English Journal - Teaching English in the City, May 1999

Describes how the curriculum of a tenth-grade world literature class, with an emphasis on literary genres, was transformed to a curriculum concerned with ethical choices and their consequences within an array of individual and social contexts. Shows how this conversation about ethical choices and dilemmas in her students’ lives transformed how the author taught literature and writing.

Relates the experience of a college professor who spent two months as a student teacher in an eighth-grade language arts classroom in an urban public school. Discusses middle school teaching verses college teaching, coming to know the students, discipline, student testing, accountability, teaching writing, the failure of teacher-training programs, and teacher testing.

Describes a unit for the final nine weeks of a senior English class which helps seniors say goodbye. Discusses how reading Sandra Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street” and writing their own versions of excerpts of it (along with other class activities) helps students define what they are leaving and come to terms with it.

Discusses how a literature and multimedia course for 11th and 12th graders used active-learning experiences to engage students with Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part One.” Describes how shouting Hal’s soliloquy; constructing a chart of character relations; rewriting a scene in their own words; performing, filming, and critiquing a scene; and writing computer slide-show essays developed thoughtful appreciation and analysis.

Offers observations on the author’s experience of the past two years as she returned to teaching high school English after over 20 years of training adults in business in government to improve their writing. Reflects on the differing demands of these work environments, and on how the canon itself and approaches to teaching classics have changed over those 20 years.

Describes three basic variations on the process approach to teaching writing witnessed while observing over 300 secondary English teachers: the “classic” process approach, the “antigrammarian” approach, and the “five paragraph” approach. Argues that the idea of error must be allowed back into the classroom, and that lockstep allegiance to a set of sequential steps must be loosened.

Describes a community project (based on Kenneth Koch’s book “I Never Told Anybody”) in which students in a ninth-grade English class paired up with nursing home residents, making regular visits to encourage them to write poetry. Discusses finding a place, getting ready, working together, and what students learned about writing poetry and about life and aging.

Relates a student’s experience writing a college application essay. Argues that switching topics should be redefined as global revision, a “pregnant pause” providing evidence of recursivity, and that adolescent writers who talk about their emerging texts are more likely to reconceptualize their written documents.

Offers comments from collectors and dealers on the wonders and all-around fun of collecting books. Presents a short annotated list of books about book collecting and notes one book that will make readers want to collect books. Lists a baker’s dozen of other sources on book collecting and presents three quotations to end the matter.

Describes the work of the National Council of Teachers of English Task Force on Class Size. Addresses the issue of class size by outlining the needs and rights of students (at all grade levels and in each classroom) that can only be granted when appropriate class size and teacher workload are granted.

Observes that kids and teachers are sabotaged by the way urban schools are funded, organized, and run. Advises city teachers to never assume students cannot learn something the teacher wants to teach, to teach literature that both teachers and students will love studying together, and to remember that students themselves are a valuable resource.

Offers three brief descriptions, from three high school English teachers, of unusual or alternative forms of assessment they use successfully in their classrooms: a system of tokens in an alternative school; a literary digest; and creating CD soundtracks for novels read in class.

Discusses the attitudes and issues of reluctant readers by describing the author’s son Jonathan, an intelligent young man who came to hate reading. Offers advice for teachers from Jonathan regarding how they can help students enjoy reading more. Presents annotations of 11 new or overlooked young adult books worth reading.