[etni] Re: one more comment (the last I promise) on teaching literature
- From: Bari Nirenberg <bnirenberg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: steveh@xxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:47:52 +0300
It sounds like your objections have much more to do with assessment in
general than they do with the literature program. In any case, the
situation that you described is not at all realistic within the context you
described. In fact, the reflection component of the literature program
presents an ideal opportunity for dialogue with students (in addition, of
course, to dialogue that takes place in the classroom). Two components of
the seven must be graded -- summative assessment (the test) and another
component of the teacher's choice, but it cannot be the reflection (it's not
that you're free not to give a grade for reflection -- you can't give a
grade for it). You don't even need to correct errors on the reflection --
just read it and respond. Assessing what we teach in the classroom is
nothing new and I assume that most teachers who have been teaching
literature all along have also been either testing their students on it
and/or giving some kind of graded assignment. I know that I've always done
one or the other or both. There is no contradiction between teaching in a
creative, stimulating way and assessing what our students have learned.
Again, although the course is no longer mandatory, I suggest you take it.
As an instructor, I can tell you that some of my course participants were
very surprised at how much the "new" program resembles what they've been
doing all along.
Oh, and by the way, Barry Silverberg is a very funny man from way up north
in Kiryat Shmona. My last name is Nirenberg and I'm a moderately funny (at
times) woman from the Negev. You're not the first person to mix us up, but
if you saw us in person, I'm pretty sure you'd have no trouble telling us
apart :-)
Bari
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 11:56, Steve Hellmann <steveh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Thank you to Bari for the prompt response and the suggestion that when the
> HOTS course does not appear on one's pedagogic qualifications list,
> mistaken
> assumptions are bound to follow.
> For the record, reflection is not supposed to be graded. We are supposed to
> reply to our students' reflection just as you imply. Have you actually
> taken
> the HOTS course? If not, I suggest you do, as you will discover that many
> of
> your assumptions are inaccurate - (Bari Silverberg)
>
> Reflection is one of the seven key components required for each unit in the
> log. One of these must be graded and I do realize that I am free not to
> give
> a grade for reflection. What I do not seem to have made clear is that I
> described an experience with reflection as an example of the kind of
> difficulty that can crop up in an assessment culture which I feel to be
> endemic to the current literature program.
>
> I hope we can use the log with as liberal an interpretation of the nuts and
> bolts of the handbook as possible. Discussion with my colleagues on the
> staff as well as other teachers will focus on ideas for dealing with the
> material in as stimulating and interesting a way as possible.
>
> Forgive my fixation with Billy Collins, but perhaps we can see his
> suggestion that when we read a poem, " it requires that we loosen some of
> our fixed notions in order to accommodate another point of view," as being
> pertinent to our needs in teaching literature in our schools.
>
> Kol Tuv,
>
> Steve Hellmann
>
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>
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