Thursday's Thoughts

One of the topics my College Comp class suggested we argue was cell phones in school. Now, this is an issue I loathe. I admit it; I’m old school when it comes to this. I’d have a much harsher school wide policy here if it were up to me. As it stands it is pretty much left up to the individual teachers as to how they want to handle it, which means many don’t handle it at all. Or, at the very least, the policies vary considerably.

I know several teachers who text quite a bit. I know, from an article a student published in the paper last year, that some dance when the go off. I know some give a quiz to the entire class as punishment. I know others who grab phones at first glimpse. As I walked past a room yesterday I saw a large box with a sign that read “Put Cell Phones Here.” Another has students shut them off and put them on their desks.

But since the students wanted to discuss this, I was all for it.

Of course, the majority of them were all for using cell phones in class. Their reasons ran from the trite/overused (they are handy in case of a dangerous situation, like a school shooting or fire . . . parents might need to contact students in an emergency) to some pretty interesting arguments (many phones have relevant applications that students could use to enhance their learning, such as google earth . . . students are going to use their cell phones regardless, so banning it really isn’t doing any good . . it’s more of a distraction for students NOT to be able to use them than if they simply had them sitting on their desks . . . teachers could utilize them, as some of our coaches do, to send out mass texts regarding assignments and topics).

A few of us, held our ground and still argued against cell phones (they are distractions, regardless of their intent . . . they will only reduce students’ already minuscule attention spans . . . how did students ever survive a decade ago without cell phones? . . . cell phones, and texting, really are just devoted to useless or trivial information and they don’t add anything to the class).

As a result of this discussion, I learned several interesting things. First, most kids don’t even talk on their cell phones anymore; they just text. Most just text random information (I think it’s simply the 21st century equivalent of passing notes and gossiping). Only one student did NOT have a cell phone. Many even know elementary students who have cell phones now.

I sure wish KoKo’s father would never have bought her a phone. It has infiltrated her life thoroughly now. If we didn’t make her put it away, she’d constantly monitor it during supper. When she does homework, it is constantly going off. Whenever we are in the car, it is going off. When her friends are over, they use it and it is constantly going off. Oh, how I wish she didn’t have one!

But, as I think we concluded from our discussion, cell phones and texting are a part of life and will never go away, just like radio, TV, and computers never went away.

So I begrudgingly sided with the majority of the class that called for allowing cell phones in class. Why not try to incorporate the blasted things into our lessons? My attendance is so hit and miss that I could more efficiently keep track of kids and their assignments if I had their cell phone numbers (as well as those of their parents). That way I could just send a student (and their parent) a quick message filling them in on the assignment and what they missed and when I can expect them back. Maybe this would clue their parents into how much time they might actually be missing. I know waiting around for students to come in on their own time to get their make up work is a joke. Something else has to be better.

This leads me to an interesting article from The English Journal entitled, “The Facebook Generation: Homework as Social Networking” by Stacy M. Kitsis. This issue of the EJ is dedicated to the issue of homework. Does it work? Has it ever worked? Do students care enough to do it? How do you make students care about homework? What does research say about the effectiveness of and the need for homework?

Kitsis’ article chronicles her effort to make homework meaningful, which as Alfie Kohn stated in a previous blog entry, is the key to student achievement.

Does the following quote sound familiar to anyone in education (or with a child)?

“Overburdened with athletics, play rehearsals, band practice, volunteer work, after-school jobs, friendships, and – if their parents are lucky – quality time with their families, it’s hardly surprising that even the most dedicated students resent homework as an incursion on their time.”

With the winter sports kicking into gear, rehearsals for the Christmas choir and band concerts at a fever pitch, and all the other factors in a student’s life, how can homework hope to stand a chance?

Of course, I’m not against homework. I assign my share of it from time to time. But since we are in a block schedule, we have more than enough time to get the work done in class.

As Kohn argues, students need to see the relevance behind the assignment rather than seeing it as busy work. If this isn’t so, there is a serious lack of engagement in the homework assignments and then what is the use? We have seen enough damage done to our education system and our students when students are engaged.

Kitsis agrees, after sampling the results of various homework assignments, she found that copying and a serious lack of personal involvement took place.

I have it pretty much made when it comes to my discipline though. My Composition classes are all about the students. As I said in a previous entry, their thoughts, opinions, ideas, and lives are the basis of the class; the students themselves are the textbook.

So personal involvement and engagement shouldn’t be difficult.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have apathetic students. Of course, I do. But I think I’m blessed that I don’t have to constantly try to connect abstract concepts to students’ lives as math and science have to.

For instance, now that we have Part One of To Kill a Mockingbird done, we are watching the film The Sandlot and discussing how it relates to part one in terms of Scout’s innocence and naivete. Once the film is completed and we’ve compared the two (through discussion and prompts), I will have students write personal essays connecting their lives to the themes and incidents in both the first part of the novel and the film.

In the first part of TKM, the kids get themselves into a pickle with one Mrs. Lafayette Dubose. In fact, this is probably the most pivotal moment in the first part of the novel. Likewise, in The Sandlot, the main character, Smalls, gets himself into one big pickle when he decides to steal a baseball from his step-father’s collection. He believes the ball belongs to ‘some girl’ by the name of “Babe.” Of course, tragedy strikes and the ball is knocked into a neighbor’s yard (of course, the boys’ all believe the neighbor and his dog are cruel and evil – just like Boo and Mrs. Dubose in the novel) where “The Beast” gobbles it up.

Now, after discussing the similarities of the situations, students will be charged with some homework: they will devise a list of incidents where they got themselves into a serious pickle.

The next day, we’ll discuss these ideas and see what we can generate. Hopefully, students will isolate one incident to expand into an essay. Before that, though, we’ll be connecting to knowledge they’ve gained earlier in the year when we discussed what makes excellent writing. Hopefully, we’ll get to discuss voice, style, description, dialogue, key details, and all that good stuff again. We can even refer back to the novel and film to see what the author and director did to employ those elements.

Then students will have another homework assignment: Devise a rough draft of their incident. If I’m lucky, a few will be willing to share the following day and we can listen to our essays and offer feedback. Then, in class, students will work on a second draft. Once that is done, students will have yet another homework assignment: revise that second draft on their own so that the following class period they will be able to turn it into a final draft and submit it to me for a grade. If they are brave (and a few always are), they will have the opportunity to share their essays with the class.

But I don’t think we should stop there. After that, I want them to do some reflective free writing. As an exit assignment, I’ll have students do a quick write in which they make the final connection from their personal narratives to the incidents in the novel and movie.

I hope that will allow them some personal engagement as well as some exposure to critical thinking and writing skills.

In her article, Kitsis cites Mikhail Bakhtin who argues (quite correctly, I believe) “’Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of dialogic interaction.’” I hope to have given my students that opportunity. They will have discussed the film and movie in a large group. They will be given opportunities to express their ideas and personal connections in writing. By writing they will tangle with the notion of audience (whether it’s me, their peers, or just themselves) and revision. They will have time to work on it on their own and in class. They will get feedback from their classmates as well as their teacher.

Ultimately, as a result of this one little lesson, students will see that “Learning grows from dialogue; it can’t happen in a vacuum” (Kitsis 30).

However, you can only do so much of the ‘read something/ watch something and write a personal response to it’ thing. Students get tired of this too, no matter how personally relevant and engaging it is. Just like you can’t always read a chapter and take a quiz on it or read a chapter and complete a guide/crossword/free write or read a chapter and discuss it. The key is to keep changing the assignments to keep the kids engaged as often as possible.

Here is where I came up with a bit of a risky idea. Since learning doesn’t always occur in a vacuum or a lecture hall, there needs to be that dialogue and open exchange.

Trust me when I say this, anyone who has ever tried knows how difficult generating a true dialogue or discussion in class can be. Kids aren’t always open to letting their guards down. Some have incredible things to say but never share them (except in their writing). Others dominate the conversation and blot out the others. I want to find a way to free students up to openly exchanging ideas. But how?

Next, I want to get them used to not having to get feedback from yours truly. I don’t want to be the final word in their exchange of ideas. As the Red River Valley Writers Project’s mantra goes, “we learn best from each other,” so I want them to hear genuine feedback from their peers and others. But how?

A passage from Kitsis’ article gave me an idea. She writes, “By shifting the onus of feedback from ourselves to others, particularly other learners, English teachers can create classrooms in which students care more about their work, and teachers can reclaim some time for other uses.” I’m not particularly interested in that latter idea; rather, I’m interested in getting students feedback from an audience other than me.

So here is my idea. I want to start a blog devoted to our reading of To Kill a Mockingbird. Initially, I’ll give students a variety of topics to write on to get some blog entries. Included below is an assignment I gave the class last week. This would be perfect for generating blog entries for students to generate feedback.

The assignment –

Lit & Language 11
Mr. Reynolds
TKM Creative
Assignment #1

Directions: Choose one of the assignments below to complete for part one of TKM.

1. Write a journal entry from Miss Caroline chronicling her first day teaching. What are her thoughts of Scout, Cecil, Burris, and the others?

2. Write about the first day of school from Burris Ewell’s point of view.

3. Write a short story in which we get to see what Calpurnia’s life is like at home in the African American section of town.

4. Write a journal entry from Boo’s point of view.

5. Write a short story in which you chronicle one of the legends about Boo (or create one of your own).

6. Using Comiclife, create a comic strip for one chapter or scene in the novel.

7. Using Comiclife, create a new cover for the book.

8. Write a short story in which you chronicle how Boo (well. Mostly likely Boo) goes about leaving the gifts for the children.

9. Write a letter from Jem and Scout thanking whoever (again, most likely Boo) is leaving the gifts for them in the tree.

10. Write a journal entry from Atticus’s point of view.

12. Write about Jem’s debacle against Mrs. Dubose’s flowers from his point of view.

13. Write a journal account chronicling Mrs. Dubose’s time with Jem.

Since I will be the blog manager, I’ll set the blog up and get it running.

Next, I’ll either assign or have students choose their user names. They can set up their own profiles on one of the blog networks (like blogspot or wordpress). I might encourage other teachers and colleagues (students could encourage their parents to chime in too) to check out the blog and leave feedback.

Once this is done, we will be able to get things rolling. The next step would be to agree upon a date for all of us to tune in to the blog, say Sunday evening from 6-7.

Students can then email me the text versions of their assignments. Or if they choose the comiclife assignments, they can send me their comic strips as jpgs. I then will choose a few to post as blog entries. Maybe the first entry would be a letter from the kids to Boo. Students then could offer their thoughts, suggestions, and encouragement. Of course, the author would have a chance to respond. And the dialogue is off and running. I’ll be logged in too to help keep the dialogue flowing. The second entry might be pictures of a comiclife strip for a key scene (say where Ole One Shot Finch makes an appearance and saves the day). Students could then offer their feedback on this.



Since I will be the blog manager, all the feedback will be directly emailed to me. This way I can monitor the feedback, just in case (and I don’t anticipate this would happen, but you never know) that some inappropriate feedback is left or if some feedback turns personal or vindictive (remember, this will not be a personal site but a class blog). I will have the chance to reject any such feedback.

I think this would be an interesting little project. For I know I have students who are reticent to discuss in class, but what would happen when you gave them a blogger identity and allowed them to show off their writing skills? Would I see different sides of students I never knew? Better yet, would students see different sides of students that only I knew from their writing? I can only hope.

But this sure beats handing the assignment in to me, earning a grade, and then having me hand it back to them, or maybe having me talk about it in class, hang it up in my room, or ask the student to share their assignment with the class.

The only snag is that blogs are blocked by our districts content filter. Thus, this would all have to happen outside of school. It would be much simpler if we could just head to the computer lab, access blogspot and students could set up their user names and profiles right there in front of me. Maybe I could get administration to see if we could have a window of an hour or so where blogspot would not be blocked and we could get things set up.

Another potential snag might be what about students who don’t have computer access. While I think this group would be small (how many families do not have a computer in this day and age? I mean, come on, we have three and were not exactly hi-tech. Of course, students could get online at a library or friend’s house). But in the end it comes down to the fact that some will just not participate. But I submit this: how is that different from any other homework assignment? The payoff is that students get instant feedback from me, other teachers and parents (possibly), and their peers. Recall, what Katsis wrote, “Learning grows from dialogue; it can’t happen in a vacuum.” That’s what I want to see.