Teacher Geek Part One: Comic Books

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

-Voltaire (and later Spider-Man)

Recently The Avengers opened to gigantic business in the United States.  With The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises sure to rake in their fair share, the hold of comic book culture is evident, but what role do comics have in our curricula?  What role can they have?  What role should they have?

Teachers as Comic Book Geeks

Sideshow Collectibles Bust of Comic Book Guy

Looking around, both in my building and virtually, I see many educators who double as comic book geeks.  In the past that may have been a secret identity or an origin story buried deep behind layers of academia.  Not so in this post-modern era - like Iron Man in recent Marvel Comics story lines, our love of comics is a known element. 

Intelligent and thoughtful bloggers such as John T. Spencer and Tom Panarese are incorporating comic books into their educational philosophies, and even directly into their classrooms.  In my own Humanities classroom, Stan Lee was researched and presented as an "American Dreamer", and resources were not difficult to find in our excellent school library, let alone on the internet.

Shift to Legitimacy

Watchmen cover art

Graphic Novels are continually gaining legitimacy in English circles.  Whereas The New Mutants or Watchmen of my youth were viewed by the supposed experts as glorified funny papers, the apotheosis of this medium is nearing completion.  Works such as Persepolis and Maus are pushing the perception of graphic novels as near the pantheon of canon as they have ever been.  Additionally, Classic Comics of my youth are now easily replaced in classrooms by original text versions of many classics, whether they be Shakespeare or Shelley.

Most importantly, comics are moving into the spotlight as a medium of expression for students.  In our increasingly visual world, the seemingly innocuous skill of constructing a comic can quickly become a springboard for storyboarding full video productions.  Companies such as ToonBoom are specifically targeting K-12 to address this shift, and software choices are expanding all the time.

Assemble!

With great power comes great responsibility.  Our responsibility is to harness the zeitgeist of comic books and their heroes in our educational practices.  In 2012, teaching to student interest rather than squashing it in favor of traditional (outmoded?) materials and methods is an obvious step for any thoughtful educator.  For a comic book geek like me, the opportunities appear quite super.

Thoughts on the Flag

Each morning, our students say the Pledge of Allegiance, often mindlessly reciting words that have become devoid of meaning.  They don't tend to give a great deal of thought to the ritual, or the fact that they are pledging their allegiance to a physical item in addition to the country it stands for.  In our American studies class, I like to challenge our students to think critically about both the Pledge and the Flag.  Notably, students are often surprised to discover that the phrase "under God" was a later addition (1954 to be exact) to the official pledge.

Our culminating unit on the American Dream offers a wonderful opportunity for reflection about what we are pledging our allegiance to at the beginning of our school days.  I present students with a series of images that may or may not represent the American Dream, and they discuss and analyze using those images as a fulcrum for their exploration.  This year, two images received far more attention than I might have expected, producing the kind of vigorous discussion and investment we'd like all of our lessons to achieve!  These images were White Flag by Jasper Johns and The Flag is Bleeding by Faith Ringgold.

White Flag, 1955

by Jasper Johns

Our analysis of this Johns' painting revolved around the absence of usual colors (blue, red) and the appropriation of an ordinary item that has become invisible.  Students were immediately driven to find racial messages in the color choices, but found it difficult to provide evidence for that "reading".  On the other hand, they immediately identified one of the most powerful elements of the work; it forced them to see the flag that they otherwise would ignore.  Because of projects that had recently been completed, there were no fewer than 17 versions of the American flag on display in our classroom, and yet when questioned, students admitted that they had not noticed any of them.  The flag had become invisible to them.  White Flag forced them to see the flag specifically by changing the flag they were accustomed to seeing.

The Flag is Bleeding, 1967.

by Faith Ringgold 

Faith Ringgold's painting produced two consecutive responses: the first was momentary stunned silence.  Students spent the time that is always demanded by challenging work, truly encountering the work.  The second response was a sea of raised hands and probing ideas and questions, a response that only ceased because of the end of the class.  Why is the black man holding a knife?  Is he bleeding, or is it the flag?  Are the men supporting the woman or is she somehow a captive?  What does the black stripe at the bottom represent?  Where is the black woman?  The questions produced a plethora of theories and answers, but continued to drive the class into greater questions.  My final charge for the students to consider what this artwork says about the American Dream had students chattering as they left the classroom - every teacher's dream.

Our final exam for the course included one essay option that asked how Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X would each respond to Faith Ringgold's painting.  Those students who chose to answer this essay produced powerful reflections on race, gender, patriotism, and symbology.  I doubt those students will be as quick to recite the pledge as a mindless drone, but rather will deeply consider the meaning and purpose of the words, and the symbol they are directed towards.

Are e-readers ready for K-12 schools?

"A man is known by the books he reads"
        - Ralph Waldo Emerson

While this still rings true, the advent and proliferation of e-readers has me wondering if a man is also known by how he reads.  Recently, a friend of mine linked to this article on his facebook page.  As an avid reader he was casting about for thoughts on ereaders as he ponders taking the plunge.  While several of us worked hard to convince him of the merits of e-readership, it forced me to wonder about the state of e-readers in education, and the possible reasons e-readers aren't ready for prime time in K-12 education.  I love my Kindle, and even taught a novel from it this past semester, but are e-readers ready for prime time in secondary schools?

1. K-12 textbooks are not readily available in an e-format
This is changing, seemingly by the minute.  Math, science and history books are increasingly becoming available in digital formats.  With movements like Virginia's "Beyond Textbooks" initiative, this problem is becoming moot.  On the other hand, as an English educator who uses novels and Project Gutenberg in lieu of a textbook in an American Lit class, I want to see widespread availability across all disciplines before I start clamoring in administrative hallways.

2. We have that in the library, but not digitally...
Our school librarians were early adopters, as we have Kobo devices available for checkout, and a small but growing list of available e-texts for perusal.  Nevertheless, after repeatedly hearing about how our library is "the heart" of our school, I wonder about the revolution that would need to occur to truly embrace an e-reader culture.  Replacing analog with digital is inevitable, but will there be resistance?  This also renders the Kindle, with its current lack of library support, a poor choice for students.

3. Annotated E-reading
This is the biggest issue for many of my colleagues.  Whlie devices such as the Kindle have basic hilighting and note taking features, there is some concern about a drop in annotated reading.  I see this as a short term problem, and one that may be solved by some simple paradigm shifts, the way Diigo has changed internet usage.

Verdict
Secondary education is ready for e-readers, and as soon as texts are easily available, e-readers will start to become the norm.  Overweighted backpacks will become relics of a previous age.  As Shelly-Blake Plock recently reflected about the iPad, educators could reap substantial benefits from more portable devices.  I believe our students will have similar benefits...and they will be known by the books they e-read.

photo by  libraryman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/5052936803/

A Checklist for End of Year Sanity

"The three o'clock sun shone full upon him, and the strange enervating conviction that her seducer confronted her, which had been gaining ground in Tess ever since she had heard his words distinctly, was at last established as a fact indeed."    -Tess of the D'Urbervilles


As the school year winds towards its end, I find myself in the midst of a jumble of thoughts and emotions.  Certainly, relief and happiness at the successful completion of the year stands foremost in my mind.  Excitement about next year's schedule begins to build.  Most of all, however, I am struck by the need to not let the usual end of year issues paralyze me as an educator.  Summer lurks like the seducer Alec, beckoning with its beaches and cookouts.

All of the usual problems of the end of the school year are present.  Senioritis and its cousin summeritis?  Check.  A pile of papers (both real and virtual) that seems to still be growing rather than reducing?  Check.  The neurotic need to "finish" the curriculum that was planned, despite changing schedules which this year even include shortened days for heat?  Check.  How easy to become paralyzed in the face of such troubles.  Indeed, I sometimes feel like Tess hearing Alec preaching in the barn - the end of the year an old wolf, now dressed in sheep's clothing.

While no expert, the following checklist has brought me some sanity.

1) Let go of the curriculum you planned.  Finish what you can, but accept that plans are only plans.  Your students will survive without that last poem or assignment.  Focus on what you did accomplish rather than what you failed to accomplish.  I find much success with being reflective and supportive in the closing weeks while introducing only a small ammount of new material.  Students appreciate taking the foot off the gas and looking back at what they have accomplished: not mere exam review; rather a celebration of the learning that occurred.  You will all feel much better.

2) Look through curriculum documents, professional goals documents, or anything else that you made at the beginning of the year.  Congratulate yourself for all of the things on those documents you were able to do this year.  Make a quick list of your greatest success stories for the year, a kind of "Greatest Hits" - students reached, crazy ideas that worked, moments of briliance.

3) Get a cup of coffee, or beverage of your choice.  You have earned it, and will need it.  This might be the most important item on the list.

4) Ask some hard questions.  Why didn't you get to everything?  Did you decide that some things were more valuable?  Did you make the decisions, or were decisions made for you by external factors (i.e. scheduling changes).  What crazy ideas crashed and burned? 

5) Make notes NOW about your goals and curricula for NEXT year.  There are many wonderful and professional tools to aid in this process, such as Jim Burke's excellent English Companion, but any list of ideas will be better than none when the Fall rolls around.  What is fresh in your mind now will be gone when the shiny new year is being unpackaged.  Particularly, make notes about what not to do next year that "seemed like a good idea at the time".  It will seem like a good idea again in August if you don't pay attention now.

As another year comes to a close, these are the steps I find myself taking.  What sanity-saving steps have I left out?

Desk ADD and the Rat Race of Classroom Geography

It's this way, you see: I've had a pretty steady grind of it these last years, working up my social position."
- Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

Rosedale's description of social climbing might have as much application to the modern classroom as it does to modern socio-economics.  The grind of school on our students leaves them jockeying for the best position; for college and for life.  To what degree is that grind a function of their actual position in our classrooms?  Are the rows of desks and factory-model instruction resulting in the kind of degradation of spirit Wharton skewered with her pen in The House of Mirth?  Are the rows and pseudo-rows a rat race our students must navigate as we did?

I remember my AP Calculus class from high school, where the teacher seated us in rows according to our grade from the previous quarter; Low grade? Front center.  High grade?  Back edges.  Our test results were excellent - many 4s and 5s.  I received a 3 on that particular AP examination, but then again, I was a Front and Center student.  More importantly, the class stands out as one of the worst academic experiences of my life.  Like Rosedale, I worked at a steady grind to achieve even mediocre results.  The quantifiable results were fine, but the qualifiable results were putrid.

Now, as a teacher, I face each day with an old fashioned classroom and rows of desks, seeking progressive solutions with a blend of modern and antiquated tools.  How do I provide an ideal learning environment for my students using the tools and artifacts of the factory-model of education?  Bringing modern technology into the space is helpful, as laptops and an interactive projector allow me to teach creatively.  Still, I ponder the best use of the physical space.

I have tried rows, horseshoes, circles, and tables.  I have even ordered desks into two converging lines to mimic Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Ridge while teaching The Killer Angels.  One student recently remarked that I must have "Desk ADD".  Many students yearn for the familiar routines, even when they are producing sub-par learning experiences.  Better something familiar and known than unfamiliar and unknown, regardless of the good or bad of the results.

Examples abound of non-traditional classrooms, such as this example from Aiken, South Carolina.  Unfortunately, most of the examples I have found are for elementary school classrooms.  Are secondary schools consigned to be a place to grind away, a destination students dread because their creativity and individuality must be sacrificed at the altar of "success"?

Technology has opened avenues for 24/7 learning that had not previously existed.  In fact, progressive educators such as Shelley Blake-Plock predict that traditional brick-and-mortar learning centers will become obsolete by 2020.  In the meantime, I find myself trolling the web thirsty for solutions, using tools such as this Classroom Architect, in an effort to match my pedagogical vision with the physical realities of my classroom, hopeful that successful and bright teachers will stumble in to offer sagely advice or powerful tools...if only they aren't stuck in the rat race.

Letter from an American Teacher

"In this great American asylum...What then is the American, this new man?"
-Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer

American education often seems like an asylum, though not in the sense of the word de Crevecoeur used.  Rather than a haven, schools and classrooms can take on the manner of mental asylums, learners and teachers alike suffering form all sorts of infirmities of mind.  What then is the American student?  How is she new, and how do we meet that newness?  A large portion of my answer derives from a program at my school called simply "The Humanities Program".

For the past two years I have been team teaching a sophomore course of American Studies as part of a broader Humanities Program.  The course I teach pairs an English teacher with a Social Studies teacher and features periodic lessons from Art, Music and Religion teachers.  Students study material from a thematic rather than chronological approach.  Assessment options not only include but require creative options, as students must alternate between traditional essays and alternative assignments.  Students have painted, sculpted, acted, and cooked their way into demonstrating mastery of the material alongside more traditional writing pieces.

Student work analyzing the connections between The Scarlet Letter and "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

by K. Boggs

My experience teaching this course has been eye-opening.  Students have produced work and wrestled with ideas at a level that I find missing in many of my more traditional courses.  The dialogue between the disciplines encourages and models the kind of collaboration that will be expected of our students in the future.  Our students engage in learning outside of the classroom through quarterly field trip options completed on their own time.  Nevertheless, there are those who question the validity of the program and its methods.  To some, our approach sacrifices content and is irresponsible if not outright rebellious.  I am continually moved to evaluate the practices we use and consider the rammifications for our students.

In short, I think the program's detractors are missing the boat.  They may represent the 1/3 of De Crevecoeur's letter who are wealthy in their original countries - certainly some students thrive under more traditional models.  Like De Crevecoeur, I believe that the motto of emmigrants will be "Ubi Panis Ibi Patria; where he wrote of economic and social realities, I write of educational and learning realities.  Students will be invested where they find bread - where they find sustenance for their intellectual pursuits.  For a great many of today's learners, bread will be found in more inter-disciplinary endeavors.

Similarly, I believe that we are not sacrificing content.  Quite the contrary, we are full to the brim with content for our courses.  The misunderstanding comes from the fact that our content is fundamentally different.  In age where the Stamp Act or the publication date of The Scarlet Letter can be looked up on hand-held devices, the content of our courses should be different.  It has to be different if we wish to prepare our students.  In our study of the Scarlet Letter we incorporated art lessons where we tried our hand at cross-stitching.

While learning about the Stamp Act, some students took trips to Jerusalem Mill or Hampton Mansion to get a feel for the various living conditions of the time.  Learning inched closer to a 24/7 model, with content extending beyond the four walls of room 208.  Most recently, a group project on the American Dream has students reaching out to some of their subjects, dealing with agents, publicists and personal assistant, trying to get a brief interview.  At present one of those groups has been successful, and others continue their pursuit. 

"Sage on a stage" models are increasingly failing.  When our practices work towards developing strategies of "not reading" and concentrate on teaching 19th century literacies in the 21st century, we are engaging in the work of Sisyphus.  We often think of 21st century literacy as being solely about technology, and while tech plays a vital role, it is not the limit of what that term encompasses.  21st century literacy includes collaboration and creativity, initiative and adaptability; characteristics our program embraces.  We need to stop rolling the boulder up the hill and discover creative solutions to reach the summit.  In some cases, we ought to leave the boulder behind. 

For several years teaching Philosophy to college undergraduates I would tell my students, "These theories are the tools I am providing you.  You must then prove to me you can build something with them."  The Humanities Program is giving me the opportunity to try that model on the high school level.  I can provide the materials: literature, history, art, music, grammar, rhetoric.  What will the new American learner build with those tools?  The same papers that have been written and re-written, or something new, bold, original and daring?

From Age of Heroes to Age of Villians?

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The recent media frenzy over the death of Osama bin Laden has generated a healthy, if contentious, conversation about the view we have of our villains and the emotions we feel at their defeat/demise.  I am struck by a parallel to the conversations I have with students about The Apotheosis of Washington; not because Washington and bin Laden share any characteristics, but rather because of the way we as a society view figures of fame (or infamy).  Specifically, I wonder if we are capable of having contemporary heroes in a meaningful way without abstraction, and simultaneously, are we capable of having villains without specificity (i.e. scapegoating).

While the necessity of anonymity in the case of the bin Laden mission is clear, the media coverage of the event, such as these reports from CNN and ABC, indicate a decided rhetorical difference in how we view heroes and villains.  With the rapid and pervasive flow of information, heroes cannot maintain the illusion of perfection, while the flaws and crimes of villains are constantly illuminated.  As a result, villains are portrayed in the form of specific figures, whereas heroes remain abstract and archetypal.

As Marti Weston considered in her intriguing blog post, bin Laden became a symbol of evil and fear akin to Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.  Who in our society provides the corollary for Harry?  Do young people find a figure to hold up as a hero as readily as they discover a villain?  Our media attention is so thorough and invasive that no individual can stand up to the scrutiny without revealing some cracks in the armor.

Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington provided a fair bit of hero-worship to a country wrestling with Civil War.  In our classes, students are invited to consider whether they believe the figure is truly Washington, or merely a type.  We consider the image in conjunction with images of Zeus from Greek mythology, as well presentations of Lincoln.  Frequently, the consensus we come to during the exercise is that our heroes are always at their best when at a remove.  The closer they get, the more human they become, and with that humanity comes imperfection.

Who will be the subject of apotheosis in the years to come?  Or will the shift in media coverage permanently alter the dialogue about heroes and villains?  It is vital to educate our students - not just in terms of talking about difficult or scary concepts, but about how we choose to categorize and interpret those concepts.