DOCUMENT RESUME ED 059 187 TE 002 747 TITLE The Circle in the Spiral: Up the Down Spiral with English, Volume II. INSTITUTION Catholic Board of Education, Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio. PUB DATE 69 NOTE 235p. AVAILABLE FROM Board of Catholic Education, Diocese of Cleveland, 5103 Superior Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44103 ($3.00) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$9.87 DESCRIPTORS Advanced Students; Average Students; *Catholic Educators; Composition Skills (Literary) ; Cultural Differences; Curriculum Design; Curriculum Guides; Dialects; Drama; Educational Programs; *English Curriculum; *English Instruction; Improvement Programs; Literature; Poetry; *Projects; *Secondary Schools IDENTIFIERS *Project Insight ABSTRACT This document reports on a project on changing and improving the teaching of English, Project Insight. This project aims to improve the instruction of English on the secondary level through an organically unified English program. Initiatedby the Board of Catholic Education, the project included participants from both public and Catholic high schools of Greater Cleveland, Canton, and Youngstown. The project is divided into 15 sections:(1) Design for an English curriculum, (2) An Insight into theWriting Process,(3) A program for the culturally different,(4)Seventh Grade Program for Average Students,(5) An Eighth Grade Program Highlighting Dialect, (6)English Education, (7) An Eighth Grade Poetry Unit,(8) A Ninth Grade Syllabus for College Prep Students,(9) Drama,(10) Comparative English and American Literature,( 11) Syllabus for Above-Average Tenth Grade Students,(12) A Twelfth Grade Syllabus for Non-College-Bound Students, (13)Poetry, (14) Sequential Development of an Honors Program, and (15) A Reader's Theatre Adaptation of Goethe's "Faust."(Author/CK) fitvz """rnmemmeiniewoomo- ifka WO10 4 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATINGIf. OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT POSITION OR POLICY, "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." '14ey 4i Volume II UP THE DOWN SPIRAL WITH ENGLISH Project Insight Cleveland, Ohio 1969 2 1 Copyright 1969 Board of Catholic Education Diocese of Cleveland TABLE OF CONTENTS Why a Second Volume of Up the Down Spiral With English iii The Circle in the Spirai - Design for an English Curriculum Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag 1 An Insight into the Writing Process - Composition, 7-12 Sister Ruthmary Powers, H.M. Catherine McKeever 32 Games for Those Who? - A Program for Culturally Different,Underachieving, Low I. Q., Seventh GradeStudents 61 Robert Egleston Unity Unexplained (An Excerpt) - Seventh Grade Program for Average Students Sister Marie Nativitate, O.P. 68 Community of Language - An Eight Grade Program Highlighting Dialect Sister Mary Julie Anne, S N D 71 Engagement-Enthusiasm-English Education (An Excerpt on Teaching Holkien's TheHobbit) Mary Sales 92 An Eighth Grade Poetry Unit (An Excerpt) Helen Parker 96 Adventure and Instruction - A Ninth Grade Syllabus for College PrepStudents 98 John Simpson Drama: To Be Today Spotlight on Drama, Grade Ten Jack G. Ulman 116 Spotlighting Literature, Language, Composition - Syllabus for Above-Average Tenth Grade Students Sister Mary Borgias, S.N.D. 134 Comparative English and American Literature - A Unit from a Syllabus for Eleventh GradeStudents' Sister Mary Dion, S N D 163 4 Broadening Experience - A Twelfth Grade Syllabus for Non-College-Bound Students Sister Mary Francesco, S N D 184 Spotlight on Poetry - (An Excerpt from a Poetry Unit - Grade Twelve) Paul J. Winkel 202 Sequential Development of an Honors Program (An Excerpt on Specific Twelfth-Grade Units) Elizabeth G. Lewis 207 A Reader's Theatre Adaptation of Goethe's FAUST (Student Project) Jennifer Malik 211 ii 5 WHY a second volume of Up the Down Spiral With Elialish? IN RESPONSE TO neaction to PROJECTS developed by twen-ty-tioun. Eng li)shteacheitz, pan-ticipants in PROJECTINS/GHT-- "1 think more...projects like this one would be helpful for all teachers....what is needed are more knowledgeable, understanding, enthusiastic, and creative teachers to make up, use, and distribute plans such as this one." 1 ne.ac.tion o4PROJECT PARTICIPANTS tothat yeae4 expmience-- "1 look at the task (of teaching English) in a totally different perspective; thejob no longer seems 'goalless' or 'number-of-pages- to-be-covered' oriented. The whole process of teaching has become more student-centered, with an emphasis on student-growth rather than on teacher-preparedness. I don't mean that you don't prepare any more.You do! But in a different frame of mind."2 1.REPORT TO THE' MARTHA HOLDEN JENNINGS FOUNDATION ONPROJECT INSIGHT: Prospec- tive Teachers' Evaluation of Individual Projects, p.38, April, 1969. 2. Ibid; Participants' Evaluation of Project Insight, p. 32. iii I TO SHARE WITH OTHER ENGLISH TEACHERS some ideas to test from nine projects printed in their entirety excerpts from a number of additional projects representative programs for each grade level, 7-12 including something for the more experienced teacher: THE CIRCLE IN THE SPIRAL which recaps in creative design much of the spirit of UP THE DOWN SPIRAL WITH ENGLISH something for the beginning teacher and the teacher seeking some specifics: seveitat mane itighty-stituataecipug/tams . TO ENCOURAGE PARTICIPANTS AS WELL AS OTHER ENGLISH TEACHERS to continue their efforts in the ACTUAL CLASSROOM to fuse all three legs of the English tripod into an organically-unified English experience while recognizing the limitations of the linear arrangement of the printed page to describe the live experience of STUDENT-INVOLVEMENT in the classroom to present the UNIFIED ENGLISH EXPERIENCE in a logically coherent fashion without dividing reports into separate categories: language, composition, and literature iv '7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The number of administrative personnel, teachers, and prospective teachers involved in one way or another in PROJECT INSIGHT is too large to enumerate by name. To all who contributed to the success of the project, both the director and the participants are sincerely grateful. SPECIAL THANKS ate due to the Martha Holden Jennings Fouadation for its financial assistance. Monsignor William N. Novicky, Superintendent of Schools, Diocese of Cleveland, for his encouragement and moral support. the administrators of the respective school districts for their in- te-:est in the progress of the participants and their generous co-operation in evaluating the program. the participants for their own work in developing projects as well as their assistance in evaluating and selecting those to appear in Volume II of UP THE DOWN SPIRAL WITH ENGLISH. Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag, H.M. whose project, THE CIRCLE IN THE SPIRAL, furnished a most appropriate title for Volume II. Sisters Mary Borgias and Dion, S.N.D., for special assistance in ed- iting and preparing the projects for publication. Sister Ellen Slattery, C.S.A., for evaluating projects and for proof- reading final copy. Mrs. Dorothy Gambrill and Miss Annette Thur for countless hours of typing. Project Insight Director Sister Mary Owen, S.N.D. English Consultant Board of Catholic Education PROJECT INSIGHT, 6unded by the MaAtha Hotden Jennings Found- ation in 1968, aims to impAove Engtish inztAuctionon the 4econdaky &ve2 thAough an oAgani.catty uniged EngtishpAo- gAam. Initiated by the Boatd o6 Cathotic Education, the pAoject included patticipant6 Vtom both pubtic and Cathotic high schoots o6 GAeatet Ctevetand, Canton, and Youngstown. 2 Design for an English Curriculum THE CIRCLE IN THE SPIRAL Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag, H.M. Lourdes Academy oleveland; Ohio II _A 1 9 ..........*.... The Art of Teaching is in itself an act of Mimesis, an imitation and exaltation of Nature. If, then, the teacher is to imitate and reincarnate Life, it is necessary to distinguish between the constants and variables of the art, the subs tance, and the subject. In Nature, the form which best imitates That which ckanae4 and That which isinnuabte is the CiAcee... 2 10 tva ms-vsnew," . Learning, like growth and change, is not without sameness and repetition, just as Metamorphosis recapitulates an immutable law. Learning is centripetal, convergent... descending inward, scrutinizing a fact of the universe, of art, of experience in precise, analytical, illuminating clarity. Learning is also centrifugal, divergent... ascending upward, out of the particular to a broader vision of reality, to a sense of universality and commutuality among diverse things, to an empathy between the self and creation... ...in the Spihat. "The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest eMblem in the cipher of the world...We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace; that every action admits of being outdone.Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens. This fact, as far as it syMbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, the flying Perfect, around whiCh the hands of man can never meet, at once the inspirer and the con- demner of every success, may conveniently serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every department." Raeph (Mao Emmon Es 4 ayon"CiAdes" PRINCIPLES 4 A PHILOSOPHY that i6 too wide2y "In theDaign of instruction, the ease or difficulty, discernment or trouble with which a learner takes a step, is much more instructive to the De4ignek if he has kept himself as little committed as he can to thedetzLeof what he is trying out.