2) Students will design and teach three lessons in front of their peers. 3) By the beginning of Spring Break, students will develop high school essay assignments for three of the works we have considered in class. They will then write responses to those assignments. 2-3 pages for each essay question. 4) By the end of the term, students will develop a curriculum unit based on material that has not been discussed in class--a novel, a group of poems, a group of stories, or a group of essays. Students will provide answer keys for all the quizzes and tests and write written responses for all study and essay questions.
Perhaps it's just me but this seems .... hermetic. As a high school English teacher, you will not be teaching Smith students. Far from it. You will be teaching people who are younger, in most cases not as smart, and in most cases not as interested. I see no reason to believe that lessons that are successful with your peers will be successful with them. Okay, that's too extreme. Some things will work with both. But which things???? And what things will work with them that you'd never think of?
The education business is incredibly unconcerned with doing real research on "what works" and then making sure that research gets used. Too much of what teachers do is stuff that educational entrepreneurs and education professors (often the same people) and classroom teachers figure "is interesting" or "must work" or "makes sense to me" or "is something I'm comfortable with."
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English 490
Date: 2005-01-27 03:49 pm (UTC)3) By the beginning of Spring Break, students will develop high school essay assignments for three of the works we have considered in class. They will then write responses to those assignments. 2-3 pages for each essay question.
4) By the end of the term, students will develop a curriculum unit based on material that has not been discussed in class--a novel, a group of poems, a group of stories, or a group of essays. Students will provide answer keys for all the quizzes and tests and write written responses for all study and essay questions.
Perhaps it's just me but this seems .... hermetic. As a high school English teacher, you will not be teaching Smith students. Far from it. You will be teaching people who are younger, in most cases not as smart, and in most cases not as interested. I see no reason to believe that lessons that are successful with your peers will be successful with them. Okay, that's too extreme. Some things will work with both. But which things???? And what things will work with them that you'd never think of?
The education business is incredibly unconcerned with doing real research on "what works" and then making sure that research gets used. Too much of what teachers do is stuff that educational entrepreneurs and education professors (often the same people) and classroom teachers figure "is interesting" or "must work" or "makes sense to me" or "is something I'm comfortable with."
RAS