Part two of what I\u2019m up to in English Three this year (sort of). 6:23PM-6:52PM, 08282023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My principal is on a real-world kick this year, which I appreciate, although I feel like there\u2019s a tension that comes up in English: our job in that class has to be write, write, write, and then write some more. I don\u2019t mean more assignments, I mean making sure that we have solid written work being produced year round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I wrote about last week, my second unit, \u201cThinking like a Critic\u201d focuses on a series of short stories. After we\u2019ve read, they produce a paper linking three of the stories together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a cool assignment. How do I make it \u201creal world\u201d? I don\u2019t have time to mount the \u201clearning to express yourself clearly in writing serves you better than just about any other real-world task I can think of<\/strong>\u201d argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tension one: there\u2019s not a lot of audience for literary criticism as it is done right now. I don\u2019t want them aiming at scholarly journals with these pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tension two: apart from intellectuals and book folks, people don\u2019t read these sorts of literary pieces much. And my sense from college comp profs I talk to is that they\u2019re after a more general approach to rhetoric and writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m thinking that I will pick the best eight to ten pieces the kids write and send them to my favorite critics to see what they make of them. Like spam, if even one responds, that\u2019d be great, and would address this goal for authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Better yet, I want to write to them and ask how they\u2019d structure the assignment. What would they ask of students? What do they put in their syllabi? After doing extensive research (eleven minutes on Google looking at different syllabuses), I found that most folks do not offer anything close to my awesome definition for their papers. So maybe I\u2019ll stick with it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want you to be able to write something readable and engaging. Something that shows how deeply you\u2019ve thought about these stories. Something that shows your ability to represent the ideas in these stories and connect them to each other.\u00a0 Something that shows your ability to develop an argument (something you need to say to the world) about these short stories.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Basically, something someone would want to read until the end and then, when they got there, make a noise of some sort, maybe a noise like, huh, never thought of it that way, or pfft, this person makes an interesting argument but I totally disagree, or sighhh, that was cool.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Other option for this unit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I had a full semester, I\u2019d try and replicate the selection process for the best of short story collections. I\u2019d do my sort (or I\u2019d write to these editors and ask them if they would give me the second to last list of the selection process) and then I\u2019d have the kids pick their eight and write the introduction. We\u2019d set up meetings where they could deliberate over their choices, mount an argument for the pieces they\u2019d include and why. (This would also address the internet problem; I couldn\u2019t do this with any piece more than two years old as there is so much internet crap out there already.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d need a full semester so that I could still maintain the momentum of analyzing a few stories together, modeling that process, trying different approaches as a big group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe create that as a bonus assignment, for my students who are all in for English and want an additional challenge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dinner is ready. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part two of what I\u2019m up to in English Three this year (sort of). 6:23PM-6:52PM, 08282023 My principal is on a real-world kick this year, which I appreciate, although I feel like there\u2019s a tension that comes up in English: our job in that class has to be write, write, write, and then write some … Continue reading English Three and Real World<\/span>