Teaching Theme with Year 9

My Harvest Home by John Glover

Imagine this. It's Week 1 of Term 1, and I have a class of 25-odd Year 9 students, fresh from their triumphant journey through Year 8, ready to face a new year with a new English teacher.

I stand at the front of the room. The first topic for the year is Poetry.

Crickets chirp.

Poetry can sometimes be a bit of a hard sell when it comes to teaching 14 year-olds. And these are students I've never taught before; it's Day One, Topic One. I don't know any of these kids yet. 

The weeks start rolling by. I've decided to focus on the Indigenous perspective of Australia as seen through the lens of poetry, drawing on ideas from this text:

The students respond well to it. We learn about some techniques, how to annotate a poem, and what context is: the time, the place, the reasons a poet might write a certain poem. But a bubbling and largely unacknowledged bassline rumbles under it all: theme. So I ask, What ideas are being communicated? 

My students look at me blankly.

High school English is a curious beast for students to come to grip with. Many come along in Year 7 quite well-equipped with knowledge of grammar, sentence construction, techniques... but one thing tends to remain elusive; what is a 'theme'? Even by Year 9 a lot of students are still trying to get their heads around it.

A theme is an idea, or a concept. The terminology here, like a lot of things in teaching, can be tricky because these words are used in different ways in different contexts. 'Concept' is now being used with a very specific purpose in the English Textual Concepts framework, so it's probably best to steer clear of this term. I actually also prefer to avoid the term 'theme' because 'theme' can have specific connotations relating to grammar and music, but it's a term that's quite difficult to get away from in English due to its ubiquity. 

So I try to stick to 'idea' for the most part, though I am guilty of reverting back to theme with grades 7-9. The materials here refer to 'theme'. 

Back to the point of this blog: my Head Teacher has been liaising with Wayne Sawyer from Western Sydney University over the last 8 months as part of a research project concerning mini-lessons (a teaching phenomenon pioneered by Nancie Atwell in the U.S.), so I've taken this approach to teach theme. 

The PowerPoint presentation is just two slides. The first slide explains what a theme is, and students can make a few notes about it if you like. Then the next slide is a 1835 painting by John Glover called My Harvest Home. 

The point of using a painting in a poetry unit is to drive home the transcendent nature of a theme. I want the students to make connections between different kinds of texts with the theme as the common factor. By examining different mediums that explore the same idea, students should hopefully be able to identify this one common factor that stands out. My Harvest Home is a colonial Australian painting that taps into the pastoral myth that formed the basis of late 19th century Australian identity. Students don't need to know this, but the vision of European settlers farming in the sunshine provides a provocative counterpoint to the version of Australian history that's seen in most Aboriginal poetry. 

The second slide features a collection of questions designed to provoke student thought about the ideas that fuel this artwork. It can be discussed as a class, and then the teacher can use this discussion to come up with a class response (that's what the white rectangle is for on the slide - it's a space for a class definition).

Theme and context are tied very closely together, and I found it useful to bring things back to the over-arching ideas of the unit with a series of questions that reinforced prior knowledge about context and perspective. 

1. What kind of person do you think John Glover was? What can you guess about his context from this painting?
2. 1835 Australia... Whose point of view is missing from this text?
3. Why do you think that is?
4. Do you think this painting is a realistic depiction of 1835?
5. If this painting were a poem, what kind of words would be used? Make a list of 15 adjectives, verbs and nouns that could be used. 
6. Write that poem!

Resource:
1. PowerPoint presentation on 'Theme' 

Turning Points of WWI

 

As I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog before, the sheer abundance of content that needs to be taught in Modern History can be a tad overwhelming. One of the challenges of the mandatory First World War topic is that we need to teach the skill of source analysis alongside the dot points outlined in the syllabus, all whilst selecting information from the wealth of sources on WWI out there. 

Usually by the time I get to teaching the 'turning points' section of the HSC Modern History syllabus I've already explicitly covered trench warfare, the home fronts, and a fair deal of source analysis. This means that I often feel like it's time for a more student-directed or project-based approach. But bfore I get to that, it's still necessary to ensure that students have a strong base knowledge of the three major turning points of the war:

1. The withdrawal of the Russians from the war.
2. The entry of the U.S. into the war.
3. Ludendorff's Spring Offensive.

While doing this, it's hard not to feel like one is getting bogged down in delivering the content to the students in the same way, over and over again. I get very conscious that I'm boring the Year 12s, so I try very hard to introduce a variety of ways in which they can interact with the information, summarise it, re-contextualise it, and show their comprehension of it.

Without belabouring my thinking too much in this blog, here's the resource itself: Turning Points of WWI. It's a booklet that covers each of the three turning points (the second of which is accompanied by a PPT: The USA and WWI) and ends with four project options that students must choose from to show that they've understood what's come beforehand. 

Further explanation of the booklet:

1. The section on Russia's withdrawal from the war features a cause-and-effect graphic representation that students must re-interpret into a timeline. After that, they can then make a judgement call about which factor they think was the biggest influence on Russia's decision.
2. The U.S.A. section requires students to take notes from the PowerPoint, sorting the information into three columns: USA before the war, Reasons for USA's entry into the war, and Impact of USA on the war. 
3. Ludendorff's Spring Offensive is covered in a more straightforward fashion, with students reading notes and observing the map before answering two questions about Ludendorff's intentions and the overall effectiveness of the plan.
4. The final page features the four project options
1. Create an A3 timeline of all the Turning Points that incorporates symbols and images to show understanding.
2. Write an essay addressing the question, To what extent was the entry of the U.S. into the First World War the deciding factor for Allied Victory?
3. Design a full colour 1917 propaganda poster that deals with one of these ideas:
1. German point of view: Why the U.S. should not be involved in the war.
2. U.S. point of view: Why the U.S. should be involved in the war.
3. Russian point of view: Why Russia should not be involved in the war.
4. Create a PPT presentation to show the rest of the class. This presentation should outline each of the major turning points plus include your opinion about which turning point was the most significant/important.

Paperman and Assessment FOR Learning

One of my favourite things about the new Australian curriculum is the clarification of assessment into the categories 'as', 'of', and 'for'. It takes the summative/formative dichotomy that extra step further and puts the emphasis back onto the process of learning rather than just the end point.

I know, right, I'm an exciting guy. 

For each of my classes I try to build in some informal diagnostic assessment (assessment for learning) that lets me know where each of my students are at. There are a few reasons for doing this:

1. Know Your Students. It helps me get to know my students - if I can't see how they respond to certain kinds of activities then I won't be of much help to them as the topic progresses.    
2. Structured Teaching. As an individual, I respond well to structure, so having a process that puts students through a standardised task appeals to me.
3. Teaching and Learning Cycle. Pre-test, diagnostic task, or assessment for learning - whatever you want to call it - this stage of the Teaching and Learning Cycle allows me to collect data that can be used as a starting point for each term. It also informs my reporting; writing reports is always easier when I have a bunch of figures in front of me that I can line up against my personal impression of each student. The more figures I have, the closer I'll get to accurately representing their true ability.
4. Differentiation. The push at most schools right now is for differentiated curriculum, something that has grown as a response to the mixed ability classroom and as a way to support teachers in catering for the widest possible array of learners. A great way to establish loose streams of 'Adjusted', 'Core' and 'Extension' students within the classroom is to use a diagnostic test at the start of a unit. 
5. Student Response. Presenting work as an informal assessment seems to make the kids sit up a little straighter in class. What I mean is, students take this work a little more seriously than most student-centered work I put down in front of them. In addition, I always try to make it clear why they're doing each informal assessment by linking it to skills that they will need for upcoming formal assessment tasks.

An effective assessment for learning should connect to what I'm looking to assess towards the end of the same unit. What I plan to assess should inform every part of the unit (backwards mapping yo!), so this is always my starting point. In this case the plan is to have students write an exposition piece in which they persuade their audience. The argument they have to make is: why Tim Winton's Blueback should win the 'Novel of the Year' award.

I actually jumped into this blog post with a specific activity and resource in mind, so now that I've gotten all the context out of the way I can do what I came here to do: talk about Paperman.

Paperman is a fantastic and dialogue-free award-winning animated film by Disney. I use it as a diagnostic text that can help me quickly check on the students' analytical and persuasive writing skills before we do Blueback for the rest of the term.

First, we watch the film. As there's no dialogue and it only goes for five minutes, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find many kids who can't get into it. While watching, the students can start collecting some ideas about their impressions of the film by filling in this sheet: Thinking About Paperman. Have them watch the film at least twice and model at least one idea on the board so they can see the sort of things they can write. You can even got a step further and have the whole class contribute opinions and make a big class example on the board so students can fill their sheets up nice and full.

The next step is, in the next lesson, have your students sit the diagnostic test. This should roughly take half a lesson. Give your students as long as they want though, if a Year 7 student has it in them to spend the whole lesson writing their responses up, then give them that time. This is their chance to show what they're capable of. I even let some students take the sheet home and complete it there if they're that way inclined - I know I can't always focus in a noisy room of about 30 people, so if a student wants to do well by completing the task in a quieter environment then who am I to stand in their way?

Here's the diagnostic test: "Here I am!" It breaks down as follows.

Section 1 is a series of True or False questions that test general comprehension. It's important to allow a section that doesn't require much in the way of writing because if we want to assess comprehension then we shouldn't let a student's inability to write get in the way of that. Writing and comprehending are two completely separate skills. Sometimes we have to make sure that we're assessing one thing at a time. Plus it never hurts to let students succeed in English without having to be great writers, especially at a Year 7 level when we want to encourage engagement with English as much as possible and set them up for a long-term journey.

Section 2 tests vocabulary through the use of a 'best fit' cloze passage. The word bank includes more than one correct answer for each missing word, however, students are asked to pick the best word to complete each statement. This lets the teacher see how far the students' vocabulary extends.

Section 3 is where the actual mechanics of writing are looked at. This means articulating ideas, showing an ability to elaborate on ideas, structuring writing into paragraphs, writing for an audience, and showing an ability to evaluate. Very few students will be able to achieve full marks in this section, and the criteria has been intentionally 'amped' up so that we can avoid the students 'topping out'*. It needs to be difficult because if we're not looking for that tiny percentage of students who can do these really sophisticated and unexpected things, then we're never going to find those students in the first place.

Here's the marking criteria/answers: "Hello there!"

One more thing before I finish up; if you do decide to use this diagnostic assessment and collect some data it's worth keeping in mind that this information is just for you, the teacher, rather than for the students and their parents. I don't hand the papers back with the results because I don't think it's particularly useful for the students. It's not the sort of assessment that students have a chance to study for so it wouldn't be fair to give marks back to them. Plus it could be potentially demoralising to give students access to marks accrued in a test that has been deliberately 'stretched out' to accommodate the largest possible range of student ability. If any students ask for their marks (and very few do, because I don't use the word 'assessment' when I talk to them about this task) then I would simply tell them that the information was just for me and that the marks don't count towards their reports.

*By 'topping out' I mean that I don't want every student meeting the criteria too easily and getting full marks. If this happened then it would mean that I'm not extending my measurements far enough to see where their abilities end. This is another good reason why the students shouldn't be given their marks back: only the most gifted will achieve 'A-range' results.

Trotsky and the Splitting of the Socialist Democratic Workers' Party.

Lenin; the leader of the Bolshevik faction, and Martov; an historical footnote.

From a teacher's point of view, untangling the political landscape of Socialist Russia circa 1900-1905 can be a little tricky. I see one of the primary challenges as this:

How do I make this interesting or clear enough for my students to remember it? 

Of course, there are other issues to consider as well, like: 

• How much of this stuff is going to be relevant to the study of Trotsky?
• How do I avoid getting bogged down in just teaching content rather than skills?
• How can I check that students have taken in what I want them to take in?

What follows is a single lesson that covers the narrative of Trotsky's first escape from Russia, his meeting with Lenin in London, the split of the Socialist Democratic Workers' Party into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, and the Menshevik attempt to ally themselves with the Liberals.

It's a lot to ask students to process all this, especially when it concerns such a small segment of Trotsky's overall story, so I've deliberately kept my PowerPoint presentation quite simplistic in terms of detail. The real goal of the lesson is for students to be able to take in this information and then retell it in their own words. Here's a breakdown of the lesson and resources:

1. Move through the PPT with the students, reading each slide out and clarifying details. This presentation covers the narrative.

2. Students use the Scaffold Grid to summarise the PPT. For each slide, students are to write one point into a square of the grid. There are 12 squares for the 12 slides.

3a. Ask students to read over the notes they've put into the Scaffold Grid. Then tell them to flip the sheet over so they can't see what they've written. The final step is for students to retell the story of Trotsky and the Bolsheviks/Mensheviks using their (fresh) memory. The previous sheet should assist the students in building up their summary skills before they are asked to work in a semi-exam condition where they can't rely on their notes.

3b. It is, of course, possible to negotiate with your students. I might say to one, "You may look at your notes only 3 times while writing the 'story' out". The important thing is that they just have a go and try to increase their reliance on themselves because - as we all know - once they sit down in the HSC exam 'themselves' is all they've got. The trick is to get them writing without having to refer to any notes.

Resources:

1. PowerPoint presentation

2. Scaffold Grid

Matching Russian Timeline to Animal Farm

How great is Animal Farm? That's a rhetorical question, of course, but feel free to let me know how great you think it is anyway. 

I've just finished putting together all my resources for an Animal Farm/Elysium comparative study. I'm doing this with my Preliminary Advanced class for Term 2, and I'm looking forward to teaching it and discussing it and doing all those teacherly things.

A lot of the comparative study is context-driven, which means talking about Orwell, class divisions, allegory, fables, etc. Perhaps the most significant contextual element when it comes to Animal Farm is 20th Century Russian history; it would certainly be very difficult indeed to teach the allegorical function of Orwell's modern 'fairy story' without drawing comparisons between it and the Russian Revolution. 

The resource below pulls together a series of characters and plot points from Animal Farm and comparable events/people from Russian history. Students read through the sheet and must decide for themselves which elements from Russia fit with Orwell's text. 

Animal Farm and Russian History - Mix and Match Activity

Here are the answers for teacher-reference.

A. Karl Marx formulates the theory of Communism matches with Old Major comes up with the philosophy of Animalism.

B. Tsar Nicholas II's poor leadership leads to famine and food shortages matches with Mr Jones rules over the farm and forgets to feed his livestock. 

C. The aristocracy (upper class) exploits the peasants and workers matches with Man does not produce anything, and instead lives off the work of the animals.

D. Stalin makes a deal with Hitler, who then invades Russia. England does not help because they see Stalin as evil matches with Napoleon makes a deal with his enemy, Frederick. The farmer then betrays him. Meanwhile, the other farmer, Pilkington refuses to help after being treated poorly by Animal Farm in the past.

E. Stalin encourages a 'cult of personality' wherein he is worshipped by the Russian people matches with Napoleon is worshiped as the 'Father of All Animals'.

F. Stalin pushes the Russian people to complete his 'Five Year Plans' so that Russia can become more modern matches with The animals are put to work with the extremely difficult goal of building a windmill. 

G. The Tsar is kicked off the throne after the Russian Revolution matches with The animals take over the farm and chase Mr Jones out. 

H. Marxism teaches that labour should be divided equally by all people matches with The animals decide that all work should be shared by all. 

I. Stalin is not a particularly popular leader but he excels at playing people off against each other matches with Napoleon is not charismatic but is able to use certain other animals to his advantage.

J. The Russian peasants and workers (the proletariat) live in very poor conditions matches with The animals' lives are "miserable, laborious and short".

K. Stalin forces his enemies to confess in public 'show trials' before executing them. This is known as 'The Purges' matches with Animals are forced to confess to false crimes before being executed.

L. Stalin makes use of the NKVD (Russian secret police) to punish his enemies matches with Napoleon trains the pups to be his loyal and vicious servants. 

M. Other countries and former allies of the Tsar attack the communists in the Russian Civil War matches with The other farmers attack Animal Farm to try and take it back from the animals.

N. The Communist leader Trotsky wants to spread Marxism throughout the world matches with Snowball wants to spread Animalism to other farms.

O. Stalin wants to concentrate on preserving Communism in Russia and doesn't care about spreading Marxism to other countries matches with Napoleon wants to concentrate on protecting and defending Animalism in just Animal Farm. 

P. Communist Russia becomes a totalitarian regime matches with Animal Farm becomes the thing it rebelled again.

Q. There is a power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky, ending with Trotsky being exiled from Russia matches with There is a power struggle between Napoleon and Snowball ending with Snowball's expulsion from Animal Farm.

R. The Five Year Plans fail after being interrupted by WWII matches with The windmill remains unbuilt after so much effort.

S. The perfect worker Stakhanov is used in propaganda to inspire other Russian workers matches with Boxer's motto of 'I will work harder' inspires the other animals.

T. The Communist Party uses propaganda and censorship to influence the Russian people matches with Squealer feeds the animal misinformation in order to manipulate them.

U. Stalin decides to start trading with the rest of Europe matches with Napoleon decides to start trading with the farmers.

V. Stalin blame Trotsky for all of Russia's problems matches with The absent Snowball is blamed for the destruction of the windmill. 

W. Eastern Orthodox priests pacify the Russian people with tales of Heaven and Jesus, and have close ties with the Tsar of Russia matches with Moses tells the animals stories of 'Sugarcandy Mountain', a paradise that animals go to after they die, and is looked after by Mr Jones. 

X. Lenin's body is displayed in Moscow for the Russian people to pay their respects to matches with Old Major's skull is displayed in a central location for all the animals to see.