“Ms. H, these answers are all right here in the text.”

Let us pause for a monumental moment of celebration. All year long, I’ve been working with my seniors on their ability to infer, interpret, and analyze. It used to be that if the answer to a question was not fact-based or found right in the book at hand, my students could not handle it. After months and months of discussion training, open questions, and constantly asking students to find and explain their own truth, they are finally getting to be pros at thinking for themselves. (I think they might even like it!)

I realized this today when I gave my students a simple worksheet that featured background information about the history of African American oral tradition. It featured questions afterward that were more of a “reading check”–each answer could be found on the sheet without much trouble. As my students began to work on it, they were actually confused by it. One raised her hand and said, “Ms. Harter… these answers are all right here in the text.”

“I know,” I replied, “I’m just checking to see if you understood the reading.”

“Really?” she asked, “That’s it?”

More kids started to look bewildered and added things like, “So… this isn’t asking what we think; it’s just asking for the simple answer?”

“Yes,” I told them, cheering in my head. “But don’t worry, tomorrow will be back to normal with some nice questions that are impossible to answer in less than a paragraph.” They smiled and groaned–but I know they were secretly relieved.

I finally did it. They are finally starting to think and crave the opportunity to give and support their own ideas. HOORAY! Once you get there, you can’t go back. Once a mind is opened, it gets sick of simple data processing with no heart and no meaning.

How Contemporary!

Even though I’m on week five of the new semester already, it seems like it just kicked off yesterday. I’ve had many new transitions during this period, including a brand new room arrangement, new class decor, and a new committment to both giving the best and expecting the best from my students. While it’s been a transition, including the gaining, losing, and rearranging of students in my classes, I feel like it’s been a really great first five weeks.

One of the most major changes curriculum-wise has been the shifting of theme in my senior literature class. While semester one was British Authors, semester two is entitled Contemporary Authors. I’m lucky enough to teach at a school where I have a considerable amount of curricular flexibility, as long as I’m giving quality teaching that addresses state standards, so I decided to design an introductory unit that was writing-heavy rather than literature focused. If you follow this blog, you know that teaching writing is my first love; however, that’s actually not the main reason behind this switch. The reason was Reader Burnout. To put it simply, my seniors were exhausted from reading old, British texts that took several run-throughs to make sense of. After back to back texts like Pride and Prejudice, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and some John Donne thrown in for good measure, English can start to look and feel like a foreign language for the average adolescent reader. By the end of semester one, I still had them with me… but barely. I was fighting hard to keep interest  alive, to take a metaphorical windshield wiper to those glazing eyes, but (fight as I may) I was not winning too many fans for the classical literature team.

As the new semester–Contemporary Literature–rolled around, I wondered, ‘Okay, these kids have dutifully read classics with me all year long. When do they get to read and write about things that they find interesting?’  After asking that question in my head, I found myself answering, “Tomorrow.”

I ended up revisiting a unit that I did last summer, about Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, and transforming it for the senior level. As it happened, this was the ideal transitional move. Monomyth–a term coined by Campbell to describe the Hero’s Journey process of calling, struggle, and transformation–can be used to examine the form and characters that appear in texts across time, across cultures, and across genres. As we started talking about the structure, it gave the students a chance to showcase what they had learned in semester one, citing examples from classical texts we had already read. But the fun part was seeing the lightbulbs go on as they began to realize that similar plotlines and characters are featured in today’s books and films, relatively unchanged from their ancient roots. We had some phenomenal class discussion about the idea of the Collective Unconscious, and how humanity tends to share common nightmares, desires, and dreams. “There’s only one story, and we all know it by heart” became our motto to prove or disprove as we looked at varied examples from The Odyssey to Avatar.

Using that knowledge as a stepping stone, I set out to examine the most contemporary authors possible–my students. Over the course of the unit, my kids completed a rigorous creative writing assignment, which required them to implement the all stages of monomyth within an original plot, create a story setting and worldview, design archetypal characters, and showcase the effective writing skills that we had workshopped in class. And they worked hard. Even the slobbish slacker that always sits in back handed in a paper over ten pages long, smiling a goofy, proud smile as he handed it in (just one day late). Other kids created novellas that would have a freelancer with writer’s block simply salivating. Students that struggled to squeeze out ten sentences about The Exeter Book were now creating complex masterpieces. “Finally,” the class atmosphere seemed to say, “I get to make something cool on my own terms.”

Today’s high school students still need classical literature. The skills, cultural knowledge, and academic maturity gained by interpreting these texts are important, without a doubt. But let’s remember that reading and writing can be–and at times should be–purposefully new, exciting, and relatively free of prescriptive requirements. My first priority for my seniors is getting them college-ready. Still, a close second is getting them to understand that reading and writing are not only vital, but life-giving as well.

(Besides, even when creating something new, they can’t ever totally escape the incorporation of classical story structure. Little do they know, the same tools used by every canonical writer are already lurking in their young, unsuspecting brains. *Wink*)

West meets Midwest: A Collaboration Story

 Even with the huge variety of options that one has as an English teacher, it can still be hard to come up with ways of teaching that can shake adolescents out of their “I don’t care” coma. I mean, let’s be honest: most high school students are far more concerned with showing off and meeting new people than they are concerned about discussing literature. But wait! What if those two were one and the same? Now we’re getting somewhere.

This past October, at the WCTE State Convention, I attended a session that was given by two of my colleagues: “City Mouse Meets Country Mouse, or How Technology Brought our Classrooms Together.” The presentation gave highlights from a really unique collaboration between an urban teacher and a rural teacher in the same state. Both teachers had the same grade level, and one of the same texts. So, they decided to teach it together. They met ahead of time and “synched” their unit so that the same lessons would be taught on the same day to their respective classes. But the most important part of the unit was online book discussion, facilitated by the teachers through Goodreads.com, a social networking site built around books. With a private “room” just for these two schools, students from the city were able to offer their insights on the book, and the rural students could then respond, eventually branching out into full-blown, academic discussion between kids from totally different walks of life. I loved this idea for several reasons: (1) It was just plain cool, (2) It involved teacher collaboration, which I’ve wanted to learn more about, and (3) It gave the students exposure to some new faces, expanding not only their literary horizons, but their social ones as well. We all need to understand each other better, and it starts with common ground. When that common ground is a book, it breathes new life into the idea of  “required reading.”

I was dying to try this in my own classroom, but I wasn’t sure who to collaborate with. I really wanted to expose my students to another class outside of Milwaukee, somewhere that would expand their understanding of the world beyond their own backyard. Most of my friends teach in the city, so I tried to open my brain. Who did I know that taught somewhere… else? Then, it hit me. Of course! My cousin, about 7 years older than I, teaches English at a high school in rural Oregon. Now that’s  far away. I shot off an email, and, lo and behold, she teaches seniors, too. And she liked the collaboration idea.

Over winter break, after Grandma’s delicious Christmas dinner, Ms. W. and I were able to sit down on the couch together, face to face, and create an initial to-do list for a collaborative unit on Zora Neal-Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  While we still have a couple months of preparation ahead, the cogs are turning and it’s looking like we’re going to be connecting kids not just between a rural setting and an urban one, but over whole regions of the country. I am so excited to give my students the opportunity to discuss a text with some new faces–ones that will seem different at first, but that will inevitably become familiar as they explore the text with other kids all the way across the nation. Wish us luck! You’ll hear more when the unit comes ’round.

The Perfect Assignment

As a teacher who is always trying to be innovative, creative, and just plain “not boring,” I try a lot of different types of lessons with my students. As a new teacher, I have a lot of lesson attempts that need fine-tuning, and a handful of utter flops. However, there is one strategy when it comes to literature lessons that–even in my short experience–has never let me down. It works with practically any fictional text and any age group. This strategy (which I definitely am not the first to come up with) is character letters.

In a character letter assignment, students write a letter to a character, usually for a very specific purpose. I think the secret of this assignment’s vast success lies in the fact that it’s very entertaining for students, yet very informative for the teacher. As I inspect textual references, tone, and reactions in their writing, I can tell quite a bit about how my students are understanding and interacting with their reading. Also, the products are often hilarious and spot-on.  Let me tell you just a little bit about how I’ve used this teaching method.

Variations: Students can write in their own voice to a character, or from one character to another. You can assign student pairs to write to each other and respond back, still in their character roles. You can have students, individually or in pairs, create an instant message conversation between characters (they have a great time creating screennames and such). Students can read examples aloud to the class, while others try to guess which character is speaking and who’s being addressed. You can have students write diary entries in the voice of a character. The list goes on. Basically, the goal is to create an assignment that asks students to assume the role of a character and to react to that character and others as if they were real people. You’ll be surprised at the strength of emotion that quickly surfaces!

Examples: Here are some concrete examples of character letter assignments that my students have tried.

*Beloved. Write a letter from one character that lives in House 124 to another that also resides in the house. This should be a letter of apology or one that reveals a previously hidden emotion. Refer to at least one specific incident from the text. Your letter should be written so that it would be given to the recipient directly after this event.

*Hamlet. While examining the tragic form, we’ve learned that tragic heroes have a flaw that leads them to their doom. So what’s Hamlet’s problem? We’ve all been in the situation where we see a friend making some bad decisions that could create even worse consequences. Write a letter to Hamlet, telling him what he’s done wrong, and what might happen if he doesn’t set it right.

*The Pearl. We don’t see our protagonists say much to each other throughout the story. What would they say if they had the time? In pairs, assign one person to assume the role of Juana and one person to assume the role of Kino. Write a letter as your character to the other, explaining everything you want to say. Once done, exchange with your partner. Keeping yourself in character, write a response to what he or she has written.

*Pride and Prejudice. While most of the verbal sparring we see in the book takes place via conversation or letters, if Elizabeth were alive today, it’s likely she’d find a lot of her drama online. Pick any character from the novel and write an email from this character to another. This should be a serious message of at least two paragraphs. Please feel free to use modern English and online abbreviations to create a message that stays true to the way the characters interact in the novel.

Try it! As you can probably already tell, there are tons of different ways to transform this assignment type to your purposes. Try it out, and you’ll likely be delighted at the entertaining, heartfelt, and shockingly accurate character portrayals that your students create. Whether you’re working it into a complex unit plan, or just need something new to keep your kids on their toes, character letters are an awesome way to go.

Roll of Thunder, Hear Our Cry

I’ve been teaching a unit with my seventh graders based on Mildred D. Taylor’s novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. As I previewed the book, I found myself recoiling from the harsh depictions of racist violence, which are very true to what really went on in Mississippi in the 1930′s, ’40′s, and ’50′s. I wondered if my classroom–a racially disparate group of 12 year-olds–would be able to handle it. I’m not sure what I was so afraid of… I guess I felt like reading about those events really hurt me, and so perhaps it would hurt them, especially if they didn’t have the maturity to understand it. I was feeling similar to a group of parents who wanted to censor the book back in 2004, saying the content was too mature and disturbing for middle schoolers to be exposed to.

But then a little bell rang in my head. Why was I trying to shield these kids from the truth of what happened in history? If I did so, wasn’t I just playing accomplice to the thousands of sugared-over history textbook editions that have lain, guilty, in classrooms across the nation for decades? If I was nervous to talk so directly about racism in my classroom, with black kids and white kids, Latinos and Hmong, wasn’t that my own little contribution to racial tension in our own society? After this mental tug-of-war, I convinced myself that I would tackle it, and after an introductory explanation about the need for grown-up behavior, sensitivity, and reverence, we plunged in headfirst.

Best move ever. The responses from studying this novel have been the most heartfelt, complex, and complete responses I’ve gotten from my seventh grade. Not that it’s been without pain–for instance, when I was explaining how tar-and-feathering was a humiliating and excruciating “punishment” that whites inflicted on blacks for the most minor offenses, I was interrupted mid-sentence by a cocoa-faced, curly-haired girl with watery eyes: “But why would someone do that? Why would anybody ever think that was ok? What made them think that wasn’t wrong? It’s wrong!”  The only answer I could give her was, “I wish I knew the answer myself. To be honest, I really don’t know where racism or hate of any kind comes from. But it’s bad, bad, news and it’s really hurtful, isn’t it?”

One of the most interesting  lessons we did involved using poetry to talk about how race interactions were more complicated than simply pitting whites against blacks. For this activity, we analyzed Jeremy’s friendship with the Logan children by connecting it with Countee Cullen’s “Tableau,” which I’ll post here–

 TABLEAU

Locked arm in arm they cross the way/The black boy and the white

The golden splendor of the day/The sable pride of night

From lowered blinds the dark folk stare/And here the fair folk talk

Indignant that the two should dare/In unison to walk

Oblivious to look and word/They pass, and see no wonder

That lightning brilliant as a sword/Should blaze the path of thunder.

Here are a few of my favorite student responses to the poem:

I say what happened in the poem was two kids (black and white) fighting against racism. They were signaling out that skin color does not effect a person’s feelings. And when the lightning struck and cut through the segregation, it burned all thoughts of hatred and led people to think. If God made different races for a reason of hope, why was it used as a reason for bad individuality, segregation, and downputting of someone of another skin type or race? All races form the reason of life. People, living, and being are the cause of the new age. In Roll of Thunder, segregation was at full cruelty. But every action has its own special consequence.

I love this poem because I think it is so true about white kids and black kids becoming friends, without anybody having the right to say anything. Countee Cullen is impressing with this poem. He’s awesome!!

I see hope in the poem where they don’t care what people are thinking about them. I think that it would be unfair if we couldn’t hang out with someone because of their race or their religion. It’s unfair to judge people because of the color of their skin and it’s rude and cruel.

I think the poem is trying to say “don’t care about what people think.” If you think or know what you are doing, have trust in yourself and go for it. They are trying to tell us even when it is hard, don’t give up because we’ve come a long, long way just to give up. In the book, the blacks are going through hard times. A couple nice white people are trying to help them go through that and say something like, “What is the difference between us?” but without words.

I’ll end this post with the wisdom of Mildred D. Taylor herself, in her response to the attempted censorship of her novel. Here’s a quote from her, courtesy of the National Coalition Against Censorship website:

“As a parent, I understand not wanting a child to hear painful words,” Taylor wrote. “But also as a parent I do not understand trying to prevent a child from learning about a history that is part of America… I must be true to the stories told.”

Thank you, Ms. Taylor, for reminding us that we have to look the world straight in the eye in order to form our own opinions of it. Even if we’re twelve years old.

P.s. Every day, I am greeted at the door by a different child that whispers to me, “Ms. H, can I read first today?” 

The Art of the Semi-Colon: Using Grammar to Enrich Writing

This morning, I had the honor of presenting a sectional at the 2009 Wisconsin Council of Teacher of English Convention in Milwaukee, WI.

Please click to view the following resources from the session:

Handout with lesson directions and notes

Powerpoint Presentation

My presentation included discussion about two bits of pedagogical theory–(1) teaching grammar in the context of writing and (2) using visual arts in the teaching of writing. For me, finding practical applications of these theories can sometimes be challenging, so I demonstrated a lesson that I use in my persuasive writing unit which integrates both of these theories into actual practice. It’s a really great lesson that middle school AND high school students enjoy and that is exciting to teach. It makes grammar fun! But even better, it produces sophisticated student writing in the end. The participants in my workshop had a chance to try out the activity for themselves, and then to discuss the experience and offer ideas about how this lesson (or those similar to it) can work in the classroom. Some of the cool suggestions generated by this discussion included:

-Using a picture as a starting point for a follow-up lesson, where students view the image and generate an accompanying sentence.

-Displaying posters side by side with formal persuasive essays.

-Tying visual elements into descriptive writing, asking students to describe a photo or illustrate a written description.

-Creating a unit around punctuation, with the unifying idea of a punctuation “map” that could be displayed in the room with “paths to good writing” that would feature various punctuation marks as X-marks-the-spot symbols on the map.

I was so excited to have this chance to present one of my ideas and to hear those of others. My room was pleasantly overflowing with knowledge: there were pre-service educators, other first-year teachers, experienced and veteran teachers, and post-secondary teachers in attendance.  It was my absolute pleasure to serve as the leader for a great activity and discussion. Many thanks to all that were there! It was an incredible day for me–I was recognized as the WCTE 2009 Outstanding Student Teacher and gave a successful workshop for my colleagues! It doesn’t get much better than that.

Do you need more ideas about how to utilize grammar in context, visual arts, or BOTH into real life teaching? Check out the last two slides of my Powerpoint for my list, and share your own by leaving a comment and continuing the conversation!

Please share by leaving a comment.

Paper Ball Analysis

I’m always on the search for visual aids to help exemplify those super-abstract concepts that we encounter in language arts. Like a gift from above, this idea came to me over the weekend. I used it with my 12th grade class today, and it seemed to work pretty well… Success!

The goal: Visually portray what it means to conduct a literary analysis. I’ve been teaching my students how to analyze a text, through a kind of mental excavation process… identifying elements, paying attention to how language works, going as deep as possible into the implications of the author’s choices in order to discover the thread of meaning that’s interwoven within. But that’s a lot of big words. So how do I make what I’m asking for clearer? This is what I came up with.

First I asked my students, “What is this?”

Of course, they answer–A paper ball.

Right, a paper ball. It’s fairly obvious, right? We look at this, and we see the surface. It’s round. It’s a ball. It’s made of paper. Pretty straightforward. Now I’m going to be using this as a metaphor for a text that we might want to analyze. What do we do in order to analyze something, if you think back to our discussions from earlier this week?  Take it apart. Look for deeper understanding. Look closer. Great! So let’s start taking this apart.

We’ve started our analysis, beginning to look closer and take this object apart. What do we see? Dark marks and shapes… Right! So we have started to identify some things that we see here. We think they might mean something… but what? To find out, we have to look closer.

Now what can we see? Letters! I-N-G. Ing! Yes, we now see some things that we recognize, that we can connect to. We know these elements, we know what they mean alone, and we know together that they are probably part of a greater whole. We’re almost there, but in order to find what unites this whole piece, we need to spread out all these elements for ourselves to see… So… what do we get?

This is what we’re going for. To unfold and uncover and analyze enough to get to a place where the underlying meaning of a text is clear. Now, let’s practice!

And the lesson continues.  To my surprise, my class actually seemed to get the concept more than before! And I displayed the crumpled sign as a reminder right next to the pencil sharpener.

Whatever it takes.

The Caring Classroom

Last week I had the privilege of attending a professional development workshop as part of the PEP grant at my school. I had gone to the first session of the series last year as a student teacher, and it felt good to be back. It was so nice to have a day away from school where I could reflect more completely on my practice and think about what I do that’s successful as well as my areas for improvement.

The workshop was held in the endlessly charming Milwaukee K-12 school Golda Meir–which is an unbelievably remarkable place with, no doubt, the cutest kids in the city. (But I digress). The presentation was led by Laurie Frank, author of the book Journey Toward the Caring Classroom: Using Adventure to Create Community. [You can view an extensive preview of Laurie's book by clicking here.]  I was impressed by her warmth and wisdom.

The seminar focused on techniques and strategies for creating active, brain-based learning using constructivist teaching methods. (Quick review: constructivist means that students and teacher are working together to construct understanding, beginning from what is known and familiar, moving to the generation of ideas and products, then revealing the underlying general concept, and eventually applying that knowledge in practice…)

Much of what we talked about included things I’ve heard of before, but I was newly reminded of how important it is to design instruction that accomplishes a few very important things that are so often overlooked in teachers’ efforts to “get through the content” or even “get through the day.” Some of these important things, which I know that I need to refine, reinforce, and newly commit to are:

*Consciously and transparently building compassion, trust, and open-mindedness into classroom instruction.

*Engaging the senses, including utilizing physical movement in instruction. Allowing a controlled goofiness to occur once in a while.

*Celebrating baby steps, and allowing students to attempt a new strategy multiple times before expecting it to run smoothly.

*Teaching, practicing, and assessing procedures as well as content.

*Reinforcing instruction with hands-on, interactive activities.

*Using brain-research to inform constructivist lessons.

*Realizing that the environment, both within and outside the classroom have a significant impact on student performance.

Talking about all these things set some new teaching ideas swimming about in my head, which was wonderful! But much more wonderful was the heightened sense of commitment I began to feel. Hearing stories from many other educators from the city, I noticed that the theme running through the discussions was that of a sincere devotion to teaching, and a fierce, almost protective, zeal for giving kids the best, safest, and most enjoyable education possible. It pumped me up to get back in the classroom and keep building that community that teachers and students create, piece by piece, hour by hour.

We’ve got a lot of work to do.  Let’s get crackin’!

First Couple Weeks: Creating English Scholars

The first couple weeks of my teaching have been going very well. My three preps are so very different–it’s kind of amazing, and it makes every day a veritable potpourri of teaching variety. My writing lab class, which in content and student body is quickly becoming my best-loved hour of the day, is a creative, process-based elective for high schoolers. This is where I can create the curriculum of my dreams: a writing workshop where I can guide every step from inspiration to publication for my community of writers.  The seventh graders are a treat that is new to me–they still very young, confused, and playful, and an absolute breeze as far as classroom management goes. Everything is new to them. The seniors–low on motivation, high on sass, but smart as whips–are my special challenge and in some ways my other favorite. I am determined to be the teacher that, during this last, vital year, leaves the door open for Language Arts in the hearts and minds of these students as they enter the adult world.

With the seniors, I spent the first week centered completely around WHY we study literature in the first place. I know I certainly didn’t understand or even think about the reasons behind literary study as a high schooler. In fact, I avoided AP lit by taking a theater class instead. I just didn’t get it. And either did my current students. While there’s still a long way to go, I felt some glimmers this week, some hints that they are starting to think about the value of the written word, and that makes it all worth it.

My two best recommendations for “Why Literature” lessons:

1. Selections from Mario Vargas Llosa’s essay “The Premature Obituary of the Book: Why Literature?” This is, when approached from an open-minded point of view, a staggering argument for literature that students enjoy both debating and considering. It contains such gems as this, which made my literary geek heart swoon: Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of the human patrimony, and to prize those differences as a manifestation of humanity’s multi-faceted creativity. Reading good literature is an experience of pleasure, of course; but it is also an experience of learning what and how we are, in our human integrity and our human imperfection, with our actions, our dreams, and our ghosts, alone and in relationships that link us to others, in our public image and in the secret recesses of our consciousness.

2. I had my students, in groups of four, come up with at least ten reasons why someone might want to study literature. Then, I fused all the good reasons together and published it, giving each student a copy and posting it, LARGE SIZE, on the wall. As I explained to them, “If I came to teach every day just to get paid and go home, I’d be a poor teacher. Just the same, if you come to school each day just to pass and go home, you’ll be substandard students.  To be good at something, you need to find a reason behind it. Here are your reasons for literature. Dig deep and find one, or more, that work for you, and you might surprise yourself by the wealth that you find!”

Here’s our list… Is your reason on there?

THE POINT OF STUDYING LITERATURE

by English 12, Hours 3 and 6

1. To seek answers to unanswered questions.

2. To expand our imaginations.

3. To feel or express an emotion.

4. To reflect on the state of the world around us.

5. To expose ourselves to viewpoints outside our own.

6. To appreciate the artistry of great authors.

7. To learn passion.

8. To understand other cultures.

9. To improve our society.

10. To imitate the masters in our own writing.

11. To explore different value systems and philosophies.

12. To learn how to live or how not to live.

13. To stand out.

14. To approach important ideas.

15. To hear a good story.

16. To gain reading and critical thinking skills.

17. To think about something strange, deep, or interesting.

18. To learn about other historical periods.

19. To experience something we’ve never physically encountered.

20. To see ourselves reflected back to us, with both flaws and admiration.

21. For comfort or encouragement.

22. To be respected by others.

23. To expand vocabulary.

24. To escape into an alternate reality.

25. To read and write poetry.

26. To delve into the minds of greatness.

27. To teach others.

28. To maintain a set number of intellectuals in our society.

29. To learn different genres and styles of writing.

30. For inspiration.

31. To challenge ourselves.

32. To become more intelligent.

33. To learn about famous authors.

34. To learn about new or little-known authors.

35. To impress members of the opposite sex.

36. As part of a career.

37. To better visualize a thing, place, or idea.

38. Because it’s been studied for centuries.

39. To stay out of trouble.

40. To pass Ms. H’s class and graduate from high school.

My Tour of Duty

Over the past five weeks, I had a teaching adventure that few have the chance to experience. The place? St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy. The task? Teach a semester of English in five weeks to a group of remedial students from grades 7-10, two three-hour-long classes a day. Throw in the fact that the boys live on the grounds and also have intensive military training and athletics each day, and you’ve got quite a unique situation.

My challenge was creating a curriculum that could cover a wide range of standard language arts skills, that would be accomplishable in five weeks, and that would engage a bunch of teenage boys who hate English and got kicked out or failed out of other institutions. From day one, we were told to design a project-based curriculum, since most of the students have a history of failure in the traditional lecture-test pattern of schooling.

I ended up being inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work on mythology and the journey of the hero. When I think about stories and ideals that motivate and interest young men, hero stories top the list. So I built everything around that core idea—the hero’s journey. We started out talking about literary structure and archetypes, looking for common threads in plots, theme, and character throughout history and across genres. Upon that, I built my literature lessons—helping students to (in many different ways) learn to look beyond the literal events of a story to uncover the reasons beneath the stories we know, read, and tell. We used Lowry’s The Giver and Steinbeck’s The Pearl as our primary written texts.

For the project, I had students design a world for a videogame or film, complete with detailed character descriptions for the seven classic archetypes, illustrations and diagrams, and a full original narrative that brings a hero through the twelve stages of the hero’s journey, what Joseph Campbell termed “monomyth.” The writing piece of the project allowed me to work in grammar lessons as well as mini-lectures on descriptive writing, varying sentence rhythms and (my favorite) show-don’t-tell. [P.s. Campbell’s work is absolutely fascinating, and reading it makes me wish that I was teaching a college class on mythology… It’s super-complex and very meaningful. I’m looking into buying “The Power of Myth,” a PBS special which features a lengthy interview between Campbell and Bill Moyers]

Many boys did great on their hero’s journey project, coming up with unique characters and really involved stories. They were witty, action-packed, and often hilarious. Considering how difficult these students could be to motivate, I was blown away when several of them turned in over fifteen pages of single-spaced type for the story portion of their project.

It was a crazy five weeks, especially as I’m unaccustomed to the environment of a military academy. It’s a whole different feel when students live on the grounds and see nothing but each other all day, every day. Clearly, discipline was strict. It was a surreal experience to demand ten push-ups for every minute late to class! It was also very fulfilling to have a class that was more like a family than anything else—small classes and long class periods gave us no other choice! Also, since the boys are separated from their parents, being a teacher at the academy means assuming a role of adult support and value-reinforcing as well.

I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to sharpen my teaching skills before fall, and to be part of a school that is truly a separate world from mainstream schooling. I’ll miss my boys, and hope that they will carry their newfound academic and leadership skills into the next school year.

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to start planning for fall! But before that, I think I’ll take a long-awaited week off.