I walked into my Junior English classroom to see the basics of writing complete sentences on the board:
- Begins with a capital letter.
- Ends with punctuation.
- Has a subject.
That is not to say, however, that they did not have proficiency in other areas. For example, I learned that the majority of the class has a great talent for writing poetry! They had been working on Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" and writing their own personal variation of the poem. Many of the students took to this with the same enthusiasm as they would when asked to write in a journal as their poem became an outlet for some of the frustrations in their life. This can potentially provide myself and their teacher with great insight into their daily lives.
However, I still find their lack of knowledge in writing simple sentences concerning and cannot help but wonder what is being taught in English classrooms that is taking the place of this most basic and necessary skill. As such, I intend to make writing a focal point for some of my future lessons. Therefore, my goal this semester is to pay close attention to those most basic skills needed for success that my students may be lacking and assist them in developing them.
Everyone knows that good intentions can often go awry, though, and I am worried about the students recognizing the simplicity of such lessons and viewing them as an insult. Thus, how do I teach secondary English students the same lessons as their elementary counterparts?
Coincidentally enough, this same topic came up during a recent discussion with my CT. Students simply don’t seem to be learning what they used to be- mainly in terms of grammar. Just like cursive writing and other such topics, grammar doesn’t seem to have a “place” any more in some curriculums, and as such it simply isn’t taught. Now that isn’t to say that there aren’t teachers putting forth the effort to put such lessons into their daily planning, but as it has been observed and commented on, that’s all that it is: trying to find a place to put them in rather than grammar having its own unit. The two of us found this disconcerting, especially for the upper levels of high school.
ReplyDeleteThe solution my CT has come up with is to create the time to teach more grammar, as hard as it may be. For some of her classes (freshman, mostly) this is done via bell work. She also reminds the students during their writing what is to be expected: capital letters, proper punctuation, etc. I do suspect that many more “side lessons” from the main curriculum will be coming soon on homophones, commas, and more- but for the moment the game plan is to see what areas (in the students’ writings) are in a greater need for (re)teaching, and go from there. As far as the how: I am hoping to watch and learn from my CT’s strategies, so as not to make the students feel as though they are being degraded.