Tuesday Trivia

1. Which French author was shot in the leg and left with a permanent limp by his nephew, a young man who suffered from paranoia?
2. True or False: Heath Ledger was named after Healthcliff in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
3. Which 16th century Italian painter was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the greatest poets of all time?
4. Which of Shakespeare’s close friends and fellow authors is buried in a standing position in Westminster Abbey?
5. Which 20th century French Journalist wrote an entire book one letter at a time — indicating the next correct letter by blinking only his left eye?

Last Week's Answers


Which American fiction writer began his writing career while working as a pencil sharpener wholesaler in 1911?

Edgar Rice Burroughs


Tybalt, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is named after which anthropomorphic character?

Tybalt is named after Tybalt/Tibert, the Prince of Cats in the Reynard the Fox stories. Mercutio alludes to this connection between characters when he says that Tybalt is “More than Prince of Cats” in Act II, Scene iv.


The word “girl” appears only once in what world-famous literary work?

The word "girl" appears only once in the Bible in Joel 3:3. The word “girls” appears once in Zechariah 8:5.


Which children’s author wrote his first book in 1936 while crossing the Atlantic on a luxury liner?

Dr. Seuss wrote his first book on the luxury liner Kungsholm. The sound of the ship’s engines annoyed him, and his wife suggested that he use their rhythm to help him write a book in rhyme. The book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by publishers 27 times before Vanguard Publishing took a chance and accepted the manuscript.


What was the first book Amazon ever sold?

The first book Amazon.com sold was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.

Part III: They’ll never learn to ride the bike if we never take off the training wheels!

Consider the following writing prompts:

1. Study the following passage from chapter IV and write a coherent, well-written essay in which you argue whether or not Lord Lordly and his wife, Lady Lordly, articulate conventional attitudes toward gender roles in marriage. ***Be sure to establish a clear thesis early on and support your ideas with references from the passage.*** Do not merely summarize the passage.
2. Arthur Sname’s novel not only presents a frank account of a soldier’s experiences in combat, it also highlights the difficulty of reconciling the life of the soldier with the life the civilian life left behind and eventually returned to. Write a well-organized essay in which you describe the trauma soldiers experience when moving between their lives on the battlefield and their lives at home before or after the war. You may want to focus on one particular character, if you choose to do so. ***Considering Namuv Kairkter’s story in “This is the Title of His Story” is one possibility, but you may choose any character(s) in order to formulate your ideas.***
3. Authors frequently use irony in order to reveal their attitude toward the subject and characters and to enable readers to evaluate plot developments and characters’ actions effectively and critically. Write a well-organized essay in which you explore the central irony of the novel by ***analyzing the protagonist’s belief that his life will be better if he can only retain his youthful appearance when, in fact, the degeneration of his soul and the confusion of his sense of right and wrong drive him deeper and deeper into a state of despair and anguish.*** Additionally, you may want to consider other instances of irony in the text.

Now, they display a fairly vast array of language and organizational problems (which we can tackle on another day), but today I’m asking you to pay particular attention to the portions between the asterisks (***).

Remember, we’re talking about rigor.

See the problem?

Okay … I’ll tell you (if you’ve already discovered it, please remain in your seat and do not blurt out the answer), but before I do, let me assure you that these are all “real” prompts from “real” sources like a not-yet-published teaching guide, a twelfth-grade English final exam, and a prospective writer’s writing sample. They’re real, and they were all submitted as good and workable.

So … here’s the problem with them.

If we’re talking rigor, we have to allow the kid to do some thinking for himself. We have to be willing to let the kid be “wrong,” and we have to then help the kid learn how and why he was “wrong” in this instance so he can be “more right” the next time.

Every single one of the above prompts does some degree of the kid’s thinking for him.

Prompt #1 is the least problematic. All it does is remind the kid to “establish a clear thesis early on and support your ideas with references from the passage.” [Of course, they would be references _to_ the passage, but what’s a few grammatical errors among friends?] If this were a prompt on a large-scale assessment with lots of stress, it might be nice to remind the kid that he’s writing an essay and that an essay needs a thesis and support.

But in a rigorous classroom, to remind a kid about to write an essay that he needs a thesis and support is a little like reminding a kid about to take his road test that he’s supposed to try and not hit pedestrians or other vehicles. I mean, it pretty much comes with the territory. The prompt specifically tells the kid to “write a coherent, well-written essay.” Try to write that “well-written essay” without a thesis and support? Well, here’s your D. Next time you’ll remember.

Prompt #2 is even worse, less rigorous. Assuming part of the prompt’s intent is to assess the kid’s knowledge of the novel, the statement, “Considering Namuv Kairkter’s story in ‘This is the Title of His Story’ is one possibility” pretty much tells the kid what to write about. _Don’t think about the book, kid, just repeat what we said in class about this particular chapter, and you’ll do fine._

Prompt #3 is the worst of the bunch. “[A]nalyz[e] the protagonist’s belief that his life will be better if he can only retain his youthful appearance when, in fact, the degeneration of his soul and the confusion of his sense of right and wrong drive him deeper and deeper into a state of despair and anguish,” doesn’t leave the kid a whole lot of room to determine a central irony, formulate a thesis, and support that thesis with references to (or from) the novel. Of course, the prompt does continue, “Additionally, you may want to consider other instances of irony in the text,” just in case you know any. So there _is_ some room here for the kid to actually think.

But he doesn’t have to in order to get a decent grade for this essay.

Now … before you start blubbering your protest (but, but, but, but), let me remind you that I have been the twelfth-grade teacher reading the last-essay-of-the-year papers and the final exams less than forty-eight hours before graduation. I have read “essay” after “essay” in which kids who should have known better just string along a series of sentences—maybe even not really sentences. The “essays” have no discernable thesis, they refer neither to nor from the text, and they do choose unlikely or inappropriate aspects of the literature to discuss. They miss the point of the question.

After enough essays and enough years, the temptation to write the “foolproof” prompt is almost irresistible:

Make sure you have a clear thesis. Don’t forget to indent your paragraphs, and to quote from the story whenever possible. Be certain to discuss both language and theme and to use the word _foil_ at least once. Use the correct name of at least one rhetorical device, and make certain you underline any words or phrases of foreign origin. Mention both the protagonist and antagonist …

After all, we want our kids to do well.

But if I _never_ take my hands off the back of my daughter’s bicycle, she’s _not_ riding well. Seriously, how many pairs of training wheels do you see in bicycle rallies and races?

Yes, kids occasionally fall. Yes, they occasionally fail. (See that kind of clever play on words?) And I am not advocating watching them fall and then simply walking away. I am not removing the teacher and the role of instruction from the equation. But I _am_ reminding you that, if you want to “do rigor,” you have to change the kinds of questions you ask and how you ask them. You have to remove the training wheels and let go of the back of the bike.

Look at _these_ prompts:

1. Study the following passage from chapter IV and write a coherent, well-written essay in which you argue whether or not Lord Lordly and his wife, Lady Lordly, articulate conventional attitudes toward gender roles in marriage. Do not merely summarize the passage.
2. Arthur Sname’s novel not only presents a frank account of a soldier’s experiences in combat, it also highlights the difficulty of reconciling the life of the soldier with the life the civilian life left behind and eventually returned to. Write a well-organized essay in which you examine the anxiety the soldiers experience moving between their lives on the battlefield and their lives at home.
3. Write a well-organized essay in which you explore the central irony of the novel.

They might not be wordy enough to suit your taste—I myself have to admit that especially #3 seems to want some kind of introduction and conclusion—but they are far, far better than their originals because they at least do not do the kid’s work for him.

After all, if you have to remind the kid he needs a thesis, is he _really_ “well-educated”_?

If you have to lay out the essay for the kid, then what are you assessing when you assign the essay in the first place?

All in all, it’s not really all that difficult to “do rigor” in your classroom. Depending on the grade level you’re teaching and your school and district’s curriculum, it’s often simply a matter of changing your approach, broadening your assumptions, trusting your colleagues, and holding the kid responsible for his share of his education.

Stop introducing everything every year.

Don’t even waste your time on comprehension—except in those rare cases when comprehension might really be an issue.

And don’t do the kid’s work for him.

That’s pretty much it.

--

Want to read more? Check out Part I and Part II of this article.

Tuesday Trivia

1. Which American fiction writer began his writing career while working as a pencil sharpener wholesaler in 1911?
2. Tybalt, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is named after which anthropomorphic character?
3. The word “girl” appears only once in what world-famous literary work?
4. Which children’s author wrote his first book in 1936 while crossing the Atlantic on a luxury liner?
5. What was the first book Amazon ever sold?

Last Week's Answers


This little book was the first and most famous of a series of five that included The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848).

A Christmas Carol


What book was the best-seller of the year in America in 1794?

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, which had been published in England the year before--three years after his death.


Which author entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine, but was expelled because he had previously been an apothecary?

Nostradamus was expelled from Montpellier shortly after they discovered he had been an apothecary, a manual trade, which made him ineligible to study at the university.


Who was the inspiration for the popular sixteenth-century nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet?

Patience Muffet, the daughter of the poem's creator, Dr. Thomas Muffet, and entomologist who wrote about spiders more often than he did about his little girl.


Which author stood trial in Mexico in 1951 for shooting his wife?

William S. Burroughs stood trial in Mexico in the early 1950's for shooting his wife during a drunken party game. He spent 13 days and was charged with culpable homicide.

How to “Do” Rigor Part II: Enough with the comprehension questions already!

by Douglas Grudzina

A few weeks ago, Prestwick House had the privilege of hosting an “externship” in cooperation with the Delaware Business and Industry Education Alliance. On the final day, one of the points our teacher-extern made was that, for the past two decades, everyone has been clamoring about (re)introducing “rigor” to the curriculum and to routine teaching and testing practices. Both an experienced Advanced Placement and a relatively new International Baccalaureate teacher, our intern observed that many teachers simply do not know how to “do rigor.” The models of rigorous instruction are few and far between, and often what is labeled “rigorous” is actually the same, old stuff repackaged with a DVD instead of a filmstrip.

At Prestwick House, we like to think that many of our materials do indeed model rigorous instruction and assessment, and we do support initiatives like the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers’ Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is all about rigor. So…to honor our former extern’s request to help her colleagues know “how to do rigor,” here is the second of a three-part series.

Part II: Enough with the comprehension questions already!

In preparation for this blog post, I did a little homework (actually a _very_ little homework). I went to the shelves about seven feet behind me and grabbed an anthology from one of Prestwick House’s competitors.

It doesn’t really matter _which_ anthology because as student and teacher (40+ years all told) I found all the “big book” anthologies to be pretty much the same. Maybe the literature included changed from edition to edition, but what they did with the literature never did.

Trust me, though, that the questions I am going to cite come from an anthology that is _not_ the fifth-grade-level in its series, and it is _not_ a remedial or introductory level in its series.

One of the poems in the poetry section is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” (the one with all the onomatopoeia). The text of the poem ends on the right-hand side of the book (even numbered page), and the questions appear on the left (odd numbered page).

The first section of questions, labeled “Recall”1 (and I’ll rant on that in a minute), include:

• What do the bells in the first two stanzas foretell?
• What bells are introduced in stanza 3?
• What bells does the speaker describe in stanza 4?

(Do you see a possible trend developing here?)

The second section is labeled “Analyze”2 and includes this:

• Identify the different meanings bells have for the speaker.

And the “Evaluate”3 section boasts this:

• Decide whether or not there is a pattern to sentence and stanza length in the poem.

Here are my rants, and then we’ll talk about how to do rigor.

1. If the question comes _on the absolute next page_ after the poem (on the _same two-page spread_ as the poem), we’re not asking the kid to “recall” anything. At best, we’re asking him to flip back a page or two and find the answer.

1. a. Even if we asked the question in an appendix at the end of the book, is the ability to identify “silver bells,” “golden bells,” and “iron bells” the reason we’ve had kids read this poem? Do we really suspect that such identification was the motivation for Poe’s _writing_ the poem?

1. b. Even if we assume that we _must_ ask a certain number of _comprehension_ or “basic, surface understanding” questions (and I think this is a thoroughly anti-rigor assumption), will a march-through-the-chapter series of questions really do what such questions are supposed to do?

2. A question that begins with the verb “identify” is probably ¬_not_ an analysis question—and this one certainly is not. It’s comprehension. It translates into nothing more than, “Go back and paraphrase the word or words the poet uses to describe the feeling he gets from each kind of bell.” Or something like that.

2. a. In a poem that _is_ a huge, extended metaphor; in a poem ¬_full_ of onomatopoeia and other sound effects; in a poem in which the shifting and deteriorating rhythmic pattern _absolutely mirrors the poet’s deteriorating emotional state_, this is the best attempt at “analysis” we can make?

3. This is not an “evaluation” question. It _might be_ an analysis question. It is very close to a comprehension question.

3. a. In this case, the kid doesn’t get to decide anything. Poe already decided that there _would be_ a “pattern to sentence and stanza length,” and he decided what it would be. All the kid needs to do is figure out what that pattern is, and then maybe _evaluate_ the extent to which this pattern helps or hurts the poem (and why).

The first thing you have to do if you want to “do rigor” in your classroom is change the kinds of questions you ask. Everyone talks about Benjamin Bloom. If you’ve been teaching for any length of time, you probably can’t count the number of times you’ve sat through a workshop in which you were told about Bloom as if his first book or article only just came out last week, and memorizing a list of five or six verbs were really going to revolutionize education.

(And among those verbs are indeed, “comprehend,” “analyze,” and “evaluate.”)

Because this is a Prestwick House blog, and because I am a Prestwick House employee—but also because I am very proud of this product and would use it if I were still in the classroom—I’m going to insert this one bit of shameless marketing:

Our new line of reproducibles, _Levels of Understanding: Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Explore Literature_ does a masterful job of working the kids through all levels of Bloom’s thinking skills hierarchy. And it doesn’t just throw around terms like “analyze” and then really ask the kids to only comprehend. You should check it out.

End of shameless promotion, we now return to our regularly-scheduled blog post.

So the first thing you have to do is change the kinds of questions you ask. Why must the majority of every unit plan, every study guide, every … whatever … simply be a “march-through-the-chapter”? Unless I’m in the Cash Cab or playing Team Trivia at a local restaurant, it doesn’t matter whether I remember silver, gold, iron … or whatever. In a poem like this, indeed in most literature (including nonfiction), there are more important things than checking to makes sure the kids know Hester’s hair color and whether the hump is on Chillingworth’s left or right side.

Comprehension is indeed on Bloom’s taxonomy, and it is true that you can’t really analyze the finer points of an argument if you don’t understand the argument … but that does not open up every single trivial detail to scrutiny. In fact, I’d go so far as to say …

... There are only two suitable reasons for asking a comprehension question:

1. Is it a hard, complex, or complicated fact (something the kid might actually misunderstand)?

Let’s face it; the kid’s not likely to mistake an iron bell for a platinum one. He’s not likely to confuse a wedding with a funeral.

Some facts, however, _are_ potentially confusing:

Linton (first name) is the son of Heathcliff (no last name) and Isabella Linton (last name). He is the nephew and heir of Edgar Linton (last name), Isabella’s brother. Catherine Linton is the daughter of Edgar Linton and Catherine Earnshaw. She is, therefore, Linton (first name)’s cousin.

In order to understand how Heathcliff ends up owning both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, these family relationships are pretty essential, but since the names are so similar (i.e., identical), even a good and careful reader needs to pause and make sure he’s/she’s understanding the basic facts of the story.

But to waste the kid’s time and mental energy reciting the names of the two houses, or how Heathcliff came to live at Wuthering Heights, etc., is … uh … a waste of time and mental energy. Some comprehension simply needs to be assumed, or we’ll never get any further up the scale.

But there is another reasonable justification to work with the kid on the comprehension level:

2. Is it important? Must the kid be especially aware of this fact in order to understand something deeper or something important that will happen later?

This is what I call—feel free to use it, but do give me credit—“the gun in the desk drawer.” In the final pages of the book-story-play, the protagonist is trapped in the study with no hope of escape. The antagonist breaks in the door and rushes toward the pro, who takes cover behind the desk. _If the pro is going to reach into a desk drawer and pull out a gun with which to shoot the ant, that gun needs to be placed in that drawer in Chapter 2._ (or Act I or some time earlier in the story.) Because you want the kid to be able to anticipate pro’s using the gun, because you want pro’s finding the gun to _not_ be a _deus ex machina_, when your student reads the chapter or act or whatever in which the author establishes the presence of the gun, it _is_ worth the time and mental energy to pause and point it out. Just to make sure.

The flip side of this is, if the gun is in the drawer because the anti-gun pro took it from his/her son because the son was being careless, and if pro’s using the gun to shoot ant establishes the author’s pro-gun theme, it’s probably worth a minute to make sure the kid does note the gun in the drawer, even if it’s not an obscure or complicated story fact.

And that’s it. Why else would you want to dwell on the surface … What did she do? What did he say? What color was the red jacket? and so on …

Comprehension is not all that hard. It’s ¬_certainly_ not hard to peruse “The Bells” and find “silver = sleigh ride = merriment,” “gold = wedding = happiness,” “brass = alarm = fright,” and so on. Is that _really_ what we want the kid to get out of this poem?

So get rid of the comprehension questions already! If you want to “do rigor,” then when the kid reports to class, you have to hit the ground running … how do the synesthesic adjectives contribute to the overall feeling of the poem (crystalline delight)? What’s happens to the established rhythm pattern as we proceed through sections III and IV?

How do tone and mood mimic meaning?

That’s the good stuff.

That’s rigor.

PS

It also helps if you’re honest with your kids about what you’re asking them to do. One of my big gripes with the anthology (and it is a real, honest-to-goodness anthology used in many a high school classroom) is that it misidentifies a comprehension question as “analysis,” and it calls something “evaluation” which is not the least bit evaluative. It happens a lot in this particular book.

It’s pretty much the opposite of rigor.

--

Want to read more? Check out Part I and Part III of this article.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

Join Prestwick House in celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, which begins each year on September 15 — the anniversary of independence for the Latin countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

Share with your students the rich culture of a variety of Hispanic nations by sharing new stories and authors. Check out sites like GetCaughtReading.org for a list of influential Hispanic authors, the Educator Page at Thinkfinity.com, and a wide variety of multicultural books and teaching materials available at PrestwickHouse.com.




When I Was Puerto Rican
Esmeralda Santiago

A universal coming-of-age story, this autobiographical memoir tells of Santiago's childhood in Puerto Rico and subsequent move to America. Her process of acclimating to a new culture and language — all while undergoing adolescence — is an experience your students will find both compelling and resonant.

Paperback |
Teaching Unit | PDF | Class Set Package




Esperanza Rising
Pam Munoz Ryan

Believable, insightful, and sincere, the emotional quality of this “riches to rags” story will captivate you and your students. When tragedy strikes Esperanza’s wealthy and respected family, they must start anew, working hard and struggling to make a living. Winner of the Pura Belpre Award and Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Book of the Year.

Paperback | Spanish Version
PowerPack | PDF




How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Julia Alvarez

Yolanda's father is a wealthy man who provides his family with a comfortable lifestyle until the political situation in the Dominican Republic forces them to flee to the safety of New York City. Yolanda and her three sisters must adjust to a new culture and a reduction in their lifestyle. The sisters, torn between two cultures, struggle to establish their self-identities in their new home.

Paperback
Teaching Unit | PDF | Class Set Package




The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros

This modern classic, rich in Latino heritage, tells the story of Esperanza, a young Hispanic girl living in the Latino section of Chicago. Using poems and stories that lend themselves to classroom use, Esperanza gives insight into the modern Hispanic-American experience.

Paperback | Complete Teacher's Kit
Teaching Unit | PDF | Class Set Package
Activity Pack | PDF | Class Set Package
Response Journal | PDF | Class Set Package
Multiple Perspectives | PDF | Class Set Package


Bless Me, Ultima
Rudolfo Anaya

For those seeking ethnic diversity in their literature curriculum, Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima, a classic of Chicano literature, is a superior choice. While Anaya's novel explores many universal themes, including the struggle of good over evil, it is, essentially, a tale of the loss of innocence.

Paperback | Hardcover | Complete Teacher's Kit
Teaching Unit | PDF | Class Set Package
Activity Pack | PDF | Class Set Package
Response Journal | PDF | Class Set Package



Other Great Multicultural Reads Available at PrestwickHouse.com:

Before We Were Free
Cool Salsa
One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday Trivia

1. This little book was the first and most famous of a series of five that included The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848).
2. What book was the best-seller of the year in America in 1794?
3. Which author entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine, but was expelled because he had previously been an apothecary?
4. Who was the inspiration for the popular sixteenth-century nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet?
5. Which author stood trial in Mexico in 1951 for shooting his wife?

Last Week's Answers


What famous opening line of one of America’s most famous poems was actually intended to parody the clichéd opening of a fairy tale?

“Once upon a midnight dreary …” Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven

Which nineteenth-century British novelist’s pet was quite possibly the inspiration for the eponymous fowl in a nineteenth-century American poet’s most famous work?

Charles Dickens’s pet raven, Grip, may have been the inspiration for Poe’s The Raven.

Which British Poet Laureate is credited with coining the term “autobiography” in an 1809 article for the _Quarterly Review_?

Robert Southey


To whom did Charles Dickens offer to reveal the ending of his (unfinished final) novel, _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_? (Hint: she said “No, thank you,” and Dickens died, so no one knows how the novel was supposed to end!)

Queen Victoria.

What are Teacher Reviewers Saying About Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT?

Recently, we received feedback on our new Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT series from teachers on the Prestwick House National Curriculum Advisory Board. Read quotations from teachers below

The words are defined, organized, used in context with multiple practices, and even gives the opportunity to practice new roots and prefixes. I also find the practice English sentences to be incredibly useful.

All students, whether taking the ACT or not, need to improve vocabulary skills. They also need to be able to read for errors. Learning root words and prefixes is an easy and organized way of improving vocabulary skills as well. This product does meet a demand!

Leticia C. Geldart

There is an increased emphasis on vocabulary in state and national standards. This guide will not only prepare students for the ACT, but will also increase their comprehension in all disciplines.

Sara Zeek

Perhaps one of the hardest things to help students with is giving them a depth of vocabulary that will aid them not only on the ACT but also in college. This is a helpful approach with extremely accessible exericses.

Janice Mullan

A well-educated student must have an extensive vocabulary that is often not well-developed without formal vocabulary study. The ability to read and comprehend what is read is important both to success in the classroom and success in life.The variety of exercises included ensure that students do not simply memorize a word for a test and then forget it. They get a sense of when and how to use the word which makes it more likely that they will remember and use newly acquired vocabulary.

I am impressed with the variety of exercises for each lesson and the use of review lessons to aid retention. These review lessons introduce additional exercises such as crosswords. While primarily designed for the ACT, the vocabulary and exercises reflect the vocabulary and skills required to be successful on other standardized tests.

Cynthia Byers

The materials covered in the book will not only improve the student's vocabulary, but also in Revising and Editing. This will undoubtedly serve them well when writing essays/preparing for higher level courses.

Luis Garza

Good organization; well-aligned with what the ACT expects students to know and be able to do (writing and critical reading especially, as there are fewer materials available that focus on these along with vocabulary instruction); periodic reviews after each set of seven chapters; rubrics for evaluating writing; state standards listed (an excellent item to include!)

Sharon King-Hanley

The format is easy for students to access and use. I like the presentation - word, definition, part of speech, use in a sentence, synonyms, antonyms, words in context. All material students need to know when learning a new word. I like the periodic review of words with sentence completions and a puzzle. Different formats for learning.

Cherylin J Roeser

How to “Do” Rigor Part I: How many teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb (or introduce a literary concept)?

by Douglas Grudzina

A few weeks ago, Prestwick House had the privilege of hosting an “externship” in cooperation with the Delaware Business and Industry Education Alliance. On the final day, one of the points our teacher-extern made was that, for the past two decades, everyone has been clamoring about (re)introducing “rigor” to the curriculum and to routine teaching and testing practices. Both an experienced Advanced Placement and a relatively new International Baccalaureate teacher, our intern observed that many teachers simply do not know how to “do rigor.” The models of rigorous instruction are few and far between, and often what is labeled “rigorous” is actually the same, old stuff repackaged with a DVD instead of a filmstrip.

At Prestwick House, we like to think that many of our materials do indeed model rigorous instruction and assessment, and we do support initiatives like the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers’ Common Core State Standards Initiative, which is all about rigor. So…to honor our former extern’s request to help her colleagues know “how to do rigor,” here is the first of a three-part series.

Part I: How many teachers does it take to screw in a light bulb (or introduce a literary concept)?

Admit it. How many times have you had a kid ask you, “When am I ever going to use this stuff?” Tell the truth. You know the question comes up just about every time you get into grammatical, rhetorical, linguistic, or literary terminology. You introduce the term, provide a definition and several superb examples, and the wise guy with the sideways baseball cap in the back of the room shouts out, _When am I ever going to use this stuff?_

Sadly, in far, far, far too many English language arts classrooms, the true answer is, “Never…because it’s going to be introduced to you every year from now until you graduate from high school.”

It’s no longer a new and controversial idea that children (and adults, for that matter) learn new words, not from word-of-the-day calendars or weekly vocabulary lists, but by listening and reading and then speaking and writing. We hear a new word. We guess at its meaning from the context. We might ask for clarification, and we might actually consult a dictionary (or similar source). But the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, we first encounter the word in use.

And … if we never ever hear the word again, or see it in print, or use it in our own speaking and writing, we will probably never “learn” it. It will not be a word we readily understand if and when we do encounter it.

But words we do use a lot—even “hard” words—we remember.

So, depending on what grade(s) you teach, how many times are we going to give our kids the same list of requisite terms brimming with definitions and examples? How many years in a row can we ask a kid to look at the same goofy poster that defines a literary term and offers a caricatured illustration of something? As if he’d never heard the word before!

If, once it’s introduced, all we do with a term like antithesis or metaphor or synecdoche—or, more importantly, if all we do with the concept—is point out that such-and-such a paragraph contains one, then we’re essentially telling the kid who asks _When am I ever going to use this?_ that he isn’t.

Consider the following question. (It’s a made-up question and does not refer to anything in this post, so don’t really try to answer it; you’ll only get frustrated.)

The third paragraph uses all of the following literary devices EXCEPT

A. metaphor.

B. simile.

C. onomatopoeia.

D. alliteration.

E. hyperbole.

On the surface, this seems like a perfectly legitimate question—questions like it often appear on large-scale assessments like AP, SAT, ACT, GRE, etc., etc. (actually, these specific terms are pretty basic for AP) … But there are actually very few and very narrow windows of instruction during which questions like this are valid.

The first is during large-scale assessment, the kind of test that the kid is (theoretically) going to take only once and that’s designed to assess the quality of his entire k – 12 education. Kids who get questions like this wrong are saying something very important about what they learned (or _didn’t_ learn) in school.

The second is within a week or two of the teacher’s introducing the newest of the five terms to the students. That’s a matter of curriculum. If your curriculum assigns these terms to, say, seventh grade, then this is a valid seventh-grade question. But if your curriculum assigns these terms to fifth and sixth grades, then the seventh- (or eighth- or ninth- or tenth-) grade teacher has no business asking such a question … _ever_. (Well, not with those terms.)

What the seventh- and eighth- and ninth- (etc., etc.) teacher _can and should_ do is _actually use_ the terms in regular classroom discourse.

_Don’t you think the onomatopoeia in Poe’s “The Bells” absolutely makes the poem?_

_How does the consonance in the first sentence of “The Fall of the House of Usher” contribute to the tone and mood of the story’s opening?_

_Compare Poe’s frequent use of the trochaic foot with Dr. Seuss’s use of the anapest. How is the poet’s choice of metric pattern appropriate (or inappropriate) for the subject matter of the poem?_

Yes … I am assuming the kid knows what a trochaic foot and an anapest are. I am assuming she’s been introduced to onomatopoeia and consonance. But even if my curriculum has reserved the introduction of those terms and concepts for the specific grade I teach, once I’ve introduced the terms, if I really want my kids talking and writing intelligently about language and literature, _I’ll find ways to make my kids use the terms_!

By the way, the Common Core State Standards developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have this: “Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song” as a Reading/Literature standard for grade -_Two_.

Which question is more fun to discuss:

_What is the metrical patter of Poe’s “Annabel Lee”?_
(irregular anapestic tetrameter/trimeter)

or

_Why is the metrical pattern of Poe’s “Annabel Lee” ironic?_
(because the anapestic foot suggests a lighthearted, musical effect, and the poem is about a necrophiliac)

So … one way to “do rigor” in your English class is to break out of the rut of constant introduction, definition, and identification. Even if the kid doesn’t (or pretends not to) know a term that was supposed to have been introduced earlier in the curriculum (like second grade!), you don’t need to reteach it. Most of the evidence suggests he’ll pick up the term just fine by hearing it, seeing it, and being … uh … _encouraged_ to use it in normal discourse.

Even if it is _your job_ to introduce your kid to the term, after you’ve introduced it, _use it_. Are you _really_ going to admit that your kids aren’t ever going to use these terms? (Well, they might come up on an SAT question …)

Another, related, way to “do rigor” is to keep clear for yourself the difference between the term and the concept. This post has been about introducing and using _terminology_ in your classroom. Kids develop an understanding of the _concepts_ much, much earlier—often even before they begin school.

Onomatopoeia might be a new word (and very challenging to spell) to a fifth-grader. But toddlers understand the idea of _clap, clap, tick, tock, bang, crash,_ and _sizzle_.

Synecdoche and metonymy sound like a million-dollar words, but even little kids enjoy the non-literalness of lending a hand, holding one’s tongue, and having busy fingers. (Well, some research—Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Günter Radden. _ Metonymy in Language and Thought_. Philadelphia: John Benjamins North America, 1999.—suggests that kids don’t really develop a strong sense of metonymy until four or five years of age—but that’s still way before high school when we typically “introduce” it.

When you introduce these terms, you are not opening new worlds of ideas for the kid, you are merely giving him a name for something he already knows. If you teach it like that, he’s much more likely to remember (and use) the terms, and you’ll be much less likely to keep the kid at the level of identifying things that he’s been playing around with since before kindergarten.

So “rigor” isn’t really all that hard to achieve. It doesn’t require a huge overhaul of your curriculum or a mass dumping of all of your previous lesson plans. It does, however, require a slight shift in paradigm, an admission that you are not solely responsible for every bit of knowledge the kid will ever acquire, and a suspicion that your kids really do know more than they’re letting on.

So, it’s really like that old self-fulfilling prophesy (actually, it _is_ the old, self-fulfilling prophesy): our kids will be as dumb as we let them or as smart as we require them.

Why let them off too easy?

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Want to read more? Check out Part II and Part III of this article.

Tuesday Trivia

1. What famous opening line of one of America’s most famous poems was actually intended to parody the clichéd opening of a fairy tale?
2. Which nineteenth-century British novelist’s pet was quite possibly the inspiration for the eponymous fowl in a nineteenth-century American poet’s most famous work?
3. Which British Poet Laureate is credited with coining the term “autobiography” in an 1809 article for the _Quarterly Review_?
4. To whom did Charles Dickens offer to reveal the ending of his (unfinished final) novel, _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_? (Hint: she said “No, thank you,” and Dickens died, so no one knows how the novel was supposed to end!)

Last Week's Answers

Nineteenth-century Shakespearian actor Edmund Keen collapsed onstage while performing the eponymous role in this Shakespearean tragedy. He died three months later, some say of having expended so much in his performance. (Hint: He collapsed during Act III, scene iii.)

Othello


Nineteenth-century British actress Ellen Ternan may or may not have had an affair with this famous Victorian novelist, though he most certainly separated from his wife for her and provided her with a £1,000 bequest and a trust fund sufficient to guarantee that she would never have to work again.

Charles Dickens


While most of this writer’s obituaries dismissed him as a writer of pornography who had “wasted his considerable talents,” colleague E. M. Forster praised him as “the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.”

D. H. Lawrence


In which Thomas Hardy novel does an adolescent murder his siblings and then commit suicide, leaving a note that says, “Done because we are too menny”?

Jude the Obscure

Prestwick House Develops New ACT Prep Program Based on Best-Selling Vocabulary Power Plus for the New SAT Series

September 1, 2011, Smyrna, DE — This week, Prestwick House will introduce its first vocabulary series tailored to the needs of ACT students, Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT.

Based on the same techniques used in Prestwick House’s best-selling Vocabulary Power Plus for the New SAT vocabulary series with over 700,000 copies sold since 2004, Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT is now available for students in grades 9-12.

“This series is based on both NCTE/IRA scientific research and the ACT itself,” says author, Daniel Reed. “Because of this, teachers will be able to give their students quality ACT test prep while simultaneously adhering to best practices in teaching vocabulary.”

“With the number of vocabulary words students are expected to learn, and the limited amount of time available to teachers in the classroom, it makes sense to create a program that can maximize both student ACT scores and word retention.”

While the ACT exam has been taken by students across all fifty states since 1960, ACT.org reports that the number of students taking the test has grown significantly in the past ten years. In 2010, 27 states reported over 50% of the student population as test-takers.

“With the increased number of students preparing for the ACT test and a lack of ACT-specific vocabulary products on the market, we wanted to make sure that teachers had what they need to help their students excel,” says Prestwick House Brand Manager, Jerry Clark.

“Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT covers not only vocabulary, but also reading, writing, and grammar in a logically structured format. While skills learned through Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT are universally useful, the series is specifically tailored for use as preparation for the ACT — something that we think teachers of ACT test-takers will find extremely useful.”

In addition to teaching vocabulary, this series provide students with practice on ACT-style questions and provides effective writing strategies that will prepare them for the ACT writing component.

“We provide ACT-style questions so that exam takers will be familiar with the structure of the language portion of the ACT on the morning they take it. The series helps test takers develop the cautious aggression necessary to succeed on any assessment test, whether ACT or SAT,” explains Reed.
“The ACT writing test is about getting your idea on paper in a short amount of time—not editing or proofreading or rewriting, because there’s very little time (30 minutes) for revision. Developing a rapid writing strategy for use with any topic is essential.”

Along with student workbooks, a teacher’s edition, and multiple versions of test packages, the Vocabulary Power Plus for the New ACT series contains helpful Introduction Presentations and Practice Presentations. Introduction Presentations familiarize students with words at the beginning of each unit and help them grasp shades of meaning by using words in an authentic context. Practice Presentations ensure that students have a firm understanding of new words provides the practice they need to retain them.

Currently, Prestwick House is looking for school partners to test the effectiveness of Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT on students’ ACT scores. If you are interested in partnering with Prestwick House to try out this new program in exchange for free vocabulary materials, please contact Keith Bergstrom at keith@prestwickhouse.com or (302)-659-2070 x131.

To learn more about Vocabulary Power Plus for the ACT, call (800)-932-4593 or visit www.PrestwickHouse.com.