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Archives For March 31, 2012

Culturally Neutral Literature on State English/Language Arts Exams Promotes Intellectual Dishonesty

April 26, 2012 — Leave a comment

GOAL -School districts want to report their students to read great literature.
GOAL-School districts want to report good reading test scores.

Unfortunately, these two goals are currently incompatible; great literature’s complexity can be challenging to read, and schools can ill afford to have students get low test scores on reading because of great literature’s complexity.

Concerns about the removal of great literature from classrooms have been raised before, but NY public school English teacher Claire Needall Hollander passionately argues how intellectually damaging this practice has become in state testing. Her  op-ed piece in 4/21/12  NYTimes Teach the Books, Touch the Heart decries the elimination of great literature in the classroom in order to incorporate practice materials to prepare students to take the standardized tests. Hollander described her role as a reading enrichment teacher as an opportunity to provide great literature as academic equity for her students. She described several of her students as  the sons and daughters of immigrants or incarcerated parents; she noted some students lived in crowded, violent, or abusive homes. Great literature, she believed, was “cultural capital” that could help her students compete against more affluent peers. However, when the lackluster data from standardized reading tests came in, she felt pressured to abandon great literature and curtailed her efforts for the majority of these students in order to teach materials prescribed for the state test.  While the reading selections on the state tests did have some syntactical complexity, she eventually decided that these reading materials lacked the literary qualities that make literature great. Texts that are “symbolic, allusive or ambiguous are more or less absent from testing materials.” Hollander writes, “It is ironic, then, that English Language exams are designed for ‘cultural neutrality.'”

In one sense, great literature is already culturally neutral. The themes or characters in a great piece of literature are not limited to one decade or one millennium. The elements that make a work of literature great can transcend culture and context, can speak to a universal audience, can be read by any tradition and still connect to a reader. Ms. Hollander’s concerns about cultural neutrality are akin to concerns about cultural acceptability. Creators of standardized tests are particularly sensitive in selecting texts that are cultural acceptable because great literature  intentionally confronts morality, questions society’s rules, or challenges tradition. Great literature gives voice to the outsider, and authors of great literature are often on the margins of society or write to unsettle the status quo. For these reasons, selections from great literature may not be considered culturally acceptable.

I have some experience on what goes onto a standardized state test as I had a seat one year as a member of the text selection committee for the reading and writing sections of the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT)  given to grade 10 students. Much time was spent reviewing materials for inclusion on a future Response to Literature exam. Out of a number of mediocre short stories, the only selection given to educators that could meet some standards of great literature was a chapter from Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, a young adult novel that is usually read in Grade 5.  That selection was eliminated not only because of the low reading level (5.1; Lexile 670) but because the manner in which Lowry portrayed the terrifying rounding up of Jews. One committee member actually wondered aloud if Lowry could be persuaded to “reword the chapter” to address the concern. Fortunately, that debate ended with the decision that the chapter was not “acceptable” for the committee.

One problem in great literature is difficult vocabulary; for example, the simple conversations between the Man and the Boy in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (RL 4) are interspersed with diction describing the apocalyptic setting:  “rachitic “, “miasma”, “escarpment”, “crozzled”.  Another problem is vocabulary  considered vulgar or profane that has eliminated a number of literary pieces from standardized testing and even from school libraries. According to the American Library Association (ALA) website which  lists challenges to classic literature that Hollander might teach: To Kill a Mockingbird- “contains  racial slurs”;  Of Mice and Men – “takes God’s name in vain 15 times and uses Jesus’s name lightly.” Finally,  great literature almost always contains themes that can be considered dangerous  or offensive to someone in society:  The Color Purple is “sexually graphic and violent”;  1984 is “pro-communist”; and Catcher in the Rye– is infamously “blasphemous and undermines morality.”

Engineering English language tests in order to make them culturally neutral or culturally acceptable encourages intellectual dishonesty. Take the reading section on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT)  where every 10th grader is required to read a short story and evaluate the quality of the story, “How successful was the author in creating a good piece of literature?” in a one page essay. I have spent over 10 years preparing students for this  question on the Response to Literature standardized test, and I know how students struggle with this question. Many students do not read challenging texts outside of the classroom, limiting their experience to develop critical evaluation skills. However, the more distressing problem is that year after year, the quality of the story on the CAPT pales in comparison to the classic short stories a student could encounter in even the most limited literature anthology. Classic short stories available in the public domain by Saki, Anton Chekhov, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, and Jack London, to name a few, are considered too difficult for independent reading by 3rd quarter 10th grade students. Copy-write requirements or an author’s unwillingness to truncate a story to comply with a maximum word requirement or to make textual changes to make the subject palatable to a text selection committee, prevents other literary materials from being used.   As a result, more recent selections have come from Teen Ink (stories written by teens) and Boy’s Life magazine, both publications not known for superior literary content. While some stories may meet a sentence complexity standard and have been vetted for acceptable content, most lack the literary depth that should generate thoughtful critical responses to a prompt that asks about “good literature.”

To further complicate the choice a student makes in a response, released materials from previous exams used to prepare students how to respond to “How successful was the author in creating a good piece of literature?” include student responses, and all of the exemplars, good and bad, argue that the story was “good”.  The  lack of reader experience coupled with the year to year see-saw quality of the text on the exam places  students in the uncomfortable position of defending a merely average quality story as good literature; therefore, the prompt promotes intellectual dishonesty.

Perhaps the problem of including good literature on a standardized test may be addressed with the adoption of the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards where text complexity is standard #10: “By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 9–10 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.”

In other words, the use of good literature on a CCSS English Language Arts exam might be substantively different than the texts used on the Response to Literature section of the CAPT. This could make the response about the quality of text more authentic since a complex literary text can be analyzed as “good literature.” How this more complex literary text will be used in testing, however, remains to be seen since history demonstrates that cultural opposition to a story will often trump quality.

Comprehending and evaluating a text are desirable skills, and measuring those skills will still be difficult.  Multiple choice questions are quickly corrected, but they are limited to measuring reading comprehension, and a student essay response to a complex text will require considerably more time to write and correct. Anticipating this, Hollander calls for an assessment that is more reflective of student learning:

 “Instead, we should move toward extensive written exams, in which students could grapple with literary passages and books they have read in class, along with assessments of students’ reports and projects from throughout the year. This kind of system would be less objective and probably more time-consuming for administrators, but it would also free teachers from endless test preparation and let students focus on real learning.”

The CCSS should consider Hollander’s proposal as states develop assessments.  All stakeholders should also recognize that using anything less then quality literature to measure a student reading comprehension and evaluation skill on an English/Language Arts exam is intellectually dishonest.

In CAPT, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education , , , , , , , ,
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Shakespeare Sells; Selling Shakespeare

April 23, 2012 — Leave a comment

In the film Looking for Richard, his tribute to Shakespeare’s historical play Richard III, Al Pacino asks a tourist standing on a street in Manhattan, “What do you know about Shakespeare?”

“Shakespeare? He’s our greatest export!” replies the Brit reaching into his wallet for a credit card. On the credit card was the Flower portrait of  Shakespeare as a security hologram. Rotating the card allowed the camera to pick up the image of Shakespeare, who appeared to be winking at the viewer.

Choose your favorite portrait for a T-shirt, mug, or I-phone cover!

As an export, Shakespeare sells. His image, in any one of three possible portraits, is plastered on mugs, teapots, coasters, coins, rugs, and notebooks. His verses are truncated to fit the length of garden stones, pens, bracelets, Ipad cases, and T-shirts.  I personally own six scarves with images from his plays or verses from his poems.

There are some more unusual, and certainly less dignified, items available as well for those bard-idolators:

Shakespeare Insult Gum-each box contains two gum balls and a wonderful Shakespearean insult;

Rubber Duckie Shakespeare: Celebriduck

A Shakespeare Celebriduck-Yes, Shakespeare has been turning into a quacking bard;

Shakespeare Tissue Box cover

A Shakespeare Tissue box cover-Tissue fly from his nose as fast as verses from his pen.

As a product, Shakespeare appeals to a niche market, but given the amount of Shakespeare paraphernalia on the web, that niche market must be very profitable.

Today marks Shakespeare’s 448th birthday. This past month, I have been sell-a-brating Shakespeare in each of my English classes.

Selling Shakespeare is one of the pleasures of teaching English at the high school level. This year, I have “sold” Othello, King Lear, and Hamlet to the Advanced Placement English Literature class, and I am presently selling Macbeth to sophomores while at the same time selling Romeo and Juliet to freshmen.

Once students get past the Prologue; past witches meeting on a heath; past the Ghost’s appearance on the ramparts; past Act I, scene i;  I am on auto-pilot. English teachers accumulate Shakespeare materials in the form of lesson plans, essay prompts, quizzes, audio-tapes, film clips and activities that be pulled out at a moment’s notice. In addition, there are numerous clever resources or plans on the web to access. This past year, I added lesson plans from the websites that featured The Macbeth Tango, Romeo and Juliet on Facebook, and  Stick Figure Hamlet.

Of course, the best way to sell Shakespeare to students is to have them attend a well-acted live performance . If there is no performance in the area, a DVD or video streamed production, and they are readily available on Netflix, Amazon, and PBS,  of one of the many adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays helps engage students. There are websites that list over 400 feature length films or TV shows that bear his name, so there are many options as to which versions might be used.

However, nothing can replace having students reading  and acting out the play in class. Without equivocation, all  students are initially  terrible at reading Shakespeare cold. Nevertheless, almost every student eventually wants  a chance to “strut and fret their hour upon the stage.” Even the brilliant Kenneth Branaugh, now instantly recognizable to my students as “that guy who plays all those characters” in film productions of Hamlet,Othello,  and Much Ado About Nothing, recalls in an interview how his first exposure to Shakespeare came in a class where everyone read from The Merchant of Venice. Kenneth remembered being terrified doing it, and that he “didn’t understand the language.” But having survived that experience, he quickly developed the acting bug.

All this exposure to Shakespeare in high school  does have an effect on his “brand” or name recognition. Recent reports estimate that Shakespeare’s brand is worth over $600 million, twice the amount of Elvis and Marilyn combined. According to the website Campaign Brief, Shakespeare is the best-selling author of all time, with book sales estimated between two and four billion. In contrast, J.K. Rowling’s unit sales are estimated to be less than 450 million. The company Brand Finance was commissioned to determine the commercial value of Shakespeare’s name. Tim Heberden, managing director of Brand Finance in Australia reported: “Not only do these figures make the Shakespeare brand one of the strongest in the world, but it also shows the potential commercial value the Shakespeare name has garnered.” His firm awarded Shakespeare a triple AAA rating noting that the brand could potentionally rise to 1 billion.

I believe that high school English teachers have had a direct hand in this industry. Shakespeare sells very well, because we have sold him very well. For us, the reward is spreading the poetry and drama of the bard, but for those who are literally selling Shakespeare, we have most certainly “put money in thy purse!”

In Education, Shakespeare , , , , , ,
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Experiences in Shakespeare- The Actors Talkback at Yale Rep’s The Winter’s Tale

April 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

Nothing beats a top-notch live performance for selling Shakespeare to students. While there are plenty of quality performances on DVD, streaming from  Netflix or the PBS website, or available piecemeal on Youtube, there is nothing quite like the collective heartbeat one experiences sitting in an audience. In live theatre, there is the moment of an audience-wide hypnosis; the palpable moment when the audience loses self-consciousness and synchronizes its breathing to watch and hear the play. The dramatist Shakespeare provided many opportunities for those moments.

Every year I try to organize a field trip so that my students have an opportunity to attend a live performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays.  Since our school is fortunate to be located an hour away from New Haven, CT, our students can attend matinees at Yale Repertory Theatre. For several years, I have arranged for field trips to see Shakespeare performed at the Yale Rep with Ruth Feldman, the Director of Education and Accessibility Services at the Yale School of Drama.  These plays are funded as part of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) initiative Shakespeare in American Communities:

“Yale Rep offers young people in the community two significant youth theater programs: WILL POWER! and the Dwight/Edgewood Project. WILL POWER! Arts-and-education initiative is designed to build on existing English and Theatre curricula for middle- and high- school educators and their students. The company continues as a leader for it community outreach and accessibility programs that promote audience diversity and participation. “

This year, 40 students attended Yale Rep’s production of The Winter’s Tale, one of the more difficult plays to teach, a “problem” play. On this particular trip, there were honors 9th graders who had been prepared for the production having used a prepared study guide sent in advance of the trip.  The 12th graders, in the throes of “senioritis”, came cold to the production.

No matter. The combination of elegant set and stage movement conveyed the plot-a jealous husband, a wronged wife, a betrayed friend in the opening scenes kept all students rapt. The famous stage direction, “exit pursued by a bear” was brilliantly executed with puppetry, and suddenly the audience was transported into the land of Bohemia with its rainfalls of tiny blossoms, colorful costumes, and infectious country dancing. One student leaned into me, “I would rather live in Bohemia,” she whispered.  The final stage trick of bringing the statue of Hermione to life was met with audible gasps-“She’s real?” The packed house of students cheered predictably louder for the “clowns”from the performance, and with nothing less than genuine admiration for the lead roles as the cast took their final bows. The Winter’s Tale was a hit!

Immediately after the performance, as they have for the entire WILL-POWER series, the cast and production team at Yale Rep offered a talk-back where students can ask questions for about 20 minutes after the show. Seeing the performers in street clothes, without costumes and make-up, sitting on the edge of the stage, tousled but charged up after the 3 hours of performing, is a bit unsettling…the illusion of theatre is laid bare. Awkwardly, for the first five minutes, students stammered out questions: How long did they rehearse? (8 weeks) How old are you (to a 10 year old actress)? Have you been on TV (yes)? Actors responded amiably enough.

Then, a teacher asked, “What was your first Shakespeare experience?” There was a momentary pause and then one actress offered her first memory of Shakespeare…a memory from  high school. “Shakespeare was supposed to be only for the smart kids, which really wasn’t fair,” she recounted, “He’s really for everyone, not just the smart kids.”  Another actor agreed, explaining that members of his class had acted out Shakespeare-very badly, stumbling over the words, but loving the experience. Then another actor spoke. “My mother took me to see Shakespeare when I was seven, so I was always around them[plays]. I grew up loving to watch the plays.” Another actor recounted his initial dislike of Shakespeare’s plays in high school,”I just didn’t get it,” but that an experience in college changed his mind, “Was this the same boring play? Yes! Why was it better now? I don’t know, maybe I was ready then.” Still another spoke of his love of the plays, his love of the language, and his ability “to speak the words really well because I understand them…which means that I have been able to stay employed!” One by one, each actor spoke of an initial Shakespeare experience, good or bad, and how each of them had been changed by that experience. There was such power in their personal stories, an English teacher could not have scripted better confessions. Their passion for Shakespeare and desire to pass that passion on to my students was inspiring; they were the better teachers!

A final question, posed again by an adult audience member, served  the play’s recap: “What was your favorite moment in the play?”she called out. The actors brightened and each took a turn, speaking about a favorite moment. One recounted a scene she could see from the wings, another a moment he shared on stage with another actor. The cast recapped the events of the play -out of sequence-the statue coming to life, the clown stealing the wallet, the dance, a set of choral lines shared between two actors, the moment when the newborn babe is brought before her dismissive father, and the magical transformation of the shepherd into Father Time. But it was the actor who spoke about the stage direction “pursued by a bear” that brought new understanding to one of my students as to how to look at one of Shakespeare’s seemingly improbable plot devices. “Why would Antigonus leave a baby alone on a beach unless he was trying to protect her?” asked the actor, ” Who would do that? Who would do that unless he was convinced he could save the baby? The bear chases him to his death, but the baby lives,” he continued, “I think amid so many acts of selfishness, this is one of the most selfless acts in the play.” Later, sitting at a local pizzeria, a student repeated his explanation word for word, “Seriously, who would leave a baby on a beach? Who would do that unless he was convinced…. That’s so true!”

Live theatre can engage students. Live Shakespeare -performed well-can enrich students. Talkbacks with actors and their experiences with Shakespeare can enlighten students. Perhaps one day my students may have the opportunity to share their first experience with Shakespeare. They may choose Yale Rep’s The Winter’s Tale.

In Education, Shakespeare , , , , , , ,
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A Tale of Two Marches-Civil War Historical Fiction Complements Informational Texts

April 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

A series of miscommunications left the eight members of the local Burnham Library Book Club wondering which book they should prepare to read for the next meeting. The month before, a decision was made to read a novel that shared the name of the next meeting; we would read a book titled  The March by E.L Doctorow for our March meeting date. How clever! Unfortunately, our plans went awry when the librarian posted the selection as March by Geraldine Brooks. Members arrived with copies of one or the other novel.

No matter. As it turned out, we could discuss both books easily, not only because of the similarity of each fictional story arc but because of the numerous historical references to people and the events in the Civil War.  What struck all members of the book club during the discussion was the amount of research that had gone into creating these works of historical fiction, since both contained a notable fidelity to events, customs, and manners of the Civil War era.

March-Geraldine Brooks

In March, Geraldine Brooks borrows her title character, Peter March, from Louisa May Alcott’s story Little Women. Her narrative is told from the alternating point of views of Marmee and the father of the March girls: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. In her explanation for his prolonged absence, the idealistic March enlists as a Union clergyman in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War.

E. L. Doctorow’s The March is centered on real-life Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in his infamous “march to the sea”, as he burns Atlanta before pivoting north into the Carolinas. Multiple narrators are employed in this novel including a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius; Emily Thompson, a daughter of a Southern judge; and Arly and Will, two soldiers who care little about loyalty and more about staying alive.  The scope of  this novel is epic as Sherman’s sixty thousand troops burn, pillage, and choke to death the final throes of the Civil War in 1864.

The similarity of major characters from each novel was uncanny: the mixed-race beautiful protagonist Pearl in The March and the strikingly attractive, educated slave Grace who captivates the title character in March. There were historical figures to people each novel: John Brown, the famous abolitionist; Henry David Thoreau; and Ralph Waldo Emerson make appearances in March. General Sherman, General Joseph E. Johnson, and Abraham Lincoln are present in The March. Both novels also extensively featured field hospitals as settings. March is a a Union chaplain who is wounded and ends up in a Civil War hospital; The March features a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius  who curiously employs a number gruesome surgical procedures.

The novels reflected the tumult of a civil war, the hair-raising escapes from danger and the chaos and brutality that ensued from bitter and divided rivalries. Both novels highlighted the technological advancements that made each side more efficient killing machines, and Doctorow in particular noted the historical progress of mechanized warfare:

 “This in America was to be seen with one’s own eye’s. And as bloody and brutal were the contests of the Lancasters and York, they were hand to hand- battle-aves, pikes, maces. These chaps were industrial age killers: they had repeating rifles that could kill at a thousand yards, grape that could decimate an advancing line, cannon, field-pieces, munitions that could bring down entire cities. Their war was so impersonally murderous as to make quaint anything that had gone on before. (214)

Another element of comparison was the reflection in both novels on ancient wars that had preceded the Civil War. Brooks has her narrator, the cerebral Peter March, contemplate the historical continuum, from the Ancient World to the present, noting the how painful is the loss of loved one due to war:

“The waste of it. I sit here, and I look at him, and it is as if a hundred women sit beside me: the revolutionary farm wife, the English peasant woman, the Spartan mother-‘Come back with your shield or on it,’ she cried, because that was what she was expected to cry. And then she leaned across the broken body of her son and the words turned to dust in her throat.” (211)

In contrast, Doctorow uses a visiting English journalist in order to comment on how the echoes of  ancient conflicts are heard in the progression of battles he sees:

“Yet some of the ancient military culture endured. The brutal romance of war was still possible in the taking of spoils. Each town the army overran was a prize. In this village was an amazing store of wine, in that granary brimming to the rafters, a herd of beef here, an armory there, homes to loot, slaves to incorporate. There was something undeniably classic about it, for how else did the armies of Greece and Rome supply themselves? How else had Alexander’s soldiers made an empire? The invading army, when it camped, sat on the land as its owners, with all the elements of domesticity, including women, enlarging the purely martial function of their social order” (215)

The reasons for the Civil War are addressed more clearly in Brook’s tale. She incorporates the arguments offered by the real-life American Transcendentalist Branson Alcott in her creation of the  character of the naive March who is just beginning to doubt his involvement with the conflict he little understands:

“If war can ever be said to be just, then this war is so; it is action for a moral cause, with the most rigorous of intellectual underpinnings. And yet everywhere I turn, I see injustice done in the waging of it…”(65).

In contrast , Doctorow’s characterization of the West Point educated General Sherman suggests his weary recognition that while the physical act of war will run to its exhausted conclusion, the battlefield will move to another plane where the dispute will continue:

“And so the war had come down to words. It was fought now in terminology across a table. It was contested in sentences. Entrenchments and assaults, drum taps and bugle calls, marches, ambushes, burnings and pitched battles were transmogrified into nouns and verbs.  It is all turned very quiet, Sherman said to Johnson, who, not understanding, lifted his head to listen.

No cannonball or canister but has becomes the language here spoke, the words written down, Sherman thought. Language is war by other means” (348).

Ultimately, the members of book group determined that both books provided a fascinating blend of historical fact with fiction. As an educator, I was impressed about how much more effective both novels were in communicating the experiences of living through the Civil War from its beginning (1861) to its inevitable end concluding with Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. A textbook would have covered the information, but not provided the visceral quality a reader gains through a story….both novels succeeded in recreating history using a “his story” model. Both novels complement the study of the Civil War by blending each author’s thematic development and literary technique with historical fact. As a result, both novels will be placed on the 11th grade classroom shelves along with two other wonderful Civil War novels The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (Gettysburg) and Cold Mountain by Charle Frazier.

All these books appeal to the imagination in recreating the  particulars in the  time and places of the Civil War. As a bonus,  how serendipitous that despite the near duplication of titles, both novels were so similar in subject matter as to allow for a great discussion? How surprising that the story of two “Marches” would ultimately be so similar?

In 11th grade, Advanced Placement Literature, Education, War and Conflict , , , , , , , , ,
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Dear ELA Common Core: English Teachers Should Have More than a Footnote

April 13, 2012 — 7 Comments

The English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CCSS) wants students to read in every discipline from elementary school through grade 12. The standards demand an increase in the reading of informational texts, the genre formally known as non-fiction. So where is the passage that concludes that English/Language Arts teachers will continue to teach fiction and literary non-fiction while other disciplines increase reading in informational texts? Where is the passage that dispels the notion that English/Language Arts teachers are not required to meet the 70%  required reading of informational texts in their classrooms?  Where is the passage that clarifies where students will read more informational texts across the curriculum by senior year?

Well, the passage is a footnote on page 5:

Footnote: 1 The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.

Why is an explanation of this magnitude only a footnote? By definition, a footnote is:
1. A note placed at the bottom of a page of a book or manuscript that comments on or cites a reference for a designated part of the text;
2. Something related to but of lesser importance than a larger work or occurrence.

This  footnote on page 5 of the CCSS functions to clarify that English/Language Arts teachers are not responsible for the increase in reading informational texts. Is this footnote, according to the definition,  “Something related to but of lesser importance than a larger work or occurrence”?  Why is this statement not given more importance in an English/Language Arts document? Why is this statement not written in bold? Why is this statement not a separate bullet point in Key Designs Considerations? Why is this statement relegated to be a footnote?

The specific ratio of how much reading students should do in in fiction and informational texts can be found in a chart in the ELA CCSS  taken from the 2009 reading framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This chart sets up the progression from an even split between fiction and informational texts in grade 4 to the 30% fiction and 70% informational text ratio expected by grade 12.

Chart with 30% fiction, 70% informational Text ratio

The chart is on the Key Designs Considerations page and addresses the demands to include informational texts because “a great deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes if the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched instructionally.”

Really?  If the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched? Why “if”? The only way the ratio for 70% informational texts will meet the NAEP assessment framework is “WHEN” there is an increase of informational texts in classes other than English. Additonally, it is highly unlikely that English teachers will teach a reduced percentage of  fiction or literary non-fiction as students move from elementary (Grade 4) to middle (Grade 8) to high school (Grade 12), and there is nothing in the standards that specifies the ratio of fiction to other texts in an English classroom.

So, heads up History/Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas teachers, the CCSS English/Language Arts Framework is looking at you!

While English/Language Arts teachers are developing curriculum to align with the CCSS, how many of the History/Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas teachers are informed and cooperating in the incorporation of informational texts?  Are teachers in History/Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas developing additional reading to their specific curriculum? Hopefully they are, but my sense is that these resources will take time to develop and integrate.

Already, I have heard the argument from teachers in disciplines other than English/Language Arts moaning, “what do I drop out of my course to include reading?” -which could be read as the reason why the authors of the ELA CCSS felt the need to develop reading and writing standards for History, Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas teachers. A sidebar column in the document explains the need for other disciplines to increase reading:

“Reading is critical to building knowledge in history/social studies as well as in science and technical subjects. College and career ready reading in these fields requires an appreciation of the norms and conventions of each discipline, such as the kinds of evidence used in history and science; an understanding of domain-specific words and phrases; an attention to precise details; and the capacity to evaluate intricate arguments, synthesize complex information, and follow detailed descriptions of events and concepts…Students must be able to read complex informational texts in these fields with independence and confidence because the vast majority of reading in college and workforce training programs will be sophisticated nonfiction (60).”

The last sentence of this section should be in bold: “It is important to note that these Reading standards are meant to complement the specific content demands of the disciplines, not replace them.” 

While the teachers of History, Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas are on notice to include more informational texts, these standards still fall under the English Language Arts Framework which begs the question, who will be responsible for enforcing these standards? Will the testing of a student’s comprehension of informational texts be assigned to a discipline other than English/Language Arts? Will overall reading scores reflect on an entire school, as it should, or will reading scores reflect on the English/Language Arts departments since the CCSS frameworks are designed under the heading English Language Arts frameworks?

Of course, many English teachers, fearing the removal of fiction and literary non-fiction (essays, memoir, etc), raised their concerns about the demand for informational texts. Responding to these concerns (among others), the  CCSS developed a page on their website titled Myths vs. Facts.
Here, the CCSS attempts to clear the confusion as to what reading will be done in English/Language Arts:

Myth: English teachers will be asked to teach science and social studies reading materials.

Fact: With the Common Core ELA Standards, English teachers will still teach their students literature as well as literary non‐fiction. However, because college and career readiness overwhelmingly focuses on complex texts outside of literature, these standards also ensure students are being prepared to read, write, and research across the curriculum, including in history and science. These goals can be achieved by ensuring that teachers in other disciplines are also focusing on reading and writing to build knowledge within their subject areas.

Unfortunately, the CCSS’s use of footnotes and charts to define the percentages in the increases in informational text reading leaves questions as to which exactly how each discipline will be held responsible.  The CCSS makes the assumption that other disciplines will  incorporate more reading under a English/Language Arts framework. The CCSS states that the English/Language Arts classrooms will not be required to replace their fiction and literary non-fiction with informational texts, but infers that there will be a mechanism “to ensure that teachers in other disciplines are also focusing on reading and writing to build knowledge within their subject areas.” The method of measuring the increase and the results of this increase is yet to be determined.  The process of how reading will be incorporated across the curriculum needs more than an assumption and an inference. For English/Language Arts teachers there is a footnote is where the “devil is in the details”, but only if all other stakeholders in this shift to a Common Core curriculum read that footnote.

In Common Core, Curriculum, Education , , , , , , , , ,
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Justice Scalia, Set a Good Example and Do Your Homework

April 9, 2012 — 8 Comments

Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler was before the Supreme Court arguing on behalf of the Health Care Bill when he stated that the  Supreme Court Justices would need to look at “the structure and the text” of the 2,700-page law. Justice Antonin Scalia cut into his argument asking, “Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment?” Scalia asked. “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” (audio-video link).

Artist rendering of Supreme Court listening to arguments about the Health Care Bill- from the Politico Website

Well, yes. Speaking as a citizen of the United States of America, yes, I do. Speaking as a high school English teacher, I want you, Justice Antonin Scalia, to do your homework. I expect no less from my 17-19 year old students enrolled in my Advanced Placement English Literature class. I want them to read at least 2,700 pages of the world’s great literature because I am trying to prepare them for the rigors of college. I know that reading  great literature is also critical to help prepare my student’s brains for real-life social interaction. Similarly, I want you, Justice Scalia, to read 2,700 pages to make a determination about the real-life Health Care Bill that will effect every citizen.

As I listened to the radio broadcast report of the court session, it was the number of pages, 2,700, that caught my attention.  2,700 pages sounded intimidating at first, but I began to mentally check off the number of books I require my Advanced Placement English Literature high school students to read. I decided to check, and determined that this school year, my students have read:

Hamlet, King Lear, Othello (roughly 80 pages each)=320 pages; The Handmaid’s Tale-312 pages; Beloved-275 pages; Paradise Lost (roughly) 200 pages; The Story of Edgar Sawtell-576 pages; The Grapes of Wrath-464 pages; Frankenstein-256 pages; Medea-50 pages; Antigone-46 pages; A Thousand Acres-384. Total? 2803 pages. A full 103 more pages than the legislation for the Health Care Act! My students will have read more pages than the bill that Justice Scalia or the other Supreme Court Justices would have to read, and that does not count the numerous poems, essays, and short stories they have also read in class. They have read more than 2803 pages for only one of their high school classes.

According to the transcripts, Scalia’s interrogation of Kneedler was interrupted several times by laughter from the gallery. “You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?” Scalia interjected, “And do you really expect the court to do that? (*laughter*)  Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks? (*laughter*) Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”(*laughter*)

His rhetorical questions were met by comments by Supreme Court Jutice Elana Kagan, who chimed in, “For some people, we look only at the text,” she said. “It should be easy for Justice Scalia’s clerks.”

“I don’t care whether it’s easy for my clerks,” Scalia retorted,  channeling the spirit of the demanding Justice William O. Douglas, “I care whether it’s easy for me.”

The use of the law clerks-the youngest, best and the brightest lawyers-to do the bulk of the reading and preparation for each case is widely understood. In many ways, law clerks are to the Supreme Court Justices what Sparknotes are to students.

Sparknotes are written by top students or recent graduates who specialize in the subjects they cover. According to the SparkNotes website, their “writers approach literature with a passion and an enthusiasm that inspires students and has won over parents and teachers worldwide”,  which means they read the novels, poems, and plays they analyze- every single word. What is interesting about the Scalia-Keegan exchange is that many of the writers for Sparknotes have graduated from Harvard, as has Justice Scalia who received his LL.B. from Harvard Law School where he was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960–1961. Justice Elena Kagan is also a Harvard graduate; she earned  a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986, and was appointed the 11th dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.

How proud Harvard University must be to have six out of the nine current Justices as graduates. What must Harvard University think, however, when a graduate complains that he does not want to read the very legislation that he will rule on because it is too long.  To heap humiliation onto the the graduates of this prestigious university, Chief Justice Roberts, who also received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979,  acknowledged during the proceedings that he had not read the legislation either, “Where is this line?” he asked Kneedler, “I looked through the whole Act, I didn’t read …”Perhaps the graduates of Harvard who have successfully written for Sparknotes, and helped thousands of high school students in their hours of need,  could be called on to help these jurists in their hour of need.

Frankly, the idea that members of the Supreme Court have come to decide the fate of the Health Care bill  without doing the reading is as frustrating to me as when students arrive unprepared for a reading comprehension quiz. School is their job, their grades are how they are paid, so  students are paid for their lack of preparation with a bad grade. What will be the result of Justice Scalia and Justice Roberts’s lack of preparation, and moreover, what examples are they setting?

Students often complain about the reading they have been assigned. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is “hard to read”; John Milton’s Paradise Lost  has “too many footnotes in the poem”; Toni Morrison’s Beloved  is “confusing”. I push on despite the numerous complaints I hear everytime I bring out a text  forcing students to engage in difficult texts because I know each text will eventually hook the reader-Shakespeare has 400 plus years of success for a reason.  Unfortunately, this is the age of education where a literary work is too often judged by a student by its length, not by its content. How sad to have that thinking reinforced by some of the top minds in our judiciary.

The Health Care Act is certainly drier than Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, but there will be sections that require an expert eye in order to make a fair judicial ruling. The Health Care Act will probably drive a reader into King Lear’s madness, but the fact that the document is too long should not be used as an excuse for completing the assignment.

So, Justice Scalia, and all other justices of the Supreme Court, show students everywhere that doing the assigned work is important before you write the paper. Do not whine or make jokes in public about the length of the assignment in the hopes of gaining sympathy. My students have already read 103 more pages than the 2,700 pages of the Health Care Bill for only one of their classes. Show them that you can read all 2,700 pages because that is your job.

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“They Bow…Just Like Us”-The High School Musical as Project Based Learning

April 3, 2012 — Leave a comment

It is high school musical season-the best of

It’s the final act; the final musical number. It is 9:30 PM Eastern Standard Time and Reno Sweeney leads the chorus in the rousing reprise “Anything Goes”. It is  9:30 PM Central Standard Time, and Mother Superior exhorts the Von Trapps to “Climb Every Mountain”. It is  9:30 PM Mountain Standard Time, and the Pink Ladies and the Greasers be-bopp their rendition of “We Go Together”. It is at 9:30 Pacific Standard Time, and the fiddler plays the final wistful strains of “Anatevka” as the villagers sadly leave their homes as part of a great migration.

Across America, it is spring; it is high school musical season.

Just as the snowpack melts in some communities, or the holiday decorations are finally removed from front doors or trees, the lawn signs advertising the upcoming show at the local high school pop up like spring flowers.  The Pajama Game, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat, West Side Story, and Hello, Dolly! all have their turns gracing the stage in some auditorium, or maybe a cafe-a-torium. Students who have read The Wizard of Oz, Cinderella, Peter Pan or Beauty and the Beast take on the roles they once imagined. So popular is the idea of a high school musical that Disney created its own successful franchise based on the common high school experience of the High School Musical. 

Each winter, students go through the painful process of auditions. A select few will be thrilled, others will accept those thankless roles in the chorus or the nominal speaking parts. By the time ticket sales start, students will have had eight to twelve weeks in rehearsal, usually in the evenings, often after sports or other school activities. The lead roles will have rehearsed several days a week more than those with those cast in thankless chorus roles. Those with thankless chorus roles will have been working almost exclusively with the choreographer and rehearsal pianist. The set designers and construction crew will have drilled, nailed, and painted the sets; the technical crew will have laid out the miles of cables for sound systems and C-clamped the par-cans in place to highlight sections of the stage. The costume crew will have organized a wardrobe for easy backstage changes, while the stage manager(s) will have clearly labeled set pieces with “do NOT touch” signs. The musicians will have learned their individual parts with the ability to play softly under the spoken lines of dialogue.

Two weeks after those lawn signs advertising the show appear, the technical (lighting and sound) and dress rehearsals begin, and everyone associated with the production will be spending many more hours than anticipated rehearsing scene changes, re-blocked exits and entrances, and correcting dropped lighting or musical cues. The work is collaborative, the responsibility is shared-adult and student alike- and those thankless chorus roles are now critically important.

If authentic experiences are what educators want for students, then the high school musical, an extra-curricular activity for most school districts, is the ultimate project based learning experience. Everything a student does in a high school musical, from the start to the finish, is as authentic as a professional production-from audition through rehearsal to performance, from design to construction to set strike. Long after the set is struck, the pictures from the local paper fade on the bulletin boards, or the advertising lawn signs are removed, students remember their turn upon the stage in ways that defy the best classroom instruction. Everything about the high school musical- a wonderful blend of drama, music and dance- is “hands-on”.

A March 2012 study by the National Endowment of the Arts titled  The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth: Findings from Four Longitudinal Studies finds disadvantaged students do better academically if they are intensely involved in the arts; music, dance, and drama are specifically targeted in the charts and data.  The report states that for low socio-economic status students,”Both 8th-grade and high school students who had  high levels of arts engagement were more likely to aspire to college than were students with less arts engagement.” But even students from high socio-economic status groups benefit:

“Arts-engaged high school students enrolled in competitive colleges —and in four-year colleges in general—at higher rates than did low arts-engaged students. Even among high-socio-economic status individuals, college-going rates were higher if students had engaged in arts-rich experiences in high school, according to a separate database. Ninety-four percent of the high-arts group went on to a four-year college, versus 76 percent of the low-arts, high-socio-economic status group.”

Years ago, I took a group of my 8th grade students who had recently completed three sold-out performances of The Apple Tree at their junior high school to Broadway to see How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. At the conclusion, as Matthew Brodrick and the cast  lined up for curtain call, a student grabbed my arm in excitement, “They bow!” she stage-whispered to me, “just like us!” To her, there was no difference between their musical and the one they had seen, and in truth, outside of the quality of their performance and the quality of the Broadway set, costumes, lighting, and ticket price; there was no difference. The high school musical memorably combines learning with performance; the high school musical is an American tradition.

Imagine the synchnonicity -a sort of live streaming-  of one musical as performed by high schools across the United States…imagine South Pacific. While one East Coast high school male chorus is stomping and singing, “There is Nothing Like a Dame”, a West Coast high school cast is just opening their production with two of the smallest cast members singing “Dites Moi”.  While the Mid-west actress Nellie Forbush is “Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair”, the East Coast Cast actor  Lt. Cable is singing, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.” Each production will have some variation of  dance numbers featuring Sailors, Seabees, and Marines. There will be a backdrop for Bali Ha’i . And, in the final scene of each performance, sometime around 9:30 PM, the student playing Emile will reach for the student playing Nellie Forbush’s hand, under the table, while the band swells with the strains of “Some Enchanted Evening”…. the enchanted evening of the ultimate “project based learning” …the high school musical.

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