Different Perspective

In my last blog posting I wrote about my experience observing advanced English 20 at Walter Murray Collegiate. Well, last week I had the opportunity to view the other end of the ELA spectrum at Walter Murray.
I had the opportunity to observe and help a class at Walter Murray called "credit recovery". Students are placed in the class if they have been asked to discontinue their modified class. In credit recovery, the students are given a second chance to receive a credit by completing assignments given by the credit recovery teacher. At the end of the assignments, a mark is negotiated between the students and teacher.
While I was observing the class, I was instantly needed to help the students stay on task and complete their assignments. One of the students was assigned a short story to read, followed by a series of question to answer. I was drawn to this student as I noticed him not working on his assignment. I thought that if I worked with him, maybe he could finish his assignment.
While helping this student, I was thinking back to EDUC 498 and the readings to see if any strategy from class or readings could motivate the student to finish the assignment, or at least try working on it. To start, I quickly read the story so I would would know the answers to the questions. The student told me he had read the story as well, so together, we attempted the first question.
Who is the main character in the story?
I instantly thought back to EDUC 498 and how simple plot questions would not evoke deeper reading. As I found out from working on the questions, this student was unable to see the basic aspect of the short story. He didn't know the answer to question one. I was sure he didn't read it.
So I made him read the story again, and this time he could identify the main character. I would like to believe it was my second draft reading strategy that helped reach the answer, but I'm not sure.
I feel I did give him some valuable advice for completing plot based questions. Find the paragraph that relates to the question, reread it, and then find the exact sentence that answers the question. After I showed him a few examples, he was able to answer the remaining questions.
I have to be honest and say I enjoyed working with students who struggle with reading comprehension, rather than those who have already mastered it. I feel that by working with the students in credit recovery, I was having a larger impact in a student's life than I would facilitating a class conversation about detailed theme and metaphors. It was an eye opening experience.

October 2- Today I had my first experience in a high school English class as an observer. I was observing an advanced ELA 20 course at Walter Murray Collegiate. During my observation, I was looking for the strategies I read about in the first week’s readings from EDUC 498. In today’s ELA 20 class, the class read the poem “Children” by Kahlil Gibran. To introduce the poem, the teacher utilized the strategy suggested by the author of Deeper Meaning. The poem was presented to the class on an overhead, and the class was asked to read it once by themselves. When everyone had finished the poem, the teacher read the poem to the class. Deeper Meaning recommends that material should be read twice, for the students to first uncover the main points, and secondly begin to uncover the literary devices. The ELA 20 class had no issue uncovering the purpose of the poem beyond the basic text. As the teacher led the class through the poem line by line, I was amazed at the complex understanding the class had of the poet’s message. I’m sure part of the reason this class could grasp the intricate points of the poem was because it was an advanced level course. I would also like to think that with proper study and techniques, all students can read a poem and other literature the way in which the ELA 20 class I observed today did.

            Another successful strategy the teacher used that I noticed from Deeper Reading was relating the poem to the lives of the students. The poem was about the role of the parents in the guiding of their children. The poet argues that the parents are simply supposed to provide for the kids, but not force their beliefs and knowledge upon them. The poet argues to allow the next generation to decide how they wish to shape the future. The teacher used this argument to ask the class how they view the direction of their generation. An interesting class discussion was the result of this point raised within the poem. An effective strategy the teacher used to facilitate this discussion was to raise, and be able to argue for both sides. The students were forced to develop sound arguments in order to disprove the argument of the teacher. While they were forming their arguments, they were also uncovering how they view their role in society.

I think without the readings for EDUC 498, I wouldn’t have noticed the strategies teachers can use to engage their class. I think a successful ELA lesson gets the students to think beyond the plot and uncover the message within the text. There are numerous social messages present in any work of literature, and a class should focus on examining these aspects.