Active Learning: Units.

Essays on the Teaching of English
Raymond Stopper
Based on His Book, Teaching English, How To….

Active Learning: Units

10-Second Review: Organizing units around students’ questions.

Maybe the way to begin preparing a unit for teaching is to list the questions that will be answered by the students’ work with the unit, questions that relate, if possible, to their own experiences. Let’s take a unit on punctuation with the comma, for example.

What questions do the students have about punctuating with commas?

Why do we need commas in the first place?
Why are the rule for commas so complicated?
Can I learn to use commas without memorizing a bunch of definitions and rules?
How can I recognize mistakes in using commas?
Can punctuation be simplified?

To these questions, the teacher adds the following:

What do you already know about punctuating with commas?
What are the three most important uses of the comma?
How can a reference chart help you use commas easily and accurately?

The answer to the students’ first question about using commas—Why?—can be answered by giving them passages without commas and asking what effects the lack of commas had on their reading. The answer to the teacher’s first question—How much do you already know?--can be answered by seeing how many commas the students can place in the passages without commas. The teacher explores with the students why they placed the commas where they did, then compares the students’ use of commas with the original, fully punctuated passage.

The rest of the questions will be answered by teaching the three most important uses of the comma—after introductory expressions, around ‘interrupters,” and before “afterthoughts”—and by developing a reference chart for uses that are easily learned from examples. This reference chart, consisting mainly of examples, reduces the need for lengthy explanations about the uses of the comma. In a later chapter I will present a complete unit on the comma organized in this manner.

Maybe teachers should not have to be responsible for motivating students to learn. However, in today’s world they are responsible. Using students’ questions to set purposes motivates them to want to learn.