Untracking Advanced Placement English: Creating Opportunity Is Not Enough. Occasional Paper No. 30

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 353 602 CS 213 680 AUTHOR Cone, Joan Kernan TITLE Untracking Advanced Placement English: Creating Opportunity Is Not Enough. Occasional Paper No. 30. INSTITUTION National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy, Berkeley, CA. SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC. PUB DATE Apr 92 CONTRACT R117G10036 NOTE 15p. PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MFO1 /PCO1 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Advanced Placement Programs; Cooperative Learning; *Discussion (Teaching Technique); *English Instruction; High Schools; High School Students; Instructional Effectiveness; Student Participation; *Teacher Behavior; Track System (Education) IDENTIFIERS University of California ABSTRACT The comments of a student new to Advanced Placement courses convinced a teacher of Advanced Placement English that opening up her class to all students was not enough--the teacher had tc learn how to teach an untracked English class. Three basic strategies for teaching the class took shape: the teacher spent a great deal of time modeling tasks; once a task had been assigned and understood by the students, the teacher stepped back and let the students take charge; and, most important, the teacher used classroom talk as a vehicle for making all students feel good about themselves as learners. Some of the changes in the teacher and her teaching philosophy were quickly accomplished, but others required major shifts. Some of the minor changes included setting strict deadlines, teaching mechanics and grammar, and restructuring the use of textbooks. A major change involved collaborating with the students and sharing responsibility with them. The teacher discovered that students with combined SAT scores of 690 can learn with students with scores of 1350. Eighty percent of the students passed the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Test, and 25 of 28 students passed the University of California Subject A test.(RS) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** cez ciCenter for Occasional Paper No. 30 Untracking Advanced PlacementEnglish: the Creating Opportunity is NotEnough Study Joan Kernan Cone April, 1992 of Writing U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) II' Th.5 document has been reproduced as received from the person or orgaruzatton or.gmattng .1 r Minor changes have been made to .mproye reproduction Dually Points of r.ew or op.ruons stated in trusdocu- went do not necessarily represent official OE PI pos.hon or policy University of California, Berkeley Carnegie Mellon University 2 BEST GUY AVAILABLE NATIONAL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WRITING AND LITERACY Occasional Paper No. 30 Untracking Advanced Placement English: Creating Opportunity is Not Enough Joan Kernan Cone April, 1992 University of California Carnegie Mellon University Berkeley, CA 94720 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 The publication of this report was supported under the Educational Research and Development Center Program (grant number R117G10036 for the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy) as administered by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.The findings and opinions expressed in this report do not reflect the position or policies of the the Office of Educational Research and Improvement or the U.S. Department of Education. This publication was produced on an Apple Macintosh Ilsi computer with portrait display monitor and an Apple LaserWriter Ilntx printer donated to the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy by Apple Computer, Inc. EDITOR Andrew Bouman, University of California at Berkeley PUBLICATION REVIEW BOARD Susan Weinberg, University of California atBerkeley, Chair Jill Hatch, Carnegie Mellon University, AssistantChair James E. Lobdell, University of California atBerkeley, Assistant Chair Maureen Mathison, Carnegie Mellon University,Assistant Chair Charles Fillmore, University of California atBerkeley, Advisor Jill H. Larkin, Carnegie Mellon University, Advisor Millie Almy, University of California at Berkeley Carla Asher, Herbert H. Lehman College of the CityUniversity of New York Nancie Atwell, Boothbay Region Elementary School,Boothbay Harbor, Maine Carol Berkenkotter, Michigan Technological University Lois Bird, Palo Alto, California Sheridan Blau, University of California, SantaBarbara James Britton, University of London Michael Cole, University of California, San Diego Colette Daiute, Harvard University Richard P. Duran, University of California, SantaBarbara JoAnne T. Eresh, Writing and Speaking Center,Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Andrea Fishman, West Chester University Celia Genishi, Ohio State University Donald Graves, University of New Hampshire Robert Gundlach, Northwestern University Anne J. Herrington, University of Massachusetts George Hillocks, University of Chicago Michael Holzman, Irvington, New York Sarah Hudelson, Arizona State University Julie Jensen, University of Texas, Austin Janice Lauer, Purdue University Andrea Lunsford, Ohio State University Susan Lytle, University of Pennsylvania Martin Nystrand, University of Wisconsin Lee Odell, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Sondra Perl, Herbert H. Lehman College of the CityUniversity of New York Gordon Pradl, New York University Gladys M. Pritchett, Kent State University Victoria Purcell-Gates, University of Cincinnati Charles Read, University of Wisconsin William Smith, University of Pittsburgh Jana Staton, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington,D.C. Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University Betty Jane Wagner, National College of Education Samuel D. Watson, University of North Carolina Gordon Wells, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Untracking Advanced Placement English: Creating Opportunity is Not Enough Joan Kernan Cone El Cerrito High School El Cerrito, California "I'm in the wrong place," Paula told me. "This is the wrong class for me. I can't talk like these kids." IN THE BEGINNING I started the year in Advanced Placement English with a discussion of All The King's Men, a book my students had read and written papers on over the summer. My perception of that first discussion as a success was not the perception of at least one of my students, Paula. At the end of the period she came up to me. "I'm in the wrong place," she told me. "This is the wrong class for me. I can't talk like these kids. Especially NeilI don't even understand what he says." "You'll be okay," I told her, "you'll be okay. I promise. Stick with us." She left the room close to tears. The next day as the majority of the students argued and debated excitedly about the book, Paula sat silent, agitated and angry. As she left the room I called her back. "Are you okay? Was it better today?" "I can't talk like them. I can't. I understood this book but I can't say anything. If we get graded on discussions, I'll flunk. Tony told me to take this class but I shouldn't have. I've got to transfer out." The rest of the day I could not get the anguish in Paula's voice out of my head. Here was a girl who had enrolled in the class because her boyfriend, a brilliant student from the year before, had recommended it, and now everything was falling apart for her. She was the only Latina in the class, she knew few of her classmates, she was overwhelmed by the verbal competitiveness of some students, and she was terrified by the articulateness (and occasional arrogance)of the forensics stars, especially Neil, a nationally-ranked debater. A few days later Paula spoke out. I had finished assigningthe first long paper of the quartera reflective essay on a momentof enlightenmentand was modeling what I wanted mystudents to do by tellirg them about an epiphany I had had in my graduate studies at UC Berkeley a few yearsbefore. And as I often do, I got sidetracked in a digression about theinequalities of education, inequalities that often give the worst teachers tothe poorest students. Somewhat off-handedly I said, "But you don't knowabout those teachers because you haven't had them. You've been in goodclasses with teachers who have challenged you." "I haven't," announced Paula, who stood up to make herpoint. "I've been in awful classes. When I first came here they put me indumb classes and my mom had to get me out of them. Ihave had to fight for every good class I've had. This is the first honors English class I've ever been in."When she finished she looked surprised that she had actually spoken. She satdown quickly, but she was not embarrassed. She was clearly pleasedwith herself. She had stood up and made herself known. That night as I thought about what Paula had said I began tothink about the responsibility I had for her. Her words made me realizethat the previous spring when I had opened up AP English to a broad bandof studentsat least one-third of whom had never been in an advanced English classbefore and whose SAT scores ranged from the 1300's to the 700'sIhad assumed the responsibility of making success possible for those students. CREATING OPPORTUNITY WAS NOT ENOUGH My reading of the work of researchers such as Brophy(1983, 1986), Good and Weinstein (1986), Heath (1983), Hiebert (1983), Marshalland Weinstein (1984), Oakes (1987), Rosenholtz and Simpson (1984), andSizer (1984) had inspired me to untrack AP English. That research, however,had

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