Our "Impossible" Dreams
Thinking about teaching, and, more to the point, considering the goals and dreams we have as teachers, there is one aspect that is often considered impossible: achieving buy-in and exuberant participation from every student during multiple lessons, units, or activities. It is the classic idiom (shortened) that "one cannot please everyone all of the time." And, perhaps that's true. Even when you think you've succeeded, as I hope to illustrate later on, you may have students feigning more interest than they actually have because of their desire to please or to escape from work that day or...
However, I think that the hackneyed quote from John Lydgate (often repeated by President Lincoln) is one of those misused (misunderstood?) American sayings. To many, it seems to imply that as you cannot please everyone, why try? This, to me, as a teacher of English, is as mistaken as the attempt to find promise and positivity in Frost's less-traveled road or Cervantes's paradoxical protagonist. Though often heaped with our praise and emulation, deeper readings of that literature suggest something entirely contradictory and depressing about human nature, about our hopes and dreams and then their ultimate destruction once in conflict with the tangible world. Therefore, I also take issue with the common interpretation of Lydgate. I think even though it may seem impossible, the dream is worth it; there is something to be said about the attempt; it is the job of a teacher to work to find ways to engage all students at high-levels. This post is about my attempts to achieve this dream over the past year or so, specifically involving the "hook, ladder, and landing" approach I employ, with a reflection on the efficacy of two units from two different years.
Hook and Ladder
To achieve universal buy-in, the students must be hooked from the very outset of the unit. Really, this goes back to the beginning of the school year, laying out those units as a road map, talking-up each capstone project, and selling -Yes, Selling!- your product. The hook for each unit is imperative. And, the hook must work across the board. For a better explanation than I can afford to offer here, please see Dave Burgess's Teach Like a Pirate. (Not only does he examine the purpose of the hook, but he provides a lengthy list of examples of hooks of varying types and for diverse lessons and units.) I think what is most important for the hook is authenticity. More directly, the teacher's authenticity. Where Burgess and I disagree is that he claims that on bad days the teacher may need to fake his enthusiasm and energy. Perhaps he is an accomplished enough dramatist to do this. For most of us, kids will see right through any facade we might throw up. So, it is important that your hook is something you enjoy, reflects your strengths, and is authentic to you. Then, once the students are energized by the initial hook, the adrenaline is going, the eyes are wide, there is noise, laughter, whispers, movement, questions, etc-- you provide the challenge, which must be difficult and require work, with the appropriate levels of support outlined. This is the ladder: the structured steps to reach a goal that is interesting, hopefully captivating, but will require the necessary rigor (true rigor) to bring to realization. (Side: To read a good book about rigor and it's differences from busy work, especially as applied in the Finnish vs Korean approaches, see Amanda Ripley's The Smartest Kids in the World and how they got that Way.)
The Witch Trials (last school year, 2018-19)
This two week PBL is something I had practiced for several years. It was stale. It needed rejuvenation, especially my rejuvenation. And so, I reworked the hook. Everything else was the same: Students were given rotating roles as prosecutors, defenders, accused witches, witnesses, and jurors (well, I did invent two new roles as separate hooks for individual kids for the last trial). They had to develop arguments utilizing the information gained from two common sources -a novel: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and a true-story movie: "Three Sovereigns for Sarah." Individually, they were given access to a few approved online sources particular to each role; they then were given lists of the facts for each accused (the witness testimony, charges, and any admissions); and, they prepared their cases. Their joy found in this type of project is often engendered by the constant uncertainty, the moving goal-posts of any debate arena. The students simply do not know where the other sides will go, they must prepare broadly and yet be able to adapt quickly. These are not skills I expect a fifth grader to master, but the journey, the climb up the ladder, is what matters most.
So, to juice this unit a bit, I had to re-imagine my hook. First, there needs to be mystery and anticipation. I remember my first years of teaching when I had the "Forbidden Book" on display in the classroom. It was usually something of value that I owned, a rare first edition or something hard to find that they could ask me about. It was a prize, when all other work was completed, that they could achieve: the opportunity to peruse the Forbidden Book! And the hook, though simple, really worked! The kids would beg, plead, cajole to be able to read a book! I was forced to stop the practice though, when, one year, a first edition worth quite a bit of money was damaged. Well, so it goes... For the Witch Trials, the mystery and suspense was easy to create, just cover the door. Make the room itself a mystery. I made a point of being seen bringing in supplies through the hanging black butcher paper that blocked the doorway the day before. Then, the morning of the trials, a sign appeared (stolen almost directly from Burgess): "Yes! Everything You've Heard about the 5th Grade Witch Trials is True!" Inside the room, I hung more
End of an Era
As I planned out the current year, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" found its way to the chopping block...so it goes. My new curricular plan required a hybrid model of reading workshop and the more traditional novel-study style classroom. In short, I wanted the students reading more, reading more deeply, constantly engaging with their texts, and writing about their reading. To achieve this, class novels needed to be short, universally accessible, and a stepping stone to reading skills and strategies that were to be practiced, honed, and mastered in texts of their own choosing that were just at or above their individual reading levels. There just wasn't enough time in the year for them to read a 300 page novel, watch a movie, engage in a new history, and then utilize those sources for a capstone project. However, addressing similar themes involving our responsibilities to family, country, and truth with their inevitable conflicts, I found a wonderful book that would meet all the needed criteria yet was simple enough and short enough to serve as a mentor text, in that it was accessible to every student and could be easily read in a week of assigned reading.Breaking Stalin's Nose
A Newbery Award winning novel, Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin provided a formidable platform upon which to launch into the essential questions that The Witch of Blackbird Pond had tackled for us in past years. They are comprised of two simple interrogatives: What happens when responsibilities are in conflict? And, What is truth? The novel follows the fictional story of a boy caught up in the purges of Stalinist Communism. His father (an NKVD secret policeman) is arrested in the middle of the night, and the narrative follows him as he searches for meaning and answers amid a flood of propaganda so thick that any flicker of truth is blackened out by the obscuring miasma, and he is left to stumble and grope in symbolic darkness. He finds no solace, no answers, only a glint of hope in the kindness shown to him by another traveler in the gloom who promises that one day they will find their way out of their self-imposed prisons, but until then "we have a lot of waiting to do. So let's wait..." I worked to create lessons and activities to create student understanding of symbol, theme, and metaphor, to understand (at least superficially) the historical context, and to illuminate the warnings Yelchin so carefully constructs. However, at the onset of planning, I had not intended to pursue a trial as a capstone.The Value of Youth and Inexperience
Eighth graders are not typically known for their mastery of educational pedagogy or even their taste in music; however, I often poll older students for insight into my classroom and educational choices. I find that asking students who are divorced from their fifth grade year about their experiences in English can provide valuable insight. I can know what has stuck with them, what they feared, enjoyed, relished, and -most importantly- learned in their time in my class. What I was not expecting was the remorse and pleading, the gnashing of teeth and tearing of sackcloth! They could not believe that I would cut out the trials. They reminisced about their experiences, individual narratives, the great and poor acting, and the labels they would wear with feigned shame that identified them as "Convicted Witches." Had I made a terrible error? Had I sacrificed something valuable on the heap of pedagogy and best practices? I thought of Kipling speaking about virtue: "Trust yourself when all men doubt you/ But make allowance for their doubting too..."Re-Examination and Re-Imagination
As the unit loomed, I looked back on why the old witch trials were such a success. Students were hooked and invigorated; they had a common text from which to weave related yet individual experiences; roles were matched with personality; endings and pathways were open providing -at least the illusion of- free choice; buy-in was nearly universal; secrets and mystery were interwoven; goal-posts moved and students were forced to think and adapt quickly to changes; and, rather foreboding and ominous themes were made accessible by a shared, first-person experience. The Hook, Ladder, and Landing. In thinking about the subject, it became plainly obvious that all of these could be accomplished with perhaps even more depth in utilizing the pre-war, Soviet Show Trials as "Stalin's catafalque," supporting everything needed with a strong and visible foundation.
Hook- Day one after students have read the novel. Dress up like an NKVD officer. Officer's hat: $15. Russian naval pea-coat: Mr Minton's Drama supply. Checklist and pencil. A thick and rather stereotypical Russian accent. A Soviet flag to hang: $12. Some propaganda poster reproductions: $10. Now, play the soviet anthem over the speakers and segregate the students according to their family's occupations: engineers to the front, government jobs celebrated, lawyers suspect, business owners in the back, and woe to the child of a banker! Student buy-in requires my buy-in. A hook only works with commitment.Ladder- The novel must be digested and internalized. Questions gauged and answered. This provides the common knowledge-base from which the rest of the unit may build. We spend time reading passages together, then dissecting, then analyzing. Students are learning how to identify conflicts, resolutions, themes, rising and falling actions, climax and anti-climax, character motivations, and other story elements/literary devices. They look for these in their own reading of individually leveled novels, describe them in their journals, and find commonalities and differences. Time is spent discussing the vocabulary and historical figures. Though most students are aware of the evils of fascism and racism, the extreme perfidy of authoritarian communism is something completely foreign to them. Most had never even heard of Stalin or his monumental body count. The word communism to them was only vaguely familiar, often they remembered some American politician being given the pejorative moniker at a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table during lively familial debates. How does one describe the political-economic theory of Marxist-Communism to a ten year old? Well, I tried. In the end, the students had the knowledge base, they were working on mastering the reading strategies I had outlined, and they were becoming familiar with the identification and usage of a variety of story elements and literary devices from the simplistic and concrete to the complex and abstract.
Landing- It was time for the trials themselves. Each student was provided a particular role that was historical and as true to life as possible. We had confessed wreckers and saboteurs, accused accomplices, defense attorneys, NKVD officers, prosecutors, and prison guards (who would become the justices responsible for issuing verdicts). Woven into the blaze-red tapestry were secret missions, hidden objectives, and lies within lies that served to enrich the experience and provide further hooks for students who were anxious to reveal well laid traps and plans, to pull the rug out from under their enemies, to become confident in their abilities of convicting their classmates, and to struggle in the chaos and mistrust that authoritarian dictators utilize to maintain their grips on power. During the trial preparation, collaboration became the proverbial carrot! It was denied, forbidden, much like my book years earlier. As a result, students craved and begged for time to collaborate. All communication was to be written and would have to pass through the office of the NKVD. They were responsible for all mail between prisoner and attorney, prosecutor and witness, etc. They would check them against the appropriate, government form (grammar textbook- Business Letter) and clear or return them based on their review. Writing also became a forbidden fruit. Prisoners were not given enough pencils or paper, requiring them to work together to request items in writing on each other's behalf. Students wrote more in thirty minutes than they had thought possible. Information became power, and power corrupted. One particular student (astute and insightful beyond his years) even took me aside to say: "Mr. Herrin, I see what you did, you made information into power!" Wow! From the mouth of babes... Officers and guards took their small (and really fantastical) modicum of power and wielded it like a war hammer; truth was entirely illusive; attorneys worked in secret to undermine their clients; a spy was put in the prison with secret orders to convince the other prisoners to confess and name each other (little knowing that the pardon deal he thought he had earned from the prosecutor was as fallacious as his own role!); the deputy chief of the NKVD worked with secret knowledge that would be the downfall of his superior; and, all was historically accurate and real, the names of the participants (though often proving difficult to pronounce for our young role players) were real, the fate of each was real, and the subterfuge, the illusion, the loss of truth all was real as well. Most importantly, the mystery, suspense, and enjoyment of the student engaged in the project was real. At one point, as I surveyed the last period class struggle, think, engage, write myriad and uncountable letters by hand, I realized that "impossible dream" with which we all struggle as teachers, and, at this school -surrounded by so many incredible and masterful teachers- so often achieve: 100% buy-in! Yes, of course some students were more proficient in their work, some more calculating, some needed a break or a small outburst to deal with the emotion or excitement, some preferred to plan overthrows or attempt jail breaks, but they were all immersed and all participating. For that moment, I just sat and watched, like so many similar moments repeated at St. John's. This is why we choose to work at this place; it's how we measure our success and our chosen profession against the world itself. That moment is what we live for. So, perhaps the dream isn't that "impossible," but I really wanted to put that video from Man of La Mancha at the top of this post, so I'm not editing my title! Below, I'll include the materials from this activity and few videos to illustrate. Feel free to peruse if you'd like. And, be ready! The next capstone, Poetry Parade, is by far my favorite project that we do.
Trial Clips
Preparation and Designed Chaos
Trial in Action (A Future Prosecutor is Born!)
Materials and Resources
Unit materials created specifically for this project: Link
Videos shared with some or all students: Rise of Stalin; Stalin Bio; Trial Reenactment
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