Dr. Louis' Blog

Dear Dr. D',

My 10th grade American Literature students just don't get it. I mean, when they are reading a fictional piece or a non-fictional piece, they don't know how to infer. They don't know how to look deeper into a piece. They don't want to look deeper, and they shut down. Please HELP! I'm at my wits' end.

- Shannon

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‍Dear Shannon,

First, have a glass of wine, a nice cup of coffee, or your favorite beverage; take a deep breath; and realize that you are not alone. "Inference" is not easy to teach. It's a green monster (CM)! But, look at it this way, you have some time to organize your thoughts about how to approach this skill for next year. Let's see if I can get you started.Start the first week of real school (usually takes a few days to level the classes) introducing your students to diction, denotation, connotation, and tone. Then, for the rest of the year, don't let up on these four terms.

• Diction. "In linguistics, diction means word choice" (Holman)
• Denotation. "The basic meaning of a word, independent of its emotional coloration or associations" (Harmon 144).
• Connotation. "The emotional implications that words or phrases may carry, as distinguished from their meanings" (Harmon 114).
• Tone. "[. . .] the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, solemn, sombre, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many another possible attitude" (Harmon 510).

Harmon, William and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 6th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992.Harmon, William and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 9th ed. New York: Macmillan, 2003 (This reference is now in its 12th edition, and it is a must-have for all ELA teachers!).Look at the denotation, connotation, and tone of similar words and then ask the students, "When and, more importantly, why would a person prefer one word over the other? Give examples."

• house vs. home;
• large vs. ponderous;
• sit vs. flop;
• giggle vs. snicker;
• lie vs. fudge;
• anger vs. disdain;
• happy vs. giddy;
• and more . . .

Next, pull a rich passage from one of your texts:

‍“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.”

• "throng" -- large group, mob-like mentality (Ask the students questions. Why didn't the narrator say 'large group?' Why did the narrator choose the word, "throng?" What is implied by a "throng?" What is the author's purpose?)
• "sad-colored garments" -- Ask the students questions. Why "sad-colored?" Why not just say 'black' or 'navy'? It implies a sombre tone, yet it's a "throng." Hmm. Something is strange here -- irony -- (appearance vs. reality) -- sad, but mob-like. Hmm.
• "steeple-crowned hats" -- Ask the students questions. What do you think of when you think of a steeple? The word 'steeple' has a religious connotation. Religious people? Religious people wearing dark clothes. Dark? Dark on the outside and the inside, maybe? Mob-mentality, dark on the inside. A religious mob? Pointed Hat. Narrow. Maybe narrow-minded? What is the narrator implying? What is the author's purpose?
• "women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded" -- Ask the students questions. Why would a person wear a hood? What does a hood do? hidden (secrets) vs. open? "bareheaded" -- Does that mean nothing inside those heads?
• "door of which was heavily timbered with oak" -- Ask the students questions. What is the purpose of a door? A door opens and closes. What do you think of when you think of the difference between 'open' and 'closed?" This door is closed. It's oak -- stubborn, unmoving, inflexible . . .
• "[. . . and studded with iron spikes" -- Ask the students questions. What about these "iron spikes?" torturous, ominous, unyielding, dangerous, wounding . . .

Who knows what's right and/or what's wrong with the above interpretations, with the above inferences? All of the green above is inference.

‍After you study the sentence, tell them the sentence is the first sentence and the first paragraph of Chapter 1, titled "The Prison Door" in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. From this one sentence, you already gain insight about the characters. Say to the students, "With insight like this, the reading becomes much easier to understand and to anticipate.

"Present one sentence a day during the first ten minutes of your class; make it a rich sentence and let the students discuss the subtleties and complexities of the diction. Don't correct them when they say something that makes you want to hang your head and cry. Let them be creative. Of course, they have to use evidence from the sentence (CD). I ask my students, "What words or phrases pop? If they pop out at you, pause and think about why they pop? They popped for a reason. What is that reason? (CM)"  You can also create a bank of sentences this summer. Then, at the beginning of the year, assign each student one of those sentences to present to the class on a certain date. (In your mind that date will correlate to a passage or chapter you will be introducing.) Practice! Practice! Practice! The more the students practice under your watchful eye, the more the skill of inferencing will sink into your students' minds--this is close reading. Next up -- Point of View/Perspective. But that's another blog! One more consideration: What I have learned is that the students do not understand how to deconstruct a prompt. They do not understand what the prompt is asking them to do. That, too, is a skill that needs practice. Make sure you give the students reading and writing prompts so that they will become familiar with and eventually master how to deconstruct or decode a prompt. If they are not taught the skill of prompt deconstruction, they become paralyzed. Before they begin reading, give them a prompt. Doing so will help with the close reading, because they will be searching for what the prompt is asking them to do. Do not wait until after they read. Some teachers say to me, "Deborah, I want them to find the nuances on their own." I answer, "Yeah, wouldn't we all! But, you have to teach them the skill first, and giving them reading prompts as well as writing prompts prior to their reading helps them to be successful.

"We, as teachers, can always learn, too. One of my mentors, Sharon Kingston of Lubbock, Texas, taught me that the reason Hester made the “A” so ornately on her bosom was because to her, it stood for “Arthur.” I never saw it!! Remember, when you were in high school, ladies, and you would create a beautiful, ornate rendering of your boyfriend's initials on your notebook?? So, being a student of inference is a life-long journey, for sure – in and out of school, right? . . . (I’m just saying).

Most of our students are not as giddy about the written word as we are. Be patient. And practice. Those two keys will unlock the door. Keep Writing and Reading!Yours truly,Dr. D'

By Deborah E. Louis, Ph.D.

With technology and especially online learning, the idea of competency-based education is a viable option and may be best used in a blended learning environment. Blended learning is an idea that may offer more time for teachers to provide continuous and effective assessment, but it does not address the challenge of students having different skill levels and, therefore, different levels of progression. What does address this challenge is Competency-based Learning (CBL).  And the combination of CBL and Blended Learning is a dynamic duo to student learning.

The traditionalist attitude continues to demonstrate an affinity toward the early 20^th century basis for measuring school work known as the Carnegie Unit system. A unit would represent a single subject taught for one classroom period for five days a week. Thus, the Carnegie Unit equates seat-time with learning. The traditional length of the typical class period (50 to 55 minutes), the school day, and the school year stem from the Carnegie Unit in an attempt to standardize and ensure the quality of high school education. In this traditional approach, teachers typically provide instruction to all students at the same time, and deadlines for assignments and projects apply to all students. Recently, in a brief titled “State Strategies for Awarding Credit to Support Student Learning by the National Governors Association (2012, p. 1), “a total of 36 states currently have policies that provide school districts and schools with some flexibility for awarding credit to students based on mastery of content and skills as opposed to seat time.” Reports like the one developed by the National Governors Association have encouraged other thought leaders to consider allowing time on task to be a variable and competencies of objectives to set the bar. This idea is an example of a new myth replacing the old. What has emerged is a concept among educators known as competency education. In “The Art and Science of Designing Competencies,” Chris Sturgis (2012, p.5) and innovators from across the country developed a working definition of competency education:

• students advance upon mastery;
• competencies include explicit, measurable, transferable learning objectives that empower students;
• assessment is meaningful and a positive learning experience for students;
• students receive timely, differentiated support based on their individual learning needs; and
• learning outcomes emphasize competencies that include application and creation of knowledge along with the development of important skills and dispositions.

Also known as proficient-, standards-, and performance-based education, competency education allows students to learn objectives with time flexibility. Therefore, a student who understands and masters an objective or standard sooner than others may move forward. In addition to Competency-based instruction, blended learning, combining traditional teaching approaches with integrated technology, is a way for teachers to gain more time for personalized approaches to student learning. According to the Innosight Institute definition by Heather Staker and Michael Horn (2012, p. 3), blended learning may be defined as “a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace, and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.” Four models of blended learning discussed by Staker and Horn (2012, p. 2) in “Classifying K-12 Blended” include the Rotation model, the Flex model, the Self-Blend model, and the Enriched-Virtual model. These new approaches to the ebb and flow of the classroom do not oppose traditional senex values; rather, they augment the teaching and learning in a way that allows the senex approach to have more meaning because the approach is more personalized.

The Rotation model, according to Staker and Horn (2012, p. 8), is a program in which “within a given course or subject students rotate on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion between learning modalities, at least one which is online learning. One example of the rotation model is the flipped classroom. The flipped classroom is a phrase coined by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, teachers with a combined 37 years of experience. It suggests that a teacher flip the common instructional approach.  Bill Tucker, in a 2012 article from Education Next discusses the concept: With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class. Class becomes the place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. Most importantly, all aspects of instruction can be rethought to best maximize the scarcest learning resource—time.

Other modalities might include teacher-led instruction, small, collaborative groups, individual conferences, or seat-time with pencil and paper. The location of these modalities might occur at stations within a classroom, different locations on a campus, a remote location (often home) after school, as explained in the flipped classroom approach, or in an individually customized fixed schedule in which students’ rotation may not include each station. Staker and Horn (2012, p. 12) describe a Flex model as a program in which students receive content from the Internet and move on an “individually customized, fluid schedule” with the teacher-of-record on site and accessible. A Self-Blend model is one in which students may select to take certain courses online with the teacher-of-record being an online teacher. Finally, Staker and Horn (2012, p. 15) describe an Enriched-Virtual model as a “whole-school experience in which within each course (e.g., math), students divide their time between attending a brick-and-mortar campus and learning remotely using online delivery of content and instruction, adding that the “Enriched-Virtual model differs from the Flipped Classroom because in Enriched-Virtual programs, students seldom attend the brick-and-mortar campus every weekday.  It differs from the Self-Blend model because it is a whole-school experience, not a course-by-course model.” In a blended learning environment, teachers have more opportunity to approach their students’ learning of skills and concepts by providing lessons, units, or projects that may be completed by the individual in an online setting, in small, collaborative groups, in teacher-led instruction, and/or a combination of the three. Teachers guide, supervise, monitor, and assess the mastery of standards-based skills and concepts on a continuum; students are not slowed or accelerated by time but rather by their ability to understand, apply, analyze, and synthesize. Students are not labeled as needing remediation or enrichment.  Their performance outcomes on specific standards guide those decisions.

Some teachers worry that using online approaches that blended learning encompass will replace the role of teacher, but the blended learning environment as well as CBL promotes and requires supervision of students’ learning, as Richard E. Ferdig (Davis, 2011, p. 38), a research professor at the Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, has indicated, that “incorporating the face-to-face mentor into students’ use of online courses is directly linked to success.”  Teachers can never be replaced with regard to effective learning. The Teacher is an archetype, a dynamic figure in our collective unconscious. And the student-teacher connection is also an archetype.  Any time I ask a student about naming the one thing that had the most impact, the answer is always “My teachers.”  It’s true and will always be true.

With a combination of CBL, personalized instruction, and digital tools that include blended learning, portable and mobile learning, and computer-based instruction, students are engaged and teachers have the time to plan, create, grade, and tutor, and less time on behavioral problems and parent phone calls. If students are engaged, dropouts by students and their teachers might also decrease.

Dear Dr. D',

I was talking to an administrator who was not understanding why the students were struggling to write even when they were given graphic organizers and step-by-step instructions on what to do ("Read the prompt, brainstorm, plan/outline, draft, revise"). I explained that just because students are told those steps, doesn't mean they know how to apply them. Most writing programs give the steps and various graphic organizers. What they don't provide is the metacognitive writing piece--"How do I think my way to an idea?" Or "What comes next?" Or "How do I think my way through that step?"

What's GOLD about Jane is that we first show a model of every step, and then we do group writing so students see each step in action and learn the thinking behind each step. We don't send them on their own until they are ready. Some are ready before others, but the program allows us to modify for this. Each student can come to a full understanding of the writing process in his/her own time. I've not seen any other writing program that does that. Sure, some programs give a bazillion handouts and types of topic sentences and color-coding and what goes where--but they don't have what [Jane] has in terms of modeling or commentary and, most importantly, the thinking behind coming up with the thoughts that are put on paper.

Lauren Roedy-Vaughn

Sometimes, people send me emails from Jane that I like to share--they are treasures, nuggets. I'm calling this series Jane's Diction. What is so special about the following words by Jane is that they are from an email that she sent to her daughter Sarah in 1997. Sarah is also a teacher, and I asked Sarah to share some of her mother's words with us.

So, as you are preparing for the last day of school and looking forward to the first day of summer break, take care of yourself. You need much deserved rest. Then, reflection. Then, rejuvenation . . . . In the meantime, here are some of Jane's words to you and for you. She was completely dedicated to her family, kids, and devoted teachers. Enjoy.

Friday, December 5, 1997. . . you must always study what you love because it must carry you for a lifetime.

Teaching has been that for me.  Every day is different, some better than others, always rewarding to talk to kids.  My juniors are getting grammar better this year because I think I am doing a better job teaching it this time around.  Bertrand Russell wrote that his desire to allay fear and pain (rough paraphrase) was one of the things that drove him through life--not a bad goal to have.  The seniors are fearful about college admissions.  The freshmen are fearful that their voices will break in the middle of reading Of Mice and Men aloud in class.  The juniors are just plain fearful of me--I know I am a scary person on the outside--but they are wising up to the reality underneath.  My special Study Failure class is fascinating.  Now that I have my extra computer installed in my room with grades, book reports, and other stuff on it, they are more likely to drop by and sit in the chair I leave next to me to ask about their grades (a pretense in part) and just hang out.  One boy is leaving the class to enter drug rehab; he is probably one of the five brightest minds I've had in my career, and he thinks he hides his intelligence well.  I told him today that he couldn't hide it from me, and he gave me a hug.  It was a sweet moment.

All the good teachers I know and admire are Holden Caulfields.  They want to catch kids before they go over the cliff.  My teachers saved me in high school, and my passion is to do the same to my charges.  I have always told you:  the way to repay such a debt is to pass it on to the next generation.  It is the only legacy that counts.From Deborah: Remember, you matter a great deal to many people. You will never truly know the impact you have on those faces and those lives. Cherish the memories: good and bad. They all have meaning in your life. And from one teacher to another, thank you.Note: Please feel free to send me Jane's words to post.

Dear Teachers,

For Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought I would share with you a document that one of my favorite English teachers gave me when I became a teacher.  My, how times have changed!

RULES FOR TEACHERS--1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.

1. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.

1. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

1. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

1. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

1. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

1. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

1. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.

1. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

They had me at chimneys . . .

I hope that your students know how hard you work to make their lives better! From one teacher to another, keep the faith! Happy Teacher Week.

Much love and admiration to you,

Dr. Dr'

This speech is from Jane's papers. It is in our nature as human beings to reminisce at times like this, and I am no exception.  I have a stern face but a soft heart, and  I would like to give you a glimpse of the days of our lives in the classroom.

It is a morning like any other morning.  Nathan wanders in late, mumbles his customary "I overslept," and consults with Jessica about the yearbook.  I'd be disappointed if he didn't.   I eavesdrop while I take roll--Megan hopes her cold will be gone by prom night; Elizabeth's cell phone rings; others are signing yearbooks, writing promises of eternal friendship.

From the deep reaches of the classroom, with Star Trek posters on one wall and another poster in front that says, "This isn't Burger King; you can't have it your way,"  I hear the usual chatter of children, but I'm reluctant to cut it off--for this moment is theirs.  It is the last day before summer, and they are seniors in high school.

Nevertheless, there were details to attend to--giving grade printouts, collecting textbooks, reviewing the graduation schedule.  Here was my final moment with them before they stepped out of my classroom into adulthood.  A teacher wonders just what difference she has made.  Even though Hamlet's decision was worlds away from theirs, will they ever think of him when vacillating between two points of action?  Will they remember Robert Frost's statement that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there/They have to take you in?" Will they think of Brave New World when they read about cloning human beings?

Some will be headed off to college, that crucible of growing up after the short space of summer to experience the magic of  emancipation.  They'll learn a few facts, but they will also learn that they can--go to classes or not go, without nagging, even without notice--eat anything, anytime, without cleaning up afterward --stay up all night, or stay in bed all day--wear the same socks for a month--fall in love and out of love,  all without criticism from parents.

Glorious freedom--they may even find it hurts.  They will learn that clothes don't wash themselves, that a steady diet of pizza is unsatisfactory, that love and life are more complicated than they imagined as the world lay before them.  I want to remind them of some old rules in life:  that everything has its cost, that two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead, that life is what happens when you have other plans. But I would feel a little foolish, like Polonius giving pompous advice to his son.

Teachers play many parts: counselor, parent, Dear Abby advice giver, social worker, coach.  We can be a difficult lot sometimes.  We are the bossiest people I know.  We all have the teacher voice.  We use it to order people around and get a paycheck for it.  We discipline other people's children in public: supermarkets, shopping malls, airplanes, amusement parks.  We figure it's our right and our obligation to humanity to do so.Every teacher knows that the saving grace in this job is the kids.   We deal with everything from the trivial to the traumatic, from "Can I borrow a pencil?" and "Is the cafeteria selling Arby's today?" to "I couldn't do my essay last night--Things aren't so good at home right now."  We hope our classrooms are an oasis in adolescence, islands filled with rigorous academics and relentless caring.   We stay in this profession because of a deep and abiding sense of commitment. I have tried to keep children safe and out of harm's way, to prevent their suffering and allay their fears.  My parents were both alcoholics--in a group this size, a good many of you also grew up in alcoholic homes--and so, high school was a refuge and a sanctuary for me.

My father was in the Navy, and I attended fourteen schools from kindergarten through college.  In high school, I discovered that my French teacher always came in early, and I hung out in her classroom each morning before first period.  Since my goal was not to go home until I had to, I joined the drama club, because drama kids never go home.  School gave me a safe haven when I needed one, and I have tried to repay the debt, to pay it forward, as a teacher.  Appreciation is a wonderful thing, for it makes what is good in others belong to us as well.

But now [. . .,] it's time for me to go.  To my students, past and present, you have been a joy to me for thirty-two years.  And to the seniors, I wish you that same joy in your life's work as I have found in mine.  I cannot imagine a more glorious or more rewarding way to go through this life. Thank you.