Reading Beside Them

The English department at Barrington High School loves us some Penny Kittle (pennykittle.net).  A component to Kittle's philosophy on independent reading includes choice.  In her most recent workshop documents, Kittle reflects:

Students need to make choices in reading that reflect their interests because interest drives engagement. Teachers should encourage wide reading in all genres as well as students who pursue an author or genre study. Allow students to reread favorite books and to abandon a book that no longer interests them (Kittle 2016).

Because of this philosophy--that totally makes sense--those of us who host 10 minutes of reading a day allow students to select books that they WANT to read, and we let them abandon a book if they just aren't feeling it.

Here are my students enjoying a book talk from our librarian Janet Anderson (@kelmegter)--and checking out books that titillated their interests!

60% of the Time It Works Every Time (but even better!)

We had our first out-of-class Blended Experience, and based on feedback, the students who opted to come to class had great success!  A big advantage of having the ability to choose to come to class or not is that the scenario allows students who need extra help to get more one-on-one attention.  Of the two Junior Honors classes, I had 26% in-class attendance.  And guess what? 100% of them said that their one-on-one time with Mrs. Schmitt was helpful!

Now, it remains to be seen how well the out-of-class students perform, but I have never been so excited to collect data in my life!

Check out how different this classroom environment was:

Pretty easy to get the teacher's attention and assistance when the classroom looks like this...

You're Killing Me, Smalls

You know it's going to be a good day when a student walks in wearing this:



And while we might not be watching Sandlot, a shirt like that definitely gets us in the mood for some Movie Magic.

Today, we finished The Shawshank Redemption, a film many students were shocked to discover earned ZERO Oscars.  Yep, when your movie comes out the same year as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, it's hard to win.  And, of course, The Lion King snagged that Best Score award, so poor little Shawshank went home empty-handed.  But I digress....

Students took notes for our first film by following this pattern:
                           
                               Observation                                                                   Making Meaning

For example:      
Shot of Bible with hammer in Exodus             Cheeky punch at Andy's  "exodus"




Basically, students are to make observations of film aspects/choices they notice--and then explain why they think that choice is important.

Here they are in teacher-selected groups discussing what they consider to be their TEN BEST observations:
                                              

Class Discussion & Ranking

Students worked in self-selected groups to discuss Transcendentalism & Today.  Our focus was to consider how the tenets of Transcendentalism might be present in our lives today--or not.  After discussing a variety of questions, students selected what they considered to be the best part of their conversations and shared those ideas with me.  Far and away--many of them reflected on how they couldn't believe that they felt they couldn't live without their phones.  Shelter? Check.  Family? Check. IPhone 6+? Need that thing. NOW.  Hopefully, their discussions led them to have the sort of meaningful pauses Transcendentalists love.

Here they are in action:

Ask your student about Transcendentalism: do you think you could live up to the Transcendentalists' expectations?

Blended Learning: Self-Pacing & Student Choice

It's Friday before a 3-day weekend.  When it's the beginning of school, and really, anytime I suppose, this sort of weekend can feel like a well-earned respite.

But, first, learning:

JUNIOR HONORS

The juniors spent time today working with another Blended Strategy--working at their own pace.  Students were first permitted to select how they wanted to engage with the text at hand, choosing one of the following options:

1.  Have Mrs. Schmitt read the text to them
2.  Read out loud with a pal
3.  Read silently on own

This wasn't any "we-vote-and-majority-rules" situation.  Each student got to engage with the text on his/her own terms.  It was interesting to see how the different classes made their selections.  Usually, when giving students this sort of choice, I'd make them put their heads down heads-up-seven-up style so that they were not selecting based on what their friends selected.  I did not do this today.  I let them freely choose--heads up.

The result?
Period 1:
Most choose work with a pal.  ( I let these stay in the classroom)
A few choose read on their own. (These came out in the hallway, down a few paces)
Three students had me read to them.  (These sat with me in the hallway, close to our classroom door)

Period 6:
Four students wanted to work with a pal.  (They did so in the hallway.)
One student wanted to read with me. (He saw he was the only one, so he changed his mind--which made me feel like this:

The REST chose to read silently on their own. (Including the one who was going to read with me)

I always find it interesting to see how different each class behaves.

After the students read, they also had some choice in determining how they wanted to respond to their reading.  Through Blended Learning, I'm working on incorporating more Student Choice in my classroom--and allowing students to work at their own pace.

Here they are, working at their own pace, in self-selected learning groups:

Transcendental Connection

Yesterday, Schmitt's Scholars analyzed how different Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, McCandless) viewed life--and how those ideas were exemplified in their writing.  Students connected the writers' ideas to address these Learning Targets:

1. Understand Transcendentalists’ main ideas.
2. Analyze how structure has an impact.

We are doing well with the Transcendentalists' main ideas, but taking these ideas to the next level--analyzing Style and Structure--has been a challenging task.  Keep pushing, Schmitt's Scholars!

Check out your students--hard at work:

     

           

    

Transcendentalism & Challenging Texts

Off we go--to the Transcendental Era!  Today we discussed what to do when we encounter a challenging text.  Our classes came up with the following strategies:

1.  Reread
2.  Use context
3.  Look up words we don't know
4.  Read short segments at a time
5. Discuss the reading with others
6.  Annotate!

*note this list does not include Sparknotes....


We discussed the tenets of Transcendentalism.  This discussion included:

1.  Non-conformity
2.  Self-reliance
3.  Free thought
4.  Confidence
5.  Importance of Nature


Food for thought:  which of these 5 ideas do you think Transcendentalists valued the most?

Which of these 5 ideas do you think your classmates valued the most?

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The Transcendentalists' feelings are open to discussion...but based on your responses in class, teenagers valued CONFIDENCE the most.  Does this surprise you?  I'm guessing no.

Do they look confident to you?