Group Work

I found that chapter six “The Importance of Collaboration” was a valuable chapter for me, as I am sceptical about the effectiveness of group work. It begins by explain that, “Every one of us comes to the printed page with different prior knowledge and experiences, with different viewpoints and biases, with different insight and blind spots. (Gallagher, p.104) This statement really shows me why collaboration is important for learning opportunities. I do agree with this statement, but I also find myself recalling how much I have disliked group work as a student throughout my learning career.

In my field experience I see students ask their teacher if the assignment they have just been given could be done in partners, as they cling to their closest friends. I also see how lessons get pushed back because many students’ partners did not come to class that day. I see “hitchhiking” and dictating.

I found this chapter useful because it has some great example of making groups that I have never seen done before. These examples incorporate student accountability and diversity in the makeup of the groups which seem to be key components of successful group collaboration exercises. I particularly liked the “Conversation Log Exchanges” activity. Here the students are logging their thoughts and reflections and reading their peers in a conversation like piece. However, it is unique because their partners are in different periods who are also reading the same literature as them. It then appears to be an individual task, as the student is physically working on their own, but it is incorporating different prior knowledge and experiences, viewpoints, insights, and blind spots. I would like to use this activity if I get the chance to because it embraces the understanding that students bring different insights to the same piece of work, but it also allows for the individual to not limit their self by hitchhiking or dictating. In fact this blog is a little bit like the “Conversation Log Exchanges” activity, and I like that.

English and History

I truly believe that English and History classes can and should be closely connected as each work of literature and author reflects a historical time and often incorporates historical events. The two disciplines enrich each other.

In chapter six Appleman says that Postcolonialism, “recognizes the differences that give people their identities, their uniqueness, and their histories.” (p.89) She then says that, “The aim of postcolonial study, then, is to restore the history, dignity, validity, cultural contributions, and global significance of those whose experiences have been represented within a worldview that provided no way to include “the Other” except through direct contrast with itself” (p.90).

I chose to add these two passages from the text because it highlights the element of History in this lens. Although I think it is important to include history in all literary lens’, it is in this chapter that Appleman seems to include History the most. Here we aim to recognize people’s histories and to restore it. I believe that novels and shorter works of literature cannot fully teach history by itself and that it needs to be accompanied by objective well planned historical teachings. By connecting History to English students are more likely to gain an understanding of the context of the literature and are increasingly able to see why it matters.

Using literature and discussions that reflect colonialism gives English teachers a chance to provide students with knowledge about countries darker histories that they may or may not be learning in their history classes. This area of study also can give teachers the opportunity to question historical teachings. I envision a lesson where an English class might read an outdated “history” from the colonizers view and then challenge this work with their knowledge received from literature from the colonized view. Then provide students with a more inclusive history that incorporates both views. I would hope that this activity would get student to question what they hear and read in history text books and to value literature from multiple perspectives.

Feminist lens vs. Gendered lens

I wonder if the term “gendered lens” is a potential replacement for the term “feminist lens” because it may create less tension in a mixed gendered class, or is it a clearer term that is more gender inclusive?

Appleman explains that “using the feminist lens is one way to examine gender construction, but the notion of the social construction of gender broaden the lens to more fully consider how both men and women are affected by this social construction” (p.66). I believe that gender is a great topic to discuss with students when teaching about what social construction is and how it affects our lives. Gender is such a great topic because there are so many life examples that students can draw from when they are discovering that gender is created. For example in Appleman’s lesson where students are to quickly place key words under “male, female, both, or neither” categories one student said, “whoa, this was too easy,” (p.66). I believe it is easy because every person encounters gender every day. Because gender is so pertinent to society I believe that we should use this lens in the most inclusive way possible.   

When Appleman discusses the gender of men, she explains that it is important to remember that men, like women, have a socially constructed gender and because of this we can recognize how all characters are “held hostage” to social constructions of gender (p.77). One of my favorite assignments in Eng 30 was an assignment about deconstructing masculinity. Here our class worked in groups to break down known stereotypes. My group worked on “the heroic man” and created an over the top movie preview that embodied heroic men such as characters like Rambo, Superman, and Clint Eastwood’s typical characters in westerns. I still remember this activity as a favorite and I think that it would be a fun topic to consider using both female and male gender stereotypes present in texts and in our everyday lives.

I realize I perhaps talked a bit more about film then literature, however to end I thought I would add this picture from the Movie "The Expendables", Now here is a movie filled with gender construction! However I can not deny, I enjoyed this film very much.

 

Discomfort in the Classroom

This week our readings and discussions have focused around the social element of class. Our texts give future teachers suggestions on how to incorporate class awareness into lessons and why it is important. Apppleman explains that the social-class lens is used as a tool to bring issues of power, class, ideology, and resistance into visibility. The goal of using this lens is that it can create a heightened awareness of class and privilege. This lens is therefore a very valuable tool, however Appleman warns future teachers that this lens can create an uncomfortable element to classes because there are unconscious hostilities towards Marxist or class focused ideas and some students are trying to improve themselves individually and class jumping is a indicator that improvement has occurred. I wonder then, do students who are from lower class structures have an easier time applying the social-class lens to texts when reading, in comparison to students from higher class structures? I believe that it a teacher’s job to ask these challenging questions that reflect on society and that the social-class tool is important to use with students from a variety of class backgrounds.

I want to zone in then on the idea of creating discomfort in the classroom.  I feel that creating some discomfort occasionally in the classroom is a good idea because it reflects that student’s normative behaviour and ways of thinking are being challenged. When students are asked to think outside of their normal patterns they might be put in positions that might create curiosity, new awareness, and/or discomfort.  In University classes I have found that teachers have often given verbal warnings that a topic may create discomfort in the classroom. This may look something like the teacher saying, “we are now going to talk about something that some people find uncomfortable, this topic is class. We should try to be open minded and respectful during our discussions today.” I believe that it is a good idea for teachers to have experience, or a framework to follow, when facilitating topics that make students feel uncomfortable. With a quick online search of teaching sensitive topics I find texts that discuss setting class expectations and recognising student diversity for example.

I think that there is a certain level of comfort that a teacher would want to create in order to create the best results when teaching the social-class lens. This level would vary in each classroom in different groups, but I am going to suggest that I think a productive level would be to balance the creation of some discomfort with enough comfort that would encourage students to share their thoughts. Perhaps choosing a work of fiction that reflects class for the first attempt would help create this balance rather than using a non-fiction work or a fictional work that closely links to very real events and people. Appleman uses Hamlet as the example used to read with a social-class lens, other novels that come to my mind that would offer this balance might be the Hunger Games or Ender’s Game, rather than a memoir.

How can we possibly do both?

      While reading Gallagher’s Deeper Reading I found myself having an engaging conversation with the work. I have heard of this idea of having a conversation with a work, but here it finally felt like I participated in a written conversation. This conversation was triggered by my ongoing thoughts about the notion that we, as teacher candidates, are to strive to teach multiculturalism and diverse texts that aid student learning, yet there is also this goal, or aspect, to teaching that pushes the successes of choosing content that students can connect their prior knowledge too.

      On page 28 Gallagher presents an example where he explains the difficulty a teacher experienced teaching A Separate Peace to her students. He says, “though the book resonated strongly with the teacher, it did not connect at all to the past experiences of her students. Its unfamiliarity created a hurdle that the students were unable to get over. The setting and the characters were too foreign for them to buy into the book” (p.28). It is in my margin here that I jotted down the comment, “curious because ‘we’ are to introduce multiculturalism yet that content might not connect to their prior knowledge.” To my delight this interaction in my text became a conversation because Gallagher then proceeded to explain that teachers can include more “front loading” of the text so that students can get past the unfamiliarity and begin seeing universal truths (p.28). What a relief to have Gallagher address my conflicting ideas that shout, “we should really teach students about experiences and people around the world as this would support new knowledge and multiculturalism vs. wait a second we need to keep students attention by having them read what they can relate too and care about. How can we possible to both?”

      Gallagher’s argues that getting past the works unfamiliarity is the key to understanding and enjoying the work. Framing a text becomes an essential step for teachers to take when integrating potentially unfamiliar texts, as it will determine student’s level of motivation (p.37). As Gallagher proceeds to explain and map out methods to frame texts I begin to relax and think, “I can do this.”

       Thinking back to my own experience in grade 12 English I remember being in a predominantly white working/middle-class class were we studied Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. I remember thoroughly enjoying this novel and I remember there being a fairly high appreciation from most students towards this novel in which was unfamiliar to us. Here is a novel where the main character is a boy living in Afghanistan where elements from Afghanistan’s monarchy, the soviet invasion, and the Taliban regime come into play. So what did my teacher do to frame the text? Well I know my memory is not entirely clear, but I do remember learning about the Taliban regime in that class before we read the text. I do believe that because our teacher framed the text and incorporated parallel learning activities that we were able to appreciate this text for its universal and unique messages that we might never had understood on our own.

October 2, 2012