Little Pleasures

I had a good day today. A REALLY good day.

Teaching here so far has been relatively uneventful. I've been pleased with my lessons and have enjoyed working with my students; I believe I'm establishing a rapport with all my classes. I've had sunshine moments (where the sun seems to shine that bit brighter), such as when a College Prep student told me he's stuck the essay he'd got an A for on his fridge, so he can feel good about himself whenever he goes to get a drink and when a parent praised me on my 'astute' observations on her son (it is usual here to have to email a parent with a brief summary of lessons and homework by a specified day each week; I have to do this for three or four students. I've also picked up the phone in my classroom to find a parent on the other end!). That said, I've also had moments where I've fretted over all the forms of assessment I need to undertake and also how to plan using textbooks and an entirely different curriculum.

I'd therefore been worrying about how to approach Beowulf - specifically the ten or so pages of contextual information at the start of the unit in the textbook - with honors students when I've only previously taught it to twelve year olds, and British twelve year olds at that (I do think there is a difference in terms of contextual knowlege, due to cultural differences). I'd mulled over approaches for days, setting the reading as homework before I'd made a final decision on the route I wanted to take. So today, I was delighted when the route I took seemed to be a resounding success.

In addition to writing the lesson objectives on the board, I also wrote up two columns: A and B. Column A contained a range of presentation methods, such as a recipe, flow chart, images, etc. Column B listed the five key areas covered by the contextual information in the textbook. After a brief starter, I explained the class was to be divided in two and that the two teams would be competing against each other (this always ups the ante!) for a prize. The teams were told that they should decide amongst themselves who would work on which area but that by the end of the lesson I wanted all five pieces of work from Column B, presented using a range of methods from Column A (one of which was 'other', so that they could be as creative as the bounds of their own imagination). The teams will be presenting their work next lesson, enabling them to further consolidate their understanding of the topic (as they are more likely to retain the information if they have to explain it to someone else) and me to decide a winner. In both classes, all the teams threw themselves into the challenge with gusto and the standard (and creativity of the) work they produced was phenomenal. I even got asked by several pupils if they could do further research and add to their presentations for homework! Additionally, the students were very vocal in their praise of the task, which was satisfying to me.

I'm looking forward to the presentations and intend to consolidate the introduction to the unit by getting them to submit their own quiz questions (of the game show kind as opposed to the US school kind) and we'll culminate with a version of the Talking Football game, adapted to suit the rules of American sport (as most students here are very sports-focused).

My AP class also blew me away today with their presentations on mythical allusions. Even when I taught A level students I don't think they ever gave so much of themselves when presenting work - or allowed themselves to be quite as creative - as these students. Some had made actual children's story books, complete with illustrations, and delivered the story in the form of 'circle time'. Others made huge poster boards or professional PowerPoints (in one case, where each slide had been physically drawn by her on the computer too). The highlight of the lesson though was the presentation given by the token male of the class, who'd made a series of masks (see above) and acted out the tale of Medusa, playing every role.

Having worked in schools, and with classes (and I'm not talking about Fairfield here) where even the most interative, creative, 'bells and whistles', lesson seems to have little effect, even on the able, to be able to harness the creativity and enthusiasm of these students is in turn infusing me with possibilities: this could be fun!