Spring/Summer 1999
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SpringFall/Winter / Summer 1999 1999 Rural Teacher Network Alaska • Arizona • Colorado • Georgia • Mississippi • New Mexico • South Carolina • Vermont TeachingChanging with Practice Technology Byte-ing into Medieval Literature Literacy in Cattle Country A Course in Cultures of the American Southwest An Interview with Vito Perrone Plus more stories about how the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Network encourages and sustains innovative teaching practices. COVER PHOTO COURTESY OF EDWARD BROWN A Publication of the Bread Loaf School of English Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont Spring/Summer 1999 From the Editor by Chris Benson rigid school policies or curriculum and national discussions about critical mandates that do not foster freethink- educational issues: accountability, Clemson University ing or grassroots innovation. The fact school reform, standards, equity, and Clemson, SC is you can’t make someone change. It so on. This written discourse informs happens only if the conditions are others about our practice; moreover, HIS PUBLICATION of the right and you let it happen. the reflection and the writing are actu- Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Net- Teachers in the BLRTN are suc- ally means to changing practice at a Twork (BLRTN) affirms its cessful agents for change, in part, be- very individual level as well. Teach- members are committed to changing cause the conditions are right and they ers in the BLRTN suggest that regular practice in schools. Characteristics we let it happen. The BLRTN is espe- reflective writing about teaching can recognize in effective teachers are cially valuable to teachers whose have a positive influence on how one their willingness to acquire new ideas, schools do not or cannot provide the approaches the profession. their ability to grow as professionals, circumstances necessary to foster ex- Collaborating with colleagues is and their desire to change. Adaptabil- perimentation, innovation, and another important condition that fos- ity may be one of the most important changes in personal teaching prac- ters change, and the BLRTN offers qualities of a teacher. As BLRTN Fel- tices. What are those conditions? many opportunities for teachers to low Dan Furlow aptly puts it in his BLRTN teachers believe that in- work together: through summers of story on page six, teachers “should be quiry is a primary model for learning. study at the Bread Loaf campuses in the business of change” because Teachers who come to Bread Loaf, where many Fellows are engaged in learning thrives in places where and especially those who are members collaborative activities and graduate change is welcome and experimenta- of the BLRTN, are interested in active work, through state meetings of Fel- tion is encouraged. inquiry as a way of “continually be- lows held numerous times during the So why are teachers constantly coming” a teacher. It’s an ongoing school year, and through online com- being reminded that they must re- process. Active inquiry in the class- puter conferences that link teachers form? Are teachers more resistant to room also has the potential to shape and students across the country in col- change than other professionals? I students as lifelong learners. laborative projects. don’t think so. Teachers I know in the Another important activity that It’s often said that good teachers BLRTN work continually to establish encourages changing practice among are good learners. There’s a lot of a climate of growth and change in teachers is the opportunity to write truth to that statement. As the stories their classrooms. More often than not, about and document teaching prac- in this issue of the BLRTN Magazine an inability to change is the result of tices. This documentation of our suggest, teaching is learning. teaching contributes to state, regional, Spring/Summer 1999 Table of Contents Byte-ing into Medieval Literature ..................................................... 4 Rural Teacher by John Fyler Network A Tufts professor serves as an online expert in medieval literature for several rural high school English classes, fielding questions and directing discussion Spring/Summer 1999 among BLRTN teachers and their students. Editor Literacy in Cattle Country ................................................................ 6 Chris Benson by Dan Furlow [email protected] Are reading and writing skills developed more efficiently within the context of students’ local culture and language? A summer in the Green Mountains of Address correspondence to Chris Benson, Vermont convinced this Southwestern teacher to have students put away Bread Loaf School of English, Middle- worksheets and open up personal journals. bury College, Middlebury, VT 05753- 6115. The Bread Loaf School of English Crossing Cultures, Changing Practices ............................................ 8 publishes the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher by Kate Flint Network Magazine twice a year. The study of diverse cultures in the American Southwest has led the author, a Victorian scholar at Oxford University, to rethink how the Victorians of Eng- Director of the Bread Loaf land viewed American Indians and how that view reflected something of their School of English and view of themselves. Director of BLRTN James Maddox Fieldwork: A Research Approach to Creating Classroom and School Change .................................... 10 Coordinator of BLRTN by Allison Holsten Dixie Goswami Collaborative initiatives of teachers in an Alaskan school are turning high school students into field workers who help raise important school and commu- Bread Loaf Office Staff nity issues for discussion. Elaine Lathrop Sandy LeGault Learning to Be at Home: Dianne Baroz A Course in Cultures of the American Southwest ......................... 13 by John Warnock Faculty Coordinators Developing a course in “writing culture,” the author avoids conventional ap- JoBeth Allen proaches that commodify or sentimentalize distinct cultures. Instead, his stu- Courtney Cazden dents experience cultures of the Southwest as an exploration of the self and the Andrea Lunsford “other.” Lucy Maddox Jacqueline Royster, Senior Consultant The Romance of Teaching: An Interview with Vito Perrone ....... 16 John Warnock by Chris Benson Tilly Warnock How can teachers keep the romance of teaching alive? Harvard educator Vito Perrone says the question “Why?” can provide the answer. Director of Telecommunications BLRTN Practice and Change in the Teaching Life...................................... 18 Rocky Gooch [email protected] by Stephen Schadler Good teaching requires continual inquiry and a desire to allow one’s practice to Technical Consultants change. Caroline Eisner Douglas Wood Staying Afloat: How Teaching Revises My Life ............................ 20 by Tilly Warnock Documentation Consultant Words have the power to change the world. But do they also, in the process, Scott Christian change the writer herself? Teacher Research Consultant Teaching outside the Comfort Zone ................................................ 22 Bette Ford by Susan McCauley The author left a comfortable job in Pennsylvania to accept a teaching position Copyright 1999 in a remote Native Alaskan village on the Yukon River. After four years she Bread Loaf School of English looks back at the challenges of changing her teaching practice. No part of this publication may be repro- Plus more stories about how the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher duced without permission of the editor. Network encourages and sustains innovative teaching practices. Bread Loaf School of English • Middlebury College • Middlebury, Vermont 3 Rural Teacher Network Byte-ing into Medieval Literature John Fyler sion; in practice, the logistics of writ- ferences proved to be an unusually ing and photocopying them meant that successful innovation: first, they Tufts University they usually showed up just as class saved a number of trees, no doubt (as Medford, MA was about to begin. The one-pagers we can all infer from the omnipresent did indeed contribute to a developing reminders at Bread Loaf, the only OR THE PAST decade Tufts feeling of relaxed camaraderie, thing better than recycling is not using University, where I teach though I quickly gave up the idea of the paper in the first place); and, sec- F during the regular academic having everyone comment on every- ondly, the conferences established a year, has had a writing-across-the- one else’s work: amid the intensity of compact and perpetually accessible curriculum program in which I par- a Bread Loaf summer, virtually no archive of intellectual activity. I kept ticipate. The classes in this program, one had time to do more than read and these conferences going even after the from a wide range of departments, assimilate what others had written. courses had technically ended— meet for an extra hour every week— In my third summer in Vermont, I they’re still there—and for one of the either as a whole or as a section of the discovered BreadNet—or more pre- courses, the conference provided a larger course—to focus on writing. cisely, discovered, thanks to Caroline venue for a continuing lively discus- Many of my colleagues use this time Eisner and Rocky Gooch of the Bread sion on myth, the Classics, and other for exercises in free writing, collabo- Loaf technical staff, what BreadNet topics, which lasted until the follow- rative writing, and journals—in effect, and its computer conferencing capa- ing summer (where else could I so warm-up exercises to prepare for bility could do for my classes. I set