Gallagher's Article of the Week inspired me to start thinking about getting my students to read MORE and more DIVERSE texts. It seems so obvious, but OF COURSE it's important for our students to read news articles!
In Readicide, Gallagher talks about linking novels we're obligated to read in the classroom with subjects that are applicable to our students' lives. He uses the example of To Kill a Mockingbird and racism. He brings in examples of racism that occurring in our world today and has his students pick these examples apart.
This little anecdote got the wheels turning.
I'd read/heard that students mostly respond to English units surrounding universal themes. These are the kinds of units that they get the most out of.
And then, today in the shower, it hit me!
Picture this:
(and I'm sure I'm not going to do it justice, because it's all still quite a jumble in my mind...)
A 6-week unit, surrounding a single piece of literature, that you're obligated to read with your students.
Currently, in my mind, I'm working with Romeo and Juliet, because there's a very good chance that if/when I get a teaching contract with a school, it will probably be teaching freshmen, since I'll be a first-year teacher and all. This I have no problem with.
Romeo and Juliet, however, I do have a problem with. I've always found this play unsatisfactory. Compared to some of Shakespeare's other works (*cough! Othello!), this one just isn't up to par. But, we've all had to teach things we're not completely thrilled about, right? (I'm thinking about Animal Farm here...)
So, in thinking about my iffy relationship with Romeo and Juliet, I began thinking about ways in which this play might come alive for ME. Because, really, I'm not that much older than the students I'll be teaching. (Although I have to admit that somedays they make me feel MUCH MUCH older than I actually am.)
I'm a big fan of pairing texts. While teaching Animal Farm this past semester, I read several other novels along the same lines--novels about those in power, and the powerless. It was a subject that fascinatd me, and I so I tried to find out as much about it as I could.
I'd set this little project aside in lieu of the next unit I was starting with my classes (this one over the Holocaust, and Elie Wiesel's Night). However, it hung around in the back of my mind.
Just recently, I picked up The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton.
I finished the novel this morning, amazed that I'd never read such an incredible book before today, and lo and behold, here came the idea.
I wanted nothing more than to pair this novel, The Outsiders, with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. But how could I do that?
BEAT. Through THEME! That's how.
But wait! There's more.
Why stop at pairing Romeo and Juliet with this one, tiny (although huge in spirit) novel? Why not pair it with other things as well.
And then the idea evolved into an entire basis for a curriculum.
Each six weeks, you have a novel you, as an English teacher, are often obligated to teach.
Let's continue on with Romeo and Juliet, since that's the text we've been running with so far.
Let's pick a theme applicable to our students' lives, a la Kelly Gallagher.
How about VIOLENCE.
This is something I could see interesting my students a lot, especially since violence is a part of their everyday lives. So I'm simply asking them to take something they're very familiar with, and pick it apart.
VIOLENCE is our theme. Now, we'll create a question surrounding that theme. This question will guide much of our reading and discussion over the course of the unit. We'll need to post it, and our theme somewhere where they're both highly visible in the classroom. We need a question where there's no right or wrong answer; one which students will be able to bring many different opinions and ideas to.
Consider the following: "Is violence the only solution?" Or, reworded into a Likert-esque statement, "Sometimes violence is the only solution."
This is our big idea. We see violence in Romeo and Juliet, no doubt about it. But this is only one text in which to examine the viability of violence as a solution. And, at the end of the play, the reader often feels that violence is no solution at all. Clearly, we need some other examples.
Hence The Outsiders.
Here is what I propose. You read Romeo and Juliet as planned. You don't cut out the bit about Elizabethan culture and Shakespeare--you sprinkle some of that into the unit as well. But you don't let it take over. Instead, you let the students take over.
Umbrella'd under your theme (VIOLENCE), and your question ("Is violence the only solution?"), you have other mini-themes/questions. For instance, "Why does senseless violence occur?" Or, "Why do many young people turn to violence?" Or anything else you can come up with. "Why is violence perpetuated from generation to generation?" "Why are young people desensitized to the violence they see on television, in movies, or experience in video games?" Etc.
You group students according to these questions. Let students decide what they're most interested in exploring. Then, as a group, it is their responsibility to create a presentation surrounding their question.
Students in each group will be given a list of texts they can choose from. However, all students must read one other piece of fiction (i.e. something like The Outsiders), a short story, a poem, a non-fiction piece, and a news article--all surrounding their topic. As other, extra-credit items, students might find a song, piece of art, comic, or any other type of text that also feeds into their chosen topic. Groups will choose the second novel together, and then help each other find other examples that will help them explore their question. They'll have discussion time in class to determine where their texts are leading them, and what they say about their assigned topic.
After their presentations, students will take a stab at the overarching question ("Is violence the only solution?") in a two-page paper, where they'll cite at least three of the texts they explored in their group project, as well as Romeo and Juliet (because we can't forget about R&J, now can we?)
Obviously, this is going to require quite a bit of work on the teacher's part. Which is why I'm starting now. It's up to us to lead our students to appropriate texts. That's what we're good at. It's up to us to teach our students how to have meaningful discussions about the things we read.
So, the first six weeks will probably be spent learning these important skills. Second and third six weeks will be spent giving our students these directive questions for them to explore. Fourth and fifth units will consist of an overarching theme, but one where students are free to create their own topic questions and explore them as they wish (as long as they continue to use many types of texts). And, if everything goes as planned, students will be able to choose a Theme of their own the last unit.
I'm so excited about this whole idea, I can barely contain it! I believe in holding all students to high expectations, and I know that the above stated curriculum idea is probably the highest of the high. But I feel they can do it. I can't wait to get my own classroom to start attempting this in. :)
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