Blogsync 6: Pinging the elastic band of tension

Warning: no students were harmed in the making of this blog. Sadly, the same cannot be said for teachers.

This month’s Blogsync is an interesting one: it is about explanations and, in particular, the best examples of effective explanations used in the classroom. I have found this quite a hard thing to write about, as I do spend most of my time explaining things in the classroom. This experience is a bit of navel gazing: explain a good explanation. Is there one explanation that is better than another? I suppose if I am honest, I use several different methods to explain the same thing. I don’t just rely on one single approach to explain ideas. I should know; I am the father to two 5 year old daughters. Fatherhood, at this stage, is permanently explaining things to children. Why do dinosaurs eat meat? Why do we die? Why do cats poo in our garden? Why do you have a hairy nose? Why is that man over there really fat? Why are we leaving the shop quickly? Why have you got that angry look on your face?

I think, in response to the topic, I am just going to walk through a lesson about explaining tension. As with some parts of English, you enter ‘the clouds’ when you explain some ideas and concepts. Some parts of English are just naming concrete things like a technique. Yet, as soon as we look at things like the effect and the feelings created by a text, we fire our rocket to the stars and start to talk about woolly, ethereal things. We start using abstract nouns and adopt tentative phrases like ‘it could be’ or ‘perhaps they mean that’. It is the part of the lesson where the firm ground disappears and we are flying from one cloud to another. The clouds are indefinable and they constantly change and move and they often become something different.  Of course, this I used to refer as ‘the shades of grey’ aspect of English teaching. There are no clear yes or no answers, only better ways of answering questions. Sadly, ‘shades of grey’ has taken another meaning and now I daren’t mention the phrase unless I want a cacophony of sniggers and a set of awkward questions. The lack of concrete foundations in English is its strength and its weakness. The greyness, or abstract nature, is pure poison to the wannabe scientist or mathematician in the class, but to the creative and artistic child it is pure elixir.  Grammar and techniques give students this concrete foundation for the literal minded. They like the answers , the rules to things and grammar offers that to them. Personally, that’s why I prefer the bringing back of the explicit teaching of grammar. I love the English language, but I know there are students that need something concrete to work with. We had shifted too far to the abstract way of teaching and neglected some of the concrete aspects. Thankfully, we have moved to more concrete aspects in teaching. But, like most things we need a combination of the two. We need a balance.

The Explanation

Equipment:

A large rubber band
A pair of scissors
DVD of Jaws
Extract from the novel of ‘Jaws’
A teacher
A student
 

I think part of explaining things for me is making things ‘real’ or making things enter a student’s reality. I know I am, in effect, talking about Vygotsky and  his ‘zone of proximal difference’ here, but I feel that is so important when teaching. That is what I think Youtube was invented for - just so a teacher can quickly find a clip to highlight a point or show something as being real. 

 

Tension in texts is one of those abstract things. It is about the reader and their relationship with a text. Basically, tension is saying how scared you are about things in a text. But, sadly, this doesn’t always equate well when students write. I have read hundreds of essays with students saying things are really tense or that things aren’t tense. Tension just gets lumped with interest. The more tension, the more interesting a story is.  The less tension, the less interesting it is. The explanations from students are simple and might be explained further with a ‘because’ but they are on a losing track when they think tension is either on or off. A graph can help develop this further, but sometimes something else is called for.

Enter the humble elastic band. Make sure it is one of those thick ones. The thicker the better. Cut the band so it is a single strip of elastic. Ask one student to hold one end of the band, while you hold the other. I find it helps to pick a student that hasn’t always been helpful in class. Explain to the student that they have to hold on to the band very tightly. Then, I talk about tension. I ask the class what would happen if the student lets go of the band. The student does and it is not very interesting. This is when it starts gets interesting. I then spend the next 10 minutes playing a hilarious game with the class.

I play around with their expectations. They secretly want the teacher to be pinged by the elastic band so I play up to this. I make the student move away, so the band becomes strained and stretched.  The class love it as they are waiting for the pain to be inflicted. The student holds the power. I create more tension by adopting a ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ bank of phrases. Are you sure you want to let go now? Sure? You could walk away now and be a happy person… Then, we try to stretch the piece of elastic as far as it will go. (Dear reader, I have never let go. I wouldn’t.) The class are then shouting for the student to let go. One student calls out: ‘He won’t do. Sir’s bluffing’. I then tease them further by moving closer to the student and a move away, again. Finally, with a little nod I indicate to the student that he can let go, when he/she wants to. Ouch!

We then, as a class, explore how tension was created and how we felt when watching the incident. They start to use words like ‘less’ and ‘more’ when describing things, because it is real. The band is a metaphor for the tension and you can see visibly what the result is when tension is increased or reduced. I had a colleague who taught tension with the idea of a toy car. The car would be wound up and then let go. It worked for them, but toy cars are not as cool as elastic bands and inflicting pain on a teacher. I certainly earn respect points by using this method. Finally, we look at a tense moment in text or in Jaws and relate the tension of the rubber band to it.  

When the lesson is finished, my tough manly exterior crumbles as I nurse my throbbing finger.

I do similar things with dramatic irony or suspense; I make them a real experience. I make them a transparent or a shared experience, which we can all comment and discuss. Each reader has a different experience when reading a book, so it is hard to explore tension and our reaction to a text as there are so many shades, perspectives and ideas.

 

Dramatic irony
This idea is stolen from ‘The Merchant of Venice’. I kick a student out of the classroom. Then, I put three boxes on a table at the front of the classroom. In one box, I put in a chocolate bar and in the other two I put a lunchtime detention or five demerits. The class all know where I have placed each item in the boxes, so when the student is invited to the room, they are hoping he/she gets the punishment. Is that your final answer? Are you really sure?

Suspense

Three empty boxes with nothing in them. Don’t say what is in or isn’t in the box and get a student to bravely put his hand in each box.
 

Teaching is about explanations, explaining what the student needs to do, explaining what the student needs to know and explaining a student’s progress. Effective explanations aren’t about dumbing down and using teenspeak. Effective explanations are about reality and making things real.

Follow this link to read more effective explanations.

 Thanks for reading,

 Xris

Shakespeare and I: Teaching Shakespeare

It was only predictable that I would get to Shakespeare at some stage in my blogging career. It just so happens that I am currently planning to teach Macbeth. In my early years of my teaching career, I had some pretty bad experiences of Shakespeare.  Shakespeare can be the source for some of the best lessons; however, it too can be the source of some of the worse lessons.  On one hand I have enjoyed watching a group of rugby lads pretend to be Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, including high-pitched 'Monty Python' voices. Then, on the other hand I have watched time stand still, as students try to read, understand and follow a scene in ‘The Merchant of Venice’.

From the start, I want to say that William Shakespeare is bloody brilliant. Great plays. Great characters. Great ideas, although borrowed from someone else. Great language. And, I do think Shakespeare has a place in the curriculum we teach in schools. The ideas he wrote about are still topical and relevant and they often feature in soaps on a daily basis. Sadly, the language is the barrier. I do feel that the experience of Shakespeare must be, for some of our students, like one of those French lessons where the teacher only speaks in French.  It is not a natural experience and we expect the students to tune in and accept it. At the start of my teaching career, I was told to simply read the play with them and they will tune into the language. Some did; others didn’t, and, to be honest, it wasn’t effective teaching. It was probably like watching a programme on S4C (the Welsh Channel 4) you recognise the odd word, but the rest is incomprehensible. Understandably, they were excited when we started a new topic after Shakespeare. No matter how dull it was.

At the start of teaching any Shakespeare play, I share with students an explanation of how I prepared for teaching that play. I would explain to them how I spent weeks reading the play line by line working out what it means and what is going on. All thanks to my lovely Arden version of the play.  I stress to them that: a) Shakespeare’s plots can be quite complicated; b) we don’t always know the true meaning of every line; c) it is as play so it shouldn't be read cold in a lesson - it should be performed. This shared understanding that 'it is difficult' helps, I think, to put the context that it is hard and not always straightforward. Taking away the ‘solution’ or the right answer, helps to make the reading of the play less of a puzzle and more of a journey of exploration. We work together to work out what is going on and how Shakespeare shows us what is going on. Oh, and how to perform it.

Then we get cracking on. Usually, I do a pre-reading activity which might involve pictures or names or even a list of key events for them to turn into a piece of drama. I might look at the idea of ‘battle of the sexes’ or ‘kingship’, but I always make sure that I look at an idea or thread in the story that will directly relate to them. Whatever I do, I aim to hook them in. After this, we work through the story.  

I always seem to be the one sat next to the Shakespeare-phobic adult  whose heading is spinning watching the play. I patiently explain to them who is who and what is happening every 5 minutes, because for the first-timer there is a lot of swapping and changing in Bill's plays. Therefore, I always make sure I tell the story in some way. Surprisingly, some people suggest in books that we shouldn’t tell students the ending of a story, as they might lose interest. Codswallop! The genre of the story dictates the ending, so most people can predict how the story will end. Plus, if we continue to mystify the story, then it will alienate students from Shakespeare even more. When I was a Year12 student, I studied Hamlet with Mr Powell. We knew how the play ended from the start. With that foreknowledge, we were able to build on our knowledge and learn more. Furthermore, when you have a grasp of the plot it is much easier to talk about character and language, because you aren’t just thinking, ‘Who is that?', 'Is this a comedy?' and 'Where is this going?'.  Oh, and also Shakespeare's audiences knew the ending of the plays before they watched them, because they were famous and popular stories. And, there were several version of the same story by different writers.

To teach the plot, I always do the 'instant' version of the play. The instant ‘Macbeth’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Julius Caesar’ and ‘Henry V’ have all become a part of my teaching. Simply, the class act out the whole of the play in a lesson. Most people, I should think use this technique. It is brilliant. The teacher is the narrator. They read a simplified overview of the play, while students act out a ‘dumb show’ version and read out quotes from the play. Easy to make, and a great lesson.

At this point, students will know some key names, key events and a rough idea of the plot. The best starting point for exploring the text further. Then, it is the fight with the language. My lovely friend Gwen has blogged about using insults as a way into language, which is another great way to start. I tend to focus on words first. I once participated in a workshop with the RSC and they gave us a great little approach to looking at the language. It is mirrored by recent blog here.  Simply, you take key words from a scene and look at them in isolation to the rest of the language. Students then predict what the scene is about and what the character / s might be saying.  Furthermore, it makes for some fun when you give students a particular word and they have to say it, or find an action for it, or even act it out. Here's an example from 'Julius Caesar'.

 

Looking at the words in isolation has really helped me in the teaching of Shakespeare, as the focus is on the meaning from the start and we are exploring what is going on together. Plus, it makes reading the scene easier as it builds in the recognition of words. Also, it helps students to see if the character uses the word ‘kill’, it might mean that he is angry or plotting to murder someone. Therefore, they do not need to know things word for word, but just have a gist of what is going on

Then, the class watch me annotate a scene and copy what I have written on the board. Only joking! No, I do this in a different way. I get students to do some sticking and gluing.

In groups, I give students an A3 extract to focus on. They are then given different sheets of paper and they have to cut them out and stick them to the extract. Through the sticking of the bits of paper, students develop their understanding, knowledge and ability to analyse the language.  They do the analysis in stages. Each stage involves a different coloured sheet of paper. Each group works at a different pace. Some faster than others. I stand at the front of the class and they can only move onto the next stage, when they have completed the previous step.

Step 1: What is going on? Plot
Students match up plot points.
 

 

Step 2: What are they saying? Modern English

Students match up modern English to the equivilant in the text.

Step 3: How does the writer show us what the character is thinking or feeling? Language.

Students match up langauge points.

 

Step 4: Themes

 

Yep, there is nothing for themes as this is where I want students to be independent with their analysis. Hopefully, by this time students will feel confident enough to spot lines and phrases linking to a particular theme. I get them to highlight where they see evidence of a particular theme.

The Final Product:

The final product is used in two ways. First, I test students on things they have discovered in the next lesson by giving them a clean copy and they have to annotate it with what they can remember. Or, they write down what they think is relevant from the sheet on their own sheet.


I don’t do this all the time and I don’t do it for every extract, scene or page, but I do it a few times to build student’s confidence at digging deep and exploring Shakespeare’s language. It helps me to train students to approach the text in a way that isn’t too reliant on the teacher explaining things all the time, which is the danger with Shakespeare sometimes. Also, it is a nice bit of group work too.

 

Alas, poor Yorick, I have to go now.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Xris32

Secs, Lies and Videotapes

Secs, Lies and Videotapes

I see myself as a normal teacher, but sometimes, and that is only sometimes, I think I can help to improve society a teeny, tiny bit. Tirelessly for the last few years, I have been working to improve the cinema experience for all citizens of our fine nation. But what does he mean? Well, we have all been there.  You are watching a very dramatic moment in a film and a voice rips apart the dramatic tension like a cheese grater on cheese. Or, you are trying to follow the convoluted plot of a story and the person behind you starts eating nachos and crunches their way through the whole scene, unaware that a major plot development has been revealed and that the ending will not make sense to a viewer without this golden nugget of information. Therefore, I see it as my way to improve society, by modelling how to behave, and how not to behave, in all kinds of public entertainment venues.

I am, of course, referring to the watching of the humble video in lessons. (For those that are fussy – I mean video in the loosest sense. I include DVD, Betamax, cassette tape, YouTube clips or any other medium of storage for audio / visual material). In the past I have had several people say to me: ‘Watching another video in English today?’. They say this dripping with envy and mistrust. It is true: English does involve watching some videos. However, the experience of watching a video is never simple and easy. Hopefully, what follows will give you some food for thought, or some new ideas.

Beforehand

‘Adopt cinema positions’ is a common phrase in my lessons. It is then followed by a hive of activity as students move chairs, blinds are closed and the lights are switched off.  Then, I say my ‘video mantra’, which involves the follow questions:

Teacher: What are the rules of watching a film in lesson?

Class: Don’t talk and face the telly.

Teacher: Why do we have to do this?

Class: Because Sir doesn’t want to visit a cinema with us in it if we talk.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, they respond. It is obvious, but it sets the tone. The video is the thing to capture their interest. I love films and television and I think in the modern age students are becoming less and less engrossed in a story. It is quite common for most of them to sit watching TV at home with a Facebook on a laptop, while texting a message to a friend and chatting to someone else in the room. I do it at home with Twitter and TV. Therefore, I think it is my duty to help them become engrossed in a story. Take away the distractions.

I think the way we watch things has changed dramatically over the last decade. I think ‘X-Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ have made it acceptable for us to critique programmes as we watch them. Listening to some classes watch a DVD is like having the director’s commentary switched on. They will criticise the special effects, acting, costumes, lighting, music, staging and anything else they see fails below their high standards. Everyone is a critic nowadays. Only one or two people can make an insightful comment like Gary Barlow or Simon Cowell. Sadly, most classes resemble a class full of Louis Walsh – they prefer Wagner over something good. Or even worse – they behave like Mel B and make a negative comment about everything, just to provoke a reaction from people or the teacher.  I think setting the rules for the experience is important. And, if they don’t stop criticising and talking, switch the film off. It is amazing how they quickly modify their behaviour and make themselves the perfect film viewer, when they know the alternative is work.  

Oh, and always have something to do if it fails. Technology likes to make our lives unpredictable.

Secs

Make sure you have set the video up beforehand. I once spent a good ten minutes searching for a place on DVD, whilst the class got increasingly restless and agitated. Sadly, the DVD was one of those free DVDs from a Sunday newspaper, which unfortunately didn’t have any chapters or scenes, so I had to fast forward the whole film to find the one bit in ‘Great Expectations’. I turned ‘Great Expectations’ into such a ‘Bitter Disappointment’. Two minutes preparation beforehand saves you minutes of agonising dead time in a lesson. 

Also, make a note of where you have got to on a DVD or video. Don’t leave it up to the students. Certainly use it as a way to recall the plot or events of the video, but have a note. A class full of students can, and will, generate thirty different answers at times. I tend to put a post-it note in the DVD case and just write down the timings. 

Appropriate

Most students are keen to brag that they have seen SAW 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and that their parents let them. I am very cautious when showing films and the age rating is paramount. If it says 15, I will not let them watch it if they are below that age. You could get their parents’ permission and I think with watching films it is better to be safe than sorry. An overly cautious teacher is much better than an irate parent.

Watch the film beforehand. I know it sound obvious, but it is easy to do. No time the night before? Well, it says it is a 12, so it will be fine. I did that with a documentary once and the f-word was mentioned a few times and caused a few problems and a red-faced teacher.  Furthermore, I run the ‘Film Club’ at school and you’ll be surprised at the amount of swearing or sexual content in a 12 certificate film. You don’t have to censor things, but have a little conversation at the start of the film that stops the class overreacting. Telling them that there is some swearing or nudity stops it becoming a big deal.   

Lies

All adaptations of novels are lies. Harsh, I know, but it is true. No matter what film you are watching it is never the same as the original text. It is a director’s viewpoint or the screenwriter’s viewpoint. It isn’t a true representation of the real thing. It helps students to build a picture of the world that the characters inhabit and it might be close to the original story, but it will not replace the original thing – the novel or the play. I think having this concept in your mind is helpful when using an adaptation in lessons.

Two interesting questions relating to this ‘lie’ idea are:

What differences are there between the novel and book?  

Why are there differences between the two?    

The most recent film version of ‘Of Mice and Men’ opens with George on his own in a train after the events of the novel. As we all know Steinbeck’s novel opens with the lovely description of the Salinas River and the local setting. Why should the director lie to us in this way? The cad! Getting students to think about this difference is important to understanding how and why Steinbeck structured the novel’s opening in the way he did.  The director clearly did this foreshadowing at the start of the film to show us George’s pain. It shows us how the events of the story traumatise him and it creates an image of him being lonely and without a companion or friend. Plus, he is travelling alone and sits in the shadows. Added together, these aspects make us see the story in a new light. The novel’s original opening shows us a peaceful setting disturbed by the arrival of George and Lennie, which symbolises how these two characters bring trouble with them. Why should the director show us a different opening to the story? To add more drama? To focus on the characters rather than the setting? To raise questions about the fate of the characters? This all, however, raises questions about the choices made by a writer and a director, and helps students to see meaning behind the choices made.

I am preparing for teaching ‘The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ and I am struggling as there seems to be no film version that is remotely close to the original novella. Each director has tried to control the story and I think that is the problem with the story: it has an undefinable story or style or genre. It is like its main character. A mixture of different things. Most directors have added female characters to add depth to the story, which is a very masculine story of a world dominated by men.  Some directors have shown the story as a linear narrative and the audience follow Doctor Jekyll’s decent into Mr Hyde as a simple journey. These choices make me more aware of the choices Stevenson made with his novella. However, it doesn’t help me with my class. It looks like I will be using a creaky BBC adaptation and focusing on the differences. 

Some students find it difficult to separate the ‘lie’ from the ‘truth’ when talking about texts. It is common for students to refer mainly to a film version of a story rather than the original text.  Guns tend to be replace swords in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for many essays, for example. Why do they do this? Visual memory is possibly easier to recall. I think it is my job to make the differences between the ‘lie’ and the ‘truth’ explicit. I should be exploring the differences and discussing why those changes have been made. A possible activity with a Shakespeare text could be to decide on how the story could be modernised. What would you have to change to make it relevant for a modern audience? What time period? Where would it be located? The recent RSC version of ‘Julius Caesar’ is a great example of a modern interpretation of the play with its setting of the story in a politically dangerous climate in an African country.

Sometimes, adaptations are too good. Baz Luhrmann’s version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is so good that students’ memory of the story is clouded too much by this version. That is why I prefer to show a mixture of versions, rather than one version alone. This isn’t helped by a lack of versions available for some stories. However, I quite like the BBC versions of Shakespeare’s plays. Not the recent the ‘Hollow Crown’ season, but the series from the late 70s and early 80s. Why? Well, they are devoid of realism in places. You can see painted backdrops, wobbly sets and there is some awkward direction, but they are clearly a play. They look and feel like a play. Look at any film of a Shakespeare play from the last ten years and you can clearly see they are a film and not a play. Films are often glossy, smooth, musical and realistic, whereas a play isn’t always realistic, smooth or glossy.  Furthermore, I prefer the black and white versions of Charles Dickens’ stories for a similar reason; they make the stories less realistic and more fantastical. Something otherworldly.

Engagement

A TV coma is the common position for students when watching a video or DVD. They slouch and stare at the television screen and the only life you might see is slight flickering of their eyelids as the subconscious screams for some kind of activity.  It is so easy to make watching a video a passive experience. Sit down, shut up and watch. But, we want their little grey cells to work. Here are some ideas that I have found helpful in getting them to be less passive when watching a video:  

Pause to think and discuss: Stop the DVD and give students a question to answer based on that point in the DVD. For example: how does the director show Brutus’s mental torture in this scene? Or, why set this scene in Julius Caesar’s home?

Questions: Write a set of questions which students answer while watching the film. Try to give them a few minutes between each question, so they don’t miss one question while answering another.

Review it: Thanks to Julie Blake’s ‘The Full English’ for this idea. Get students to review the film and make comments on its strengths, weaknesses and tips for improvement.

Spot the differences: Get students to spot the differences between the original text and the adaptation.

Finally, think about when you are going to show it. I showed a version of ‘Julius Caesar’ period 5 on a Wednesday after a very busy week for the Year 11s, thinking that it would be suitable as they would be clearly tired. Half of them fell asleep. And I mean sleep – heads on desk and eyes shut. The rest were borderline conscious or daydreaming. One student wanted to do lines just to cope with the tiredness. They got nothing out of it. I thought showing a DVD was a rest for them; it wasn’t. They needed to use their grey cells and I assumed they would automatically.

Right, I am off to watch another DVD and enter my own TV coma.