Addressing Students' Unfinished Learning

            In this article in Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, Cathy Martin (Denver Public Schools) says many students have entered the 2020-21 school year with "unfinished learning" from interrupted instruction in the spring - "prerequisite skills and concepts that are essential for student engagement in grade-level content that students do not have yet."

            Some pars of the previous year's curriculum are more important to success this year than others.  Martin believes the best mindset for addressing the 2020-21 school year is not remediation, but accelerating unfinished learning.  There's a key difference between the two, she says "Remediation is based on a mistaken belief that students need to master everything they missed before they are able to engage in grade-level content.  Thus, remediation focuses on students' learning gaps from a deficit-based mindset and then drills students on isolated skills and topics that have little connection with current grade-level content." This backwards-looking approach results in deceleration and widening achievement gaps.

            Acceleration, by contrast, "prepares students for success in the present - this week on this content, "addressing incomplete understanding in the context of the current grade's standards, and treating students with an asset-based mindset.  The two key steps: first, selecting "just in time" skills and concepts relevant to current units, with clear connections between the previous year's curriculum and 2020-21 content and skills.  Second, giving informal, teacher-created just-in-time assessment tasks that tell how far instruction has to "back up" to fill in gaps in skills and knowledge.  Then teachers can launch instruction that catches students up and prepares them for successful grade-level work.

"Accelerating Unfinished Learning" by Cathy Martin in Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, October 2020 (Vol 113, #10, pp.774-76); Martin is at cathymartin90@gmail.com . 

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #859 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

                

Online Maker Resources

 

In this School Library Journal article, Virginia school librarian Idamae Craddock suggests 

ten STEMmaker resources that can be used for remote learning.

 

- CoBuildAtHome - a wealth of online maker activities, a Facebook group, and suggestions from luminaries in the maker world - appropriate for all ages.

- Community Science Workshop Network - engaging and not technologically complicated; has low-cost projects using inexpensive or recycled materials.

- Science Friday – This site’s maker challenge has everything from “The Many Uses of Mucus” to “Fossilize Me” – upper elementary and older.

- San Francisco Exploratorium - this amazing museum's site investigates everything from skateboarding engineering to using Orea cookies to explore plate tectonics - upper elementary and older.

- MakerEd – A compilation of projects and learning approaches designed for educators and parents. 

- MakeCode – This Microsoft program has physical and virtual coding and app development – upper elementary through middle school.

- Scratch – An archive of hundreds of math and visual arts activities with examples and stories to help build classroom community and support curriculum content – elementary through middle school.

- Algodoo – This free download allows students to create, alter, and run engineering simulations, changing gravity, adding gears, planes, ropes, and wheels to see how they will interact – middle school and older. 

- Blockscad – A simple block coding program to make 3-D objects and teach math concepts – middle school and older. 

- Google Experiments – An archive of experiments  that require little or no equipment, entertaining and with firm curriculum foundations – middle school and older. 

“On-Screen and Hands-On” by Idamae Craddock in School Library Journal, October 2020 (Vol. 66, #10, p. 17) 

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #857 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.) 

Teaching Students to be Discerning with Evidence

         "Typically, and for too many years, elementary social studies lessons have consisted of a single story," say Muffet Trout (University of St. Thomas) and Jeff Sambs (St. Paul, Minnesota teacher) in this article in Social Studies for the Young Learner." They describe the very different depictions of Christopher Columbus that Sambs encountered as a student.  His 5th grade teacher portrayed Columbus as a hero (In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...) , but a decade later a college professor said Columbus was a villain who stole and subjugated.  Both instructors, say Trout and Sambs, "had missed the opportunity to help their students think with more complexity." leaving them unskilled in the key social studies competency of being able to "read, reconstruct, and interpret the past" (National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies). It also left them unprepared for the key civic duty of deliberation - being able to discuss, listen and come to a fair (not purely self-interested) resolution.

        As a rookie elementary teacher, Sambs was determined to do better.  He asked his fifth graders to look at the events of 1492 and 1493 through the lens of the European explorers and then from the point of view of the Indigenous people of the Caribbean.  His students were able to do this quite well, and over the next 18 years, Sambs developed what he calls the Evidence on the U approach.  The goal has been to support deep and complex student thinking and gradually place much of the responsibility for learning on students.

        Here's how it works.  Groups of students examine a wide variety of paintings, original source documents, texts, and artifacts and debate where to place them on a U-shaped graphic, with evidence tending toward one point of view (for example, Columbus as a hero) on one side, evidence supporting the opposite viewpoint somewhere on the other, evidence that's more complex at the bottom.  "We have found that the highest quality of conversation happens in that in-between spot," say Trout and Sambs, "when resources do not reflect an extreme position.  Students begin to focus on their justification, causing them to examine closely and think analytically, requisite skills for engaging in complex deliberation." Using a U-shaped continuum rather than a straight line emphasizes the complexity of evidence and pushes back on the idea that the middle is where the truth always lies.  For the final assessment, students are presented with new documents or artifacts and asked where they belong on the U-graphic, with grades based on how well they justify their decisions.

        As a follow-up, Sambs set up student chairs in his classroom in a large U and has students think through a provocative issue (for example, whether students should be required to wear uniforms), develop an argument somewhere on the continuum, and then sit in the location in the U corresponding to their argument.  Students are then asked to shift to a new location and make the argument from that vantage point.

        Sambs has found he can use the U graphic in several other curriculum areas, including when students write persuasive essays, explore current events, and present inquiry findings.  He's also found it helpful for discussing issues where there's a continuum from one extreme to the other - for example:

• From colonizer to colonized - Guiding question: How does the process of colonization influence specific populations?
• From us to other - Guiding questions: How do we view people who are different from ourselves? In what ways are they different? How do we behave toward someone we see as "different"?
• From aggressive to passive response to a conflict - Guiding question: What are the costs and benefits to being aggressive, assertive, or passive when handling a conflict?
• From individual to community - Guiding question: How do you balance your rights as an individual with your responsibility to others?
• From private to public - Guiding question: What are some examples of personal freedoms (e.g., saying what you want) that are limited by public needs (e.g., safety, privacy, personal respect)?

"A Teaching Strategy to Strengthen Habits of Deliberation: The 'Evidence on the U' Graphic" by Muffet Trout and Jeff Sambs is in the Social Studies and the Young Learner, September/October 2020 (Vol. 33 #1, pp. 17-21); the authors can be reached at trout@stthomas.edu and jeff.sambs@spps.org. 

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #856 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.) 

        

A Question of Equity - Should Vermont School Districts Close Their Smaller Rural Schools?

A wealth of research supports the effectiveness of small schools, including the December 2019 Vermont Pupil Weighting Factors Report commissioned by the Vermont Legislature:

“The negative relationship between the share of students who are economically disadvantaged in a school and average levels of student achievement is weaker in smaller schools than it is in larger schools.” (p.5)

See also: The Hobbit Effect: Why Small Works in Public Schools

If we are genuinely serious about school effectiveness - about reducing student achievement gaps based on family income - we should be supporting, (not closing or "repurposing"), our small rural schools, in every possible way.

Special Announcement

 It's National Leave a Bottle of Wine on the Porch of Anyone Who Works in Education week.

Tell the others.

A Simple Way to Get Students Writing Nuanced Argumentative Essays

             In this English Journal article, Elizabeth Brockman (Central Michigan University) says that secondary-school writing prompts often train students to write one-sided essays. For example:

-   Was Congress right to enact Title IX?

-   Are teens addicted to their digital devices?

-   Is the American Dream still possible?

“Students are typically rewarded for taking a firm yes-or-no stand,” says Brockman, “… and then supporting it with credible evidence, along with a respectful nod to the opposing view.” One middle-school teacher told students, “No fence-sitting!”

            Brockman believes this approach does students a disservice because it teaches them to think in slanted, all-or-nothing terms, reinforcing negative societal norms. She quotes writing expert Joseph Harris: “We live in a culture prone to naming winners and losers, rights and wrongs. You’re in or out, hot or not, on the bus or off it.” Being trained in this mindset, says Brockman, is not the best preparation for living in a complex, diverse, conflict-ridden world.

The solution, she believes, is steering students toward writing argumentative essays that are convincing and defensible but also nuanced. This can be done by adding just three words – To what extent… – to writing prompts:

-   To what extent was Congress right to enact Title IX?

-   To what extent are teens addicted to their digital devices?

-   To what extent is the American Dream still possible?

“This small, but robust, editorial change,” says Brockman, citing several classroom examples, “has the potential to change the outcome of students’ writing. Why? Because the phrase is an articulation that the topic at hand is not only debatable and defensible but also complex and multifaceted and, therefore, worthy of nuance. In so doing, ELA teachers have the power to guide all students – no matter their ability and confidence level – to take intellectual risks and to participate in more fully informed civil discourse.”

 

“Reframing Writing Prompts to Foster Nuanced Arguments: To What Extent?” by Elizabeth Brockman in English Journal, July 2020 (Vol. 109, #6, pp. 37-44); Brockman can be reached at brock1em@cmich.edu.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #851 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Questions for Instructional Coaches to ask their Colleagues

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Alida Hudson and Bethanie Pletcher (Texas A&M University/College Station) say that successful literacy coaches, “rather than thinking for teachers… are adept at asking open-ended questions, which allow space for teachers to talk through ideas and encourage deep thinking about their own literacy practice.” They suggest some open-ended, positive, and tentative questions:

-   Was that how you envisioned the lesson unfolding?

-   Were there any surprises for you?

-   What is your thinking about…?

-   What might be indicators that you are successful?

-   What were the students able to do in this lesson?

-   What did you do to help the students succeed?

-   What else might you have students do?

-   So, maybe try…

-   What are some things that you could have students do differently the next time you teach this lesson?

Following up after a lesson that incorporated coaching suggestions, a literacy coach might ask:

-   Do you think it was successful? If so, what made the difference?

-   What would you change if you taught this lesson again?

-   What can we do differently that might help students get there?

-   What is getting in the way of the teaching you want to do, and your students’ learning?

-   What might it look like if this problem were solved?

-   Talk to me more about how you…

-   So, moving forward, what do you want to focus on?

“The Art of Asking Questions: Unlocking the Power of a Coach’s Language” by Alida Hudson and Bethanie Pletcher in The Reading Teacher, July/August 2020 (Vol. 74, #1, pp. 96-100); Pletcher can be reached at bethanie.pletcher@tamucc.edu.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #848 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Principles for Successful School Reopening

            In this MIT Teaching Systems Lab report, Justin Reich (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Jal Mehta (Harvard Graduate School of Education) draw on extensive outreach to students, teachers, principals, parents, district administrators, state officials, and other stakeholders to suggest seven principles for reopening schools this fall. Reich and Mehta assume that most schools will be operating with a hybrid or remote learning plan for at least the first part of the 2020-21 year.

These principles are not intended to address the all-important planning that’s being done to keep students and staff safe. Rather, Reich and Mehta focus on helping schools think through their core values and provide access to the best resources to support work with students and families. Several insights guided their research:

-   The coronavirus has created a highly complex and uncertain situation with very few known solutions.

-   In situations like this, the best approach is lots of experimentation in the field, with teams looking at the results to figure out what works.

-   To avoid incoherence, experimentation must be implemented with shared values so local innovators are rowing in the same direction.

-   It’s important to decide on a few common structures – for example, a shared technology platform – to facilitate communication and collaboration.

-   A culture of trust and inclusion is vital; as Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Here are Reich’s and Mehta’s design principles, each with a few examples of how it might play out in schools and districts.

            • Find ways to build relationships. “The trust forged between teachers and students,” say Reich and Mehta, “inspires learners to do their work, enables teachers to offer candid feedback and criticism, and helps teachers learn to find the keys that unlock student potential and learning.” When the coronavirus disrupted the 2019-20 school year, educators already had six months of interactions under their belts. 2020-21 will be different, making it essential to find ways to build strong relationships.

Ideas: (a) a “call a teacher” button on the school’s website that makes it easy for students to ask questions and get help from a staff member (perhaps the librarian) designated to be available all day long; (b) advisories in which small groups of students (perhaps 10) meet regularly with a staff member on Zoom; (c) looping, with the teachers from 2019-20 moving up with their students to the next grade; and (d) eSports and Rec leagues with online games like Valorant.

            • Rethinking instruction with equity in mind. “Inequity is structurally baked into the system,” say Reich and Mehta, “and thus we need to directly address it if it is going to enable all students to succeed.” In addition, studies show that average- and lower-achieving students take the biggest hit with remote learning, widening the achievement gap. The implication: schools need to take a hard look at systems, culture, and pedagogy, include stakeholders in decision-making, give children of color and poverty a fair shake, and make classroom experiences “relevant, purposeful, and meaningful for all learners.”

            Ideas: (a) reaching out to selected students to take part in planning instruction and activities for the 2020-21 school year; (b) designing curriculum units on race, protests, and the pandemic; and (c) building in time with the most vulnerable students, who might be designated to be in school every day.

            • Amplify student agency. With less direct educator supervision over several months, students have been pushed to become more responsible for their own learning. Schools have tried to replicate the regular structures from afar, but it hasn’t always worked. Reich and Mehta believe we’ll be more successful if we “lean into students’ growing sense of agency, and find ways to build on and amplify it.” The more choice and involvement students have with the curriculum, the more motivated and engaged they will be.

            Ideas: (a) start the year with a celebration of what students learned in the spring months and special things they created; (b) use school as a “base camp” for virtual trips to explore careers, scientific topics, history, and more; and (c) devote senior year to volunteering – for example, helping out with a first-grade class.

            • Marie-Kondo the curriculum. This is essential because of lost time during the spring of 2020 and the built-in inefficiencies of remote learning. Schools should retain what creates joy and deprioritize what’s non-essential, say Reich and Mehta, “making sure students study a rich array of topics, but they study fewer of them and more deeply.”

            Ideas: (a) have teacher teams take inventory and decide on essential topics and skills and those that spiral and are sequential and cumulative; (b) develop a competency-based set of assignments, rubrics, and assessments; (c) implement block scheduling to reduce transitions and clutter within each school day; and (d) maximize virtual visitors.

            • Take full advantage of in-person time. Being in a school building with face-to-face contact with educators will be a scarce and precious resource next year, and schools need to be intentional about what’s best done in person and what’s better at home.

            Ideas: (a) launching clubs, electives, and extracurriculars in the school, so when students attend, they’re experiencing something they really enjoy; (b) flipping the curriculum so home is for lecture-type instruction and projects, school for discussion, sharing, and relationships; and (c) home is for projects, school is for tutoring and small-group work.

            • Nurture home and community learning. “The coronavirus fundamentally shifts the relationship between home and school,” say Reich and Mehta. Schools improvised this spring, asking parents to monitor school learning, but for the opening months of the coming school year, educators need to build stronger partnerships with families and communities so students can get their work done away from school. “Whenever possible,” say Reich and Mehta, “parents, neighbors, family members, and caregivers need to plan to devote a substantial amount of time next year to providing supervision and learning support to students.” Schools play a key role in orchestrating support for students whose families are not able to provide it – for example, if parents are first responders.

            Ideas: (a) encourage “family learning victory gardens” – for example, a father who is a Vietnam War buff studying that topic with a teenager during a U.S. history course;

(b) support micro-schools – clusters of families that have created a safe bubble and can go to school together; and (c) allow students who thrive with online learning to remain at home.

            • Build in reflection time. “Continuous learning and improvement is likely to be critical for success,” say Reich and Mehta. Some teacher teams quickly figured out virtual collaboration in the spring, but others did not. School leaders need to orchestrate the time, space, and support for grade-level and departmental teams to continuously reflect, learn, and adapt; get teams networking laterally across classrooms, teams, and schools to share emerging ideas and learn from each other; and make organizational changes to translate new insights into regular practice.

            Ideas: (a) trading student contact time for teacher collaboration time, following the practice of high-performing Asian schools that have a higher ratio of staff-to-staff time versus staff-to-student time; and (b) empowering teachers to work with students to figure out the best learning configuration – for example, flipping lectures and hands-on time and using high achievers as student tutors.

“Imagining September: Principles and Design Elements for Ambitious Schools During Covid-19” by Justin Reich and Jal Mehta, MIT Teaching Systems Lab, July 2020; the authors can be reached at jreich@mit.edu and jal_mehta@gse.harvard.edu.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #847 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

A New, Antiracist Canon

A New, Antiracist Canon
is a list of fiction, graphic novels/memoirs, drama, short stories, poets, films, essays, podcasts/multimedia
resources, visual artists, and readings with data/graphs.

The list was compiled by Alexis Wiggins, a white teacher who has been teaching high school English
for two decades.

Unearthing the Problem: SEL in the High School Classroom

Conducting an inventory of tech usage encouraged a class or high school sophomores to self-regulate their online screen time. See Julia Harding's
Unearthing the Problem: Social Emotional Learning in the High School Classroom

First Round of Vermont Fall '20 School Re-Opening Guidance

Click this link to find A Strong and Healthy Start from the Vermont Agency of Education and the Vermont Department of Health (published June 17, 2020).  It includes guidance in the following areas:

• Covid-19 Coordination and Training
• Student and Staff Health Considerations
• School Day Considerations
• Operational and Facilities Considerations (including Buses and Transportation) 

Resources for Racial Justice Conversations with Kids

Here are some resources for families as we lead conversations at home around racial justice. 
This list was compiled by Union Elementary School in Montpelier, VT.

Resources for Racial Justice Conversations with Kids

100 Race Conscious Things to say to your Child to Advance Social Justice

http://www.raceconscious.org/2016/06/100-race-conscious-things-to-say-to-your-child-to-advance-racial-justice/

Talking About Race and Racism with Young Children

(Source: School Library Journal)

● Teaching Tolerance

● The ABC’s of How to Talk to Your Child About Differences

● 100 Race Conscious Things You Can Say to Advance Racial Justice

● “How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Racist,” The Longest Shortest Time (podcast)

● “Confronting Racism at an Early Age” Harvard Graduate School of Education

● “How to Talk About Racism: An age-by-age guide” Today’s Parent

Smithsonian Resource: Talking About Race:

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race

Reading to End Racism Book List - HERE

UES Teacher Read Aloud Say Something By Peter Reynolds 

https://youtu.be/4Vs2fNmUBl8

Something Happened in our Town (Video Read Aloud):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOhOFGcWm8

All Are Welcome Read Aloud:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwS3FOn4-Ow

A great list of books for kids: https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/books-teach-white-children-and-teens-how-undo-racism-and-white-supremacy

Educational Tools from Black Lives Matter

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u7nzwMzTJujJKf7YOp8FU2vbBMseCkpg

Why Teaching Black Lives Matters, Matters

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2017/why-teaching-black-lives-matter-matters-part-i

- http://weac.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/kid-friendly-language.pdf

- How to be Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi

- A Book About Racism (a kids book, good to use as a conversation-starter)

K-8 Distance Learning Activities Related to George Floyd and Black Lives Matter:

https://colorfulpages.org/2020/05/31/blacklivesmatter-k-8-distance-learning-activities-for-justice-for-george-floyd/?fbclid=IwAR33B6cKPZNg8RuZps7LW8i8L1a3awuKmYYBeb-z3APqZ9cUhJsKIZmolCk

Infographic - Are you kids too young to talk about race? 

https://www.prettygooddesign.org/

NewsELA - Leveled Article regarding recent protests for Students in upper elementary / middle / high school:

https://newsela.com/read/national-police-violence-protests/id/2001009690

Parent Education Podcasts

The Longest Shortest Time (podcast episode, really helpful for a strong equity mindset when it comes to the intersection of parenting and education)

- https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716700866/talking-race-with-young-children (also a podcast episode, a little more of a how-to than the one above)

Beyond the Golden Rule - An article that addresses common questions related to prejudice. 

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2005/beyond-the-golden-rule

End Well, Plan Well, Begin Well: Re-establishing the School as Community

Here is the link from a paper by Dave Melnick of the Northeastern Family Institute:
End Well, Plan Well, Begin Well: Re-establishing the School as Community General Considerations: Healing from Collective Crises and Trauma

A small excerpt:

While COVID-19 is a novel virus and potent stressor in the lives of most people, many components of our social-emotional recovery are baked into our biology. Our families, cultures, faith, schools, and organizations have passed down practices to deal successfully with adversity and struggle. Equipped

with these traditional practices, the pandemic will provide an opportunity to develop innovations that can be integrated with the existing ways we recover from, and build resilience to, community crises. What will be most remembered by those we raise, lead, and connect with is our humility and humanity during this crisis.

1. We heal collectively and we need our leaders/caregivers to promote, support and resource our well-being. When our parents, caregivers, leaders, supervisors, coaches, and mentors optimize their own well-being, then our workforce and students will benefit. Adult well-being is an act of altruism, both in families and organizations.

2. We have great wisdom about healing from collective crises and trauma. It is time to consult our roadmaps, wisdom practices, faith, family lore, and safety plans as beacons during difficult times.

3. When we celebrate, reinforce and engage in family connections, friendships, and professional affiliations, we can improve the healing potential of our interconnections and interdependence.

4. The priority for schools and other social institutions is to both address health/ mental health and promote achievement. Positive academic outcomes has to be a priority and students will catch up fastest when we prioritize the emotional well-being of everyone in schools.

5. Resilience is relational, at both the individual and organizational level. Our success largely depends on the network of supports we have; the more support we have, the more interconnected we are, the more resilient we become. Resilient people and resilient groups need three things: a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging or interconnection, and the capacity to make meaning from
experience.

6. Resources may initially be limited in schools, and our human capital will be even more important
than ever. Creativity, re-allocation of resources and relying on the abundance of healthy adults in our schools will help counteract these challenges. We will not be able to outsource SEL; all adults and capable students will have to work together to moderate stress, collectively. To this end:

• Consider how using Reflective Practices, Participatory Leadership, and Relational Leadership skills can contribute to workplace and organizational resilience.
• Consider how using Restorative Practices and Mindfulness will help to develop student resilience. We will need to rely on the strength of our students as part of the problem solving and stress reduction equation when school re-starts.

This document was created through our collaborative work with the following Districts/Schools( identified with their high school), as well as other organizations and Scholars:

• BUUSD: Spaulding HS
• Champlain Valley Educational Center: BOCES (Plattsburg, NY)
• Maplehill School and Community Farm
• RNESU: Otter Valley HS
• SVSU: Mount Anthony Union HS
• TRSU: Green Mtn. and Black River HS
• WCUUSD: U32
• WCSU: Leland and Gray
• WCSU: Woodstock UMHS
• WSESU: Windsor HS
• Trauma Transformed (SF Bay Area)
• Scholars: Michael Ungar, PhD.; Kelly McGonigal, PhD.; Alicia Lieberman, PhD.; Sandra Bloom, MD; Daniel Hughes, PhD.; Daniel Siegel, MD; Brene Brown, LCSW; Peter Senge, Ken Epstein, LICSW, PhD.; NCTSN; SEARCH Institute; Parker Palmer, PhD., etc.

Northeastern Family Institute
Bringing Vermont Children, Families, and Communities Together
The Family Center: Outpatient Mental Health
3000 Williston Road, Suite 2 | South Burlington, Vermont 05403
Phone: (802) 951-0450 | Fax: (802) 652-2008

davemelnick@nafi.com

A Different Way to Teach Romeo and Juliet

          In this article in English Journal, Arkansas teacher Kathryn Hill says that when she tells her ninth graders they’ll be reading Romeo and Juliet, there are groans and heads on desks. At this grade level, students know Shakespeare at a distance, and some believe his work is for people who are smarter, more mature, more cultured. “Why do we have to read those dry, dusty stories that have nothing to do with us?” asked one student.

            “This is why there is an urgent need to rethink how we approach teaching Shakespeare,” says Hill, “and, perhaps more importantly, if we teach Shakespeare at all.” She had her own epiphany watching a production of Richard III in a small theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England, seeing for the first time “the power of language and character.” When she began teaching, Hill was determined that her students would make a similar connection between Shakespeare and their lives. In Romeo and Juliet, she wanted students to see in Romeo “the same fiery passion, pensiveness, and rebellion that many of them [experience] as adolescents,” and in Juliet she hoped they would see “the bonds of antiquated, nonsensical traditions, and the destructive cycles of violence and greed – and explore productive ways of fighting against these powers that be.”

            Over the years, Hill hit upon choral reading as a way to bring Shakespeare alive for students and get them to a level of fluency where they truly understood his meaning. Here’s how it works.

            • Introducing the play – Hill’s students read Act I of Romeo and Juliet together and analyze how several movie adaptations of key scenes use the film medium to enhance what Shakespeare wrote.

            • Setting the stage – Students have a choice of studying one of four soliloquies from Act 2: Romeo’s under Juliet’s balcony; Romeo and Juliet’s on the balcony; Friar Laurence’s; and Juliet’s in scene 5. Having introduced the assignment, Hill divides students into heterogeneous groups of 4-5 and groups select which soliloquy they want to study and perform. Students then spend 20-30 minutes working individually with their soliloquy:

-   annotating the text;

-   paraphrasing the speech sentence by sentence;

-   identifying the main point that the speaker is making;

-   circling or highlighting motifs (dream versus reality, blindness, poison, light versus dark imagery);

-   circling key words or phrases indicating the speaker’s tone;

-   marking any shifts in tone, topic, or meaning;

-   noting what we learn about the character who is speaking.

After finishing their individual analyses, groups discuss how they will handle reading their soliloquy out loud. They watch brief video reflections by actors and directors from the Royal Shakespeare Company to model artistic thought and consider their character’s tone, meaning, internal and external conflicts, and key words, phrases, and motifs.

            • Perform and reflect – Each group choral-reads its soliloquy, following each other in the sequence of Act 2, with Hill or a student narrating the events in between. After each performance, classmates ask why the group chose to speak or move in the way they did, and each performer explains elements of their choral read.

“After all the collective laughter and tears, joy and thoughtfulness, and understanding and questioning evoked by the performances,” says Hill, students individually reflect on their soliloquy and write answers to these prompts:

-   Analyze the tone of the speaker – diction, motif, imagery.

-   How does the speech connect with one of the major themes of the play?

-   What do we learn about the character?

-   Explain the artistic choices your group made to emphasize certain words, phrases, or motifs, the speaker’s tone, and internal or external conflicts.

-   How would you revise your performance and why?

“Some of my favorite moments in my classroom occur while students are planning, practicing, performing, and reflecting on their choral reads,” says Hill. “The room buzzes with convivial laughter and kinetic dialogue as students ponder beautiful and curious lines and characters.” She took particular delight when one group of boys practiced reading the line, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks!” at first giggling at how they had read the words, then realizing how the motif of light seemed especially important to Romeo. “As the boys brought Romeo and Juliet to life with their own voices,” says Hill, “they felt joy because they had fun while wrestling with a complex text.”

            Hill has found the choral reading strategy especially helpful for involving reluctant students and those for whom Shakespeare’s language is challenging. Working with their groupmates preparing for a performance, these students rise to the occasion and contribute thoughtfully to the nuances of tone, drama, and meaning.

            Looking back at the end of the semester, Hill’s students often mention the choral reading as a high point. One student wrote, “I liked how we got to be more creative with this activity. That made it super fun, but I also feel like I learned more about how to read closely. I finally feel like I get the themes and characters.” A particularly shy student wrote, “I personally think that I have grown a huge amount throughout the choral reading process and I think I kind of found a voice with speaking.”

            Hill has several recommendations for teachers considering implementing the choral reading strategy:

-   Allow two periods for performances so there’s room for artistic decision-making and reflective discussions.

-   Instead of asking students to analyze and represent multiple elements of their soliloquy, it may be better to focus on one literary element – for example,  figurative language.

-   This choral reading strategy can work with a variety of texts; Hill has used it with John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Brent Staples’s “Black Men in Public Space,” and the speech before the United Nations by Malala Yousafzai, as well as excerpts from novels like The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

“Transforming any text can lead to a transformative learning experience for all of our students,” concludes Hill, “because it promotes strong transactions between reader and text, leading to better comprehension, closer reading, symbolic thinking, and deeper learning… Through the lightness and laughter of an activity such as choral reading, students’ hearts and minds are transformed as the power of Shakespeare – once perceived as ephemeral and possibly esoteric – becomes something real and lasting and life-changing. As their perspective transforms, so do they.”

“‘Did My Heart Love Till Now?’: Transforming Romeo and Juliet and Readers Through Choral Reading” by Kathryn Hill in English Journal, March 2020 (Vol. 109, #4, pp. 31-37),

https://bit.ly/2zRnGSK; Hill can be reached at khill@bentonvillek12.org.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #835 of 
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)