I am teaching construction technology from a state curriculum which resolves with a final exam, a state-designed exam which I never see. Last year was the field test for the new curriculum. This year we're playing for real---real state scores, real accountability I suppose. I really cannot say I have a grasp on it all.
In the end though, after taking my students through the state recommended textbooks and embellishing with my own turns on teaching carpentry and building, I still believe in my internal compass, my own observations as to whether or not my students really get it. When I taught them how to calculate, layout, and cut pattern rafters for a roof, as I did today, who among them truly followed what was going on? Who can now use a calculator, framing square, and rafter table to produce the structural members for a roof with precision and even craftsmanship?
Fortunately the curriculum requires a hands-on, performance aspect to assessment in this largely carpentry course. But I haven't locked onto it necessarily with the intentions of delivering specifically what the curriculum says is critical to know. One reason is because I understand that the technique and knowledge underpinning what I have done for over 30 years is the sum total of a craft. The resulting accuracy and functional suitability of the resulting product is what counts in the end. The craft is in the path to it. How we learn the fine points along the way, how to get there and what we end up with, is strictly determined by who our carpentry "daddy" was and his knowledge, talent in imparting it, and who taught him (or her). Because it is a craft, there are myriad ways to arrive at excellence, all valid.
So as I listened to Dr. Peter Afflerbach's podcast this evening I considered all this and what he had to say about how the daily teaching activities, and teachable moments zeroed in at the right time in the classroom count for so much in reaching the final test or exam. I understood him to say that there should be multiple assessments used along with the "final exam", assessing how the teacher and class reach the intermediate benchmarks in content learning, as a more effective measure of student achievement, teacher accountability and goodness. This, Afflerbach said, he could support.
Afflerbach gives me hope that in the end, it's alright for a beginning teacher like myself to rely on what I know about my content area, what I observe of my students in the classroom---are they learning? Will the way I impart my knowledge and experience make it interesting for them, awaken passions, and give them real ability to produce a fine product with tools and materials in their hands? For right now I'm struggling to calibrate my background with what one source, the curriculum, says is critical for them to know come exam day.
Still though, I hold my internal compass of what is working as my most accurate instrument. It points the way when I hear probing, critical questions from my students, and see them working hard together in small crews, many for the first time, and at a feverish pace to frame their first walls and roof on their own. Afflerbach's message to me is never put away my own sensitivities to my students and what they look and sound like when real learning is taking place. Thank you Dr. Afflerbach for the self-assurance when I need it the most.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Importance of Literacy in the Classroom Then, Now, Always
I'm not sure how many of my class colleagues have had a first or second career, or even more. I am on my third. I thought I was going to film school for a masters in screenwriting and then I was introduced to house framing. I loved building and designing houses. Years before though I even used to think one day I might teach English at the high school or college level.
Well here I am teaching carpentry in high school with my B.A. in English literature. But what's happened is I've poured what I've learned as a professional carpenter/general contractor and writer/editor over the past 35 years into my classroom and shop. My bent on being a successful builder turned on the premise that expert technical skill is almost always trumped by expert technical skill combined with the ability to communicate well in your discipline (read content area). This has been my approach in my building career, and it is the lens through which I teach my students carpentry.
Before I began this class, my students were doing weekly reflective journals, reverse resumes, and study techniques demanding their ability to research text using the tools the textbook offers---the section subheads, skimming for key words, glossary, and index. However the last time I was in a high school classroom, I was a high school student. I was completely unaware of how much in conflict the way we teach literacy in the present day classroom was with how today's student is so wired for multiple media stimuli which can require reading, but at a much shallower level and shed of the higher order thinking demanded by the great themes in literature.
We are at a critical point in this conflict where the great themes themselves may be re-discovered by this generation if we as teachers infuse our content areas in such a way that it is not only relevant and therefore exciting, but that we make the environment in which our students learn one that allows this to happen. I love Gallagher's idea of a topic flood, filling the classroom with other options of content reading for students to explore as "high interest" reading without analysis, the word wall, QAR Chart, read alouds (with high school students no less!), and shared read alouds. All these strategies seem to slice across generational lines and engage my students in my content area simply because it helps them draw up their passions for carpentry and building.
I've mentioned before, my students are book-shy. To be clearer---they hate what they call "bookwork." They also seem to shut down when vocabulary is intentionally taught. Rather the new words need to be embedded in the hands-on work itself where they can see the words at work. It is then that they will accept,learn and use these words while in the act. So it seems different content areas gather different students with varying styles of learning. I have to truly recognize what works with my students in my content area if I am to get any traction that translates to engaged learning. This is quite a human adventure.
In the "If we are to find our way out again..." quote Gallagher is calling the "political worlds" the state curriculum/test-required worlds which instruct a teacher how to analyze literature for example. What he calls the "authentic worlds" are the classrooms in which we teach. He is saying we must have the courage to use our own sensitivities inside our classrooms to know when to emphasize what works for our students' learning and when to de-emphasize a state curriculum, for instance, that requires a book to be analyzed to death. He is also saying we must "do what is right for our students" by teaching them how to enjoy reading without so much contrived structure and analysis being imposed by the teacher. What is right is to teach students how to do this on their own---how to comprehend, how to figure out contextual clues, how to form their own opinions about what they read, and how to read for fun something that interests them and giving them the time to do it in school.
Kelly Gallagher's message is timely given how electronic media has changed reading and competed for its time. But for today's students to learn to associate reading as a positive way to spend their time, for them to experience its deep rewards, the weight of responsibility lays on all teachers as the ones who best can initiate the changes which must occur in the classroom---the "authentic world."
Well here I am teaching carpentry in high school with my B.A. in English literature. But what's happened is I've poured what I've learned as a professional carpenter/general contractor and writer/editor over the past 35 years into my classroom and shop. My bent on being a successful builder turned on the premise that expert technical skill is almost always trumped by expert technical skill combined with the ability to communicate well in your discipline (read content area). This has been my approach in my building career, and it is the lens through which I teach my students carpentry.
Before I began this class, my students were doing weekly reflective journals, reverse resumes, and study techniques demanding their ability to research text using the tools the textbook offers---the section subheads, skimming for key words, glossary, and index. However the last time I was in a high school classroom, I was a high school student. I was completely unaware of how much in conflict the way we teach literacy in the present day classroom was with how today's student is so wired for multiple media stimuli which can require reading, but at a much shallower level and shed of the higher order thinking demanded by the great themes in literature.
We are at a critical point in this conflict where the great themes themselves may be re-discovered by this generation if we as teachers infuse our content areas in such a way that it is not only relevant and therefore exciting, but that we make the environment in which our students learn one that allows this to happen. I love Gallagher's idea of a topic flood, filling the classroom with other options of content reading for students to explore as "high interest" reading without analysis, the word wall, QAR Chart, read alouds (with high school students no less!), and shared read alouds. All these strategies seem to slice across generational lines and engage my students in my content area simply because it helps them draw up their passions for carpentry and building.
I've mentioned before, my students are book-shy. To be clearer---they hate what they call "bookwork." They also seem to shut down when vocabulary is intentionally taught. Rather the new words need to be embedded in the hands-on work itself where they can see the words at work. It is then that they will accept,learn and use these words while in the act. So it seems different content areas gather different students with varying styles of learning. I have to truly recognize what works with my students in my content area if I am to get any traction that translates to engaged learning. This is quite a human adventure.
In the "If we are to find our way out again..." quote Gallagher is calling the "political worlds" the state curriculum/test-required worlds which instruct a teacher how to analyze literature for example. What he calls the "authentic worlds" are the classrooms in which we teach. He is saying we must have the courage to use our own sensitivities inside our classrooms to know when to emphasize what works for our students' learning and when to de-emphasize a state curriculum, for instance, that requires a book to be analyzed to death. He is also saying we must "do what is right for our students" by teaching them how to enjoy reading without so much contrived structure and analysis being imposed by the teacher. What is right is to teach students how to do this on their own---how to comprehend, how to figure out contextual clues, how to form their own opinions about what they read, and how to read for fun something that interests them and giving them the time to do it in school.
Kelly Gallagher's message is timely given how electronic media has changed reading and competed for its time. But for today's students to learn to associate reading as a positive way to spend their time, for them to experience its deep rewards, the weight of responsibility lays on all teachers as the ones who best can initiate the changes which must occur in the classroom---the "authentic world."
Sunday, October 10, 2010
How My Content Area Sweet Spot Looks and How I Might Arrive There
My Carpentry II students are now completing their first hands-on project of the year---an 8' x 12' wood-framed floor joist system replete with subfloor installed by them, comprising 3-4 students per team. They are about to begin reading and studying how to frame walls in our textbooks. They now know that what they see in print, drawings, and photos will be their gateway to actually framing their first 2x4 walls on their floor systems, and later after that, framing a roof for the first time. By now they should understand that if they pay attention in the classroom they will be rewarded by precision and speed when it's time to return to the framing.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH
This time when they sit in the classroom, they will sit with their respective team members and work together on the uptake concerning how to do it---frame walls. They will also have classroom access to periodicals---"The Journal of Light Construction" and "Fine Homebuilding"---with the sections regarding how to frame walls laid out. They will be given class time in their teams to read anything they like in these magazines, even that which is not related to framing walls. I'm curious to see what they choose to read, and if they'll choose to augment my lectures and the textbook by using these other sources.
Kelly Gallagher's READICIDE has stretched my concept of how to teach my book-shy students to use these resources to swiftly develop high level technical knowledge. They have now seen the real consequences of not paying attention in class when something real is built: mistakes are made, and work must be disassembled in order to correct it. This puts them in conflict with their own pride which is tied to what they are able to produce with their hands, not necessarily their grades. I may even leave out my how-to lectures and have them build their first wall using input from any classroom resources they choose. We'll see.
I love Gallagher's 50-50 approach to allowing classroom time for students to read both textbooks and related "high interest" material. Obviously the "high interest" stuff, in our case would still be related to the hands-on world most of them gravitate toward naturally.
I also love the idea of the teacher modeling the struggle to understand what a book is trying to get across to the reader. In our content area it might be a complicated process, for instance how to square up a framed wall before lifting and bracing it. Much of what my students must learn to do is recognize and follow a process full of specific techniques and methods. I believe ultimately for them, the best learning is in the doing. But I am certain they will learn more and faster using many resources they must read and comprehend. This will also fill in the gaps left by the curriculum and me. I too have learned, there are so many close in tricks-of-the-trade so-to-speak that the textbook fails to touch, that only I can demonstrate with the tools and the lumber if I catch them at the right moment. When that occurs, I usually stop everybody and call them over to see the demonstration.
One of the most enlightening parts of READICIDE'S chapter four for me was Gallagher's comparison between "good readers" and "struggling readers," (READICIDE, PP.103-105). Like teaching carpentry tricks-of-the-trade, there are strategies listed here that I personally use. I may never have thought about them as strategies worth imparting to "struggling readers" for some unknown reason until I became more self-aware through reading this chapter.
I believe I've touched the sweet spot in my classes when my students ask relevant, challenging questions, what-if and what-about questions for instance, that reveal they are actively engaged and thinking about the process and techniques they are learning. That's the good stuff. I'm still sometimes struggling to thread together how to get them there and keep them at will. READICIDE is helping me with this I am sure.
I wonder how many of you, own student colleagues taking this course, TED535, are teaching an elective requiring hands-on skills like myself. I'd love to hear from you. Please let me have the benefit of your comments on this blog or by email. I'd be honored to have your input.
A DIFFERENT APPROACH
This time when they sit in the classroom, they will sit with their respective team members and work together on the uptake concerning how to do it---frame walls. They will also have classroom access to periodicals---"The Journal of Light Construction" and "Fine Homebuilding"---with the sections regarding how to frame walls laid out. They will be given class time in their teams to read anything they like in these magazines, even that which is not related to framing walls. I'm curious to see what they choose to read, and if they'll choose to augment my lectures and the textbook by using these other sources.
Kelly Gallagher's READICIDE has stretched my concept of how to teach my book-shy students to use these resources to swiftly develop high level technical knowledge. They have now seen the real consequences of not paying attention in class when something real is built: mistakes are made, and work must be disassembled in order to correct it. This puts them in conflict with their own pride which is tied to what they are able to produce with their hands, not necessarily their grades. I may even leave out my how-to lectures and have them build their first wall using input from any classroom resources they choose. We'll see.
I love Gallagher's 50-50 approach to allowing classroom time for students to read both textbooks and related "high interest" material. Obviously the "high interest" stuff, in our case would still be related to the hands-on world most of them gravitate toward naturally.
I also love the idea of the teacher modeling the struggle to understand what a book is trying to get across to the reader. In our content area it might be a complicated process, for instance how to square up a framed wall before lifting and bracing it. Much of what my students must learn to do is recognize and follow a process full of specific techniques and methods. I believe ultimately for them, the best learning is in the doing. But I am certain they will learn more and faster using many resources they must read and comprehend. This will also fill in the gaps left by the curriculum and me. I too have learned, there are so many close in tricks-of-the-trade so-to-speak that the textbook fails to touch, that only I can demonstrate with the tools and the lumber if I catch them at the right moment. When that occurs, I usually stop everybody and call them over to see the demonstration.
One of the most enlightening parts of READICIDE'S chapter four for me was Gallagher's comparison between "good readers" and "struggling readers," (READICIDE, PP.103-105). Like teaching carpentry tricks-of-the-trade, there are strategies listed here that I personally use. I may never have thought about them as strategies worth imparting to "struggling readers" for some unknown reason until I became more self-aware through reading this chapter.
I believe I've touched the sweet spot in my classes when my students ask relevant, challenging questions, what-if and what-about questions for instance, that reveal they are actively engaged and thinking about the process and techniques they are learning. That's the good stuff. I'm still sometimes struggling to thread together how to get them there and keep them at will. READICIDE is helping me with this I am sure.
I wonder how many of you, own student colleagues taking this course, TED535, are teaching an elective requiring hands-on skills like myself. I'd love to hear from you. Please let me have the benefit of your comments on this blog or by email. I'd be honored to have your input.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Flogging Books, Killing Young Readers---A Voice for What We Know to be True
As I read Kelly Gallagher's book, READICIDE, especially chapter 3, "Avoiding the Tsunami" it became clear to me that here I had found a voice who spoke for all of us who remembered why we learned to love reading in the first place. Gallagher calls it the "reading flow." But with it comes a sense of timelessness born of focus and concentration, a letting go of our fitful surroundings, a giving of ourselves to the story and to the intentions of the author.
For some reason though, we have found it an imperative to study to death the molecular structure of the great themes and stories of the human condition. In doing so we have kept young readers prisoners in the analytical, conscious world. Gallagher instead says, as teachers, we should be the ushers who lead young readers to the reading flow and the love of reading. We should help grow their passion for recreational reading by allowing "high interest, recreational" reading to happen in school.
We should assist students expand their abilities to interpret even difficult books, as his friend Carol Jago recommends, by actively doing "everything we can to ease students into academic reading" (READICIDE, p.79). She says we should "give students a hands-on guided tour of the front half of the book" and that we should shift to "the budget tour mode" (READICIDE, p.79) in the back half of the book where we step out of the process and begin letting students find their own way.
I believe that before we can reach that point though, there must be quite a different pattern of teaching literacy and literature that has to precede this. That pattern, that expectation of how teachers and schools present reading must change at an early age for young readers. They first must have the expectation that schools are places where fun reading can happen. We must maintain this "m.o." most teachers create at the elementary level into middle school and beyond if we are to change this modality at the secondary level it seems. We're talking about a whole sea change of expectations about reading under the school roof.
The real coup de grace for me however was Gallagher's citation of Kenneth Burke's notion that "the real value in reading literature is that it provides our students with imaginative rehearsals for the real world." As a young reader, I remember putting down just-read books feeling as though I had gained some kind of valuable insight into my world, as though I had somehow lived through a profound event and time. Things looked different to me having "been through it." Outside real, first hand experiences, this to me is real learning. This is the high level stuff that becomes built into us having had these reading experiences.
I particularly like the idea of the "Topic Flood" as a means of validating a book. Gallagher's "One Pager" also looks like an effective way to galvanize the gains a student makes after having engaged in reading that captivates him or her and holding them accountable to their having had such a reading experience.
Today my carpentry II students began framing their floor framing mock-ups. They were mostly collaborating well with work getting done in sweltering, out-of-season heat. The interesting things in the air today though were the words I noticed flying around, words you would only hear during such a carpentry operation among a crew. As I've said before, this was their new vocabulary at work. Their hands held the materials which were articulating into a useful product. Words they did not know only a few weeks ago were flying around as if they were veterans.
The point here is everything became crystal clear to them, as one boy had said, because "now I can see and hold what the book and drawings actually meant to show, what a joist band is and what bridging is." As I said in my Inquiry Project statement recently that "based upon my own experience,...it is repetition embedded in a meaningful content that clinches the vocabulary knowledge" especially in learners more inclined to learn while working with their hands.
I believe I can use some of the Fisher and Frey strategies as frameworks to teach vocabulary to my students in reverse order. It seems this follows the pattern they mention as most effective even for ESL students or anyone learning a foreign language. That is, at first it is easiest to take on such a language orally, that the written language is better learned after the words are seen at work, in context, where needs of the moment become the incentive for learning the new vocabulary.
What I intend to try now with my students is have them record a new word or two each day as they build their floor systems as a way of teaching them to be more sensitive to unfamiliar words. I'm hoping this creates more of a desire in them to demand that they understand words in whatever context they find them.
I have already been requiring weekly reflective journals of my students many of which have them account for new techniques or processes they have learned on projects such as these. Having them record new words could be an effective lead-in to their journals. I still remember how I learned the language of carpentry and what drove me was the desire to be a contributor to the process. I could do this best if I could use the correct terms at the right time. The vocabulary and me were at work.
For some reason though, we have found it an imperative to study to death the molecular structure of the great themes and stories of the human condition. In doing so we have kept young readers prisoners in the analytical, conscious world. Gallagher instead says, as teachers, we should be the ushers who lead young readers to the reading flow and the love of reading. We should help grow their passion for recreational reading by allowing "high interest, recreational" reading to happen in school.
We should assist students expand their abilities to interpret even difficult books, as his friend Carol Jago recommends, by actively doing "everything we can to ease students into academic reading" (READICIDE, p.79). She says we should "give students a hands-on guided tour of the front half of the book" and that we should shift to "the budget tour mode" (READICIDE, p.79) in the back half of the book where we step out of the process and begin letting students find their own way.
I believe that before we can reach that point though, there must be quite a different pattern of teaching literacy and literature that has to precede this. That pattern, that expectation of how teachers and schools present reading must change at an early age for young readers. They first must have the expectation that schools are places where fun reading can happen. We must maintain this "m.o." most teachers create at the elementary level into middle school and beyond if we are to change this modality at the secondary level it seems. We're talking about a whole sea change of expectations about reading under the school roof.
The real coup de grace for me however was Gallagher's citation of Kenneth Burke's notion that "the real value in reading literature is that it provides our students with imaginative rehearsals for the real world." As a young reader, I remember putting down just-read books feeling as though I had gained some kind of valuable insight into my world, as though I had somehow lived through a profound event and time. Things looked different to me having "been through it." Outside real, first hand experiences, this to me is real learning. This is the high level stuff that becomes built into us having had these reading experiences.
I particularly like the idea of the "Topic Flood" as a means of validating a book. Gallagher's "One Pager" also looks like an effective way to galvanize the gains a student makes after having engaged in reading that captivates him or her and holding them accountable to their having had such a reading experience.
Today my carpentry II students began framing their floor framing mock-ups. They were mostly collaborating well with work getting done in sweltering, out-of-season heat. The interesting things in the air today though were the words I noticed flying around, words you would only hear during such a carpentry operation among a crew. As I've said before, this was their new vocabulary at work. Their hands held the materials which were articulating into a useful product. Words they did not know only a few weeks ago were flying around as if they were veterans.
The point here is everything became crystal clear to them, as one boy had said, because "now I can see and hold what the book and drawings actually meant to show, what a joist band is and what bridging is." As I said in my Inquiry Project statement recently that "based upon my own experience,...it is repetition embedded in a meaningful content that clinches the vocabulary knowledge" especially in learners more inclined to learn while working with their hands.
I believe I can use some of the Fisher and Frey strategies as frameworks to teach vocabulary to my students in reverse order. It seems this follows the pattern they mention as most effective even for ESL students or anyone learning a foreign language. That is, at first it is easiest to take on such a language orally, that the written language is better learned after the words are seen at work, in context, where needs of the moment become the incentive for learning the new vocabulary.
What I intend to try now with my students is have them record a new word or two each day as they build their floor systems as a way of teaching them to be more sensitive to unfamiliar words. I'm hoping this creates more of a desire in them to demand that they understand words in whatever context they find them.
I have already been requiring weekly reflective journals of my students many of which have them account for new techniques or processes they have learned on projects such as these. Having them record new words could be an effective lead-in to their journals. I still remember how I learned the language of carpentry and what drove me was the desire to be a contributor to the process. I could do this best if I could use the correct terms at the right time. The vocabulary and me were at work.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Bringing the Carpentry Color and Lifestyle to the Content area
As we have read Fisher and Frey's IMPROVING ADOLESCENT LITERACY, we realize so many of the strategies seem to find almost perfect fits with English/language arts and social studies. Our content area, carpentry/construction technology however, seems farther away from such effectiveness. But we also realize some of this appearance is merely my inexperience and limited view as to how to initiate and execute these strategies which are wholly new to us. Nonetheless we are compelled and inspired to some type of action.
Today we had an early dismissal, half-student day and a staff development this afternoon. Dan Gediman representing "This I Believe, Inc. and one of the editors for the THIS I BELIEVE book series of essays spoke to all the faculties and administrators for Dare County Schools. In our superintendent's introduction she emphasized the importance of teaching literacy especially in the area of non-fiction. She understands.
We experimented with two of our classes today by doing read alouds to our students with a THIS I BELIEVE essay. It was an essay by ground-breaking, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. We feel it's supremely important to bond with our students over things they love and which we may have some personal experience. Hawk's essay, entitled "Do What You Love," seemed to get this done and more. Students asked meaningful questions and brought up their own anecdotes about skateboarding. Soon we were talking about making skateboards. Imagine that---carpentry students initiating dialog about making something useful.
Phase two will bring the color and culture of the carpentry/building world beginning with Tracy Kidder's book, HOUSE, published in the 1980's. In it, Kidder recounts his experience framing a house in New England with his framing crew. This is close-in stuff, and rarely written. Yes, it does contain technical language, the language of carpentry and structure. However it conveys the color of the carpenter's lifestyle, what they are concerned about technically while on the job, and what concerns and entertains them in their lifestyles.
We see this book as a means of teaching literacy, where some of the strategies recommended by Fisher and Frey may be easier for us to use as they will more closely resemble the forms in the book. Plus they will reinforce the vocabulary of carpentry and have students see how one crew views a collaborative effort.
We will begin inviting local carpenters---framers, trim carpenters, cabinetmakers, and remodelers---into the class as guest speakers as well to address specific building issues and to just tell stories of building homes on the Outer Banks. We believe coloring the grey textbook pages with human voices will only help the learning. We'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading. We would love to hear from you.
Today we had an early dismissal, half-student day and a staff development this afternoon. Dan Gediman representing "This I Believe, Inc. and one of the editors for the THIS I BELIEVE book series of essays spoke to all the faculties and administrators for Dare County Schools. In our superintendent's introduction she emphasized the importance of teaching literacy especially in the area of non-fiction. She understands.
We experimented with two of our classes today by doing read alouds to our students with a THIS I BELIEVE essay. It was an essay by ground-breaking, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk. We feel it's supremely important to bond with our students over things they love and which we may have some personal experience. Hawk's essay, entitled "Do What You Love," seemed to get this done and more. Students asked meaningful questions and brought up their own anecdotes about skateboarding. Soon we were talking about making skateboards. Imagine that---carpentry students initiating dialog about making something useful.
Phase two will bring the color and culture of the carpentry/building world beginning with Tracy Kidder's book, HOUSE, published in the 1980's. In it, Kidder recounts his experience framing a house in New England with his framing crew. This is close-in stuff, and rarely written. Yes, it does contain technical language, the language of carpentry and structure. However it conveys the color of the carpenter's lifestyle, what they are concerned about technically while on the job, and what concerns and entertains them in their lifestyles.
We see this book as a means of teaching literacy, where some of the strategies recommended by Fisher and Frey may be easier for us to use as they will more closely resemble the forms in the book. Plus they will reinforce the vocabulary of carpentry and have students see how one crew views a collaborative effort.
We will begin inviting local carpenters---framers, trim carpenters, cabinetmakers, and remodelers---into the class as guest speakers as well to address specific building issues and to just tell stories of building homes on the Outer Banks. We believe coloring the grey textbook pages with human voices will only help the learning. We'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading. We would love to hear from you.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Reckoning---Determining What Works
I teach high school students carpentry. But I also teach them better communication skills, using both the spoken and written word. One supremely critical lesson I learned as a young carpenter's helper was that the most important tool I would need in carpentry I already possessed.
Carl Prescott, the 6'5", 280 pound giant of a framer who wore a long pigtail down his back,was also a mechanical engineer. He taught me so much about structure and the forces on them. He taught me to recognize the step-by-step process that would deliver us to the vision of the finished house. These words however, are written on the white board day-one in my classroom where they remain all year along with "Have a great work ethic" and "straight, level, square and plumb." Carl revealed to me what he called, "rock of the eye" as my most important tool. He was speaking of my own two eyes---my ability to be critical of my own work. If you constantly checked your work as it came together, if you probed and looked back at it as it took form, you could shape it into the finest of finished product, he explained.
I believe this applies to my young students learning to refine their writing skills and presentation skills in my classroom too. It is also essential I believe, to look closely at what is happening in your classroom as instruction happens too, no matter what it's form. I desire that my teaching literacy be embedded and mostly invisible to my students. I want them to recognize it as a tool they use daily to make them better craftsmen and that only. They want to build real things. They will accept the tools that get them there, but they don't want to revel in the fact that one of the most useful tools might be a book which one must read.
What has helped me more than any single thing in learning what teaches literacy to my students in my discipline is using my own "rock of the eye." This has me remain watchful for what bridges to this audience who love to tell you how much they hate to read and write, but will burn up a cell phone reading and writing texts all day, or stay attached to their circle of friends till late at night on Facebook. I believe we must make it alright, to at least meet them some of the time on the ground where they love to play, and for me, that means having them submit a reflective journal in "text" language once in a while.
The premise of Kelly Gallagher's book, READICIDE, that schools are killing the joy of reading for students, has heightened my awareness for how I teach literacy in a carpentry/construction class. To some degree though, I think he pushes a one dimensional thesis. He acknowledges it. But it is important to remember the other stakeholders in suffocating the love of reading, most notably in textbooks and what Fisher and Frey call trade books. And then there is or isn't parental support. I know, "but this is public school, and this is our context."
The most important metric I know for when it's right in my classroom though, when my students are getting it, is the frequency and quality of their feedback, their inquiries, their dialogue between each other over the topic of the moment. This is the good stuff. This is the classroom telling me what's going on is worthy and they recognize its benefits to them. Remember these are students who abhor sitting in a class and "doing bookwork." They want to "go over there (the shop)."Are we going over there today, Mr. Saunders?"
Fisher and Frey, in their book, IMPROVING ADOLESCENT LITERACY, talk about teaching vocabulary in context. They say in teaching vocabulary in mathematics that "teachers find success in timing the instruction of technical vocabulary using the sequence of "introduce, define, discuss, and apply." I believe that, with my students, it is often even more effective to have them apply first if possible, using the vocabulary required over the work and in context, then re-visit the definition, discuss, and apply again. This way they get to see the vocabulary at work. That's the payoff. It then becomes an imperative for them to learn it. It has purpose.
This brings us to Fisher and Frey's discussion of Vocabulary in Electives (p.71). The bell rang for me when I read their "it is repetition embedded in a meaningful context that supports vocabulary acquisition." Some of what I teach my students takes a carpenter's helper 2-4 years to master. Repetition is the vehicle that carries them there. I have one year with my students at each level, Carpentry I and Carpentry II. In that time, I tell them, they won't become carpenters, but combined with the power of our classroom, they will far exceed the knowledge of a newbie helper. They must be told this repeatedly as well.
Carl Prescott, the 6'5", 280 pound giant of a framer who wore a long pigtail down his back,was also a mechanical engineer. He taught me so much about structure and the forces on them. He taught me to recognize the step-by-step process that would deliver us to the vision of the finished house. These words however, are written on the white board day-one in my classroom where they remain all year along with "Have a great work ethic" and "straight, level, square and plumb." Carl revealed to me what he called, "rock of the eye" as my most important tool. He was speaking of my own two eyes---my ability to be critical of my own work. If you constantly checked your work as it came together, if you probed and looked back at it as it took form, you could shape it into the finest of finished product, he explained.
I believe this applies to my young students learning to refine their writing skills and presentation skills in my classroom too. It is also essential I believe, to look closely at what is happening in your classroom as instruction happens too, no matter what it's form. I desire that my teaching literacy be embedded and mostly invisible to my students. I want them to recognize it as a tool they use daily to make them better craftsmen and that only. They want to build real things. They will accept the tools that get them there, but they don't want to revel in the fact that one of the most useful tools might be a book which one must read.
What has helped me more than any single thing in learning what teaches literacy to my students in my discipline is using my own "rock of the eye." This has me remain watchful for what bridges to this audience who love to tell you how much they hate to read and write, but will burn up a cell phone reading and writing texts all day, or stay attached to their circle of friends till late at night on Facebook. I believe we must make it alright, to at least meet them some of the time on the ground where they love to play, and for me, that means having them submit a reflective journal in "text" language once in a while.
The premise of Kelly Gallagher's book, READICIDE, that schools are killing the joy of reading for students, has heightened my awareness for how I teach literacy in a carpentry/construction class. To some degree though, I think he pushes a one dimensional thesis. He acknowledges it. But it is important to remember the other stakeholders in suffocating the love of reading, most notably in textbooks and what Fisher and Frey call trade books. And then there is or isn't parental support. I know, "but this is public school, and this is our context."
The most important metric I know for when it's right in my classroom though, when my students are getting it, is the frequency and quality of their feedback, their inquiries, their dialogue between each other over the topic of the moment. This is the good stuff. This is the classroom telling me what's going on is worthy and they recognize its benefits to them. Remember these are students who abhor sitting in a class and "doing bookwork." They want to "go over there (the shop)."Are we going over there today, Mr. Saunders?"
Fisher and Frey, in their book, IMPROVING ADOLESCENT LITERACY, talk about teaching vocabulary in context. They say in teaching vocabulary in mathematics that "teachers find success in timing the instruction of technical vocabulary using the sequence of "introduce, define, discuss, and apply." I believe that, with my students, it is often even more effective to have them apply first if possible, using the vocabulary required over the work and in context, then re-visit the definition, discuss, and apply again. This way they get to see the vocabulary at work. That's the payoff. It then becomes an imperative for them to learn it. It has purpose.
This brings us to Fisher and Frey's discussion of Vocabulary in Electives (p.71). The bell rang for me when I read their "it is repetition embedded in a meaningful context that supports vocabulary acquisition." Some of what I teach my students takes a carpenter's helper 2-4 years to master. Repetition is the vehicle that carries them there. I have one year with my students at each level, Carpentry I and Carpentry II. In that time, I tell them, they won't become carpenters, but combined with the power of our classroom, they will far exceed the knowledge of a newbie helper. They must be told this repeatedly as well.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Literacy in the Content Area for Ted (535)
Welcome to the first entry in my Literacy for Ted blog. Ted's an online class I'm taking through University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I'm a lateral entry teacher working on my teacher certification. Here you can follow some of my experiences in a class that looks to be extremely applicable to my present teaching role at First Flight High School in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. I teach Carpentry/Construction Technology but stress communication skills like writing, reading, and use of the spoken word along with carpentry skills.
Our school is one mile from the high tide line of the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, Hurricane Earl is grinding toward us as a Cat 2 storm leaving the Virgin Islands in its wake, and expected to intensify and reach Cat 3 or 4 intensity.We'll wait and see what happens. In the meantime I'll focus on Literacy for Ted.
Our school is one mile from the high tide line of the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, Hurricane Earl is grinding toward us as a Cat 2 storm leaving the Virgin Islands in its wake, and expected to intensify and reach Cat 3 or 4 intensity.We'll wait and see what happens. In the meantime I'll focus on Literacy for Ted.
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