My Learning Experience Lauren Field
It was the end of the first quarter and Mr. Brown had his ninth grade English class in the media center, wrapping up their last few presentations on short stories. While most of the presentations seemed to be pretty good, I could tell that several of his students had lost interest in the speeches and were taking naps in the back of the class. I couldn’t blame them; many of the presentations were bland and undeniably similar in composition and content.
As the bell rang I watched as his students hurriedly packed up their materials; a few students stopped to deliver the last few late papers to Mr. Brown, then hurried from the library. As I wandered around the room, picking up lost pencils and pushing in chairs, he mentioned to me how his class would be starting a new unit on Wednesday of the following week. This unit would be on the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
When I expressed delight over the teaching of this book, he told me how he has been teaching this same book for the past 20 years, but that it seems to him that each time he teaches it, the students seem to have less and less of an understanding of the context and implications of this book. Seeing his apathetic response to this book, I asked if there was any way I could assist him in coming up with a new approach to the teaching of this American Classic.
As a new media specialist at
That afternoon, Mr. Brown met with me during his prep period to allow me to look over the materials he currently used for teaching this lesson. Most of what he had were study guides; lots and lots of study guides. We discussed how he would like to focus less on the memorization of the text.
He told me about how he knew students at this age were capable of so more than what he currently had them doing, but he just wasn’t sure how to promote any deeper critical thinking from his students. We discussed how he wanted to vary his lessons more, and to change the monotony of review, discussion, and silent reading which were the current format of his unit. I asked what kind of things he would be more interested in seeing his students do, and he mentioned seeing them working collaboratively on different activities, using technology to help them understand what they were reading, and to be able to use a more constructivist approach to their learning[P3].
Mr. Brown had so many great ideas, but was wary of making many changes to his current unit. He told me that he had never asked for help on a unit before, and that he felt foolish asking for help on a topic he has taught for so long. I told him not to worry, but that I would do some research and see if together we could come up with a few ideas that he might find useful.
That Monday, I spent a few hours on my computer, reviewing some of the key ideas that Mr. Brown wanted to incorporate into his unit on To Kill a Mockingbird. One of his biggest concerns for the first week of the unit was how he would effectively introduce it. He wanted an opener that would get the students excited about the new book, and perhaps make them more interested in discussing the book. From one of the websites, I found a link to an unusual opener that would allow the students to focus on looking through a different perspective, and would also incorporate the use of student journals [KW 1]. The activity was called “Spend a Day in my Shoes: Exploring the role of Perspective in Narrative”.
Mr. Brown showed interest in trying this new approach to the book, and decided to try this introduction with his class. This lesson was adapted to fit within the first day of the unit. As illustrated in the lesson plan, students brought in a shoe from a member of their family, or a picture of a shoe clipped from a magazine or the internet. They then traded the shoe/image to another classmate and spent several minutes brainstorming about different qualities that made the shoe they were observing unique. Mr. Brown provided students with a few suggestions like, “Is the shoe worn down or new? What type of a person would wear this type of shoe? Do you think this is their favorite pair of shoes?” Then the students had to write a story [KW 2] about the owner of the shoe. In all, Mr. Brown said it was the first time his students had shown interest in the start of this new book, that they were actually excited to begin reading. This was a good start!
As the unit went on, Mr. Brown and I collaborated [KW 3] on several other ideas that would help make his unit more interesting. Taking into account his original requests, I helped him find different lessons that would integrate some of these ideas. One of his requests was that a lesson that would require the use of technology [P9, KW 4]. Since many of the students in his class were unaware of the events that were taking place in the south during the 1930’s, I put together a WebQuest [P5, KW 5] that would allow them to do some guided research. The WebQuest allowed the students to foster their cooperative learning skills [KW 6], as Mr. Brown divided his students into teams of two to complete this activity. Some of his students struggled at first because of their unfimiliarity with computers, but because of the easy to follow format of the WebQuest, they were soon learning along with their peers.[P7] Mr. Brown mentioned that he had also read that WebQuests offer the perfect opportunity scaffolding [KW 7]. He said that this is so because they meet the three criteria described by Bernie Dodge as vital to developing a web-enhanced, information-rich learning environment: WebQuests contain “quality resource links, compelling problems, and production templates to assist in building understanding.” (Blue Book 576)
During the second week of the unit, Mr. Brown asked if I knew of a way to make the characters more memorable and real to the students. I showed him an idea on concept mapping [KW 8] that was one way in which he could make the characters more interactive. He loved the idea of using a concept map not just because they would get to incorporate technology into the lesson, but because he had read that concept maps helps students retain and synthesize new information. (Blue Book 330)His class used various computer programs to create their own concept maps.[P9] One program that worked particuarily well was Kidspiration. Here is one example from a student in his class. 
I could see that the class was becoming more involved in the book, and that Mr. Brown seemed more able to come up with new ideas for the teaching of this book. However, as his classroom got closer to reading the scenes regarding the courtroom trial, Mr. Brown seemed to get more unsure of what he would do next. I knew that the connection still hadn’t been made to many of the students as far as understanding the bias and racism that the characters in the book would soon be embroiled in. At a teaching conference I had attended earlier in the school year, I had heard of an activity where the students could get a first hand experience of what it felt like to be prejudiced against [P4]. I spoke with Mr. Brown, and he decided to try it in his classroom. He divided his class into two teams. The members of the teams got to play a game where students would be called upon to answer a series of questions on the book. However, over the course of the game, one of the teams would be continually treated worse by being given less time to respond and loose points for no reason, while the other would be given more time to respond and extra points. By the end of the short experience, the winning team was elated, while the losing team was very angry. Mr. Brown then passed out a questionnaire asking the students to describe how they felt, their emotions towards the other team, and their feelings towards their own team. The activity was a huge success, and Mr. Brown was able to finally get the his students to understand why even if they were on the winning team and knew what was happening was wrong, why they still didn’t speak up. This activity was a great analogy [KW 9] to the book in that students could finally understand why some of the characters acted the way they did.
After this activity, some of his students came to Mr. Brown and mentioned how they could finally understand why Scout was sometimes irritated by the other members of her town, and why various members of Maycomb were treated so poorly. Mr. Brown mentioned to me that some of his students had even come to him and talked about an experience they had seen or had where someone was being treated unfairly because of their race, gender, or social status. Other students were talking with their parents and grandparents about some of their own expereinces. It seemed as if all the new activities were fostering student inquiries into history, and I saw several of his students looking through history books trying to learn more about what people experienced during the 1930's. [P10]
As the unit came to a close, I could tell Mr. Brown was becoming more confident that his class could understand the implications and context of the book. He began finding sites online that would help him to create even more higher thinking activities and lessons. One site that he showed me was the following website. He was impressed by all the activities that might help his class to understand several real-life situations about which the book was based, such as the Jim Crow laws, the Scottsboro trials, and other things that took place during the Great Depression. Through trial and error, Mr. Brown was finally bridging the digital divide [P9][KW 10], and was able to think beyond his old lessons and study guides. He seemed to be more at ease on the computers in the library. Finally the library was more than just a warehouse for books; it was a place where he and his students could work collaboratively and individually.[P8]
As the unit on To Kill a Mockingbird came to a close, the last activity that Mr. Brown decided on was one that required me to step in and do some integrated instruction [KW 11]. An activity that had interested me from the start was “Tea with Miss Alexandra”. Students would have to choose a character from the book, and then act out the characters personality within a tea party, hosted by me [P4]. Mr. Brown wandered around the classroom during this fun social, asking students questions about their chosen character, and then grading them on a rubric. The best part of this was that it incorporated student talk [KW 12] as a key component to this activity. Mr. Brown and I agreed that giving students the opportunity to talk, as long as it is “constructive and on target” while being challenging, is very important to their education. Mr. Brown called it a part of their “social Curriculum”(Blue Book 539). It also allowed the students to use their experiences with the book and their new knowledge of the 1930’s in a constructivist [KW 13] manner. As I wandered around the library, dresses in my best Miss Alexandra costume, I could hear many of the students discussing their opinions on the trial, on the Depression, on Atticus Finch, and even on their take on the prejudice their character may have felt towards another character. Mr. Brown seemed to be thrilled that his students were making such a strong connection to the book, and was actually awarding extra credit points to students that had remembered to dress up in an outfit that befit their character.
I noticed, as I mingled, one of the 8th grade math teachers standing off o the corner of the library. As I approached her, she said, “Well, English teachers always have it easy. Their lessons are always fun. I wish Intro to Geometry could be that exciting!” I just smiled and asked her if she had just a few minutes to tell me some of her ideas.