Trying to Wing It

One of the best parts about being a lit major was that a significant portion of my grade came from answers that could be fudged. Some may call them BS answer; I call it using semantics to my advantage. After several degrees in this field, some might call me an expert in answering a question that you have no idea how to answer, but more importantly for me these days is my ability to spot the non-answer in my students’ work.

Lucky for me, I teach middle school. By the time they leave high school, students have learned how to play the game, what words to use to subconsciously persuade the teacher that they do know what they are taking about and aren’t just guessing blindly. It is MUCH easier for me to spot the kids who are winging it. They are starting to learn the tricks of the trade, but they have not mastered this craft.

On tests, I can often spot the non-answers to open-ended questions through their vagueness. Give an example of the theme “You must fight to survive.” “The main character fights through it all and in the end survives.” “This is shown in many parts of the book including when she fought to survive.” Nice try, but even the first-year teacher would recognize that as a big flashing, “I don’t know.”

Other times, the BS can be spotted because of the awkward and illogical response scribbled on the page. What is the symbol in this passage, and what does it represent? “The gray mist represents how maimed their passion was.” “His foot represents a new beginning.” (By the way, there was no mention of a foot in the passage I provided for this question.) Neither of those answers makes any sense. It wasn’t that you didn’t read the book the students are referencing; those answers make no sense because the students didn’t read it either.

But, my favorite non-answers to spot are the I-didn’t-study-vocab-but-I-will-wing-it vocabulary sentences. My school stresses knowledge of parts of speech, and it does come back to haunt me a little bit on vocab tests. Students write vague sentences with the word as the correct part of speech, and I get to determine if the sentence is BS or worth points. See if you can spot the kids who don’t know the meaning of the italicized word.

-The character was very frugal.

-The vermin was planning a plot of revenge.

-His legs were astride at the roll call.

–Indulgently, I helped the little boy onto the train.

-She was bewildered to find out about the good news.

None of these students earned credit, but there is a possibility that all of them studied and just weren’t sure how to properly use the word or that they were completely winging it. One day, they will be better at faking their way through a test, but for now, I usually win. I’ve added that to the list of reasons I love teaching middle school.

The Curious Incident of the Dog and the Homework

When I was getting my teaching certificate, I remember seeing books written by retired teachers about all the funny notes parents sent to school over the course of their tenure. I’d walk through Borders Books, because at that time Borders was in full swing and had yet to be crushed by the online giant Amazon and digital books such as Kindle, and grab a five-dollar book titled something like My Dog Ate my Homework and Other Classic Excuses to the Teacher. [That’s not a real book, and if it is, I guessed well and hope I don’t owe money to the publisher; copyright is so strict these days.] Such books were usually considered gag gifts or stocking stuffers in my family, so seeing something like this on a bargain table would give me pause.

If you were to ask me to write a short book about all the funny excuses kids gave me for why they are late to class or why they don’t have their homework, I’d make…no money at all. One of the greatest disappointments I have is that the wonderful cliché of adorable, creative excuses that I can see through but that the child is determined is convincing just doesn’t exist in my world. And that is a huge disappointment to me because it is a sign, if nothing else, of the loss of creativity in our students.

What happened to the long, elaborate stories of aliens descending in the middle of the night, unknown to the child, until the next morning when the homework was gone and only a thin green trail of slime remained on the bedroom wall, indicative of all middle-of-the-night-alien-homework-stealing invasions?

Perhaps such imaginary tales are too elementary for a thirteen-year-old to pull off. Granted. So, I was ready for some teenage flare. Perhaps, after dinner the student’s parents begin to fight, resulting in the student going to his or her room to complete the assignment, but this particular student shares a room with her sister, who is older and who kicks her out. Thus, our troubled, hard-working student is now in the bathroom trying to complete the tedious homework I gave out, and the humidity of the shower [the younger sister is in the shower because she has an earlier bedtime] made it impossible to write with pencil. So my dedicated student goes for a pen, but when she returns, the younger, showering sister is out and dripping soapy water all over the homework, making it impossible to salvage. Nope. I don’t get anything like that either.

The excuses for why homework is incomplete are simple and simply pathetic. “I forgot” is what I am given 75% of the time. You might think that an honorable excuse because it’s the truth. I agree, but 75% of the time? Where are the creative juices in my students? The other popular excuses I’ve heard over the years are, “My computer broke” and “It’s at home.” 1. Your computer did not break; you forgot. That’s even more frustrating because that excuse isn’t even honest. It’s dishonest and boring. 2. If it’s at home, is there a reason you haven’t called to have someone bring it in? I know not all students have someone at home who can drive forgotten homework to school, but if your boring excuse is going to be “It’s at home,” I think I deserve the creative part about why it can’t get here during the school day. My dad is in the army, and my mom is taking care of her dying aunt so can’t bother herself with minutia like homework. Nope. I don’t get anything like that either.

I’m disappointed in part because when I retire, I’ll never be able to write a bargain table book about all the funny excuses I heard over the years, but the dearth of creativity is much more upsetting. I suppose if I’m not going to get a smile out of the excuse, then I’m glad it’s truthful because the oddest excuses are when the lie is obvious and from the parent. There are few moments more befuddling than when a parent emails me that the student couldn’t do an assignment because their internet was down. My silent response is always, then how are you emailing me? [I would never email that to a parent; it is disrespectful, so I ask it to myself silently instead.] If you are emailing from a neighbor or friend’s house, then why couldn’t the student do his or her assignment there? If you are emailing from your iPad, why couldn’t the student type his poem into the body of the email on your iPad? If you are going to use technology as the excuse, then be careful what technology you use to send that excuse to the teacher.

Upon reflection, I would never have made up an excuse for my teacher either. I would have told the truth, that I forgot, and taken the consequences I deserved. So perhaps things will be alright in the creative futures of my students, but I’m still annoyed I’ll never be able to write that book.

*My title pays tribute to the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I alluded to in a post about Autism a few weeks ago.

Shakespeare: A

Why is it that movies like Shakespeare in Love, Romeo and Juliette (with Leonard DiCaprio and Clair Danes), 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s the Man, and other films about the Bard and his plays are so popular when so many students dread the word “Shakespeare”? Tell a class of students they will be reading a play, and you will hear groans that would make you think the cafeteria had given everyone food poisoning. But, make a hit television show like House of Cards that is full of characters and situations from Macbeth, and you will make millions. It begs the question, how do you teach students to read Shakespeare’s texts without traumatizing them? Clearly, the content of the plays is enjoyable, so how to you circumnavigate the language?

When I was an undergrad, I did a senior project that attempted to answer that question. Over my tenure in the classroom, I’ve built on that initial research and have what I believe is a very successful approach to teaching these texts even at the middle school level. The answer is don’t circumnavigate the language, teach it; teach it like a foreign language so that the students can read it and understand it. Impossible, you say? Poppy cock!

Below is a concise “Introduction” to my revised “How to Teach Shakespeare” research. In college, it was titled “A Method to the Madness,” a paraphrase we steal from Shakespeare. I’m not going to post my entire project, but occasionally, I would like to share my teaching techniques in the hopes that others may be able to use them in their English classrooms.

 

Shakespeare’s plays are staples of English curricula at all levels around the country. And while English teachers relish these texts, students often approach the plays with hesitation or even distaste. Reading Shakespeare is unquestionably difficult, but it should not be painful.

This is a list of activities, projects, and methods teachers can use when they are addressing a Shakespearean play. I have used these ideas for the last five years with three different Shakespearean comedies in eighth grade classes, and I find my students leaving the unit with excitement about the Bard and having a sense of power in reading new texts in subsequent years.

I’ve chosen to organize these thoughts in ABC order, creating an ABC book of techniques for teaching Shakespearean texts to middle or high school students. This is not a unit plan, and these ideas are not to be taught in this sequence. This is a reference for teachers to pick and choose strategies that will meet specific goals and groups of students, but these ideas are applicable to any comedy, tragedy, or history since the philosophy behind this alphabet book is how to read, and enjoy, Shakespeare.

An Alphabet Book for All

ABC books are given to young children to help them learn their letters. However, creating an alphabet book for a Shakespearean play is a very advanced task, and therefore, any Shakespearean unit could include an ABC book project. Think about any play; what is an aspect of that play that starts with A, with B, with K, with Q, with U…it’s a tall order.

To challenge students to really know a play, you can ask them to maintain or create an ABC book for the entire play. They will have one page, or half page, about a piece of the play that starts with all 26 letters. This will result in students’ understanding, or at least recognizing, 26 different characters, themes, settings, conflicts, etc in the play.

I prefer to make a class alphabet book. I randomly assign each student a letter, and that student must create a two-page spread that closely examines one element starting with that letter, using direct quotes, images, symbols, charts, as well as written paragraphs. Some students choose the obvious topics, like names of characters. However, this project frequently leads to the realization that Shakespeare includes so much more in his plays: weddings, farce, puns, slapstick, animals, arguments, relationships, rivals, violence, and so much more. The unit ends with each class having one detailed alphabet book. (See letter E for more about textual analysis.)

NOTE: This ABC project can be done with almost any subject you may be teaching: chemical elements, math concepts, pieces of the Civil War, musicians, almost anything.

Check back for more of this project; I will post sections of this piece from time to time for those interested in this pedagogy.