And I'm Back

Ha! So much for blogs...

Since I am so negligent of my social networking outlets, I am christening this blog anew: my internet notebook with a focus on education.

I want to write quickly about a couple lessons that worked especially well so that I might revisit these some day and integrate principles that worked into future lessons.

In my AP world literature classes at Edina, the task was to compare multiple translations of the opening and closing lines of Oedipus Rex and Antigone. The activity took two days, and at the end of day one, it became clear I had not sold the students on the importance of what we were doing. In response, that night I laid out the sketch of a lecture I planned to give them. It went like this:

I have heard it supposed that, if every religion were a slide, and one laid them end on end, the light that shone through would be the true faith. I don't know what I think about that, and frankly, today is not the day for that discussion. However, I think it's a useful metaphor for our purposes. I want you to imagine that each of these translations is a slide, and that by laying them end to end, we are gaining a more essential concept of these ancient, often translated plays.

I have developed a good sense for how much of what I say makes sense to my students. Based on their immediate reactions and their change in attitude as they took on day two of comparing translations, I'd wager it was an effective way to explain the significance of their task.

Later on in the quarter with the same AP world literature classes, we had a productive and useful lesson in a jigsaw of nine critical essays about Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. With thirty students, groups worked out to around three per group. After reading their essay the previous night, students returned the next day to complete the following task in class:

In your groups, create a list of three things that confused you, two things that surprised you, and one essential statement of what about Metamorphosis your critic seeks to explain. Try to resolve any confusion in your groups, but know that I will be around to check on your progress and to help answer questions.

After they had been given around ten minutes to collaborate, I called their attention to the front of the room, and asked that a representative of each group write their essential statement on the board. After allowing them time to read over the statements, I then posed the following questions to the class:

Are these theses of sorts in agreement? Do they disagree? Or are they describing different aspects of Metamorphosis? Which do we agree with? Which do we feel are really far out?

After discussing these questions as a whole, I then directed all students to record the statements in their notebooks and reminded them of their essay on Metamorphosis, due in five days.

The activity worked well in several ways. The critical essays were difficult reads, so the chance to share frustrations and epiphanies with classmates was invaluable. Jigsawing the articles allowed students to see a variety of viewpoints. Finally, as they stare down the task of composing their essays, spending a day thinking, talking, and writing about professional essays on Kafka will hopefully serve as inspiration.

That's all. I feel a little bit like I am tooting my own horn as a teacher by writing about this, but I remind myself that I have delivered just two awesome lessons worthy of my remembering. Besides, if I am really worried about my humility, I start teaching problematic sophomore classes tomorrow. Tally ho!