High School English Teaching
In winter 2014 I had the opportunity to student teach with Lorilee Evans-Lynn and the Aerie International and Aerie Big Sky Magazines at Big Sky High School in Missoula, Montana. Both magazines are student-run and have recieved numerous awards from the National Council for Teachers of English. During my placement I developed numerous lessons to help students hone their creative writing, including a short story workshop, a place-based poetry unit (both are viewable on pages below), as well as numerous oral presentations, and regular one-on-one conferences. As part of the magazines' fundraising and publicity we held two poetry slams and a final gala (photos below).
A video about Aerie International can be viewed here:
www.youtube.com/embed/KPug94OUdGM"
In addition to teaching three sections of creative writing/literary magazine editing, I also taught three sections of Senior English and helped to direct Senior papers. A few of my lessons on The Great Gatsby are accessible at the bottom of this page.
Aerie International Literary Magazine 2014:
City-Wide Poetry Slam, Missoula MT
Short Story Peer Review
Grades 9-12
Jessica Jones 2014
Learning Target: I can identify concrete details of setting and plot in a short story.”
1.) Please copy and label the following diagram with setting details for this story:
copyright Jessica Jones 2014
2.) What information is missing from the diagram/story that readers need?
3.) Please describe the characters in this story. Jot down any information the writer has provided for each character, including age, role, appearance, habits, mannerisms, movement, posture, way of speaking.
What is missing from this list? How can the writer deepen characterization? Give specific instances and examples.
4.) What change, conflict, or growth occurs in this story? Draw a diagram below to illustrate the story’s “plot line.” (This “plotline” may be subtle and may only occur internally for the central character. It may include changes in thoughts or emotions.)
5.) Provide any other feedback for the author here:
Writer Reflection
1.) What did you learn from this peer review? What did you learn from the concentric circle exercise?
2.) What story/stories did you read during peer review that had a strong sense of setting, character, and/or plot? Will you use any of these as models next time you write?
Place-based Poetry
A 3-Day Lesson for Grades 11 & 12
QUESTIONS:
- How can I help my students use context clues and textual evidence to interpret place-based poetry?
- How can I invite students to compose place-based poetry that excavates beneath the surface of place (personally or historically), avoiding cliché ideas and generalized descriptions?
- How can I incorporate local native authors and IEFA’s Essential Understandings into this lesson?
LEARNING TARGETS:
I can use context clues to analyze poems about place and can discuss my interpretation using evidence from the text.
I can think critically about a place that I know well to construct a poem that has sophisticated structure and meaning. I can call on rich sensory images and figurative language to make this place real for the reader.
LESSON BREAKDOWN:
(This lesson is structured for two 90-minute high school-level class periods.)
Day One:
Introduction to the Lesson (5 minutes)
Overview & Learning Target
Review definitions of figurative language (metaphor, simile, imagery)
Hook/1st Poem- Place - (20 minutes):
(2 minutes) Read “Arlee” by Jennifer Greene
(4 minutes) Free write interpretation
(4 minutes) Partner share
(10 minutes) Group share. Introduce analytical tools; use figurative language terms.
Introduction to the idea of “Place” (10 minutes)
(10 minutes) What does it mean to talk about “place”?
“Place” Main topics: Geography, politics, history, culture, ecosystems, architecture, migration, memory, identity…
“Place” Subtopics: borders; racial tension/conquest/”exploration”/ land & water rights; mosaics/melting pots; food, music, language; flora & fauna, invasive species, pollution; weather/climate; art; immigration/emigration; personal experience/sensory memory; roots, wisdom, knowledge, belonging, “ownership”
-Notion of Elise Boulding’s “200-year present”
2nd Poem- Place- (20 minutes):
(2 minutes) Read “Tracks” by Joanne Lehman
(4 minutes) Free write interpretation
(4 minutes) Partner share
(10 minutes) Group share; Use analytical tools & new knowledge from discussion; continue using figurative language terms.
Brainstorming/Free-write – (10 minutes):
Write the name of a place that you know well at the top of a piece of paper. This can be a town, a piece of property, a home, a fort, a river, a barbershop, a restaurant… It MUST be a place that has helped form who you are, and a place that you know intimately. Set a timer for 10 minutes and, using our list of “Place” main topics and subtopics, jot down whatever you know about your chosen place. For the topics that you don’t know anything, write questions. Consider the 200-year present (ie: address the past and the future of this place.) You may fill several sheets of paper. Keep these papers so that we can begin mining for central meaning and boiling your ideas down into a poem.
Poetry Workshop (15 minutes):
Read what you wrote during the 10-minute free-write. Use highlighters to mark words, ideas or themes that hit you on a “gut” level or resonate in some way. On a fresh sheet of paper, copy just these phrases. Looking at your list, cross out any phrases that are general or cliché, and replace them using figurative or sensory language. Let a poem begin to emerge…
Sharing (5 minutes):
What did you find? What has come up for you? Where do you think these wonderings and ideas and memories are leading your poem?
Homework Assignment— (5 minutes):
Finish your poem to turn in next class. Be sure that you think carefully about structure (consult the two poems we’ve read in class if you need direction.) Replace all cliché language with rich sensory images and figurative language. Final piece must be in black ink, Times New Roman, 12-point font. Staple all drafts, brainstorming and lists behind the clean final copy in order with newest items on top.
Day Two:
Introduction to the Lesson (10 minutes)
(5 minutes): Overview & Learning Target
(5 minutes): Review what we discussed last class
3rd Poem- Place and Identity (25 minutes):
(5 minutes): “I Will Forever Be Her Second Heart” by Kanou Vang
(5 minutes): Free write interpretation
(5 minutes): Partner share
(15 minutes): Group share. Use analytical tools & new knowledge from discussion.
Continue using figurative language terms. How does this author avoid
clichés? How does she use fresh language to address her themes?
4th Poem- Place and Identity & Free-write (25-30 minutes):
(2 minutes): Directions— First you will listen to the poem. Then you will free-write your
OWN “place & identity” poem for 10+ minutes. (You do not have to use the “I
am” structure.) This poem can be about your birthplace, your hometown, your current town, a place you know well, your culture. Pick one of these and put down everything that comes to mind—memory, sensory images, metaphors… Do not censor.
(3 minutes): Read “Home” by Jennifer Greene
(10+ minutes): Free write… “I am from…”
(10 minutes): Read in small groups, share…small group feedback…
Poetry Workshop Part I— (10 minutes):
Looking at the free-write that you just wrote, what can you delete that is vague or cliché? Also cross out the phrase “I am.” Next, revisit our lists of “Place” main topics and subtopics. What can you add to the free-write you just did that will add depth and complexity? Consider the 200-year present…
Poetry Workshop Part II— (10 minutes):
How do you plan to structure your poem? Will you use a repeating line to form your piece? A central image? A list formation? Think critically about the relationship between your identity and the place that you have chosen to write about. What double-meanings, word play, ironies and allusions might be buried within your ideas?
Homework Assignment (5 minutes):
Finish your poem to turn in next class. Be sure that you think carefully about structure (consult the four poems we’ve read in class if you need direction.) Replace all cliché language with rich sensory images and figurative language. Final piece must be in black ink, Times New Roman, 12-point font. Staple all drafts, brainstorming and lists behind the clean final copy in order with newest items on top.
EXTENSIONS:
Extensions for this lesson may include peer-review, one-on-one conferences with the instructor, and in-class reading, and/or submission to literary journals. The lesson may also serve as an introduction to a unit on place-based research for a personal academic essay.
BACKSTORY:
The WRIT 101 program at the University of Montana, Missoula, where I teach Freshman Composition, requires that all instructors implement a place-based curriculum that centers on sustainability. We assign a Personal Academic Essay, an Op-Ed, and a Personal Essay, all of which must be place-based. To deepen students understanding of the notion of “place”, I incorporate as much local poetry as possible, and invite students to think about their campus and town in terms of historical, social, and ecological change and tension.
This lesson, which is an adaptation for high school audiences, invites students to problematize a place that they know well—geographically, experientially, and emotionally, and to write about this place with a spirit of curiosity.
RATIONALE:
According to place-based pedagogy, creativity and critical thinking begin on home turf. According to McLaren & Giroux (1990), place-based pedagogy must address the “specificities of the experiences, problems, languages, and histories that communities rely upon to construct a narrative of collective identity and possibly transformation” (“The Best of Both Worlds: a Critical Pedagogy of Place”, David Gruenwald, 2008, p. 318).
In order to approach place-based research and writing from a critical perspective, students must practice assembling a multi-faceted narrative from disparate perspectives. “A critical pedagogy of place,” writes Knapp (1996), “embraces the link between the classroom and cultural politics, and further, it explicitly makes the limits and simulations of the classroom problematic. It insists that students and teachers actually experience and interrogate the places outside of school—as part of the school curriculum— that are the local context of shared cultural politics” (Gruenwald, 2008, p. 317).
LESSON DESCRIPTION:
This lesson guides students through analytical interpretations of five place-based poems by local authors then invites students to write their own poems about a place they know well. The writing process includes brainstorming, listing, analytical interpretation, timed-writes, and revision. Discussion includes partner, small and large group sharing.
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.5 Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.11-12.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for reflection and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.5a Interpret figures of speech (e.g., hyperbole, paradox) in context and analyze their role in the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.11-12.5b Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations.
ASSESSMENT:
Summative Assessments include: in-class verbal surveys of student knowledge, listing/concept map to represent understanding of the concept of “place,” in-progress monitoring of students strengths’ and weaknesses.
Formative Assessments include: evaluations of student learning (collect brainstorming, timed-write, and drafts of students’ place-based poems.
RESOURCES:
Finney, Sandra. (1998). The Sky, the Earth, My Heart, the People: An Ecological
Dimension to Critical Pedagogy. Teaching Education. Winter/Spring 9:2, 39-46.
Gruenewald, David. (2008). The Best of Both Worlds: a Critical Pedagogy of Place.
Environmental Education Research. 15, 308-324.
Lambert, Lori. (2008). Diversifying Pedagogy. Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
(April): 18-20.
ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDINGS:
Essential Understanding 3
The ideologies of Native traditional beliefs and spirituality persist into modern day life as tribal
cultures, traditions, and languages are still practiced by many American Indian people and are
incorporated into how tribes govern and manage their affairs.
Additionally, each tribe has its own oral histories, which are as valid as written histories. These
histories pre-date the “discovery” of North America.
Essential Understanding 4
Reservations are lands that have been reserved by the tribes for their own use through treaties,
statutes, and executive orders and were not “given” to them. The principle that land should be
acquired from the Indians only through their consent with treaties involved three assumptions:
I. Both parties to treaties were sovereign powers.
II. Indian tribes had some form of transferable title to the land.
III. Acquisition of Indian lands was solely a government matter not to be left to individual colonists.
Essential Understanding 5
There were many federal policies put into place throughout American history that have affected
Indian people and still shape who they are today. Many of these policies conflicted with one
another. Much of Indian history can be related through several major federal policy periods:
Colonization/Colonial Period 1492 – 1800s
Treaty Period 1789 - 1871
Assimilation Period - Allotment and Boarding School 1879 - 1934
Tribal Reorganization Period 1934 - 1958
Termination and Relocation Period 1953 - 1971
Self-determination Period 1968 – Present
Essential Understanding 6
History is a story most often related through the subjective experience of the teller. With the
inclusion of more and varied voices, histories are being rediscovered and revised. History told
from an Indian perspective frequently conflicts with the stories mainstream historians tell.
**The above Essential Understandings are taken directly from the Montana Office of Public Instruction’s publication, The Framework: A Practical Guide for Montana Teachers and Administrators Implementing Indian Education for All, copyright 2010, developed by Dr. Tammy Elser.
Place-based Poetry
Peer Review
Editor _____________________________
Author ____________________________
Please write 1-2 sentences answering each of the following questions:
1.) What is your impression of the piece? How would you describe the mood/ tone?
2.) What is the author’s point? What lasting message do you come away with?
With the above information in mind, re-read the piece and comment directly on the author’s poem. Check off each task below as you accomplish it.
___ I have written plus marks (+) next to language/phrases that are strong, original, startling, or fresh.
___ I have circled language/phrases that are weak, vague, boring, or predictable.
___ I have made suggestions for improvements directly on the draft.
Robell: Brainstorming
The Great Gatsby Symbolic Character Portraits
Your final assessment will be divided into three parts:
1. Choose a major character from the novel for which you will create an abstract visual portrait. Your drawing should not be a realistic view of your character but an abstract one. Use shapes, colors, lines and textures to represent the essence of your character. I encourage you to use mixed media (collage, ink, paint, fabric, etc.). Your portrait may include words (key terms and phrases from the play, for instance) written or cut from newspapers, magazines, etc. As part of the portrait you must include three symbols, motifs, or images that help describe the character. These images can appear behind and around the character or can be incorporated into his or her face/body. If you wish, you can capture your character at a particular moment in the novel you think is significant. Remember that how you place your images is part of what you are saying about your character.
Title your portrait, and make sure you sign it, as an artist would.
To help you brainstorm, consider the following questions:
- What colors would best represent my character? Be attentive to symbolic color within the novel. Who was associated with white? red? gold? green? and so forth…
- What clothing and physical objects are associated with my character?
- Would bold, straight lines best represent my character or narrow, squiggly lines… ?
- Would soft, rounded shapes better represent my character or rough, square ones?
- What patterns and textures? Paisley, striped? Corrugated, smooth, velvety…?
- How will placement and size affect my message?
…The more creative the better, as long as your purpose is to capture the essence of your character and his or her interactions with the world.
2. Type a one-page written justification for your portrait, explaining what you have tried to show about your character. (This written justification must be 12 pt. font, TNR, double-spaced.) This part of the assessment is crucial because we often don’t achieve everything we wish to, or I might not understand part of your portrait simply by looking at it. Feel free (I encourage you) to use key words, phrases, themes, from the novel as part of your explanation. Incorporate these themes into your written justification of your character. (For example, the phrase “American Dream” might be a good concept to discuss.) Consult your study guides from class, as well as your themes and motif sheets. It may also be appropriate to discuss how your character became who he or she is.
Present your portrait to the class. Be prepared to talk about what you wrote and to explain decisions you made while creating your portrait. We will NOT read directly from written papers—this will be an oral presentation.
Personal Reflection on the Great Gatsby
As you listen to the character presentations on The Great Gatsby, reflect on major themes and motifs within the novel. Think about the American dream, love, friendship, society, social mobility, women’s liberation, luck, fate, etc.
- As a senior about to enter the world, participate in the market economy, vote, etc., how do these issues impact you?
- In what ways are you now a more informed citizen?
- How do you hope to live your life in relation to these ideas?
How might your views on the world have changed or been reinforced?
After listening to the portrait presentations, consider the above questions in a written response. Address your own personal realizations and philosophic growth. Use concrete examples from the novel to explain your thoughts. Consider how your ideas may have changed or been reinforced.
This written reflection must be 12 pt. font, TNR, double-spaced.
Assessment Rubric for Gatsby Portraits
& Written Justifications
Artwork:
Uses symbols to capture the essence of character /10
Exhibits visible effort and good craftsmanship/ use of materials /10
Written Justification:
Expresses ideas with clarity and thoughtfulness /10
Makes direct references to the book to explain use of symbols in visual piece /10
Total: /40
Great Gatsby Film Analysis
Jessica Jones
20 points
Learning Target:
Using new film vocabulary I can analyze director Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby and argue its success.
1. Before watching the 2013 film version of The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann, please write one or two sentences about what you believe Fitzgerald’s message was for readers of his novel during the 1920s. What do you think he wanted them to come away with?
2. As you watch Luhrmann’s adaptation, consider the following elements of film and fill in the chart that you receive in class:
Shot- has two definitions: 1) The smallest unit of unbroken film. 2) distance from camera to subject: long-range, mid-distance, close-up. In addition, shots can be high or low angle.
Mise-en-scène- refers to everything in the frame of the film, including lighting, set, costuming, props, and staging/movement of actors. The term derives from the theatre and literally means “putting in the scene.”
Music- refers to any music that comes from the audio track. Music can include a song that is playing on the radio while a car is driving or dramatic music to build tension. Volume, tempo, mood and time period are important considerations in a film’s music.
3. Having closely watched Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film, what do you think Luhrmann’s intent was? What is his main message?
4.Please write a brief argument about whether or not Luhrmann’s film is successful. You might argue from the perspective of verity (truthfulness) to the novel… or from the perspective of reinterpretation and artistic license. You decide. Support your argument using new film vocabulary and concrete evidence from your chart. Be prepared to discuss in a class debate.