Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild in the English Classroom

As English teachers review the Common Core standards and consider the increased expectation for the study of non-fiction - especially at the high school level - many will struggle for how to expand their lessons and curriculum.  However, English teachers must face the facts that once students reach college, the whopping majority of texts the kids read will be non-fiction.  And so many of them are in areas with a business or sociological slant.  That is why our English department started adding non-fiction texts a few years ago.

One of our more successful choices, which is the summer reading assignment for our CP English 11 juniors, has been Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.  ITW is a book-length account of the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who adventured in to the Alaskan wilderness, and whose body was discovered months later, the victim of some poor decisions or some very bad luck.  Krakauer's book grew out of a feature he wrote for Outside Magazine - a story which touched a nerve and set off an explosion of letters, both praising and criticizing McCandless and Krakauer.  In fact, it generated the most mail of any Outside story ever.

The book is an engaging narrative which recounts the story of young Chris and delves deep into his motivations, while also exploring other accounts of adventure and "mis-adventure" through history.  Krakauer has done some amazing research, and his book dovetails well with many fictional works studied in high school, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Catcher in the Rye.  It's certainly worth checking out and considering as an addition to high school curricula.

Is Dead Poet's Society a Terrible Ad for the Humanities?

It's doubtful that any English or humanities teacher of the past thirty years doesn't like the classic Robin Williams vehicle Dead Poet's Society.  In fact, one could reasonably argue that the movie influenced more than a few young people to pursue a career in the liberal arts. I mean, what teacher out there doesn't want to be like Mr. Keating? Who hasn't envisioned inspiring kids with those poetic artful monologues? What student doesn't want to feel so inspired to "live deliberately" and jump up on a desk, saying, "Oh, Captain, my Captain"? The movie is truly inspiring and truly encapsulates what all humanities teachers seek to be. And everyone has their own favorite part or DPS-influenced memory. It is simply a movie that deeply effects and resonates with people, and it's one of those films that can't help but launch a discussion.  We all want to create that love of the arts, especially in the STEM-happy world that public education has become. (Though we should all be focusing on turning STEM to STEAM).  And now, the biggest company in the world has appropriated some of Keating's most magical words in a new commercial to sell us ever more exciting technology and media. Is that wrong? Kevin Detmer of The Atlantic seems to think so.

But passion alone, divorced from the thrilling intellectual work of real analysis, is empty, even dangerous. When we simply “feel” a poem, carried away by the sound of words, rather than actually reading it, we’re rather likely to get it wrong. We see Mr. Keating, in fact, making just this kind of mistake during one of his stirring orations to the boys of Welton. In a hackneyed speech about resisting conformity that he seems to have delivered many times before, Keating invokes that oft-invoked but rarely understood chestnut, “The Road Not Taken”: “Robert Frost said, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood and I / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.’” Wha—? Has Keating actually read the poem from which he so blithely samples? For Robert Frost said no such thing: a character in his poem says it. And we’re meant to learn, over the course of that poem, that he’s wrong—that he’s both congratulating and kidding himself. He chooses his road ostensibly because “it was grassy and wanted wear”; but this description is contradicted in the very next lines—“Though as for that, the passing there / Had worn them really about the same,” and—more incredibly still—“both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black.” He wants to claim to have taken the exceptional road, if not the spiritual high road; but he knows on some level that it’s a hollow boast.

Ultimately, I'd have to argue that there is much more to praise about the movie than to criticize about it. The ground-breaking and career-defining role for Williams - which moved him past the role of comedian - is still popular and leading idealistic young people into teaching. For that reason alone, it's probably still one of the best teacher films, and a pretty darn good promotion of the humanities.

The New SAT ... just like the old ACT, and AP Lang

In an effort to stay relevant as a standardized gatekeeper for college admission, the SAT test has been re-imagined and re-designed and re-packaged by the College Board. Much fanfare was made last fall with the release of information about "the new and improved SAT."  By now most of the news about changes have been heard: elimination of the archaic vocabulary section, a new essay form that is now optional, a focus on close reading of passages, an expectation of evidence-based responses to reading passages. It wasn't all that earth shaking, to tell you the truth. However, you can see the work samples and judge for yourself by visiting this preview.

Of course, the SAT is playing catch-up to the ACT, which outpaced it for the first time last year. And, in the spirit of "the sincerest form of flattery," SAT's revolutionary "change" to the grammar section is to simply copy ACT's approach or style. The SAT grammar test is now passage-based with multiple choice answers for the best version of a sentence, phrase, word choice. The College Board also appears to be copying itself (and a little of ACT) with its new reading passages, which look surprisingly like simpler versions of the objective reading on the AP Language and Composition exam. That is with a healthy dose of social studies thrown in. The emphasis on non-fiction with a connection to historical pieces in tune with "Founding documents" may require some literacy instruction - finally! - in high school history classes.

The essay? Basically an argumentative deconstruction - also in the manner of AP Lang.

The problem is with PARCC

In the past few weeks, I've had feedback from several "education reformers" and pro-PARCC voices about my criticism of PARCC tests. Much of their arguments have, to me, been grounded in naivete and mis-information. The following is the gist of my responses about my criticism of PARCC testing.

For one, it's not simply a matter of counting up the "testing time" and declaring that students are not "over-tested." For example, my district high schools are losing the equivalent of 9 full school days (out of roughly 174 days of instruction in a school year) in order to administer the tests required by the state. With proctor and tech needs, there is simply no other way. As an AP Teacher, I am positively ill about the impact on classroom time that will lessen my ability to prepare students for a truly meaningful and significant assessment. The excessive number of days/hours and two separate testing windows (PBA & EOY) of PARCC are simply untenable for schools and for students. In a world where students can take graduate school exams like the GRE and LSAT in a few hours, it seems patently absurd that kids between the ages of 8 and 18 are facing eleven hours of testing.

And, this testing monstrosity is a completely new product which has not faced market scrutiny. The PARCC assessment is an unproven and obtrusive assessment tool that inhibits instruction and poses serious equity issues in its format. If states and the federal government had had the common sense a year ago to align with ACT for a new common state assessment - one that can be given in a day or less - rather than PARCC, we might not have the huge parental refusal/opt out movement we are currently experiencing. Additionally, the radical new format of an online assessment necessitates training for students that absolutely requires "test prep" and "teaching to the test." And, with all we know about research on the importance of test format familiarity and "online reading comprehension discrepancies," the online format virtually guarantees the PARCC will not be an accurate measure of academic knowledge or skills, nor the ability to think critically.

I am not opposed to assessment or accountability. As an AP English teacher, I could hardly be opposed to standardized testing, or even "teaching to the test." In fact, one of my earlier pieces about testing simply proposed that Colorado choose ACT-Aspire over the PARCC. And, I have never opposed the use of MAPS or DRA2 or CSAP (or ISAT in Illinois) for my students or my own children. And, I do, in fact, prep my students for AP/SAT/ACT. However, I am critical of the edu-critics who use "test-based" reform as the factor in determining "good/bad" schools, and I am critical of the argument for new standards and tests based on the myth that "public education" is failing. In terms of the achievement gap, my position and the views of PARCC critics are not centered on simply test scores. My concerns extend to the impact on struggling schools that are forced by sheer need of test prep to narrow the scope of instruction to "pass the test." As noted in this profound article, students at high achieving schools will maintain their access to electives and the arts and subjects outside the tested ones despite an increased testing regimen. The same can't be said for other schools.

Truly, I can't imagine why an "educator" would enthusiastically cheer, or even passively accept, the PARCC test as "the answer" to all that allegedly ills public schools. Have they seen the test? Have they taken a practice test? If so, are they not bothered by the radical new system of online testing that has students scrolling passages and questions on opposite sides of the page while they try to answer questions? Are they not concerned about an "essay" section that puts writing in a box that kids can only see a few lines of their essay at a time? Do they know nothing of the research about discrepancies between online and paper reading comprehension? And what about the lack of data? Where is the evidence of valid proficiencies and cut scores? If a product is going to have so much significance, it should have more transparency about its quality. It would not have taken much planning to pilot, research, refine, and release the data to promote the test's value. But that didn't happen. And that's just not good practice.

As a parent and an educator, I can assert that my own children have taken CoGAT and NNAT and MAPS and DRA2 and CSAP and ACT and other tests as diagnostics for learning. I have no problem with these tests. But PARCC? I have serious concerns that have not been alleviated.

Problems "Teaching" Grammar

The teaching of grammar is the nemesis of both English teachers and students alike. And while many lament there is "no good way to teach grammar," few English teachers would argue publicly against teaching it in some way. The problem with teaching grammar in the traditional way is that it lacks any sort of evidence that the practice improves writing or reading or understanding of English. It's true. Literally breaking sentences down into their disparate elements has no positive impact on a student's ability to write correctly. Of course, we like to use the "mechanic analogy" for grammar-mechanics - You can't fix a car if you don't know how the individual parts like a carburetor work. The example is probably as absurd as it sounds.

That said, many of us continue to teach grammar in a disconnected, "underline the verb or the error in a bunch of random sentences" sort of way. The primary reason for this is the continued emphasis on such "skills" in standardized testing. My high school has a pretty standard, and pretty effective, grammar program that, in essence, is simply an ACT-prep course. And we will keep plugging away until the ACT grammar section is no longer such high stakes (which may be sooner than you think). And if we keep doing so, the education publishing world will continue to put out "grammar books," - a situation which makes professor Geoffery Pullum positively ill.

Professor Pullum is a long-standing critic of the teaching of grammar in the traditional sense, as well the inability for "grammar books" to actually articulate what they mean. For all those in the world of English who actually care to follow the issue, Pullum's blog - The Language Loghttp://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?author=3 - is an invaluable source of information and commentary. And, in a recent piece for The Chronicle, Professor Pullum rants and raves against the inadequacies found in the most recent version of the "New Grammar Book," or NGB, which he refuses to identify because it's just like all the rest. Delving into Pullum's critique and thinking long and hard about how we teach grammar is worth the time of dedicated English instructors. And perhaps one of us will take up the task ...

... that whoever points out that something needs to be done is taken to have thereby volunteered to chair the subcommittee for doing it.

Some who have tried before - and probably failed in Pullum's view - are:

Jeff Anderson in Mechanically Inclined.

Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.

Mignon Fogarty in Grammar Girls Quick and Dirty Tips.

Being Well-Read without Actually Reading

So many books - so little time. Or, perhaps, so many books - so little interest in reading them.

In an old Woody Allen movie (I can't recall which one) there was a character who spoke with great authority about books and culture, but actually knew very little. The quote was something like, "Oh, I don't read the books. I read the reviews." That always amused me as a teacher, and friends often referenced it when I appeared to have a knowledgeable opinion about everything. For English teachers and students, the ability of students to just "get the gist of it" without reading the stories is the benchmark of the Cliff Notes and Spark Notes industry. And that seems like cheating - though it's understandable why kids do it. They need to pass the quizzes and tests, but they don't have the time or interest in reading the stories.

So, what's the motivation for adults?

There is actually a sub-genre of books about how to appear well read without reading. And perhaps being knowledgeable about the classics or well-known works is not a bad thing. Adding to that area is Slate Magazine's Gentleman Scholar Troy Patterson who offers advice on "How to Seem Well Read." Patterson's position is actually quite entertaining and useful. The most basic advice is to simply follow the lead of that Woody Allen character - read the reviews. Patterson advises people to simply read the New York Review of Books. The reviews - at least for an astute reader - can provide the basic premise and commentary on the quality of the writing and story. However, for novels they will avoid spilling too much of the plot. So, it might be necessary to check out the conclusions - or Spark Notes summaries if available.

Of course, there are other great reads on how to appear well read. Here are a few I find worth the time.

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Beowulf on the Beach

Is Irony Good for American Culture?

As Polonius unintentionally let us know, irony - not brevity - is the soul of wit. And there is perhaps no culture or time period the embraces and evokes more irony than contemporary America. And no group of writers has explored that more fully and insightfully than our newest post-modernists - people like David Foster Wallace.

Recently, with the publication of an essay by writers/artists Matt Ashby and Brandon Carroll, Wallace's work and criticism of irony in American culture has touched off a discussion about the value of that irony. Is it saving us, or will it be our demise? Ashby and Carroll assert that the irony used by Pynchon and others to criticize war is no longer as effective when it simply become entertainment. When the satirized laugh so naively at themselves that they fail to see the change an artist is hoping to effect, then irony has lost its value. In fact, it becomes an instrument of self destruction.

So where have we gone from irony? Irony is now fashionable and a widely embraced default setting for social interaction, writing and the visual arts. Irony fosters an affected nihilistic attitude that is no more edgy than a syndicated episode of “Seinfeld.” Today, pop characters directly address the television-watching audience with a wink and nudge. (Shows like “30 Rock” deliver a kind of meta-television-irony irony; the protagonist is a writer for a show that satirizes television, and the character is played by a woman who actually used to write for a show that satirizes television. Each scene comes with an all-inclusive tongue-in-cheek.) And, of course, reality television as a concept is irony incarnate.

In Ashby and Wallace's view, Americans no longer have the ability to learn from irony when culture is saturated in it.  However, it may not be as fatalistic as all that. In Peter Finocchiaro's response to Ashby, Carroll, and, in effect, Foster Wallace, irony is defended as not useless and ineffective, but more relevant and necessary than ever. With an interview with UChicago philosophy professor, Jonathan Lear, irony is given a defense that incorporates the brilliance of Wallace and the American irony he wrote about.

First I want to say, I think one way to start is just in terms of the article you wanted me to look at, where they quote David Foster Wallace as though he himself is opposed to irony. But when you look at what he actually says, he talks about the “oppressiveness of institutionalized irony.” And I think to understand what he was talking about you really have to put a lot of emphasis on the “institutionalized,” and that got suppressed in the discussion.

I mean, it’s not like I’m a David Foster Wallace expert, but as far as I understand him, he himself was an ironist, and what he was complaining about wasn’t irony, per se, but a very flat understand and misappropriation, what he called an institutionalization of the idea. And so I think for Wallace, institutionalized irony isn’t a form of irony, it’s a form of not being irony. Of killing it. With that in mind, and again, there’s this other issue of how do we understand the use of various words in the English language. And of course if a billion people use this word “irony” in this kind of institutionalized sense, then that turns out to be one of its meanings, and there’s no going against that.

I think what makes irony an important concept to be thinking about and approaching is precisely because there is a tradition of thinking about it and working with it, a kind of poetic tradition — you can find it in Socrates and Plato and I think one of the great thinkers about this was Kierkegaard in the 19th century — where, in a funny way, irony is understood and developed by these various philosophers and poets and religious thinkers as very much an antidote to the kinds of things the authors of your article were complaining about. So what I think they’re getting at — what irony is, and why it matters …

Of course, speaking for a man of Wallace's brilliance is tough, especially when he left us too soon. And that can lead to complications. For example, the Wallace estate is challenging a recent attempt at a film adaptation of his magnum opus, Infinite Jest. And disagreements like that can complicate the matter in a way that would probably frustrate Wallace … and baffle Polonius [sic]. But as Charlie Alderman reminds us in a piece for the HuffPost.com, we can all learn a lot from Wallace and his portrayals of an ironic culture.

Character Education

Every once in a while, the politicians and the media the education reformers make "character education" the issue du jour. Generally, this follows some egregious display of ill behavior by children that shocks, outrages, or disappoints a community and the nation at large. Thus, we have calls for schools to take up - or, strangely, "return to" - character education.

And, I ask myself, what do they think literature class is all about.

Most state standards and district curricula require students to study literature as it is "a record of the human condition." Stories are the way we promote values, teach lessons, model behavior, and perpetuate culture. In fact, a colleague of mine fondly reminds us that as English teachers we are purveyors of culture. And, clearly many of us cling to the classic stories we love because of the great and important discussions that rise out of the search for meaning and identity in the struggles of Scout and Huck and Pip and Holden and Nick Carraway and Gatsby and the myriad of others.

We have a great responsibility in the English classroom that goes far beyond nouns and pronouns, thesis statements and topic sentences, imagery and allusion. We are tasked, daily, with the character education of the future generations.

Games as "Communication Skills"

One of my favorite activities for English classes is the game Catch Phrase. I usually put it on the schedule under the name "Communication Skills" early in the year, and it becomes a favorite and much requested activity in class. If you are unfamiliar with Catch Phrase, it is basically a mix of "Password" and "Hot Potato." It's a perfect game for twenty minutes on a Friday after a week of essays and tests.

In introducing the game, I point out to my students their often weak attempts at communicating very basic ideas - in other words, they don't have the language to convey what they mean. For example, how often do kids began a statement by saying "You know, it's the thing ... the story about the guy ... you know ... what I mean is ... the thing is ...." They have become a rather dis-articulate group of people. And games like Catch Phrase offer many teachable moments.

In order to play the game, I organize the desks in a circle, and the teams consist of every other person. So, one player has the game piece, and when the word is solved, he hands it to his left or right, as those students are on the other team. I still have the old-school, non-computerized version - which I much prefer - and thus I also appoint one student to man the buzzer and another to move the pieces on the game board.

This game is an excellent resource - and teachers will often borrow it for the end of a class period.

March 2 is Dr. Seuss' 111th Birthday - Celebrate Read-Across-America Day

Monday, March 2, marks the 111th birthday for one of the most important men in American history - Theodore Geisel, aka, Dr. Seuss. Long before JK Rowling captivated a generation of young readers, a mild-mannered man with a knack for silly, yet inspired, rhymes ignited a love of reading for children as young as ... well for children. This great piece from William Porter of the Denver Post offers an engaging look at "100 Years of Dr. Seuss." (Yes, I know he was actually turning 110 when Porter wrote this - but no matter).

So many of us in the English world would love to develop a lifelong love of reading in children, and no one did more than the man who "introduced  millions of children to the joys of reading and the magic of wordplay."  It was the "spirit of playfulness" that permeates his work which made it so endearing. But it's so much more than that, especially when you "Consider the opening lines of The Cat in the Hat." 

Consider the opening lines to "The Cat in the Hat," the 1957 chronicle of a brother and sister's misadventure with a gangly, anthropomorphic feline sporting a red-and-white top hat:

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold, wet day.
I sat there with Sally,
We sat there we two.
And I said, "How I wish
We had something to do."

Mood, setting, conflict, ennui. Just like Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," except that something actually happens.

"Geisel's works also endure because of his gift for creating rhymes that are fun to read aloud and easy to remember, but are not cloying or irritating," Robinson said. "That's no small feat. I think it's this combination of playfulness and lyricism that makes Dr. Seuss' works stand the test of time."

It's a wonderful, endearing legacy.  This week, teachers across the country should honor the godfather of literacy by celebrating:

READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY 





Whole "Common Core" Foods - They Standardized Deli Service, and Ruined It

Standardization is good and even necessary at times, right? Standard laws and rules and safety limits and measurements all make society more efficient and often more effective. But the value of standards isn't a given. Did the standardization of fast food by McDonalds improve food? Hardly. And that brings me to Whole Foods.

I love shopping at Whole Foods and have done so as often as possible for at least ten years. My Whole Foods is in southeast Denver on Hampden Avenue at Tamarac Square, and it is a truly glorious store. In fact, I think it was a bit of a flagship store for a while in Colorado, and our shopping experiences and service have always been exceptional ... until yesterday. While doing our weekly shopping we had the worst service experience ever while simply trying to order some deli meats and cheese, the same order we have placed for a long time. The problem is the store at Tamarac has moved the deli meats from the meat and cheese counter in the center to the prepared foods aisle along the side, and that has created a log jam of miscommunication and poor service, the likes of which I would never imagine from John Mackey's company.

Because the new location is alongside prepared foods and fresh sandwiches, the staff has no central focus and their "system" for taking orders ended with me waiting nearly 30 minutes for a half pound of ham, some mortadella, and ten slices of cheese. Having finished our shopping, we were ready to wrap up our trip and leave, as the deli meats order usually takes about five minutes while the workers at the cheese counter methodically take orders and fill them. "Prepared foods," on the other hand, had three different people filling orders, they were writing them down on "order sheets" which were laid out in no order, and they had no system for people stepping up to the counter. After waiting a few minutes, my wife went to check out. She finished and watched three customers who ordered after us check out before I finally came with my small deli order.

The cashier noted that I had "a free sample," which the clerk gave me to compensate for the delay, and when I explained the situation, a "manager" overheard and apologized as he explained the new "plan to standardize service" at more than a thousand stores. Apparently, ordering meats from a different department than "prepared foods" meant that, at some stores, they "never knew who was ordering what." And, that sounds like a completely ridiculous excuse for a company that is more than thirty years old. The manager also noted they are still training the prepared foods staff who "aren't used to slicing meats." So the obvious question is: why implement this disaster without full and proper training? When my wife was at the store last week, she witnessed some "corporate types" who were publicly discussing how the new design would "increase flow" and efficiency for people who get prepared foods and deli meats. And, that's simply absurd. What about the meat/cheese counter workers that we have known for years who know exactly what we like, how we like it, and who are already trained to cut meats.

This new system - and an apparent re-design of the store - is part of a plan to standardize, and it's simply a case of fixing what ain't broke. It's like the Common Core movement, which sought to address low performance at some schools with a stifling rigid new focus forced upon all schools. The store we had on Hampden Avenue worked very well. It was that "place where everybody knows your name." But the corporate reformers got a hold of it, and their plans to standardize have compromised service. Another example:  we've ordered Friday pizza specials for years with no problem. Last week, we called to order and were connected with a worker in "prepared foods" who had no idea how to take a pizza order. She thought we wanted frozen pizza, then pizza by the pound, then something else. And, she wasn't even sure how to direct our order to the guys making the pizza who we used to place orders with seamlessly.

And, thus, in a move to standardize service at all stores, Whole Foods has royally screwed up service at ours. And, had this been one of our first visits to Whole Foods, we might not return. Of course, if the problems continue, we'll probably revert to shopping at King Soopers which is closer. I don't really prefer King Soopers. But if Whole Foods wants to be more like fast food restaurants in its standardization of service, I might as well shop anywhere because the high quality of Whole Foods is being compromised in pursuit of a "common floor."

In Search of the Great American Novel

The GAN - It's an elusive beast that is the Holy Grail of American literature ... and American English teachers/professors. It is the Great American Novel.

We've talked about it in class, we've claimed numerous titles to be it when we are teaching them, we've even tried to write it ourselves. The list of the top contenders is long, but familiar. And the usual suspects are tough to refute. Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a strong favorite, which was given great support by Ernest Hemingway who noted, "All American literature begins with one book ..." Of course, Hemingway is just as likely to be credited with the accomplishment with his book The Sun Also Rises even though it's set in Europe.  Hester Prynne's early feminism certainly makes a claim in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and few would challenge the weight of the story about Ahab and the White Whale in Moby Dick. (Fewer would claim to have actually read the book with authority to declare its value). Probably second to "Huck" is the modernist tale of corruption and loss of innocence in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, a story which has been given resurgence thanks to Baz Luhrman and Leonardo DiCaprio.  And, in a more contemporary vein, high school English departments would raise mutiny if a list excluded Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird or Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Thus, the debate carries on. And it just got more concise with a book about the books.

Scholar Lawrence Buell has attempted to codify the discussion in his monolithic new critique, The Dream of the Great American Novel.  Critics have already started to weigh in on the value of Buell's work.  And that is obviously Buell's goal in the first place - kick off the discussion again, and place his research at the center of the debate.  One of the claims is that the novel has been written and re-written. And its most recent incarnations come from the two sharpest writers of the most recent generation, Jonathon Franzen and David Foster Wallace. It seems possible that Franzen wouldn't necessarily dispute his anointment. Though he could be as likely to "not show up" for the discussion. It is, anyway, a discussion that should continue, perpetually and forever, as America and American literature continues to reinvent itself, always in search of that elusive "green light."