Some Blocks are Good Blocks

I've been doing some lame teaching with my juniors. The "teaching" part is slim; we're reading The Crucible out loud. I do this not just because, but because I know that my students will not read it if we don't. It's in the textbook, and they will not take it home and read it and come back to school prepared to discuss it. It written well about their reading level AND with antiquated language, so even if they did read it on their own, they wouldn't understand it. The affective filter is too high. It is beyond their zone of proximal development (without my scaffolding).

(Yes, I understand that I'm making sweeping generalizations about my students. Some of them would read it. Some of them would understand it. But by and large, my population demonstrates low motivation and poor English skillz -- it's a cultural thing, dear. Hey, I'm not sure I'd be signing up to be a part of white culture if I weren't here already. And, well, they are far more bilingual than I -- tell me whose language skillz are more valuable in today's global economy.)

Back to this morning. In a stunning feat of actual teaching, I had planned to lead them in a book-making excercise where we could look at irony, mood, and tone and find some examples and then do a little evaluation. It would involve paper and crayons and all sorts of good things (don't let high school students fool you -- they love crayons as much as elementary students do). But they rebelled.

They insisted that we read the play.

I'm serious, a good half of the class begged me to let them read. Nobody disagreed. (We assign parts and read it out-loud -- a little Reader's Theater for the Dramatically Challenged.) They want to know what happens. They want to get to the end. They don't want to forget what's going on. I (well -- I'm taking credit, but I don't think I really had much to do with it) have them hooked on the story. They've seen beyond the language to the meaty part -- the plot. And it is a gripping story: teen girl has affair with older man and schemes to kill his wife; the rest of the town is gripped with jealousy and rivalry and takes advantage of the situation to get retribution; murder, mayhem, frenzy, religious fervor, mistaken assumptions, a know-it-all judge, and a thoughtful minister. I think I'm going to have them script a Jerry Springer reunion when it's over.

So, I scrapped my lesson. We can get to it later. And we read. It was pretty sweet.