Understanding difficult text in a Web 2.0 way

Clay Burell's blog Beyond School is a great resource for ideas, insight, and web talk. While perusing his blog today, I came across his Legacy Project. I like this project because it takes students beyond the traditional English assignment of translating difficult text. It allows for team collaboration, online publishing, and sharing of material with others for future benefit. Below are the details.

In one of the great ironies of my life, I'm probably the only HS teacher at KIS not to have a 1:1 classroom, since I teach only AP Lit for seniors - the only grade level not required to buy MacBooks for school this year. But yesterday, I jumped in anyway with a project that incorporates the constructivist and 21st century literacy / web 2.0 ideas of having students create a "legacy product" for their assessment, instead of turning in stale homework to teacher.

Here's the scoop: We're reading Shakespeare's greatest and most difficult tragedy, King Lear. The syntax and diction of the play are over the students' heads, with a couple exceptions, but they have to become proficient at reading 16th century English for the AP Exam. So that's the learning objective: give them practice at accurate comprehension of 16th c. English.

So here's the "Constructivism 2.0" project to work toward that goal:

1. I created a wiki on Wikispaces (free for teachers), entitled "King Lear Street Talk." We'll use this wiki to create a student-written modernized prose translation of Shakespeare's play. (Setting up the wiki took only ten minutes, max. An eight-year-old can do it.)

2. In teams of two, students have to write a translation of one page of the play into today's English. Accuracy counts, and so does the quality of the script they're re-writing. If any team has a disagreement about how to translate any section of their page, they have to cover their butts by explaining, in the wiki page "Discussions" page, what they disagree about. Pedagogically, we all know that to translate archaic language into modern language, we have to comprehend that archaic language. So this is practice and close reading and comprehension on a line-by-line, focused level.

3. We'll keep translating the play until we have the full 5-act play translated. We'll publish that as a free e-Book using Lulu.com, which anybody can download to read.

4. We're also going to record "radio performances" of our modern translation of the play on GarageBand podcasts, and upload them to Librivox.org, a literature podcast site that is a library of readings of copyright-free, public domain world literature. Senior citizens, blind people, and people who just like audio-books use this site to listen to 1,000's of different titles. This can also be used by future classes as an intro to the tragedy - ESL students, younger students, and others can benefit by listening to these podcasts before reading the original version. So the students are becoming teachers of future students with this product.

So this will give students practice in all the AP Lit and Language Arts skills on our Standards and Benchmarks - reading, writing, speaking, listening, critical thinking (which comes when they debate opposing interpretations with their teammate, as well as when they decide how to act out different lines when they record their radio play podcast).

But instead of doing that in the old, stale way - handing in their translations to teacher, and performing a giggly mess in front of the class - they're making a real product that they can share with the world, and - for the excellent performers - mention on their college applications as an example of their best work as part of their "digital portfolio."

The Landmark School

Today, I came across The Landmark School. I find their mission extraordinary. They seem to epitomize what it means to be a school-centered school. How can we do what Landmark is able to do with an Academy enrollment of 1200. Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Factoid Friday

Happy Friday everyone. Here are my two interesting research articles:
Reading Process Is Surprisingly Different Than Previous Thought
Back To School: Cramming Doesn't Work In The Long Term

Move seats, bodies, and minds

Both my husband and I keep educational blogs. He takes "edublogging" more seriously. In fact, at our school he is known as the blog guru. Because of his blogging reputation, I do visit watsoncommon from time to time to revel in his postings. I was really intrigued by one of his more recent posts about classroom design. Before coming to Punahou, we both taught in a public middle school for four years, helping us to understand the implications of making small changes in the structure of a class. He speaks to these design and instructional changes in the following excerpt:

...what I learned as a first-year teacher is that students at this level (in my case, first semester freshman) need to transition often to remain engaged, even if it's just breaking the same activity into several parts). First, we continued a small group activity from the previous class, which involved creating an Inspiration web of direct quotes from the story "Powder" and the inferences, observations, assumptions, questions, and connections that accompany them. These were posted as forum topics on our class Ning. Next, the students transitioned to solo work. We don't have private offices so we simply turned the desks to face out (we normally sit in a circle of desks). I also allowed them to plug in headphones and listen to music. The assignment was to read each group web, and build on the ideas in the forum, including a new direct quote that relates. What I saw was: every single screen at once and total engagement. Lastly, we moved from the formal, directed, solo work to the floor space in the middle for a more casual slide show I had put together about a man I met in Costa Rica who showed me the power of story. End of class.
As a follow-up, I posted a forum question about how the students liked the arrangement and asking them what other ideas they have for classroom design.

For the past couple of days I have been observing different classes. From my observations two simple strategies seem to be extremely effective:
1. Break up the class into small, diverse activities that require the kids to demonstrate their learning.
2. MOVE the desks, MOVE the bodies, MOVE the brain. Kids need transitions, change, and movement.

Lunch Table Conversation

A couple of years ago, a friend told me never to go the lunch room, describing it as a place full of perpetual complainers. I guess I am just too social to not visit the Hala Tree Cafe once a day. My time in the lunch room has made me realize that the majority of people are not complaining, rather they are looking to have conversations about the nuances of teaching, learning, and life. Please understand that I am not naive to the fact that there are a minority of people who do not fit into the previous statement. But, instead of creating two groups of people, I assume that ALL teachers want to have a conversation about helping students and the lunch room may be the perfect venue for that conversation.
Over the past couple of days, I have had some really insightful conversations over the lunch table. The other day, a colleague of mine talked about helping a student who really struggles academically. She talked about how, in a small group setting, this student showed extreme interest and excitement for the material. The conversation then moved to talking about having a particular class for struggling English students. I questioned how can we replicate this positive experience for more than just one student in one particular class? How we can manipulate our instruction to help meet the needs of all students in all classes? I believe we can learn from the success of each other, replicating solid instructional strategies for all students.
Yesterday the lunch room conversation centered around our own experiences as a student. I shared a story about making my Chemistry teacher, Sister Justine, cry (not one of my prouder moments). I also shared a story about a Geometry teacher who told my mother there was something wrong with me because I could not learn the material. This last story really has impacted my desire to work with struggling students. I believe that students do hold a certain degree of ownership in their own learning, but teachers should provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in a safe, comfortable way. Mrs. G, my Geometry teacher, assumed I was dumb because I didn't get the material. I know I have been frustrated with students because they just didn't get something. I think the key question to address is did I provide my students with an opportunity to demonstrate their learning at their level, not mine?
I really do love lunch, and I love that my colleagues challenge, question, and share pieces of themselves in a constructive and sometimes humorous manner. Don't get me wrong, our conversations are not all "teacher talk." Just sit down with our funky French teacher and you will go places you have never been before. I love professional lunch development.