Like in an earlier lesson on using feminist articles to practice for extended response prompts on state tests, this lesson is based on the assumption that students will benefit more from lessons if they use texts with actual tangible relevance. In this case, the article/worksheet combo asks students to read Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff's editorial "Stopping the Traffickers" and determine whether a claim is true or false, according to the article.
Kristoff tells the story of his attempts to free several young sex slave prostitutes in Cambodia, a topic that will pull any disengaged student from daydreams and directly into the discussion. Tactfully written, but with enough candor to be shocking, "Stopping the Traffickers" forces students to confront the continued existence of practices that many of them assume have been obliterated for decades, if not longer.
Though the alterations to the original article are slight, the worksheet version is massaged for diction so that students won't have too much to deal with beyond the topic and the skills being focused on.
Since the lesson is based on finding textual support to either uphold or disprove a claim, it's ideal for talking about main idea and supporting details, but it has the benefit of also allowing students to talk about the content of the article while practicing these skills. Too often, focusing on formal elements of a text takes students too far away from what the text is "about," leading to disengagement. In this case, the worksheet asks readers to argue with claims about causes, solutions, and relationship between the abstract world of sex slavery and living in the comparably secure world of most students. However, rather than just arguing about the topic in general, the activity keeps pushing students back to the text.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Lord of the Flies, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and Abu Ghraib
The teaching of canonical novels has been in dispute for at least 30 years and it's unlikely that the arguments will be settled any time in the near future. While I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the idea of a set body of Literature, I recognize that such a thing exists in practice and that my students will be judged on their knowledge of it at some point. So I generally try to teach some canon texts, while attempting to focus my attention less on their transcendent aesthetic perfection or any such elitist garbage. Instead, I like to try to take the supposedly universal themes and link them back to very concrete historical-material realities. Not exactly a novel approach, but one that is important enough to mention again . . .
In this post, I offer an introduction to a 9th grade unit on William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a fantastic text with a very specific historical political message. Unfortunately, this political posture has been blunted by a few decades of teaching about things like "human nature" or light/dark binaries or something equally abstract and unrelatable. Instead, I like to teach it in the context of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Besides focusing on these politicized readings, I highlight the skills of using supporting evidence from the text to back up claims made throughout the unit. That way, the connections don't become stick-on readings that are external to the novel, but help to understand the text and its relationship to current political conditions.
In the first lesson, I show this video and the following video clip from a Democracy Now interview with the head scientist from the experiment, Philip Zimbardo. This lesson sets the general theme, and students explore the ways that people act in abnormal and sometimes atrocious ways, given a change in situations. By the end of the lesson, the seeds are planted for students to see Ralph and Jack's actions on the island as impelled by their authoritarian positions. These seeds are largely the result of the Zimbardo video, which was filmed shortly after the revelation of human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib.
At the end of the day, I give students their copies of Lord of the Flies and assign the first several pages for homework reading with a simple worksheet to keep track of details.
For the second day's lesson, I pull back on the polemic a little, focusing instead on the general roles the characters are adopting. However, students usually begin to see these characters in terms of the context set up by the Stanford Prison Experiment the day before. However, I don't want these to be simply echoed responses so that I'm facilitating a certain understanding of the text that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Golding's novel. After all, the point is to allow students to develop the skills to see these connections between text and political reality on their own, right? So, I start to focus right away on skills in making claims and backing them up with textual evidence. If students are going to see a connection between Golding and Zimbardo or American imperialist aggression, they're going to have to prove it to me.
From this point on, the unit progresses by building on these initial forms of understanding. Keep asking students what makes these characters change their behaviors so drastically so that readings of the leader figures doesn't stagnate into a simple "Jack's a jerk" or "Piggy's a submissive momma's boy" - these type of responses don't really help beyond the very initial stages. Eventually, students should be able to support a complex claim about how Lord of the Flies and The Stanford Prison Experiment or the Abu Ghraib abuses are rooted in a similar problem (or sometimes students realize that there is a difference in the examples, which is always equally interesting and often reflects the highest level of engagement with the topic).
To further relate this to standards-based or test-prep language, the process of relating seemingly different texts to each other is essentially the skill that is required to answer the New York State English Regents Critical Lens essay. This unit could scaffold an understanding of that essay's form by asking students to write an essay that explains the saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or "having someone to blame for your own actions makes doing something terrible a lot easier" using Lord of the Flies and one of the historical examples as support. Since this is basically what the students have done over the course of the unit, it should translate into a fairly good understanding of how the Critical Lens Essay works.
In this post, I offer an introduction to a 9th grade unit on William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a fantastic text with a very specific historical political message. Unfortunately, this political posture has been blunted by a few decades of teaching about things like "human nature" or light/dark binaries or something equally abstract and unrelatable. Instead, I like to teach it in the context of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Besides focusing on these politicized readings, I highlight the skills of using supporting evidence from the text to back up claims made throughout the unit. That way, the connections don't become stick-on readings that are external to the novel, but help to understand the text and its relationship to current political conditions.
In the first lesson, I show this video and the following video clip from a Democracy Now interview with the head scientist from the experiment, Philip Zimbardo. This lesson sets the general theme, and students explore the ways that people act in abnormal and sometimes atrocious ways, given a change in situations. By the end of the lesson, the seeds are planted for students to see Ralph and Jack's actions on the island as impelled by their authoritarian positions. These seeds are largely the result of the Zimbardo video, which was filmed shortly after the revelation of human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib.
At the end of the day, I give students their copies of Lord of the Flies and assign the first several pages for homework reading with a simple worksheet to keep track of details.
For the second day's lesson, I pull back on the polemic a little, focusing instead on the general roles the characters are adopting. However, students usually begin to see these characters in terms of the context set up by the Stanford Prison Experiment the day before. However, I don't want these to be simply echoed responses so that I'm facilitating a certain understanding of the text that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Golding's novel. After all, the point is to allow students to develop the skills to see these connections between text and political reality on their own, right? So, I start to focus right away on skills in making claims and backing them up with textual evidence. If students are going to see a connection between Golding and Zimbardo or American imperialist aggression, they're going to have to prove it to me.
From this point on, the unit progresses by building on these initial forms of understanding. Keep asking students what makes these characters change their behaviors so drastically so that readings of the leader figures doesn't stagnate into a simple "Jack's a jerk" or "Piggy's a submissive momma's boy" - these type of responses don't really help beyond the very initial stages. Eventually, students should be able to support a complex claim about how Lord of the Flies and The Stanford Prison Experiment or the Abu Ghraib abuses are rooted in a similar problem (or sometimes students realize that there is a difference in the examples, which is always equally interesting and often reflects the highest level of engagement with the topic).
To further relate this to standards-based or test-prep language, the process of relating seemingly different texts to each other is essentially the skill that is required to answer the New York State English Regents Critical Lens essay. This unit could scaffold an understanding of that essay's form by asking students to write an essay that explains the saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or "having someone to blame for your own actions makes doing something terrible a lot easier" using Lord of the Flies and one of the historical examples as support. Since this is basically what the students have done over the course of the unit, it should translate into a fairly good understanding of how the Critical Lens Essay works.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Feminism and The Extended Response
If you're in New York State or a similar test-encumbered area, you probably have to work with an extended response question, asking students to write about two passages they've read. The problem with these kinds of questions is that they're almost always based on essays that (by design) nobody cares about. This post offers a one to two week-long mini unit looking at two articles focused on issues of gender inequality, culminating in a practice essay based on the New York State 8th Grade ELA Extended Response format.
First a Word on Extended Response Format: Scroll Down if You've Got This and Just Want the Good Stuff
The format is often :
How does each text do something . . .
Describe the similarities or differences between the two . . .
For instance, the 2007 NY State 8th ELA Test asked students to read an essay about an electric car and an essay about the history of washing machines (I seriously couldn't make this shit up). Then, the students were asked to describe the impact of each invention on the lives of people and evaluate which invention likely had a greater impact on people.
So it works to just teach students to write a simple 5 paragraph essay, including an introduction with direct thesis statement, a first body paragraph describing how the first text does whatever is being asked, a second body paragraph describing how the second text does whatever is being asked, then a third body paragraph that compares or contrasts as appropriate. A short conclusion paragraph can do anything from the general sum up/restate to the more admirable connection to life or broader issues.
Using Some Decent Content: Bust and Two Images of Feminism
I've had some great success teaching this essay format, and it's all due to the texts I've selected. The important thing is to give students texts that they might actually care about. Even better, give them things they can ARGUE about. They seem to like that . . .
I scored a real point or two last year with this version of a nonfiction test prep week. We had already studied elements of nonfiction articles earlier in the year, but there's no reason these articles would've work for that too.
Both articles were from the feminist magazine, Bust. If you're not familiar with Bust, you should be. This is a teacher's covert weapon of choice. It's raucus, sexy, on top of really great pop culture trends, and increasingly targeting younger readers. Let me be clear: you could never have a copy of it around in class. The back 10 pages or so is devoted to small adds for etsy shops selling sex toys, hot lacy numbers, and every form of knitted product known to womankind. It also includes a short fiction section entitled "The One Handed Read" and a really fantasticly honest Q & A section where the lovechild of Alfred Kinsey and Ann Landers gives some of the best advice around. In short, it's a great magazine for adolescent girls. Pro-empowerment through knowledge and self esteem. Can't go wrong.
So, I use it any time I can by simply copying articles for students. Of course, if students happen to wander over to Bust's site and start reading it, that's Kool and the Gang.
The first article was easier for students to grasp. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is about a high school girl who's struggling with being a young feminist - surprisingly enough, people say ignorant things, accuse her of being a lesbian, and generally misunderstand the whole point of what it means to be a feminist. Since the article devotes a lot of time to refuting these assumptions and providing a description of what it might really mean to be a feminist, students get a good introduction to the ideas of the movement in general. There are ideas and terms that could be glossed - she mentions Planned Parenthood, for instance - but this usually comes in the form of footnotes I pencil in before making copies, which gets students used to that format.
The article is probably worth two 45 minute classes at least. Author's purpose and supporting details are good test prep skills to focus on, since she's being both persuasive and informative.
The second article takes feminism in a different direction, focusing on more direct forms of oppression and more direct forms of fighting back. "Angry in Pink" describes the systematic abuses faced by women in rural India, and tells the story of Sampat Pal, a woman who started a vigilante gang of women to fight back against patriarchal power in the countryside. Because of its more conventional depiction of gender oppression, this article was less controversial in class, but Sampat Pal's method of fighting back sparked interesting discussions, since the idea of women physically dominating men is so culturally unheard of, no matter where the reader lives.
After reading both of the articles and spending a day or two on the features of each, students should be able to talk about the ideas of feminism and gender inequality in general, using these two sources and examples from other texts or their own lives.
The final step in the test prep process is to give the students some example questions like the one provided below. I've found that it's useful to do this as a mini writing project, going through a quick version of the writing process with drafts and revisions, followed by a chance to sit through the actual process of writing an answer to an extended prompt, just like students would do on a test. The point is that students are learning a writing form by writing about a topic they've become invested in and actually have something to say about.
Sample Extended Prompt, Modeled on the NY State ELA Extended Prompt
Write an essay in which you describe the hardships faced by women in each of the articles. Explain how these hardships were similar. Use details from both articles to support your answer.
In your answer, be sure to include:
- a description of the hardships faced by both groups of women
- an explanation of how these hardships were similar
- details from both articles to support your answer
Alterations
After students worked this question through the drafting and revising process, I gave them an in-class essay prompt following the same format but asking a slightly different question. Alterations could include asking about differences in methods of fighting against patriarchy (by the way, my 8th graders tended to love this word) or the much more complicated issue of comparing each woman's method of involving others.
First a Word on Extended Response Format: Scroll Down if You've Got This and Just Want the Good Stuff
The format is often :
How does each text do something . . .
Describe the similarities or differences between the two . . .
For instance, the 2007 NY State 8th ELA Test asked students to read an essay about an electric car and an essay about the history of washing machines (I seriously couldn't make this shit up). Then, the students were asked to describe the impact of each invention on the lives of people and evaluate which invention likely had a greater impact on people.
So it works to just teach students to write a simple 5 paragraph essay, including an introduction with direct thesis statement, a first body paragraph describing how the first text does whatever is being asked, a second body paragraph describing how the second text does whatever is being asked, then a third body paragraph that compares or contrasts as appropriate. A short conclusion paragraph can do anything from the general sum up/restate to the more admirable connection to life or broader issues.
Using Some Decent Content: Bust and Two Images of Feminism
I've had some great success teaching this essay format, and it's all due to the texts I've selected. The important thing is to give students texts that they might actually care about. Even better, give them things they can ARGUE about. They seem to like that . . .
I scored a real point or two last year with this version of a nonfiction test prep week. We had already studied elements of nonfiction articles earlier in the year, but there's no reason these articles would've work for that too.
Both articles were from the feminist magazine, Bust. If you're not familiar with Bust, you should be. This is a teacher's covert weapon of choice. It's raucus, sexy, on top of really great pop culture trends, and increasingly targeting younger readers. Let me be clear: you could never have a copy of it around in class. The back 10 pages or so is devoted to small adds for etsy shops selling sex toys, hot lacy numbers, and every form of knitted product known to womankind. It also includes a short fiction section entitled "The One Handed Read" and a really fantasticly honest Q & A section where the lovechild of Alfred Kinsey and Ann Landers gives some of the best advice around. In short, it's a great magazine for adolescent girls. Pro-empowerment through knowledge and self esteem. Can't go wrong.
So, I use it any time I can by simply copying articles for students. Of course, if students happen to wander over to Bust's site and start reading it, that's Kool and the Gang.
The first article was easier for students to grasp. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is about a high school girl who's struggling with being a young feminist - surprisingly enough, people say ignorant things, accuse her of being a lesbian, and generally misunderstand the whole point of what it means to be a feminist. Since the article devotes a lot of time to refuting these assumptions and providing a description of what it might really mean to be a feminist, students get a good introduction to the ideas of the movement in general. There are ideas and terms that could be glossed - she mentions Planned Parenthood, for instance - but this usually comes in the form of footnotes I pencil in before making copies, which gets students used to that format.
The article is probably worth two 45 minute classes at least. Author's purpose and supporting details are good test prep skills to focus on, since she's being both persuasive and informative.
The second article takes feminism in a different direction, focusing on more direct forms of oppression and more direct forms of fighting back. "Angry in Pink" describes the systematic abuses faced by women in rural India, and tells the story of Sampat Pal, a woman who started a vigilante gang of women to fight back against patriarchal power in the countryside. Because of its more conventional depiction of gender oppression, this article was less controversial in class, but Sampat Pal's method of fighting back sparked interesting discussions, since the idea of women physically dominating men is so culturally unheard of, no matter where the reader lives.
After reading both of the articles and spending a day or two on the features of each, students should be able to talk about the ideas of feminism and gender inequality in general, using these two sources and examples from other texts or their own lives.
The final step in the test prep process is to give the students some example questions like the one provided below. I've found that it's useful to do this as a mini writing project, going through a quick version of the writing process with drafts and revisions, followed by a chance to sit through the actual process of writing an answer to an extended prompt, just like students would do on a test. The point is that students are learning a writing form by writing about a topic they've become invested in and actually have something to say about.
Sample Extended Prompt, Modeled on the NY State ELA Extended Prompt
Write an essay in which you describe the hardships faced by women in each of the articles. Explain how these hardships were similar. Use details from both articles to support your answer.
In your answer, be sure to include:
- a description of the hardships faced by both groups of women
- an explanation of how these hardships were similar
- details from both articles to support your answer
Alterations
After students worked this question through the drafting and revising process, I gave them an in-class essay prompt following the same format but asking a slightly different question. Alterations could include asking about differences in methods of fighting against patriarchy (by the way, my 8th graders tended to love this word) or the much more complicated issue of comparing each woman's method of involving others.
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