It Was Amazing

Kristin Leclaire (who needs to blog more often) just posted about her 10th graders reading The Kite Runner. I wrote about this last year, but this year she knew about Rob ahead of time so could plan a little better. As Kristin writes:

I explained that our contact, Rob Dodson, had contacted me last year after reading my class blogs, and that he was a military officer stationed in Afghanistan. I had invited him to become a part of our discussion this year, and he immediately accepted the invitation.

Kristin goes on to describe the interaction Rob had with her class, and the effect it had:

For the first time in my teaching of The Kite Runner, students were genuinely, authentically interested in the cultural background of this book.

. . . Ask any of my 4th hour students how they liked The Kite Runner, and their faces actually light up as they respond with an enthusiastic, �It was amazing.� And it was.

Go read her post for more details, and here's one post on her class blog where Rob addresses some student questions.

As I've said many times before, why aren't we doing more things like this?

From Afghanistan

Kristin Leclaire�s sophomores are finishing up their study of The Kite Runner. They�ve had a series of in-class fishbowl discussions about the book, but on their next-to-last one over Chapter 23 they had some additional input to consider.

If you take a look at that post, you�ll see the above picture sent to them from Afghanistan by Rob, an American who�s currently serving as Senior Military Adviser to the Afghan Army�s National Threat Warning Center in Kabul. Then if you scroll through the comments you�ll come to this one by Rob, where he gives them a little bit of his perspective, and then asks them a question about whether social class � in light of their study of Kite Runner � is still important. Many students respond to the question, and then Rob comes back one more time with some additional information.

Nothing earth shattering here, but this is what I�d like to see much more of in all of our classes. We should be reaching out to folks in different locations and with different perspectives, including �experts� but also just people with different life experiences. It�s so easy to do, whether it�s asynchronous like this example, or the use of something like Skype for synchronous conversation. I guess I�m wondering why it doesn�t happen more often.

What�s holding you back?

Wordle the (Yellow) Wallpaper

Kristin Leclaire shares a recent day in her classroom:

So how do we work through the story in a constructivist way without sacrificing efficient interpretation-seeking?

First, we made a list as a class of all of our questions. They had...a lot.

Then, every student picked one question that intrigued him/her and spent a few minutes brainstorming possible responses and follow-up questions. At the end of this brainstorming, they seemed even angrier and more confused. Some of them were holding their foreheads as if their brains physically hurt.

What happened next? Wordle to the rescue, and this is no exaggeration . . . So, we took "The Yellow Wallpaper," page by page, and wordled it. And here�s what happened . . .

Head on over and read what happened, but here�s her summation:

It wasn�t just fun and fluffy; it sparked intense discussion and allowed us a concrete way to analyze abstract, elusive themes. Just as the design of the wallpaper emerged to the narrator, the design of the story revealed itself to us.

I Hear Arapahoe Singing

Last night Kristin Leclaire asked her American Literature class to write their own version of Walt Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing." Their poem is called "I Hear Arapahoe Singing," and each student in the class contributed his or her own verse using the class blog. In an email, Kristin shared that "in class today, we analyzed our poem, and many students realized that all of their verses emphasized the insecurity of the individual but the strong, driving force of our pride as a united school."

Please consider heading over to their class blog and leaving them some constructive feedback.