Monthly Archives: January 2016

“Close reading” aka “attention to detail”

A number of years ago, a colleague of mine from KIPP came to visit one of my classes (senior English) and was amazed that we spent an entire class period on one paragraph (I think it was a Borges story … Continue reading

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“The right questions”

Zizek (a contemporary philosopher in Slovenia) has an interesting video clip (quite short) that you can find here on the importance of asking good questions.  While I think a better approach would be to talk about asking “good questions” as opposed … Continue reading

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“Guides on the side” still need to use teachable moments

There’s a slogan that purports to capture the essence of student-centric learning: teachers should be a “guide on the side” rather than the “sage on the stage.” But that shouldn’t mean they’re not teaching: they still need to teach, but … Continue reading

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Questions from 1.19.16 English class

And here are the students’ questions the next day.  I have printed a handout of these and will use them as a self-referential teaching tool since a number of the questions have to do with asking and evaluating questions.   … Continue reading

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Take-aways from 1.19.16 English class

You may remember that I made a Google form to ask students what the “major take-away” of the class was and what question(s) remained after the discussion. I give the responses below; at this point, I leave the lessons to … Continue reading

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Asking Questions redux (part deux)

Having talked about today’s class in the previous post, I thought I’d write about what I’m going to do tomorrow as follow-up. I’ll start with a two-question survey sometimes used in large college lecture courses (that I’ve occasionally used in … Continue reading

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Asking Questions redux

On an in-class prompt for a senior English class, one of the choices last week was “What is the most striking stylistic aspect of Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler… and what is its effect on you as … Continue reading

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