My First Days

After six days of instruction – three per class with the ninety-minute block schedule – here are my initial impressions:

English Language Development – Level 4 (Early Advanced)

After taking on the transitional SDAIE class last year, I move down a level to teach more students who are learning English for the first time. I actually student-taught this class just before receiving my credential, and I recall the curricular freedom that absolutely thrilled me. No prescribed books, and at the time, not even any standards. I first developed my “Grammar Boot Camp”, which would become one of my hallmark units, in this class. I taught character relationships by watching Star Wars. I discovered an old Arthur Miller play – could’ve been a radio play, even – about immigrants sailing past the Statue of Liberty. I think I even used the old Calvin and Hobbes strip to illustrate the concept of theme. The more I reflect on that semester of work, the more I wish I had saved those files. Or at least had more time to look for them.

The state and our district certainly haven’t improved the curricular prospects for ELD over the ensuing dozen years. The California standards for ELD are actually presented in a grid, with the content or skill varying depending on the grade level of the student. When you consider literary analysis in this model, a student at the “Early Advanced” level is able to “recognize and describe themes stated directly in a text”. Unless the student is in high school. At that age, according to the standard, the Early Advanced level means the student can “compare and contrast orally and in writing a similar theme or topic across several genres by using detailed sentences.” I have a very difficult time fathoming why our state uses different guidelines to assess English learners depending on their grade level. Why should an ability to recount themes that are explicit in a reading place a student near the top of English development in the 5^th grade, when the 9^th grade demands quite a bit more in order to reach the same pay grade? That student could grow their skills over a four-year span and never graduate from the “EA” level!

No wonder my students this year have sauntered in the door expecting not to work, though they are in no way belligerent. They just have been indoctrinated to think that ELD classes are not academic. We’re just hanging out for ninety minutes a day, and no one is expected to work hard or learn anything. I’m fighting this atmosphere, of course, with all the teaching tools I can muster. I just don’t blame the kids, given that bureaucrats and lawmakers have turned their curricula into a farce. Our district has swallowed the Kool Aid whole, as they continue to insist that all ELD teachers use a particular instructional program that assesses student writing with a different rubric at each grade level. The beginner’s A+ becomes the intermediate’s C, and our district exalts this model as the panacea for the immigrant achievement gap. It’s absurd, and the students see that. They know it’s all a joke when their tests look the same from year to year; only the grades have changed. And there is no rhyme or reason that correlates the students’ effort to any improvement in their scores. Standards and rubrics become so many warped mirrors in a carnival house. I’d walk in with a clown’s attitude, too.

Thankfully, California has pitched its old framework for the national Common Core standards. I went looking for their ELD standards to do some comparison shopping. What did I find? No ELD standards. Apparently, the Feds want English learners to be taught and evaluated for their language proficiency the same way that native speakers are evaluated. Everyone may start with a different skill level, but the ascension to literacy is identical for all students of English. Hallelujah.

Advanced Placement Language and Composition

This class is a joyful obsession. The first two days were designed as a P90X for the brain, with timed essays, timed readings (with a healthy dose of philosophy, I might add), and lots of “deep think”. I’m racing just as fast as the students trying to piece together lessons, strategies, and handouts. I’ve already copied over 150 pages of reading for each student, and that will cover maybe the first four weeks. That doesn’t even include the novel we’ll read in that time (1984). The scope of the class is very broad, and the AP exam demands a lot of detailed knowledge. I need to learn right alongside the students – sometimes just minutes before they learn the same material. Still, this is a singularly engrossing intellectual challenge. I’m doing some of my best teaching already, and every single time I sit down to contemplate the next unit, I am charged. This may well be the course I was born to teach.

Public Speaking

When working with 5^th through 8^th graders over the summer, I developed all new materials that proved immensely successful. I’m transferring many of those same lessons to the high school speech class, but the results have been strikingly odd. It’s an elective class, so everyone in there chose to be there, but it’s the most quiet group of students I’ve ever seen. The attitude isn’t hostile; they just quietly go about their business. This would be manna from heaven in any other class! Here, though, it’s presenting quite a challenge. Hopefully, as they get more comfortable with each other, we can gradually turn up the volume on these public speakers.