[etni] A Response to Sharon Tzur - The Literature Pilot

Dear Sharon,
 

It was good to hear from you and read your involved interest in what I believe 
to be no less than a revolutionary upgrade of both the teaching of English in 
general and the attitude towards the subject of English in high schools in 
particular.

 

I'll gladly answer each one of your many : ) questions, all important and 
relevant. Be advised, though, this mail will be anything but short..

 

First I'd like to emphasize that when I referred to the very demanding and hard 
work we had to put in, the pilot is what I had in mind. We all know that pilots 
are by definition very challenging and, more often than not, the learning and 
initial experimental implementation of all those new ideas could involve 
strenuous and often stressful effort. (Especially if you happen to be a 
hopeless geek heading a team of some more hopeless geeks..)  

 

Much of it is the result of the nature of such projects, they're experimental, 
and they require a lot of resourcefulness, adjustment abilities and resilience 
on the part of the participants.  (yes, I'm complimenting my staff members, 
proud of you, dears!) But - all this concerns working under pilot conditions. 
It is a totally different saga when the program is implemented as an integral 
part of the High School Curriculum in English starting from 10th grade.

 

We implemented the Literature Pilot Program in our 11th 5 point classes. We 
were only 4 teachers, because that particular year we had fewer students than 
the usual in our school. The number of students who participated in the pilot 
is around 130. 

 

We were sure we wanted to join in and participate in the pilot because it 
happens that practically (apart from one teacher, who along the way got swept 
into our enthusiasm as well) all of us are avid literature appreciators. We 
were not sure whether to choose the log or the exam. My staff pushed for the 
exam and though I was concerned about the risks I thought we were taking, in 
hindsight I can only hug them and thank them for insisting on the exam.

 

The literature pieces were 6 all time favorite classics, traditionally taught 
in many schools in Israel: All My Sons, Eveline, A Summer's Reading, The Road 
Not Taken, Richard Cory and Musee Des Beaux Arts. 

 

Since I myself have been teaching these classics for some 28 years, the more we 
delved into the new program, the more I felt confident about teaching them for 
an external exam and also incorporating the new HOTS approach to literature 
that the pilot was about. We taught the pieces as usual but we added the aspect 
of Higher Order Thinking Skills which (believe it or not ) got many students 
interested in the actual process of recognizing thinking skills and applying 
them to reading literature (and in English..)  

We taught literature as we knew how, including literary techniques, thematic 
analyses and  even bridging text and context though we didn't call them that, 
previously. The background material that students studied was used as an 
introduction and we would occasionally quote the authors or comments about the 
authors or their pieces and ask the students what they thought about that 
comment etc. I remember an exam I gave some 4 years ago to my 12th 5 point  
class in which I included a writing task with a quote by Joyce about The 
Dubliners and  Eveline in specific, saying that through those characters he 
wanted to recount  "the moral history of his country".  The students had to 
respond to that quote and they found it interesting and some came up with 
really insightful ideas.

 

At any rate, the teaching itself was probably one of the most professionally 
gratifying experiences for one main reason: students, for the first time, 
perhaps, could be presented with a direct, unequivocal cause and effect link 
between what they put into the subject of English and their performance on 
tests.

 

That is one great advantage of choosing the exam rather than the log. In fact 
what I'm advocating as a wonderful experience is the exam option of the new 
Literature Module. As for assessment, we gave them tests and writing tasks. 
Many of them. First, we put together exams according to our own interpretation 
of what was required.  Later on, we got the detailed specifications and the 
sample exam and that paved the way to more and more tests and writing tasks 
based on the same principles.

 

You're asking if it's the same amount of work as a regular F or G. Truthfully, 
I think that given the fact that so far we had to teach the literature in depth 
in addition to and not instead of one of these modules, I can almost dare to 
guess that having a Literature Module might even save us some work..

 

I have to add here that all this holds true if you do indeed teach literature 
in depth and implement the requirement of Appreciation of Literature and 
Culture to the letter.. which I have been doing wholeheartedly since 1982.. 

 

Back to numbers: we had 5 weekly hours (alas not enough but..) out of which 2 
or 3 were devoted to the literature, not including the past three months.. 

 

The program, which will hopefully be implemented starting next year, is the 
best thing that has happened to the subject of English in years. How often have 
you heard that there is nothing to study for prior to a test in English? Not 
from students, but from other professionals in the system? How often have you 
heard that students could be asked to give up a lesson of English in order to 
catch up on history, math, physics or any other subject with specific material 
that needs to be covered for exams? 

 

Our students, not without moaning and groaning, to be sure, were lucky to 
experience the true meaning of "no pain no gain" or Yagata umatsata, in ancient 
Hebrew. That in itself is no less than a revolution. 

I have to, again, stress that this is true about our experience doing the exam 
and not the log. I'm afraid that, especially where the status of the subject of 
English is concerned, the literature exam rather than the literature log is the 
change that a system like ours needs. 

 

To conclude, if you're interested in how the program has affected the learning 
process, go to the students. One comment that can attest to its beneficial 
impact on the subject comes from a 12th grade student council activist who, 
while presenting the plan for the school Purim party, has announced that "all 
English teachers are invited to the party thanks to the good exam they arranged 
for us". 

 

That more or less covers about .. half of what I had to say..

I hope it helped clarify the picture a bit.

 

All the very best,

Aviva Gartenberg

Hadarim High School

Hod Hasharon

 

 

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