Reading in lessons: Welcome to our book group.

I turned 50 not so long ago. I mean: the blog achieved over 50,000 hits and I was genuinely surprised. I started blogging a year and a half ago out of a mixture of boredom, frustration and loneliness. How did I celebrate this milestone? Did I bathe in champagne? Did I broadcast it to the world? Did I change my info on Twitter? Nah. All I did was eat a twix. In fact, I ate two – it was a special occasion! Sorry, I am not going to go all mawkish on you and blog like I am writing my Oscar speech.  No, I am going back to my main reason for writing a blog: to share my experiences and things I have done.

When I started blogging, I was feeling a tad bit miffed about the fact that some of the things I was taught in my PGCE did not help me in my teaching career. I was given lots of ‘nice’ tips, but the real stuff was something I had to learn during my time teaching. I had to learn that when ringing parents up it always best to ask for the child’s mother or father, rather than Mr Smith or Mrs Smith. I had to learn that sitting next to a child is better for getting students to work than telling them over and over again to get on with their work. I had to learn marking one paragraph can be more effective than marking seven pages of work.  In fact, NQTs and students you don’t know you were born.  Advice now is pouring out of every laptop thanks to blogging and Twitter. However, I still think there is more to be said.

How miffed do you think the voice was?

Do you think these pieces of advice should be taught to PGCE students?

What would you add to the list?

The one piece of advice is the one I am going to discuss in an INSET session this week on reading.  I wish that I had this advice when I was first starting out teaching and I am a little embarrassed to say this, but I only really started using this advice myself last year.  It is about how we deal with texts in lessons and I think it can apply to most subjects in school.  When you are feeling bogged down and you need some breathing space, get students to have ‘book group’ lesson. Sometimes, teachers hold back a DVD or a video for when they want a breather from the demands of a term, but I found a book group lesson worked. I used it with various novels, poems and non-fiction texts and this week I am going to promote it across the school. Before you think I am peddling this as the latest thing in teaching, I am not. I feel that we often overlook the classics in favour of the new shiny thing.  

 What do you think the INSET will be on?

What does the ‘demands of the term’ really mean?

Do we often overlook the classics?

Anyway, how do I structure a book group lesson? Well, I read the text and plan a set of questions to be read at a certain point in the reading. Then, students are placed into groups, or pairs, and they read together. When they reach a certain point, they stop and discuss the questions. At the end of the lesson, we meet together and discuss what they had thought when discussing the questions. I did this with a Year 8 class and it transformed their ideas of a novel, because they were talking in an atmosphere where there were no right and wrongs. It was a warm, cosy environment to chat and discuss. The lovely thing about book groups is that you can chat and explore a book. This approach helped me unlock some hidden potential that is lost in comprehension tasks and lost in class discussion. It was all about exploring and it meant that I had a low planning lesson and a no marking lesson, which if you are a student or an NQT is a joy.  Once the students have experienced the process first-hand, then they can create the questions for you, and you have even less to plan. That is one of the things I wished someone told me all those years ago.

Have you done something similar?

How are book groups structured?

I did this book group lesson this week and it was a joy to listen to as students experimented with American accents when reading out ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and them discussing what a character really meant when they used a particular word.  We all work hard to create an environment that is positive, but this form of group work works. However, there are some important principles behind this strategy in the classroom and it has something to do with ‘Deep Reading’.

What do the most able readers do when they are reading? My experience, of listening to students read to me, has enlightened me on this. Less able students tend to focus on reading the words out with the hope that they have pronounced it correctly. They have the basics of the text’s outline. The most able students tend to read with varying intonation. So, the question is: How do these able students pick up the tone of the words and, therefore, the underlying meaning of a text? For years, we have had the idea that good readers predict, question and visualise things, but I am starting to think that the questioning element is the key thing. Good readers do not process reading like an automaton and just simply decode things; they reflect and question all the time. I will repeat that: all the time. The problem with how we often teach at the moment is that the questions come at the end of the process. In lessons, we get students to read something and THEN answer some questions. We get students to work through an activity and then answer the questions at the end of this.

How do you think students pick up tone?

Is questioning the key element?

Does it really matter when the question is asked?

There is always a big step up from GCSE and A-level, but I do think that that could be partly to do with the questioning of things. I watched an AST teach some A-level class about ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and the questioning in the lesson was phenomenal. Everything was questioned in the text. Every subtle aspect was broken apart so that the students and teacher had fully understood text.  The teacher evaluated the information and credited or discredited ideas based on the information before them.  What did that look like? Well, using the opening paragraph, I will give you an example:

 I turned 50 not so long ago. What does ‘50’ refer to? Can we assume it means age? As this is a first person perspective, can we trust this writing as reliable? Who is it speaking to? When was this written? I mean: the blog achieved over 50,000 hits and I was genuinely surprised. Who read this blog? Does hits mean readers or visits? Can people visit more than once? Was the voice surprise because he thought it worthless or was he surprised in a mock surprise way? Is the voice really smug but trying to hide it? Why use the word ‘genuinely’? Is the voice convincing himself or the audience?  I started blogging a year and a half ago out of a mixture of boredom, frustration and loneliness. Why is the voice so vague about starting? Is blogging something you can start? Is it natural for someone to blog about boredom? What are the reasons for blogging? Is the voice exaggerating for sympathy or are they attempting to be funny? Is loneliness a result of boredom? How did I celebrate this milestone? Compared to other blogs, is this really a milestone? Has the voice achieved anything else? Is this voice male because it feels a need to assert its achievements? Or, does the emotional point about ‘loneliness’ reflect a female voice? Can we clearly ascertain gender from writing style? Did I bathe in champagne? Is it true that people bathe in champagne? How much did it cost? Why would you do this?Did I broadcast it to the world? How would they broadcast it? Are they in a position to broadcast it? Did I change my info on Twitter? Nah. All I did was eat a twix. In fact, I ate two – it was a special occasion!

There are obviously loads of questions that I have missed or haven’t addressed; however, I think you can see my point. As an adult, I have made this questioning process a subconscious one. I, we, do that all the time. My head is full of questions. The problem comes, I think, is when we look at what we do with reading texts. We focus on doing the reading first and then get students to look back and question things. On one hand that is great because they can see the whole picture. But, on the other hand, it does mean that complex understanding needed to fully understand the task isn’t provided at the right moment. The right question at the right time is very important. Five minutes late and it is lost.

I have blogged about reading as being a journey here. But, if we don’t address the questions at the start of the reading journey, then we have lost sight of the full journey. Yes, they might be able to pick things up, but the full understanding isn’t there. I think we need to build students up to ask questions as they read. This can be internally, verbally or in writing, but we need to build this up. Admittedly, I have been guilt of not focusing on questioning during reading, because I have been so concerned with heads down reading in silence.  However, maybe I am not preparing students fully. Yes, I do lots of questioning before reading a text and I do tonnes of questioning after, but now I need to do a bucketful during.    

Thank you for reading the blog,

Xris32

P.S. Learning from my mistakes t-shirts, key rings, plates and badges will be available soon.

What is the magic word?

I have just returned from a relaxing holiday in Majorca. It was a great holiday and I feel thoroughly relaxed. But, as I was sat on the beach, my brain got thinking. I love to people watch on holiday, as I like to think that I am a failed actor, and that I watch what people do so I could possibly use it for a role I am playing. As I sat contemplating, I spotted ….

The family all wearing the same stripy t-shirt
The toddler covered up by paranoid parents that only his fingers were exposed to sunlight
The parents that sizzled half naked on a sunbed while a poor young child suffered the heat in a pram with a towel covering it
The peacock of a man that walked up and down the beach strutting his stuff, hoping that a female would throw herself at him - none did
The man that sucked in his stomach every time he left the water
The family with the unruly children who apologised for their behaviour but didn’t give sanctions to them
The lilo that was the equivalent of a small yacht that had space for four people
The young couple that exchanged cuddling for squeezing each other’s spots
The tough, hard as a nails, man with tattoos aplenty reading a book about a poor little kitten

So many people. So many stories. However, if I was an entrepreneur and wanted to find a gap in the market, I would consider this: six pack tattoos and by-the-beach-back-waxes. If there was an abundance of something on the beach, it was six packs and hairy backs - but not both at the same time. Admittedly, I am a little jealous of the six packs, but I think there could be a market there. It would mean that wimpy weaklings like me stand a chance of not sticking out like a sore thumb, as others parade their hard work.  

Anyway, one thing made me proud and cry at same time. If you don’t know it, one of my daughters has cerebral palsy, and going on holiday was a big step for us this year. Other families seem to swan off without a care in the world to other countries, but we had to contact airports, organised separate travel insurance, book a suitable hotel and sort out various things. Aside from all that, we had a brilliant time.  My daughter loved the time on the beach and she took a few tumbles, but something great and sad happen on the beach. First: she fell over near a group of twenty somethings who then laughed their heads off. Second: she accidentally stood on a flip-flop that someone had left on the sand by their towel.

The first event is something that happens occasionally and sadly it blights a childhood of growing up with a disability. It is not the worst and it won’t be the last. In fact one of the worse things was on a sports day. A child said to his dad that his team wouldn’t win, because they had my daughter on their team.  Thankfully, I wasn’t there, or I would have expressed, in a polite way, how displeased I was at that comment. However, I do feel sorry for that lad. It wasn’t necessarily his view. Dare I say it; I think the prejudice was all down to the dad. Children are far more tolerant than adults. Children ask questions, where as adults stare and gawp - and form grudges.  

The second incident was the one I am more interested in: my daughter stood, as she struggles to control her legs, on somebody’s flip-flop that was abandoned by a man's towel. She realised that she had done something possibly bad, so she picked up the item and handed it to the total stranger. The stranger didn’t speak English, but she said sorry and even bent down again to pick up the other abandoned flip-flop, thinking that the stranger had lost them both. I watched this in awe, as she did something that made me so proud. I was when more proud when I think I had already been squashed by an eleven year old on an inflated Nemo that morning. The eleven year old just gave a cursory sorry. My daughter wasn't aware of the fact of that I watched the whole event unfold; she just did it without me barking her to say sorry. But, what makes it even better the second bit. She picked up the other flip-flop.

I suppose this week I want to talk about manners. This summer we have people talking about students needing grit, facts, skills – but, you know what? I think we need manners. A couple of years ago David Cameron announced his ‘Big Society’ idea. In a nutshell, people had to pay something back into society by volunteering. Nice idea, but I don’t think it ever really left the ground. We often hear talk of a broken society and how the ‘youf’ of today are lacking something.  But, I think it is our relationship with politeness that needs working on. If people were politer, then the society we live in would be a much better one.

I look to my grandparents for role models of politeness. They are both in the seventies, but they are models of politeness and respect. They would always been respectful and never say a bad word about anybody. They are so lovely, but they don’t scream for attention. They don't always insist that they are write. They don't even demand an apology is something doesn't go right. They don’t demand to be spoken to.  They don’t demand to be mollycoddled. They just wait and say nice things. They live and breathe Paul Grice’s maxims:

 

Quantity – make your contribution as informative as informative as required for the current purposes of the exchange. Do not make your contribution more informative than required
Quality – Try to make your contribution one that is true. Do not say what you believe to be false and/or do not say that for which you do not have adequate evidence
Relation – be relevant to topic at hand
Manner – avoid obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity, be brief and be orderly  

(Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/grice-s-maxims-how-we-communicate-effectively )

 

They know what to say and how to say it. They don’t blurt the first thing that comes to mind. It is funny that I only came across Grice's maxims when I taught A-level English Language. However, they are more important to all lessons and all conversations than just an English Language lesson.

Tom, isn't about time you let Jan speak now? Quantity.
Rick, you haven't read the poem yet. Quality.
Jenny, how does 'Waterloo Road' relate to the character of Curley and the work you are doing now? Relation.
Mark, how can you say that in a more pleasant way? Manner
 

As a teacher, I know how I spend a lot of my time getting students to follow rules of politeness and adhere to the maxims above. It is hard and difficult, but I think the systems in place work against us. A child-centre approach to teaching has left us, over the years, with the following ideas hidden in our educations system:

·         Lots is good.

·         All contributions are worthy and valid.

·         We love it if students think of crazy and ‘out the box’ ideas.

·         Be the first to say it.

Now, any teacher worth their weight in gold will challenge these ideas from lesson to lesson. But, I think we have a culture that promotes all of these notions. Look at celebrity culture and I think you can relate most of these to it. Lots of attention is good for a celebrity. Every utterance a celeb speaks finds its way into the media and the public sphere. We adore celebrities if they are barking mad. The madder the better. We like the gaga, if possible. Finally, most celebrity are quick to get on the band-wagon of the next best idea.  But, it isn’t just celebrity culture. Look at how people drive. Look at people deal with conflicts. Nobody sits and listens. It is all about who can speak the loudest and who has been wronged the most.  Driving around in a car is like driving around in your own tank. Say what you want and do what you want, because you are impervious to harm. The behaviour in a classroom can reflect this tank-like attitude towards the world.  Look at Aristotle and his view of the world. His placing of the world in the centre of the universe missed some many interesting and varied things. Do we put ourselves in the centre of the universe? If you are a teacher, you don't. Your function is to make others better to further improve and benefit society.

I was unlucky to have a terrible experience in a lift recently. I was waiting for a lady and her child to get into the lift. She spoke to the child like he was dirt. He wasn’t doing what she wanted him to do. (We’ve all been there) She swore at the lad. She called him a ‘shit’ and that she was going to ‘f***ing hit him’ if he didn’t move this minute. Now, I don’t know the full picture and I know how frustrating children can be, but was it really appropriate to swear? Somebody will teach that lad one day and the message he has learnt from his mother is that if you are unhappy and not getting your own way, swear. I am not suggesting that ‘please’ was the magic word here. This might have also been a bad day for this person, but isn't this a sign of a lack of awareness of others? I was listening. My daughters were listening. The shop was listening. Was this person at the centre of the universe and blind to the rest of creation?  

Over the years, I have developed several mantras, but my most recent one is:

The most intelligent person finishes work last and speaks last.

This was born out my frustration of students rushing work to please me by being the first to finish. Furthermore, I was fed up of student saying the first thing that comes to mind. This 'me, me, me' attitude is so draining. Yes, everybody is important and special, but you have to wait your turn. We live in a world that screams, shouts, cries, blurts and wails all the time. The classroom is where we can partly address this. We have to teach this screaming baby how to interact with others. The models they have are not the best ones and with recent events relating to social media, there has never been a more appropriate time to address how students should interact with others.

A year ago, I wrote a blog about advice to an NQT. This year my advice is for NQTs to come up with a set of rules of polite behaviour you expect in your classroom. Because, if there is one thing in teaching I have is learnt is that you don’t ever assume something. Your students may not have the same rules of politeness that you have. What are your rules of politeness? What are your classroom maxims? My go something like this:

 

·         Wait for the lesson to start, before you ask the teacher what the lesson is about.

·         Talk in a calm and friendly manner to students and teacher.

·         Never raise your voice.

·         Only talk about things related to the topic in the lesson.

·         Give others a chance to speak.

·         Do not dominate a conversation.

·         All requests should be questions rather than commands.

I could go on and on.  Teaching children how to be polite is hard work, but if you look at our reports they show us how important manners are to us. How many reports have you written that say that a student is a polite individual? Having children myself, I know how blooming hard it is getting them to be polite and kind. My children aren't always the most politest of things and it is bloody hard work getting them to be polite. The more of us that raise politeness as an issue, the more polite our little society will be. A kinder place to live in.

When we have got the children and teenagers acting politely, then maybe we could get the adults acting politely.

Thank you ever so much for reading this blog,

Xris32

Blogsync 3: A candle in the darkness or a forklift in the library

Why do so many teachers leave after a few years of training?

This is my response to this month's blog synch. Check out more here.

A doctor’s job is finished when the patient is healed.
A chef’s job is finished when the meal is cooked.
A detective’s job is finished when the criminal is arrested.
A mechanic’s job is finished when the car is fixed.
A shop assistant’s job is finished when the shop is closed.

A teacher’s job is never finished.

 

Before some people reading this assume that I am reducing the whole of these valuable occupations to a mere point, I am not. I know how important these roles are and how complex they are. I also know how they are swamped by bureaucracy. But, generally, when these occupations finish work, they finish work. The doctor doesn’t go home and write a letter to a patient saying how impressed they were with how they behaved in the surgery. The mechanic doesn’t go home and then write a report on how hatchback cars generally underperform in relation to other cars. The shop assistant doesn’t go home and plan a new layout for the clothes as some items are not selling because customers cannot see them. Most occupations leave work at work. Teaching doesn’t. There, I think lies one of the problems for people entering the world of teaching.

What about the holidays? In truth, the holidays are great, but what most people forget or ignore or don’t know about is that the job extends outside of the classroom. On average, I will work past nine o’clock most nights. I will work for a large part of a Sunday planning and marking. It isn’t because I am a slow worker; it’s because the job demands it. If a set of books are not marked, I can’t push the students further. If I don’t plan the lesson carefully, then the class could miss out on a valuable learning opportunity. The holidays are great, but they are where I can get back my ‘down-time’, my relaxing time. Or, the holidays are just another chance for me to do some more work. I’d love a camera crew to follow me for a term and watch what teaching involves. Most people when they have a two week holiday will not do any work. It is a break. It is a chance to refresh their batteries. A teacher will have some marking to do. A teacher will plan. A teacher may even go into school to sort some resources out. This isn’t something that people in other occupations do. They have that mental padlock. It locks as soon as they leave work.

You could be reading this thinking that I have no understanding of ‘real work’. Sadly, I do.  A friend at school once said to me, ‘Is there anything you haven’t done?’. I did not leave university and start a PGCE. In fact, I saw quite a bit of the business world. In fact, I spent years in it. I worked in a call centre for a year, selling insurance. I spent just under three years working for a building firm on a graduate programme. I even spent time in a factory, making boxes. The common thing in all of those jobs was that when the job was done, it was done. I could walk away and live to see another day. I can vividly recall watching the clock tick away with my coat on ready to go home.

Psychologically, the job’s demands are taxing on established teachers let alone anyone new coming into the job.  They don’t know the ropes. The ropes have no end and they are knotted and constantly moving. Some will leave for this reason alone. Another reason is for the benefits. I have friends who earn more than me, and they work at home some days. Furthermore, some of them have something called ‘flexi-time’. They can leave early on a Friday if they need to. Gosh, the grass does sound greener on the other side. Plus, they might get paid a bonus if they do really well. My brother-in-law often gets bonuses of more than £1000. Yeah, but I’m not in it for the money. But, if you are a young career minded person, then all these factors will influence you. It is a difficult job that you rarely get on top of and there aren’t that many perks – unless unlimited supply of lined paper and pens are perks for you.  

So, there are no perks and you have very little free time during term time. You can live with that. The money isn’t that bad compared to some jobs. That is true. However, other jobs have a consistent daily routine. John goes for his daily toilet break at 10am. Jenny always pops out at 11.15am to visit the bank and get sarnies for lunch. In schools, there is a routine, but real life interrupts it. I don’t have a steady day. I know what I am teaching and who I am teaching, but there could be a number of things that stops the flow of the day. There might be a fight a lunchtime. There might be a student crying over something at home. There might be a student being bullied. There might be a fire alarm.  In other jobs, there has been a consistent day. Life didn’t get in the way. So when you are new to teaching, getting used to the ebbs and flows of life in a school is hard.  Wind, snow, rain, sun and hail all have a dramatic impact on teaching and the behaviour of students. Sadly, Ofsted don’t take these factors when judging teaching, as all of these can change the simple routine of a day.

Yeah, but then you have other people with you and it is the people that make the job bearable. I have been at my loneliest I have ever been in teaching.  For twenty one or less hours a week, it is you on your own in the classroom. Yes, you have the students to teach. But, some days you may never see an adult. A like minded person.  When people apply for a job as a teacher, the skills they show off their skills of working with people. Yet for most of the week they will not work with people.  They will work in isolation and separated from other teachers by classrooms. I think humans can deal with most things, if they can whinge or moan about it with some friends. I have in the past. You often have a bad day and you need to offload it somehow. That’s where friends come in. However, you need to find them. Some big schools are so big that these friendships are rarely formed and people don’t feel comfortable because of the pecking order in their department.  If I moan, it shows weakness.

 

Being on your own isn’t that bad. You always have the students to talk to. As long as the whole school is supportive, you can live with this. But, sadly some are not. There does seem to be a train of thought about ‘sink or swim’ with some NQTs. It is tough. You have to learn the hard way. Speaking from experience outside education, this is one of the most flawed ideas in education. You never give Year 1 students a copy of ‘War and Peace’ to read, because you are separating the wheat from the chaff by doing that. However, I do think in some schools there is this train of thought is going on in some of the decisions. Some of these decisions are made by people who escaped the classroom as soon as they could and became member of 'management'. (Note: I don't think this is the case of all and most people in management) All the nice things are kept for the experienced and established teachers and all the ‘difficult’ things are given to the newer members of staff. How many NQTs are given the low sets? How many NQTs are given top sets? Top sets at times can teach themselves, yet the low sets need several suitcases of tricks for behaviour, engagement that a new member of staff will not always have. I walked out of my job in the building industry because the man in charge of me treated me in exactly that way. Rather than nurture my talents, he gave me every terrible job possible. He sat on his bottom getting fatter and fatter while I did all of his work for him. I left and I have a sense of pride from doing that.

In my seven years of teaching, I have been shouted at, ignored, isolated and insulted by teachers. Thankfully, none of these have taken place in my current school. The teachers may have all been under some pressure. Maybe, they were having a tough time. But, surprisingly, I was too, and their actions never helped me, as a young teacher. The strangest one is the teacher that insulted me. I had just returned from a funeral of a relative, when one of the students in my tutor group told me about the teacher who covered my registration. The students asked where I was. The teacher replied that I had been, ‘involved with something to do with sheep’. Gobsmacked, I stormed straight to SLT, who fudged up the incident by trying to defuse the situation and telling me he meant that I was ‘feeding sheep’.  I got my apology from him (the idiot), but with colleagues like that who needs enemies. There have also been times in teaching where I have witnessed fallouts over sharing cupboards, display boards and the use of set texts.

Why do people leave teaching?  The workload? The perks? The constant changes? The isolation? The management? Very little rewards? The staff? They all may have some influence, but the biggest is about ‘making mistakes’. It is ironic that this blog is called ‘learning from my mistakes’, because I think NQTs and new teachers should be embracing mistakes. Yet, the culture that we have is about producing perfect teachers from day one. I was not perfect when I started. I don’t even think I am perfect now. I am better than I was then.  That is progress.

Sadly, I have been in situations where I have been scared of making a mistake because others would frown at me. They would tut verbally or mentally. I have heard so many times the follow phrase, ‘I wouldn’t do it like that’. When there is a culture of perfection around you it is so hard to think logically.  You start by feeling inadequate and end by feeling inadequate. This is then exaggerated by the fact that you don’t see the other teachers teaching from one lesson to another and see the pratfalls that happen to all teachers. Then, all those other elements I have talked about kick in. The isolation makes it worse. The workload means you can’t see the end of things. The perks of other jobs seem more tempting. The staff are too busy to help and support – one is just plain rude to you. The management dictate a new initiative for you to do. All these then make you ask that one question: Is it really worth it?

Let’s change how we treat new teachers. Share in our mistakes. Explain how becoming excellent teachers takes time. Share the idea that you cannot be outstanding every time and right from the start of your teaching career.  We don’t expect students to master a skill the first time they use it. The GCSE course is a two year course. The idea being that students progress over time. Let’s treat NQTs as being a course. A three. A four. A five year course. At the end of that time, they should be good, excellent or outstanding.  And it seems that I am not the only one to think that as this other blogsync agrees.

Oh, dear must go. Mr Ofsted has arrived:

Mr Ofsted: Hello. I am just going to ask you a few questions. What level are you working at?  

Me: It depends. Sometime good. Sometimes good with outstanding features. Sometimes outstanding when you are not breathing down my neck.
Mr Ofsted: What’s your target?  
Me:  Outstanding. No, ignore that. Brilliant.
Ofsted: Do you know what to do to improve?
Me: Umm, not really.
Ofsted: Ah, let me mark down your teacher as being a bad teacher. This clearly can’t be a good or outstanding lesson.
Me:   Actually, in a way you are the teacher in this case. You tell me what I need to do.
Ofsted: Ummm. Errr. Ummmm.
Me: That’s the problem, is it? How do you quantify something that isn’t concrete?
Ofsted: Ahhh, you haven’t put any PE into this lesson. I will now mark you down.
Me: This is an English lesson.
Ofsted: Yes, but we think you need to have some aspect of PE in your lesson for it to be an outstanding lesson.

 

I love my subject and that is why I love teaching and I try to put a lot of 'the crap' in a box in my head and just get on with things. From time to time, I do ask myself, ‘Is it really worth it?’. Most days it is, but there is the odd day when it isn’t and that is usually a day when Mr Gove speaks.

Thanks for reading,

Xris32

 

P.S. Why a forklift in a library? I think I must be one of the few English teachers that has a licence to drive a forklift truck. Part of my training for being in the building industry was using a forklift. I am still waiting for the moment when I need to step up and use this unqiue skill for an English teacher.

A reply to a letter to an NQT

Dear Xris32,

Thank you ever so much for your email. Very helpful stuff indeed. I will certainly listen to your advice. However, this is a bit cheeky, but could you actually give me some tips on teaching in the classroom. Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the email, but I think it would really help me if I had some help on being in the classroom, as, after all, that is where my concerns lie at the moment.

Ta,

Chris.

P.S. Have I gone bald in the future? 

 

Dear Chris,

It is good to see that my email has worked its way to you in the past. I might try to find a way to exploit that in the future. Right, you want some tips on the classroom stuff. Well, I can only give advice with the phrase “in my opinion” added all the time. There is no rule book. There are lots of guide books, but there is no definitive answer to a lot of things in the classroom. It isn’t an exact science. Hence, why we are still having problems assessing learning to this day. What works for one person doesn’t work for another. Anyway, back to the advice stuff. Well, here goes:

 

Do one thing really well

I have been observed hundreds of times and about 70% of those observations I made the same mistake. I tried to do too much in such a short period of time.

Often, I’d spend lessons hoping to teach several different objectives in one lesson. I’d teach students what the poem was about. I’d teach them about how the form varies in poetry. I’d teach them the context of the poem. I’d teach them a range of techniques in the poem. In truth, I did too much. "There's enough work here for a whole SOW," whispered one observer. I thought if I threw tons of things at the students, some of it might stick. Some did, but not all of it. It often lead to garbled essays and me having to reteach things again explicitly.

Teach one thing really well in a lesson. One of my best lessons observed was one where I explored the use of repetition in ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’. As an NQT, I’d think that my lesson wasn’t sexy enough, so I’d pile loads of great ideas and whizzy activities in my planning.  In fact, the lesson on repetition was simple. Highlight repetition. Match up reasons for use of repetition. Write about a different poem and its use of repetition.  By the end of it, they could successfully explain why repetition was used and relate it to another text.  Focus on teaching one thing and look at different ways to teach that in a lesson.

Behaviour first, learning second

This might cause arguments, but I think crowd control comes before learning. I can’t learn something if someone is messing about and shouting out next to me. Learning is paramount, but you need to have the class following rules and expectations and listening first. I have worked really hard sorting out fun, interesting and dynamic lessons, but they have been a disaster because the behaviour wasn’t there to start off with.

I have heard people say that they work really hard making a lesson really interesting, but the class doesn’t seem to behave.  Work on improving their behaviour first, then you will have much better lessons. Oh, and this takes time. I still don’t have it right all the time and I am several years down the line.  Marrying these two together, for me, makes for better lessons. I have two rules I tend to apply to most lessons:

[1] Only one person speaks at a time

[2] If students behave and work really hard, I will make sure they get even better lessons.

I make this clear to them throughout lessons. If you behave this lesson, we can do some drama next week. It is ‘carrot on a stick’ teaching, but I find it works for me, as students realise the benefits of working. If they don’t behave, I will give them a lesson where they do some pretty routine stuff and show them how lessons could be.

You are in control of your lessons. Not them. You lay down the rules. If they work, you do fun and interesting stuff. If they don’t, then they will not get the lessons they want to do. Stick to your guns. I have waited and waited and waited and ………………..waited for silence. Sometimes, you have to wait for the behaviour. If you haven’t got the behaviour you want or expect, wait until it happens. Do not start until it has been achieved. 

Avoid conflict

Your first year could be full of lots of different conflicts as students test the waters. They will try to see how you will react to different things in the classroom.  Some of my first mistakes in the classroom were reacting too much and too quickly to things in a lesson.  It has taken me a few years to deal with problems quickly and efficiently in a lesson.
 

You are in control of your classroom and things have to happen on your terms and not a student’s. If a student in arguing with you, send them outside the class. Or, tell them that you will have the discussion at the end of the lesson. I used to work in a call centre and I learnt that when someone is spoiling for an argument there is nothing going to stop them from saying what they want to say when they are angry.  Take yourself out of the argument. Talk to them when they have a calmed down.  They will be more amiable and more likely to listen. It’s amazing how quickly things can be resolved when the ‘red mist’ has lifted.

During my first year of teaching, I got it into my head that I needed to take a harsh, stern approach to lessons. Every lesson would start with me bellowing for the class to lineup outside the room in silence. I'd then bark at them as they walked into the room. It took a mentor to highlight that all of this was unnecessary. She said, "just let them come into the classroom and don't speak to them". They did it perfectly, without me uttering a single syllable. I had wasted my time doing this and I had set a conflicting tone at the start of the lesson. I was arguing with the class when they hadn't even done something wrong. I was a teaching in the style of an army drill-sergeant. I was starting at my most angriest and I had nowwhere to go after that.

Also, you might want to react in an unpredictable way. Students are experts on behaviour. They like to test your reactions. I remember from my school days when students used to wind up a French teacher. There was a whole lesson stopped because a cocktail sausage was on the floor. The teacher was waiting for someone to own up to placing it there. Students often know what catalyst produces a certain reaction that allows the lesson to be reduced to chatting and messing about. Don’t react in the same way all the time. I often, after telling a student off, crack a joke or make a witty remark. It shows that I haven’t been affected by the student’s behaviour or that I am extremely angry.

Once, unfortunately, a student threw a water bomb at me in a classroom. It was a hot day and this student decided to have a laugh. My classroom door was open and I had my back to it, lecturing on the joys of Wilfred Owen's poetry. The bomb hit my back and soaked three of my loveliest students. They were shocked;I was livid and wet. Then, one student pipes up and says, "Err, sir, you sure that isn't pee?". I raised my soaking tie and smelt it.

"Smells like good pee if it is. Refreshing pee. Mmmmmmm."

At this stage, it might be helpful for you to think about how you will react in a situation. Obviously, your school will have a behaviour policy, but what will be your reaction. Will you act nonchalantly? Will you react like vengeful god? Or, will you use humour, like above, to defuse a situation?

How will I react when a student accidentally swears?

How will I react when a student interrupts me?

How will I react when a student refuses to follow instructions?

How will I react when a student storms out of the class?

How will I react when a students is rude towards me?

How will I react when a student insults another student?

Think about your reactions to these situations. Is there a way for you to react that doesn’t escalate a problem and cause even more conflict? Most of the times humour can dissolve a situation, but is not for every situation.  

Take a break

It is only in teaching that I have heard the phrase ‘a personality clash’. What's to clash when I have very little personality? It is said again and again when two people don’t get on in teaching. Student and student. Student and teacher. Even teacher and teacher. There may be a period where you don’t get along with a student, but I think this is more to do with human interaction rather than personality. If a family goes on holiday, it is quite common for them to fall out at some point. We have all been there. I once spent a whole week in Scotland locked in a cabin reading books because I was too embarrassed by my parents. Families. They like each other, but being together for a long space of time creates tensions. That principle, applied in the classroom. You like them, but they drive you mad.  Sometimes, you need a break from a student.

It is not a technique I use all the time, but it is one that I think you need to consider if you are at breaking-point. Ask your HOD or another colleague if that particular student can sit in their class for a lesson. It gives you a break. It gives the student a break from you telling them off. Plus, it gives the class a break from the disruption.  It also gives you a chance to get the class back on your side.

Routine and Variety

Decide some set routines in your classroom pretty quickly. Think about:

• How will students enter the room;
• How will they prepare for the lesson;
• How will they leave the room;
• How will they act when you are talking;
• How will they produce work;
• How will they pack away;
• How will they work on their own.

 There are lots more, but I think having a good set of routines is the key to establishing yourself. When you have got these clear, then the real learning and fun can begin. Everybody knows how to act.

Additionally, variety is another thing to think about when planning. I remember lessons in my youth where I would work every lesson from a textbook. Lesson one = chapter 1. Lesson two = chapter 2. Sometimes, the variety in lessons is what makes your subject interesting. It isn’t always the content or delivery of the lesson. Take English, for example. One lesson you could be analysing a poem. Another you could be acting a scene linked to the poem. This variety of lesson makes things interesting too and don’t underestimate it. I pride myself on the fact that sometimes students cannot predict what the lesson will be about or how I will deliver it.  It is so easy and comfortable to stand before a board and lecture. Put the focus on their learning and not your teaching. Make it varied and interesting. Doing something different or unpredictable can be interesting in itself.  

Phone a friend

This might be a lot of common sense, but talk to the student whose opinion you value. If ever I am teaching something I am not sure about or worry that I haven’t explained clearly, I will ask a student in the class their opinion. Ask them quietly at the end of a lesson or during some down time: “Do you think I explained that clearly?”. Picking the right student is vital. Most students will be honest on a one-to-one basis. Avoid sycophantic students. It gives me another way to judge success or failure. Often, we, the teachers, are the ones to judge the success of a lesson and that isn’t always an objective process. You tend to be negative with the class you struggle with. Or, overly positive with the class you have had no problems with.

Seating Plans

I feel that a lot of problems can be fixed or prevented through a simple seating plan. The combination of two students sat together can be dynamite or the opposite, which is ummm….I don’t know.

There are lots of ideas of which students are the best combinations together.  What would it be like if I placed the Artful Dodger next to Hermione Granger? Pure magic or a hanging offence.

I find that I create a setting plan at the start of the year and I move people about throughout the year until I am happy. Like chess or a Rubik's cube, you move your pieces about until you get the winning combination. I’m often thinking about moving someone in lesson because they are not preforming well. Will they be better next to Gethin? Or, will they be better next to Blodwin? Be flexible and you will find a successful combination.

Experiment with combinations. Think about personality, ability, levels and progress. Serendipity is the key word here. Until you put two things together, you never know if they work.

See the value

“But, sir, why do I need to learn about poetry? Me dad’s a mechanic and I am going to work for ‘im.”

I admit that I am a sulky teenager in my approach to some things. If I can’t see the value or the bigger picture of something, then I tend to switch off. Motivating students can be a case of making them see the real value of something.  Obviously, grounding a lesson with something students can relate to is a great idea, but then this can be wasted if you don’t address the bigger picture. Why am I doing this? What will I get out of this? Why do I need this?

Giving students the motivation to learn about a difficult concept is part of our daily life as teachers, but we must keep working at it. However, we must answer these questions about the why. And, sadly, just saying because the Government want you to is not motivation enough. Find the reasons and then you have your motivational tool.  

 

The End

Finally, becoming a good teacher takes time and a lot of trial and error. You will find this over the next year or so. Teachers are not born teachers. They are cultured and grown. Yes, some might have a natural talent for it, but for most of us it took us time and hard work to get where we are now. It goes wrong from time to time. However, it also goes right as well.

I have the philosophy that everybody has a ‘ bad day’ now and again. Try not to let those day govern your thoughts and feelings. Every student and every teacher has a bad day where things go wrong and the lesson fails. It is not the day to day that is ultimately important; it is the whole experience. If I told a student off one day, then the next day I’d forget about it and move on. We all have bad days and we have to accept it.

Take care, keep smiling and worry more about your expanding waistline than your hair.

Xris32

P.S. Oh, when someone says they are going to be sick, don’t question them about it. Let them get the hell out of there. It is hard to recover from a pile of sick in your room and 45 minutes of students moaning about the smell. I know. It happened to me – twice.

Oh, and never get on a school coach with a lot of Year 7s eating lots of sweets. More sick this time. Sloshing down the aisles.

Thanks to @Gwenelope for help, support and typo spotting. Please check her fabulous blog at:
http://takenoheedofher.blogspot.co.uk/

A letter to an NQT or a letter to my NQT self

Dear Chris,

This might seem unusual, but I have found a hole in the space-time continuum. It was a strange weird thing that I found behind my filing cabinet at school. I also found two old exercise books, and an old AQA anthology and a mouldy apple. Anyway, my hope is that if I send this letter  to you in the past, then I may help to prevent you from making any mistakes and save you from any embarrassment, hurt and pain in your future, and my past. You are about to take your first steps as an NQT. Well done for passing your PGCE year, by the way. The next year is fraught with problems as you circumvent your way through your chosen career path that is teaching. Here are just a few of my tips to help you to deal with people, work and students.

Find the shortcuts

There should be a whole lecture given to this in every PGCE course, or, at least, a free complimentary book to every NQT. It will take you roughly three years to find the shortcuts and it angers me that we don’t talk about them or make them explicit enough. Trust me, you will, as an NQT, become tired and haggard and this is partly down to you not knowing the shortcuts. In fact your ‘tired-o-meter’ will hit 11.  

The shortcuts vary from subject to subject and can vary greatly. For English, a lot of my shortcuts are around marking, or avoidance of marking. I do mark very thoroughly, but in English there is tons of the stuff. At times, it feels as though my classroom is a landfill site. Marking is paramount to students improving, but does every mark a student writes need some form of teacher assessment? There are some activities that could be marked by another student. Or, you could walk around the classroom, as I do, and add comments as they are writing. I sign it and have saved myself some time later.  Could the activity be assessed verbally? You sit down and mark as they present the information. Stickers are a good idea, but don't do it all the time, or parents will think you can't write - not a good sign for an English teacher.

Furthermore, think about the intensity of the marking. Not all work need to be marked thoroughly. Learn to vary your approach to marking. For example: mark the first paragraph for spelling and punctuation and the rest for structure and content. There are plenty more and I think you should ask people what shortcuts they take to make sure they do the job effectively.

 

Put things into perspective

At the end of the day, teaching is a job, and just a job. It is a different kind of job to others, as you have a big impact on people’s lives and their futures. Some might call it a ‘vocation’, but, for me, I wasn’t visited by the ghost of Charles Dickens telling me my future was in teaching and  to spread the news that ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ is the perfect novel. I love my subject and I like talking about books.  However, you/ we are replaceable.  If you move schools, you will disappear from the collective conscience within a few years. It’s sad to think that there isn’t a lasting reminder of your teaching career, apart from the education you have imparted. One thing is clear: we don’t teach to be famous, rich or popular. To put all of this into perspective, two things have happened to me during my teaching career. Spoilers, sweetie.

The first is that a colleague, from the department I was working in, died. They had cancer and the cancer spread very quickly and suddenly. I remember chatting to them about a lesson and then several months later they had died. This had a profound effect on me. I realised that it could happen to me. Secondly, the birth of my daughters, twins, prematurely made me see the job and my role differently. They were born at 30 weeks and placed into incubators. Sitting next to those incubators and a life-support machine made me reassess the way I viewed things. I realised that there were more important things to worry about than whether I had put up a display or where I had placed that folder.

We do deal with some important stuff, but sometimes it is important to think about whether the stuff you are worrying about is really that important or not. Some things you can change. Some things you can’t. I don’t suggest that you become blasé about everything, but when you get to something that is worrying you, think about whether worrying about it will help you or not. If in doubt, off-load it or share it with someone else. Just hearing it out aloud might help you to realise that it isn’t a concern.  These two terrible events shook me and made me realise that my daily worries or problems were minor in comparison to some of the more important things in life.

They’re Busy

Teaching is a busy job. Not just ‘pretending I am working busy’, but really busy. It is amazing how time seems to disappear and you will have finished the term just as quickly as it has started. It is easy to forget how busy other people are. You are trapped in your own timetable and barely see people for longer than five minutes.

Sometimes, we forget things or people. Bare this in mind during your NQT year. People can forget to say ‘Goodbye’ or ‘Hello’. Or, it looks like they are ignoring you. Usually, there is no malice. It’s just that teaching is a very busy job. Once, a Head of Department thanked every member of the department in his beautiful and meaningful leaving speech. He thanked them personally for their support and help over the years.  Unfortunately, he didn’t mention my name. I was a bit gutted, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised it wasn’t a personal thing. He was too busy and in the heat of the moment this slip happened. 

Don’t be offended; think about the pressures the other person is under.  You are under a lot of pressure and so will everybody else be.

Switch off

On the last day of my first year as an NQT, I broke down and cried. I sobbed in my classroom at the end of the day for a good 2 minutes. Not tears of joy. Not tears of sadness. They were tears of exhaustion. I had found new depths of tiredness that I never knew existed. I was so tired because I hadn’t stopped for breath. When I stopped, my body just couldn’t cope and I cried like a wet lettuce.

I think it is so important… no not important – vital that you switch off. Several years down the line, I tend to have set days where I never, ever, ever work. Saturday is that day. It is my day where I do not even think of school. I do what I like and when I like it. I have fun. I watch TV or have some fun with my family. I also have days in the week where I don’t do any work after school. Teaching is a job where there is always something to do. Stop. You will be more productive if you take that time to ‘chillax’ and rest. Don't work for hours after school. Set yourself time limits and stick to them.

Find a friend

Find a friend that will support you emotionally, mentally and physically.  I was lucky to have a group of several young teachers in my school that I connected to in my NQT year, but they were, and still are, the people that got me through the year. They listened, supported and ridiculed me throughout the year and they still do that to this day. Teaching can be like working in Tupperware boxes ™. Each aspect of your job is a Tupperware box ™. They are often sealed tight and it is sometimes just you in there. Hard to see out of because of the plastic.  Everything might be good, but you feel something may be rotten in this box. For example:  one box is the classroom. Another might be your department. I feel that it is always good to have someone outside the box – sorry for saying that old cliche- that could help you.  

That friend doesn’t always have to be in the same department. My BF was a History teacher in my first year and I hated History at school. Find a friend that will help you get a bit of perspective on the job and how things are.

It is not me; it is you!

Whatever is happening to you will be happening to someone else. It is hard to see it, but it is often true. I get frustrated when a teacher spouts rubbish like ‘I have never have a problem with Year 8’. Everybody sometime or another has had a problem with a class, an aspect or a particular student. I think it is important to talk about it. I think some people forget how things are difficult when you are establishing yourself as a teacher, or as a new teacher in school.

I wish I had Twitter and the TES forum when I was training. There are so many people there sharing their problems, so you should feel reassured that it is not just you. However, I’d be careful about what you share in a public domain.

PGCEs tend to make you so reflective and introverted that you start to evaluate the way you breathe in the classroom. Sometimes when things go wrong, it isn’t anything you have done.  Think of the immortal line: ‘It’s not you; it’s me’. That is true. It can usually be not you, and it is them. You might just have to find a way to solve the problem – you have to be the grownup. 

If you make a mistake, learn from it. Try not to make the same mistake twice. Make better mistakes.

Use the strengths of the department

I do this more now than I have ever done before. Each teacher has their strengths and I think it is imperative that you find what those are. In one department you could have an individual who is an expert on drama, Shakespeare, A-level, non-fiction or grammar. If you need help or guidance, go to that person and have a quick chat. It is flattering for them and it saves you time swotting up on obscure things which might not be necessary to what you are teaching.

 

And, finally...

I am jealous of actors as they tend to only get critiqued on their opening night of a performance. If it is a bad performance they can work on it. Teachers get critiqued every day and every lesson they teach. Each class has thirty wannabe Simon Cowells. There may even be a few sycophantic Louis Walshes.  Unlike actors you can't just improve on that performance. You have do a totally new performance next lesson. Learn to take any criticism and turn it into something positive. Don't wallow; get even. Show them what you are made of. Not every lesson can be your 'Hamlet'. Sometimes, you will have a creaky amateur production. But, overall, you will deliver the goods.

Think of my three 'H's. Humour. Humility. Humanity.  Humour: always look at the funny side of things. Teaching can be hilarious. There are times in my career where I have giggled so much that I couldn't speak. Humility: you will make mistakes and that it is part of being a teacher; we learn so much from getting it wrong. Accept the mistakes and move on. Humanity: remember that you are dealing with people. They have fears, worries, strengths and weaknesses. No two people are alike. They are unpredictable, but that is most of the fun of teaching - How will this group react to this poem?

I am hoping that this letter has got to you in the past. There are so many more things I could give you advice on, but I think these are the main ones. One last thing: I think that you should take a tour around the world in 2011 and 2012. A horrible thing to do with exams. Best out of it, if you ask me.  

Good luck with it all. 

Love
 Xris32

P.S. The lottery numbers for the 25th of August 2012 are 12, 18, 23, 31, 44, 48. Bonus: 40.





Thanks to @Gwenelope for help, support and typo spotting. Please check her fabulous blog at:
http://takenoheedofher.blogspot.co.uk/

Teaching a novel (part 1)

Sometimes, I wish I had a time machine (H.G. Wells not a TARDIS – too unpredictable) as often I get to the end of a SOW / Unit and I hit my head with huge and painful slap. Doh! Why didn’t I do that? What would help me to improve my teaching? Money? Yep. Resources? Yep. Time? Double yep.  A time machine? Definitely.

I look back at my several years of teaching English and I think there are a few things I would teach differently. Mistakes and learning go hand in hand like cheese and onion, and salt and vinegar, and … I think you get the idea. However, when I read things about teaching, I tend to hear about the ‘whizzo’ new thing such and such did today with their delightful class. This is always great to hear – I am envious. It does, however, give me food for thought and lets me steal some of these ‘whizzo’ ideas for my own lessons. But – and it is a big but – there aren’t many places to go to which teach you about the pitfalls that you might face in teaching on a daily basis. During my PGCE training, nobody mentioned how the ‘wind’ affected students, yet it does in a strange and peculiar way. I now check the weather when planning my lessons. Furthermore, I feel the rhetoric the PGCE tutors used when lecturing about poetry should have been:

Whatever you do, don’t…

 Always do this when …

 Under no circumstances do this…

Instead, I was given lots of nice ideas of how to teach things, some theory underpinning them, and nothing about the day-to-day stuff. It seems I would do most of my learning in the classroom.

Therefore, this blog is about me sharing the pitfalls and problems I face / faced while/whilst teaching [note for employers: I am much better now, honest govn’or]. Some of them might be obvious; others might not be so obvious. I just hope somewhere somebody might read this and think differently about how they teach something, and that they might make some better mistakes as a result.

If not, I hope it gets back to me in the past and I learn something.

The Novel – Part 1

I have taught a lot of novels in my time and it is the part of English teaching I relish and enjoy.  It is wonderful to see students engaged, shocked, upset and thrilled with a story as they share my joy for reading and devouring (in a metaphorical sense) a book. However, there are so many times that I have got it wrong. A few times I got it right.  It is the when and where I went wrong that is important. What didn’t I do or think about when teaching the novel?

Message to my NQT self: "These are the questions that you should ask yourself before teaching a novel".  

[1]Will the novel appeal to all students?

[2]How are we going to read the novel in class?

[3]Will I have to help the students to create the ‘world’ of the novel?

[4]What will engage the students’ curiosity?

[5]What do I want them to learn from this novel?

Will the novel appeal to all students?

I remember teaching ‘Pinballs’ to a group of Year 7s and it went down like a lead balloon.  I gave up reading it because the students were more interested in reading the inside of their eyelids than they were reading the book. It wasn’t the teaching; it was the text. I picked the book out of the cupboard and thinking it was short and straight forward for a group of low ability students, but the relationship heavy book was too much and too subtle for this group of students. They wanted action and pace rather than lots of talking and a blossoming friendship.  

Always select a book with a class in mind. This isn’t always easy, but it helps that a lot of books selected these days in departments have a clear male or female protagonist.  Try to think of the novel as a whole. How much action is there? How much of the text is description? How much dialogue is there? ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding is a dialogue heavy book and I find that more able students cope with it better than others. Golding likes to confuse things by omitting who said what at times during the book.

I think it helps to think of the percentage of dialogue, description and action in a novel. Using the exact science of my brain, ‘Lord of the Flies’ is 45% dialogue, 35% description and 20% action. Too much description and a student has to work really hard to visualise things. Isn’t that right, Mr Dickens? Too much action and there might not be enough themes or ideas to stretch the most able. Think hard about the style of the book and whether it will suit the students you teach.

Will they be able to relate to some of the content? ‘Pinballs’ failed because some of the students couldn’t relate to the experiences of the children in the book. Yes, I know that isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes things can be too alien for a student. I should have judged it better.  

Some teachers select books that are currently popular or have been recently made into a film. What is the point of teaching ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Twilight’ or ‘Harry Potter and the…’ when most students want to read those books anyway? Isn’t it my job to unlock the world of books? I am not knocking these in vogue books, but I think I’d rather introduce them to something they wouldn’t read and surprise them with how good it is . ‘Animal Farm’ is a classic example.  Most students think the idea of reading a book about animals is childish, but after reading it they are convinced of how good a book it is. Surprise them. Show them how good reading can be when you discover something new. The real joy of teaching can be about challenging preconceived notions of something being pants. I get a sense of fulfilment when someone is converted. However, if you are struggling with a disaffected class, a well-known name or book will help to get them engaged.  

Sadly, sometimes a good book just doesn't work with a group. What do you do? Abandon ship. Man the lifeboats. Simply, read another book. It is not worth an uphill battle. You should be the one who makes the professional judgement, and not the students. Otherwise, by week 6 you will have attempted 10 books.  

How are we going to read the novel in class?

Well, we are just going to read it, of course. I think the logistics of reading a text need some thought before reading. I have gone through a whole term and realised that I was only halfway through the book. ‘Holes’ for me is one of those books. I am sure it could be a plot device in an episode of Doctor Who. The book that steals time. Love the book, but doesn’t it take ages to get through? Or, embarrassingly, I have rushed the reading of an ending because I wanted to get on with the assessment. After all, that was the main thing I had to mark.

Never feel guilty about spending time reading in lessons. Give a whole lesson to reading a text, if necessary. Too many times I have rushed the reading of a novel, so I could get some meaningless comprehension activity done because I felt, in my head, that ‘students must be doing something’.

At the start, you should always think about the delivery of the book. I think a book should be read from start to finish, and I will always try to do that. But, there is always the pressure of time. Are we going to read it as a whole class? Are the students going to read chapters? Read bits on their own? Are we going to skip bits? Could I fill in the gaps? Could I teach it using a mixture of the book and a film? Usually, I would do all of these at some stage. One of my best experiences was teaching ‘Oliver Twist’ to group of Year 10 students. We read the opening chapters of the book and then watched the film version. I reduced some of the chapters by editing bits out and they read some chapters on their own. They loved it. It was varied.

Reading a novel in class can be problematic. Should the teacher read the whole thing while the students listen passively? This was my first mistake when teaching my first novel. I studied Drama, as well as English at university, so I am comfortable with hearing my own voice for long periods of time. However, it is dull for the listener. Even during the fantastic Stephen Fry's reading of the Harry Potter books, I daydream and starting thinking about planning. At secondary school, we had a teacher who would make each student in the class read a page and that was even more painful. It highlighted those who were strong and those who were weak at reading and performing. I have even tried changing readers when there is a different piece of punctuation in the text. This was great for exploring the use of punctuation, but asking the students what happened left me with a very bad feeling. Cue tumbleweed moment. Nothing. “I was too busy looking to see when it was my turn,” mumbled Corbet. My deferred way of reading now is: I read the narrative and students read the dialogue and all have assigned parts. This means that no one person is reading all the time and I can ask questions to those without a part. All is involved in the reading and I get chance to breathe and spot any students reading the book upside down, or trying to pass notes under the table.  

Will I have to help the students to create the ‘world’ of the novel?

Like you dear reader, I have read loads of books. I can imagine a world from the mention of a few items or a sniff of atmosphere. I have an inbuilt computer that helps me to create a world image and this is down to my ability to recall and link to other things I have read. Books are great to learn about new things, but 'getting into the world' explored in a novel can be a problem for young people. TV is great, but students are used to establishing shots in TV shows that help the audience build the world of the story. Novels are trickier. They are like jigsaw puzzle. You create things by piecing different aspects together.  I think a novel works harder to build that world; it is far more rewarding, but more demanding for a young reader.

Source: http://historicalphotosdaily.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/ww1-propaganda-posters.html

Help students to create an image or idea of the world the book is constructing. You could do this through a picture from Google, a clip from a show or from another text. To enter the world of ‘Stonecold’, I think you need to do some work on homelessness and the realities of being homeless. Students will identify with the locations featured in the story, but it is the situation that is alien to them. That is where we have to help build the constructed world for them. A world of hunger. A world of danger. A world of hatred. Get them thinking! The same idea needs to be applied to any book set in the past. As a teacher, I assume too much. I forget that their knowledge of WW1 is sparse when teaching ‘Private Peaceful’. You can’t understand the motivations for cowardice, without exploring the situation and the world these characters inhabited. I tend to start with propaganda posters and explore what the thoughts of an average man might be in those days. Then, the class have these notions of patriotism in their heads, when reading about the horrible conditions.  It is far easier then for them to understand how a soldier might be a coward, given the alternatives.

Books paint pictures, but we have to help students with the palette.

What will engage the students’ curiosity?

Novels are magic. They can usually transform a noisy class into a quiet one - I say usually, as this isn't always the case. That is because the curiosity has to be there to propel the interest of the class. There has to be a hook, a puzzle or a mystery to it. I taught a book several years ago called ‘Wheels’ and, sadly, I went around the whole book in the wrong way. I should have placed more emphasis on the mystery at the heart of the story. I didn’t, and they lost interest.

Some books test a reader’s patience. How many times have we picked up a book and given up after a few turgid, lifeless chapters? ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ have dull openings, in my opinion.  I love these books, but they don’t grab a young reader’s interest easily. I know the purpose and the reason for these slow and detailed openings, but, boy, I want to see some action quickly- and I don’t mean a heron moving. Young people are used to complex storytelling with things like CSI and I often use these to help with these kinds of texts. Recently, I have started to present ‘Of Mice and Men’ as a murder mystery: a woman has been killed in a barn. Students are then given an option of several people – the father-in-law, the jealous husband, an old dog, a man with a mental disability, a black worker and a popular worker.  How did she die? Was she murdered? Who killed her? Why? We then read the novel from the start and the class love to see how things knit together. During different points of our reading we look back at our original ideas and see if they have changed. They pick up on the tension in the book easily and actually focus on the way the novel is written rather than just the plot. The great thing, in a way, is that I haven’t really spoilt the ending. And, I always make a point about how that isn’t really the books ending. I have done similar things with ‘Abomination’ and ‘Heroes’; a healthy bit of foreshadowing never harmed anyone. Oh, and someone always thinks the dog killed Curley's wife.  

What about the ending? I was told the ending of ‘Sixth Sense’ on my way to see it and sadly that has tainted my view on storytelling. In the classroom, the ending of a text is sacred. I always make a point about talking about ‘the ending’ before reading a novel. I hate spoilers, so I always talk to the class about how it is important that we don’t reveal the ending if we know it. This is very important with ‘Of Mice and Men’. Once, I had a student reveal the ending during part one of the book. A part of me died that day. How could I recover from that?   

Oh, and another bit of advice: think about when you are going to read the dramatic bits. The last five minutes of the lesson is not the best time to reveal a secret or experience a dramatic turning point. It creates a good cliff-hanger, but then you could easily lose some good discussions or tension building. I remember having one page left of a novel to read and the bell went. I started the next lesson with that one page and it fell flat.  

What do I want them to learn from this novel?

I am going to cheat here and say my next blog will focus on this question in greater detail. That is if this blog is successful. Who knows this blog might be one big mistake. If that is the case, I can guarantee that I will learn something from that mistake too. I am sitting here planning to teach ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (for the first time) and ‘Skellig’ (for the third time) and I am thinking about those five questions and I know I will not make those same mistakes – just some new ones that will teach me a thing or two.

Make mistakes. Make sure the mistakes you make today are better than the ones you made last year.

P.S.  No novels were harmed or damaged in any way during the research and writing of this blog.