[etni] Fwd: Re: Teaching HOTS
- From: ETNI list <etni.list@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:45:06 +0200
From: evelyn <efs@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Teaching HOTS
Those of you who have commented on the positive aspects of the HOTS have
written that it is much more interesting for your students than last year
(or previous years) when the focus was on the textbook, unseens, writing,
grammar, and a little literature. None of us probably disagrees with you.
Obviously, literature study is more interesting that repetitive exercises in
unseens, etc. However, as a teacher who has spent much time teaching
literature, discussing it, writing about it, going wild with it, the HOTS
still leave me cold! I am tired of beating a dead horse with exercise upon
exercise. Let me teach literature- background and all- let me find pieces
my students can both relate to and learn from (classics and modern), let me
find pieces and teach them without teaching down to them, and let me teach
them how to analyze as well as (with luck) appreciate literature without
thinking about thinking.
None of us who loves literature has asked the ministry to throw out lit. In
fact, we have always been happy to have literature included and we have made
it an important part of our curriculum- whether with our 4 pointers, our 5
pointers, and even some of our 3 pointers- but the HOTS program is not
literature...it is forcing higher order thinking skills on students using
English literature as a tool, rather than as a vibrant life force!
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