Bridging the Gap

I attended the High School Back-to-School Night last week, following my ninth grader's schedule in 10-minute periods to meet her teachers and hear about their courses. I came away feeling good that my daughter and her classmates, my students last year, were ready for the increased challenges in independence and higher order thinking. I came away feeling like the teachers genuinely enjoyed the students.  I also came away thinking about how different middle school is from high school, and how often this gap is blamed for rocky starts.

So I popped into the HS English department chair's classroom for a little chat. The department chair and I worked together three years ago on the last curriculum review when the middle school switched to a workshop approach. The switch made for a smooth flow from Kindergarten through grade 8 with students applying reading and writing strategies to self-chosen texts in an ever-increasingly complex way. This spiral is really starting to pay off this year. By eighth grade, students are agents of their own literacy, choosing books that are interesting and challenging to read, and writing stories with setting details, dialogue, and style.

Then comes 9th grade and it all changes. They read whole-class novels and write literary essays. They study Romeo and Juliet for a quarter. Their only "book club", which is the last unit of the year, consists of a choice between two titles: Of Mice and Men or A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. This year, with the support and encouragement of the secondary librarian, students are required to read at home and post reviews on shelfari, an online book sharing site.

This little chat resulted in my eighth grade teaching partner and I getting invited to the English department meeting this week to discuss our different approaches to teaching reading and writing. I am not looking to change their teaching, but I think that the shift in philosophies is something that both sides of the gap need to address. The shift in teaching reading strategies to teaching reading as content. The shift in teaching writing as craft to teaching writing as communicating reading analysis. The use of reading and writing notebooks as learning tools to... what? When I mentioned notebooks, my colleague said, "Yes, let's talk about those. They are completely off my radar."

Perhaps there are small things we can do in eighth grade to help students ease into the change. Perhaps ninth grade teachers can refer to systems we use as a way to shift students to their systems. In any case, we will understand each other's program a little better, and better understanding can only benefit the students.

The Buzz

Image from taklomauto2010 website

It has taken me a long time in my career as a teacher to know when noise in a classroom is good noise or bad noise. Over the past three years, I think I've finally gotten a handle on it. Learning about brain research and the importance of chunking lesson time helped me to think through my lessons differently.  Brain research says that humans (yes, even adults) can't handle much more than 10 minutes of a presentation before zoning out; therefore, a lesson should be chunked into 10/2 minute chunks for optimal learning: 10 minutes of information presentation and 2 minutes of processing time. Just 2 minutes will allow the learner to identify what was important, make connections, and find areas of confusion. When the next 10/2 chunk comes along, the learner is ready to link the new information to the previous learning, or anticipate getting his/her question answered. Processing can take many forms, such as a written learning log, a structured note-taking sheet with a graphic or visual element, or partner talk. Talk time works really well with middle schoolers, and it works best if the teacher structures it.

Last week during Writer's Workshop, I taught my eighth graders how to write a "constructive rant" in their Writer's Notebooks. This "constructive rant" follows a pattern often seen in editorials: the author rants/complains about an issue for a while, but then tries to see the other side or perspective, and finally attempts to find a possible solution. I ended with, "I know eighth graders are passionate about things they feel are unfair at home or in this world. Why don't you pick an issue and give this a try?" Immediately the room started buzzing... with talk, not writing. Time for one of those executive decisions that teachers make on the fly all the time: "I see you need to share your rant issue before you write. Go ahead and tell the person sitting next to you what the issue is, and then we'll get started in one minute."

They settled down after that, and wrote furiously for 20 minutes. Again, the buzz started... a little at first, but then more as students finished their entries. I shushed a few until I could see that almost everyone was at a good stopping place. Then I had them share with their partner again, but this time adding the shift of perspective and possible solution. The energy, the eye contact, the leaning forward and gesturing body language, the laughter and groans communicated far more than the words they were saying: this was writing worth doing! They loved it!

Yes the room was noisy during that 10 minutes of share time at the end of class. The buzz was the sound of every student being engaged and on-task. That's good noise, and I knew it when I heard it.