Teacher Refuses to Give State Mandated Assessment Test to Students

Given our recent reading of Lives on the Boundary and various class discussions we’ve had, I thought you all might find this article interesting (and inspiring?).

Lit Circle Presentations

Literature circle groups will present in class on Wednesday, April 23rd, Monday, April 28th and Wednesday, April 30th.

Presentations should be between thirty and forty minutes, and should involve all group members.

As I described them in class, these presentations are a kind of “book report” with pizzazz! They are a way for you, as a group, to pull together your thinking about the book and share it.

Some ideas are:

Acting out a scene from the book.

Interviewing each other about the book.

Interviewing a character from the book (group members act as characters)

Poster

Reviews (have groups member “duel” over the book, come at it from different perspectives)

Create a scene that didn’t happen from the book but comes out of your thinking about it.

Pass out key passages to the class, read them, and discuss.

Create a time-line of the book.

Create a panel of “experts” on the book (share information about the text not found in it)

Find others who have read the book and bring in their perspectives (videotaped, audio, written, etc.)

Create a new character for the book.

Collages representing various parts of the book or characters

Any type of artwork representing the book

An original skit based on the book

An advertising campaign from the book

Diary of a character

Letter recommending the book to an acquisitions librarian (if our library doesn’t already have this book, then actually send the letter!)

Interview with the author (real in print, audio, or video, or recreate one using group members)

Letters to or from a character (or between characters)

The story rewritten for young kids as a picture book

Party plans for all the characters in the book

News broadcast reporting key events from the book (or about the book)

Family tree of a key character

Gravestone and eulogy for a character

Puppet show

Board game (or other type of game) based on the book (remember it has to be accessible for people who haven’t read the text, unless the group members are going to play it in front of the audience)

(Some of the above ideas borrowed from Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Students Centered Classroom by Harvey Daniels)

DQ #6

The section on Harold Morton in Lives on the Boundary struck me with anger and disappointment towards the education system. The remedial reading teacher stated “Harold’s problemis neurological. Perhaps aphasia. I think the problem is even too great for remediation. He needs a clinician to work with him” (Rose, 123). I was angry when I read this section. I feel that if Harold’s teacher’s got to know him, like Rose, they would see Harold is lonely and his loneliness is affecting his school work. In my opinion Harold’s teachers seemed to pass him along like he isn’t their problem. If Harold never worked with Mike how do you think he would perform in school?Who would you hold responsible for Harold’s delays in school and his struggles at home? While keeping Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in mind, do you believe a student needs to have his/her basic needs meet, such as love and belonging, in order to have self esteem and succeed in school?

DQ #5

On page 47 in Rose’s Lives on the Boundary, Rose tells of how his mother uses the phrase, “se vuol Dio,” or “if God wants it” after almost every statment. He then continues later with, “I carried wiht me no history of assurance that what I was feeling would lead to anything.” How does this show that Rose is allowing his/his family’s past to affect his beief in his own abilities? Do you think it brought out a sense of insecurity in Rose?

DQ #4

On page 46, Mike Rose talks about a traumatic death that happened when he was in college. Do you think this influenced him to be the person that he is today? Why or why not? Also, from the beginning of the book, Rose has talked about his educational experiences. Is he telling his audience this story because he wants people to be aware of an oppressed minority and poor situation? Why or why not?

DQ #3

In this first half the book, it is clearly evident that author Mike Rose has lived through a pretty eventful, yet meaningful life through schooling and the teachers that he has met along the way. I’ve often heard people say that to truely understand something, you have to experience it and Mike Rose does just that. He is an educator who comes to sincerely connect with his students because he is on their level and has formerly experienced what they are experiencing, presently. In your opinion, do you think Rose would have connected as well as he did with his students in the Teacher Corps volunteering if he hadn’t been able to relate to their struggles? and if yes, would it have been as effective do you think?

DQ #2

Lives on the Boundary

When JOhn had moved into his apartment in L.A., after 4 months, they had entered Loyola University. As he described the beginning of his college experience (pg. 41) and all the different programs and activities the college had offered, allowed me to sort of compare Loyola University in the 60’s, to THe College of Saint Rose and the different things our college offers. Do you think Loyola University and Saint Rose are alike by the way he described his experiences? different? How so?

DQ #1

It seems like college professors these days will not be there to hold your hand and help you pass they just tell you that you are on your own. If Mike had so much trouble in his first years of college and was in danger of failing, what made him keep going? Also why were the techers so interested in helping him pass and change schools?

Theory paper #2

Theory Paper #2

Due: at your conference (this is a one-on-one writing conference that you will sign up for in class) Week 13 — Monday, April 7th or Wednesday, April 9th

You will choose one theoretical approach from below — either Marxist or Feminist — and apply it to either a) your literature circle novel or b) a text of your choice (this could be a text you’re reading in a different class, a movie you’ve seen recently, a favorite TV show, a comic book, etc.).

Please come to class on Monday, March 31st with a brief proposal for this paper that indicates your chosen text and theoretical approach and includes a working thesis, along with any prewriting you have done and any initial evidence you’ve gathered.

WRITING A FEMINIST RESPONSE

PREWRITING:

–use the list of questions on pg. 110

–consider whether you want to

a) examine the female experience — recognition of female abilities beyond typical gender oppostion (male/female), rejecting the idea of a male norm against which women are compared, examine female images in the works of female writers, point to a distinctly female voice and perspective.

b) study power — address economic and social exploitation of women (assumption that the economic system is at the base of gender inequality), argue that gender stereotyping is tied to the economic system, examine subgroups who are dually marginalized

c) study difference — work from assumption that gender determines everything (including value systems, use of language, etc.), focus on characteristics of the writing — is the voice, diction, etc. “male” or “female”? Point out differences between men and women.

Introduction: point out why feminist critique is relevant to the text you are analyzing, or connect the events and/or characters of the text to “real” life. Because feminist critics see art as political and as a way to understand society, such connections can work in this type of essay.

Body: Depending on whether you chose a, b, or c (or some combination) as your perspective from which to work, see the relevant bulleted lists on pp. 111-112.

Conclusion: Pull all of your references to the text into a final most refined version of how a) the text is particularly “male” or “female,” or b) how the power relations are depicted in it, or c) how it presents the nature of the female experience. And answer “so what?” Why is this reading significant or relevant? What is the text saying about society on a larger scale? What impact might this text have on the relations between men and women, or women’s roles in society?

WRITING A MARXIST ESSAY

PREWRITING:

–use the list of questions on pp. 88-89

–the four most important points to get to in your freewriting are

1) clarify you understanding of the ideology of work (what is the relationship between producers and consumers, owners and workers, system of economics, etc.?)

2) identify the elements in the text that present that ideology

3) Does the text promote or discourage or critique that ideology?

4) How sympathetic or opposed is the text to Marxist principles?

Introduction: announce the ideology of the text and relationship to Marxist views –make this into a claim you are staking; an argument you are making; in other words, your thesis — or begin with an incident from the text the illustrates a socioeconomic aspect of the text that you plan to address.

Body: demonstrate the presence or rejection of Marxist principles in the text you’re analyzing. You might choose to focus on particular characters, social institutions depicted (schools, government, family, etc.), or struggles between groups of people. Remember to develop your points in close connection with or as a clarification to/refinement of your thesis.

Conclusion: various options include

–endorsement of a classless society where everyone has equal access to goods and services

–criticism of repressive, oppressive societies (or depiction of such a society)

–point out again where the text either supported or rejected social change, equality, classlessness, etc., and consider what the text has to say about society in general (Does it offer a critique or perpetuation of the status quo?)

–Does the text mesh with or conflict with your own belief system? What has the work revealed about your own ideology? Explain your realization.

**All papers must have a unifying thesis statement. Remember: a thesis is a claim, an argument, a stance you are taking. It is not something that is already settled, but something you explore and develop throughout the course of your paper.

**Don’t try to do too much. In other words, say more about less. Keep a tight focus in these essays.

Literature Circles

Please view the following document, which describes the selection of texts for your literature circles.

lit-circles-1.doc

Send me, via e-mail, your *top three* choices, and I will do my best to put you in a group that is reading one of your top texts. Do this by tomorrow (Friday), and I can let you know in class on Monday which text you will be working with.

For a bit more information on literature circles visit this site.