Structure of the Class
Time
Our class meets three hours a day, five days a week. The class time is divided into three sections: skills work in a group, individual skills work, and group discussion time. Students are expected to participate in all activities, though they can choose the order of the first two. The whole class works together during the discussion period.
Students
We have approximately 35 students enrolled for 16 weeks. All students take a short reading test when they enter our school. If their reading scores are between the 4th and 6th grade average scores, they are encouraged but not forced to take “Our Class.” We feel that students have to recognize their academic needs and then choose to do something about them. It should be their decision to take control of their education. Although all the students are poor readers, the class is made up of many different kinds of people with a wide range of interests and abilities. We consciously encourage interaction among the students so that they get to know each other and learn to work together while respecting these differences. This kind of group identity is an important aspect of the class structure.
Physical Layout
Our classroom is arranged to support the activities that take place within it. During the first two hours ? the room is divided into two sections. In the front of the room where we teach reading we have a group of chairs in a semicircle in front of the blackboard. The use of chairs rather than desks encourages students to actively participate rather than retreat into notetaking, doodling, or sleep. It permits easy movement to the front of the room, minimizing the physical separation that normally helps to define the teacher as presenter and central figure and students as passive receivers.
In the rest of the room — about 2/3 of the space — we have six-person tables and chairs. Students are not given assigned seats when they work there but are allowed to choose their seats and move around during class as long as they are quiet and don’t disrupt other people.
During a short break between the first two hours and the last hour of the class, we rearrange the chairs into one large circle, All students must sit in the circle during the last hour.
Use of Teachers
Our Class has always been team taught. We have one English/ Reading teacher and one Social Studies/History teacher. The reading teacher leads the group reading and writing section of the class in the front of the room. During this time the social studies teacher works individually with the other students who are doing assignments at the tables. During the last hour both teachers participate in the discussions, although the social studies teacher is primarily responsible for group leadership. We have found that we also need extensive planning time since we want to learn each other’s skills and support each other in class. We do formal lesson planning about twice a week and also spend considerable time discussing individual students and their progress.
Lessons and Folders
Students are given a checklist of weekly assignments when they come into the class Monday morning. The assignments listed are then distributed and worked on in class each day. All work must be completed and organized neatly by Friday unless a student has been ill or excused. All students have a folder in class in which they must keep their work. These folders cannot leave the class. If a folder is lost the student must make up all missing work that has not yet been checked. Each Friday the teachers collect the folders and review and respond to all work which has not already been corrected in class.
Supplies
Students are expected to bring their own supplies to school. If they forget their pens or pencils, and they often do, we have a “collateral” system which allows them to exchange a personal possession for a writing utensil during the class period. When the pencil is returned the teacher returns the possession. This establishes the teacher as a supportive person, gives students one less excuse to avoid work, and encourages the student to take responsibility.
Credit
Students receive credit in the class if they attend class regularly, participate in all the activities of the class and complete all assignments. The teachers evaluate the student’s work and involvement on an individual basis. So, for example, a student who has real difficulty completing anything might be evaluated initially on the basis of finishing the work rather than on the content. Another student however, might be reviewed for grammar, spelling and content. We do not give letter grades; rather, we write a descriptive paragraph about each student’s work at the end of each quarter (eight week period). All evaluations are written by the two teachers together. We have found that we have different feelings, opinions and reactions to students and their work. By talking together we gain greater insight and a broader perspective on a student’s work and development.
We feel that these organizational structures of the class are an integral and important part of helping students to develop a positive attitude about school and their ability to learn there. In the first two hours students are given structured specific assignments but have the freedom of movement and timing. In the last hour they are told where to be but are given freedom to choose how to participate and what to discuss. We have tried to create a structure that reflects a concern for both individual growth and group interaction. We allow for student individuality in achieving these goals.
Classroom Environment
We believe that the social environment of the classroom greatly influences the kind of learning that takes place. In teaching the class we pay close attention to those aspects of the environment which we see as particularly important: group work, cooperation, risk-taking, choice and control, and the role of teachers.
Group Work
A large proportion of our work is done in groups. We have found that when students work together they learn from each other and develop a sense that they and other people are both interesting and important. This growth of self-confidence allows them to be more open to new learning experiences. In our discussions during the third hour of class we encourage discussion about daily life. The students are then given an arena in which to share experiences and compare them. The differences among people, their experiences and expectations then come into the open. Because we talk about them openly students learn that differences, either personal, racial, ethnic or cultural, are both interesting and acceptable rather than signs of either inferiority or superiority. This process also exposes students to many new words and to the power of words in conversation. So, for example, we have found that discussion about race in class allows for far greater freedom of communication between racially different students.
We also tend to make “behavior problems” a class issue which can be discussed openly since we assume that it is the interaction between the individual and the environment which has created the problem, either now in our class or in the past. We allow students to criticize our behavior, explain what we are doing and the reasons for it, and apologize when that is appropriate. Students see that it is not important to “win” or “control” a discussion but rather to participate in it in a responsible way.
The fact that these conversations take place within the classroom gives them a protection that we have found to be very important. Thus when anger or other strong feeling comes out in discussion, it stays within the group. It is handled verbally and is seldom carried further after class.
Cooperation
We want our students to want to be in class. Learning to interact with peers in a supportive non-competitive way is both difficult and very desirable for adolescents. We feel that cooperation comes through the experience of working with others around many different kinds of activities, both verbal and written. The structured group work on reading depends heavily on the active participation of students: pointing out words, sounding out words aloud and listening carefully to other people’s pronunciation. We also allow students to work together on their writing assignments. Since students work at tables rather than individual desks, they fall easily into reading aloud together, discussing difficult questions, and comparing answers. We do not accept copying, but we do feel that students learn better and are less afraid of new projects if there are others working with them. Quiet talk and movement also give the classroom a gentler, less austere tone.
In the discussion time, everyone has the right to participate in the group as they choose. These sessions are often tense and difficult at the beginning of the year because students distrust their differences and fear the judgment of other students, but in time, as students realize that competition is not rewarded and that listening as well as talking is important, shy students begin to participate more actively and outgoing students begin to draw other people out as well as speak for themselves.
Risk Taking
We want students to take chances and try new projects in school. The students in this class are below grade level in reading and they tend to have low self-confidence. One of our primary goals is to build up this self-confidence and help students to view mistakes as a means to learning rather than a reflection of their own stupidity. For this reason we do not grade student performance and work according to an absolute standard. We evaluate on the basis of change and development rather than correctness, and we tend to be descriptive rather than Judgmental. When students have different ideas we try to point this out instead of fostering agreement. In reading and working on the phonic code, we emphasize the fact that for many words in English there are many “correct” pronunciations depending on the part of the country where a person was raised. We do not allow people to laugh at or ridicule each other. We emphasize by our words and actions that success in the class is not defined by superiority over others but rather by one’s willingness to try, make mistakes, and try again. Risk- taking then becomes part of the definition of success and is not dangerous.
Choice and Control
We give students a great deal of choice within well- defined boundaries and expectations. We articulate our expectations clearly and often. However, we do recognize that we can’t determine how each student will best learn. We are finding that we often have to negotiate with students -about what work they will and can do. This process of negotiations has become an important part of the classroom environment. Students can choose when to work on reading and writing in a group and when they prefer to work alone during the first two hours of class. They are often given choices of what story to read or what to write about. Finally, they can choose how and when to participate in discussions.
Allowing this kind of flexibility is an outgrowth of our view that if a student has a variety of alternatives, all of which allow him or her to learn and succeed, then there is little motivation to choose failure as the one way of affirming personal independence and taking control. It encourages students to take responsibility for their learning in a positive way, and it helps students to see teachers as sympathetic, supportive adults and only minimally as authority figures.
The Role of Teachers
As teachers we view our function in the class as basically facilitators for the students, and we feel that team teaching is a crucial part of creating a classroom environment in which students view us as approachable and potentially helpful. As two individuals we are very different in personal style and interests. We share our differences with the students. We find them interesting and not threatening. We point out our strengths and weaknesses and often laugh and joke with one another about them (Karen is a poor speller and Alice tends to be shy in discussions). By our personal interaction with each other we establish ourselves as people with feelings, opinions, and personalities, and this, in turn, encourages students to do the same.
Our classroom is organized around the perspective that there is a close relationship between learning to accept oneself and learning to read and write well. We share this perspective with the students through our behavior, our choice of subject matter, and our organization of the class. We are very direct with the students and let them know what we expect in terms of work and behavior in class. We want our students to take responsibility for their participation in class, for we feel that this helps them to know themselves better and become more powerful learners.
Curriculum Content
Structured Group Work
In the direct teaching of reading, i.e., the structured group lessons which comprise one of the first two hours of the day, we specifically work with the large sight vocabulary which most of our students have. By using what they already know, students begin to enjoy the power of words and realize that they themselves have many of the necessary tools for building new decoding skills. We specifically train students in the skill of listening closely to themselves and others, breaking down and identifying the sound components of words, and relating these to written symbols.
The major teaching tools in doing this are the phonetic code and the game of transformations.
The phonetic code is a group of large charts divided into columns. It has in a separate column each sound of English and every spelling of that sound which occurs in English. The activities of the class during the first four to six weeks involve acquainting students with the code through a variety of games, a few of which are suggested here:
1. Choose a vowel sound (Example: a as in mate). Ask students to call out as many words as they can think of which have that sound. If a word is mentioned which does not have that sound, let the class pronounce, discuss and arrive at a decision about whether it should be in this group. List these words on the board, dividing them into groups according to the different spellings of the sound. Using the phonetic code, which gives all the different spellings, try to think of at least one word for every spelling of the sound (example: ache, break, ballet, aim, gauge, vein, way, prey, etc.).
When these words have been elicited, there are numerous activities that can be used as follow up: 1) The class as a group or individual students write a story or sentences using the words. The assignment can be made more challenging by putting a requirement of 1,2,3,4, or 5 words in each sentence. 2) The words are erased. Then the teacher calls out one of the words. Students take turns or volunteer to come up to the front and point out the word on the phonic code, first pointing only to sound columns, then pointing to the correct spelling of the sound as it appears in the word.
2. Choose a particular spelling (Example: ou). Have the class use the phonetic code to find all the different sounds which that spelling can have. They do this by examining all the sound columns to discover where the spelling appears. Then the class lists as many words as possible for each different sound of that spelling (example: cough, soup, enough, out, courage, would). The activities listed in the first exercise can also apply here. It is especially challenging for the class or individuals to try writing a sentence which contains all the sounds for one spelling.
3. When students are able to pronounce single syllable words pointed out on the p.c. by the teacher and when most students are able to easily and correctly point out short words themselves, the class can then begin to use the p.c. as a resource in decoding much longer multisyllable words. When introducing a new vocabulary list, which might be based on a story, a sound, or a syllable, the teacher first shows the students how to look at the word in syllables. If they cannot figure out the pronunciation this way, the teacher can then point out the word on the p.c.
In all of these exercises students are given the opportunity to use what they know, to figure things out for themselves, and to take an active role as learners.
The game of transformations is another powerful way to make students aware of the skills of reading. In this game students are asked to change one word into another word (example: in— >trip). Four kinds of sound/ spelling transformations are allowed in the game: 1) substitution- dropping one sound and substituting another in its place (in —>it). 2) addition- adding one sound at the beginning or end of a word (it—> pit). 3) reversalreversing all the sounds of a word regardless of spelling (pit—>tip). 4) insertion- inserting a new sound into the middle of the word keeping all the sounds already there (tip —>trip). Thus the transformations from in to trip might look like this: in —>it — >pit —>tip —>trip. Any of the four transformations may be used many times or not at all within the game.
Subtraction is not allowed, for this would make the game too easy. Only one sound/spelling transformation at a time is allowed and each transformation must result in an English word. Slides are permitted. A slide is when you change the spelling but not the sound of a word or when you change the sound but not the spelling:
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A slide does not count as a transformation and so may be used in addition to any of the four transformations.
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These are examples of other word transformations:
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The possibilities are limitless in the game of transformations. There is almost always more than one “right” way to go from one word to another. The game can be simple or very difficult. It can be a game for individual students or for a group, with volunteers calling out ideas.
In all the exercises using the phonic code and the game of transformations there is no line drawn between the study of reading, spelling and self-expression in writing. The possible games are limited only by the creativity of the teacher and her responsiveness to student needs and interests. Any of the games may be complex or simple. Students are allowed to use what they know, to be creative, and they are, at the same time, expected to play by the rules of the game. This freedom within discipline is basic to the approach and is a major reason why it works well in “Our Class.”
In addition to the games suggested above, the structured group work in class includes reading aloud in small groups, extensive work on spelling, understanding and the use of vocabulary, some discussion of content and personal reactions to stories students have read individually, the reading aloud of student stories, and reading aloud to students.
Individual Assignments—Writing
When students work for an hour each day at the tables, the focus is on individual reading and writing. Sometimes the assignment is an outgrowth of work we have done together, and any assignment which requires new knowledge or skills must have been introduced and practiced in the group. In choosing writing assignments we make the assumption that students who have been unsuccessful or frightened away from writing in the past are more likely to break down those barriers if they feel familiar and secure with the subject matter. We ask them to write about specific experiences they have had and people they have known. The following is typical of the dialogue that often takes place:
Student: “What you want me to write about never happened to me.”
Teacher: “Write a story then about another person who did that.”
Student: “I don’t know anyone like that.”
Teacher: “Make it up. Make it ridiculous or silly. Don’t worry about it being real. Just write. Use something you’ve seen on T.V. to get you started. Try to write at least five sentences. It is more important to write something than to write something well.”
Student: “I can’t think of any way to start.”
Teacher: “I’ll give you the first sentence.”
In the case of the most constipated students a final tactic is often: “I can’t think of anything to say. This is a boring assignment.”
If it really seems that the problem is more fear than a power struggle with the teacher, we may suggest that the student write very briefly what he or she did yesterday or what he or she did between waking up and arriving at school. The idea here is to finally reduce the exercise of writing to a challenge that can be met, and for some students it seems to involve choosing a subject which is known and familiar but has no emotional overtones.
More often students are eventually delighted to discover that their lives and their issues can be integrated into their experiences in the classroom. Students who initially respond to our assignments by flatly refusing to write about themselves because it invades their privacy, may come up with wild fantasies or absurdly humorous tales about an imaginary person. They are pleased because they have tricked us; we are pleased because they have begun to think and write. More often after this kind of resistance we receive a story that begins in the third person but eventually switches to “I.”
If a student is not afraid to write, we may insist that he or she follow the specific directions of the assignment to develop skills of organization, clarity, continuity, or detail — not usually all at once. Unless a student seems interested in having the paper corrected for “proper grammar” we tend to correct -first for spelling, then for simple punctuation. Words frequently misspelled on student papers may become the vocabulary to be pointed out on the phonic code.
To aid students in developing criteria for reasonable punctuation, we ask them to read aloud what they have written and to put in a period when they hear themselves pause. If a student has difficulty doing this for himself, he can work with another person. They can listen to and “punctuate” one another. We then look together at the words which have been grouped together to see if they make a clear, complete thought that makes sense. This can also be a group assignment on a paragraph that has been dittoed and distributed.
Both in choosing subject matter and in correcting papers we try to give students independent, enjoyable, and sensible ways to develop their writing.
New Experiences
Although the subject matter of much of “Our Class” is designed to make students realize that what they now know is both valuable and interesting, we also believe that exposing students to new experiences and new people is equally important in promoting growth. We try to take students out of the school and have guest speakers at least once a week.
Many of the trips we take are to institutions — the court system, a bank, an area college, etc. Because of their youth or their particular socio-economic status, the students we teach have had either minimal contacts with these institutions or very negative ones, usually as victims (as defendants in court, watching a parent’s car being repossessed, etc.). Car trips are designed to show students how institutions work and how they, through understanding them, can have more control over their contacts with them and use them for their own purposes.
Some of our trips are just for fun (roller skating, going for pizza). They build group spirit and give students a chance to share strengths and interests which are seldom seen in a school setting.
Speakers we invite to class are people who have chosen a particular occupation or have made conscious choices about their lives, and who are willing and able to share this with young people: a policeman, a former bank robber and prisoner, a reporter, a pimp, a union organizer, a steelworker, a Gay rights activist, and many others. We ask students to ask questions and state their own opinions, and we invite guests who are not afraid of dialogue end disagreement.
When we ask students to evaluate themselves and the class, we receive comments about all parts of the curriculum which we have detailed above. However, the part of the class which a]ways is mentioned—sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, but always with passion—is the group discussion which makes up the third hour of the class. During this hour when we sit together in a circle and talk. The opening question for the group may come from any part of the curriculum detailed above: a story, a student’s paper, the point of view of a speaker. It may come from a newspaper article one of us has read, an event in the school or a neighborhood that everyone is talking about, or opinion that a student brings to the group. However, the part of this experience that provokes reaction is less the specific subject discussed than the experience of the group. We are asking students to sit together, to speak for themselves, to listen and respect other people and their feelings, and to realize that the ability to function within a group is a skill to be respected and learned. In this part of the class, speaking for communication and listening carefully is taught much more directly. It is the subject, as well as the methodology of the class. For most students the experience is both fascinating and very threatening. No subjects or feelings are taboo. It is, perhaps more than any other part of the class, the experience which asks students to believe that school and learning can be integrated with subjects and interests which consume the rest of one’s life. For some students this is the key to a first real active involvement in school. For others it is a time to listen and to finally get a glimpse of the real people who sit across the room.
