Sherman Alexie's "Indian Education" and Narrating Educational Oppression

Shelley Peterson's work demands teachers devote greater attention to the power of narrative as a means of having students engage with writing to learn. Taking her cue, I returned to a short story of Alexie's called "Indian Education," in which he provides halting narrative accounts of the memories that remain of his public education, from grade one through to grade twelve. I think such an account is provocative because of its working from the baseline story of a student working through each grade level, but then incorporates into this near-universally experienced timeline the deeply incongruous and often distressing variations in the "common" story that have been experienced (/endured) by Native American peoples in the United States.

Educators have become increasingly aware in recent years of the urgent need to incorporate greater attention to the lived experiences, past and present, of Native Peoples in Canada, especially the trauma's suffered in residential schools across this country. Yet, in spite of this growing sensitivity, it seems that many have struggled to integrate these stories into their jobs as curriculum-providers. Narratives like those provided by Alexie can bridge this gap between what we know we need to teach and the curriculum, all while benefiting from the multiple boons associated with teaching writing and history through narrative.

In fact, using Alexie's text as a model could prove even more useful. Once students have seen the way the basic structure of exploring each grade, 1-12, can be channeled to tell such a personal and provocative tale, they could be set to the task of similarly building a narrative one grade at a time, from either personal memory or fictional accounts, toward the construction of a unified story with some semblance of thematic unity. Working with students who are still somewhere along the 1-12 timeline provides the added opportunity of allowing them to carry their story forward, in a sense using their personal educational narrative as a basis for thinking about how their own story can grow or change in the coming years.

Quick Thoughts on Bronwen Low's essay, "Slammin' School"

Low's examination of the use of slam and spoken word poetry struck me as an instructive instance of the "essence" of what a teacher is trying to teach being captured and translated into the parlance of the students they are trying to teach. Trying to teach William Blake or memorize Flanders Fields certainly no longer seem like the best entry-points for students in most educational settings in Canada, but particularly in urban educational contexts. Knowledge of one's students must be the starting point for any educational project, and it seems self-evident that the teacher, "Tim," worked backwards from this precept to arrive at the conclusion of slam poetry as the best way to make the liberating form, exploratory freedom, and communicative power of poetry accessible, relevant, and enticing for his students.

Looking to Tim's excellent work, alongside poet-in-residence Rashidah, I cannot help but think the lesson here is not that slam poetry itself is the ideal access-point for every Canadian classroom, but rather that attentiveness to students' interests and passions is the key for connecting them with the curriculum and other educational goals you maintain.

On Teaching Poetry

Something a little different this week. I thought rather than my typical rant-like monologue I'd attempt to meld practice and reflection. Here I will deploy one of the techniques for teaching poetry, on my basic notes from this week's Peterson and Low reading. In each case, you can view the original, basic notes (I am not usually a note taker when reading), by selecting/highlighting the text of this "black-out poetry" version of my notes. Black-out poetry is a method similar to the method suggested by Peterson as "distilling poems from paragraphs," but further augmented by the fun/powerful-feeling addition of the censor's black marker (an exercise learned in last term's intermediate history class).

Peterson

• Idea that poetry challenges students to think concisely and trim back the vague fat of longer forms of writing. 
• That free verse, without the compunction to produce rhythm or rhyme, may be best for students just becoming accustomed to poetic writing. Robert Frost: "writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down." 
• Creating images, writing titles, two-voice poems, distilling poems from paragraphs (blank-out poetry!), 
• That stories help us to understand, to structure our experiences. 

Peterson

• Idea that poetry challenges students to think concisely and trim back the vague fat of longer forms of writing. 
• That free verse, without the compunction to produce rhythm or rhyme, may be best for students just becoming accustomed to poetic writing. Robert Frost: "writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down." 
• Creating images, writing titles, two-voice poems, distilling poems from paragraphs (blank-out poetry!), 
• That stories help us to understand, to structure our experiences. 

Low

• Poetry is often associated with 1960s and old school of writing and teaching. Can be challenging to get students to embrace it today, especially in urban educational contexts.
• You can make poetry "cool" by linking it to popular music swapping in the hipper and more modern form of spoken word, or slam poetry, seems to get students hooked
• promising results across racial and gender divisions
• produces honest reflection and provides forum that allows students to discuss challenging, controversial topics
• question: does this case study in success really apply across the board? Would be interesting to apply in a less privileged environment, as the "poet in residence" and the fact of its being a dedicated arts high school seems to belie the accuracy of the descriptor of this as a truly "urban high school" – is this closer to Canterbury or Rideau? Or something in between? 

In each case the poem does differ somewhat from the original notes. In some cases, this method of producing poetry from paragraphs can produce a meaning that is inverse or totally alien to the original text. In any event, it quickly gets students into writing poetry, even if they did not write the original text in question. It overcomes the terror of the blank page, and turns the writing process into an exercise in censorship and art.

Non-Narrative Non-Fiction and Learning to Learn

This post is working a bit in reverse. I am writing about the source I chose for the class of the 19th (last week), just as I am caught up about thinking about learning I have done about learning in another classroom.

The source text that I chose was a series of educational mixed-media videos called Crash Course (specifically its "World History" series). I like the way that these videos present history often as a series of debates between people(s) with differing ideas of and uses for history. I also enjoy its seamless integration of animations and textual quotations into what is otherwise predominantly a lecture format. What I did not realize before learning a little bit about the ways we learn in Learning Process in the Educational Setting, is that the ways this source teaches history have very clearly been guided by the psychology of memory. Its use of illustrating quotations, photographs, maps and cartoons each serve to punctually wrestle hold of learners' attention while also emphatically binding material to be learned (the dry stuff of the history textbook's paragraphs) to a variety of forms of information, visual, auditory, and textual, so that learners can better remember information. So too does the "lecture's" content serve to deepen memory-retention, which often ends in challenging (often "unanswerable") prompting questions, just as it is often punctuated by them. This source is an ideal one for adding to my toolkit as a History (and English) teacher in training, because it often models the way that I should aspire to teach.

Thinking about this series, and ways that I could further tailor it to my teaching, I also happened to come across a tool called "Zaption," which allows for editing of any posted online video by teachers (or students!) so that the video can be paused by prompting questions, graphics, or comments. This tool can be used in the above-mentioned educational video, or could be added to TED talks, documentaries, movies, or even news clips, to prompt students in the class to answer questions (either vocally, silently in writing, or on their phones to be displayed real-time in front of the class. Integrating such a tool (in concert with others like PollEverywhere) is useful, and really exciting for me for two reasons. On the one hand, it chunks up, or scaffolds, the learning that students do throughout the video. It forces them to stop and rehearse, then consider, then somehow engage with and create linkages to the material they have just absorbed in their short-term memory. On the other hand, it grants students the opportunity to transform what was once a one-way, monologuous information-drop into a two-way, producer-consumer conversation about a topic. Such a conversation is critical not only for improving student engagement and providing a sense of agency to the student-learner, but also because it serves to reinforce their memory of the information being learned, both deepening and broadening the neural linkages they would otherwise be making in a flat and sponge-like way.

Learning is about more than listening, it is about listening that gives birth to questioning, considering, and debating. I think that many of the audio-video tools of the internet era that are available to teachers only manage to act as mono-dimensional educational tools in many cases. Students are not sheep or sponges, and do not learn by mere absorption, regardless of how arresting or relevant the source may be. By linking audio-video sources to Zaption, I think that I can work to add an important layer to the way students interact with their learning materials.

Reflecting on Nancy Atwell's Reflections

           The honesty of Nancy Atwell’s introduction to In the Middle managed to capture my attention as a teacher-in-training. She writes of her experiences as a teacher of writing (as well as literature and history) as if she has managed to become an outside observer of her own teaching habits of years past. This came clearly into focus as she describes her teaching style as having been “creationist” and moving toward teaching as an “evolutionist,” able to let “go of my creations when I see that they get in the way of students acting – and growing – as readers and writers” (Atwell 4). I think the impulse for many teaching candidates, especially given the emphasis made by many instructors and associate teachers on preparedness, is understandably to lean toward learning to teach according to the “creationist” style. Work, work, work to create lessons planned to perfection and then cross your fingers that the students buy into them. This is by no means the intent of professors or ATs, but I think it is the inevitable consequence of a stress on preparedness coupling with the natural stress of teaching for the first time.

The transition that Atwell details in her teaching must have been a difficult one, requiring as it did a surrender of some significant measure of her power by her jettisoning the theory she clearly had become quite attached to. In this context, the passage she provided from Graves’ 1975 report struck me as particularly evocative of just what motivated her to make such a profound and difficult alteration to her teaching style: “It is entirely possible to read about children, review research and textbooks about writing, ‘teach’ them, yet still be completely unaware of their processes of learning and writing. Unless we actually structure our environments to free ourselves for effective observation and participation in all phases of the writing process, we are doomed to repeat the same teaching mistakes again and again.” (Graves 29/Atwell 9)

It seems a truism of the current teaching dogma that teachers should emphasize observation of their students’ individual paths toward learning, and differentiate their teaching to each students needs. So too is the idea that teachers must provide their students with a sense of control and empowerment surrounding their work. Each of these ideas I agree with, but have often found silently at odds with the goals of providing structure and actual opportunities for new growth in student learning. When given the tools and the power to set their own goals, I agree that often students will surprise in positive ways with the breadth and depth of their curiosity, but so too have I seen students led nowhere new by this over-reliance on freedom from structure or direction. 

In this respect too, I found Atwell’s writing compellingly balanced these competing interests when she wrote of how, “Freedom of choice does not undercut structure. Instead, students become accountable for learning about and using the structures available to writers to serve their purposes” (Atwell 15). Her stress on pursuing a balance between the goals of structure and freedom is certainly what most imprinted itself on my mind from this excerpt. As she concluded that she has reached the point of, “striving for the fluid, subtle, exhilarating balance that allows me to function in my classroom as a listener and a teller, an observer and an actor, a collaborator and a critic and a cheerleader,” I found in Atwell a model for what I think I would like my own teaching style to look like, but also a model for how I should hope to reflect on my teaching as the years pass and my students’ needs change (Atwell 21).

What is writing?

What comes to mind when "writing" is mentioned? Writing is the process by which thoughts are recorded and communicated by an individual or group for transmission either to other people or groups, or across time and space. Writing carries with it an aura of authenticity, credibility, and authority. Writing has often been variously pointed to as one of the defining elements of: civilization, Empire, and culture. Invariably, it can even arise as one of the first responses to the question of what separates humans from other species on earth. 

Writing is important if only for these claims made on its behalf. Writing is nothing if not immodest. Writing has disproportionately been the tool of the empowered, the male, and the religious and military. Writing has often served as a tool of hegemony; it serves to consolidate conformity and displace dissent across groups united by language  – language that is often itself defined and policed through the act of writing. 

Writing is said to improve the memory of civilizations, transmit the memory of families and groups, and convey the memory of individuals – real and imagined – to others. At once, we know that the memories of individuals belonging to oral societies are strikingly more reliable and capacious than are our modern, writing-supported recollections. Writing is proclaimed as a tool of the historian and a method of teaching and inspiring empathy, of Herodotus and Anne Frank. At once, we know of its history as a tool of colonizing missionaries and of residential schooling.

As with many tools, it seems that writing is capable of profound dualities. An awareness and sensitivity to these dualities should form a central component of any effort to teach writing.