Serial in School - Episode 5

This episode led to a passionate discussion. My students had a completely different reaction than I expected. For me, the cell phone records clearly demonstrate that such technology (particularly in 1999) is unreliable and inaccurate. It does not prove or disprove Adnan's case, but instead demonstrates yet another way the case was mishandled.  For my students, they shifted from wishy-washiness to polarization. He's guilty. He's innocent. Bam. Done.

When I challenged them on their opinions, most students seemed to feel like there was enough evidence to make Adnan's case settled. Guilty until proven innocent, indeed.

I couldn't let this rest - I felt like perhaps I misrepresented the facts and that's why students jumped to their conclusions. To combat this, I assigned a writing piece. I had my students read Rabia Chaudry's blog post: Serial Episode 5: Let's Talk About Cells Baby. Then I had them write a one page essay unpacking the new information they had learned from Rabia. Did this information change their opinions? It remains to be seen. Due to several snowdays, students are still working on their essays. I'm looking forward to reading them and looking at the episode freshly through teenage eyes.

By the way, I would love to set up a Skype/Facetime with Rabia Chaudry and my students. They have QUESTIONS!

Serial in School - Episode 4

My students and I had an interesting observation today. You can chart the closeness of a person's relationship to Adnan based on the pronunciation of his name. This is not 100% accurate, but close enough that it caught our interest.

For example:

1. Ahnon (with emphasis on the "non") - Adnan himself, Sarah Koenig, Saad & Rabia, Close friends & family
2. Ahdnon (similar to the first pronunciation, but quick "d" sound in the middle) - Friends, Close acquaintances
3. Ahdnon (emphasis on the "Ah") - Acquaintances. People who knew Adnan, but weren't particularly close.
4. Add-non (emphasis on the "Add") - Detectives, people unfamiliar with Adnan

What we found particularly noteworthy, was Christina Gutirrez's pronunciation. It's somewhere between #3 & #4. What does this say about her and her relationship with Adnan? Why could she not say his name right, after all the time they must have spent together?

Episode 4 focuses on the inconsistencies in Jay's testimony. Why does his story shift? Does Jenn's testimony cause Jay to change his? To map this out, the students took notes on a chart comparing the first taped interview with the second taped interview.

To quote one of my students:

"We are high school students! And we see the mess that this is. How could they trust Jay's testimony?"

 This episode swung many students back to Team Adnan. From a student journal:

At this point in the case, I'm definitely leaning towards Adnan being innocent. Hearing the small but very important details coming from Jay and Jenn, at the end of today's episode, I feel that the evidence of Adnan's guilt, is a stretch. At this point, there is more evidence and details that would make Jay a better suspect. His inability to keep his story straight makes him very suspicious and makes it easier to believe in Adnan's innocence.

Another journal:

Adnan is NOT guilty. The only 'evidence' that they have against him is Jay's story. Assumptions aren't always correct, so their prosecution of Adnan wasn't on the right terms. Jay's story has key details and that's very important. Asia McClain claims that she saw Adnan in the library at the time of the murder. Inez claims that she was the last one to see her and reports that Hae asked to make sure the bus didn't leave without her. She also says that Adnan was NOT in her car. There are all of these factors working against Adnans guilt. Yet the cops are certain that he's guilty. There was a camera in the library at the time, was it looked at? No. There was cellular evidence in the alcohol bottle in the park, was it looked at? No. I suspect that one of the cops was either prejudice or just had a grudge against Adnan.

 

Serial in School - Episode 2

Class started with a review of the case facts. We covered suspects and witnesses. We also discussed Sarah Koenig's interpretation of the evidence, and how we must be on the lookout for bias. Many of the students referenced Koenig's description of Adnan's "dairy cow" brown eyes during this discussion.

Then we listened to Episode 2. There was much giggling during the reading of Hae's diary. This again highlights how accessible this story is to today's high schoolers. They understand Hae. They understand Adnan. They understand the hot and cold of teenage love.

Following Episode 2, student took a listening quiz. To answer the questions, students started with a position statement and then backed that up with evidence. The quiz was open notes. I created the quiz in a Google Form and set the character minimum to 200 to encourage students to write more than one sentence answers. Overall, the students did well and I was encouraged to see no "I think" or "I feel" answers. All answers were solidly based on fact.

To close out the class, I again polled students on Adnan's guilt. It's interesting to note the swing. For my 7th period class who was solidly in the "no" camp after episode 1, 9 people jumped into the "maybe" camp and 2 people moved into the "yes" camp. On the other hand, 8th period felt like Episode 2 solidified Adnan's innocence, and more moved into the "no" camp.

Of note: Students came into class excited to listen to the next episode. They were brimming with questions and suspicions. During class, students continued to fill out their case logs. One student took over four pages of notes. I couldn't have designed a higher-interest unit for this quarter.

Student theories: So far, most believe that Jay was involved in some sort of cover-up.

Developing Literature Curriculum

On The English Companion Ning, I often run across posts by new or returning teachers asking for advice on developing a curriculum. This is the process I use. It's important to note that I teach at a private school, so I do not have to use the CCSS, but I do keep them in mind for accountability.

For my 10th grade World Literature classes, I completed lengthy research to pick a central theme or idea for the year. I decided to go with Stories of the Sea for a number of reasons:

• Adventure books appeal to both genders
• There are many different types of conflict to discuss (man vs. man, man vs. nature, etc.)
• The books are clean but intelligent (an important consideration for my school)

The books I chose:
- Lieutenant Hornblower (England, France, West Indies)
- Whale Rider (New Zealand)
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories (India)
- Twelfth Night
- Kon-Tiki (Norway, South America, Phillipines)

I don't plan in detail at the beginning of the year. I prefer to adjust to the culture of each individual class and student before I make final decisions. However, I do brainstorm a general direction of where I'd like to head.

As my classes typically make use of Project Based Learning (PBL), I always start each unit by thinking of essential questions.

In September, my Honors class will start with Kon-Tiki. After a rich discussion on Heyerdahl's passion for adventure, learning, and achievement, I want to set my students free to explore and reflect on their own interests and passions.

As you can see at the top right of the board, my goal this year is to awaken curiosity.

As you can see, I'm still in the planning phases. Exact phrases and the wording of my essential questions are still in flux. In this unit for Whale Rider, I plan to read the short book aloud while my students discuss through a backchannel.

This particular unit for Lieutenant Hornblower is in the brainstorming phase. I want my students to use the true PBL model to construct their own answers to the essential questions, but I'm not sure what that will look like (which isn't a bad thing, it's in the nature of PBL). The novella is one of my ideas... but we will see. I'm curious to get feedback from my students on how they would like to approach these questions. I need to keep balance in mind - good suggestions along with gentle prodding to help students take charge of their learning. My goal is for the students to craft purposeful projects that have real-world importance.

My challenge this year is to also fit in the required research paper. I'm thinking of shortening the assignment, as we will be conducting research and writing the entire year. That will leave the last few weeks of May into the first week of June to complete the paper. I do like the assignment, as it sums up the year neatly. Students take an aptitude test, chose a career they are interested in learning more about, write a paper, and give an Ignite presentation.

This is how I think through the literature portion of my year. For more on how I approach scheduling ELA across a week of five 42 minute periods, see this post.

Scheduling World Literature

This year is the year the English Department at my school gets to weed through curriculum and update. Because this happens only once every five years or so, I'm glad that it's taking place my third year at CCA.

For my 10th graders, I completely changed the novels they are reading. Many of their former novels are being passed down to 9th grade. The 10th grade focus is World Literature and my topic is: Stories of the Sea. We will be exploring questions of identity, duty, loyalty, and trust.

Here are the novels:

Things Fall Apart (summer reading)
Lieutenant Hornblower
Kon-Tiki
The Whale Rider
Twelfth Night
Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Once my book list was set, the next step was to tackle the schedule. As all English teachers know, it's quite challenging to fit in reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and literature. Here's my tentative schedule (still a work in progress):

Yes, thank you Pages. I am aware that Vocab is not a real word.

Periods are 42 minutes long
Grammar - Caught'ya! Grammar: Monday, Wednesday, Fridays - 10 minutes
Vocab - Tuesday discussion, Friday Quiz (weekly quizzes mean less words per week) - 15-20 minutes
Independent Reading - Tuesday and Friday students may choose any book to read during this time, except the literature book - 15-20 minutes
Literature - Discussions, activities, projects, movies, Monday & Wednesday - 30 minutes
Writing - Timed essay every other week, free write every other week. The free write may be a blog post, book review on Amazon or Goodreads, a comment on an online article, etc. Thursday - entire class

Of course, this must be a flexible schedule to accommodate last minute events like snow days and special events.

Telling My Story: Part 2

My new favorite tagline that I pass on to graduating seniors is: Live your story. This year, I want to help my students become better writers by exploring their own stories. To prepare, I think it's a good exercise for me to do this myself. Without further ado, here is my story.
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Part 1

Outside of the cafeteria (yes, THE cafeteria... there is only one on campus) was a small overhang with sidewalks branching off towards the various academic buildings. I remember my first meal, and waiting outside for the cafeteria doors to be opened. I was surrounded by my orientation "family" and we were discussing our names. Unfortunately I can't recall many of my siblings' first names (maybe that's a good thing). I think the one we were discussing was something like Anuka.

I made some sort of pop culture comment to the boy next to me, and he shrugged it off. In my mind, I thought, "Ooooookay, obviously this guy is not interested in anything I have to say," and I turned back to my other siblings. Little did I know that that guy had a very good reason for his seeming lack of attention.

Phil (2nd from the left) & his family in PNG - 1990ish

The doors opened to the cafeteria and we filtered in, grimacing at the fried fritters and okra. It grimaced back (as only okra can do). I happened to sit across the table from the apparently rude sibling I had just encountered outside. He introduced himself and over the course of that meal, I learned that Phil had spent his childhood in Papua New Guinea where his parents were missionaries. Immediately my interest was piqued.

It turned out that Phil had not been intentionally rude before dinner, he simply did not understand the joke I had made because he had lived out of the country for so long. We shared a common passion for world concerns, so we spent the rest of the meal talking about our adventures. Before we knew it, we were fast friends.

And so began orientation week: a week of bad public motivational speakers, cheesy team building activities, and the forming of lifelong friendships. I was unsure how Phil felt about me until I realized that we were both (not unconsciously) arriving at family activities 15-20 minutes early to have more time alone to chat.

Then we found our special spot on campus...To Be Continued.

ELA Summer Suggestions

I've had many parents ask me for suggestions to improve their teenager's language arts skills over the summer break. Here are my top five recommendations:

1. Read

I encourage students to always have two books in their backpacks - one challenging book and one "fun" book. These two may cross categories at any time. Reading for pleasure encourages a lifelong love of literacy. Reading challenging books broadens our world view, introduces new vocabulary, and increases contextual understanding of complex sentence structure.

2. Write

It's somewhat crazy, but the only true way to improve as a writer is to write. Students need to dive in headfirst to the art of manipulating words and structure to create something meaningful and beautiful. Over the summer, journaling or blogging is the perfect venue for exploring a student's voice. My two oldest children (ages 9&7) are blogging this summer to improve their own writing skills. If students are unsure what to write about, I encourage them to dialogue about the books they are reading.

3. Interact

All students have interests and passions. The great thing, is that those passions all spill out into the language arts world. Interested in MMOs? Great! There are websites, forums, and blogs devoted to MMOs. Learn to communicate effectively by joining in the conversation. Follow you interests on the web and create a twitter handle or get on Google+ to find others who share your passion.

4. Play

Summer is a time for your body and mind to breathe. It's during this pause that we regain our drive for lifelong learning. Don't neglect the time off from academia that is necessary to bring everything into focus. I want my students in September to be recharged, not burnt out. Play includes all things from recreational activities, to picnics, to daydreaming by the pond.

5. Teach

One of the best ways we learn is to teach others. I encourage teenagers to find someone they can help with their language arts skills. It may be a younger sibling, an exchange student, or an ESL adult at the local library. In the process of teaching others, students take ownership of their skills and grow leaps and bounds. The summer allows the student to have free time to explore these opportunities. And who knows... it may awake a love for teaching!

Telling My Story: Part 1

My new favorite tagline that I pass on to graduating seniors is: Live your story. This year, I want to help my students become better writers by exploring their own stories. To prepare, I think it's a good exercise for me to do this myself. Without further ado, here is my story.
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I was 17 years old, turning 18, and full of dreams and ambitions when we packed the rented van full of my personal belongings in preparation for the 21 hour drive to Point Lookout, Missouri. I already had a full year of college behind me, as I had taken classes at the local community college.

At 17, my dreams were solid. I knew what my path was going to look like. I was going to be an elementary teacher. I was going to finish college as quickly as possible and head to Hungary to teach English. Why would I do anything else? The two summers before I left for Missouri I taught at an English camp in Szeged, Hungary. I loved the people, the culture, and the city. Everything was perfect.

Me (front, center in the green shirt) with my team and students, the first week of English camp in Szeged, Hungary.

Except... it wasn't. I wanted to stay in Hungary. I didn't want to come home. I willed there to be some way for the plane to turn around and head back to Europe. It didn't. I had to face the reality that there was work to do before I could return.

So a month after arriving home, I was on my way to a part of the country as unfamiliar to me as Antarctica. The school I chose, College of the Ozarks, appealed to me because of its work-study program. All tuition is covered by students working on campus at various job sites for 10 or so hours a week. I loved the idea of exiting college debt-free, ready to do anything and go anywhere.

I got to campus a day or two after orientation began, due to a scheduling conflict at home. All incoming freshman and transfer students were put into "families" with an upperclassman Mom & Pop. I can't remember how big my family was - maybe about 10 people or so? I felt awkward coming in to a situation where everyone had already met and formed bonds. I was the odd one out. But then, everything changed that night in the cafeteria.

To Be Continued...