JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #18
What
I Am Learning Is
How to Teach, as I Teach
Once again, after having "taught" something, I have learned how to teach it. It's becoming a familiar pattern. I suppose it's the lot of the first-year teacher.
I start a new unit, believing I have a solid lesson plan in place, only to discover its weaknesses and how to improve it dramatically. Unfortunately, it is too late for all my students to benefit.
This week was the dreaded Book Report week. Rather than have students write the standard (boring) essay telling me what their book was about, I decided to combine teaching the elements of plot with the skill of summarizing.
I gave them a "plot mountain" diagram on which they would write the 1.) initiating conflict, 2.) rising actions, 3.) climax, 4.) falling actions, and 5.) resolution of their novels. As I explained each element, I modeled how to determine and summarize each part, using Call of the Wild, a novel we had read in class, as the example. We worked our way through each element in order; the plot mountain seemed straightforward, and I thought this would be a relatively easy assignment.
The students worked on it in class and had to have a partner read it to determine if the basic story line could be followed from the diagram. While students worked, I circulated, answering questions and helping them winnow their way through the details to the outline of the novel.
As one student after another tried to tell me that they couldn't, absolutely couldn't, delete any of the myriad rising actions in their schema, I realized that I should have taught the students to first determine their book's problem, resolution, and climax before attempting to write the rising and falling actions.
Those needs became apparent once the "scaffolding" was in place. Of course, I tried to backtrack and explain this to all my classes, but 8th graders have enough difficulty paying attention the first time through when receiving directions. Backtracking only serves to confuse them.
What I am learning is how to teach, as I teach. This is frustrating because I know my students aren't getting the best of the best with me as their teacher. I stumble and fumble along, hoping I am doing no great harm. Of course, I am not doing any great good, either.
Just as we allow students to rework an assignment when it is below average, I wonder if I should re-teach when I realize how much better I could have done. The obvious answer to that, of course, is yes, if the majority of students don't do well on the assignment the first time. Re-teaching is essential then.
I'll be grading Plot Mountains starting Monday. It will be interesting to see if my students succeeded in spite of me, or if I will get a second chance at teaching this lesson.
