Mr. Smagorinsky,
This is now the second time that I will be creating a unit via your suggested structure of backwards planning. The first thing I want to tell you is, "Thanks." Unit planning can seem like an insurmountable task, but your text has been an invaluable source in carrying out an instructional unit from the conceptual framework through to the culminating texts and assessments.
There's something about your presentation of what English classes should "do" that makes it feel like it aligns with what I want my English class to do. You don't ascribe to any particular teaching philosophy in any fundamentalist way like so many methods texts and articles seem to do. You seem to understand that nothing will ever be perfect, even the types of ideologies that are completely in agreement with our own personal viewpoints. The reason for this, of course, is that teaching does not exist within the vacuums of our own minds but rather in the dynamic and unpredictable realm of real life.
There is plenty of constructivist principles in this methods text but there are also remnants of more old-school English teaching. Amongst all of the wonderful student-based, personal response centered activities, you always seem to bring it back to the text. Literature is the medium of our craft is it not? Plus, the example instructions to assignments you provide possess a certain degree of rigor that I also believe can be lost the more we become so attached to constructivist principles of student-based learning. Again, these approaches are not wrong and, in fact, I usually agree with them most of the time, but its their application, or rather, their prescribed applications in methods texts that sometimes seem to lose the importance of the literary part of English classes.
You seem to recognize that teaching literature is not about getting students to want to become life-long devotees of literature, although that would be wonderful. Unfortunately, most of our students will not share our appreciation for literature. However, I do believe that the skills associated with good reading and good texts can be imparted to many, if not all, students. The skills of analysis and evaluation, of taking a critical stance toward what we encounter and testing it against the available evidence and our own experiences, and of negotiating the differences in perspective and viewpoints in order to synthesize a new and more complete understanding of the world...these are some of the things that we can and must teach.
Keep up the good work, Smago.
Cheers,
Michael
This is now the second time that I will be creating a unit via your suggested structure of backwards planning. The first thing I want to tell you is, "Thanks." Unit planning can seem like an insurmountable task, but your text has been an invaluable source in carrying out an instructional unit from the conceptual framework through to the culminating texts and assessments.
There's something about your presentation of what English classes should "do" that makes it feel like it aligns with what I want my English class to do. You don't ascribe to any particular teaching philosophy in any fundamentalist way like so many methods texts and articles seem to do. You seem to understand that nothing will ever be perfect, even the types of ideologies that are completely in agreement with our own personal viewpoints. The reason for this, of course, is that teaching does not exist within the vacuums of our own minds but rather in the dynamic and unpredictable realm of real life.
There is plenty of constructivist principles in this methods text but there are also remnants of more old-school English teaching. Amongst all of the wonderful student-based, personal response centered activities, you always seem to bring it back to the text. Literature is the medium of our craft is it not? Plus, the example instructions to assignments you provide possess a certain degree of rigor that I also believe can be lost the more we become so attached to constructivist principles of student-based learning. Again, these approaches are not wrong and, in fact, I usually agree with them most of the time, but its their application, or rather, their prescribed applications in methods texts that sometimes seem to lose the importance of the literary part of English classes.
You seem to recognize that teaching literature is not about getting students to want to become life-long devotees of literature, although that would be wonderful. Unfortunately, most of our students will not share our appreciation for literature. However, I do believe that the skills associated with good reading and good texts can be imparted to many, if not all, students. The skills of analysis and evaluation, of taking a critical stance toward what we encounter and testing it against the available evidence and our own experiences, and of negotiating the differences in perspective and viewpoints in order to synthesize a new and more complete understanding of the world...these are some of the things that we can and must teach.
Keep up the good work, Smago.
Cheers,
Michael
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