I think a great metaphor for teaching is a ship; there is a captain and the crew but they need each other to work all together to keep the ship from being crushed and destroyed by the, at times, vicious, and uncontrollable ocean. I am about to take the wheel of my metaphorical ship for the first time and I am equal parts excited and terrified at the same time; stressed and becoming a little bit daunted and sea-sick of the open ocean of education. But luckily I am not alone. I have got a wonderfully supportive crew to keep me afloat and not falling overboard or crashing the ship into the rocks of life. That being said, I know that there will be icebergs of unengaged students who refuse to melt into the wonders of English literature.
I have been extremely blessed to have a number of educational mentors who have surrounded me my entire post-secondary career. All of us are busy people with a number of projects up in the air that we are constantly juggling but, God bless the internet for making it easier for busy professionals to get ahold of each other, share ideas, and help answer questions. I recently chatted with a number of my educational mentors via email (as I have just recently been termed non-contagious and recovering from Pneumonia) about my inquiry journey and they had many helpful things to say.
As I’ve stated in my inquiry proposal, I have, since the age of ten, been a huge book nerd whose favorite subject was (and still is) English literature. I have never been able to fully understand why many students find the subject so boring. A mentor of mine pointed out that by the time they reach us at the upper levels of secondary school many students are ready to specialize and are focused on post-secondary qualifications. English class, however, is a subject that is still mandatory for all students to take, regardless of their specialization, thus, many students see English as simply a course to get through. It is just another hoop. The focus of the traditional English class has been literary analysis something that only appeals to maybe 33% of the class (and this is probably being VERY generous). My mentors have theorized that the rest of the class, perhaps, does not find literature interesting because they don’t read for fun, they find literary analysis boring and difficult, and/or do not find the challenge of abstract thinking interesting. One of my mentors told me that at their school many of the students are English language learners who have exited the ELL stream and are experiencing native English speaking classes for the first time. Others, they theorize, are simply focused on other subjects like the sciences, maths, tech, or the trades; English is a tool for them but is not a subject that they enjoy. Yet, even as a communication tool, my mentors suggest that many of their students lack the basic understandings of the language and its use as said communication tool. All my educational mentors state that they are looking towards the new curriculum and its de-emphasis on literary analysis to re-focus their instruction on using language to communicate our ideas, receiving communications, and thinking critically about the communications we receive. We explore the use of our language to communicate ideas and engage with the world.
Much of the research I have been doing has been looking at different ways English language arts teachers engage their students and communicate their lessons, focusing especially on the instruction of poetry and Shakespeare as I will be teaching those units in my practicum. So many of the articles discuss the use of technology in the classroom that I have begun to see it as a trend, suggesting a covert correlation of the use of technology and an increase in student engagement. I asked my mentors if they saw this correlation too; is the way to make our lessons more hands-on and engaging all about integrating technology? Many of my mentors told me that technology is simply a tool but not the most important tool. One mentor stressed that the most important piece of technology to engage the students was the personal connection between student, teacher, and text. This triangle of connections, they stated, involves us transmitting our personal passion for the subject that, thus, engages the students, in turn, eliciting their own personal responses and connections with a text.
This same mentor shared with me his recent experience while teaching act 4.1 (the double, double, toil and trouble scene which is, by far, my favorite scene) of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. His own joy in the language of that scene was transmitted to the students who, in turn, were able to respond and take risks in the sharing of their responses with their peers. The class came together as a community of learners in their discussion of the scene.
Integrating technology, my mentors concurred, can help this along, providing a space for the reluctant participators to engage with the text while not speaking out in class. But, despite this, my mentors all agree that technology is probably not the silver bullet to solve all our problems with student engagement with the literature suggesting that the technology we use in class is not the same technology the students use amongst themselves outside of class and so we lose them once they walk out our doors.
One mentor told me that engagement comes when the student is triggered to engage. They have to want it.
These chats with my educational mentors have reassured me that I do not need to become Mark Zuckerberg overnight. Nor do I need to be as cool and as entertaining as a late night talk show host. I need to let my own passion for the literature show through, connect personally with my students and the text, and provide the students with a space where they feel safe enough to take risks. This was reassuring because, during my research, I was starting to think that my question of how to get students engaged was all connected to making my lessons more hands-on and that, in order to do this, every lesson needed to be fun and exciting. Maybe it doesn’t have to be, maybe the only thing that needs to be exciting is my own passion for the subject, and I’ve got that in spades! There are always ways to make the literature come alive, we would not be continually studying it all these years later if it did not connect with us in some way. I just need to find that connection, that beautiful jewel of personal connection.
So now, keeping up with my ship metaphor I started with, I will become a pirate (but not a mean one, a kind, gentle, humorous one) hunting for that personal connection and joy in each of my lessons, always looking out for that jewel of personal connection.
Let the treasure hunting begin!
