Learning Letter

This has been a fascinating course. The pedagogical texts we read in class were interesting in their variety and subjects. I particularly enjoyed reading Readicide and I Read It, But I Don't Get It. Those kinds of texts will be very helpful to remind us of what it's like for students who we may not immediately understand. The complexity behind reading is something that I often take for granted, but I should remember that it's been a well-honed skill that I can pick up a text cold, speed-read through it, and get general ideas without really knowing many details.
The unit plan was an extremely difficult, but also a very rewarding project. The time we spent meticulously going over each section of the TPA lesson plan was crucial to aiding my knowledge about it, though there are still a few things I'm not quite sure of, and that even teachers don't seem to completely agree on. I still consider the TPA a terribly unnecessary workload, and its specifications can be very frustrating. But while I've done these lesson plans, the most significant thing I've learned form it is that the whole point is not necessarily to train us to fill out this form (though this is the main focus), but instead the purpose is really to force us to put in serious time thinking about each lesson we're going to present. It would be easy for any teacher to take only fifteen minutes preparing a lesson, consider the job done, and move on to the next thing, but we've all had this kind of teacher before, where lessons were not well thought-out or helpful. It takes careful consideration for a lesson to be refined to its most edifying form, even though after this there will almost always still be revisions to be made. Anything less than spending two hours to design a one-hour lesson would be laziness, especially for a new and inexperienced teacher.
Projects such as this have been so helpful, that I almost wish the entire class had consisted of it, or that other classes had provided this kind of assignment. So much of what we go over in many education-required classes does not really seem very applicable to teaching in real life.
The mini-lesson also was helpful, to be able to teach among peers and receive constructive criticism. I even enjoyed talking about the texts we read in class, and on the blog I thoroughly enjoyed being able to freely express how I felt about them, though sometimes I was maybe a little too free.
I'll seriously consider having my own class use blogs, because I think this is something many students will enjoy, because of the freedom it provides. To get them writing and then sharing their writing at home might even spur them on to writing more independently, away from the blog, which is really the ultimate goal, I think. No matter what happens in the classroom, I believe the ultimate success for any English teacher should be when a student starts willingly reading and writing away from the classroom.

Graphic Canon

The graphic canon does fascinate me, as it must any experienced reader who also has an eye for the aesthetics of art. It could be very helpful to maintain the attention of students who are overwhelmed by viewing a page of text, of students who love to draw and express their ideas in unconventional ways.
However, I would not see this as a silver bullet necessarily, because it still only will present itself as engaging to a certain niche of students. In fact, even for the students who might benefit well from it, I think would be tempted to look at the pictures alone and not bother looking at the text to see if they can get the gist of the story without bothering with it. This tendency, I think, is increased by the fact that the text is sometimes difficult to read, even for me. Since most students are not even being taught how to write in cursive anymore (though I wish that this were not the case, personally), I've seen that many will not even attempt to read anything written in it. This is problematic especially for "The Hill." Also, in the selections where the text is lifted in its original form and put into the text word-for-word, I think students will still struggle to grasp meaning when they're presented with words like "fortnight" in "Pride and Prejudice."
If it were in my power, I would keep the powerful illustrations while maintaining the text in regular line-form below. The text could still be effectively abridged, and it would be almost a compromise between conventional text and this comic-book style, though the setback to this solution is that it might appear to students more like children's books.
I appreciate the diversity of texts that are incorporated here, and I look forward to more variations on this method, as I fully believe that these will inspire many more to take the same approach with their own favorite texts. The creation of something like this by the student would be a perfect way to assess his or her comprehension of the book, however it would of course only be appropriate for students who are talented already at illustrating.
The Graphic Canon would be well-loved by strong readers, and perhaps preferred by weaker-readers, and would be an effective way to share some knowledge of classical literature with the students without having them read the works in full, though no teacher should expect a very deep understanding of the stories from these alone. What it may aid in is the understanding of allusions in other books, and if the situation calls for it, this would be ideal.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Before actually beginning the book, I have to admit that it was one book I was not particularly looking forward to. Having been among Spokane English teachers for some time now, I've heard a fair bit about Sherman Alexie, mainly about how wonderful and brilliant they consider his writings. In my typical cynicism, I assumed that the lavish praise was academic hype for the home-town boy, being that Alexie is seen by many as representing the modern Spokane area, similar to the way Crosby represented old Spokane.
So I'm grateful that I was compelled to read the book for class. It may have been something I would have worked my way around to eventually, out of a desire to find texts that are relevant to students in this area, but it would certainly have taken a backseat to the stack of books in my room that I'm slowly grinding through.
Based on the political tendencies of those who advocated so strongly for the book, I assumed that it would take the tone of popular social justice warriors, of those who suggest giving rioters room to destroy, or who refuse to listen to any voice issuing from a different skin-color than their own. I was wonderfully amazed that this was not the case at all. Alexie speaks with the honesty of life experience that would likely have him derogatorily labeled an Uncle Tom by those political actors.
I know a little bit about the Res. My dad's first teaching job was on a reservation in Inchelium, and we visited back there a few years ago. A passing visitor like myself might consider it quaint. But Alexie's description of the community is sadly spot-on.
And by no means does Alexie spare the world outside of the reservation. The balance he strikes is admirably honest. His humor about all those situations allowed me to put down my guard and enjoy the book without analyzing its policy agenda (having found there isn't any).
The development of Junior's character is thoroughly interesting and enjoyable as he retrospectively simultaneously jokes and grieves about his own misfortunes. The characters he interacts with are believable without coming close to being caricatures of their "kinds." This book demonstrates well what it looks like to be color-aware, and yet to intentionally treat all fellow-beings with an attitude of colorblindness.
I would like to possibly use this book in the classroom, but I intend on reading at least one of Alexie's more autobiographical works to see if it might be just as suitable. While the events of his real life may not be so gripping, I am a strong believer that there is a special power in true stories that isn't in fiction. There is a different kind of power in fiction, but I'm not sure if Alexie's material is as well suited to it.
Also, if I ever do use the book in a classroom, I'll certainly take care not to use the part about masturbation. Some will call me a puritan, but my rationale in these matters is not that I think it will mentally traumatize students, but that a degree of professionalism should be maintained and practiced, as something that students will have to take into the real working world. If we insist that "all teachers teach reading," then it should be an equally high, if not far higher, expectation that all teachers teach decorum and professionalism. Some subjects should be taboo, and subjects approaching that line should at least not be treated with flippancy, as Alexie does with almost everything in Diary. This is mere decency to the students. Alexie may be able to broach the subject without expressing personal shame, but it is utterly selfish and tyrannical (as well as unrealistic) for a teacher to insist that all students respond the same way.

Night by Elie Wiesel

The first thing I will say for this book is how relieved I was to read Wiesel's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech at the end. The book itself paints such a bleak and barren picture, not only of the concentration camps, but of life as a whole, that I feared the worst for the author even after having been rescued, even after having written about those horrors. While cringing from the hideous events and sympathizing with the man whose boyhood was suddenly ripped away from him, I still could not help engaging the text with what I know many others would consider "victim-blaming." I was angry with the author, if I am brutally honest about it. First angry, of course, with the inhumanity of the situation, but I've spent a lot of time in my life already being angry with the Nazis, and, even with the specificity that Wiesel brings, that hatred has settled into a steady foundation, rather than burning like a fire. What I have not been often exposed to is Wiesel himself, as he portrays himself in the book. I've seen the situation primarily through the eyes of Anne Frank (of course) and Corrie ten Boom. Especially with Corrie ten Boom, a lot of the same events were experienced, yet her book, The Hiding Place, never dwells for long on the horrific darkness that pervades Night. Instead, she never fails to bring the reader back into the light of God's Goodness. While I sympathized wholly with the boy in Night, I found myself unable to do so with with the adult author, whose tone was still that of a captive to Auschwitz. Throughout the book this disturbed me, to think that the author may have gone to his death in uncompromising rage for the God he had rejected, the God who had allowed such things to happen. So I was mercifully relieved that this edition included the speech from 1986, in which the softer and meeker tone reveals the beautiful and humble perspective that Wiesel attained in later years.

The second thing I will expound upon is my dislike for prefaces and forewords that contain significant parts of the story in them. With a fictional story, I'd call them plot-spoilers, but it does seem flippant for me to treat those events as such. But it would have been better in hindsight if I had skipped those parts, as I normally do. I convinced myself to read them this time because they were short enough that I didn't mind. They did have undeniable value, but most of it was not ideal for reading prior to the book itself. The exception to this statement is the very end of the foreword by Mauriac, whose response to Wiesel's dark perspective was a perfect model of Christlike love. My anger at Wiesel's seemingly godless and hopeless attitude was certainly tempered by the conviction that Mauriac's response should have consistently been mine as well, if I had been a better man. There is a time when there have been quite enough words, and the only appropriate response is quiet.

While I do not mind being overt, here at the university, that Mauriac's religious propensities are my own as well, I know full well that the expression of such in a public classroom could be highly problematic. If I were to assign Night in a high-school classroom, I would condense the foreword, purging it of its "plot-spoilers," and make it available to the students, because that image of non-preaching religion is valuable to the structure of the story. I would also have the students read Wiesel's acceptance speech before reading the book itself to alleviate the tension that consumed me when I read it believing that the graceless attitude of the author towards God and the world was absolute. I would not impose such a heavy book at all on any student younger than a senior. This book is very mature, in a truer sense of the word than is commonly used today, that is, not because of violence or sex, but because of raw and brutal passion. A comparison of the book with The Hiding Place could be very enlightening, however I would hesitate to add text after text of holocaust life-stories on top of the inevitable Diary of Anne Frank. It would be better, if possible, to encourage this as an independent reading book.

Poe Mini-Lesson: The Haunted Palace

Department of Education College of Arts, Letters and Education 312 Williamson Hall Cheney, WA   99004

TPA Lesson Plan #__1___

Course:

1. Teacher Candidate	Joel Crow	Date Taught	2/28
Cooperating Teacher	Sean Agriss	School/District	N/A
2. Subject	English	Field Supervisor
3. Lesson Title/Focus	Poe’s “The Haunted Palace”	5. Length of Lesson	20 min
4. Grade Level	11

6. Academic & Content Standards (Common Core/National)	CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings, analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.
7. Learning Objective(s)	TSWBAT analyze imagery in a poem as a method to discover hidden meaning by reproducing in a rough sketch the picture that the writer paints with words.
8. Academic Language demands (vocabulary, function, syntax, discourse)	Vocabulary: tenanted, monarch, dominion, seraph, pinion, ramparts, plumed, pallid, luminous, lute, Porphyrogene, echoes, red-litten, stanza Function: analyze, reproduce Discourse: the students will discuss in small groups an assigned stanza of the poem and then share their findings in a classroom discussion

9. Assessment

**Attach** all assessment tools for this lesson The Haunted Palace Imagery Worksheet The students will be asked to reproduce the imagery from the poem onto the frame provided and will draw conclusions about the implicit meaning of the poem from the image that results. This assesses the standard because the students will perceive the author’s word choice and rationale for the connotative meanings and implications.

10. Lesson Connections

This will be the second lesson of a 10-lesson unit on poetry. The students will be familiar with several different kinds of poems, the distinction between poetry and prose, and the purposes behind the form of poetry. This lesson will focus on the need to constantly search for implicit meaning in poetry, which skill they will be able to put into practice in the ensuing lessons. In I Read it, but I Don’t Get it, Tovani says that effective reading can be achieved by spending more time with more difficult texts. In this lesson, we will be putting this into practice by taking each stanza of the poem individually in order to glean as much meaning as possible from Poe’s word choice.

11. Instructional Strategies/Learning Tasks to Support Learning
Learning Tasks and Strategies Sequenced Instruction 1)    00-02 Introduction to “The Haunted Palace” 2)    03-08 Review of vocabulary 3)    09-13 Group work on assigned stanzas 4)    14-18 Class collaboration 5)    19-20 Final Analysis
Teacher’s Role: 1.a. Greet students, ask them to open their books to “The Haunted Palace” b. Pass out worksheets, drawing attention to the lesson objective as the rationale for the lesson 2.a. Ask students if there are any questions about any words in the poem, or if any words seemed strangely out of place. Explain Porphyrogene. b. Draw connections between words on the whiteboard: seraphs=angels, monarch=ruler, dominion=realm, luminous=litten 3.a. Asking students to follow along, demonstrate drawing an illustration of the first stanza under the document camera while reciting it. Refer again to the objective as the purpose for the exercise. b. Get students into five groups, assigning each group a remaining stanza and ask them to illustrate it, emphasizing that the final two stanzas are to be drawn on the back c. Briefly visit each group to make sure instructions are clear and being followed 4.a. Stanza-by-stanza, invite a member of each group up to reproduce on the class collaboration sheet what they drew in the group. b. As each part is being drawn, read the stanza aloud to the class 5.a. Picture completed, lead a class discussion, asking students what the final product looks like. What is Poe really describing? What is the change described in the final two stanzas? What is the meaning of the final line? b. Draw attention again to the objective and remind the students that they should be on the lookout for similar hidden meanings in the poems we’ll be reading this unit. Ask students to submit to me any songs they know with hidden meaning that we can analyze as a class.	Students’ Role 1.a. Open their books, or review a copy of “The Haunted Palace” on an electric device b. Receive worksheets, read the standard and predict what the connection between them is. 2.a. Ask about vocabulary that is unclear or out of place. Ask about Porphyrogene. b. Recognize synonyms as they occur in the poem 3.a. Follow along with the teacher on the worksheet to reproduce an illustration of what is described in the first stanza. Note how this relates to the objective. b. Get into a group and make sure they are on the right side of the worksheet for their assigned stanza, illustrating what is described there c. Interact with the teacher, settling any confusion and speculating about the poem’s purpose 4.a. Elect a member of the group to go in front of the document camera and reproduce the illustrations from the assigned stanza. b. Note the illustration being drawn in concert with the stanza being read. 5.a. Speculate about what Poe is really describing, what the “palace” looks like. Pay attention to color and form, in forming an analysis. Offer ideas about the hidden meaning, eventually understanding, by teacher or another student, that the poem is about the face of a woman who goes mad. b. Recall again the objective, and internalize that this is the process we must use in analyzing poetry. Consider any interesting songs that the class may benefit from analyzing as poems.
Student Voice to Gather While meeting with small groups, ask if they feel like they’re starting to get a better idea of what the poem is about, or if they know they’ve discovered Poe’s hidden meaning. In the final analysis, ask the class if they feel better equipped to analyze poetry for hidden meaning.

12. Differentiated Instruction

Plan Audio learners will be able to hear the poem read at least once aloud. Visual learners will benefit from seeing the illustrations that students make. Kinesthetic learners will benefit from the opportunity to create the illustrations. Students who may not grasp the poem’s meaning will benefit from working in groups. As long as a group seems to have a good idea of direction, I won’t spend much time with them so that I will be able to spend time with any group that is having difficulty with the task.

13. Resources and Materials

Plan A set of colored pencils or markers for the teacher (Ideally) a set of colored pencils or markers for each student The Haunted Palace worksheet A copy of “The Haunted Palace” at each students’ disposal (Ideally) some form of dictionary in each group for difficult words to be researched

14. Management and Safety Issues

Plan            The morbid humor as entertainment surrounding the concept of madness may be a sensitive issue to some students. It should be acknowledged as a constant theme in the works of Poe, but the teacher should be sure to not insensitively trivialize mental illness. Some students will be reluctant to illustrate on their own worksheet, but they should be encouraged to do so as much as possible so that they will be able to remember the activity and what it represents. Some students may be thrown off guard by all the difficult words in this relatively short poem, so the words and their contexts should be explained quite thoroughly by the teacher. Students working in groups can always cause strife, but these students in particular are all on good terms.

15. Parent & Community Connections

Plan A weekly bulletin will be emailed to parents, detailing what we’re planning to read or view and encouraging the parents to write back with any concerns or questions. After this lesson, the students may be able to apply the analysis to songs they’ve never looked at in that way before, finding meaning in surprising places and honing their poetry analysis skills without even intending to do so.

The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist by Deirdre O'Connell

Description
Blind Tom was born a slave in Columbus, Georgia in 1849: born with cataracts over his eyes. O'Connell recounts his surprising survival past infancy and the fascinating events that led to his becoming a celebrity all over the United States.
Tom spent his earliest years mostly closed up in a wooden barrel, not only to protect him from the slave-owners (who were aware of his presence) but also to protect him from himself, and even to protect the other children from him. Given the chance, he would raise havoc all he could by smashing chairs and pinching and harming the other children, delighted by their squeals and sounds, but either oblivious or insensitive to the pain that made them cry out. Later, he would wander fearlessly into the night to explore the sounds of the owls and dogs, and tales of the bogey-men did nothing to dissuade him, as they did the other children. These behaviors have caused many to speculate that Tom was autistic as well, and, without belaboring the point, O'Connell explores this diagnosis and the possible causes in terms that are easily accessible to those of us without much prior experience with autism.
Sold by the "master" Wiggins to pay off debts, Tom and his mother were bought by the kind General Bethune, whose daughters took a liking to Tom. Upon the instant of hearing the Bethune family piano, Tom was fascinated by it, and was eventually granted access to it as he wished, and in this easier environment he began to develop more social skills. In 1857 Bethune was able to parade him at events as a musical prodigy, able to quickly reproduce excerpts of Mozart and Beethoven after a single hearing. To this was added Tom's comedic talent of mimicry, as he lampooned the speeches of Georgia politicians, much to their offense. His on-stage antics undoubtedly contributed to the Jim Crow stereotype, with hilariously exaggerated dancing, but this was matched awe of the crowd for his talent. Bethune put him under the charge of Perry Oliver, who became Tom's manager, and brought him outside of Georgia, on tour with many other acts, but none of these won Oliver more fame than the incredible Blind Tom.
Tom became a spoiled adolescent under these circumstances, every request granted by his keepers lest he refuse to perform his act, and as Civil War became imminent, he feared only one thing: freedom.
Tom's keepers had kept him fed, not only with food and drink and candy, but also Confederate propaganda. He was told that the abolitionists wanted to take him away from his managers, so that he would be abandoned and alone, or so that somebody else might steal him, or even kill him. Because of this uncompromising solution, Bethune was able to keep him in his charge after Tom's emancipation. As General Bethune was growing older, he handed the responsibility to his son to watch after Tom. With nominal freedom, Tom continued to tour North America under the care of several managers.
In the 1880's, John Bethune's wife sued him for custody of Tom, as they were getting divorced. The rest of Tom's life he was cared for on her property, though myths constantly circulated about Tom's alleged death and countless copycats tried to hitch a ride on his fame. Where the real Tom is buried today is still unknown.



Rationale
This book strikes me as an ideal young adult book for 10th-12th graders. The students should already have some background knowledge about the American Civil War and American slavery, but I firmly believe that this book will cement the details and feelings of that time better than any textbook could. I chose the book because it crosses the paths of so many diverse interests: race relations, handicaps, autism, music, and history. There is enough of each of these elements that a student who begins the book with an interest only in music, and not the other aspects, will enjoy the story and learn to appreciate the complications of the other elements. Some of the vocabulary is challenging, but nothing that cannot be intuited from context.
One thing this book does that I've not seen in any other, textbook or otherwise, is that it accurately and humanely probes into the Confederate psyche, rather than leaving the reader to assume that all southerners, or all slave-owners, were heartless and consumed only by greed. The character of General Bethune in the beginning of the story will challenge the readers' prejudice about all slaveholders' intentions, while also not sparing the character of Bethune in telling the truth of what tragedies resulted from those good intentions.



Teaching Ideas
While there is value in the entire book, if time restraints do not allow all of it (260 pages) to be read, I would advocate teaching at least one entire part as well as the short, 4-page epilogue. With either selection, these three ideas should be doable.
1) Read excerpts from Blind Tom and also some from any of Frederick Douglass' autobiographies. Analyze the differences in their perspectives and discuss the possible causes behind such drastically different outcomes of thought. (Recommend reading part 2: Franatics)
2) In a persuasive unit, analyze excerpts (especially chapter 2) to determine how slavery, which is generally considered so obviously wrong today, almost universally across the nation, was defended with critical rhetoric in its own time, and discuss whether it's possible that seemingly justifiable acts today might be perceived negatively the same way in historical hindsight. Is it possible to know? (Recommend reading part 1: The Seen and the Unseen)
3) In a unit on historical fiction, read this true story and discuss how an author might convincingly form an original story around this time frame. What kinds of details and stylistic choices would be effective, and what would be ineffective?


Obstacles
O'Connell tells the story well, but because she chooses to put everything into thematic chapters, the chronology of the story is not always perfectly clear. The vocabulary is, at times, advanced, but easily deciphered from context.
Students and parents who are deeply concerned with the historical pride of the south may be made uncomfortable by the text, as it deals with the issue of slavery, however they may be able to be won over if they are given to understand that the way the story is told does not dehumanize the slave-owners as a complete group.
Conversely, some students and parents may be initially excited by a first glance at the book, but may be made uncomfortable by the humanization of slave-owners such as Bethune. We should encourage them to share their perspective on the matter, but should also insist that there is incredible value in our being able to deeply understand a perspective that we vigorously oppose.
I anticipate that an administrator's response to the text would be only positive.



Additional Details
Because of Blind Tom's fame, the book has several pictures in good quality (for their time) of Tom in various stages of his life, from 15 years old to 50. This will aid visual learners in relating to the story. There are also recordings of Tom's compositions, most notably a collection by John Davis, which will aid audio learners.

"Readicide" by Gallagher

Gallagher's "Readicide" offered many valuable insights to the problem facing many highschool students today. I discussed with my mom, who has worked as a teacher's aid for years with elementary grades, the assertion that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders often have a love of reading that is slowly killed in later years, and she agreed emphatically. It's not a problem that I've seen firsthand yet, but it is a fascinating trend and clearly an important place to start if we are to improve the situation.
I agree with Gallagher that, for many teachers, one problem is torturing the text to death. There would be nothing worse than taking an interesting text and analyzing it dozens of ways until finally the students are sick of it and eager to move on. If we, as the teacher, find the text interesting, we should want some students to be able to choose to come back to it on their own, but too many students, including me, have determined to avoid certain books for the rest of our lives, even realizing their theoretical merit, just because they were presenting poorly for far too long. The poem Gallagher referenced was entirely appropriate, where the frustrated reader tries beating the poem to death with a hose to find out what it means. This poem should be shared in every poetry unit that any student ever takes, because it will be something that the student can identify with and finally see themselves from a bird's eye view so that they can change their strategy.
There were, though, as usual, some things I could not agree with. One of them is a sheer matter of practicality. Gallagher advocates that students read complete long works, and that they be given time to read them in class. I've never seen a classroom where this would ever be possible. Maybe it would be a wonderful thing if all students were given a reading hour every day so that they could delve into their books, but we all know that many students who would most have benefited from the practice would misuse the time with any possible distraction that presents itself. The solution that I think is far better is to make use of well-sized excerpts of books, of 50=150 pages. This would also allow the students to be exposed to many more genres and time periods. My mantra, as a teacher, would be that, at some point, every student will have read something that intrigues them enough that they want to return to it on their own time. If we have them read part of a sports story, part of a fantasy novel, part of a work of historical fiction, part of a science-fiction piece, part of a thriller, part of a murder mystery, etc. we have got to eventually stumble on something that each student will relate to. Each student should have a reason to go looking for more material that fascinates them. This is the teachers' real end-goal, not to get the students to read in class, but to get them to read outside of class.

I Read It, but I Don't Get It

This is one of the better pedagogy books I've read, to be sure, though I can't agree with everything Tovani says. I really appreciate that it comes from the voice of experience, as a former non-reading student. Many of the common problems with struggling readers would not likely even be considered by veteran readers, which nearly all English teachers are. The readers themselves, having more limited communication skills, would not then likely be able to articulate the problems they're having so that more help can be sought. Some otherwise effective teachers may simply write this off as a lack of motivation and attention.
One of the best parts of the book was the analogy of driving a car. The ultimate goal in driving is to get from point A to point B, but in getting there, the driver has to be continuously checking blindspots, paying attention to signs and lights, monitoring speed, sometimes switching gears, etc.
A veteran driver does all these things without even thinking about them, but if we can put ourselves back in our teenage bodies, we'll remember that learning how to drive was much more complicated before we had so much practice. It's the same with reading, and most of us have been reading for much longer than we've been driving, so that we can hardly recall where the true heavy-lifting took place, and how it felt.
The emphasis that Tovani puts on the existential connection between thinking and reading is invaluable. So many students will gladly just allow their eyes to cover the page, decoding all the words, and even retaining bits of information, but with no concept of logical sequence or connections to the rest of the text. And everyone does have to train themselves, when they begin working with more difficult or less interesting texts, to recognize quickly when they've lost comprehension and have begun to just go through the motions of reading. For a student to make this leap into a higher maturity of reading it is, at first, very frustrating. Few students will have met this challenge until they find it in a textbook of some kind, and a strong purpose must be given so that the student will consider the struggle worthwhile. An effective teacher will have to bring the student past this point in a way that is unique to the student or class, and this can be one of the greatest struggles teachers face in regard to their students' reading ability.

Duncan-Andrade and Morrell’s “Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom”

My previous post, written perhaps a little too late into the night to be totally balanced, expounded at length my fundamental objections to any application of Marxism. While, with this article, I have similar objections, this is being written at a more reasonable hour, and should reflect a more reasonable attitude.
The article advocates for a refined and nuanced version of critical pedagogy, which is a method of teaching based on acknowledging and addressing the grievances, here called "existential experiences," of demographically-determined victims, here called "marginalized peoples." The intent of this method is to empower the students so that they will confidently rise above the victimhood that has characterized their perception of the world and become deliberate agents of "social change," by which is generally meant upholding policies that treat individuals differently based on their demographic designations.
Should my reassignment of labels seem already somewhat confrontational, I'll proceed by acknowledging what I find honestly praiseworthy in the article.
There are two superb statements that I could not agree more with, but that seem compromised in principle by the entirety of the article. These are both on page seven. "Our purpose as educators is not to replace one dominant ideology with another." Also, "The goal is not to make them slaves to a different (and more politically correct) ideology, even if it happens to be one we agree with." If these two statements were the bedrock foundation of critical pedagogy, I would be an acolyte to the revelatory education method. This is exactly what I want to offer students: an opportunity to discover readings and interpretations of their own, backed up by textual evidence. This skill of critical consideration, however, is something that must be practiced, and it cannot be practiced by reading only Marxist renderings of situations. And I do not say this because, as a teacher, I would like to keep my students from being tarnished by Marxist theory; far from it. I would be totally in favor of bringing a Marxist text before my students, provided that I had the capitalist text beside it with which to compare.
This stunning lack of diverse ideology, however, is what concerns me in the applications of critical pedagogy described in the article. It is the arrogance of assuming that every person of a certain skin-color or blood heritage should have the same understanding of Castro's revolution in Cuba. It is the ignorance of not even mentioning the point-of-view that is frequently held by those older Cuban immigrants who actually experienced life in Cuba under the Castro regime. Again, I am all for the reading of pro-Castro viewpoints, provided that the anti-Castro dissent is read alongside of it. To not do so is an authoritarian style of education, where the fear of alienation for holding the wrong viewpoint is so strong that every student will be peer-pressured into the groupthink.
To return to the admirable, however, I do appreciate the story of students drawing media attention to the deplorable sewage overflow conditions. This is exactly what should happen, though it should not have to be accomplished by the students themselves, but instead by whistle-blowers within the system, or possibly by parents ( still understanding that many parents in these socioeconomic situations may not have the ability to be involved enough to catch something like this). Then, to draw the conclusion that more money handed to the responsibility of those who were not responsible enough to cancel school under such abominable circumstances, is also problematic, yet it seems to be what is advocated economically. If the irresponsible are not rooted out, no amount of money can solve the situation. No tool can ever be expensive or specialized enough to overcome the incompetency of a worker who uses it.

There are many other good things within the article that I meant to mention. Using the students' background culture and drawing connections to canon texts, questioning what exactly should constitute canon texts, and reading nontraditional interpretations into classic texts, these are all beneficial and worthwhile. And I totally acknowledge that the intentions are nothing but good, even in the strategies with which I object. However, intentions are often not correlative to results.

Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Chapter 2

I shall relish the opportunity to pick apart this nakedly communist education piece.

However, to do so effectively, I must start by showing that I understand the substance of what it is saying, a feat not easy, since the writer's language seems deliberately constructed so as to alienate any reader who is not a true believer in Marx (and here I adopt the word "alienate" intentionally, as an illustration of the hypocrisy). 

There is a good message here, buried in the divisive rhetoric. The good message that is told is old as education itself, though the Marxist may claim it as the brain-child of his movement. The message is as simple as "show, don't tell." It is the understanding that true and deep knowledge is attained through relationships, not disconnected, memorized facts, as if the brain were a stone tablet to be etched upon. Our brain is rather more like a vine, where each new branch must grow from an older, sturdier branch, deriving its significance and meaning from earlier knowledge. When the new branch has arrived at maturity, it may be ready to support new branches of its own.
Freire says that most modern education (the book was published in 1992) is enacted through the philosophy that a student is an empty receptacle for the teacher to fill with what he already has to give. He also calls this "banking" education. It is the idea that whatever is valuable for the student must come from the outside and be put inside (willingly or not). I have had a few teachers like this, and they were truly awful, and everyone knew they were awful, and they probably knew themselves that they were awful (however these awful teachers could never be fired, courtesy of the Marxist-designed Union, which Freire would probably praise as being "revolutionary"). 
But I've been blessed to have mostly good teachers, who understood that the "banking" philosophy is false, and even the more mediocre teachers held this perspective. I have picked up books of ancient philosophy and found that even Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle formed their teachings from this universal truth. 
I also object to the false urgency that Freire applies to the situation, though I know that to do so will make many consider me ill-suited for education, claiming that I don't take it seriously enough. I do take it seriously. However, having bad teachers, as well as good, has made me a better student. Student? No, it has made me a better man. Freire says that these bad teachers are dehumanizing the students. Maybe I am incorrectly assigning connotative meaning to that word, because I use that word when I'm talking about what dictators do to truly oppressed citizens. I don't think I am, though, because he uses that word too: oppressed. It's all Marxism jargon, meant to equate the bad teacher with a political leader like Chairman Mao (though they would never use that particular example).
But I still assert: having some bad teachers made me a better man. I was given the opportunity to practice self-discipline, to enhance my flexibility, and to experience something like the real world (which, newsflash, is not full of cookie-cutter perfect leaders). I would never intentionally place a student under a bad teacher (though I would see them fired, in some cases, if possible), but if the situation must continue, I would not call the student "oppressed."

What is most frustrating is that, while eloquently denouncing "authoritarianism," the Marxist view of education actually enforces that very philosophy. One of my best high-school math teachers (this was in an honors calculus class) once gave me and my fellow-students a three-page double-sided packet of trigonometric formulas and told us to have them memorized over the next three weeks. We used the formulas in class everyday, and some of them we learned how to derive from others. Freire would have called this "banking" education. He would not have allowed it. But this was exactly what this course called for, and at the end of the grueling process I was amazed at my own previously-untapped capacity for precise memory, and I know now that it was the best method at the time.
And this is the problem with the truly "modern" approach to education (the approach that has been developed by people like Freire). It is intolerant of diversity. This is profoundly counter-intuitive, I know, but it's true nevertheless (and a legitimate criticism of all Marxist application). They know the way that everything has to be done, and refuse to entertain counter-points. They refuse to believe that a situation could possibly exist anywhere where memorization was actually the best method of instruction. But the situations and environments that teachers face are incredibly diverse, and it is arrogant to imagine that the perfect standards, or objectives, or planning materials, will fit every need. Ultimately Freire says that "problem-posing" is the superior educational strategy to "banking." This means that the students' curiosity should be aroused, drawing on past experiences and background knowledge. It humanizes them, he says. But I have also had classes where this approach was taken and nothing substantive was ever accomplished. If he insists on this superior strategy, and does not allow the other, he is enforcing the very authoritarianism that he claims to oppose.
Lastly, I must point out that the entire university system is permeated with this philosophy, and by lecturing to us about how "banking" dehumanizes while they give us an 8-digit student number and bury us under paperwork, requiring us to jump through every hoop they can construct, the university is giving a resounding chorus of "Do as I say, not as I do." This is the anti-thesis of relational education.

"Assessing and Evaluating Students" and "Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook"

How to determine students' grades is, clearly, one of the most controversial things a teacher has to consider. Of course, whatever the process is, and no matter how clear, somebody will be unhappy about it, and while a teacher must be self-reflective about these things, I strongly stand against the tendency for the "squeaky wheel to get the oil." I've had teachers who've done this, who've made exceptions for students without reason other than that the student came and talked to them, and these teachers are less respected by the rest of the students, who have agreed all year long to play the game by the announced rules.
Because I so strongly hold this value, I am leery about any policies that seem to go in this wishy-washy direction. As a high-school student, I preferred the teachers who did just take he mean of the assessed grades. It spared me from having to sit through a long, boring explanation delivered from the teacher to the class about how every little thing was going to be weighed and graded, when I knew from the start that I was going to just do the stupid homework, with whatever effort I felt it merited at the time, and as long as I did that, I would get a tolerable grade.
But my mentor teacher explained to me recently something similar to what was suggested in the "Grading and Reporting" article, that if a student is on the cusp of failing or passing, and you can see a lot of low grades at the beginning of the period and higher more recent grades, then you should make an exception and at least give a passing grade. The article seems to go further, suggesting that it's fairest to give a student a very high grade if they've recently done very well. But this is too much, in my opinion. High school students are not dumb. Maybe, comparatively, I was dumb, when it came to not caring whether my grade was an A or a B, so that I paid so little attention to the process and I was pushed by an inner-motivation to do work fairly well, whatever work I was given to do. But I know my past fellow-students too well. It would not take long for any student to realize that he or she could extend the summer carelessness throughout the beginning of the following year, knowing that as long as most of the final grades were good, the grade wouldn't suffer badly. A teacher could see this happening, but it's unlikely that any teacher would be able to prove it was happening, so that a teacher who tried to not reward intentional early-year laziness would be left vulnerable to the accusation of bias.
There may also be unique situations where some kind of trauma has affected a student's grade, but there is potential for a slippery slope, so a teacher must be vigilant to not allow many of these, unless he or she is going to redesign how the entire class is assessed.

In the "assessing and evaluating" handout, one thing stood out starkly to me. It gave me a shudder of bad memories. It was the word "portfolio." 
I understand that there needs to be effective summative assessment. However, I also remember that the main reason why I didn't stress out on final tests as a student, generally, was because I attacked them with the exact same philosophy that I attacked every formative assessment up to that point. It was different with a portfolio, though. To be asked to compile something in a fashion that was entirely new seemed a daunting task. To be asked to hold on to otherwise meaningless (I felt) past assignments was enough of a struggle already, but then to choose out of them work examples that were (presumably) going to follow me like a cursed totem for years to come filled me with dread.
Of course, in reality, the portfolio didn't mean anything after graduation, and the past assignments truly were meaningless, because I knew all along that the real product of education was in my head and not on paper, and I believed that what was on paper was never a fair representation of what was accomplished in my head. 
So in all that anecdotal evidence, what I've determined is that my students shouldn't ever be given an important summative assessment without practicing a mini-version of it, at least twice, with lower stakes.

California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

Because reading can be so unexpectedly complicated, the strategies put forward by this template will be very helpful to recall in a (hopefully successful) attempt to help students understand the substance of what they've read. One of the suggestions that most appeals to me is having each student write down the thing that was most confusing to them. Especially if the students know this question is coming and that the answer must be filled in, they will be constantly assessing the efficacy of their own reading consistently, checking in every few paragraphs so that they can identify a detail that is unclear. In my own high-school experience, I remember that one of my greatest faults was my inability to know when I was not grasping something. I succeeded rather well by assuming that anything I had not retained would be easily remedied later, and this was often the case. However, a few clear examples stand out of the times when some concept continuously eluded me and I couldn't understand why. Even a student who understands everything reasonably well, if he or she thinks about it, will find something that could be elaborated upon for added benefit.
Reflection about one's own writing is another crucial element for the student. This happens, in some small measure, when we go back and correct our spelling mistakes. Sadly, the otherwise good advent of automatic spellcheck technology has encouraged many students to neglect even the slightest moment of proofreading. But students who do read over what they've written can always find that the first draft of anything is not good enough. As we write and revise, our thinking becomes clearer. As we think about how to appeal to our audience, we may realize that they have a foreseeable counterpoint that we would find it difficult to answer. This kind of self-criticism is best-learned, I believe, by being paired with a healthy criticism of the readings we are given. The ability to ask pointed questions and argue with the text is extremely important in this day and age. Many people assume any eloquent writer is a trusted authority on the matter at hand, when this is often far from the case. Therefore it is extremely helpful to introduce students to the two readings strategy, one the "believing" reading and the other the "doubting" reading.
The template also included some helpful hints about teachers grading that will be very practically helpful. My mentor teacher has mentioned more than once that at the beginning of every year he tries to read journal entries carefully, but a few months in he can easily get through multiple entries in a single minute. A teacher will have to choose deliberately where the grading process can be optimized without losing credibility, otherwise there would be no time for the grading that must take place. Staggering the due dates of essays is also a great suggestion. However, sometimes the overload is somewhat unavoidable. At the end of a semester it will be expected that everything will be complete and a good teacher must be prepared to put in serious time and effort to give the students the grades that are merited.

Common Core State Standards

During my last meeting with my mentor teacher, we had some extra time during lunch and his prep period to discuss some logistical things about education. I asked him what he thought of the Common Core standards, and whether he thought they had made an impression on the education system for better or worse. Having spent a good amount of time with him and his class already, his answer did not surprise me, but I wonder if it would surprise some of the personnel in our university education program.
I should clarify that Mr. Archer at Shadle Park High is well-loved by his students and fellow-teachers. He has been teaching for 30 years, but still maintains a passion and excitement that I'm trying to imitate for my own benefit. And he's surprisingly harsh at times with his students, when they are not meeting his expectations after having been given every opportunity to do so. His balance of fun and business fits perfectly within the context of the classroom.
"First," he said to me, "I don't know if they're even going to be around for very much longer." I agreed, mentally noting the then-foundational WASL test of my own high-school experience, which was quickly replaced and re-replaced until it is now ancient history. "Also," he continued, "I have read them, and there's nothing wrong with them, but these are all just things that good teachers already base their teaching on naturally, so I don't know if it's going to impact them at all. Maybe some teachers do need these reminders, but the standards haven't changed much about my classroom."

Having worked with the standards in my previous education classes and read them over quite a bit, I have to agree. There is nothing groundbreaking about these new concepts, in my humble opinion, but they are the typical important things that I was surrounded by in my high-school years, with maybe a few different emphases.
In those early years of the new millennium, we constantly looked in our reading for contextual evidence to support our ideas (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1), both explicitly and through inference. Both of these aspects are important in the practice, however they are also things that students who read can do quite naturally. Again, perhaps for some teachers it will be useful to segment these and take it one-at-a-time, to have the students think about why something was said explicitly while something else was communicated through inference. However, many teenagers I've known, some who were my peers and some who are now my students, will be too easily bored by a belaboring of such a point, and have greater hope of being engaged through diving into the substance of the story, with all its inferences and explicit statements together.
The intentional manipulation of a timeline is a very important lesson to give students reading and writing narratives (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.5), and, along with many other important elements, is something that cannot be taught in isolation, but is a bridge to be crossed at the best planned opportunity.
Some of these standards do focus on higher-level abilities, such as the treatment that an author gives to another source material (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.9). This is, perhaps, one of the few things that was never a part of my high-school experience, and not because we couldn't handle it, but because it would require so much more reading. The teacher has to be realistic about what the student will accomplish, and in my mind it's important to condense the required reading so that it will be as useful as possible. If the student must read a long piece by Shakespeare and must also read a part of the bible that is referenced in Shakespeare, and I can promise quite confidently that those students will decide to cut corners and condense the reading for themselves. This does not mean that this standard should go by the wayside, but it will need to be addressed in a practical way. Whether it is addressed at all depends on whether the teacher decides that the students are prepared for that kind of analysis, which is an entirely different question. So much of this depends upon the current state of the classroom that, while the standards seem organized in a machine-like progression, a lot of real-life malfunctions will have a tendency to gum up the works.
The judging of validity of arguments is crucial for any student reading informational texts (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.8). This, again, is something that is acknowledged by effective teachers as important, and something that it will be difficult for any teacher to follow a standard on unless he or she understands preemptively its importance. However, situations may well arise where the teacher and student disagree on what constitutes validity, and this can be either an opportunity for good discussion or a danger of personal conflict. The balance to be struck is the effective teacher's real focus in these situations.

As a person who is eager to disagree where disagreement is feasible, there is hardly anything in the standards that I can object to, which I imagine was the goal of their writers. However, the ability for teachers to think outside the box they've been given has been a freedom that many of my teachers enjoyed who were the best teachers I've known. While, of course, other teachers suffered from an extreme lack of accountability. Whether these standards, should they continue in their current form, solve the problem without hindering the benefit, is something I will have to wait to see.

Brookfield's "Discussion as a Way of Teaching"

As a person who has become, through practice, more-than-moderately critical of what I read and listen to, this topic of discussion interests me perhaps more than any other element of education. I consider it one of the greatest shortcomings of my own generation, as well as the rising one, that we seem to have no tolerance for diversity of thought, and no desire to understand the logic of dissenting voices. I marvel at the respectful and substantive conversations held forth in the 70's by Milton Friedman and his political opponents. That kind of discussion is not the norm any longer... but it should be. Our current national dialogue is reeling into chaos from the unrestrained force of emotion, which is claimed by many to be of equal or even greater significance than reason. As this has gone unchecked (for nobody ever can truthfully declare a monopoly on feelings, though some try), one sentiment has inadvertently risen above all others, coloring all of our political words and acts in the current age: Revenge!

And it is my great desire to roll this destructive force back.

Much of what Brookfield advocates here answers to that purpose. The one strategy that struck me more than any other was section 19: Critical Debate Instructions. However, it is a bit underhanded. What I may try, if I'm going to employ this method, is beginning the lesson with an activity related to whether or not it can be morally acceptable to lie to a person for their own good. Then, when I have students volunteer to defend or oppose a certain perspective on a contentious issue, they will blithely believe that we have simply switched gears. Finally, when I announce that those who wanted to defend will now oppose, and those who wanted to oppose will now defend, the connection will, at least, make it a more memorable day.
What concerns me, however, about most of these strategies, is their practicality in the real-world classroom. I've been blessed to have been placed in a rather typical class, a good microcosm of high-school students, where there are no outstanding behavioral problems, but also not an apparent burning desire for learning. Their willingness to engage is rather outmatched by their fondness for whispering.
Yet, even with this class, my lessons and the advice from my mentor teacher have taught me that the greatest struggle will be devising very pointed and meaningful questions for the discussion to progress. Brookfield's methods may be perfect for a highschool AP class or a college classroom (even then, it may be hit-or-miss), but there are few of these students who have any interest in anything here other than the grade they'll receive. Some would rather be doing anything in the world other than reading. For the students who are willing to engage, I need to give them ample opportunity to do some heavy-thinking, but the rest of them need involvement that is meticulously structured so that they won't immediately stray onto an after-school topic the moment discussion begins, and so that they won't always dread my coming around to see them on-task. 
Some of Brookfield's more structured methods, however, would be doable. The activities that involve roles may help the students to stay focused, but I would hesitate to put even the most trustworthy of students in an umpire role. Maybe this is unfair of me; perhaps an umpire role would allow a student to take the activity more seriously and respect the duties expected. It would be a risk to keep an eye on, but it may be a worthwhile risk.

My final concern is that there tends to be a strong divide on any controversial subjects, with a vast majority opinion and a naturally defensive minority opinion. This is far more significant, I think, than the superficial minority identifiers that Brookfield seems obsessed with. Ideas are far more substantive than skin-color or socioeconomic status. I intend on judging my students by the content of their characters alone. The culture surrounding the school will determine which opinion is majority, and how disparate the divide is. We should be prepared to deal with situations where virtually all of the class believes one thing and two or three students only dissent. Perhaps the majority of the class is climate-science-skeptical while just a few want to make the case for the serious dangers of climate-change. Perhaps the opposite is true. In these situations, the teacher must see to it that both sides are furnished with reason-based arguments without appearing to firmly stand on one side or the other. It will be a difficult balance to strike, but I believe I am up to the task, being one who frequently, on this very campus, has been obliged to dissent from the vast majority in meaningful discussion.