Last Tuesday, I started year number twenty-one in the classroom - and on the first day of school, as soon as the bell rang - the students and I had what I like to call "Real Talk."
I want to know why disengagement was so rampant last year.
I want to know why so many students just flipped the switch and arrested their love of learning.
I want to know why last year was by far the toughest year of all the previous twenty combined.
I know the answers ... but I want my students to give voice to it.
Relevancy
So much of what we as teachers do holds zero relevancy in the lives of our students.
I have relative freedom as far as curricular decisions go, so I made the following pact:
All instruction must be relevant, or we ain't doing it!!
So, our first argument paper of the year is addressing the the following line from an article published by Laura Ascione:
"Students cite the primary driver for their struggles in education as the perceived lack of relevance between life and their studies"
Per usual, in my writing workshop video for this particular essay, I "Bob Ross" my way through the entire paper while pulling the strings of my templates.
Given that this is the first paper of the year, there are a TON of exemplars and models for you and your students to glance at.
If you struggled last year to engage your students, I cannot recommend any higher running this lesson with your students.
I can already tell that the dynamics of this year are going to be far better than the last.
But what about those dang-napping cellphones?
Folks know that I love to use Oscar nominated short films in my classroom, so to address this conundrum, our second argument paper will feature Steve Cutts' film "Mobile World."
Cutts provides a scathing social rebuke about our mobile world.
Students need to defend, qualify, challenge, or refute his position.
You guessed it ... I "Bob Ross-ed" the heck out of this one too!
When I make curriculum, whether it be a unit or a lesson, I ask myself two questions:
- Will this engage my most reluctant learner?
- Will it challenge my two best students?
These two questions are critical if we are to close the relevancy gap.
If you'd like to work together building some stellar content while learning a toolbox of my tricks and trades, come join me and the good folks at The National Writing Project for my Teach It "Write" 5-Week Mastermind, which will begin the evening of September 25th at 7 EST live in Zoom.
We will meet for five consecutive weeks; each session is an hour long - recordings will be made available.
The big kicker - for those of you needing PD hours, NWP assigns a completion badge of ten hours!
Registration is now open.
Reach out if you have any questions or if you would like any of the slides featured in the new videos.
Happy teaching and happy writing!
0 comments