Partying Like Gatsby

Except we really didn't party like Gatsby. There was no booze, infidelity, bootlegging, or murder. There may have been a slightly broken heart or two and maybe a little carelessness, but it was a party for teenagers, after all. We had tables full of flowers and candles and a perfectly beautiful evening to celebrate the end of the year and, for nearly all of them, the end of me as their English teacher.

After our meal I gave each senior a book that I picked out specially for him or her. And then my students surprised me with a beautiful plant, a gift card to my favorite restaurant, and the real treasure: a journal with a  page or two from each of them. Ah, my heart. To read words like this—I cry every time. I'm crying even as I'm transcribing them from journal to blog:

"I don't hate books as much any more, and I owe it all to you!"

"Words cannot begin to tell you how much you have impacted my life."

"Thank you for not only teaching me all the wonders of literature, but also for teaching me how to be a strong, courageous, confident woman."

"Thank you for teaching me, listening to me, and always leaving your door open for me."

"Thank you for helping me find my voice."

"I really didn't like literature. It has only been presented to me in a shove-it-down-your-throat way by a terrible teacher. Over the years you've shown me what it's like to have a teacher that truly cares."

"You are an incredible teacher, not only because you've given us so much knowledge, but also because you're truly passionate about what and who you teach."

"Your classes have taught me to write better, to write more, and to write freely."

"You have helped me become the woman I am today."

"You taught us to look at life through a new perspective, to find optimism, and clutch the opportunity."

And, the one that always gets me, "O captain, my captain."

Is there any greater joy for a teacher—and for a mom/teacher because one of these students is mine—that to hear these words?

At last night fell, and we gathered on the lawn to watch The Great Gatsby, which was the last novel we studied in class. I'd not yet seen the Leonardo diCaprio version that came out a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it, although it's possible that I like Robert Redford as Gatsby better. I haven't seen that version in 20 years or more, so I can't say for sure; it's just an impression. Regardless, it was a perfect way to spend a warm evening in May.

 

 I have been so honored and blessed to be their teacher. They are good, good people.

Field Trip: Carl Sandburg Home and Thomas Wolfe House

View of the Carl Sandburg House

 My 11th/12th grade Classic Literature class loved our trip to the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta so much that they begged for another field trip. I wanted to oblige but I also did not want another overnight trip just because of all the arrangements that would need to be made. We're only a couple of hours away from Asheville, North Carolina, so I thought a trip to see the homes of two classic American authors would be perfect.

Before going to Asheville, we did a short unit on lives of authors. I had each student pick a "classic" author and do a short presentation on him or her. The driving question: how does an author's life shape his or her writing? We had everyone from Seuss to Solzhenitsyn, and the presentations included posters and even a wax museum presentation by James Joyce.

James Joyce in the wax museum

I didn't intend to do this biography unit as part of our year, but that's one of the awesome benefits to teaching at a homeschooling co-op: we can be incredibly flexible.

The majority of my students were able to take a whole Thursday to go on our North Carolina trip, so we took three vans full of kids. We were prepared for a day of rain, but fortunately we just had occasional drizzling. Our first stop was the Carl Sandburg House in Flat Rock, NC.

 

I had made arrangements for a guided tour of the house, grounds, and barn. Fortunately for us, there was a writer-in-residence, Lisa Lopez Snyder, there during our visit. When the tour guide announced that Ms. Snyder would be doing a writing exercise with them, the students gave an audible collective groan (even though I know most of them love creative writing). She had a couple of fantastic exercises for them, and they loved it. I was so appreciate of Ms. Snyder's session— the kids talked about that all the way home.

After the writing session, we had a great tour of Sandburg's home. What really amazed me was not just the staggering number of books that he owned, but that there were pieces of paper bookmarking pages in hundreds of the books. His bookmarks. His flags that "here is something important." Astounding and inspirational to me.

After a chilly picnic lunch, we headed a little north to Asheville. We arrived 30 minutes early for our tour at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial; but since we were the only guests, they were happy to oblige us and start our tour early. After a 22 minute video of Thomas Wolfe's life, we had a fantastic tour guide take us through the house. He had all kinds of great stories about Wolfe and read passages from Look Homeward Angel in various rooms. The kids were a little slap happy at this point, but I think they enjoyed it for the most part. I wish we would have had time to read the whole novel before class, but I just couldn't schedule it.

On the front porch of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Home

We had a couple of free hours when our tour of the Thomas Wolfe house ended, so we let the students explore downtown Asheville for a couple of hours. They split into two groups and went on their way. We three chaperones did the same. Asheville's such a fun little town, with lots of great shops to wander through. We all found fabulous restaurants and then met back at the designated time and place and headed home to Knoxville.

Over half of my students are graduating this year, including my sweet daughter. I've been teaching many of these students since elementary school (creative writing, reader's theatre, literature circles, and essay writing) and several of them for all four years of high school. I am going to miss them so much next year—and I'm so glad we had this one last trip together.

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-Up

Getting Students to Teach: Short Story Group Presentations {Teaching High School}

All good educators know that Seneca's adage "When we teach, we learn" is spot on. This year in my 11th and 12th grade literature class, I wanted the students to really delve into teaching. A whole novel seemed too complex, and I love discussing short stories but often neglect them because of time constraints—so having students teach short stories seemed perfect.

First, a little background. I teach at our homeschooling program, which meets weekly. My class is 1 hour, 20 minutes long. I have 21 students in my class (half of whom have been with me for all 4 years of high school), which is dubbed "Classic Lit." The class is designed to cover some of the classics that I didn't get to teach in British Lit, American Lit, or World Lit.

But this format would work for any literature class. I split the class into 5 groups on the first day of class. These became their in-class working groups as well as their short story presentation groups. I had already chosen 5 short stories, and I randomly assigned the stories to the groups.

When deciding upon stories, I had various considerations, including that the stories needed to be the right length (not too short, not too long); that we wouldn't be reading a novel by this author; that we hadn't discussed the story in a previous year; and that the stories would provide plenty of discussion fodder. I wanted a variety of genres and subjects, too. I ended up with a fairly eclectic mix of stories:

• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor
• "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
• "The Man in the Black Suit" by Stephen King
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore
• "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

From there, I assigned presentation dates, fairly evenly sprinkled throughout the year with two groups in the first semester and three in the second. I was hoping, of course, that the students would spend several weeks or even months preparing for their presentations! The reality, however, is that the groups so far all started meeting a couple of weeks before their presentation was actually due.

I use ClassJump to post assignments and other information for my classes. On our site I posted the  Short Story Project Instructions (you can download them using the link) as well as the stories. All of the stories were available online, but I put them in PDFs to make them more easily accessible.

The instructions are too long to post here, but basically the students had four required elements to their presentation:

 

1. Author biographical information. Who is your author? Give us a biographical sketch of him or her. What else did he or she write? Are there any interesting facts we should know about him or her?

2. Explanation of genre or other pertinent literary information. Is your story science fiction, dystopian, etc. Are there any key terms associated with this type of writing? What was the reaction of the public when this story was published? (This will be a very short section.)

3. Choose one literary lens to look through your story with. Summarize what you think it means to apply your particular lens of choice to this text. How could looking through this particular lens change or illuminate the reading of this story?

4. Discussion. This is really the key component of the class. You will need to read the story carefully to come up with thoughtful, engaging questions and then you’ll facilitate the class discussion.

Each of these points is discussed in detail on the instruction handout. In addition, the groups are encouraged to come up with other activities to explore the story. I gave a list of suggestions, and I've loved what the three groups so far have come up with, from crafts to youtube videos to having their classmates write (and perform) rap songs to acting out alternate endings for the story.

Hat craft  for "Everything That Rises Must Converge" and yellow snacks for "The Yellow Wallpaper"— just a couple examples of how creative kids can be as teachers!

This was a grand experiment, and I have to say that it is an absolute success. Again, you can read all the details on the instruction sheet, but one of the requirements is that the students submit individual evaluations after their presentation.  Their responses convinced me that this is a project I will do every year and in every class. They learned so much and gained tremendous confidence as they stepped into the role of teacher. Here are a few excerpts:

"We quickly figured out that sometimes time constraints will force changes in plans." (Yes! They learned something about flexibility and thinking on your feet!)

"For the most part, we were able to keep the class on topic."(An echo of one of my mantras: "Let's get back on topic. Focus!")

"I think the most fun of the assignment was dissecting the story and figure stuff out about it, even when people dismissed your thoughts about the story. Even though we do this in class often, I like doing it in a less constructed manner. This gives you the freedom to explore your ideas and feelings, not matter how ludicrous, dark, or brilliant these ideas may be."

"I learned a lot from being on the other side of the classroom. I mainly noticed the communication between teachers and students. We teenagers can be disruptive and lack respect, and it was, at times, difficult to calm them so we could teach." (I mean, he just summed up being a high school teacher.)

"Teaching definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone, and I enjoyed getting feedback from my classmates and learning from the experience." (Yes! Stepping out of the zone!)

"I loved being able to put my own spin on [the story] and work with a group to make our vision happen." (And that joy of analyzing literature!)

The biggest problems encountered were, predictably, with group dynamics. Half of the groups worked together beautifully, and half of them wanted to clobber each other. But that was all behind-the-scenes.

"Though our group may not have worked together fantastically, I think we pulled through in the end and got our act together."

"We should have been more cooperative with each other and less dismissive of each other's ideas."

"If I were to do this project again, I'd try to be more persistent in getting everyone in the group to be more involved."

"I learned that your group might not be 'one big happy family.' It was a struggle for me to communicate peacefully with my group, but through the struggle I feel like I learned something that will stay with me throughout my life." 

In the classroom from my perspective, all the groups presented a unified front. The biggest problem the groups had was finding a meeting time outside of the classroom. Perhaps in the future, I will set aside one whole class period as a work day.

The benefits of this project are astounding. As a teacher, I've loved watching the kids take the project seriously and put their own wonderful, unique spins on the assignment. As for the students, not only have the presenters learned more than they can fathom, but the rest of the class has had fun. I've been really impressed with the complete respect that the students show their fellow teacher-students. My role during a presentation, by the way, has been to just sit and listen and really not participate at all. I resist participating in the discussion, and the students seem to naturally rise to calling of a teacher: teach, manage, calm, focus, redirect, teach.

I love this excerpt from one of the evaluations, and I think it really sums up why we even teach:

"The satisfaction of successfully teaching the class outweighs the stresses that were involved in putting it together."

Find the Short Story Project Instructions by clicking on the link. Adjust it to your own classroom, or gather a group of students together if you don't have a classroom, and sit back and watch what amazing teachers our students can be!
 

 Linked up on The Weekly Wrap-Up

Teaching Macbeth: Book Covers and Poem Activity

We've been studying Macbeth in both my 9th/10th and 11th/12th grade English classes. The highlight of our unit was absolutely our trip to the Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta to see a production of Macbeth, which I detail here. We did a lot of reading—and acting out— scenes aloud, which I'll detail in a different post. But I love this activity I had my 9th and 10th graders do.

Here's the assignment and a few of their amazing designs and/or poems below. (The "I Am" poem idea is not mine. I found it in multiple places on the internet, so I don't know whom to give credit to.)

The Assignment:

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Your assignment is to design a book cover for Macbeth. There are two parts to this assignment.

1. Design a book cover. Your front cover should be amazing. You can depict a vivid scene from Macbeth or use a collage of images that best illustrate the play, or you can focus on an image or one character. This is really up to you: what best illustrates Macbeth to you? Think about colors, symbols from the play, significant words or phrases, etc.

You can draw, paint, make a collage of pictures, etc. You should also include the title and author. You may NOT use a Macbeth cover that is directly taken from the internet. You may download a picture and incorporate it into your book cover, but you cannot use only that picture or cover. In other words, there is no shortage of Macbeth illustrations on the internet. You can model your book cover on one of those, or use that picture somehow on your cover; but don’t just use a picture only without some of your creative modifications.

You can make your cover out of construction paper, regular computer paper, butcher paper, etc. This should be around 8 X 12.

DO NOT merely scribble something in pencil on notebook paper. You will be graded on the effort that I perceive that you put into this.

2. On the back of your cover, create an “I Am” poem for one of the characters in Macbeth. Use quotes, words, and phrases from the play itself. See below for poem details. You should follow this pattern directly. You can write this directly on the back of your cover, or you can type it on paper and affix it to the back. (You do not need to depict the same character on both front and back. In my example, I used Macbeth on the cover and Lady Macbeth for the poem.)

The Title is the Character’s Name (Lady Macbeth, for example)

I AM (two special characteristics of this character)

I WONDER (something this character is/could be curious about)

I HEAR (a sound this character is hearing)

I SEE (a sight the character is seeing)

I WANT (something the character desires/would desire)

I AM (repeat the first line of the poem)

I PRETEND (something the character pretends or might pretend)

I FEEL (what the character is feeling in the story)

I TOUCH (could be symbolic or real)

I WORRY (something that is bothering the character)

I CRY (what is making the character cry inside/would make him or her cry)

I AM (repeat the first line of the poem)

I UNDERSTAND (something the character feels is true)

I SAY (something the character could or did say)

I DREAM (something the character did or would dream about)

I TRY (something the character is making an effort about)

I HOPE (something the character wants to happen)

I AM (repeat the first line of the poem)

And a few of the results!

As always, I am astonished and delighted at what my students can do! If you use these ideas in your classroom, please leave me a link so I can check out your projects, too!

Weekly Wrap-up

This week wrapped up our long-anticipated, giant field trip to Atlanta's Shakespeare Tavern. I've been planning this trip to see Macbeth for my two high school English classes since mid-August. It takes a lot of preparation and organization to get 32 students from Knoxville to Atlanta for a 10 a.m. show. We had to find a place to stay overnight, because there was no way we were leaving at 4 a.m. to get there in time!

And this is just one advantage of going to a small, private college: you make lifetime connections. One of my professors—and also a former pastor of mine— in college now lives in Atlanta, and he cheerfully agreed to let us stay in his church overnight.

Our host in Atlanta, Dr. Jim Street

That was one big hurdle out of the way. Next I had to get parents to chaperone who were willing to drive, spend the night on the floor of a church, navigate Atlanta traffic, and keep track of 34 teenagers. I have the most awesome parents ever. And then there was the buying of tickets, ordering lunches, figuring out Atlanta's public transit system (MARTA), and planning a couple free things to do in Atlanta. 

The kids waiting for the MARTA train.

On the train. At least a couple of kids declared this the highlight of the trip.

I've gotta admit, I've been stressing about this trip. But it all came together beautifully.

These are the best kids in the world. I mean, really. The were fun, flexible, and had great attitudes. We ended up being 25 minutes late for the show, but the Shakespeare Tavern folks were kind enough to understand Atlanta traffic and hold the show for us. The play itself was great. We've been studying Macbeth for a few weeks now, so the kids all really knew the play.

After the play we took in a couple of Atlanta must-see sights: The Varsity Grill and Centennial Olympic Park. 

And then it was time to head back for the 4-hour drive home. As soon as we got back, I started hearing, "When can we do this again, Mrs. Small?"

I took an entire day to recuperate—I think we all did. And yep, I'd do it again.

Bur for now, it's back to business as usual.

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-up

Teaching The Book Thief: Repurposed Pages

Because The Book Thief movie was recently released, I decided to include the book as part of my World Literature class this year. I am so glad I did! Most of the kids absolutely loved this book, and we had fantastic discussions, ranging from Hitler Youth to banned books to the incredible power of words.

The Book Thief is all about words and books, hatred and beauty, death and the capacity for survival. I found lots of activities on the internet for this unit, but my favorite came from The Picky Girl, who ripped pages out of a book, handed each student a page, and had him or her repurpose the page in some way. I tweaked her plan to better fit my classroom, and I was absolutely thrilled with the results.

At home, I ripped pages out of a book. This was a little hard for me to do, particularly after a riveting discussion we had in class about book burning. Some kids maintained that it was OK to burn books that were of no value to them, some said that it was never OK to destroy a book, and a few said they didn't care either way. Oh, and several insisted that if there was a zombie apocalypse, they would not hesitate to burn a book for fuel or use it for toilet paper.

I will confess that it was a Chicken Soup for the Soul book out of which I ripped pages, and it really wasn't that hard to do. (The greater problem for me was pondering why we even had one on our bookshelf.) I ripped the pages out ahead of time rather than doing it for shock value in front of the class. I didn't think they would be particularly shocked, and also I needed to make sure that the pages were G-rated. (Censorship while teaching a book about words. I know.)

In class I handed each student a page with these instructions:

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Your assignment this week, besides finishing the novel, is to repurpose your book page.

The Book Thief is largely a book about the power of words: how words can harm, heal, destroy, or build up. How words can be manipulated, ignored, reclaimed for a different purpose, grasped, and cherished. Max, for example, makes something beautiful out of Mein Kampf.

Writers use a variety of techniques to bring their written words alive for the reader. Zusak particularly uses a lot of similes, metaphors, and personification to hit his readers with vivid images.

Your job is to take a quote from the novel and interpret it creatively from your mind’s eye onto paper. You don’t have to be artistic at all. You can do this in a variety of ways. For example:

• paint over the page like Max did, write the quote, and use some kind of visual illustration. This can be your own drawing or something you cut out from a different source and attach to the page.

• black out words on the page except ones that have to do with your quote. Put the quote on the page in some way.

• Use your page as a frame for the quote, or cut your page out into an image.

#1 Rule: don’t be silly. I really want to see what kind of connections you can make with a quote, a page of words, and your knowledge of the book. Below are several quotes, but you absolutely can use other quotes or phrases from the book.

I included about 20 quotes from the book as ideas, but, as I said in the directions, they could choose their own quotes from the book. I had to include the "don't be silly" part because, well, I knew that one or two would consider this to be a blow-off assignment. 

Here are just a few of their pages:

Instead of using the page, this one took an old dictionary and repurposed it.

This little book actually opens and has a story for the book in it. How cute is that?

 

 

 

How awesome is this? He used his guitar as a canvas for the page. And this is a kid who says he really doesn't like reading.

 

I was positively thrilled with the results. Most of the kids put a lot of thought and creativity into the project. I wanted them to have a hands-on experience with how words can be manipulated, highlighted, and played with, and they totally pulled through.