Gifted and talented at reading loads of books

I am asking the common question again: What can I do to push students? Like a pinball machine, a teacher’s head has lots of things and questions wheezing around in it and sometimes it hits something interesting and score points; other times the thoughts  go straight to the hole at the end of the game. Stretching the most able is something I feel strongly about. Pushing GCSE students isn’t just a case of giving them A-level texts. Pushing KS3 students isn’t just  about getting them to attempt GCSE questions. It is a fundamentally far bigger thing than give them work from the next stage up.

I have taught students fresh from the GCSEs and it has often saddened me that students who have chosen to do a subject lack drive, initiative, engagement and thought. But, I think the system we have does cause this. I often feel that I am cramming students with stuff all the time. I am preparing them for too much and it is all with the hope that some of it sticks. Take the literature exam for instance. In it, I have to teach a novel, a play, and several poems. It is like having a driving test and being tested on how you drive a car, a van, a lorry, a motor bike and a unicycle. All at the same time. Soon, we are going to be able to add Shakespeare to the list of things to teach them. Yay! The problem, I find, is that all this doesn’t encourage natural thought and ideas. Too much time is spent on ‘getting through the text’ and we often neglect that English is about ideas and how ideas are communicated. It is about thinking.

Isn’t that the point of the exams? To separate the wheat from the chaff? It may be. But, aren’t we limiting the thought processes at KS4 for which we endlessly moan about a lack of in KS5? I had a teacher at A-level who made me think.  Mr Powell was his name and I am sure he is Head of English in a school in Wales now. He taught me ‘Hamlet’ and ‘The Duchess of Malfi’. I will admit that I didn’t see eye to eye with him. In fact, he was the complete antithesis of Robin Williams in ‘Dead Poet Society’ for me. Mr Powell was an excellent, young teacher. Most people, I know, have a teacher that inspired them to teach. I don’t. But, he is the teacher who made me think about texts that as a result now I haven’t looked back since. He made me think. He took ‘Hamlet’ and made me think about questions that there were no simple answers for. He’d use quotes from critical essays and asked us to write an essay exploring it in relation to the quote. He made me think about the play, life, the context, the language and so much more. Before I plodded through texts and afterwards I thought about them in detail.  Like Hamlet, I procrastinated too much. But, that is what makes a great student: someone who thinks.

Back to that question: What can I do to push students? The default answer tends to be: read more. Booklists are given out and students look at them forlorn, hoping that one of those books was written in the last decade, and interesting? For me, it is about that but it is more about thinking. Getting students to think in a deeper way is the answer. Thunks at the start or end of the less are great for some abstract thinking or making connections, but I think more is needed to develop genuine thought and ideas.  These are four things I am doing or have done in the past that work, or might work:

[1] Critical essays

Each text I study I photocopy pages from critical essays and give them to a few students as an extension task or homework. Students read it looking for ideas that they agree, disagree or can’t comment on. Oxfam bookshops are great for picking up these.

[2] The Big-Clever-Intelligent Reading Project

This I have started this term and it is working… so far. We have read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and I have asked students to find a book that explores racism or America from 1930-1960. They have come up with several books – ‘The Help’, ‘Great Gatsby’, ‘Noughts and Crosses’, ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘The Colour Purple’ (I know, I have warned them).

They are in the process of reading the book now and in December they are going to present a small talk on how their author presents racism or America. Furthermore, they are going to comment on how it contrasts with the presentation in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. How could they possibly comment effectively on the presentation of racism in a book if they have only looked at one book on the topic? By thinking about how another author presents an idea, they will understand the main text better.  

[3] Socratic Discussions

Enough said really. However, I do sit in the discussions occasionally.

[4] A love letter to the author.

Students are given a review of the text and explore if they can prove the ideas in it. Or, they look for flaws and inconsistencies in the arguments presented.  

Dear Harper Lee,

I think ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is the greatest novel known to man. It is the one book that every student should read for its nuanced exploration of racism in 1930s America. The novel teaches us morally, socially and spiritually what is good and bad, which is especially of note in these troubled and desperate times.

Firstly, through ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ we learn that history is sometimes given too much status in society. Nobody can escape the past. Each character in the book has a past and that past affects how they behave and, more importantly, how others judge each them. Several characters live off the history of other characters. Their social interactions are formed as a result of historical events. The town of Maycomb too has a history and that history linked to the civil war also causes prejudices in the novel.  You, Miss Lee, show us how that racism is a historical thing and that for us to combat it we need to change how we view each other. History should teach us the wrongs and rights, but each person is not reflection of their ancestors. The sins of the fathers should be remembered but they shouldn’t haunt the current and future generations.

I am now off to ponder, consider, procrastinate, cogitate and decide whether or not to grow a moustache for Movember.

To Movember or not Movember – that is the question!

Thanks for reading,

Xris32

P.S. If you know of any English teachers in driving distance of Derby, please tell them about the English Teachmeet on the 16th November. The link is here.

 

Why use two words when one will just do? Pushing a Level 6 and 7 student's writing

This week I am going to cheat a bit and use something I have already prepared for a meeting with a primary head teacher.  It has been, for me, a week of meeting after meeting, endless mock marking and a wedding – oh, and the Christmas staff party! Hardly surprising that I am more tired than a dozy grandfather who falls asleep through conversations and snores regularly through most television programmes.

I have always had a problem with some aspects of teaching writing. Namely, purple prose. Or, flowery prose, as I like to call it. You could, for example, have a crap garden, but you insist it is still a  ‘nice garden’ by using loads of flowers in plant pots. The pots look nice, but the garden is still crap. The same, I feel, happens with writing. Put X, Y, Z and another X, Y and Z into your short story - there, you have a wonderful piece of writing. Umm, no you don’t. You might have some features of good writing, but there rest is incoherent and it is a little over the top.

Recently, I have taught David Almond’s ‘Skellig’ and I casually asked the class about level of the writing that Almond had produced. The class simply replied that it was a low Level 5 (sorry, Almond). There, I think, lies the problem. Their understanding of writing was based on writing that is crammed with every technique under the sun. Furthermore, there was no hope that it would get a Level 6, as Almond hadn’t even used a semicolon on the pages were studying.

 

Good writing is not about using every tool in the box. It’s about using the right tool for the job. One of my favourite writers is Susan Hill. She is a fantastic and her writing is deceptively simple as each sentence is precise and the writing is so concise. Techniques aren’t wasted and the language is carefully crafted and selected for the maximum effect. On the other hand, there are writers like Alan Hollinghurst who have pages and pages of detailed and evocative writing. Now, I like Hill, and I like Hollinghurst, but which one is best? There is only one way to find out: fight!

But, I do think this contrast lies at the heart of English teaching.  Flowery or sparse? As teachers, we have to be aware of this. Chucking everything in the melting pot doesn’t make the best kind of writing. Maybe, we should spend more and more time on looking at selecting the best techniques for the job, rather than introducing new and obscure techniques for the sake of teaching something new.  I have sat there planning, scratching my head, trying to think of something new, when I should have been focusing on what they knew and developing that further. That is where Level 6s are going. They can do stuff and do it well. Now, they need to work on doing it exceptionally well by being subtle and discreet.

Most Level 5 writers are always asking, ‘What can I add to make this better?’, so maybe, we should explicitly teach Level 6s the following questions:

 

• What can be removed which doesn’t affect the overall effect of the writing?
• Are there any techniques that have the same effect as each other in a paragraph?
• Have you made sure that a technique is only used once in the writing?
• Do you need to show or tell in this paragraph?
• Are we writing for clarity? Or are you writing for detail?

Tips

The following is a list is cribbed from my talk with a primary school. It was aimed at helping teachers build some ways into their teaching, which help students achieve or secure a Level 6/7. At this level we are dealing with the subtleties of language, so it is quite hard to separate things down to a single aspect, but I have tried.  

• Humour  - satire, parody, irony

Teach students about the different types of humour, or show them examples, so that they can use bits of them in their own writing. These kinds of writing involve students being playful and creative with language.

• Structure – cohesion / cohesive devices across a text

Look at how the whole text is structured. Is there cohesion between parts of the texts? Are there ideas that are linked between paragraphs?

• Flair /Style  

Students at Levels 6 and 7 are starting to develop a particular voice in their writing. It is quite hard to teach this explicitly, but getting students to emulate another writer’s style may help them with their own choices. For example, write in the style of Phillip Pullman or J.K. Rowling.

• Original sentence construction – over reliance of the same structures

Students can lack flair if their sentences are repetitive. Get them to use a particular sentence construction only once in their writing, unless it is to create a particular effect. Or, get them to steal some sentences (change a few words, of course) from a writer and adapt them to their own writing.

• Sophisticated level of use of punctuation

The ‘Punctuation Pyramids’ are great, but some Level 6s and 7s need guidance to use colons and semicolons effectively. Usually, a colon can introduce an idea, but it can also be used to create tension. Show them how it can be used to create tension.

• Variety

 A piece of writing that varies pace, tone, detail, punctuation usage or perspective throughout will achieve a higher level. A Level 5 will tend to keep their tone constant throughout the piece of writing.

• Being concise and precise

Good writing isn’t always the most detailed and descriptive writing. Students need to explore their choice of words. Why use that word? Sometimes, a simple word is much more effective than a polysyllabic word.

• Looking at natural speech

I have noticed that Level 6s and 7s often demonstrate writing that naturally emulates natural speech in the use of pauses, emphasis, tone and other aspects. If we explored these explicitly in writing more, students may pick these up. However, it is knowing when to follow the rules of speech and when to ignore the rules of writing that is really the skill here.

 

Conclusion
Most English teachers will agree with me when I say that you cannot teach a writer to be an outstanding writer. It is something writers learn to be, by themselves. Most writers will read, read and read to pick up ideas, skills and techniques. Part of becoming a Level 6 or Level 7 is absorbing some of the subtle complexities of language through the reading of good writing. They copy, mirror or adapt these and use them in their own work. This isn’t always something that you can directly teach. They just do it.

Thanks for reading,

Xris32