I am teaching 10th, 11th, and 12th grade English, which is short for I'm the newest kid on the block so have the most preps.
10th grade: World Literature
11th grade: American Literature
12th grade: British Literature
I'm swamped. What I know about world literature is nothing, but I created a wonderful Africa unit anyway (if you want it, send me a line). The tenth grade teachers at my school adore teaching Speak and To Kill a Mockingbird--which is fine; I love the books too, but creating cohesion between those and say Indian lit is tricky. It's a crazy classroom journey--and my poor kids, they just follow along like weeds in the wind. We started with The House on Mango Street so that they would have a "mentor text" for their first writing assignment. What a great idea! We worked like crazy on their personal narratives. And... I still have students who don't have one sensory detail, one use of figurative language, or any variety of sentence length or. or. or. It's like they're in fourth grade. I went here. Then I did this. My brother said this. We went there. Then there.
It can get disheartening.
In the piles of bad papers, a star student emerged. One Latino girl caught the magic of Sandra Cisneros and wrote a breathtaking piece. It is a simple story about her parents divorce told with images. I expect her to win reflections and BYUs high school writing contest.
The writer Melanie Rae Thon also builds stories with images. She starts with one good image called "the heart of the heart" and builds an image before that, and an image after that. Just image after image until a story is told.
I spend so much of my time teaching The Six Traits of Writing; a writing curriculum I heartily endorse. But when I was getting a masters in creative writing I never once heard the term "Six Traits". Not until I stepped into public schools did I hear that phrase; the claim is that The Six Traits breaks down good writing into separate parts that is easier for students to understand. I get it.
1- Word Choice 2-Sentence Fluency 3-Ideas 4-Conventions 5-Organization 6-Voice
But the "traits" don't say anything about taking risks or looking the dark and difficult square in the eye.
Here are six words for you. Let them be your writing guide.
mind
widens
heart
bleeds
soul
rejoices
2 comments:
Are you sitting in your classroom? I'm looking at all the things on the walls. And your earrings.
Love the family pics below.
Erica, I loved reading every word of this. I'm teaching 10 grade English and AVID. I have 3 preps and it's KILLER. Do you have AVID at your school? We just finished reading "Animal Farm," and the kids are glad they don't have to see me parading around in a pig's mask singing "Beasts of England." Now we're starting to write in prep. for the AIMS test (standardized testing). Does Utah have the same test? Anyway, I'm teaching how to successfully write a 3 pronged thesis, 5 paragraph essay. I'm against the 5 para., but one must start somewhere.
I would love to have your unit on African lit. katysuz@gmail.com
One thing: Have you ever used George Ella Lyon's poem, "Where I'm From" with your students? Her poem encourages writers to create imagery/fig. lang in their writing. There are millions of templates of her poem all over the internet, but I can send you mine if you're interested. I have the students write their own "Where I'm From" poem, and they share one a day until we're through with all of them. Here's a link of her reading the poem out loud.
http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html
Sorry for the book I left you:)
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