English class co-op

[Michelle in AL]

If you've taught a literature, writing or combination of each in a co-op setting, I'd love to hear what you do. What do you focus on? What teaching methods work best? What has been most successful for you & motivating for your students?
Holly in NNV I would love to sit in on one of your classes & thanks for the writing book recommendation from Tina.

[HollyinNNV]

If you've taught a literature, writing or combination of each in a co-op setting, I'd love to hear what you do. What do you focus on? What teaching methods work best? What has been most successful for you & motivating for your students?
Holly in NNV I would love to sit in on one of your classes & thanks for the writing book recommendation from Tina.

Well, I try to focus on things that students can't do at home. So, we do lots of speeches. Some of the speeches I'm planning for this year:

How To?-Come prepared to demonstrate how to do something
Interview-Come prepared to explain why you should be hired for a specific job (librarian)
Here's how I describe what they prepare for class:
You are an author. You just wrote a new stunning novel. You want to convince your audience to read your book and not an old haggard, yet classic piece of literature. Therefore you decide to describe a classic piece of literature that the audience should not read. You may choose either Antigone, Aeneid or Inferno. Write a key fact outline that explains the key points of why your audience should not read one of these pieces of literature. You must use the outline for your speech. Please be sure you have enough information to speak for one to three minutes. (kind of the un-book report)
The week before we would do a speech where they plug a book.

I also like to assign writing assignments where they respond to each other. One time they wrote a letter to a fictional character (Santa, Easter Bunny, Charlie Brown). They had to ask the fictional character three questions. Then we randomly distributed the letters and they had to respond as the fictional character. The time we did the Easter Bunny they really had a great time. We also wrote to leprechauns near St. Pats day.

This year I'd like to delve into conflict resolution. So, we may do a letter of complaint. Then a fellow classmate must send a letter in response to the complaint. I think this can be accomplished in a fun way, but still deal with the importance of being able to appropriately resolve conflict.

But, the very best group writing project we ever did was when I was teaching persuasive writing. The girls all had to write a paper convincing the reader to begin collecting baseball trading cards. The boys had to write about why all girls should have hair scrunchies. They did not put their names on the papers. Then the boys chose the most effective baseball card paper and the girls judged the hair scrunchie papers. We talked about writing for an audience. We talked about what the girls thought was effective. They were impressed by a good sense of humor. We talked about what the boys liked. One of the girls had done quite a bit of research and that was what appealed to the boys. Then we talked about advertising.

I also lecture on literature and writing. But, when I do lecture, I build in discussion and debate into my lecture so the kids actively participate. For example, when I lectured on Poe, one of my slides said,
Why read books from the horror genre? We had a nice little discussion about that. When we discussed Twain, we talked about the power of racially charged language in Twain's time and currently.

Sometimes we simply have a debate. One of the last debates last spring was inspired by our final book F451.
No books should be banned.
I divided the class into a pro and con: no books should be banned and some books must be banned. I give the kids 10 minutes to come up with arguments. I give a point per argument they come up with. Then we do rebuttals and they get 2 points per rebuttal. I saw a great improvement in their debating skills this past year.

This coming year I am going to go through Kreeft's suggestion on how to have a discussion with a adversary Socratically. He gives some great ideas on how to keep tempers from rising and how to improve communication.

I started something new with my lit students last year. I host a blog where the kids can respond to the literature before class. This seemed to raise interest in the book. Here is an example:
Discussion at the beginning of the year:
http://web.mac.com/hollyk3799/Site/Blog/Entries/2007/9/25_The_Yellow_Wall-Paper_.html

Discussion at the end of the year:
http://web.mac.com/hollyk3799/Site/Blog/Entries/2008/5/23_“Rip_Van_Winkle”.html

The kids really began to "get" the power of blog discussion toward the end. I hope to really make better use of this because I think it enhanced our actual class discussions. We started from where the blog left off.

Well, this was a pretty random-stream of consciousness-post. Maybe I'll think of more later.
HTH,
Holly

[Michelle in AL]

Holly, thank-you so much for sharing. I LOVE the blog idea. Your students comments reflect a real understanding of literature. At least more than I had at their age. You really seem to have them thinking about the purpose and meaning of the stories. That is a gift I think some of us may never receive unless we have the right teacher. I never had that. What I've learned was through self study and if I had learned it earlier I could have enjoyed so much more literature.
I really like the conflict resolution idea for writing too. That's something they can probably truly identify with at that age.
Thanks for sharing!

[laughing lioness]

Holly has some awesome ideas! I am less creative :) but we have had some effective courses. I've taught IEW in co-ops for several years. At times we've just used the TWSS but I have been using the student themed books now for a couple of years and really like them. This year I will be teaching 3/4th graders from the Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales, 5/6 from U.S. History and 8th and up using the Medievel (all IEW). I copy the writing criteria (pg 33 from TWSS I believe) and laminate it for the kids so they have a ready check list.
We've used Lightening Lit for literature and really enjoyed it. The books are classics and the list of possible assignments are fun. I pick and choose so the kids don't have to do all of them. We also work in some presentations basd on the writing assignments.
Have fun! I have loved teaching these courses!

[HollyinNNV]

Holly has some awesome ideas! I am less creative :) but we have had some effective courses. I've taught IEW in co-ops for several years. At times we've just used the TWSS but I have been using the student themed books now for a couple of years and really like them. This year I will be teaching 3/4th graders from the Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales, 5/6 from U.S. History and 8th and up using the Medievel (all IEW). I copy the writing criteria (pg 33 from TWSS I believe) and laminate it for the kids so they have a ready check list.
We've used Lightening Lit for literature and really enjoyed it. The books are classics and the list of possible assignments are fun. I pick and choose so the kids don't have to do all of them. We also work in some presentations basd on the writing assignments.
Have fun! I have loved teaching these courses!

Hi Lisa,
I'm going to use Fables/Myths and Fairytales with my 2-4th graders. Have you received it yet? What do you think? I hope I like it!!! I'm also going to try and use the new Progym IEW theme based plans with my 5-8th graders.

I've never been able to use the theme based writing stuff from IEW because nobody is ever on the same point in history and I can't figure out how to use it.

I hope the ready made curriculum makes my life easier. I'm helping my dh plan and teach HS biology and it is becoming a TIME EATING MONSTER! Waaa!

It is nice to meet another IEW teacher who spans the grades. Have fun this year.
Holly

[Kareni]

Holly,

What fantastic ideas! I think that your students are fortunate to have you as their instructor.

Regards,
Kareni

[laughing lioness]

HI!! Sorry for the long delay in responding! My dh is teaching on-line and so my computer time is, sniff, very much different!

I have received the "Fables" and it looks great! The font is larger. It is divided into 3 sections (fables, myths and fairy tales) with a page description of each. There is also a section on presentations. I'm going to have the parents have their kids memorize the definition of adverb and adjective before class starts!;) I think that the younger kids will LOVE it.
I used to teach using the TWSS but it was so much work. I love the theme based units! Many cover all 9 TWSS units and many get into the decorations, etc so they can be used for many different ages.
Our co-op does history on a 3 year cycle (ancient, midieval/reformation, explorers to modernity) so it's easy to pick an IEW theme based book. If they weren't I would just pick one that was age appropriate and that I found interesting!
If you have any questions about the theme based books, lmk- I might be able to answer them!
I am going to do the Progym with my 12th graders at home this year. I can't wait till she gets back so we can start- it looks like fun!

I am teaching Bio too- are you using Apologia? Have you seen the schedules on Donna Young.org? Also,
Learn'N Folders (http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/viewItems.php?category=18) for Apologia's high school science courses. Have you seen these? They look like a fun way to get the drill in and learn the stuff. they would probably be very useable with another bio program as well.

have a great year teaching! I'm glad it's summer still but I love looking forward to a writing class :001_smile:
Blessings!

[HollyinNNV]

Holly,

What fantastic ideas! I think that your students are fortunate to have you as their instructor.

Regards,
Kareni

Thanks Kareni!
Holly

[HollyinNNV]

I have received the "Fables" and it looks great! The font is larger. It is divided into 3 sections (fables, myths and fairy tales) with a page description of each. There is also a section on presentations. I'm going to have the parents have their kids memorize the definition of adverb and adjective before class starts!;) I think that the younger kids will LOVE it.

I might have gotten the idea from the IEW conference, but now I really can't remember. I used to have the kids tell me things to gain entrance into the classroom. (Like def of adj/adv) Then, if they couldn't do it, they went to the end of the line and listened to everyone else say the definition. By the time it was their turn, they knew the definition. It wasn't a big deal and the kids played along.

I used to teach using the TWSS but it was so much work. I love the theme based units! Many cover all 9 TWSS units and many get into the decorations, etc so they can be used for many different ages.
Our co-op does history on a 3 year cycle (ancient, midieval/reformation, explorers to modernity) so it's easy to pick an IEW theme based book. If they weren't I would just pick one that was age appropriate and that I found interesting!
If you have any questions about the theme based books, lmk- I might be able to answer them!

Cool! Thanks for the offer! I have one of the history ones but have never implemented it. I kind of like doing my own thing. But this year is going to be a challenge, so I need something pre-done.

I am going to do the Progym with my 12th graders at home this year. I can't wait till she gets back so we can start- it looks like fun!

Yes, I am glad someone finally thought of combining the two!

I am teaching Bio too- are you using Apologia? Have you seen the schedules on Donna Young.org?

Our co-op did use Apologia a couple years back. However, this year we are going to use Prentice Hall-the dragonfly book. So far, it is all straightforward. There's just a ton of work to setting up the class.


]have a great year teaching! I'm glad it's summer still but I love looking forward to a writing class


I'm really looking forward to it too!
Holly