Tag Archives: ELA

Partnering Possibilities

One of my favorite components of the PAGES program at OSU’s Wexner Center for the Arts is the collaboration. I am an educator who thrives on gaining knowledge through talking with other educators. I continually share, steal, build and modify. I want the best for my students and working together is what’s best.

I was fortunate to collaborate with Kari Gunter-Seymour (Ohio’s 2020 Poet Laureate), Sarah Robison (Manager of Teaching, Learning and Interpretive Practices at the Wexner Center for the Arts), Dionne Custer Edwards (Director of Learning & Public Practice), as well as educators from other high schools involved in the program.  However, I didn’t have to look far for one of the most rewarding and beneficial collaborations I have had at the South-Western Career Academy- Kelsey Hodge, our own guidance counselor!

Kelsey is one of two guidance counselors in our school and I reached out to her early in the year to see if she’d like to be there with us through the PAGES process. Thinking, reflecting and writing can sometimes uncover some surprising feelings, and I wanted to make sure our students were supported. Not surprisingly, Kelsey was on board. She is compassionate and empathetic.  

Some writing was lighthearted and silly. Write a letter to a famous person about something that triggers you. Cut up some words and paste them in your journal in a new way. But some writing was heavy. Students free wrote in their journals about fears, family issues, failures.

Kelsey joined us in the classroom and on our virtual and in-person trips to the Wex. One of our experiences had us viewing and discussing Holler, a film about a smart young lady in a run-down factory town, faced with the decision to stay stuck and work in the factory or to leave her dead-end town and head to college (and figuring out how to afford either).  Students were fortunate to view and discuss the film with writer and director, Nicole Riegel!  

Kelsey and I brainstormed ways to connect students with the themes in the film.  We met to share the lines, scenes, and ideas that resonated with us and we talked about ways to engage students in thinking and discussing those.  It was Kelsey’s idea for the students to recreate an impactful scene from the film, focusing on colors that represent the tone of the moment.  We split the students into three stations where they worked with creative writing prompts provided by Kari Gunter-Seymour, they brainstormed goals and plans for college and career, and they created an artistic piece capturing the tone of a scene.  We discussed themes including parenting, forgiveness, life’s purpose, proving yourself, roots, survival from nothing, addiction, failure, plus gender and regional stereotypes.

This collaboration helped the students see beyond English class and a film to consider how working, talking and writing through the themes makes them applicable to their own lives.  Plus, it was fun! I look forward to finding more non-traditional collaborative opportunities with Kelsey and other colleagues in the future.

Here’s more about the PAGES program and more about our school, the South-Western Career Academy.  

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

How to Teach ELA in a Career Technical High School for Dummies

Guess what? This book doesn’t exist.

FIRST:

I skimmed through my inbox, clicking “delete, delete, delete” in response to the various emails flooding my mailbox.  Adobe Creative Cloud…Quizlet…Newsela Daily. I paused on a forwarded email from my head principal. It was from Ohio Dominican University: “ODU CCP teacher credentialing app and grant.”  Well, I had not considered pursuing a second master’s degree, but the price was right and our high school was looking to add CCP English classes.  “Why not?” I thought. As a lifelong learner, I am always looking for new challenges to keep myself current and relevant in my teaching practice. I turned in the necessary paperwork and application.  Soon, I was a college student- again!

That was two years ago.  I think about that email and the journey it initiated.  It had been ten years since I completed a degree at Ashland and decades since my undergrad.  What started off as a goal to earn CCP certification turned in to a full-fledged Master of Arts in English.  Why? My time constraints as a full-time high school English teacher, part-time YMCA employee and single mother did not leave much room for a new endeavor.  However, I found myself in love with being a student again. I was reading and discussing challenging literature, pushing myself to complete research and write lengthy analyses.  My professors and colleagues engaged me in serious thought and my feeling of accomplishment grew for each class I completed.

 

THEN:

As I neared the end of this journey, I found myself at a crossroads in my career. After twenty-one years of teaching ELA in a general education setting, I made the decision to move to the district’s career academy.  In my new role, I wanted to make literature relevant, practical and engaging for my new students, who have chosen one of seventeen career technical pathways. I decided for my capstone to research career technical pedagogy and develop lesson plans integrating literature in a career technical English classroom.  

I wanted to develop lessons that would engage my students and make my ELA classroom relevant to their chosen pathway, whether vocational or college.  I researched the history of career technical education reforms and found there is a need to raise academic standards, diminishing the distinction between career-bound and college-bound students.  

 

AND THEN:

I found that I was naive in my thinking.  I had expected to find a clear answer to my question, how do I teach ELA in a career-technical setting?  Instead, I found that quality teaching is quality teaching, no matter where it occurs, and all students need and deserve rigor, whether in a traditional high school setting or in a career technical one.  Authentic learning is collaborative and relevant, with real-world applications. Students need to be able to use critical thinking skills to solve real problems. Classes must have high standards and expectations for all students, with interventions in place to help students meet the learning goals. Project and problem based learning, as well as integration of technology are tools to help students access rigorous academics and problem solve.  Learning should take place in authentic environments, be collaborative and relevant. Teachers should be facilitators.

 

NOW:

It is my goal to challenge my students with engaging, meaningful lessons that are applicable to their lives- whether career or college, and I will write specifically about individual lessons and ways I do this in future posts.  Stay tuned!

Blogging Challenge: Identity and PicassoHeads

Task One: This week’s blogging challenge asks us to reflect on our online identity compared to our “real life” identity.  On my blog site and on Twitter, I tend to keep it professional.  I’m interested in education and technology and I think writing, reflecting and reading about education helps make me a better teacher.  For example, I’m completing this post because it’s something I’m asking my students to do (and if you “talk the talk” you need to “walk the walk”).  In “real life” I’m interested in my children and doing fun things outside of school.  I usually post these topics on Facebook.  My Facebook style is more personal and whimsical.

Task Two:   One of our visits to the Wexner Center this year will be to experience “After Picasso: 80 Contemporary Artists.”  Some students and I played around with Picassohead when exploring possible avatars.  I encourage PAGES students and teachers to take a look at the gallery; y0u might see some of our self-portraits and you can even make your own.  This is a fun way to introduce some of the elements of Picasso’s style .