The Pedagogical link between Fangirl TV and literature

 I have come to realise that I am developing a habit for choosing which literature to teach in class based on my favourite TV shows at the time.

With term 1, my Year 12 class studied Lord of the Flies, partly because it is a great book and everyone should read it but mostly because I am obsessed with Lost the TV show and it was an excuse for me to rant on about the 'links' between the show and the book. My new approach with teaching novels is to act as though every student will actually do the assigned readings and will read the book for themselves. This allows for fun games, extensive ranting on my part and cool social studies type activities like deciding the best form of social organisation for surviving on a tropical island or prisoners' dilemma type games. My approach last year was far less fun for me but probably more realistic - giving enough comprehension questions and notes on character, theme, setting etc that even the students who had not bothered to read the book could write essays on it that would probably pass.

This raises an interesting moral dilemma. If as an English teacher you suspect students will not bother to read an assigned book, should you give them notes to allow them to 'fake it' in an essay or just let them sink? Currently I personally think that lessons should be designed to enrich the understanding of those students who have read the book and the others can either read it or go buy the Cliff notes. However, when the mock exams roll around and the huge chunk of my class who didn't read the book start failing, I will probably panic and give them the lifeline notes. It is just sad. It is like we are condoning extreme laziness and it sometimes feels like you are teaching kids how to fake understanding by regurgitating other people's thoughts rather than actually think for themselves.

Has anyone ever had an English teacher who successfully got an entire class to read an assigned novel? If so, how?

Oh my, what a rather lengthy digression. To return to my original point, I have decided to teach Of Mice and Men to my Year 11 class this coming term. This is due in a large part to the excellent TV show Carnivale that started last Friday. It made me think about just how cool the 1930s depression America is as a setting. As an extra bonus I get to say "purdy" a lot when reading out from the text. "Your hair is purdy and soft just like 'em rabbits." Shudder.

It will be interesting to see how it goes down in my rugby head class. My year 11 class is really difficult, only 4 girls, the rest are boys which wouldn't be so bad except that they are rugby-head boys who think English is "gay" and are really rude. There are only 3 geeky kids who are intelligent and think that being told to read something is not a punishment or a violation of their human rights. It will be interesting to see if they connect with anything in the text what with the guns and rampant misogynism.

It's almost over...

 Holidays are nearly here. Hip hip horray!

I have actually really enjoyed today. I have been excited about the holidays. I have been wandering around all day with a big grin on my face and happy butterflies o’ joy fluttering in my stomach. I looove holidays!

Today has worked out to be the most ideal time on my timetable for the mega-happy – no obnoxious year 10s or whinging year 11s. Just my lovely year 9s twice and my fun year 12s. Now all my teaching is over, I just have to stick around for 3.20 form time and clean up.

I almost wish I had another class as I have been enjoying the awesomeness of the connect four game. Connect four has become something of a ‘mad, buzzy craze with teachers’ as the students put it, at my school recently. Our Professional Development session on Wednesday morning was on improving Maori achievement through more engaging and cooperative learning strategies. One of the strategies suggested was the connect four game. It works like the board game only with questions or challenges. There are two teams in the class and the teacher draws the grid (6x5) on the whiteboard. In each grid will be a term or question and a student must give an appropriate definition or answer the question correctly to fill in that space for their team. Normal rules apply where you have to go to the bottom-most space of the grid for each column first and blocking strategy is important.

Apparently many teachers have been using it with all year levels and in different subjects. The students are getting very good at their connect four strategy.

I did it with NZ geography for my year 9’s in Social Studies, then we did another general knowledge English one.

My year 12s were very accomplished (they have had a lot of practice – one student claimed to have played it in 4 different classes since yesterday) so I tried several different variants. One was a scattergories/connect four hybrid with the column had categories (alliteration, simile, pre 20^th century author, Shakespeare play etc) and the rows had different letters. For each space you then had to come up with an answer for the category which began with the row letter.

We then did a performance connect four round. The categories were charades movie or book, impersonation of a famous person, hum a song, tongue twister, spelling bee and pictionary. (Many of these I stole from Cranium) It was hilarious and great fun. Every student did at least one, the shy students choosing spelling or pictionary and the louder ones did some excellent charades and impersonations.

Much fun was had.

Some of my year 12 students wanted me to write them notes so they could miss their class and stay in my room playing the game or come back at lunch. I had to say no as I had lunch duty and another class but it was nice to know they enjoyed it.

Surviving camp and extreme make-overs

 Well somehow I managed to survive the marathon 32 hours with my Year 9 form class. I was nearly crying at 2am in the morning on Thursday when I was still unable to get to sleep over the whispering, snoring and wriggling but nonetheless was able to drag myself out of bed at 6.15am.

The noho was an interesting experience but a stressful one. It was my first noho at the college wharenui*. Organising parents and students to make food and do the various activities was hard. Getting 25 hyper-active 12-13 years to actually go to sleep was considerably harder. It actually took my reading a bedtime story to them for about 30 minutes, followed by being yelled at by the principal, and then certain particularly loud students being sent outside to sleep on the concrete before they settled down to a quiet state (which still meant that many were whispering or sneaking a text on their cell phones under their sleeping bags).

The following morning I was a shaky mess but ran around frantically trying to get kids up, breakfasted and packed up and doing their assigned chores** before the bus arrived to take us to Otaki Forks at 8am. Not easy.

I relaxed a little on the bus once I was sure that all students were on the bus (although some boys hid under the seat in an attempt to panic me). I had an interesting discussion with the kids in my class about the grossest thing you have ever eaten. It turns out that many young boys have tried to eat some pretty gross stuff but that is another blog post in itself.

We arrived at Otaki Forks at about 8.45 for a crazy action-packed day of rock climbing, abseiling, kayaking and lots of running around amongst the beautiful scenery. Yay for scenic rivers, mountains (OK hills really) and bush!

My students were really encouraging to one another with various activities and even I got in the spirit and did my first rock climbing (I was slower and far less graceful than all my students but the instructor said it was a good climb so I felt proud. It turns out that I am actually REALLY scared of heights when I have to climb up them. Sitting in rides or looking out from high building is fine but climbing up is a little terrifying. Also in rock climbing, it really hurts when you are clumsy and bump into things. I have many bruises.)

I think I walked and hiked for a total of over 3 hours and I actually raced some of my kids (and lost, grumble, grumble, fast teenagers…)

Trying to get them back on the bus with all their gear and clothes (many were wet and had to change) by 2.45pm was tricky but by the end I only had one unclaimed pair of socks and a T-shirt, so that is pretty good.

I was a shattered wreck of a person by the time I finally arrived back at school to collect the colossal amount of marking I had to do over the weekend.

Friday night was a nice movies and take-out curry evening with Matty (whom I missed immensely after our epic 30+ hours apart) which helped me recover a great deal. Saturday we visited Belmont and then returned to Kapiti to have people over for delicious home-cooked food*** and Shaolin Soccer/Gloom fun.

On Sunday I interspersed marking with shopping and getting a haircut. Yay! My hair is short and layered and dyed. Woot! I like my hair and I have had a great deal of student approval so it probably doesn’t look too dorky. One Year 10 student worried me with his extreme surprise and recation to my new appearance.

“Wow, Miss. Did you get Extremed Makeovered?” he asked.

“No, I had a haircut,” I replied wondering if you could use 'makeover' as a verb.

“But you are wearing different clothes, and your hair is coloured as well. Definitely extreme makeovered!”

* Although I was not a ‘Noho Virgin’ as Paora claimed as Matt and I did a noho at TCOL.

<>** I was surprised at what a new experience doing chores such as vacuuming, making breakfast, setting tables, cleaning the bathroom and doing dishes was for some students. Each group of 4 students was only responsible for one thing but some had obviously never done certain housework before in their lives. One boy had no idea how to vacuum and actually claimed it was ‘fun’ when he did it.
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*** I have been on a trifle making bender – I think I have made over 12 individual trifles during the weekend (very restorative after roughing it at school). I made black forest trifles (cherries and chocolate custard!) and more standard type vanilla and raspberry trifles. I am still not sick of making or eating them, maybe I will reach my limit this week…

Briefer than a very short thing

 Feeling very stressed and tired. Shall write only in minor sentences to convey sense of underlining dread and panic.

10 minutes until last class. Form class noho tomorrow. Activity day starting 6.30am on Friday. Can't drag self out of bed at 6.30am, cannot imagine dragging 26 tweens up at that time.

Hope nobody injures or kills self/others on trip. Drowning esp. worrying. Four kids with asthma. Aaaaahhhh.

Parents offer help with peeling spuds, little else. Am only adult on activity day. Aaaaahhhh x2.

Staggering number of meetings this week. Little time. Depressing results of failure in my year 11s.

Need holidays. Much.