MCCC English Department Lesson Graffiti

Today I wanted to share some thoughts on Beowulf .  I love teaching Beowulf even though the poem often tells more than shows, our text translations are not always the best, even when translated into modern English it can be a tough read, and, well, it is really, really, like seriously REALLY old. In fact, it is Old English old.  I think it is worth teaching; even though, I disagree with the reason many teachers, including one of my greatest teachers Mr. Clark, use when teaching the poem.  The common justification for teaching seniors across our great nation every year is that Beowulf is the first story we have written in English: "Hey kids today we are going to read something important because it WAS THE FIRST ENGLISH STORY EVER WRITTEN." That does not seem like a ringing endorsement to me. Further, I don't like having to "sell" my students on what we are studying. I like it when the story sells itself. The problem of course is that Beowulf does not exactly sel...

I "stole" this idea from Elliot Zetzer, who teaches CCP at an all-boys school and was searching for a way to motivate his students to contribute to his discussions in a Socratic Seminar. Elliot's take was MLB, which I will include here. Currently I have a hoop in the room, so I changed it to NBA. I've found this works well when encouraging discussion of a common classroom text, such as novel, poem, article, story, etc.  Elliot admitted his boys were motivated by their stats, which he would calculate daily. This sounded like a lot of math to me, so I adapted it to the NBA. I have a hoop in my room where we shot our disinfectant-soaked towels during COVID.  At its best, this is what it looks like in my room - split the class into two teams, usually right down the middle. Name a team captain for each team. Flip a coin or have a shoot-off for first possession. Inbound the ball to the captain. From there they can "shoot" (speak), or pass the ball to a teammate. T...

 As I mentioned in my first Musical Musings Post, I love working with music. I should probably start this  post off by acknowledging one of the perks of working with music: I like knowing what is "in." I can strengthen connections with my students by sharing songs. I usually find a couple of songs or even a couple of artists to jam out to as a result as well. It is a solid perk. I am in the process of developing a small music-based unit. It is currently a three-week unit that plays equally well with 4 and 5-day weeks. Each week has the same format: teaching modeling, student research, drafting, and edits, and then student presentations. It hits a wide swatch of our standards. I focus on Language Standards with their writing and Speaking and Listening Standards for their presentations. Each week will have a Standard focus unique to it. Week One focuses on tracing how ideas develop and change across artists and uses cover songs and hopefully the original. It focuses on ODE Spea...

I love working with music. While many social media trends escape my understanding, the Tic Tok style of videos use lots of different samples of music across eras and from many genres. This means that "modern" music is ill-defined and old music pops up in surprising ways. Ergo, when I use music in the classroom I am not necessarily just an "old," deeply out of touch. The students have no real consensus of what is currently "cool" and know a lot of my references. I also dig using music because the students typically help me find some new tracks I love, sometimes even new artists or entire genres.  Working with music is typically much easier for students. The pieces are small, poems really, and the music greatly helps the search for meaning in the lyrics.  Lately, my go-to, FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT OF THE YEAR (you know, the assignment we use to assess our students' writing abilities) is called "Song Where You Are." The students select a song th...

  Speaking and listening skills…where does one begin?  We teach this all the time, in every lesson, right? We tend to console ourselves by adopting this mindset to alleviate the need for yet another standard to measure.  Reading and writing abilities are undoubtedly the most important in an ELA classroom…aren’t they?  I would argue that socializing, holding productive conversations, having civil disagreements, and listening purposefully are equally crucial.  Now more than ever, students need direction in these areas.  If we continue to brush it off as skills used daily and in every lesson, we are doing a disservice to future generations.  This leads me to the “fishbowl discussion.”  Like Irving's Old Scratch, it goes by many names. It is known as a  Socratic Seminar, Inquiry-Based Teaching, or Debate.  I prefer the term ‘Fishbowl’ for this student-led discussion, which fosters diverse perspectives and purposeful listening.  Here is ...

I am imagining a space where we can get a clearer idea of how we teach as individuals, including but not limited to lessons, narratives on our approaches to classroom management, assessments, reflections on craft and theory, places to share our best ideas, vlogs, or a maybe just a book we enjoyed.  I imagine this could be a useful resource for teachers of all experience levels.  I imagine it could give a clearer idea to one another and a hypothetical new member of our department what admin means when they say, "You're all so different, yet your individuality is your strength." In my experience, blogs can be powerful repositories and memory vaults. A living "H" drive, so to speak. Unlike other, more modern forms of social media, bloggers have to have patience that the seeds they plant will be useful if only to the writer themself, who, months or even years from now, will have a living artifact from the past to admire, draw inspiration from, or chuckle at. A blog ...