Teaching English, How To.... By Raymond Stopper
Essential Ideas: Problem Solving
From the book:
Question: How did I help students learn to solve problems in English class?
The second method I use to help students learn how to solve problems is the research paper. I remember my own experience with research papers as being terrified of not citing sources correctly. Getting the "op. cit.'s" and "ibid.'s" correct seemed to be the most important part of the research paper to my college teachers. Never mind the quality of the thought or research. Having the correct form was the most important issue.
I insist that students begin their research with a question. What do they really want to know? Then they plan how they will do the research, the sources they will use, people as well as books and other printed material, and, of course, the Internet. The answer to the question must be important to the student. In a sense, the question is a problem and the research is the way in which the students solve the problem.
As for the citations, modern systems of citing--the MLA or Modern Language Association and the APA or the American Psychological Association--make the citation of sources almost easy. The big issues are making sure that students complete research that is worth doing, that students do cite sources, that they don't plagiarize, and that they develop the report of their research in readable, well-organized prose, using information from their research to support their ideas.
I believe that questions are the keys to problem solving. Through discussing questions about what they do not understand in interpreting a literary work and through research that focuses on answering a question, the students really want to answer, I attempt to show students the value of posing good questions in order to solve problems.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
TEHT.... Problem Solving (1)
Teaching English, How To....
Essential Ideas: Problem Solving (1)
From the Book:
Question: How can I help students establish a method for solving problems?
Literature, Shared Inquiry and Problem Solving
I have to give the Great books Foundation a lot of credit. Their method for discussing a piece of literature begins with questions to which the group leader does not have any certain answer. Therefore, teacher and students are truly involved in "shared inquiry" as they try to answer the questions. However, I took the Great Books method one step further. Instead of the teacher's originating the questions, I have the students ask the questions about what they do not understand. It is very important in this approach that the teacher let the students try to struggle with what they do not understand and not to impose a "correct" answer.
Students become more comfortable in reading when they are relieved of the feeling that they are dumb if they encounter phrases or ideas that puzzle them. Knowing that they can formulate their puzzlement into a question that others will discuss gives them a sense of anticipation about working toward a resolution of the problem with the literary work's meaning. By extension, what I am trying to show students is that an effective way to deal with a problem is to ask questions. Asking questions helps to clarify the problem and leads to possible solutions.
RayS.
Essential Ideas: Problem Solving (1)
From the Book:
Question: How can I help students establish a method for solving problems?
Literature, Shared Inquiry and Problem Solving
I have to give the Great books Foundation a lot of credit. Their method for discussing a piece of literature begins with questions to which the group leader does not have any certain answer. Therefore, teacher and students are truly involved in "shared inquiry" as they try to answer the questions. However, I took the Great Books method one step further. Instead of the teacher's originating the questions, I have the students ask the questions about what they do not understand. It is very important in this approach that the teacher let the students try to struggle with what they do not understand and not to impose a "correct" answer.
Students become more comfortable in reading when they are relieved of the feeling that they are dumb if they encounter phrases or ideas that puzzle them. Knowing that they can formulate their puzzlement into a question that others will discuss gives them a sense of anticipation about working toward a resolution of the problem with the literary work's meaning. By extension, what I am trying to show students is that an effective way to deal with a problem is to ask questions. Asking questions helps to clarify the problem and leads to possible solutions.
RayS.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
TEHT....: Communication.
Teaching English, How To.... By Raymond Stopper
Essential Ideas: Communication.
Question: How does one teach students to communicate through writing and speaking?
Answer: Most inexperienced writers and speakers, I have found, simply start to write or to speak, and conclude with their major point at the end.
A very simple formula reminds writers and speakers how to organize their ideas in order to communicate clearly:
Tell them what you are going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you told them.
It's an old formula, borrowed from itinerant preachers in England and America, but perhaps even a cliche in today's business world that wanders and bores aimlessly with PowerPoint. But the formula is followed by professional communicators: TV news and KYW News Radio list the leading headlines before going into depth in developing the details of the stories. Really good reporters do an excellent job of summing up the story in a memorable way.
1. You state your point clearly in the beginning. 2. You give the details in the middle. And 3. you sum it up at the end.
One of my college students put it succinctly, when he said, "It's like hitting your reader or listener over the head three times," in the beginning, in the middle and in the end.
Essential Ideas: Communication.
Question: How does one teach students to communicate through writing and speaking?
Answer: Most inexperienced writers and speakers, I have found, simply start to write or to speak, and conclude with their major point at the end.
A very simple formula reminds writers and speakers how to organize their ideas in order to communicate clearly:
Tell them what you are going to tell them.
Tell them.
Tell them what you told them.
It's an old formula, borrowed from itinerant preachers in England and America, but perhaps even a cliche in today's business world that wanders and bores aimlessly with PowerPoint. But the formula is followed by professional communicators: TV news and KYW News Radio list the leading headlines before going into depth in developing the details of the stories. Really good reporters do an excellent job of summing up the story in a memorable way.
1. You state your point clearly in the beginning. 2. You give the details in the middle. And 3. you sum it up at the end.
One of my college students put it succinctly, when he said, "It's like hitting your reader or listener over the head three times," in the beginning, in the middle and in the end.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
TEHT.... Critical Thinking (2)
Teaching English, How To....
Essential Ideas: Critical Thinking
Topic: Critical Thinking
Question: What is a good technique to use to introduce students to critical thinking?
In my last blog, I reprinted an essay from an article in the English Journal published in 1966. The essay attacked teen-agers. After reading the essay, most students responded with vehement anger, and I usually let them vent their fury before beginning a discussion of the propaganda techniques used by the author.
The essay is a "gold mine" of propaganda techniques, including "card stacking," (only that information presented which favors the writer's point of view); name calling ("misguided left-wing organization"); attacking the individual and not the argument ("He is so worried about keeping his job as a psychologist...."); loaded words ("obnoxious," "disrespect," "foul language," "cliquishness," "rubbish," "idiots"); glittering generalities, broad phrases that sound good, but have little substance ("Any human being who loves mankind and dignity...."); false analogies ("Teen-agers are like movie sets..."); and many others.
Propaganda techniques are designed to manipulate readers or listeners, to substitute technique for substance. They evoke emotion, not rational thought. Analyzing this essay is one way to help students begin to form the habit of questioning what they read or hear. Having identified and discussed the techniques in the essay, students next read the editorials, opinions and letters featured on the editorial and op-ed pages of the local newspaper to see if they can find the same techniques. They will.
When I have used this essay to introduce critical thinking skills, I have encouraged students to respond in a reasonable tone, rather than with bitterness and anger, to use facts and statistics whenever possible to support their points of view, and to suggest more positive methods for dealing with the problems of teen-agers. I urge the students not to employ the same techniques used by the author of the essay in responding to his opinion about teen-agers. I suggest that using the methods of the writer of the essay will inflame emotion. A moderate and reasonable tone, on the other hand, together with supporting facts, will defuse emotion and will invite moderate and reasonable discussion. The students' written responses to the author of this essay provide an excellent opportunity to practice adjusting expression to the audience.
RayS.
Essential Ideas: Critical Thinking
Topic: Critical Thinking
Question: What is a good technique to use to introduce students to critical thinking?
In my last blog, I reprinted an essay from an article in the English Journal published in 1966. The essay attacked teen-agers. After reading the essay, most students responded with vehement anger, and I usually let them vent their fury before beginning a discussion of the propaganda techniques used by the author.
The essay is a "gold mine" of propaganda techniques, including "card stacking," (only that information presented which favors the writer's point of view); name calling ("misguided left-wing organization"); attacking the individual and not the argument ("He is so worried about keeping his job as a psychologist...."); loaded words ("obnoxious," "disrespect," "foul language," "cliquishness," "rubbish," "idiots"); glittering generalities, broad phrases that sound good, but have little substance ("Any human being who loves mankind and dignity...."); false analogies ("Teen-agers are like movie sets..."); and many others.
Propaganda techniques are designed to manipulate readers or listeners, to substitute technique for substance. They evoke emotion, not rational thought. Analyzing this essay is one way to help students begin to form the habit of questioning what they read or hear. Having identified and discussed the techniques in the essay, students next read the editorials, opinions and letters featured on the editorial and op-ed pages of the local newspaper to see if they can find the same techniques. They will.
When I have used this essay to introduce critical thinking skills, I have encouraged students to respond in a reasonable tone, rather than with bitterness and anger, to use facts and statistics whenever possible to support their points of view, and to suggest more positive methods for dealing with the problems of teen-agers. I urge the students not to employ the same techniques used by the author of the essay in responding to his opinion about teen-agers. I suggest that using the methods of the writer of the essay will inflame emotion. A moderate and reasonable tone, on the other hand, together with supporting facts, will defuse emotion and will invite moderate and reasonable discussion. The students' written responses to the author of this essay provide an excellent opportunity to practice adjusting expression to the audience.
RayS.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
TEHT....: Critical Thinking
Teaching English, How To....
Essential Ideas
Question: What's a good technique to use when introducing students to critical thinking?
Answer: Give the students a copy of the following essay--or read it to them.
The following essay was taken from an article by Michael C. Flanigan entitled, "Semantics and Critical Reading." English Journal, September 1966, pp. 714-719. Reprinted with permission from the National Council of Teachers of English.
Teen-Age Corruption
By Mentor
One day as I was walking through the halls of our school, I saw a young girl standing at her locker swearing quite loudly because her lock was stuck. I walked over to her and asked her if she could refrain from using foul language in the halls. Just as I made my statement, two other students approached and came to the defense of the girl. All three students were obnoxious in their attitude and were in every way disrespectful. It is this kind of disrespect, foul language, and cliquishness that typifies the low moral tone of the teen-agers of today.
Teen-agers are probably the most corrupt segment existing in our society. Most of this corruption is due to the fact that spineless, ill-informed, and irresponsible adults who pretend to be educated coddle these sickening children. In our schools, churches, homes, courts and businesses, so-called well-meaning idiots say that teen-agers must have a chance at free expression and must be dealt with kindly because they are going through a difficult period of life. They say teen-agers are socially maladjusted because of problems that disturbed these children when they were infants and because our world is insecure. These statements are rubbish.
Teen-agers must be dealt with in the same fashion as any other criminal or immoral group in our society. They must be shown firmness and must be shown that our democratic society will not tolerate their corruption. We must not try simply to understand them, but must deal with them swiftly and efficiently. Psychologists, such as E. P. Thompson of the Committee for Teen-Age Guidance, state that teenagers are basically moral and that the crime and immorality that they demonstrate is but an expression of their insecurity. Mr. Thompson had better wake up. His statement is completely false because he follows the policies of a misguided left-wing organization. He is so worried about keeping his job as a psychologist that he cannot face the question directly. He is a poor authority because he has no children who are teen-agers and he lives in the ivory tower of the academic world. If he would ever leave the confines of the library and walk out into the truth of day, he could see the evil that spreads over our country.
Any human being who loves mankind and dignity, and is able to think objectively or for that matter, anyone who is able to think at all, can see that teen-agers have reached the lowest ebb of human existence. They are human only in name; they are surely not human in the sense that the great Greek philosophers conceived it.
The real shame is that the violence exhibited by teen-agers turns our streets into a paradise for evil. Our older citizens are afraid to walk the streets at night. Our highways have become the slaughterhouse of the world. We citizens who really care about goodness and love must band together as an immovable unit to force teenagers back into the mold that their Creator established for them. We must move before it is too late. We cannot stand by while our world falls into oblivion.
Copyright (1966) by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.
Next: How I used this essay to introduce students to critical thinking.
Essential Ideas
Question: What's a good technique to use when introducing students to critical thinking?
Answer: Give the students a copy of the following essay--or read it to them.
The following essay was taken from an article by Michael C. Flanigan entitled, "Semantics and Critical Reading." English Journal, September 1966, pp. 714-719. Reprinted with permission from the National Council of Teachers of English.
Teen-Age Corruption
By Mentor
One day as I was walking through the halls of our school, I saw a young girl standing at her locker swearing quite loudly because her lock was stuck. I walked over to her and asked her if she could refrain from using foul language in the halls. Just as I made my statement, two other students approached and came to the defense of the girl. All three students were obnoxious in their attitude and were in every way disrespectful. It is this kind of disrespect, foul language, and cliquishness that typifies the low moral tone of the teen-agers of today.
Teen-agers are probably the most corrupt segment existing in our society. Most of this corruption is due to the fact that spineless, ill-informed, and irresponsible adults who pretend to be educated coddle these sickening children. In our schools, churches, homes, courts and businesses, so-called well-meaning idiots say that teen-agers must have a chance at free expression and must be dealt with kindly because they are going through a difficult period of life. They say teen-agers are socially maladjusted because of problems that disturbed these children when they were infants and because our world is insecure. These statements are rubbish.
Teen-agers must be dealt with in the same fashion as any other criminal or immoral group in our society. They must be shown firmness and must be shown that our democratic society will not tolerate their corruption. We must not try simply to understand them, but must deal with them swiftly and efficiently. Psychologists, such as E. P. Thompson of the Committee for Teen-Age Guidance, state that teenagers are basically moral and that the crime and immorality that they demonstrate is but an expression of their insecurity. Mr. Thompson had better wake up. His statement is completely false because he follows the policies of a misguided left-wing organization. He is so worried about keeping his job as a psychologist that he cannot face the question directly. He is a poor authority because he has no children who are teen-agers and he lives in the ivory tower of the academic world. If he would ever leave the confines of the library and walk out into the truth of day, he could see the evil that spreads over our country.
Any human being who loves mankind and dignity, and is able to think objectively or for that matter, anyone who is able to think at all, can see that teen-agers have reached the lowest ebb of human existence. They are human only in name; they are surely not human in the sense that the great Greek philosophers conceived it.
The real shame is that the violence exhibited by teen-agers turns our streets into a paradise for evil. Our older citizens are afraid to walk the streets at night. Our highways have become the slaughterhouse of the world. We citizens who really care about goodness and love must band together as an immovable unit to force teenagers back into the mold that their Creator established for them. We must move before it is too late. We cannot stand by while our world falls into oblivion.
Copyright (1966) by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.
Next: How I used this essay to introduce students to critical thinking.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
TEHT....: Thinking
Teaching English, How To.....
Essential Ideas
Question: How do English teachers help students learn to think?
From the book: Probably the most frequent criticism of students I have heard over the years is that "our children can't think." I took the trouble to look up the word "think" in the American Heritage Dictionary and I found a number of key words used to define thinking: formulate, reason, decide, judge, believe, expect, remember, visualize, invent, concentrate and consider. As you can see from this definition, "thinking" is not easily defined and is a complex activity.
Fields in which English teachers help students learn to think include instruction in writing and in literature.
When they write, students must organize their thoughts on paper for others to read. When students write, they are discovering what they are thinking and they are shaping their thinking. As E.M. Forster is quoted as saying, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
Students learn to think when they relate the literature they read to their own experience and compare one literary work to another. Students learn to think critically when they analyze and question what they read. In my classes, students raised questions by previewing the literary work, and discussions focused on the students' questions that the students tried to answer. Their questions included questions of fact, interpretation and criticism. This approach contrasts sharply with the usual approach of the teachers' asking questions to which they already know the answers and the students' relying on the teachers for the answers.
Organizing thoughts in writing and raising and answering questions in literature are two activities that help students learn to think.
Essential Ideas
Question: How do English teachers help students learn to think?
From the book: Probably the most frequent criticism of students I have heard over the years is that "our children can't think." I took the trouble to look up the word "think" in the American Heritage Dictionary and I found a number of key words used to define thinking: formulate, reason, decide, judge, believe, expect, remember, visualize, invent, concentrate and consider. As you can see from this definition, "thinking" is not easily defined and is a complex activity.
Fields in which English teachers help students learn to think include instruction in writing and in literature.
When they write, students must organize their thoughts on paper for others to read. When students write, they are discovering what they are thinking and they are shaping their thinking. As E.M. Forster is quoted as saying, "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
Students learn to think when they relate the literature they read to their own experience and compare one literary work to another. Students learn to think critically when they analyze and question what they read. In my classes, students raised questions by previewing the literary work, and discussions focused on the students' questions that the students tried to answer. Their questions included questions of fact, interpretation and criticism. This approach contrasts sharply with the usual approach of the teachers' asking questions to which they already know the answers and the students' relying on the teachers for the answers.
Organizing thoughts in writing and raising and answering questions in literature are two activities that help students learn to think.
Friday, April 18, 2008
TEHT...: Learning How to Learn
Teaching English, How To....
Essential Ideas
Quotes from the Book
Purpose of Education is life-long learning. The purpose of schooling is to prepare students for life-long learning.
Question: How can I help students learn how to learn?
From my book: "Independent study helps students learn how to organize their own learning. They plan and complete projects on topics about which they want to learn.
"Independent study requires students to plan and complete personal projects. They formulate goals and objectives, list possible activities and materials, and propose methods of evaluation. The teacher meets with each student to help plan the project. The student gives reasons for wanting to make the study; lists activities to be completed, materials needed, and people with whom to consult; outlines an estimated schedule; and suggests methods for the final presentation of results.
During the course of the project, the student meets with the teacher to discuss problems, difficulties and needs, many of which can be resolved by the teacher. For example, if the student needs to talk with certain individuals who are knowledgeable in the subject of the student's project, the teacher can make the arrangements."
Independent study projects help students formulate plans for learning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)