Do it now or do it when you’ve thought about it a bit more?

I have written at length about knowledge and its use in English, and this isn’t going to be one of those blogs, but it is about mapping out the thought processes in English lessons. 

We don’t spell out the internalised thought process in English. To the outsider, or an average student, the processes must look magical and effortless. They see a student coming up with a great idea and within seconds of looking at something. They don’t actually know what is going on in that student's head. All they see is someone come up with ideas, quickly. 

To mimic the speed of idea forming, we see students throw out random ideas or pick pure speculation. How many times have we had to gently let a student down when their idea is beyond barmy? The speed of the idea is more important than the process to them. That is why they go for stock answers like ‘the reader reads on’ because they emulate completeness. 

A lot of the time in lessons replicate exam conditions and so we try to replicate the speed of thinking needed in lessons. That is the end point and not the guidance for the norm. We need to give time in lessons so they can process things and work things out in their head. Yes , they will need to do it quickly, but not now and not yet. 

One area our department is working on is unpicking images and techniques for meaning. It is not that we have an issue as a department, but as noted in the exam reports we feel our students can do it better in this area. I’ve liked David Didau’s discussion on metaphor and the use of terms like tenor, vehicle and ground, and I will touch upon some of his thinking here. Read his ‘Making Meaning in English’ for more on it. Anyway, a lot of our time when analysing texts can be spent on spotting rather than exploring. Hence why students can spot every technique in an extract but say very little meaningful about them. We started picking out the techniques for students so stop the emphasis being on spotting.Note: we haven’t removed it completely but shifted the focus. Below is an example sheet: 

Initially, we ask students to explain why a choice has been made in the extract. That question alone has missed a few steps. 

• What do we know about the thing? 

• What do we know about the character? 

• How do these two things link? 

• Why do you think the writer made this choice? 

One of the biggest problems we have with students in English is activating prior knowledge. They see English as a subject where you have to repeat what a teacher has told you on a topic. That’s why they are often silent with a new text or exam question. I have nothing to repeat from before. They are happier calling what a teacher said rather than thinking about their wider knowledge. The best students are those that are constantly activating prior knowledge when doing things. This reminds me of… This links to … Weaker students tend to think of work in terms of a Magic Eye picture. The answer must jump out if you look at it long enough. They are passive rather than active thinkers. To address this problem, we have to work on moving their thinking away from passivity. 

Therefore, the starting point with this Rosabel metaphor is the vehicle. The thing. What do they know about fairy palaces? Here are some recent answers to that exact question. 

• Big 

• Grand 

• Magical 

• Not real 

• Fragile 

• Colourful 

• Life changing 

• Fantasy 

• A different world 

• Full of fairies 

• Royalty 

• Femininity 

The beauty of this question is that all students can answer and there’s a range of answers. Plus, it is safe as there’s no danger. We are just collectively trying to recall. 

The next stage is thinking about the character / situation. What is going on with Rosabel?  

• She hates her job 

• She is poor 

• She is jealous of the woman with red hair

• She has to deal with rude people 

• She doesn’t like people on the bus 

• She doesn’t like the bus journey 

Then comes in the connection - Which of these ideas about the palaces links to what is going on with Rosabel? 

• Her dream is fragile like the palace 

• She wants to be better - royalty / life changing 

• She hates her life and so another life seems colourful, bright, magic 

• She knows her dream is never going to happen - fantasy / magic 

Finally, it is pulling everything together - Why has the writer chosen that choice? 

From these questions, we have scaffolded the thinking behind an extract. We are helping students to unpick a simile, metaphor or personification by unpicking the thinking processes. Below is the next step we have used. 

	What do you know?	How does this link to Roland?
Verb – exhumed
List – black, thick, tenacious Victorian dust
Personification – spine is missing
Verb – bandaged
Noun – tied in a neat bow
Simile – sprang apart, like a box

We have seen a real improvement in engagement in ideas and thinking with this. Not only is it demystifying an element of English, but it is quite a collective process. Plus, it stops the subject as being a ready prepared answer subject. There are no quick answers in English. 

SLTs obsession with enforcing ‘Do it Now’s or knowledge retrieval has benefits for subjects, but it has the worrying issue that there is a quick easy recall answer in English. There isn’t! In fact, English is about snowballs. We have some knowledge and then we link and connect it to something else and make something bigger. We do something with that knowledge. We make something new. 

If we are going to challenge domineering ways of teaching, we need to spell out how English does knowledge, but it doesn’t do it in just the way others do it. We don’t want parrots; instead we want thinkers! Active thinkers. 

Thanks for reading 

Precision and laser sharp thinking

I’ve discussed at length how English cannot be reduced to a simple checklist of things. There seems to be an endless desire to homogenise subjects. Something that works in one subject must always work for another subject. That isn’t the case. 

One area that English struggles with is identifying the top elements of our subject. We have these phrases like ‘flair’, ‘confidence’ and ‘creativity’ which are aspects of the subject that are blooming hard to pinpoint, describe and teach. They are the fruition of large bodies of knowledge, skill and experience. You cannot cover them in one lesson. You cannot teach them explicitly. They are the product of time. 

The one area that separates students from one another is precision. The best students are able to capture an idea precisely. The weaker of students tend to over generalise or simplify an idea to the point of beyond obviousness. In English, we can teach knowledge to imitate this precision but unless students are able to be precise with the rest of their thinking, then it amounts to very little. For most of what we do in English amounts to moving from the general to the specific. That applies to writing too. Weak writing will be very general in content and construction.. The strongest describes things specifically. On most pieces of work we can write the target - be more precise and specific. 

God, or the Devil, depending on your version of the line, is in the detail. That’s why an English teacher’s job is about making students care about the details! They are fastidious with it. The problem we have is helping students to be more precise in their thinking. How do you teach students to care about the finer details? 

One thing I have used which is working is helping students to declutter texts. Any text we use is overwhelming. Every text is crammed full of ideas, points or techniques. The large majority of students struggle to pinpoint key or salient ideas. Why? Because they cannot channel the less important from the more important things. It is such a hard skill. And, something that comes with experience and maturity. This inability to filter is a hidden problem in lessons. It is the reason why students default to retelling the plot or point out basic things. It is because they have been so overwhelmed that they default to simplifying. 

Question 4 on Paper 1 is one example of this problem. That fact that there isn’t enough time on exam papers to do the question justice compounds the problem further. Dear AQA, when you decide to make some amendments to the exams again, please consider the timings as well. Anyway, Question 4 is generally a straightforward question. Students supporting an interpretation of the text. It is the bread and butter of a lot of lessons, yet when it comes to the exam, it is usually a sea of bland statements, speculative comments and very little meat. 

 

This part of the story, where Alice is sent back along the road to find what has fallen from the roof and returns with the chrysanthemums, shows how hard and cruel Hartop is, so that all of our sympathy is with Alice.’

• Hartop leaned across his wife and shouted: ‘Go back a bit and see what it was.’ 

• ‘Something dropped. We’ll stop at Drake’s Turn. You’ll catch up. I know something dropped.’

•  He let in the clutch as he was speaking and the van began to move away.

• The wind was behind her; but repeatedly it seemed to veer and smash her, with the rain, full in the face.

• She could see nothing.

• ‘Only?’ he said. ‘Only? What d’ye mean by only? Eh?’

• Alice stood mute. Then Hartop raised his voice.

• ‘Well, don’t stand there! Do something. Go on. Go on! Go and see who wants a bunch o’ chrysanthemums.

• Alice obeyed at once. 

• She picked up the flowers, walked away and vanished, all without a word.

When there is so much text, it is important to filter and sift things for students. We find that in preparing for Paper 1 it helps to give students a filtered version of the section. This way they can spot precise aspects. You don’t just get precise. You have to teach it. Show them how to approach a text and look at sifting things out for themselves. 

What elements show that Hartop is cruel here? Where do we feel sympathy? Once students can see it clearly and specifically they can attach methods and terminology. The stumbling block is the precision around finding things.  Remove the nonessential things and it is easier to spot. You could even get students to highlight the cruel and sympathy elements. Then, get them to explore each example. 

The same applies to literature texts. We expect students to be precise and remember specific and precise moments in the text yet sometimes they’ve only had one or two interactions with that moment. Once reading or watching it and the second might be the teacher teaching an aspect with it. We seem to see lots of exam style questions given to students in Year 10 and Year 11, but really the only time, in theory, students should be working fully from memory is in the mocks and finally exams. Otherwise, how else are we going to help students be precise? We are treating everything as a memory test and cognitive load too much. Why not have the following alongside an exam question extract? 

1: "O, brawling love, O, loving hate,

O, anything of nothing first create!"

2:"Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs..."

3: "I fear too early, for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars."

4: "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"

5: "If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

6: "Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo."

7: "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;

For stony limits cannot hold love out."

8: "O, I am fortune's fool!"

9: "I defy you, stars!"

10: "Thus with a kiss I die."

If we are truly expecting students to think, then we need them to build up that thinking. Making precise connections needs time and space in the curriculum. In fact, we need to explore how to do it. The knowledge of text isn’t the answer alone. Students can have a great knowledge of the text, but unless they have been taught or shown to connect precise or subtle aspects together, then they’ll never progress, regardless of the knowledge they know. 

To be precise is something we need to actively teach students. You cannot rely on chance for it to happen. We need to be precise in our teaching to allow it to happen. Model it.  Show it. Enable views of the text for it to happen. 

Thanks for reading 

Xris 

 

There must be a better word - refining words

Like most people, I am in that ‘getting ready for the exam stage’ and looking at everything and anything that will help push students in the right direction. Currently, I am looking at Paper 1 Question 4 and the formation of opinions. 

A lot of students struggle on this question because simply they don’t engage with the opinion. They simply search and locate evidence for the statement. They don’t explore or even think about the statements. It is simple: search, find, write and a bit of waffle. The better students engage with the question on a cerebral level and explore ideas, but how can we get students to think, engage and explore the statement? 

Often, in English, our problem is with students being too general with their thinking, writing and reading. Teaching tends to work on getting students moving from the general to the specific. The problem is, unless the teacher is in the room, students don’t always think in specific terms. This, in exams, is damaging. Therefore, I have been working on students getting precise quickly in their writing on Q4. Instead of defaulting on ‘I agree because’ we’ve looked at a more nuanced way to be specific.  Doing something more with the opinion. Here are some of the things we’ve been doing: 

[1] I agree that Hartop is cruel but I’d say vindictive is a better word to describe how he behaves towards his family.   [ Refining with words] 

[2] Not only does the reader feel sympathy for Alice, but they feel sympathy for their whole family, especially the mother.  [Extending the opinion] 

[3] On the surface it might seem that Hartop is cruel, but I’d say he is only cruel because society forces him to behave that way.  [Opinion but] 

What this allowed us to do is engage with the subtext quickly without too much fuss. And, if I am honest, the most useful one was refining words. Because I can speak with authority on this, we spend too much time adding words rather than rewording things. We add and we list words, but we don’t refine and redefine the words that we use. As a thinking process, it is pivotal, yet we don’t really employ it in writing and reading. We tend to scroll through adjectives when describing a character, but rarely do we go -  Hang on! That word isn’t quite the right one - in writing . 

For literature, we can employ this thinking quite easily. 

A but B because ….

Greed is a word often associated with Scrooge, but empty is possibly a better word. Empty because … 

Power is one way to look at the poem, but a much better way of seeing it is as ‘control and the power to control people. 

For language, we can employ it when writing.

A but B because ….

Fame is what most people call it, but I’d call it attention-seeking behaviour. 

The word ‘sport’ does quite accurately describe the physical pain over a short space of time. 

Dark isn’t the word to describe the sky, but inky is better.  

Peaceful doesn’t convey the sense of the place, but perfection does.

The refining of a word helps a student to explore the idea without resorting to listing. Refining it makes students explore and develop an idea. Too much writing is listing and not enough exploring. If we are going to get students to think better, then we need structures to help support that thinking. We need students to refine their thoughts within the process of writing. How many times have we seen students rush out an essay quickly without a plan? What if students refined the word in the question? Explain how Shakespeare presents love. Love isn’t what the play is concerned about, but infatuation is. There's your thesis statement. 

We need to build a sense of questioning in the way students think - especially with the choice of words they use.

Refining words should be a common part of oracy and not just in writing.

We need it to be everywhere and so common. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris