a true metacognitive fascinated when a student commented that awareness of how their social media skills can be Pintrest is “for moms to look at recipes and applied to their academic work. crafts” and shocked to find out that Twitter is “so We sat down to brainstorm how we could easy to hack” and used for bullying other students. help students make connections between the skills We were surprised that students didn’t show they use in their everyday digital world and the much knowledge of web resources that could help skills they need to succeed on their English them academically, such as Reddit or Google reading assignments. Students still read books, as Scholar, and amazed that they saw Instagram as evidenced by the students, both male and female, something similar to Tumblr, while we think of it carrying around Twilight and The Hunger Games and as a cute way to share retro-looking photos of kids making comparisons between the films and texts, and pets. but our observations of students texting, We were also surprised that social media discussing Facebook status updates and Twitter usage differed greatly among our students based tweets, and using phones to find information on on cultural background, school success, and Google in mere seconds helped us see that there is personal taste. Our students were open, analytical, and interested in discussing how they use social
16 2013 Issue Tweet This: Helping Students Transfer their Digital Media Skills to Complex Reading Tasks media and what skills they have already honed. A quick survey turned into spirited discussions with the roles of teacher and student often reversed. Our survey helped us focus on three modes of digital media that all of the students in Jenn’s classes were very familiar with: Facebook, Twitter, and texting. Feeling certain that these three areas would have great potential for crossover with reading skills, our next task was to examine these social media forms and isolate the skills students use daily as they interact online. We then selected skills that seemed most ripe for connections with reading lessons. We developed a chart for each media type to help us brainstorm skills and make connections (see tables 1, 2, and 3).
Facebook We spent the most time developing ways to incorporate Facebook into different lessons because it is the social media form through which the students interact most. Whether or not they post on Facebook, students reported that they check their newsfeeds frequently throughout the day.
Table 1-Connecting Facebook skills and reading skills Facebook Skill Literature Analysis/Reading Skill Identifying the tone of the writer Identifying the tone of the narrator Understanding sarcasm, irony, understatement and Understanding sarcasm, irony, understatement and parody parody Identifying characteristics of the writer’s voice Identifying characteristics of the writer’s voice Importance of specific word choice Impact of specific word choice Importance of allusions to the poster’s point Importance of allusions Audience for the writer Audience for the novel Symbolism in the post Symbolism in a piece of literature Recognizing point of view and bias in the post Recognizing point of view and bias of a writer Examining credibility of the poster Examining credibility of a writer or character Making predictions about future statue updates, Making predictions about plot, character motivations, pages liked, types of memes posted themes, etc. Understanding universal characters, roles of people Understanding universal characters Making judgments based on stereotypes and Identifying the stereotypes held by characters, prejudices prejudices in the writing Importance of the word and visual images as seen in Importance of the word and the visual images as seen memes, Facebook pages liked, and photographs and in functional texts, graphic novels, and media images captions
Examining the Status Update for Characterization In the past, Stacia has had students examine the character Daisy in The Great Gatsby by specifically focusing on passages featuring her voice—what she says, how Nick describes her saying it, and how Gatsby describes Daisy’s voice. To prepare the students for this lesson, Stacia added a new component involving social media: having students first analyze and discuss the four status updates from one of Stacia’s Facebook friends (used with the author’s permission and name removed) in the following:
Jesus has saved me and it would take years to count all the ways God has blessed me on top of that! I am thankful for my salvation and for the 38 years God has given me.
Just feeling really worn out from my activities of today. Don't know why this reminded me of a favorite movie of mine, but I'm hearing the six-fingered man's voice in my head right now, "I've just sucked one year of your life away." :)
New Jersey English Journal 17 Jennifer Beach and Stacia Keel
Sometimes being a mom means protecting your children from harm.....like fishing all the peanut- containing candy from the bucket of your peanut intolerant child so that she doesn't accidentally eat it. And just to be extra safe, dispose of it by eating it.
Heard my 9 year old telling the 7 year old how great it will be when they grow up and get their own place because they can do whatever they want and never do chores again. So I turned on an episode of "Hoarders" and showed them what a house looks like when chores are never done. "Ok, Mom. I will do chores! I promise!"
The skills students use in discussing the characteristics of Stacia’s friend are the same skills they use when, coupled with analyzing what Daisy says and the way that she says it, examining the following excerpt from The Great Gatsby: “’Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the cymbals’ song of it…”(Fitzgerald 120). By first examining the status updates from Stacia’s friend, the students debate the importance of the allusion to The Princess Bride and the television show Hoarders. They look at how she creates humor in her posts, discuss what kind of a mother they think she is and why, and even look at her sentence structure. They make predictions, based on these posts, about what kind of posts she might make in the future. Just as all of these skills are used when examining a character in a piece of literature, they’re also used when reading Facebook posts. Thus, reading these posts may make it easier for students to transfer their analysis skills to their academic reading of characterization.
Using the Status Update to Practice Second Person and Apostrophe To help students in Jenn’s remedial reading class master point-of-view, we planned a lesson using sample status updates written in second person. We had noticed many of our hipper, young “friends” on Facebook posting things like, “Hello Friday! I can’t wait to see you!” We decided that this skill could help students practice figuring out point of view when reading a text (a necessary skill on our Virginia state reading test), while also serving as a way to help students review books they were being assessed on in English class. We shared the following status update with the students (used with the permission of the author):
Hello Nap, We were so close this summer but I haven’t seen you for a while. I’m really glad we’re getting back together this weekend. I’ve missed you. You have always been one of my favorites to hang out with.Love,Katie
We had students determine what point of view this was written in (following a review of point of view a few classes prior to this); then, we asked the students to log onto their Facebook pages to examine their friends’ status updates (or their own) to find first-person and third-person point-of-view examples to share with the class. The students were very engaged in sharing and analyzing Facebook status updates, but it quickly became clear that we should have set ground rules first, such as prohibiting the students from sharing other people’s names in order to preserve their privacy, as well as reading inappropriate things for school aloud. The next stage of the lesson asked students to use the second person status update as a mentor text for writing their own mock updates. This activity helped them prepare for a diagnostic writing on their summer reading selections by asking them to address an inanimate object or even idea found in the book, from the point of view of the author or a character. Even the weakest students engaged in this activity with excitement. They all grasped the tongue-in-cheek use of second person to write to an inanimate object and took the assignment farther than we expected by choosing objects from their books that had symbolic or thematic value. We shared them aloud in class and one student commented, before Jenn could make the point, that their choices of objects were “really
18 2013 Issue Tweet This: Helping Students Transfer their Digital Media Skills to Complex Reading Tasks analytical.” This was the metacognitive “a-ha” moment we had been hoping for: students were seeing that their skills and knowledge from social media could make them stronger English students! Here is an example of the complexity a student was able to show in his analysis of his chosen text, Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone (the student’s punctuation remains intact):
Dear AK-47- I love you but I hate you. I wish I never met you. You made me feel safe but also made me who I am now a killer. Ishmael
After this lesson, the students were much more comfortable with second person, easily identifying it in writing, both in their own and in mentor texts. They asked to use the status update model again to review To Kill a Mockingbird; together, we decided to have different characters in the novel write to “racism” as a concept to show their views on it. This assignment wasn’t long or fancy, but students clearly saw the connection between their skill with reading, writing, and analyzing status updates and the skills they are asked to use in English class. Thus, it made an excellent introduction to our class focus on connecting social media skills with reading skills.
Twitter Discussing our survey questions with our students, we were surprised to learn that Twitter is starting to take the place of Facebook for many students. As the students talked about why they like Twitter, we realized that it had great potential for building reading skills.
Table 2-Connecting Twitter skills and reading skills Twitter Skills Literature Analysis/Reading Skill Understanding Voice Understanding voice Identifying Tone Identifying tone Identifying common themes in a series of Tweets Identifying themes commonly explored by an author; identifying theme throughout a piece of literature Identifying the main idea of the Tweet Identifying the main idea of a piece of writing Making Inferences about the author’s intent in a Making inferences about the author’s intent in a text Tweet Identifying the Point of View and Bias in the Tweet Identifying the Point of View and Bias of an author Understanding the methods of persuasion employed Understanding the methods of persuasion employed in a Tweet in an argument Communicating in a concise manner Understanding the importance of word choice in communication
Live Tweeting to Practice Tovani’s “Inner Voice” and Annotation In Jenn’s remedial literacy class, the students were preparing for an annotation unit, in which they would annotate an entire text (Lord of the Flies) as they read. To help students understand how to annotate a literary work, especially one that she knew they would find challenging, Jenn began by introducing the concept of the reader’s “inner voice” via worksheets modeled on Tovani’s own inner voice (50). Jenn modeled a think-aloud to help students understand the idea of hearing their inner voice while reading, using high interest articles from Scholastic’s UpFront Magazine, and then had students practice using an inner voice chart while reading another article. An assessment of students’ completed “inner voice” sheets showed that they were attempting to summarize sections of the article, rather than truly revealing their own thoughts, ideas, and questions about the reading, which was the grade level team’s goal with the annotation book assignment. The students’ difficulty with annotation and “inner voice” presented a chance to help the students relate a more challenging English skill to a digital skill they use frequently by connecting annotation to tweeting.
New Jersey English Journal 19 Jennifer Beach and Stacia Keel
First, Jenn started class by asking the students to do a quick-write, in which they answered the question: Why do people tweet? An informative discussion began as students shared their quick-writes. Jenn next led the class in generating a list of types of tweets. Here is the students’ list: Give your opinion (to get feedback) Share news/Information Re-tweet to share something interesting Show your interests and personal style Bully/Make fun of people Call people out Have a tweet battle (showing off your verbal insult-creating skills) Ask a question Next, to help students make connections between the thinking patterns of tweeting and annotating a text, Jenn found examples of “live tweeting” of events that would appeal to students. She took screenshots, to recreate the chain of tweets, and put them on PowerPoint slides. Jenn was able to find engaging examples of tweets that popped up on Twitter while her school’s dance team was competing on national television. To further engage students, she also used a series of live tweets during a Redskins game—we are in Northern Virginia and root for DC!—in which our region’s beloved new quarterback, Robert Griffin III, suffered a frightening knee injury. She showed short video clips of the two events while reading aloud the tweets that were being generated during the events. These two examples helped students see how tweeting while watching an event is like annotating; you share your opinions, ideas, connections, jokes, and questions as the “story” of the event unfolds, making your thinking visible. Jenn gave students the chance to practice transferring their twitter skills to a literary work by first having them “live tweet” a scene from the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird, which they had just read. Because Jenn’s school system has regulations that prohibit her from actually having students tweet as a class activity, she created a mock version using the chat function in Blackboard Collaborate. Students simultaneously watched the video clip while posting their “mock tweets” in real time on the shared chat space. After the scene, the class went back and looked at their comments. Jenn asked them to do a quick- write in which they attempted to describe how tweeting while watching the video clip helped them process it better. Finally, it was time for students to practice their tweeting skills with a literary passage. To scaffold the students, Jenn created an inner voice sheet that showed the text of a passage from Of Mice and Men on one side, with inner voice boxes next to each paragraph. Because the students had already read Of Mice and Men, they were knowledgeable about the characters and the plot and could focus on practicing their annotation/tweeting skills with a familiar reading. After reading and annotating the passage, students shared their comments and questions with the class and discussed the similarities between annotating the passage and live tweeting an event or scene in a movie. One student summed up their learning beautifully by stating that tweets are the inner voice that you show the public and your inner voice is what you write down when you annotate. The next stage was to help students carry their new skill to Lord of the Flies. Jenn set up their practice by putting the first few paragraphs of chapter one onto a handout, with boxes next to each paragraph for students’ annotations. Students were able to use their inner voice sheets in a discussion of chapter one. At this point, students were ready to annotate on their own in the margins of the novel, using the concept of tweeting to help them focus on their inner voice as they read.
Texting Texting is one mode of communication that has changed phone plans for families across America. We all know that our students text frequently and with ease. Of course, texting is appropriate for study in both student’s writing and reading, but we decided to focus on reading skills Table 3-Connecting texting skills and reading skills
20 2013 Issue Tweet This: Helping Students Transfer their Digital Media Skills to Complex Reading Tasks
Texting Skills Literature Analysis/Reading Skills Understanding the importance of word choice Understanding the importance of word choice Precision in word choice and syntax Analyzing how syntax and word choice work together Editing Skills Understanding how attention to detail in editing affects a message Understanding sentence variety Understanding how sentence variety/syntax affect the tone, message, and audience Importance of identifying main details Identifying main details in a message Interpreting the tone of a text message Analyzing how the word choice and syntax create the tone Interpreting the connotation of words and the hash Understanding the nuances in connotation of a tags in a text message words in a text Shorthand/note taking Using shorthand/note taking to help one’s self summarize and make sense of a piece of literature
Texting and tone Texting provided a quick entry into thinking about tone and evidence for Jenn’s AP Literature students. First, students were asked to take out their own phones and examine some of their past text conversations to see if they noticed anything about their own texting “voices.” They were asked to look for tone, sentence patterns and word choice they use frequently, and other aspects of their own voices and the voices of their texting partners. They all found that they frequently use emoticons to get across tone rather than word choice. The class discussed why emoticons are easy shorthand to use in the brief form of the text message. Take this exchange of text messages Jenn shared with her students (see fig. 1). She sent the same text on three separate occasions to her husband; he responded in three different ways:
Figure 1: Text and three responses
Going to no No Thx That’s ok. Trader Joe’s. Need anything?
Students quickly identify the third text as the one they would most want to receive and found it easy to discuss the tone of each of the messages, responding to questions like: Why didn’t he include any emoticons? What are the slight differences in his tone in each one? Is it possible he didn’t get across the tone he wanted to in the first one? Examining the relationship between word choice and tone in these texts made it easier for students to examine the relationship between word choice and tone in literature. Students often try to read between the lines a little too much when analyzing literature, making an analysis of emotional reason they wish to be true rather than the evidence in the plot they see on the page. Examining this series of texts helped students focus on evidence rather than the back story they created as to why the first text has a harsher tone than the third: “Maybe he was just having a bad day.” “Maybe he was just in a hurry and wanted to send a reply and didn’t want to ignore her.” “Maybe he got cut off and had to answer the phone at work and only had time to type ‘no.’” Jenn’s AP Literature students practiced transferring their analysis of evidence to find tone by looking at a passage from Crime and Punishment: Luzhin’s letter to Pulcheria in Part 3, a passage dripping with a condescending, pretentious, self-important tone. They identified the tone of the passage, circling words and
New Jersey English Journal 21 Jennifer Beach and Stacia Keel phrases that they believed revealed the tone. Finally, students played with humor and irony by adding emoticons to a typed version of the passage that completely changed the tone.
Reflection Our survey taught us that students use social media differently than adults do, and that they are skilled at analyzing and explaining the thought processes that occur when they use social media. By building on their expertise with social media skills, we were able to help them think metacognitively about how they use similar skills when reading and analyzing complicated tasks. The lessons we developed to help the students make connections and transfer their skills were popular in the classroom; even struggling readers felt confident about the social media portions of the lessons, and this confidence helped them take risks as they tackled the reading practice in each lesson. One delightful result of our semester of focusing on how social media skills connect to reading skills was that our students took ownership of making the connections, often suggesting that “live tweeting” a chapter we are reading would help them deal with their confusion, or making other suggestions for how a reading skill we are practicing in class is similar to a social media skill. Allowing our students to teach us about social media through the survey and discussion helped this series of lessons become more than a set of gimmicky class activities; instead, the students became active participants in creating their own metacognitive awareness of how they use reading and analysis skills daily in their personal, digital lives and how these are the same skills they can call on to be successful readers. As we reflect on this experience using social media skills to connect reading skills, we leave with some positive and negative take-aways for future lessons. The downside: negative ways social media influences our students in class: ◦ Students are less skilled in intently focusing on one thing. ◦ Students often rely on emoticons and abbreviations to show tone, so they need more practice creating tone in their own writing and identifying it in the writing of others. ◦ Students are less likely to take time for slow reflection when social media asks for a quick response. On the upside: positive ways social media helps our students in class: ◦ Students think on more than one level at a time. ◦ Students form and share rapidly in response to media. ◦ Students make their thoughts visible (maybe not to us…). ◦ Students can interpret sarcasm, satire, and verbal humor. We are only at the beginning stages of using social media skills to enhance learning in the English classroom. Using social media does not have to be viewed as just a cutesy gimmick. Directly involving students in their own learning by engaging them in conversations about how they use social media helps students build metacognitive awareness of their own thought processes and the ways their own skills and strengths can translate to classroom success.
Jennifer Beach is a National Board Certified Teacher who has been with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia for 17 years, after four years as a parochial school teacher. She is the English Department Chair at West Springfield High School, where she teaches AP Literature and Expanding Literacies, a literacy support course for at-risk students.
Stacia Keel is a National Board Certified Teacher who has been with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia for 15 years. She taught in the IB and IBMY programs at Mount Vernon High School and served as English department chair. Currently she is a resource teacher working with teachers of Developing Literacies and Expanding Literacies, literacy support courses for at-risk students.
22 2013 Issue Jeffrey Pflaum The Creative Imagination and Its Impact on 21st Century Literacies
n television I saw a radical new program responsibility shifts to the children and they create in education called “Massage Therapy” or re-create motivation from the inside? O which is used as a technique to build I embarked on a 21st century skills new pathways for learning in children. On the journey into education, teaching, learning, screen was a close-up of a boy lying down while a knowledge, imagination, and creativity from 1968 woman rubbed his temples. The child seemed to 2002. I made up curricula in reading, writing, content. Afterwards, I said to myself: “Yabba, thinking, poetry, creativity, vocabulary, and dabba, do! Dat’s what I wanna do. You know, communication skills (emotional intelligence, soothe them into 21st century learning and character education, and values clarification). It literacy.” became an experiment of progressive ideas --Author’s imaginary self-dialogue following a initiated by my brief teaching experiences, television promo for a report on “Massage negligible education background, in addition to Therapy” for kids, March 31, 1998 psychology, English, creative writing, film, and photography undergraduate/graduate courses. As an inner-city elementary school The 21st century skills movement wants teacher for thirty-four years (NYCDOE) in children to: think critically, be creative, problem- Bedford-Stuyvesant and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, solve, communicate, and innovate; however, many New York, I have had great interest in teaching past education reform movements have failed. For the prerequisite fundamental skills for learning example, in my school district, during the how to learn, and also, teacher training, or what seventies, we had the More Effective Schools makes a “good” teacher. With a limited Program (MES) that reduced class size to twenty- background in education, twelve credits in the two students max. After several years, even with Intensive Teacher Training Program at Queens the smaller class sizes, test scores in reading and College (NYC) in the late sixties, I came to the math went down and it was subsequently classroom with little knowledge of what and how dropped. to teach my fourth grade kids, so I listened and The skills movement will not sink like observed carefully at the school workshops on MES if we teach kids about the creative reading, language arts, social studies, and phonics. imagination. A key first step before instructing I used these experiences during my early years and about the content areas, especially on an found them helpful because they gave me enough elementary school level, is practicing the confidence to stand in front of a class and teach. fundamentals needed for learning and learning After my insecurities passed, and I became aware how to learn; ask any inner-city school teacher and that there were students in front of me, I realized I believe they will agree without too much that they were not present mentally, emotionally, hesitation. and psychologically. The preliminary fundamentals, as I have Questions came to mind: How would the empirically researched, tested, and discovered in kids find the inspiration to learn? Where would my classrooms, are concentration, reflection, the passion to learn come from if not from the contemplation, meditation, visualization, teacher? How could I get my students into present observation, listening, speaking, critical thinking time so they could be-with-me during the lessons? (analysis/synthesis), creative-thinking, creative How could they develop self-awareness, self- writing, poetry reading and writing, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding to create their intelligence (intra- and interpersonal own desire to read, write, and search for communication), character formation, values knowledge? How could I teach self-reflection, clarification, and vocabulary expansion and self-discovery, and self-education where appreciation.
New Jersey English Journal 23 Jeffrey Pflaum
But when, where, and how can the skills Contemplation Music Writing: Introducing be taught? There are times and places in the Inner Experience schedule: for instance, they can be presented in Taking a step further into the mind and mini-lessons during the school day, in creative imagination, I made up “Contemplation before/after-school programs, summer school Music Writing,” an original form of writing, which classes, or, in extended school days. leads students on peaceful journeys of self- reflection and self-discovery via music, Concentration Exercises: Focusing the Mind contemplation, writing, discussion, and My project, called “Concentration assessment. Typically, kids listen to ten minutes Exercises,” helps adolescents become students, of music from pop to classical and write whatever keeping them involved, centered, and focused, thoughts, ideas, feelings, experiences, images, and without asking them to “pay attention.” A memories come to mind (no themes or prompts fundamental skill like concentration is a tool for are given). After listening, reflecting, learning, and should not be taken for granted as it contemplating, and writing, the responses are read is in today’s educational system and national orally (and anonymously) to the class, and standards. discussed via basic questions on mind-pictures Some sample concentration exercises visualized, feelings and thoughts triggered by the students practiced are the following: saying their images, and main ideas or messages conveyed by name silently for two minutes and focusing only the writer. on the “name,” walking around the school block A plethora of combined 21st century concentrating on everything they see, playing a academic, social, and emotional learning skills game called “hit-the-penny,” where their came as a result of Contemplation Music Writing: concentration targets hitting a penny with a rubber reflection, meditation, visualization, feeling, critical ball (and nothing else) from six feet away, and and creative thinking, creativity, contemplation, eating a peppermint candy and concentrating on it listening, observation, perception, communication, for three minutes or until it’s consumed. writing, as well as self-expression, -awareness, - It was important for them to find their knowledge, -understanding, -motivation, -efficacy, concentration within themselves, and once they and -empowerment. did, and understood and appreciated it for what it The project became a foundation for is, they would jumpstart fresh self-motivation. I other types of innovative writing formats, from wanted students to know concentration through non-fiction to fiction writing: “Here-and-Now their own capabilities and to empower their lives. Contemplation Writing”—kids are given an Doing so is a beginning step to the creative activity, in which they contemplate what imagination, and also, to focus on that part of the happened, and write about it; “Experimental inside world. A dedicated teacher may get Contemplation Writing”—quirky experimental students’ attention, but what happens when they activities done at home (similar to “Here-and- leave that classroom? Will they still be attentive Now” lessons); “Reflections”—prompted activity and motivated if the next teacher is not as where students write non-fiction narratives using effective? contemplation themes from past writings; Before teaching any subject, kids have to “Portraits”—same procedure as “Reflections,” be present—they must be entirely focused—and except kids use old contemplation themes for that can be done, first, through the power of fiction or creative writing. concentration. To do that, one must employ Themes from the student contemplations learning through fun, novel, and challenging ways. demonstrate the effectiveness of a non-prompt If these efforts are made, there will be changes in style of writing, which, in my opinion, works well the kids and in the classroom environment; at with the independent natures of preteens and least, that has been my experience after years of teens. Sample themes describe how children build teaching prerequisite fundamental skills for their own pathways to the creative imagination: learning, and learning how to learn. Drifting Away into a Peaceful World; Dream of Speeding Out of Control; Fantasy: The Double Reflection; Nobody Wants Me! Or Becoming a Snicker’s Bar; Songs and Remembrance; Letting
24 2013 Issue The Creative Imagination and Its Impact on 21st Century Literacies
Go; Life is Short; Neglected Child; Fantasy: Drain grades, or from picture to chapter books, they are Pipes and Rice Krispies; Bad Vibes; Flutes, not given enough practice on how to reverse the Whales, and Peace; Schoolmates, Vampires, and process—to change words into mind-pictures. Ghosts; Dream: Frozen, Can’t Talk; Future Shock: Students don’t get past the lavish illustrations of BMW or Tin Cup; End of the Family; Bright primary books and fail to understand that, because Lights, No Exit; Depression; Reflections: I Hate of their maturity, they must now make up the Therefore I Am; Prejudice; Memories: Death of a beautiful pictures in their imagination. The Friend; Fighting and Blame; All Alone; Streams of curriculum pays only cursory attention to the vital Thought: Modern Mind-Pictures; Boredom versus process of image making and the creative Spontaneity; Mother Nature; “The Heart is a imagination. The situation becomes problematic if Lonely Hunter”; Conflict Resolution: Father and you look at current standardized reading tests, Daughter; and, School Fantasy. where numerous passages require strong visualization skills. Reading-and-Imagining: Language as Art Take another step into 21st century, and Word-Bridges: Words to Live By literacy skills and the creative imagination Children need rejuvenation in reading and overcome the ability to visualize—an important writing because they don’t have that inside feel, or ingredient in the art and science of reading that an understanding and enjoyment for the building leads to greater understanding and pleasure in this blocks of these subjects: words. Words are just magical process. In “Reading-and-Imagining,” black print on a white page; they mean more students practiced changing words into images. testing, stress, pain, and less pleasure and passion. The lessons began with single words, “Word-Bridges” demonstrated that words don’t mostly nouns, like apple, dog, room, sky, rainbow, live alone in the mind and imagination, but in clouds, parrot, pencil, and rose—and progressed clusters, and have lives of their own. My students to two-word, real and absurd sentences: from realize they are one enormous human dictionary Children play, Frogs hop, and Birds fly to and thesaurus with thousands of words creating Children float, Trees jump, and Ducks skip. From meanings, ideas, thoughts, emotions, images, there we went to four-, six-, eight-, and ten-word dreams, experiences, memories, and worlds. sentences, and onto paragraphs, whole page Words have purpose, significance, and intention. passages, short stories, and poems. I added the Words became catalysts for other words in these absurd sentences for visualization effects because creative, critical thinking activities. it shows kids what their imaginations are capable For example: “What happens to the word of creating. They visualized, described, and drew ‘hurt’ if you read or say it to yourself? Does the exactly what they saw in their own minds. The word vanish after you read it? What happens to unit ended with “charting” or “mapping” ‘hurt’ if you put it inside your head? Does the passages—finding all the triggered images, word make you think of something else? Do you feelings, thoughts, and ideas. picture or visualize anything in your mind? Or, is Visualization is a fundamental ‘hurt’ just hurt and nothing else? What other prerequisite skill that grows the creative words come to mind if you hear or imagine the imagination, but is not given enough attention in word ‘hurt’?” the national standards. Readers, from remedial to The Word-Bridges Project started with gifted, have to get this skill down to an advanced this simple procedure. After the introductory science in order to see what they read, which is a lessons, it was understood that words trigger other lot of fun, especially when the images are rich with words and associations, as well as accompanying detail and can, potentially, become three- feelings and thoughts. Words don’t live alone but dimensional, holographic, virtual realities with in clusters, with unknown paths, until we explore kids-as-avatars. them. Word-Bridges are motivational exercises for It’s funny, but initially in primary grades, reading, writing, and thinking. What surprised me we teach words (reading) via pictures. Students was that it stimulated vocabulary expansion. “translate” the pictures into words. The pictures, Eventually, students sat at their desks and of course, are on the outside. Yet, when children constructed bridges with a thesaurus and move to intermediate, and upper, elementary dictionary in hand.
New Jersey English Journal 25 Jeffrey Pflaum
Squares, pyramids, diamonds, word- To introduce creative thinking, I used an wheels, free-bridges, and free-wording are opaque projector to show 6” x 6” photographs different forms of bridges that became and pictures that turned into 6’ x 6’ images on a compelling, thought-provoking puzzles, screen. Sometimes I projected a photograph labyrinths, and entanglements for students to entirely over the front wall of the classroom and solve by finding connecting words to a given we were suddenly at the still movies. The class “spark word” using their vocabulary and a brainstormed a stream of responses—thoughts, dictionary/thesaurus to discover new words. ideas, associations, and feelings—to the given Experiencing words is a fundamental skill question. Ideas became stimuli for other ideas, that should be taught on the elementary level. starting phenomenal creative interchanges during Don’t we want kids to enjoy the feast and deluge our discussions. Children became aware of, and of words coming their way from morning until got in touch with, their creative thought and night? In the 21st century, making kids experience feeling processes. words themselves helps them see the connections, In the series, students created something associations, and families of words in the mind from nothing—isn’t this the function of the and imagination. This is a true skill—taking creative imagination?—after looking at a students to creative, three-dimensional word photograph/advertisement of, for example, two worlds, and letting them be touched by their cups of tomato soup with a square of melting infinite nuances is an experience they’ll never butter in each with these possible questions: What forget. are the butters thinking? Imagining? Saying to Word-Bridges energized the imagination via each other? Where do the butters want to go and structured and unstructured word unions. why? List the words going through the butters’ Students learned and increased their knowledge of minds. prerequisite fundamental skills—visualization, Any object came to life in creative creative thinking, and creativity—that made thinking. “You gotta make things up!” I told the reading, writing, and thinking organic, creative, kids. So they became-the-object and identified and fun. Words exploded into other words, with the butters, and let their creativity take them forming groups from the “debris.” At the onset, deeper inside their imaginations—How would you kids were unaware of the myriad of internal word feel if you were a piece of butter melting in hot labyrinths. Words now left trails to new words, tomato soup? What would you be thinking and meanings, and imaginings, generating resonances feeling? Would your thoughts be serious, that rang true for everyone. The words, images, humorous, or something else? When students thoughts, ideas, associations, and feelings triggered removed the “think-like” quality of the butter and by the Word-Bridge exercises breathed a new personified its nature, they extracted themselves vitality and creativity into words. from reality into fantasy and a surreal world—a common one we see in many television The Creative-Thinking-Picture-Series: A commercials, only now they made up their own Picture is Worth a Thousand Words “shows.” Brainstorming augmented creative To get to the crucial skills of critical thinking and enabled them to see the mind as thinking, problem solving, and innovation, what theater where a play of thoughts, associations, young people of the 21st century will need is the meanings, and feelings could entertain and educate tool of creativity: creative thinking. If we want them. Traveling inside became an exhilarating students to learn about cerebration, deliberation, cruise to an expansive life in the mind. Regular reflection, and meta-cognition, we need to guide weekly practice with the series allowed children to them to having fun-in-thought, and to enjoy the establish a permanent link to their creativity, and a self-amusement park called the creative new, potential 21st century skill that comes from imagination. The “Creative-Thinking-Picture- the pictures: a sense of humor. Series” is a collection of photographs, pictures, and advertisements from newspapers and The Inner Cities Poetry Project: Journey’s magazines, along with absurd questions that have End into 21st Century Literacies no right or wrong answers. This strategy really Keeping in mind the previous skills- took the pressure off the kids “to be correct.” building projects, it is not a coincidence that
26 2013 Issue The Creative Imagination and Its Impact on 21st Century Literacies poetry became the end of my journey into the our students, the education establishment should world of 21st century learning and literacy. After invite kids to the self-amusement parks of mind, my curricula in creativity and imagination, this imagination, and creativity. The source of subject came naturally. Key to experiencing poetry motivation lies within: It is not enough to talk is the perception of imagery, feelings, thoughts, about 21st century skills and objectives; we must and language. Poems can spin readers into a demonstrate the processes of the imagination. variety of inner adventures if they have practiced Adolescent inner space has an excess of psychic, the fundamental skills leading the way. visual, and visceral baggage, which clutters, blocks The subject of poetry challenged students and causes a lack of imagination. The chaos, to work harder to discover the magic and solve confusion, and opaqueness, resulting from the the mystery of words, language, feelings, thoughts, overabundance of media-driven imagery, force us and ideas, as well as real and imagined experience. to work hard to clear the mind and imagination so All the skills essential for learning, and learning children can see their originality, their mind- how to learn, came together in poetry: reading, pictures, and their inner lives. My creative-skill writing, critical and creative thinking, visualizing, building projects remove the debris and get to the concentrating, contemplating, meditating, feeling, source—the tabula rasa of their inside worlds. listening, experiencing, analyzing, synthesizing, When I worked on concentration, brainstorming, reflecting, observing, perceiving, contemplation, visualization, creative thinking, and communicating. and brainstorming with my classes, my purpose Using what I called “The Poetry Reading was to develop a supplementary approach to the Sheet,” children either (a) visualized images in a traditional curriculum in reading and writing that poem; (b) connected feelings to the images; (c) would lead to activating the adolescent mind. A brainstormed thoughts, ideas, meanings, and long-range goal was to show that reading, like connected real-life experiences; (d) found the writing, is an art—a creative, imaginative process poet’s message or main idea; (e) selected favorite by which they are born into the story. Whether it words, phrases, and lines and explained why they was reading or writing fiction or non-fiction, they enjoyed them; or (f) created new, possible titles should find themselves in the middle of their for the poem by brainstorming and preparing for creative imaginations. future poetry lessons. “Concentration Exercises” built up A variety of poets and poetry were read attention spans, while “Contemplation Music orally to the class: Gary Soto, Shel Silverstein, Writing” introduced inner experience and Langston Hughes, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, visualization skills, increased self-awareness, and and Edward Lear’s Limericks. I also read to my improved self-expression. “Reading-and- classes Japanese and Western Haiku, Imagining” also advanced the ability to visualize, Chinese/Japanese poetry, and Native American in this case, the words they read, connected poetry. feelings and thoughts triggered by the imagery. After several weeks of poetry reading, I switched “Word-Bridges” took words and bridged them to to poetry writing by taping pictures and 20” x 30” other words, finding associative paths that led us posters on the board. Students described what deeper into the mind’s dictionary and thesaurus. they saw and brainstormed potential titles for Words not only created images through poems they would eventually write. I filled the visualization, but also created a pulse, feeling, and board with dozens of the kids’ titles and they vibe that came from the beat of other connected selected their favorites and wrote poems. Most words. “The Creative-Thinking-Picture-Series” wrote several during the period and completed helped kids find more new connections with more poems at home on their own. I reviewed, words, sentences, ideas, thoughts, feelings, critiqued, read aloud, and discussed their original experiences, and meanings. This evolved into an poetry with the class. Poetry reading and writing exercise to rejuvenate and motivate imagination lessons were mixed in with our regular reading and creativity. The series gave students a purpose and writing assignments throughout the school for digging inside their minds and having a good year. time doing it. By introducing complementary To create readers, thinkers, problem- projects to a standard curriculum, children learned solvers, communicators, and innovators out of the prerequisite fundamental skills for reading and
New Jersey English Journal 27 Jeffrey Pflaum writing prose and poetry as well as other academic 21st Century Literacies and Emotional subjects. Intelligence The 21th century literacy and emotional Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, and intelligence skills discussed here should be taught Innovation separately from core subjects like social studies, Emotional Intelligence and science, math, and language arts. They are the Intra/Interpersonal Communication Skills tools that will affect, change, and improve Group Dynamics: The Teacher as students’ school and real lives. The fundamentals Communicator built a passion for reading, writing, and poetry. My students’ poems were published in writers’ college, Prerequisite Fundamental Skills for Learning gifted high school, and children’s literary and Learning How to Learn magazines and newspapers across the country. Social and Emotional Learning: Character, To support the idea of separating skills learning Values, and Society from the core subjects, think about the way kids Mindfulness, Meditation, and Contemplation learn how to play organized sports. Basketball, for Teachers and Students baseball, tennis, soccer, and lacrosse all develop Poetry Reading and Writing for Teachers and the “fundamentals” before “playing games.” For Children example, in basketball, players learn how to shoot, Journal, Memoir, Personal, Diary, and pass, and dribble by being taught and practicing Autobiographical Writing repetitive skills-drills. They learn moves, actions, The Socratic Dialogue: Educators as and patterns—the needed skills that will come up Discussion Leaders in game situations. Practice in basketball means The Creative Imagination and 21st Century drills and skills, which help win games. The Learning and Literacies learned basketball skills become part of, and are The Creative Educator in 21st Century mixed into, games—call this the “core subject.” Schools Most practices end with a scrimmage, where My ideal prescription for 21st century players have a chance to apply previously learned education would give teachers the strategies and skills. The sports analogy, in my opinion, tools they need for developing their own self- compares favorably with academic life, where awareness, -knowledge, and -understanding, and students should first be taught the skills for also, the skills in creativity, critical thinking, learning and then apply them in a “game,” or in a imagination, visualization, concentration, core subject. reflection, contemplation, creative writing, and The 21st century skills movement will self-expression, including the background and raise, as I propose it, some questions as to its ability to teach it. feasibility: Can teachers who believe they are If drilling-and-killing students with test “uncreative” teach creativity? Can creativity and prep materials diminishes student motivation, the creative imagination be taught? Why did earlier shouldn’t we consider experimenting with the creativity movements fade away and die? Does prerequisite fundamental skills that will last kids a learning creative skills enhance student learning? lifetime, and turn them into lifelong learners, What new college education courses can teach the enjoying what they do best—learning? skills advocated here? What methods, strategies, Igniting and growing the creative imagination and approaches will be employed? Which helped my kids learn how to fly. Call this a form techniques are user-friendly for teachers? Can of “Massage Therapy,” where new channels of teachers communicate the new skills to students? learning were opened up by soothing young minds To answer the questions, I suggest the following with gentle, creative brush strokes. Yabba, dabba, undergraduate/graduate courses for teachers: do, dat’s what I do!
Jeffrey Pflaum worked as an inner-city elementary school teacher for thirty-four years (NYCDOE) where he created original curricula in reading, writing, thinking, poetry, creativity, emotional intelligence, and vocabulary expansion. He has published an inspirational book about adolescent reading lives titled Motivating Teen and Preteen Readers: How Teachers and Parents Can Lead the Way
28 2013 Issue
(Rowman & Littlefield Education, August 2011). More information about Pflaum’s projects can be found on his website, www.JeffreyPflaum.com, the BAM Radio Network blog, www.bamradionetwork.com, and www.Edutopia.org/blog.
High School in Reverse
Blue sky rains black mortarboards, from the girl or boy they were feeling orange tassels like the tails of rare birds, steadily less in love with. And now, and the flat caps boomerang back back in the crowd, beneath the black robes into two hundred some-odd hands. their young bodies absorbed sweat
Matching hands lower diplomas. and their bladders no longer felt the need Eyes look away. All through the crowd to pee. The summer seemed to be growing brief flashes zip back at light speed further and further out of reach. into Canons and Fujis, Minoltas and Sharps, And June became May, and May April, into Razrs, iPhones and Curves. and in their yearbooks, the sentimental
Black-robed teens, their smiles notes of friends erased themselves one by one, flat-lining, their pulses dying down, and on a certain day they handed the yearbooks regress up and across the dais, and hand back to the yearbook staff, who boxed back the calligraphic square, thinking them up and shipped them off to the printer to be unbound, unset, deleted. how they don’t really deserve it: how in English class they always read Before they knew it, senior year had started, the endings first and made their points and they all would have been stressed about before formulating a viable thesis; applying to colleges, except that summer how in Social Studies they scribbled was coming, and then junior year. And they all wished they could stay on that path, their notes in disappearing ink and retracted every thoughtful thing back and back, through middle school they ever said; how in Bio they built and elementary school and kindergarten, from vivisected parts perfectly whole all the way to the warm, dark womb frogs and earthworms and squids; and the great unknown, because life, how in Geometry they found reasons as exciting as it was, was scary, too, before proofs; and how on weekends, and time never stopped and they’d learned breaking Newton’s third law, there was a thing at the end of it all they unpuckered lips and refused to kiss, that might be full of promise or empty of it, unclasped hands and kept their distance and once they were there they could never go back.
- Gary J. Whitehead
Gary J. Whitehead teaches English at Tenafly High School. His third book of poetry, A Glossary of Chickens, was recently published by Princeton University Press. New work is forthcoming in The New Yorker.
New Jersey English Journal 29 Liz deBeer
i-teaching in the 21st century
y graduate school professor used to do a below), I give an assignment and that links directly shtick about how teachers have been to Edmodo; students have instant access to the M using the same practices since the exact web page. Students have access to poems beginning of time: worksheets, lectures, tests. The and short stories online (that are now accessible witty professor would then jump around, due to expired copy rights). The adolescents imitating doctors, architects, chefs, and other celebrate their lighter backpacks too! professionals who have moved into the 21st My favorite: most papers and journals I century with x-ray and sonogram machines, assign are submitted virtually via Edmodo. Papers computers, calculators, convection ovens and don’t get wrinkled, spilled on, ripped, or lost. No other modern devices, stressing that too many student can tell me that I must have lost the paper; teachers today rely on the same methods used it’s either submitted or it’s not. If students lack centuries ago. The professor would conclude: Internet access at home, they can type on Word at “What are you going to do to improve teaching school and submit the essays in class. Also, methods?” students can submit a thesis statement or a works Last year, the 21st century cited page separately, for my inspection prior to reached into my classroom and the final paper, without my having to deal with little bits of scrap paper. Other fun devices on threw out most of my lesson plans; Edmodo include virtual polls and quizzes, all the students were assigned although I rarely use these features.. laptops, and we teachers were told In contrast, Quizlet, and ideal website for studying vocabulary, literary terms, and basic facts to incorporate technology fully in about literature thatoffers students easy access to our lesson plans, as per the grant more rote-type learning, is marketed as “simple which awarded us the money for the learning tools that let you study anything, for laptops. After a group primal scream, we free”(www.quizlet.com). I can easily create vocabulary cards generated from works read in ignored our concerns about giving teens 24-hour class, and often find that these words have access to the Internet and reworked our lessons definitions already programmed into the system. and assignments. While I may, in many ways, be a Furthermore, I make review cards for each major graying old dog, I had to learn new tricks. work we read, in order to help students prepare Edmodo, a free Internet service that is for quizzes and tests. Certainly, parents appreciate marketed as “providing teachers and students a having instant access to these basic notes and secure place to connect and collaborate, share terms, so they can help their children review. content and educational applications, and access There are even simple games to engage students homework, grades, class discussions and more fully. (My favorite is Scatter, even though notifications” (www.edmodo.com) became my several students beat my time—but, in my virtual knight in shiny armor, literally carrying my defense, they are younger and have better hand- papers and books. It looks like Facebook, but it eye coordination.) serves as a viable educators’ tool that connects school to students’ contemporary learning styles. As we rushed to fulfill the goal The advantages are myriad. It’s secure—every to update our curriculum to the 21st class receives a code, and each student is approved century, I reflected on the obvious by his or her teacher (so strangers can’t see or participate in the class’s work). Further, parents downfalls. While it’s thrilling to discover sites can receive a separate code, which will grant them that jazz up our lessons and even provide study access to only their own children’s assignments guides and printouts, the concern is whether these and grades. It also links with other Internet cool sites actually improve learning. Often, as at sources. For example, when I ask students to write my school, teachers are told to develop computer- sentences using vocabulary on Quizlet (see friendly lessons without much guidance, and too
30 2013 Issue i-teaching in the 21st century often the 21st century classroom becomes an have laptops) have indeed generated creative electronic workbook. Some critics caution that responses, including a performing a parody of computers generate tasks that are essentially Lady Gaga with a song about witch trials, or “simplistic, mindless assignments that would another’s sock puppet presentation about never have passed muster had they not had the McCarthy. With the laptops as inspiration, the window dressing of using a computer” presentations have become more technical, and (Wenglinsky). Certainly, an overuse of even valid often more complex, certainly engaging in higher sources such as Quizlet, or a program we pay to order thinking skills and deeper thinking. use, called Study Island, can be abused and Using laptops, students— even the become tedious—taking away from more valid weaker ones—have developed i-movies and other learning. Teachers can become lazy and overuse computer-generated work for this project. This good sources, such as virtual worksheets, past September, two girls worked together to generated by sites like Grammar Bytes make a dramatic movie about diagnosing witches, (www.chompchomp.com), which incidentally has in which one, dressed as a witch and was seen excellent power points about grammar. swimming by the other girl, dressed in austere, Often, teachers resort to Puritan-type garb. Another pair made an i-movie simplistic computer-based about exorcism, in which one of them mimicked a possessed person and the other acted the part of a assignments because they may lack minister exorcising the former. A pair of boys training in computers. One study opted to do an “old-fashioned” skit about concluded that “students profit [most] when their Communism in which one of them was teachers incorporate computers into instruction in interrogating a Russian immigrant and learning ways that promote higher order thinking skills in about politics there. The boys brought the skit specific content areas” (Wenglinsky). The older into the 21st century by placing a picture of the the cohort, the more important it is to use United States Capital building on the white board computers “to deepen their [students’] thinking” via the laptop. Another pair made a slide show on (Wenglinsky). In fact, critics surmised that the the white board to create the sense we were on a best use of computers in high schools involves tour bus; the girls showed the inside of the bus encouraging students to use computers outside of and, after reading us strict rules (like no gum school for research and presentations. chewing), they showed slides of the major For example, when I assign a multi-genre attractions in Salem today. The class was fully research paper connected to The Crucible, my main engaged during each presentation, as was I. Not a requirement for the oral presentation is to avoid thing was boring about these assignments. boring me. Since laptops invaded my Recently, I learned how to move the traditional power point presentation into the 21st school, the students’ projects have century, using another free device called Prezi, become more complex and high “the zooming presentation editor” described as “a tech. Clearly, when students generate original cloud-based presentation software that opens up a works via their laptops, their high tech projects new world between whiteboards and slides” turn out to be much more impressive than a (www.prezi.com). It feels like a 3-D presentation, simple power point or even a fancy worksheet. rather than a slide show. This is also an exciting The multi-genre project involves both traditional option, especially when students work in pairs. I and nontraditional learning, including library spend a little time showing the students how to work, a works cited page, internal citations, and a make a basic Prezi, and, in about 15 minutes, most multi-genre report. Instead of rephrasing an of them surpass my skills. What I love most: kids encyclopedia article, students write poems, can each be on a laptop or computer and edit fictional emails, cartoons, and fictional newspaper simultaneously. Because it is cloud-based, the articles about various topics ranging from Prezi is always available— it’s saved on the exorcism to Salem today, diagnosing witches, Internet, not some kid’s laptop. Students used McCarthy, Communism, voodoo, WICCA and Prezis when they did presentations on Anglo other contemporary witch trials. For the oral Saxon and Medieval England; as with other laptop presentation, students in past years (who did not presentations, most students pushed well beyond
New Jersey English Journal 31 Liz deBeer the minimal requirements because they were try new things and challenge having fun. When generating the Prezis, students themselves, especially if they can interacted with each other, as well as with multiple sources, which certainly reflected independent, use laptops, the web, and basic creative, and deep thinking. (Many felt creativity. They also love to see us competitive to make presentations better than my teachers break out with something simplistic one, which proved this site is a strong motivator). I use the free option with Prezi, but new. Last year, I felt like a wild dervish of some of my colleagues pay a fee to access some English, making new Prezis, Quizlets, and iphoto fancier backgrounds. musical slide shows. I experimented with such Whether it is an ice cream truck’s bell, new web sites with the aid of friends, colleagues, falling snow, a Tetris challenge, or a text message, and my own children. With each fresh students will continue to find distractions from presentation, I was disproving Oscar Wilde: learning. Truthfully, we all do: I turn into a “Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken drooling zombie when the foods teacher starts to teaching” or the cliché: “Those who can: do. baking gingerbread for the gingerbread house Those who can’t: teach.” We teachers must project each December. I have read and taught learn, and do, modeling how to many novels, plays and poems dozens of times; a keep both teaching and learning rattling window or a car alarm pulls my attention st away too. So my major rule applies to me also: evolving into the 21 century and don’t be boring. Most of the kids want to beyond.
Works Cited
Wenglinsky, Harold. “Technology and Achievement: The Bottom Line.” Educational Leadership. Dec. 2005/ Jan. 2006. 29-32.
Liz deBeer currently teaches English at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant Beach High School and is a former adjunct professor at Rutgers University and Middlesex County College. She has earned her bachelor's degree from University of Pennsylvania and her doctorate from Rutgers University GSE. Liz was the 2011 NJCTE Educator of the Year.
32 2013 Issue Liz deBeer It’s Hip to be Square (Huey Lewis and the News)
“What the teacher is, is more The effectiveness of old-fashioned discussion important than what he is highlighted whenever I meet with my high teaches.” (Karl Menninger, school’s book club—a group I initiated, of about American psychologist) 15 students, to read and discuss novels. (It’s a club; there are no grades.) Each month, we sit in a Despite writing an article praising the 21st circle, discuss the author’s background, eat century’s classroom impact, I keep thinking that cookies, and chat about the chosen book. The effective teaching has more to do with an titles are often contemporary, but our methods of instructor’s passion, commitment, integrity, reading are not: we use print copies of the books! benevolence and intelligence than with modern Truthfully, of all the activities I attend each computers, smart boards, and updated web sites. month, it’s one of my favorites. After I asked a A great teacher will never be a person (or internet new member—a high school sophomore—what connection) who merely gives assignments and she thought of the first meeting, she exclaimed: feedback, as most computer-based learning “It was fun!” FUN? programs do. Of course, this is the essence of I’m convinced many teens crave more “face what Paulo Freire criticized about the banking time.” I once argued with a colleague that I think theory of education, and it still applies to the 21st many teens are lonely. She scoffed. “Lonely? They Century. (The banking theory of education are connected to their peers 24 hours a day.” True, suggests that teachers, or software, deposit ideas but texting or tweeting about a sporting event or a and facts and then test, or withdraw, the same.) If funny YouTube video is not the same as sitting social interaction and problem solving are the with other people, talking, listening, and sharing, kernels of significant learning, then even the like we get the opportunity to do at our high coolest modern technology, or edgiest web site, is school book club meetings. Book clubs often stir still going to fall short of what really motivates up conversation, such as when we read Mockingbird teachers and learners. In Friere’s words, by Kathryn Erskine;One teen derided the narrator, “Problem-posing education regards dialogue as who has Asperger’s Syndrome. Her comment was indispensible to the act of cognition” (Friere 71). soon followed by that ofanother teen, who shared Simply, talking and sharing where kids and that she herself has a sibling on the spectrum, and teachers work out issues is the scenario where real thus, a thoughtful conversation on that condition learning happens—not a right/wrong exchange— ensued. The former speaker then apologized, regardless of whether that binary exchange is saying she hadn’t thought much about the verbal or virtual. condition beforehand. In place of this “face If the power went out, we, effective 21st time,”a phone text would have merely been century teachers, would obviously still teach. We deleted, or an angry text war might have would lecture mini lessons, work in small groups transpired. In a circle, we connect, and or literature circles, share ideas, and challenge understanding is reached. What’s newer? The arguments. Kids could still learn if the lights were text. What’s better? The circle. out and the computers were off, and it could still be entertaining and engaging. In attempting to A similar conversation erupted when my group achieve this type of environment, Friere calls for read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by fellowship and reflection, neither of which Sherman Alexie. Several white teens thought the requires fancy equipment (Friere 71). This brings narrator, Junior, was making too much of a to mind thoughts of teenagers who love commotion about race, so we “went there,” consignment stores: It’s hip to be square! What’s discussing what it must be like to be part of a old is new! Cardigans and caring never really go minority. We shared personal experiencesin which out of style. we, like Junior, felt silenced or invisible. One teen
New Jersey English Journal 33 Liz deBeer remarked he had“never thought about that could never be achieved by an electrical apparatus. before.” How could such a conversation be My school recently received a grant that gives emulated via technology? Maybe a similar one each student a laptop, leaving me with no choice could be generated with an interactive blog, but but to bring technology into the classroom. While it’s not the same. When I used to train student websites like Edmodo, Quizlet, StudyIsland, and teachers, I kept stressing them to “Make the others,are helpful tools, which I gladly embrace, connection.” This means both connecting with when former students tell me they loved my class the kids and with the key points of the lesson. An or learned a lot, I know it’s not the website to effective teacher inspires kids—something that which they are referring. It’s me.
Work Cited
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. New York: Little, Brown & Co. 2009. Print. Erskine, Kathryn. Mockingbird. New York: Puffin. 2011. Print. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Publishing Co. 1990. Print. Menninger, Karl. Quotes. www.goodreads.com. Web. 29 Sept. 2012.
Liz deBeer currently teaches English at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant Beach High School and is a former adjunct professor at Rutgers University and Middlesex County College. She has earned her bachelor's degree from University of Pennsylvania and her doctorate from Rutgers University GSE. Liz was the 2011 NJCTE Educator of the Year.
An Ode to the Timed Essay
The percussive punching of laptop keys. The delicate surgery of longhand composition— in each student’s hand, a pencil/scalpel.
Watch the students’ stares around the room— concentrated, eyes narrowed; distant, unseeing from exhaustion; bug-eyed, eyebrows raised: that’s frustration.
Silent yawns become watery eyes.
Sneezes muffled in arm crooks. Deep breaths sucked in then forced out through sealed lips, bangs fluttering.
Legs kick beneath the table— they want to be anywhere but here.
- Andy Hueller
Andy Hueller teaches English at St. Paul Academy and Summit School in Minnesota. He is the author of the children’s novels Dizzy Fantastic and Her Flying Bicycle and Skipping Stones at the Center of the Earth, as well as the YA novel and writing guide How I Got Rich Writing C Papers. Learn more about Andy and his books at andrewhueller.com.
34 2013 Issue Gregory Vacca Literary Instagram: Shakespearean Imagery in Social Media
ver the course of the past few years, I four or five students per group. Each student was have tried to figure out a way to make to be responsible for creating the Instagram feed O use of social media in my high school for an act of the play. (This could easily be English courses. My previous efforts have adjusted to require each student to take the role of included projects that have required students to a specific character and respond throughout the create wiki pages and mock-Facebook pages for news feed where appropriate.) The students were characters and character texting dialogues. My given a list of major characters that were required latest effort in attempting to incorporate social to make posts within the project. For each posted media into my class instruction was when I asked image, the students were required to provide a students to create a mock-Instagram feed that user name for the character who made the post; would re-tell the story of William Shakespeare’s that character had to include a comment for his or Julius Caesar. her own post, and then other characters had to The project was intended as a summary comment on the post as well. The students were assignment, after we had completed multiple informed that they would be assessed on their weeks of class work on the play. Our previous ability to use the project to communicate the class work had consisted of a series of readings significant plot points of the play, as well as to with focus questions, translations of isolated communicate their understanding of the passages, formative assessments to check for personalities of characters within the play. understanding and comprehension, and watching The class work for the project took a a film version of the play for reinforcement. My couple of days. First, the groups were asked to summative assessment for the class was to be a develop a plot outline of the story and brainstorm character study essay, but the holiday break had possible posts and comments without the come upon us too soon for me squeeze in the availability of computers. The students began writing assignment before the break. I needed a thinking of the screen names that the characters bridge assignment that would serve as a refresher would have, converting the opinions of the for the students when they returned. The solution characters into text-talk, and then connecting the was to have the students create a literary brainstormed images to relevant hash tags (ie. Instagram for the play. when Brutus compares Caesar to a serpent and For those who may be unfamiliar with concludes that it would be easiest to kill him in the Instagram, the concept is fairly simple: the user shell before he is hatched, a student created a post posts a picture, which serves a visual equivalent of that was a picture of snake eggs and then he a Facebook status post, or a tweet. The user also comments: “Thinking of Ceasar. #antiking has the option to add a short comment related to #killtheserpent #best4rome). Once the basic idea the picture that has posted. Users can follow of the project was mapped out, the students were others on Instagram, and any new posts of a user able to use computers in class to find relevant that you follow will be added to your news feed. images and to type out their comments. The more As a user, you can add a short comment to anyone artistically-inclined students chose to draw their else’s posted picture. My idea for converting this own images, while the more tech-savvy students into a literary assignment was to have students were able to create a computerized template that imagine that the characters of the play were all mimicked the Instagram setup. The last step of Instagram users, and that they were posting the class work was to have the students put images and comments as major events of the story together their news feeds in the order in which the were happing. events appeared in the text. These physical news In order to foster collaboration amongst feeds were pasted to blank backing paper to create students, the class was broken up into the scroll. heterogeneous groups. The groups consisted of
New Jersey English Journal 35 Gregory Vacca
I encouraged students to find pictures while teachers with more intellectually-advanced that focused on the imagery of the text, or images students may decide to require their students to that had a more symbolic connection to the text, focus more on abstract or symbolic imagery and rather than presenting a series of still images from the function said imagery plays in story telling. the film, paintings of the historical characters, or To conclude the assignment, the students sculptures of the historical characters. My thought were asked to present their Instagram feeds to the behind this was that I wanted the students to pay class. I knew the basic information of each attention to the imagery used by Shakespeare. By presentation would be similar, but I thought that this point in our study we had read the text as a they might enjoy showing off the bells and class, watched the film, created outlines of the whistles of their respective group projects. The plot, and ultimately developed a basic students had the most fun sharing their invented understanding of the story. The project was user names and hash tags with each other. I intended to have the students internalize and enjoyed watching the groups develop the project, interpret Shakespeare's writing, and help them debate which events needed to be on their plot understand how his use if imagery helps to outlines, brainstorm the types of comments that develop both character and plot. This is an aspect characters would make on a post, and, best of all, of the project where a teacher can assess the delve into the original text to find imagery that cognitive ability of his students, and it is also an would be useful for the project. Overall, it was a area of the assignment that can be adjusted to the great way to come back from a holiday break, and ability level of the students in the class. Teachers academically, it served as a nice primer for the with a class of struggling students may be more essay that was to follow. flexible in allowing literal imagery on the project,
Gregory Vacca teaches English at Summit High School. He recently completed his doctoral work in the field of Educational Leadership at The College of Saint Elizabeth.
36 2013 Issue Jessica Rosevear From Sound Bites to Sound Learning: Engaging One-Click Kids in Long-Term
Study
oday’s youth are accustomed to getting and becoming visually overwhelmed. In particular, information in digestible, sound bites; I've found this technique to be especially helpful T short and sweet Twitter updates instead of for capturing the attention of students who are the rambling emails of yesteryear, YouTube clips easily distracted. Using neon colors, where instead of hour-long TV episodes, typing a appropriate, helps bring their attention back to the question into Google and clicking on the first central idea. answer instead of conducting authentic research. Arguably, this one-click culture has the power to 2) Mix up the order to give kids the big chip at students’ interest, and maybe even ability, picture. to invest in the long-term commitment required to When I teach the Prince’s monologue in Act One, learn something deeply. Scene One of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo This becomes especially problematic for and Juliet, I start by having the students read the English teachers guiding students through passage aloud. Since Romeo and Juliet is typically the literature that requires time and perseverance to first Shakespearean text students are exposed to in comprehend, analyze, and truly appreciate the my district, and this speech is one of the first works studied. Many students won’t understand monologues in the play, students may become Macbeth’s dagger soliloquy at a first perusal. quickly overwhelmed by the extended poetic There’s a time commitment involved in reading language and euphemisms. After the students the passage, re-reading it, breaking apart read, I repeat the “three civil brawls” line. “‘Three complicated phrasing, looking up unfamiliar civil brawls, bred of an airy word... have thrice words in the footnotes or dictionary, and disturbed the quiet of our streets,’” I quote to interpreting and analyzing for meaning. What are them. “What could this mean?” By drawing their some ways we, as English teachers, can motivate attention to the heart of the monologue—the students to engage in this type of process learning essential “sound bite”—students are less likely to when the larger culture has accustomed feel encumbered by the rest of the passage. When youngsters to getting information pre-processed in they comprehend that line, it gives some context neat, pretty bundles? Here are some ideas: for understanding the rest of the text. Grasping the heart of the passage first, even if it means 1) Model close reading strategies by breaking starting your analysis in the middle of it, will break long passages into small bits that students can the ice for understanding the monologue as a read and digest. whole. Looking at an entire page of Shakespearean language can intimidate many students. Analyzing 3) Start with quick, easy concepts and build a lengthy passage line by line, bit by bit, will help up to larger ones. make the task of analysis more manageable. When I like to start a new concept by instilling tackling a complicated monologue, for example, I confidence in the students with simple questions. like to project the text on the board and use the Saying to a class, “Raise your hand if you’ve ever highlight tool in Word to focus the students’ meditated,” for instance, might hook students into attention to a single line or phrase. Using color to what will eventually grow into a much more isolate small, specific lines and even single words complicated discussion of Siddhartha’s experience helps students to focus on individual elements of a of meditation in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. passage, as opposed to looking at an entire page Starting with more complicated ideas—“What
New Jersey English Journal 37 Jessica Rosevear does Hesse mean when he writes that Siddhartha Technology doesn’t always have to be a Grendel ‘becomes the heron’ when he meditates?”—is in need of defeating! Writing lessons became a lot harder for students, and getting a discussion more exciting and interactive for students once flowing might be easier by having them respond my classroom was equipped with the technology to more innocuous concepts that will prime them to project a body paragraph on the board and I for those bigger topics. Getting in on the ground could invite students up to highlight and rewrite floor with a friendly, “are you somewhat familiar topic sentences with different colors. Suddenly, all with this general idea?” type of question invites of the students wanted to participate. Connect to students into the area you’ll be discussing. This students’ love of Twitter by asking them to technique is especially great for building compose 140-character (or fewer) exit slips confidence in shyer students so that they summarizing what they learned that day. Finding eventually feel comfortable delving into deeper creative ways to incorporate what they already critical questions. know and love into your lessons just might encourage them to branch out into the unknown 4) Use their love of technology to advance and exciting world of learning that awaits. from familiar to unfamiliar territory.
Jessica Rosevear is a high school English teacher in New Jersey. She edits the independent literary journal Killing the Angel (www.killingtheangel.com).
On Repeatedly Rereading Shelley’s Frankenstein
Much have I cover’d in the English class, And many weighty texts and tests assigned; Through rough drafts of essays have I opined Which students in good faith have writ en masse. Oft to one fine novel had I giv’n thought That ill-fated Shelley wrote as her chore; Yet did I never love its frame structure Till I re-read the text each time I taught: Then felt I like some scientist gone wild When grand ideas arise and must be born; Or like a new-made creature, fashioned mild And warped by cruelty—who becomes forlorn For all men hate the wretched and defiled— Pondering pages from a journal torn.
- Vanessa Rasmussen
Vanessa Rasmussen is enjoying her sixth year of teaching English at Vineland High School, where she has taught juniors and seniors in a range of courses, from basic skills classes to Honors classes, and is the advisor of the Student Literature Club. She is also an Adjunct Professor of English at Rowan University. She was awarded the M. Jerry Weiss Early Career Teacher Scholarship Award by the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English in 2011.
38 2013 Issue Ken Ronkowitz Have You Been MOOCed?
ave you entered the land of MOOCs? A interested in understanding what it means to teach MOOC is a Massive Open and learn in an online, networked setting in the digital age. H Online Course. In these Actually, MOOCs are already being used courses, course materials are at all levels of education. Teachers are taking free, distributed via the internet, the online courses for their own personal and professional growth. If you teach at the secondary sessions are “open,” and they’re free level, it is likely that some of your students have to a large number of participants. tried courses available online that may not be The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by offered in your school. Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander in response Sebastian Thrun, a Google scientist, made to an earlier open online course that had been the news early in 2012 when he left his teaching designed and led by George Siemens and Stephen position at Stanford University to start a company: Downes. That early MOOC, "Connectivism and Udacity. The company was based on the artificial Connective Knowledge," had twenty-five tuition- intelligence course that he was teaching that he paying students at the University of Manitoba in had made freely available in 2011. After tens of addition to 2300 other students from the public thousands of students took the course online, he who took the online class free of charge for no decided to work with two of his Stanford credit (“Massive open online course”). colleagues, who were also trying out MOOCs, to The course content was available through create a company to offer free online courses as RSS feeds, and participants used threaded part of a for-profit venture. (Kolowich) discussions in Moodle (LMS), blog posts, Second A lot of attention was given to MOOCs Life (a virtual world), and synchronous online in 2012 because these courses were being offered meetings. by many of America’s elite universities, sometimes Today. how large are these courses? in partnerships with new companies. Another Thousands-of-people large. Yes, you may have example of that is Coursera, a for-profit company thought that 101 course you took as an undergrad that also came from Stanford roots, that offers that had 300 students in a lecture hall was large some of its online courses to a large audience. As and impersonal, or perhaps you liked the of November 2012, the company reports that anonymity that came from such a large class, but if more than 1,900,241 students from 196 countries that’s your idea of large—think again. I have enrolled in at least one course. (Coursera) completed a MOOC on creativity, edX is a not-for-profit online education initiative that uses courses provided by MIT, Harvard, and offered by Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley. during the Fall 2012 semester that Why would these universities be willing to had 135,000 participants. And that is offer free courses? The concept of Open not even the biggest course out Education Resources (OER) and open courseware is not as new as MOOCs. MIT OpenCourseWare there. was initiated as a new way to disseminate The recent form of online course knowledge. It was also seen as a way to create a development is changing many of the standard “shared intellectual commons” in academia to format resources, such as Learning Management foster collaboration across MIT and among other System (LMS). scholars. Online learning has made deep inroads in Faculties were willing to share their higher education, but so far has had less of an courseware because they knew that the real value impact on K-12 education. However, all to being in an MIT classroom did not come from teachers—learning technologists and people with the course materials. a general interest in education—should be
New Jersey English Journal 39 Ken Ronkowitz
It was much more difficult for the The New York Times said that 2012 was university to work out the logistical challenges of “the year of the MOOC” and many educators ownership and intellectual property for items seemed to agree (Pappano). Although new within the course materials, and the technical providers, platforms, tools and even pedagogies challenges of converting materials to an online have already emerged from the four years of the format. Nevertheless, in September 2002, the MIT MOOC movement, one aspect has remained the OpenCourseWare site opened to the public with same. The dropout rate is very high. 32 courses. Many registrants do not do the MOOCs are founded on the coursework or complete the course. Without a learning theory of connectivism, financial commitment and without grades and credits, some of the “motivators” of education are which holds that knowledge is gone. Fortunately, the desire to learn is the distributed across a network of motivation for many of those students who do connections, and, therefore, complete courses. In addition, non-profit and for- profit MOOC providers are currently piloting learning consists of the ability to ways to assess and certify learning through construct and traverse those alternatives to the familiar credits and degrees we networks. pursue. It is understandable that traditional As with other free, open source products, educators have many questions when they initially like the Moodle LMS, companies are formed to encounter these types of courses. How can one provide services for colleges to use those "free" educator “teach” thousands of students? How are tools. This is happening with MOOC providers these students going to be assessed and graded? who are hoping to make their courses and their How do we, as teachers, know the identity of “graduates” more credible to employers and these students online and how can we know who traditional schools. This has forged partnerships, is really doing the course work? such as edX with Pearson VUE’s testing centers in Of course, all of those questions have order to administer proctored exams for edX’s passed through the minds of college professors online courses. Students who pass these proctored dealing with online courses since the introduction exams may find it easier to get credit from their of the Internet. Some aspects of these issues go own degree-granting institution. They will not back to the even earlier correspondence courses get credit from edX’s partner universities, but that using paper and the post office that existed in the is probably something that edX will want to late 1800s (“Distance Education”). pursue (“Making MOOCs More Credible”). Like the early online courses, some of the One valid criticism of these first MOOCs had a “minimalist” structure. courses is that we do not know if Typically, asynchronous presentations/lectures (using audio, video and slides), discussion they actually work. While there is a lot of questions, additional resources, assignments and anecdotal information, much of the buzz around activities are the norm. MOOCs has been because people are impressed Pedagogically, much of the course by the caliber of schools doing them and the activity, interaction and collaboration are expected numbers of students they attract. The data from schools or providers has offered little insight. to come from the participants. It is expected Data from enrollment and assessments that this student-to-student gives us some idea of the demographics of interaction is what will drive the participants. For example, in edX’s first course (a curriculum. In some courses, even the course virtual lab-based electrical engineering course called “Circuits & Electronics”) there were structure itself emerges from the exchange 155,000 students registered for the course when it between participants. Discussions and participants opened. Only 23,000 earned credit on the first reflecting on the concepts amongst themselves problem set. 9300 students passed the midterm and sharing new resources are a vital part of the and 8200 students took the final exam. Slightly learning process in MOOCs. more than 7000 completed the course work,
40 2013 Issue Have You Been MOOCed? passed the exams, and so earned a passing grade. Those students were given the option of receiving She did not finish the work for the course an informal certificate from edX. during the semester, but she was relieved when So, who are these people who took the she received an email that said the course course? Of the students who completed a survey, materials would be available online until next 30% said they did not have a Bachelor’s degree September. “I’ll have a full year to catch up on the (5% self-reported as being in high school) and 6% video discussions I missed and to reread the claimed a Doctorate, 28% a Master’s degree, and poems closely…. When I missed a class in college, 37% a bachelor’s degree. Of those who completed there was no way to catch up on the lectures or the course, half were 26+ years old and 45% were discussion.” traditional college-aged students. The age range as Her conclusion: “I’m not sure MOOCs reported was 14-74. can replace traditional university education, but English teachers might be they can certainly complement it.” interested in a MOOC in modern If you think that poetry is not the right subject for a MOOC, consider that literature and American poetry offered by the writing courses using the correspondence model University of Pennsylvania. In her essay, have been around for at least fifty years, and there "One Class, 36,000 Students," author Elliott Holt are a good number of online and low-residency says she became interested in taking the course writing programs for undergraduates, as well as because she had heard rave reviews of the entirely-online MFA writing programs. professor and because of all the attention MOOCs Will massive open online courses become were getting from the press. It intrigued her that the standard in education? That is unlikely. There The Washington Post called MOOCs "elite education will always be a need and a desire to learn in live, for the masses.” face-to-face settings. University degrees still have Her experience was typical of many first- importance in obtaining jobs, and students are still time online students: willing to pay for those credits. However, it is My inbox began to fill with likely that the use of these MOOCs will change notifications from Modern how online education evolves and how we validate Poetry, but, distracted by other student learning beyond degrees. It is also writing assignments, I paid little reasonable to predict that this type attention. It is easy to ignore a class when you do not have to of learning will become more face the professor in person. common at the grade levels before When I finally logged in to the college. site, two weeks after the course Making knowledge freely available is not began, I realized how much I’d the equivalent of an education. If it was, all you already missed. I had flashbacks would need is a massive online open library. We to my college days, when I was already have that. It is called the Internet. Perhaps, often playing catch-up in a when we get the delivery of MOOCs settled, we caffeinated panic. Gnawed by can focus on improving the pedagogy. stress, I was tempted to bag the whole thing. (Holt)
Ken Ronkowitz has been an NJ secondary teacher, the Manager of Instructional Technology at NJIT, the Director of the Writing Initiative at Passaic County Community College and a professor in the Humanities at both colleges. Though he has been known to write computer code, he would rather write poetry.
New Jersey English Journal 41 M. Jerry Weiss
The Young Adult in Literature—Feeling It!
eachers today realize that find the personal pleasures and/or pains of words reading is more than a arranged in such an order to bring out feelings, hopes, ideas, and actions—all of which are T Yes, skills have to decoding process. rewarding for the efforts involved. be taught, mastered, and transferred to all subject In the past few months, I’ve continued to areas, but there is something else happening which be a “feeling” reader. I’ve met so many wonderful greatly affects the reader. Reading is such a and interesting characters, in books for young personal experience. Something moves him, adults, who have made me react to their ideas, causes him to laugh and/or cry, lets the emotional their problems, their attitudes, their actions. I elements rule him for awhile. He shares didn’t intend to react this way. Something experiences with writers who bring new characters happened: The writers got to me. They and events into his life. He realizes he is not alone in the world. Others have had similar thoughts. helped me become a reader with This active, creative, personal experience feelings—something I’m grateful of reading is, to many, the real reason for learning for, and enjoy. how to read and finding joy in the result. Leland Jacobs, a distinguished scholar at Teachers John Green: The Fault is In Our Stars. College, Columbia University, once said, “Reading Dutton, 2012. (pp.3-4): is that process where you bring something to the Late in the summer of my seventeenth printed page and take something away year, my mother decided I was depressed, concurrently.” presumably because I rarely left the house, spent Other writers have shown their feelings quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over about reading in speeches and essays: and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death. Aldous Huxley: Every man who knows Whenever you read a cancer booklet or how to read has it in his power to magnify website or whatever, they always list depression himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to among the side effects of cancer. make his life full, significant, and interesting. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Norman Cousins: A library is the delivery Almost everything is, really.) But my mom room for the birth of ideas; a place where history believed I required treatment, so she took me to comes to life. see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was veritably swimming in paralyzing and totally Lord Byron: But words are things, clinical depression, and that therefore my meds and a small drop of ink, should be adjusted and also I should attend a Falling like dew, upon a weekly Support Group. thought, produces The Support Group featured a rotating That which, makes cast of characters in various states of tumor- thousands, perhaps millions think. driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying. Lin Yutang: The wise man reads both books and life itself. Ryan G. Van Cleave. Unlocked. Walker, 2011.(p.8): No matter the time or the HONESTY season, reading, as seen through such eyes as listed above, is an I try to be someone emotional experience. Students can soon who believes
42 2013 Issue The Young Adult in Literature – Feeling It!
in honesty, Why do so many teachers feel these aren’t as noteworthy as the but the truth is that I can’t classics and why don’t they adopt tell when them as texts? Are they afraid of change? the world’s really Are they afraid of what might come up in out to flatten me, discussions? or if it’s just me Or, as several students told me in a young somehow adult literature class, (which they were required to self-sabotaging take for a Master’s In Teaching degree to get my own damn life. certified,) “If these books were important, we would have had to read them in our Paula Danziger. The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. undergraduate classes as English majors. You Penguin,1998. (pp. 1-2): can’t take this as serious literature, can you?” All my life I’ve thought that I looked like Can’t I? a baby blimp with wire-framed glasses and mousy Jay Asher’s book, Thirteen Reasons Why, brown hair. Everyone always said that I’d grow Razorbill, 2007, has hit The New York Times list of out of it, but I was convinced that I’d become an best sellers for young adults for many weeks. It is adolescent blimp with wire-framed glasses, mousy the story of why Hannah Baker commits suicide. brown hair, and acne. My life is not easy. I know She sends thirteen tapes to fellow peers to let I’m not poor. Nobody beats me. I have clothes to them know what their bullying and lying has done wear, my own room, a stereo, a TV, and a push- to her. This is a powerful story that young people button phone. Sometimes I feel guilty being so and adults need to read. Suicide is a major miserable, but middle-class kids have their problem today. problems too. Andrew Smith’s Stick. Feiwell and Friends, 2011, is the story of two Sol Stein. The Magician. Laurel-Leaf, 1980. (p. teen brothers who care for one another in a 57): brutal family situation. Stick is the younger of the STUDENT MAGICIAN BEATEN twoand is tall and thin, Bosten is the older and is a UNCONSCIOUS BY CLASSMATES. The New protector of Stick. But there are other York Times’s story was picked up by many other relationships involved that keep the boys on newspapers in the country. The Washington Post guard. angled its story differently: HIGH- SCHOOL Joan Bauer’s Almost Home. Viking, 2012, is HOOLIGANS ATTACK STUDENT, WRECK the story of Sugar Mae Cole and her mama, two TEACHER’S CAR AFTER TERM-END homeless individuals who have to be separated. PROM. SITUATION IN NEW YORK Moving to Chicago in the hopes of having a better SCHOOLS WORSENS. life proves to be futile when Reba, the mother, has In the Post story, one learned that racial a breakdown. After this, Sugar Mae is taken into a tension was not the cause of the incident foster home. inasmuch as the attackers were all white. “The Terry Trueman’s book, Stuck in Neutral, student who was severely beaten had just Harper, 2000, hit me hard. It is the story of Shawn performed a magic show at a school dance. He McDaniel, who is stuck in a wheelchair and can’t was attacked after refusing to explain how his move any muscles at all, can’t speak, and can’t magic tricks were done.” even blink an eyelid to respond to what anyone is saying to, or about, him. Although he understands Take a look at these young people all that is said to him, there is no way he can revealing their feelings about their lives! So much communicate. Shawn’s father is so distraught, to talk about. So much to care about. So much to thinking that, for all practical purposes, Shawn is wonder about. Why are young adult readers drawn as good as dead, and starts to talk about the to these types of books? possibility of having him killed. Walter Dean Myers, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, has
New Jersey English Journal 43 M. Jerry Weiss written one of the most gripping novels, in which out of school to listening to rock seventeen year-old Richie Perry, who, after music and learning the guitar. . . graduating from high school, enlists in the army (Speaking with Sir Paul in the and is sent to Vietnam. Fallen Angels, Scholastic, 1980s) He (Sir Paul) told me he 1988. Richie, who can’t afford college and wants went throughout his entire to escape the harshness of the city streets, thinks education without anyone life in the army might be a better choice. This noticing that he had any musical novel is spellbinding in depicting what Richie and talent at all. He even applied to his companions discover about war, life, and join the choir of Liverpool death. Cathedral and was turned down. Amber M. Simmons, a teacher in They said he wasn’t a good Gwinnett County, Georgia, wrote a stimulating enough singer. Really? How good article in the September 2012 issue of Journal of was that choir? How good can a Adolescent and Adult Literature, expressing her choir be? Ironically, the very motive behind teaching the three very popular choir that rejected the young books by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games, McCartney ultimately staged two Scholastic, 2008, Catching Fire, Scholastic, 2009, of his classical pieces. (pp. 10-11.) and Mockingjay, Scholastic, 2010. “There are many When I speak to teachers about the need reasons to love the series, but one reason I find it to provide for the interests, needs, abilities and so compelling is that Katniss Everdeen is the most experiences of students, many teachers say, “It’s accurate depiction of a teenager that I have ever too hard. Do you know how many students I have encountered in adolescent literature” (22). in each class?” “Forcing children into violent situations that My answer is always the same: “YES.” require them to kill or be killed is the major theme But each one of these “many students” is a special of the Hunger Games series” (29).Over twenty-six person, who needs to be encouraged to read, million copies of these books have been sold, write, speak, and listen well for the rest of his life.. making the series one of the most popular young These students are involved in a technical, texting adult series of all times. The youthful characters world. A standardized test score is the panacea? are strategic and heroic, but challenged, and the Can they discriminate? Can they form their own reader can’t predict how the series will end. valid opinions when they have one book, one Extremely well written, these source? books share with readers what is Students need to think, to happening in many places of the discuss, to see variety. They need to world today. The young adult hear what others have to say, need readers are able to connect with the to draw their own conclusions. main characters because of I am a fan of Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man (Scribner, 2005). In this book, McCourt similarities in age, thought describes his various experiences as a student and reflection, and actions. as a teacher. Through his point of view as a Dr. Ken Robinson, in his book, The teacher, when he meets Roger Goodman, head of Element, Penguin, 2009, speaks eloquently about the English Department at Stuyvesant High the need to move from the mechanistic age of one School in New York City, his teaching life lights book for all, and recognize the differences up: students bring with their aptitudes and passions. He trusted me. He seemed to Here is what he wrote about Sir Paul McCartney, a think I could teach on any of the student in the Liverpool Institute: four levels of high school: Paul spent most of his time at the freshman, sophomore, junior, Liverpool Institute fooling senior. He even asked what I’d around. Rather than studying like to teach and took me to the intently when he got home, he room where books were devoted the majority of his hours organized by grade. There were
44 2013 Issue The Young Adult in Literature – Feeling It!
dictionaries, collections of poetry, stay sane. They use different activities; they use short stories, plays, textbooks on different books; they have different plans. They journalism and grammar. know their students’ feelings, abilities, and Take whatever you want, said passions so well that they can adjust the Roger, and if there’s anything else curriculum accordingly. you’d like we can order it. Take They divide their classes into small groups your time. Think about it tonight. and have a discussion about the book, in which In my years of teaching this was themes such as fantasy, family, and friendships are the first time I felt free in the discussed. Students are allowed to choose a book classroom. I could teach that appeals to them, and those who read the same whatever I liked. book are grouped together. Then, each group They [the students] moaned makes a wonderful presentation about the ideas when I announced we were going attained from that particular book, and, believe it to read A Tale of Two Cities. Why or not, other students then want to read one or couldn’t they read The Lord of the more books from the presentations. Rings, Dune, science fiction in And that’s real literacy—with feelings! general? Why couldn’t they? In conclusion, here are a few more titles (185-191). worth exploring: I have listened to thousands of reactions to books, given by Backes, M. Molly. The Princesses of Iowa. Candlewick, 2012. students, in my fifty-plus years as a Couloumbis, Audrey. Not Exactly a Love Story. teacher. I have heard all kinds of reasons as to Random House, 2012. why students don’t, or won’t, read. I even know Doller, Trish. Something Like Normal. Bloomsbury, many teachers who are the same way. There are 2012. teachers who have taught the same books, and Klauss, Lucas. Everything You Need to Survive the used the same lessons, for twenty years And then Apocalypse. Simon Pulse, 2012. there are those who have really taught for twenty McCormick, Patricia. Never Fall Down. Balzer and years, bringing new and enlightening ideas to each Bray, 2012. lesson. There are teachers who have several Newman, Leslea. October Mourning: A Song for sections of the same subject in a single day. They Matthew Shepard. Candlewick, 2012. admit they have to do different things in order to
M. Jerry Weiss is Distinguished Service Professor of Communications Emeritus at New Jersey City. He has taught high school English in Virginia and in New York City. He is the editor of The Signet Book of Short Plays and co-editor with his wife, Helen S. Weiss, The Signet Book of American Essays. NJCU has established the M. Jerry Weiss Center for Children's and Young Adult Literature in his honor.
New Jersey English Journal 45 Mary Ann St. Jacques If You Could See What I See
“In every block of marble I see a and inspirational words from the greatest art and statue as plain as though it stood literary masters of our time. I often find before me, shaped and perfect inspiration in the words of others and believe in attitude and action. I have only students can as well. They sometimes offer a to chisel through the rough walls jumping-off point, if you will, allowing ideas to that imprison the lovely flow and ripple. Samples of my personal works apparition to reveal it to the and poems are displayed for students as well so other eyes as mine see that I will be as vulnerable to their opinions as it.” (Michelangelo) they are to mine. The creative process is intensely personal, stripping you down, and leaving you thers may look into a classroom and see naked to the judgment of viewers. But in the a room full of children, but that’s not environment of my art room, there are no O what I see. I see a vast mountainside, mistakes—only personal interpretations and often filled with many rocks of different shapes, sizes, opportunities to uncover truths you didn’t realize and textures—each symbolic of the angel trapped you were seeking. This world is a safe place where within the marble, each child potentially my creativity is fostered and individual expression greatest masterpiece. I see them as my challenge praised. No effort goes unnoticed. and my cause. Beneath each stone facade, exists a Art, much like language arts, allows masterpiece in its own right that deserves to be students the opportunity to explore their appreciated solely for what it is. My job is not to imaginations and express limitless creativity. Art recreate them, but to chisel through the rough has no boundaries, but requires learning walls and reveal them for all to see, for them to specialized techniques and endless stylized see themselves. As I chisel away at these designs, similar to the syntax of language. I view stonewalls, my students will be released from the art and language as the inner and outer worlds of a challenges of past criticism or negative reactions child. For this reason, I focus on the relationships to their artwork and written words. I will instill in existing between voice and vision bringing poetry, them the concept that art and creative writing are quotations, and writing journals into the art room. completely individual, and therefore, powerful My goal is to converge the two and form an enough to evoke many reactions from viewers, equator of understanding, yielding a heightening both positive and negative. Conversations and of students’ skills of conceptualization and critiques of works are essential for personal observation. I am sure you’ve heard the growth and progress in a student’s body of work. expression “A picture is worth a thousand words.” By Creating and critiquing fosters higher levels of making connections between the way we integrate analysis, and deeper levels of thinking and teaching art and language, we expand upon this reflection in students. Art exploration, on the bank of words. In some ways, art transcends whole, enhances students’ cognitive development, language, but in others, it serves as a catalyst, and at the same time, it expands their language evoking a more detailed and advanced language bridging skills between the visual and verbal for students reflecting upon their own personal necessary to advance students’ levels on Bloom’s dialect. I believe that creating an environment Taxonomy. where ideas leave the art room and enter the As a teacher of art, I believe my job is language arts room, and visa versa, allow for quite a bit different than teachers in other deeper growth and understanding in both areas. concentrations. In my world, nothing is black and Teachers must leave their doors open, “literally” white; conversely, my world is filled with many allowing for overlapping ideas and deeper shades of gray and all the colors of the rainbow. meaning to emerge. Let me describe this multicolored world—the Teaching art is quite a different cocoon of my beautiful classroom. The walls are experience with each child. Because of that, adorned with children’s work, as well as art prints children need to be encouraged and guided
46 2013 Issue If You Could See What I See through the standards with care and consideration in the way they learn best. Unfortunately, what I’ve experienced is that by middle school, many children have lost this freedom and gaze fearfully at their crisp white canvas, afraid to mar it. For this reason, I am drawn to teach art to students in this age range. I prompt students to explore their individuality, for that is what will make their art intrinsically special. I also encourage them to accept being unique and to celebrate who they are and where they came from. This brings to mind one particular student, Karena—a twelve year-old girl who has gone through this process with me, growing as an individual by integrating art and language as a means of finding her personal voice. Through her art, she has developed a personally unique and highly advanced language. She now views the world through an artist’s eye, magnifying her vision, allowing her to see deeper, noticing the subtleties others have missed. She then utilizes this “vision” in her poetry and storytelling, adding graphic details that bring her words to life and allow others to create images in their minds from the vivid details painted in her words. This is a poem written by Karena that illustrates this “painting with words” approach I am attempting to explain. Together her imagery and poetry compose her complete vision.
from A Green Sea, Is Part of Me
Swirls of green that echo and wave through stem seams, Roots gamble with hard owned air, Green is more than a pallet’s essence. It is the very core that our soul grows from.
It is the leaves in the trees, And the nature strung through our hearts. Green is the fresh mint dazzles, that shine through dew drops and petals, the crisp morning air that trickles light through its glare.
Karena’s growth is revealed both in her visual creations and in her written words. She, along with her classmates, keeps a reflective journal chronicling thoughts and sketches in a safe personal place. By documenting inspirations and feelings both in words and sketches, she is presented with an opportunity to reflect and grow. As her vision becomes more mature, her voice becomes stronger and more apt to be heard.
We can see her metamorphosis mapped out on these pages in black and white; more importantly, so
New Jersey English Journal 47 Mary Ann St. Jacques can she. Art and language are extraordinary vehicles through which students can express and release emotions, insecurities, and accomplishments alike. Works created in these content areas can serve as the source that eradicates self-doubt and worries about what peers will think of you at a vulnerable stage in development. By merging trends of the visual culture in the world around us, and weaving the works of the great historic masters and contemporary artists into my lesson plans, I believe I can achieve a balanced art curriculum. This curriculum can be brought to the highest level by incorporating language into art and allowing students’ own words to bridge these two creative worlds: that of vision and of voice. By integrating language into art making, students gain a much deeper understanding of themselves, of others, and of the world that surrounds them. Speaking, looking, listening, and creating all become equally important elements in telling one’s story. Through Karena’s self-portrait and poetry, she has found her identity and shared her voice with the world through imaginative imagery and language. To further expand on this connection, a small group of my art students, spanning many grade levels, are now in the midst of creating a very special and reflective banner for the New Jersey Council of Teachers and English.
48 2013 Issue If You Could See What I See
While brainstorming for ideas, I looked to my monochromatic self-portrait lesson as a means to accomplish and to illustrate the connections between literature and art as an optimum vehicle of self- expression. Students were asked to choose their favorite book and somehow incorporate it into a self- portrait, along with important words of their choice, based on the content of their selected book. Each student’s painted panel will serve as one piece of a patchwork quilt design plan. Together, their portraits and book selections will create the whole image weaving together the importance of literature in the creation of art reflective of the self. During this process, I hope to nurture important values in students such as respecting the choices of others, including viewpoints and technical choices, while working both individually and as a team, incorporating individual pieces to create a whole. Additional lessons this project will yield are that the limits of language based on age do not define the limits of thinking. Art has the ability to empower children to say that which they cannot yet say with words, while words, at times, allow children to say what their hands are not yet skillful enough to create. Through this combination, I hope to allow my students’ voices to be heard loudly and clearly. All lessons learned here in my colorful world are presented to captivate my students’ interests and engage them in this infinite world of art inspired by language—this world of no mistakes.
New Jersey English Journal 49 Mary Ann St. Jacques
Mary Ann St. Jacques currently runs Petite Palette Studio, an art studio in Mendham where she strives to provide a foundation for young artists integrating the worlds of art and language. She is completing a graduate studies program at the College of St. Elizabeth this May and hopes to continue teaching art and making the world a little more beautiful by encouraging her students to proudly share their beautiful, unique visions and voices.
50 2013 Issue Walter H. Johnson
One Book, One College: Cumberland County College’s Approach
ine years ago, the concept of One Book, up that connect to the theme and subject of the One College was introduced to selected book. N Cumberland County College, and it has The decision for the 2009-10 school year caught on with great success. In simple terms, this was Amy Hill Hearth’s Strong Medicine Speaks: A means that a college committee chooses a book Native American Elder Has Her Say. This is the for the entire college community to read, discuss, “oral history” of the matriarch, Marion Gould, of and benefit in various ways. This program was the the Lenni-Lenape tribe, whose community is in brainchild of an English professor from New the College’s county and whose current chief was Jersey’s Sussex County Community College, Dr. once a student at the College. Many questioned Eleanor Carducci, who started it there in 1993. the choice of a relatively unknown book, but the Cumberland’s current president, Dr. Thomas College’s treatment given to this book, its author, Isekenegbe, learned of the program while he was and its subject made it as successful as any of the working there and later invited Dr. Carducci to previous selections. Students by the hundreds give a workshop to interested members of faculty, came to appreciate it because of the classroom administration, and staff at Cumberland. Since discussions and the various activities set up during 2004, with the selection of James McBride’s The the course of the entire school year, which Color of Water, this annual activity has become a included in the fall the appearance on campus of campus favorite. the author and an afternoon panel discussion A few months prior to the end of the featuring Chief Quiet Hawk, the son of Strong school year, the One Book, One College Medicine herself, and a mini-Powwow in the committee agrees upon a book (with an alternative campus’s Conference Center in the spring. The or two on hand) that has been written by a long line of people seeking Ms. Hill Hearth’s currently living author and sends the titles to the autograph on the night she spoke was a testimony College’s Director of the Fine Arts Center. This to the reading enjoyment her book provided. person’s duty is then to find out if the author of Without setting out to do so, the One the top selection is both affordable and able to Book, One College committee has favored non- come to the College to address an audience, fiction in the nine years’ worth of selections. Strong hopefully in early November, though a spring- Medicine Speaks was preceded by Jeannette Walls’s semester appearance could also work. By the end popular story of her dysfunctional family, The of the school year, the announcement of the Glass Castle, and the year before that the school’s choice is made, and the entire College committee chose Erin Gruwell’s Freedom Writers family is invited and encouraged to read the book Diary, the story of the author’s success with during the summer. reluctant students in a California school, The program aims to encourage reading documented in a popular Hollywood movie. The for pleasure, critical thinking, global awareness, very first book chosen was the story of author and multicultural understanding. Our selections James McBride’s mother, The Color of Water. But are made with the College’s students in mind, in between these choices came the fictional pieces particularly those in the remedial English and My Sister’s Keeper, by the prolific writer Jodi Reading classes. The instructors of these courses, Picoult, and Snow Falling on Cedars, by David as well as instructors of the forty-some sections of Guterson. The selection for school year 2010-11 the Freshman Seminar classes each fall semester, was Steve Lopez’s The Soloist, yet another non- include the selected book as required reading, with fiction book. Like the previous selections, this follow-up discussions and assignments. proved to be very popular, especially because of Remarkably, these students come to enjoy the the recent movie that starred Jamie Foxx. Copies book and look forward to the appearance on of this book were stocked in the College’s campus of the author and the various activities set bookstore, and announcements were made to the
New Jersey English Journal 51 Walter H. Johnson
College’s family and community urging the Besides the effect of getting students to reading of the book during the summer so that discover the many benefits associated with interest could be created for the annual fall panel reading, the College encourages the entire discussion, which, because of this book’s subject, community to share in this program. Book clubs focused on homelessness. Then, in early in the area are invited to incorporate the annual November, author Steve Lopez was present on selections into their own agendas and then attend campus to meet with a group of selected students the events that focus on the books and the topics prior to, and during, a dinner honoring him and within them. The panel discussions include then talked to a full-house, gathering in the students, faculty, and staff, as well as interested College’s Fine Arts Center. community members. In addition, workshops and Sonia Nazario, author of the non-fictional lectures are scheduled whenever they can meet the Enrique’s Journey, visited Cumberland County needs and the interests of those affected by the College in November of 2011. Her book, based book and its subject matter. There is never a on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that charge for attendance at the events surrounding earned Ms. Nazario a Pulitzer Prize for feature the book, for the College sets aside an amount in writing, recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a each year’s budget to provide these events, and Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship the President has been known to add some money and peril to reach his mother in the United States from his own budget if the author in question after their being eleven years apart. (It was strictly demands a particularly large amount. coincidence that both Nazario and Lopez, back- The One Book, One College committee to-back authors, write for the same newspaper.) includes a dozen members, about half of whom For the 2012-13 school year, the College’s are faculty (adjunct, as well as full time); the others committee chose a volume of short stories by the are staff and administrators. There is a chairperson highly acclaimed and prolific author, Joyce Carol and a secretary, and there is a website maintained Oates, whose scheduled appearance on campus to provide background and rationale for those needed to be shifted from late October to early who want such information. The committee meets December because of the mega-storm Sandy. Her once in the summer and periodically throughout book, Faithless: Tales of Transgression, added an the school year. All members are encouraged not element of controversy within the College only to discover potential books but to provide community because of the dark, even sometimes titles and even copies for the other members so “nasty,” nature of the collection of the twenty-one that a final selection can be made by the entire selections in this volume. But this author’s status committee, not just the ones who have the time in modern American literature won out over the and desire to read profusely. The concept controversy, and the benefits of dealing with short invented by Dr. Eleanor Carducci twenty years stories, especially in remedial classes and the ago has developed into a program at Cumberland percentage of reluctant readers therein, could add County College that encourages reading as a life- further relevance to this current year’s choice. long learning and pleasurable experience, and its (The committee conducts a follow-up discussion future looks as promising as the hopes of those on of the pros and cons of the outcomes of each campus involved in promoting it. year’s program.)
Walter H. Johnson retired after fifty-one years of teaching in New Jersey (eight in high schools and forty-three at this county college). He taught included English Composition, Effective Speech, Modern American Literature, and Children’s Literature. He has had articles published in most of the issues of the New Jersey English Journal.
52 2013 Issue Vanessa Rasmussen On Language and Rarity
“The limits of my language mean audience; a conversation is intensely particular and the limits of my world.” (Ludwig intensely rare. Nowhere is this more true than in a Wittgenstein) classroom.
The Power of Language Recognizing Rarity riters honor the rare thing in our Nicholson Baker notes in his essay, mundane lives. Whether we write “Rarity,” that a rare thing is a true conundrum, W challenging novels, post witty statuses since its very condition, coupled with human on Facebook, or jot down insightful marginal nature, is what precipitates its demise. One is so questions or clarifying comments on student enthralled by the rare thing that one is compelled papers, we all use language to signal our to share it with others, hence diminishing its rarity uniqueness. We hope to communicate what has and possibly the truth of its beauty, or the beauty often been communicated before in a wholly of its truth. The rare thing thus becomes less rare original, artistic manner; we hope to surprise or and more mundane, which strips the thing of its enlighten others by sharing a link or idea that has newness, its glory, and its joy. Indeed, simply not circulated before; we hope to finally phrase noticing its rarity puts the thing in jeopardy, since, the editorial comment in such a way that our like a physicist observing the experiment, one student’s writing is forever after improved. Emily minutely alters the composition or performance of Dickinson captures our hope for our words: the thing. The thing is irrevocably lost, and we “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers – /That perches desire to recover it. in the soul –.” We hope that our words will take But going in search of it is no good either, flight, but we recognize that this hope “perches.” since, as Walker Percy argues in his essay “The Static written language embodies hope in finite Loss of the Creature,” we all bring complex form. Our use of written language is essential to networks of associations and information to bear our lives and essential to our practice as teachers on any situation, which virtually obscure the thing of reading and writing; its stillness invites itself. No, the rare thing must create itself, as the concentration and contemplation. universe did, from nothing: so much dark matter What happens when that hope leaves its must, on some truly infinitesimally elemental level, perch and takes flight? The written word carries a recognize itself and birth consciousness from heavy burden in our society, since it is the nothing. A rare thing can reinvent itself in every medium— whether printed or digital— that age, for in every age we translate the rare and transmits what is most valued in our culture. It is wonderful according to a unique set of indeed where we perch our values and our circumstances. As Jacques Derrida notes in Specters ideologies so that all may see and appreciate it. of Marx, “A striking diversity disperses across the However, another form of communication that is centuries the translation of a masterpiece, a work less privileged but nevertheless as important as of genius, a thing of the spirit which precisely seems written language occurs far more frequently and is to engineer itself” (18). The rare thing or situation relatively unexamined. Our speech takes flight and evolves from commonness, as all things do. It is unravels our thoughts second by second, often the exceptional combination of commonness that surprising us with its rapidity, connectivity, and forms the rare thing, and it is always a true power. Like a flock of birds that suddenly, surprise to recognize it and name it in any age, communally changes direction in mid-air, our thereby bringing it into the realm of the real, of words spill out in vigorous, active associations, logos, of beauty and truth. And, consequently, often advancing headlong into argument before starting it on its inevitable journey to its end. doubling back to pick up a caveat or swerve into As we pass through time and space on anecdote. Verbal communication is an event- our journey towards the inevitability of cessation, oriented occurrence that is predicated upon a we construct clear and deliberate attempts to make specific set of circumstances and a specific conscious what is unconscious, to verbalize the
New Jersey English Journal 53 Vanessa Rasmussen dark matter of our brains. Our literary the essence of the English classroom. How do we predecessors are consumed with speaking inculcate it, and why is achieving it so rare? By consciousness to us as signposts on our journey teaching reading and writing, we try to allow our from and towards silence. Polonius asks, “What students a lofty expression of their interior lives; do you read, my lord?”; “Words, words, words,” we want to help them to shape their expressions says Hamlet, who, while reading absence— the to fit various contexts in their world so that they words on the page— speaks presence— the can have power and live intentional, successful words in the air. Into the air we launch our words, lives. Our teaching involves language on its most every combination of which is infinitely rare: a fundamental level: we must constantly immerse unique mixture of voice, intention, emotion, ourselves in various versions of linguistic trial and cadence, meaning, subterfuge, and truth. error, model effective language in speech and Perhaps, like Hamlet, we (or our students) writing, and talk to our students about how take a special joy in endowing our words with language works while simultaneously working with more life and art than necessary in order to amuse and within it. We have these conversations every ourselves or to eviscerate our enemies or lesser day, but they are never identical, never mundane, friends, or perhaps not. Perhaps instead we (or never ordinary. our students) are drawn to the sumptuous What can be more rare than language of Keats, who reveled in his own conversation? Two people, who speak the same mortality and was able to work his words into a language and who generally agree on the meaning lush frenzy simply due to his knowledge of his of the words they use, use them together and eventual immense lack of them. Or we (or our create a temporary symbiosis through which students) may appreciate Virginia Woolf’s work accord is either achieved or destroyed. It is with interiors and the various correspondences intensely rare for Hamlet to be able to have a our inner life may have with our exterior life. The decent conversation with anyone other than resonances our literary artists create in the warp Horatio, yet Shakespeare speaks to us across the and woof of language and space are meant as centuries through him. We do not speak the same markers for the ineffable: they speak rarity to the language as Shakespeare – a fact bemoaned by rare in order to instruct us in our conscious high school students on a daily basis – but we are human condition, rare as rare can be. able to sync our own language with his enough to approximate his meaning and then watch the Classroom Conversation: Rigorous Rarity 10,000 linguistic explosions that occur as we read Rarity perpetually occurs in the deeply and verbalize the words of the characters classroom, and a teacher only has to be open to “trippingly on the tongue.” We do not speak the the experience to recognize it. What we say to same language as our students, who are well students and how we say it is determined by their versed in the vernacular of their own time, but we own expression of curiosity or boredom, by their can absorb it, relate to it, and occasionally—and ability to perform on-level or somewhere above or often hilariously— use it. Sometimes students will below the mark, and by their more or less explicitly teach vocabulary to teachers; this give complex universes of associations and prior and take of instruction and learning embodies the knowledge or experience. We must articulate for structure of a conversation. our students what they cannot say themselves; we must encourage those who are able to express Conversational Conundrums themselves to do so with clarity, precision, and Time spent in conversation with any creativity. We need to honor their language, teach individual develops a unique language. Words are them to hone it, and model what our society spoken, questioned, refined, spoken again, beat deems competent so that they can act in upon the anvil of trial and error until they accordance with themselves. effectively mean what we say they do, what we As Rousseau notes in Emile, or On hold in common. In the community of the Education, “To be something, to be oneself and classroom, we can avoid the problem that Paul always one, a man must always be decisive in Auster identified in his novel City of Glass: “You making his choice, make it in a lofty style, and see, the world is in fragments, sir. Not only have always stick to it.” The “lofty style” comes from we lost our sense of purpose, we have lost the
54 2013 Issue On Language and Rarity language whereby we can speak of it” (92). We I was baffled in every attempt I made for must work with our students to actively construct this purpose” (106-107). meaning from the wildly fragmented world in As English teachers, we have the daily opportunity which they, and we, live, and teach them to view to clarify the usage of language and remove the both spoken and written language with a sense of obstacles that baffle our students so that they can inquiry and a respect for the change upon which join the ranks of the literate and the successful. words are built: “Unless we can begin to embody In order to connect in classroom the notion of change in the words we use, we will conversation with our students, we may find the continue to be lost” (Auster 94). following techniques helpful or productive: One can easily get lost in all of the Make Eye Contact a Must. In order to engage specialized, technical, and pedagogical language successfully with speaking and listening skills, that circles the English classroom, but we must a student and teacher must learn to make take special care to beat a clear path for our consistent eye contact with his or her auditors students so that they can begin their journey. when explaining, questioning, or discussing Oddly, the goal of spoken or written language— any information verbally. Reading from shared language— seems to be to use it so much prepared comments is a useful method of so as to eventually not need it. At an intermediary transmitting ideas, but this can also be stage, one may be able to simply allude to another accomplished silently, with a document shared experience or text to convey precisely what camera. When verbalizing ideas, looking at we mean; however, such an allusion necessitates a those with whom we are communicating is mutual understanding at its core. After so much essential to check for understanding. We can verbalization, exposition, and allusions, one is easily read our listener’s face(s) and tell when finally able to communicate with a sigh, a gesture, we need to start over, rephrase, offer an a glance. The system of communication becomes example, or simply stop. Practicing eye internalized completely, and one need not even contact with students makes them very translate the glance into its component words; one uncomfortable – they are much more may simply acknowledge its meaning and acclimated to conversing via text message, continue. where visual cues are either absent or shorthanded with emoticons and The Discourse of Discovery abbreviations. Developing this skill will help Yet academic discourse demands the them to make more fluent choices in their opposite. Effective language must be taught speech and in their writing, since they will explicitly in order to achieve verbal coherence; develop immediate audience awareness. They writing instruction must foreground the fact that, can then reconsider their strategies for unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to clear presenting their information more consciously exposition, argumentation, and narration. Some of and competently. our students may sympathize with the creature in Practice Sustained Silence. When a student or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, who, while watching teacher is developing an idea verbally, all other the DeLaceys, finds communication to be a auditors should focus on attending to his or mysterious and powerful invention: her words with sustained concentration and “By degrees I made a discovery of still refrain from calling out, interrupting, or greater moment. I found that these making any other kind of editorial noise, such people possessed a method of as sighing, coughing, shuffling papers, communicating their experience and clucking, or what have you. Communicating feelings to one another by articulate verbally is a very difficult process, and sounds. I perceived that the words they distractions from one’s auditors are rude spoke sometimes, produced pleasure or behaviors to be addressed and rooted out. We pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and should consider what Benjamin Franklin tells countenances of the hearers. This was us in his essay “Remarks Concerning the indeed a godlike science, and I ardently Savages of North America”: “He that would desired to become acquainted with it. But speak, rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished and sits down,
New Jersey English Journal 55 Vanessa Rasmussen
they leave him five or six minutes to recollect, their words, they will learn to construct clearer that, if he has omitted anything he intended to arguments and support them with pertinent say, or has anything to add, he may rise again examples – skills that will serve them well in and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in written work as well. common conversation, is reckoned highly These are techniques that align with the indecent” (Baym 227). Since the Native Common Core Standards for Speaking Americans in question belong to an oral and tradition, respect for the spoken word is as Listening, which are included under the English engrained in their culture as it is for the Language Arts Standards that will take effect this auditors of Beowulf. While waiting five or six summer. Verbal communication is indeed within minutes after someone speaks is not tenable the purview of the English teacher, and explicit in a modern classroom with only 40 to 60 attention to conversations in our classrooms will minutes to work, silence during speech is soon be a codified reality (see Appendix). They are definitely a goal worth working towards. not only standards that we must address with our Take Notes. Student speakers as well as students; they are also standards by which we teachers present interesting, thought- should conduct ourselves as teachers. provoking ideas that bear questioning and Looking at our students consistently further discussion. When one must wait to throughout class models engagement and make a comment on what is being said in demonstrates that we care about them; not classroom conversation, one needs a record of interrupting them shows them that they have points to address and should therefore take something valuable to contribute; taking notes on notes on the discussion. Here is where we their contributions honors their thoughts – even have the opportunity to demonstrate the more so when it is done publicly, for instance, on interplay of written and verbal a record sheet used with a document camera; communication and the ways in which they quoting them in our summaries and segues models can inform each other. research writing skills; and checking for accuracy Quote Each Other. Once a speaker has finished allows them to move into a position of authority making his or her point, it is good practice to as the owner of their thoughts and words. acknowledge what he or she has said before Keeping all of these issues in mind, while at first a launching into one’s own comments. daunting task, becomes second nature to both Teaching our students to link their comments teacher and student and prepares all those to the previous speaker’s comments, whether involved in these engaged conversations to supportive or contradictory, not only teaches participate in the world of ideas with a sense of them to follow the narrative thread of the curiosity, efficacy, and wonder. conversation, but also teaches them implicitly that good transitions are necessary features of Continuing Conversations both spoken and written language. Hopefully we will be able to equip our Check for Accuracy. Encouraging students to ask students to move beyond the creature’s state of each other and their teachers for clarification bafflement to Joseph Conrad’s narrator’s position is a valuable skill that encourages both in Heart of Darkness: a sensitive listener/reader consensus building and logical reasoning. who knows that there is something more to the Beginning with phrases like, “If I understand story than what is available on the surface. One your point correctly, you mean that…” or must only be awake enough to be able to catch its “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You think importance, and being awake and aware is a rare that…” and then allowing the previous thing in and of itself in any age, especially in an speaker to agree, disagree and clarify, or age of darkness when all we have to attend to is modify his or her statement will help students the power of each others’ voices: to engage with each others’ ideas fully and “It had become so pitch dark that we hold them accountable for the things that listeners could hardly see one another. come out of their mouths. When they For a long time already he, sitting apart, recognize that they will be responsible for had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The
56 2013 Issue On Language and Rarity
others might have been asleep, but I was mediate infinite connections throughout the awake. I listened, I listened on the watch student’s day, as well as the potential to form a for the sentence, for the word, that would framework for daily language and life beyond give me the clue to the faint uneasiness school. The regularity of such conversation—of inspired by this narrative that seemed to shared language and lexicon, whether explicitly shape itself without human lips in the taught or implied—creates a community, creates a heavy night-air of the river” (237). microcosmic world in which our students can live The conversation one may conduct in a and learn to make sense of their larger world. classroom is intensely rare – it lasts just minutes Hopefully, this will be a community and a world within a student’s day, but has the potential to in which linguistic success is not a rarity.
Appendix English Language Arts Standards » Speaking & Listening » Grade 11-12 The CCR anchor standards and high school grade-specific standards work in tandem to define college and career readiness expectations—the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity.
Comprehension and Collaboration
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one- on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1a Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas. o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1b Work with peers to promote civil, democratic discussions and decision- making, set clear goals and deadlines, and establish individual roles as needed. o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1c Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives. o CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1d Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives; synthesize comments, claims, and evidence made on all sides of an issue; resolve contradictions when possible; and determine what additional information or research is required to deepen the investigation or complete the task. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.2 Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, assessing the stance, premises, links among ideas, word choice, points of emphasis, and tone used.
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
New Jersey English Journal 57 Vanessa Rasmussen
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.5 Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.6 Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating a command of formal English when indicated or appropriate. (See grades 11–12 Language standards 1 and 3 here for specific expectations.) The CCR anchor standards and high school grade-specific standards work in tandem to define college and career readiness expectations—the former providing broad standards, the latter providing additional specificity. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/SL/11-12
Works Cited
Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. New York: Penguin, 1990. Baker, Nicholson. “Rarity.” The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber. New York: Random House, 1996. 18-24. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad. Ed. Jerry Allen. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994. Franklin, Benjamin. “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Shorter 7th Edition. Vol. 1. Ed. Nina Baym et al. New York: Norton, 2008. Percy, Walker. “The Loss of the Creature.” The Message in the Bottle. New York: Picador, 2000. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Emile, or On Education. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Penguin/Signet Classic, 1983.
Vanessa Rasmussen is enjoying her sixth year of teaching English at Vineland High School, where she has taught juniors and seniors in a range of courses, from basic skills classes to Honors classes, and is the advisor of the Student Literature Club. She is also an Adjunct Professor of English at Rowan University. She was awarded the M. Jerry Weiss Early Career Teacher Scholarship Award by the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English in 2011.
58 2013 Issue Gary J. Whitehead A Lesson Dashed
ou’ve got a hyphen here. It should be “Hymen, the thin skin named for a dash,” I say. Hymenaeus, the Greek god of marriage who, “Y The kid looks hard at his ironically, was bisexual; take away the ‘m,’ add essay, as though his words might unlock the deep ‘ph,’ and you’ve got a piece of punctuation mystery of my statement. His eyes are small air outclassed by words, misused since kindergarten, bubbles rising in a murky pond. “What’s the ignored in high school. The poor hyphen—he difference?” he says. could never measure up to the lettermen, but he “Yeah, what’s the difference?” says the was useful at times, a kind of Cupid, hooking up girl slumped in the chair next to him. others in the clumsy hallways of dim-lit essays I tell them that one day I’ll write an essay while the intransitives looked on jealously and the on the difference between the hyphen and the infinitives talked endlessly about the things they’d dash, and then the whole class is egging me on. do.” “Do it; do it,” they shout. They think it strange Now I’ve lost them. I try a different tack. that anyone would write anything, ever, that “In my own family, I was the hyphen, the wasn’t assigned. youngest and so the smallest, and I remember But I’m a high school English teacher. what it felt like to be the flat-line of a word dead Who’s got time to write? at the margin of so much white space. With me so So I say: far?” I say, and the small pond of faces gurgles a - little. Rodrigo looks at the clock. Katie yawns, sees “The hyphen—silly, little brother of the me watching her, smiles for forgiveness. I forgive dash—is a jealous piece of punctuation. It wants her. I remember what it was like to be seventeen. to be bigger, wants to glom onto words and live “Did you really just give a lecture about vicariously between them. Like a thin moustache the hymen?” says Morgan. In his short-sleeved on a fifteen-year-old boy watching his oldest linen shirt, shell necklace, cargo shorts and brother groom himself in the mirror before a hot Birkenstocks, he looks as though he’s heading to date, it sprouts sparingly out of a sentence’s flesh the Hamptons. above the white space of a forced smile. In the “The hy-phen,” I say. “Weren’t you family of black horizontal lines, the hyphen pines listening?” to be something it isn’t. Couched between letters, “Kinda.” it does what it can to make some meaning out of Steven, the biggest boy, a Korean whose its meaningless existence, but it’ll never be more right knee rises and falls as timed and incessant as than a half-pint, watching its big brothers—so an oil derrick, says, “It was all a metaphor.” And much cooler, so much suaver—set off some he gives me a see-I’m-the-smartest-kid-in-the-class appositive like the grips on the handlebar of a look. motorcycle squealing off to places unknown.” “I’m glad someone was paying attention,” In the third column of chairs, Diego I say, and return my own knowing grin to confirm caresses his upper lip and winks at Francia. She his wish. laughs. “Was that Greek god really bi?” asks I walk down his column, kicking book Ethan in the back. bags as I go. “The hyphen is a sissy. Even the “Well, it depends on whom you ask,” I word sounds girly, like Hymie, the kind of kid say. who got beat up in school so often that he came “I’m lost,” says Francia. to feel half-worthy. Or like hymen—the fold of - mucus membrane separating virgin from ho.” “The word hyphen comes from the Greek Croaking everywhere. Now I’ve got their hyph’ hen, meaning ‘under one,’ which is odd attention, and they’re looking at me like I’ve gone because, if anything, this piece of punctuation is bonkers. ‘between two.’ It links up compound words or
59 New Jersey English Journal Gary J. Whitehead names, or breaks up syllables of words when they “Hard to believe, but true,” I say. I can come at the end of a line in a book and so re- see he’s got a New York Times crossword in front quire being broken. Little fracture lines that help of him. It’s a Monday, and he’s about a third done our brains at lightning speed to process as ‘require’ with it. The ladies in the library photocopy the and not ‘re quire.’ (See above). puzzle and leave a stack on the counter, and all the But in my family, where I was the hyphen, kids do them in class. I’m a crossword fanatic, so the Greek translation was about right. I had two while I pretend to scold them and tell them to put brothers, call them Em and En, and the oldest and the puzzles away, I invariably give them an answer biggest, Em, got his own bed. I slept in a bunk or two or show them my completed puzzle, which bed with En, and, you guessed it, I was in the I keep in my grade book. I’m always promising bottom bunk. I was ‘under one.’ Yet, my own that one day we’ll devote the whole class to wished-for translation probably works better. strategies of crossword solving. I can explain the Here’s a scene: puns, the abbreviations, why the words EDEN Brown Chevy station wagon laboring and ELAL and ELIA come up so often. “Sam, along the Blue Ridge Parkway of Virginia. Tall let’s put the crossword away,” I say. pines, mountain vistas, dad with his elbow out the He winks. driver’s window, his aviator sunglasses smudged “Can I go to the bathroom?” asks Collin with fingerprints. In the rearview mirror three in the first row. He’s a virtuoso guitarist with boys hot and tired and needing to pee. green Irish eyes and fingers that can dance along a ‘Ma, he’s diggin his elbow inna me!’ I fret board like a Riverdance jig. He brings his whine. guitar in sometimes and plays for the class. ‘No I ain’t,’ says En. I look at the clock. Ten minutes left. I ‘Y’are too!’ think I saw his girlfriend pass by the door a few ‘Y’am not.’ minutes ago. Do they have their rendezvous Our mother holds up the bag of Pepto- timed? “I don’t know, can you?” Bismol-pink mint candies. ‘Knock it off, or no “Uh, may I?” more for the lot of you!’ “Go ahead.” ‘I wasn’t doin nothin,’ says Em. Tory’s got his Yankee’s hat cocked ‘He was too. He was diggin inna me, too!’ sideways. Too much rap music. Michael’s big, ‘Shut up. I was not.’ track-runner’s legs are lifting his desk off the floor. ‘Were too!’ Sean is reading Air & Space magazine; he’s going ‘Was not.’ to be an aerospace engineer—a good one, I ‘Dick, tell them to knock it off!’ my think—and right now he’s more interested in mother screams. ailerons than hyphens. This is probably a good The springs creak and dad’s hairy nostrils thing. Next time I board a DC-10, I’ll remember appear briefly in the divider between seats. ‘One it. Stella, who’s the spitting image of the actress more peep, and we’ll turn this vehicle around and Koyuki, star of The Last Samurai, and on whom I go home.’ fear is lost my best rendition of Stanley Kowalski’s Squished as I am, all I can do is peep, but howled “Stell-aaaa!,” is the last student still one- I keep a lid on it. For now. It’s rough being hundred percent attentive. For a second I ‘between two.’ But this is the camping trip we’ve remember my father telling me about his Navy been looking forward to all year. And dad is the bunkmate, a Native American, who slept with his boss. For now, I’m content to be ‘under one.’” eyes wide open. Could the same be true for Asian- - Americans? But I can see she’s waiting. She wants Now it’s Katie looking at the clock and to hear more about the hyphen. Rodrigo yawning. Steven’s leg’s looking for oil “What are your brothers’ real names?” under Room 220. Morgan’s turned around in his she says. chair and talking to Casey, whose brother I had in “Michael and Richard.” class a few years back. Sam, who speaks fluent “So why did you call them En and Em?” Russian, says, “Are there really pink mints that “Oh, Stella!” I say. look like Pepto Bismol?” -
60 2013 Issue A Lesson Dashed
“Okay, listen up. In Standard English also use it in certain strings of compound there are three types of dashes. The first is the adjectives when to use a hyphen would cause hyphen, which you all now know about. The other confusion.” I see we’re running out of time, so I two are the em and en dashes. To confuse the scribble: …a high-inflation–full-employment condition. hyphen and either of the other two dashes is to “So, when do we use a hyphen or an em make a grave error.” dash?” George demands. He thinks I hate him, In the pond I see a few eyelids rise. but I really don’t. A few years ago, I wrote his “The en dash, so called because in sister’s college recommendation. printing it is as wide as the letter N, is basically a “Well,” I say, pointing to the board, “note symbol meaning ‘through.’ I go the board and that the hyphen is used to link up the compound scribble: June 4th–6th. adjectives ‘high-inflation’ and ‘full-employment.’ “Hey, that’s prom weekend,” says Jon in So, one use of the hyphen is to link compound the seat closest to me. adjectives.” “Really?” I say. “Well, the weekend runs “You wrote that on my last essay,” says from June 4th through June 6th. With me?” A few Diego. He’s one of the three Spanish-speaking ribbits. Time to get Socratic on their asses. “Who kids in my class, and a few weeks ago when he can tell me why the em dash is called the em read aloud a García Lorca poem in Spanish, my dash?” I watch the second hand on the clock hum heart cracked. through ten seconds. “Now you know what I meant?” Steven says tentatively and without raising He nods. his hand, “Because it’s as wide as the letter M?” “Okay, we’re almost out of time. When “Oh, Steven!” I say. I give him a see- do we use an em dash?” I say, rallying them. I can you’re-the-smartest-kid-in-the-class look. see that Deug Young has inched toward the door. Francia, her hair pulled back tight, looks “He’s the big brother in the family of at me with her big eyes. I know what she wants to dashes,” Stella says. say. I give her a glance that says, Oh, Stella! “What other word might the en dash “He’s the bully,” says Steven. “He replace?” I say. The second hand turns in the one muscles his way in a sentence.” direction it knows. I write on the board: At prom I give him a glance that says, Oh, Steven! hors d’oeuvres will be served from 5:00-6:00 PM. “Mr. Whitehead, did you get 12-across?” “What’s whores-da-oovers?” Ashelee says. asks Sam. “Hors d’oeuvres!” everyone yells. “I did. Did you get 16-down?” “I knew that,” Ash says. She grins, “Didn’t Emily Dickinson use dashes?” guzzles the Snapple I’ve asked her not to drink in says Casey. class. The big, square, gray clock says there are Justin pushes the hair from his eyes, raises three minutes left, but I know it’s a minute fast. his hand. “Uh, Mr. Whitehead, are they really “Focus people, focus. The em dash creates a serving hors d’oeuvres from five to six?” strong break in the structure of a sentence.” I go “You just answered my question,” I say. to the board and scribble as fast as I can: Dashes “What?” can be used in pairs like parentheses—that is, to enclose a Stella says, “I get it. The en dash also word, or a phrase, or a clause—or they can be used alone means ‘to.’” to detach one end of a sentence from the main body. “Oh, Stella!” I say, beaming. “Like you just wrote,” says Dan, ever George, beneath the perfect arc of his ball astute. “They can be like parentheses.” cap brim, looks angry. “What are you saying—that I give him a nerdy thumbs-up. “Dashes it’s wrong to use a hyphen in a case like that?” are particularly useful in a sentence that is long “Technically. Yes.” and complex or in one that has a bunch of “So we use an en dash in place of commas in it.” ‘through’ or ‘to.’” Emphatic. Irate. I hear the door open, see Collin come “Right. The en dash conveys time, range, back in. No new hickeys, from what I can tell. or distance.” I go to the board again and write: The “Just in time,” I say to him. Then, of Chicago–Philadelphia route…pages 15–20…. “We course, the bell rings and there’s a cacophony of
New Jersey English Journal 61 A Lesson Dashed
desks scraping, chair legs thumping, feet trampling. Only Ethan and Sam remain, crosswords in hand. “Okay, what’s sixteen-down?” Sam says. “What’s the clue?” I say, though I already know it. Ethan, using the nub of a pencil as a guide, scrolls down the page. “Catalogue divider.” “Is it INSERT?” Sam says. “Too many letters,” says Ethan. “It’s gotta be five.” “Don’t think mail order. Think list,” I say, “think punctuation!” They look at me. Puzzled. “I’ll give you a hint. This’ll be the lesson when I give back the next set of essays.” “COMMA!” Oh, Ethan! I say without saying it.
Gary J. Whitehead teaches English at Tenafly High School. His third book of poetry, A Glossary of Chickens, was recently published by Princeton University Press. New work is forthcoming in The New Yorker.
This poem is dedicated to all those who have suffered indignity and destruction at the hands of the unruly forces of nature.
Hurricane
Distant rumblings of fair warnings Official discoursed attempts Distilling nature’s fickle pattern Malevolent mayhem predicted and warned Harsh scoldings for malingerers and malcontents Prescient fear Agonized anticipation Entrance without invitation Ruinous rumbling Validated sequence Unforgiving anger Horrific howls Floods and tears Innocence scoffed Merciful pleas ignored Media signals incessantly beamed Illumination snuffed Hope shattered Devastation insidiously purveyed Redemption churlishly rebuked
- Joe Pizzo
A veteran teacher of 38 years at the Black River Middle School in Chester, Joe Pizzo serves as an adjunct professor at both Centenary College and Union County College. A staff announcer at WRNJ, Joe’s book New Jersey ASK 7 Language Arts Literacy Test recently went into its second printing with revisions. He was also named last month as a Teacher Who Makes Magic by WMGQ, and he initiated a visit at BRMS of 23 school principals from Shanghai.
62 2013 Issue Dana H. Maloney Is That It?
1987 Duke University graduate, I started of teachers and students. Having received an my teaching career in 1988, before the excellent public school education from teachers in A days of Teach for America and whatever the progressive South Orange-Maplewood New glamorization it has brought to the idea of Jersey school system, I had also been exposed to teaching as a gig for fresh college grads – and well some radical ideas of schooling from encountering before the present moment when so much home-schooling families and from reading John national attention has turned to issues of teacher Holt – not to mention George Orwell and Aldous quality. Today, I hear so many people around me Huxley. expressing opinions about bad teachers and I still retain a strong desire to impact offering ideas about how to attract, evaluate and education but find it – also bafflingly – difficult to reward teachers. For those of us who have make the kind of impact I wish to make – and dedicated our professional lives to the realm of even the kind of impact I know I can make in a education, the national interest is satisfying but world empowered by digital technology, were it baffling, especially when we are not only are left not that my energies are tapped by the demands of out of the dialogue but are also seen as a big part teaching 112 students every day in Advanced of the problem. Placement Literature, World Literature and Let’s get one thing straight: Much of the Creative Writing Honors classes and by advising dialogue about teacher quality is of course covert another 18 newspaper staffers daily? discussion of how to reduce education spending, My work with students is both worthy with implicit disdain for the high cost of paying and satisfying – but I also feel as I have experienced teachers, even if those same teachers accumulated experience and ideas that could started their teacher careers with salaries in the impact other teachers and students. I could see low teens, as I did, and carry the debt of many dedicating time to sharing curriculum I have built years of salary that did not cover the expenses of on “solving the world’s problems in the college loans, post-Baccalaureate degrees, rent and classroom” with a national audience – with an idea mortgage payments, child care, car loans, home of creating a national or international network of repairs and more. students who engage in multi-disciplinary ways in Here are some of the other questions we problem-solving, through inquiry and action. I should consider: could see making videos for teachers or students; I How can we do more than ensure a could cultivate a Web site through which I share disposable model of teaching, which perhaps curriculum and more. Where is the funding to attracts young talent for a time but which ensures reward and to motivate my work on such sustainability across time? How can we build a projects? Who should – or could – pay for and system which maximizes potential energy, by otherwise incentivize such work? allowing and encouraging teachers to grow toward With perhaps 20 years left in my roles that allow their experience to contribute to professional career, I struggle to see a future for the teaching field and to education more my professional career. I love teaching, but I am generally? And also: Are experienced teachers not sure how many more years I can see myself really a problem? Need they be? doing this. With two sons nearing the college I became a teacher not only because of years, my teacher-husband and I have a high debt- enjoyment and comfort with the role but also out to-income ratio. I could use a higher salary, which of determination to make an impact on the world for me means only the option of becoming a – in my case, an impact in education. My supervisor – for which I am currently certified – application to Duke had included an essay in or investing more money to return to school for which I had written about my desire to focus on additional certificates as a principal or increasing motivational environments for learning supervisor. If I stay in my current district, where I in schools through a reduction in bureaucratic, have job security, all of these roles will be top-down leadership and through empowerment
New Jersey English Journal 63 Is That It? building- or district-specific; none will allow me to continue teaching any classes. In 2005, when an exceedingly talented student named Lauren handed in her term paper on three South African novelists, she said to, “Is that it?” and “I feel like there should be more.” That comment served for years as an effective irritant in a small part of my brain and eventually helped me re- configure my thinking on what a high school term paper can and should be – and how reading literature and writing papers on literature can connect to reading the world and acting in the world. I am proud of my thinking and work on re-thinking the term paper and re-thinking teaching in the English/Language Arts classroom, a place in which my current students often read literature as a way of reading the world and engage deeply in critical thinking about themselves and the world. As a 25-year veteran teacher, I ask: Is that it? I feel like there should be more.
Dana Holley Maloney teaches English at Tenafly High School. In 2012 she was awarded the Princeton University Secondary Teaching Award and the NCTE James Moffett Award. She has taught high school English since 1988.
Public School in the Year 2031
No child left behind Demanding rigorous 21st century schools Making our tax dollars work harder Politicizing education Legislating product over process Expelling frivolous summer vacations Requiring mental craftsmanship in year-round school Eliminating snow days Erasing spring breaks Committing to teaching to the test Adopting nationwide standards and curricula Flourishing with publishers’ panaceas Invading with online texts Monitoring inexhaustibly from community watchdogs Proliferating self-proclaimed expertise Raising the bar for higher expectations Requiring testing to enter kindergarten Requiring testing for all grade levels Requiring testing for graduation Replacing valedictorians with validation Assigning conditional diplomas for sub-standard students Preparing for workplace readiness Focusing on global perspectives Mandating lessons peaking students’ interest Requiring technology Requiring unmanageable technology solutions Abolishing unions and employee opinion Abolishing tenure and seniority Abolishing cushy pensions and bloated health benefits Abolishing livable wages
64 2013 Issue
Implementing mandatory after-school supervision Increasing out-of-pocket expenses Ignoring missed dinners and family recitals Abolishing second jobs Fostering intolerance for failure Focusing on one set of skills to fit all Disregarding late bloomers Replacing square pegs with round holes Exalting findings of national panels Proliferating political footballs Enacting intolerance and anti-bullying Mandating solutions Legislating success Shunning babies without bathwater Demanding competition Fueling anger Fostering angst Feeding frustration Columbine Sandy Hook Myopia Mayhem Mistrust Malevolence No child left
- Joe Pizzo
A veteran teacher of 38 years at the Black River Middle School in Chester, Joe Pizzo serves as an adjunct professor at both Centenary College and Union County College. A staff announcer at WRNJ, Joe’s book New Jersey ASK 7 Language Arts Literacy Test recently went into its second printing with revisions. He was also named last month as a Teacher Who Makes Magic by WMGQ, and he initiated a visit at BRMS of 23 school principals from Shanghai.
New Jersey English Journal 65
Writing Process
I had wanted to lead them to water, to the wide expanse of window where the air was opaque with rain,
but by the time we get there, to the end of corridor that ends in view of the world beyond high school,
the sky has emptied, and the ground draws our attention down, to where it displays new lakes the ducks have claimed,
waterfowl accepting changes in the landscape as easily as other wonders – flying, floating, webbed feet – unlike us,
without need to contemplate the weather -- not the way we are, looking like museum visitors before some great work,
like the poet when he stood before that river view and compared life to a balanced egg. I have, I know, talked too much
about autumnal equinox, Days of Awe and casting sins in moving water, have alerted them to signs of another hurricane coming
late September. Despite my efforts to help them learn poetry, this is always the awkward part – the getting-going –
teaching about holding experience and meaning in open, equal palms. I’m half expecting disaster. But they are surprisingly
obedient, and scratch words on paper, their heads rising and falling to the page, attentive to all they see beyond the glass:
to birds, trees and sky, writing without speaking. I watch them closely, knowing we will know each other well though we’re strangers now,
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even starting to love them, the mother in me. (I could never say it now, not yet, when they still find me so strange.) Then I lead them
back down the hall, to the classroom, they following like the line of ducklings that make their vernal trek to the brook beside the school, a few stumbling
before steadying themselves. Seated, some would like simple directions or even answers, but all I have are questions -- about metaphor and memory --
and when I challenge them to see again what they’ve seen, they look at me blankly, incredulous, calculating. I mirror this confusion
in a silent assessments of their faces. And then they write just the same, minutes of furious writing in the lull between lunchtime bells,
writing about everything but a rain-drenched field, words pouring onto the page. Today, what we find is actually what we all were looking for.
- Dana Holley Maloney
Dana Holley Maloney teaches English at Tenafly High School. In 2012 she was awarded the Princeton University Secondary Teaching Award and the NCTE James Moffett Award. She has taught high school English since 1988.
New Jersey English Journal 67
Shakespeare In the Park Washed Out: A Villanelle
No Tempest here tonight, only a lonely rain. No Caliban or Ariel at Tommy's Pond. No Prospero, but ducks in charge again.
No Shakespeare under stars, our hopes in vain for brave new worlds emblazoned by his wand. No Tempest here tonight, only New Jersey rain.
No rampaging in Edgar Woods, no raging Caliban, nor airy spirits' reflected in the pond. No Prospero, the ducks in charge again.
We hoped for magic under stars in vain, on Tommy's pond no blazing ship will land tonight, only the lonely rain.
On this little stage, no magic king will reign. Miranda will not meet her Ferdinand. No Prospero, the ducks in charge again.
Now with his charms o’erthrown, I sing my own refrain, what strength I have's mine own by the water of despond. No Tempest here tonight, only a lonely rain. No Shakespeare in the park, the ducks in charge again.
- Marcia Holtzman
After retiring from the Metuchen Public Schools as Assistant Superintendent in 2001, since 2002 Marcia Holtzman has coordinated the Writers’ Room, a program of volunteer writing coaches, in Edgar Middle School, Metuchen. She has served on the executive board of NJCTE in a variety of roles for more than forty years.
68 2013 Issue