Transcript Slide 1
Notices NTUNOW Sconul RJA1 Visits
Teach First Subjects
1. Motivating to write - strategies 2. Primary level English 3. Assessing Progress in English 4. Reading the whole novel – getting them to 5. Teaching sentences
Learning Outcomes of Day
‘I must write, I must write at all costs. For writing is more than living, it is being conscious of living’
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, cited in McCormick Calkins, 1989: 3
Percentages
I can’t make the pupils write. I tell them to write and they won’t. They don’t know how to write properly. They need to to pass exams.
If they don’t pass exams then I will get in trouble.
Pedagogy I want to be an English teacher because...
What do you love?
Five Ways to Kill a Man
There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this properly you require a crowd of people wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one man to hammer the nails home.
Or you can take a length of steel, shaped and chased in a traditional way, and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses, English trees, men with bows and arrows, at least two flags, a prince, and a castle to hold your banquet in.
Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind allows, blow gas at him. But then you need a mile of mud sliced through with ditches, not to mention black boots, bomb craters, more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs and some round hats made of steel.
In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly miles above your victim and dispose of him by pressing one small switch. All you then require is an ocean to separate you, two systems of government, a nation's scientists, several factories, a psychopath and land that no-one needs for several years.
These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.
Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, and leave him there.
What has worked for you in motivating to write?
Getting the buggers to write
Give them a reason Create the right atmosphere Ensure correct behaviour Make writing fun Use ‘warm ups’ Keep it topical Group tasks in writing Challenge them Remove the stress Remove the blocks Offer a reward Show writing is relevant Show writing is important Show your writing Be an inspiration
1 Remove the stress Remove the blocks
Role play in pairs One is the child One is the teacher
My father died when I was three but my sister was twelve and my brother, ten. When I see pictures of him holding me, it’s like he is a stranger. In the same picture is my brother and sister only they knew him well. They never talk about him except to say, “You would have liked him.” When I see other kids with their fathers, I wonder what it would be like to be his daughter Pp125-6 The Art of Teaching Writing, Lucy McCormick Calkins, 1989, Heinemann: Portsmouth USA
The girl is sad She has no friends
‘Instead of thinking honestly and deeply about why students have learned to dislike writing, we rush about, pushing, luring, encouraging, motivating, stimulating, bribing, requiring...
The bitter irony is that we, in schools, set up roadblocks to stifle the natural and enduring reasons for writing, and then we complain that children don’t want to write’ McCormick Calkins, 1989: 4
Demotivated – writing not good Scared – criticism Bored – writing does nothing Rebellion – won’t do what teacher wants
2 Give them a reason to write Show writing is relevant Show writing is important
Why do we read?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJA2CZdd3Bc&feature=related
Why do we write?
To be surprised.
The writer sits down intending to say one thing and hears the writer saying something more, or less, or completely different. The writing surprises, instructs, receives, questions, tells its own story, and the writer becomes the reader wondering what will happen next
To understand ‘We write because we want to understand our lives’ McCormick Calkins, 1989: 3
There is no plot line in the bewildering complexity of our lives but that which we make and find for ourselves...Writing allows us to turn the chaos into something beautiful, to frame selected moments of our lives, to uncover and to celebrate the organizing patterns of our existence’
‘It is during adolescence that we have a special need to understand our lives’
McCormick Calkins, 1989: 106
Creation
‘Writing is but a line which creeps across the page, exposing as it goes all the writer does not know...writing puts us on the line and we don’t want to be there’
Shaughnessy, 1977: 7 cited in McCormick Calkins, 1989: 106
Expression
Sometimes when I’ve had a really tough day and nothing seems to be going right, I think, ‘nothing is mine.
’ Well, my writing is. I can write is any way I want to. You know how your mother can tell you, ‘Go up to your bed right now.
’ Nobody can tell you how to write your piece.
You’re the mother of your story
Cited in McCormick Calkins, 1989: 6
LISTEN Express passions
Teaching writing begins with recognition that each individual comes to the writing workshop with concerns, ideas, memories, and feelings. Our job as teachers is to listen and to help them listen. “What are the things you know and care about?” I ask writers
McCormick Calkins, 1989: 5
It is not my piece of writing. It belongs to someone else
McCormick Calkins, 1989: 120
Blog
3 Create the right atmosphere Ensure correct behaviour
Recap Action-consequences Relationships Happens at the start Rule-praise-ignore Collaborate on rules Be polite – model Treat pupils as people
4 Group tasks in writing
COLLABORATION
Peer conferences
Writer reads aloud Listeners respond perhaps with questions The group asks and helps with what happens next
McCormick Calkins, 1989: 129-132
Read, watch and write
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ENCOURAGE MULTILITERACY
Class andGender
Gender
Around 50% of low achievers are white British males Boys are 30% more likely to be low achievers as girls http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2095.asp
Ethnicity http://www.poverty.org.uk/15/index.shtml?2
His door was open, but I sort of knocked on it anyway, just to be polite and all. I could see where he was sitting. He was sitting in a big leather chair, all wrapped up in that blanket I just told you about. He looked over at me when I knocked. "Who's that?" he yelled. "Caulfield? Come in, boy." He was always yelling, outside class. It got on your nerves sometimes. The minute I went in, I was sort of sorry I'd come. He was reading the Atlantic Monthly, and there were pills and medicine all over the place, and everything smelled like Vicks Nose Drops. It was pretty depressing. I'm not too crazy about sick people, anyway. What made it even more depressing, old Spencer had on this very sad, ratty old bathrobe that he was probably born in or something. I don't much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And their legs. Old guys' legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy. "Hello, sir," I said. "I got your note. Thanks a lot." He'd written me this note asking me to stop by and say good-by before vacation started, on account of I wasn't coming back. "You didn't have to do all that. I'd have come over to say good-by anyway." "Have a seat there, boy," old Spencer said. He meant the bed. I sat down on it. "How's your grippe, sir?" "M'boy, if I felt any better I'd have to send for the doctor," old Spencer said. That knocked him out. He started chuckling like a madman. Then he finally straightened himself out and said, "Why aren't you down at the game? I thought this was the day of the big game." "It is. I was. Only, I just got back from New York with the fencing team," I said. Boy, his bed was like a rock. He started getting serious as hell. I knew he would. "So you're leaving us, eh?" he said. "Yes, sir. I guess I am." He started going into this nodding routine. You never saw anybody nod as much in your life as old Spencer did. You never knew if he was nodding a lot because he was thinking and all, or just because he was a nice old guy that didn't know his ass from his elbow. "What did Dr. Thurmer say to you, boy? I understand you had quite a little chat." "Yes, we did. We really did. I was in his office for around two hours, I guess." "What'd he say to you?" "Oh. . . well, about Life being a game and all. And how you should play it according to the rules. He was pretty nice about it. I mean he didn't hit the ceiling or anything. He just kept talking about Life being a game and all. You know." "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules." "Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it." Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right--I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.
Some say life is like a game and it is - some start on 1 and others on six and some have to throw a six before they start and they’ve lost already
Timothy Winters
Timothy Winters comes to school With eyes as wide as a football-pool, Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters: A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his neck is dark, And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow And through his britches the blue winds blow.
When teacher talks he won And he Amen ’ And they say there aren And Timothy But the law ’ ’ Timothy Winters roars Timothy Winters says Amen amen amen amen.
‘ ’
Timothy Winters , Lord.
‘ ’ ’ t hear a word And he shoots down dead the arithmetic bird, He licks the patterns off his plate s not even heard of the Welfare State.
Timothy Winters has bloody feet And he lives in a house on Suez Street, He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor t boys like him any more.
Old Man Winters likes his beer And his missus ran off with a bombardier, Grandma sits in the grate with a gin s dosed with an aspirin.
The Welfare Worker lies awake s as tricky as a ten-foot snake, So Timothy Winters drinks his cup And slowly goes on growing up.
At Morning Prayers the Master helves For children less fortunate than ourselves, And the loudest response in the room is when Amen!
Amen ’ ’ So come one angel, come on ten:
The Choosing
We were first equal Mary and I with the same coloured ribbons in mouse-coloured hair, and with equal shyness we curtseyed to the lady councillor for copies of Collins’s Children Classics. First equal, equally proud. Best friends too Mary and I a common bond in being cleverest(equal) in our small school’s small class. I remember the competition for top desk or to read aloud the lesson at school service. And my terrible fear of her superiority at sums. I remember the housing scheme Where we both stayed. The same house, different homes, where the choices were made. I don’t know exactly why they moved, but anyway they went. Something about a three-apartment and a cheaper rent. But from the top deck of the high school bus I’d glimpse among the others on the corner Mary’s father, mufflered, contrasting strangely with the elegant greyhounds by his side. He didn’t believe in high school education, especially for girls, or in forking out for uniforms. Ten years later on a Saturday I am coming home from the library sitting near me on the bus, Mary with a husband who is tall, curly haired, has eyes for no one else but Mary. Her arms are round the full-shaped vase that is her body. Oh, you can see where the attraction lies in Mary’s life not that I envy her, really. And I am coming from the library with my arms full of books. I think of the prizes that were ours for the taking and wonder when the choices got made we don’t remember making
Ideology Discourse Labelling
Ideology?
Norms and values Contained in a culture (trapped in time and space) a way of seeing ‘reality’ Gives power to some and takes from others.
Awareness ‘Ideology is how the existing ensemble of social relations represents itself to individuals; it is the image a society gives of itself in order to perpetuate itself. These representations serve to constrain us … they establish fixed places for us to occupy’ Bill Nichols Ideology and the Image (1981) Indiana University Press p.1
‘Ideology operates as a constraint, limiting us to certain places or positions’ Nichols p.1
The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate
Ideological State Apparatuses •Education •Media •Family •Government •Law Louis Althusser
Ideology is in stories
The prince is a figment of our boring legend, he is the gravity her sleep-ship may escape from. Dressed in a red shift, she’s always a world ahead of his weight’
Dorman, 1978, 55
Texts are not transparent objects; they are highly coercive linguistic strategies, positioning readers in particular ways which have nothing to do with encouraging individuality and everything to do with reproducing a particular social formation’ Cranny Francis, 1993: p.98
Crash letter
Michel Foucault Discourse THE POSITIONS TO WHICH WE ARE SUMMONED
The discourse is always chosen - played with… BUT ...if we refuse the expected discourse we will be outside of society class age group ethnicity gender
interpellation Louis Althusser
Why Does Jeezy Oh No not Steely Dan
James Gee
‘Gee argued that when we try to understand a person’s language-in-use, or discourse, we not only pay attention to the accent intonation and speech style of that person among other things, but also we pay attention to that person’s style of clothing, gesture and bodily movements. He calls language-in use discourse’
Pahl and Rowsell, 2005: 16
Stereotyping
‘A stereotype is the product of social construction, growing from group relations; an individual is assigned to a group and the supposed attributes of that group are applied to that individual’ Stuart Price, The Complete Media and Communication Handbook, 1997, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p.219
We stereotype ourselves by putting ourselves in discourses
‘Guys have been cheated by this society…the fact that men are supposed to be stiff…they have to show their armoured self to the world all the time. Having to do that hurts them as much as it hurts everyone else’ Susan Faludi, 1999, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the Modern Man, London: Chatto and Windus, cited in Gauntlett, 2002, Media Gende r and Identity, London: Routledge, p.4
Teen Discourse Challenge Place these into a sentence: 404 Cotch Dope Fomo MySpace Munch
EG BORN MALE AGE-25-35 WORKING CLASS NORTHERN
Labelling
What lies behind the way we structure the world is, ‘not directly available to the senses … non observable … unconscious’ Strinati D 1995 An introduction to theories of popular culture London: Routledge p96
Who is ‘black’?
DEATH EVIL TROUBLE BAD
I waz whitemailed By a white witch, Wid white magic An white lies, Branded a white sheep I slaved as a whitesmith Near a white spot Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg I waz in de white book As a master of white art, It waz like white death.
People called me white jack Some hailed me as a white wog, So I joined de white watch Trained as a white guard Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts I waz condemned to a white mass, Don’t worry, I shall be writing to de Black House.
Solutions •Awareness (demystification) can change and this changes the power-base •No privileged discourses - ‘pluricultural’ •Move from teacher-awareness to student awareness of the issue: http://www.ricw.ri.gov/publications/GEH/college.htm
Multiliteracy Approach
Solutions Multiliteracy Pedagogy 1. Pupil is intelligent, imaginative, linguistically talented 2. Acknowledges (celebrates) linguistic capital 3. Identity texts – sharing of the literacies that form their identity
Solutions Practical Examples Reverse ideologies Red Riding Hood – the wolf’s tale Practical Princess Rap Hamlet Teen speak Dickens Present Diwali speech as done in temple Creole poetry RnB magazines/web-sites Dialect books (eg Kes) and stories Remember....the spirit of the literacy event is needed. Don’t anglicise or standardise the presentation. Eg Jeezy
Writing in Stages
How do we acquire language?
Nobody knows
What do you know?
Infans ‘not speaking’
‘the neurons of the newborn are relatively unorganised and unspecified. Over time, the child begins to construct auditory maps from the phonemes heard in the environment. Sounds must be heard thousands of times before neurons are assigned. Eventually, different clusters of neurons will respond to each phoneme, firing when that phoneme is heard.’
Owens, 2001: 134
Phonemes - name
•Phonemes collect in morphemes •Morphemes make words •Words are signs •Signs have meaning
Words gather in schemata True False timed a robin is a robin a robin is a bird a robin is an animal a robin is a fish a robin has a red breast a robin has wings a robin has lungs
‘as new stimuli are received, the …person..tries to fit this information into existing schemes’ Owens, 2001: 137
New learning
Constructivism Existing concepts, knowledge and experience Geoff Petty http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/public ations/EA.Piaget%20_%20Papert.pdf
What is language?
What might be in the schemas for the following?
Thyme Tesco Pizza Hut oak Robert De Niro Paris Hilton Paris Sony
Theories of language…..
How do we understand?
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
My name is….
I believe language…
Jean Piaget Stages of language development. If not done then problems emerge constructivism
stages
1. Sounds Stages of Language Development
Crying Cooing Babbling Intonation Patterns 1-word utterances 2-word utterances Questions and negatives Rare or complex constructions Mature speech 0 6-8 months 8-12 months 1 year 2 years 2.25 years 5 years 10 years
Brain size Birth - 25 6 months - 50 12 months - 70
24 months - 80 5 years - 90
12 years - 100
% of adult
13
Chomsky
Pinker ‘a visiting Martian would surely conclude that aside their mutually unintelligible vocabularies, Earthlings speak a single language’ Pinker, 1994: p.232 cited in Harley, p.100
Universals - syntax, semantics, phonology, creation Child: Nobody don’t like me (Mother: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ Child: nobody don’t like me) X 8 Mother: No, now listen carefully: say ‘nobody likes me’ Child: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me ‘The child, at this point in its learning grammar, was clearly not ready to use the ‘single negative’…Such examples suggest that language acquisition is more a matter of maturation than imitation’ Crystal, 1992: p.234
‘ ask Jabbe if the boy who is unhappy is watching Mickey Mouse’ say tur tur say tle tle say turtle kurka mama isn’t a boy he a girl that’s right
18-24 months ‘grammar explosion’ ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ Chomsky Jaberwocky
The Examiner: 1-6 months responds to human voice distinguishes sounds coos vowel sounds turns head to voice responds vocally to voice babbles smiles at speaker responds to name varies prosody plays peepo discriminate phonemes owens 152 sucking rooting -finger into cheek blinking at flashing light crying coughing sneezing
The Experimenter: 6-12 months recognises some words inc name imitates sounds learns ‘no’ Follows simple cues such as bye bye
1-2 years goes from 4-300 word vocabulary makes short incomplete sentences prepositions (in, on etc) pronouns verb endings (s, ed, ing) determiner noun - e.g. my teddy, noun-verb - e.g. teddy goes verb indirect noun - e.g. look there adjective noun - e.g. red car
Emily, age 2 -monologue, alone talking to doll (baby) baby no in night cause baby crying baby in might baby in might my baby no in my car my baby in my baby no eat supper in in in this no eat broccoli no so my baby have dinner then baby get sick baby no eat dinner broccoli broccoli soup cabbage carrots no baby sleeping so why baby eat then baby get sick Emmy no eat dinner broccoli soup cause no baby sleeping baby sleeping all night
Nelson, 1989: p.158 cited in Blake and Moorhead, 1993: p.46
3-5 years 300 to 1200 words recounts stories understands questions about the environment 90% grammar acquisition asks many, many questions
Age 6 24,000 word reception 2,600 vocabulary
Age 8 talks a lot brags a lot compares
Age 12 50,000 word receptive vocabulary adult-like
JABBERWOCKY
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!" He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought - So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
2. Syntactic Blocks
BOOK NILE THE A
Syntactic Blocks
GIVES BOY MALEVOLENCE SLAVERY TO A GIRL SLEEPS STUDENT ORGANISE PARSNIP SEETHE
THE BOY (GIRL/STUDENT) GIVES A BOOK (PARSNIP) TO A GIRL (BOY/STUDENT) ARTICLE NOUN VERB ARTICLE NOUN VERB PREPOSITION NOUN
‘round’ noun verb preposition adjective adverb
The pretty girl in my class can sing and dance beautifully A ADJ N PRE (PRO)N N (AUX) V V CON V ADV
NOUN PHRASES The father-of-fourteen, thrice-married, Malvern-based blind prisoner VERB PHRASES won Saturday’s rollover lottery £14 million jackpot Jesus wept
3. Hypothesise and Create
Vygotsky
speech and thought separate up to 3 years old 3 onwards thought is shaped by language.
Whorf
Language determines thought - linguistic determinism -language determines how we think figure 3.7 p.83 language and thought Harley Newspeak: ‘This statement could not have been sustained by reasoned argument because the necessary words were not available’ Appendix 1984 cited in Harley p.80
Halliday
function first what is it that the child is making the speech sound do for her/him?
The Functions of Language instrumental - I want regulatory - do it interactional - hello personal uniqueness that’s funny heuristic explore environment what’s that imaginative let’s pretend lion in the garden informative I’ve got 9-18 months Halliday 1975
language is behaviour Purpose
Skinner
Wittgenstein
But, language cannot express thought. Thought and experience are obscure Silence is the only response to complex ideas
Reading - a learned code
Learning to Read Stages
1. linguistic guessing on context 2. rote learning 3. discrimination - guessing based on knowledge of sounds 4. sequential decoding - grapheme-phoneme conversion rules 5. hierarchical decoding - logographic - other words which share parts of the word used as well as grapheme/phoneme Marsh e t al 1977
Writing – a learned symbolic code
Writing Drill Phonetics Guess Memorise Grammar Correction – reward/punish
‘We laugh at the idea of drilling children on the components of oral language before allowing them to try whole words, and yet, this is what so many people do when introducing children to the code of written language’
ady McCormick Calkins, 1989: 36
Getting the buggers to write ‘properly’
Show them writing properly is important Show them incorrect writing Share the work with the class Share the work across the school Ask them to read it back to you
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle
Concrete experience ‘doing’ Active experimentation Action planning Reflective observation ‘reflecting’ Abstract Conceptualisation ‘theorising’
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Bloom (1956) taxonomy of learning
– – – – – – Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation (lowest) (highest)