Calkins, Ehrenworth, Lehman - Pathways to the Common Core
Milner, Milner, Mitcell - Bridging English
Copeland - Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School
Styslinger, Pollock - "The Chicken and the Egg: Inviting Response and Talk through Socratic Circles"
Say
Technology has many advantages, namely the ability to connect people that are oceans apart. However, living in a screen filled age can make it all too easy to filter out the world around us. The upcoming generations of students will have less experience with speech than any other generation, which makes it imperative that students learn and develop as not only readers and writers, but as speakers and listeners as well.Too often English teachers have to justify the importance of the subject to students and other professionals. The importance of conversation and public speaking skills leaves little room for counterargument. Nearly everyone will have a job where they need to interact and collaborate with others. Pathways to the Common Core also points to language standards' role in helping students develop into critical media consumers and citizens. I certainly do not want to teach future generations to be unquestioning of what they read and what they are told.
Then comes the issue of how to implement these oral language into lessons. I personally have not had much expeience with explicitly teaching strategies like Voice Lessons from Bridging English but I do make sure all of my lessons have students talking in multiple contexts. Basic skills like speaking loudly enough, eye contact, not talking over others, respecting others ideas, etc. are vital for having productive class conversations.
These skills can be developed through many strategies, but Socratic Circle seems apt for teaching them to students. Copeland's chapter 2 details the procedures for running an effective Socratic Circle and I found this reading particularly healthy in understanding the process. Styslinger and Pollock's article provides transcripts from successful Socratic Circles, which was likewise helpful for me to see how this strategy could be realized in the classroom.
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Below are student samples for a Coat of Arms symbolism activity that I had students do as a tie in with "The Cask of Amontillado." Overall students were successful in meeting my objectives for this lesson, but when it came time for presenting them, they had difficulty in explaining their work despite having written an explanation of their coat of arms already. If I had a chance to do this activity over, I would try to build in time for tips and guidelines for doing a presentation.
Will,
ReplyDeleteI also am unfamiliar with using explicit oral language activities in the classroom. I only found a couple of the ideas offered in Bridging English to be realistic. I do feel that it is important to grow our students' speaking skills in the classroom, but planning lessons that focus on speaking without an additional focus on literature in some way seems a bit misplaced to me. I definitely agree with your idea that it may be preferential to stick to our usual literature-based lesson plans and just alter them so that students have more opportunities to practice speaking and presentation skills with them.