In Read Write Teach, Linda Rief presents a lesson, based on the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Throughout the lesson, multiple of her teacher actions depend upon the students not communicating "the idea behind the story." She had students activate their thinking through drawing, then started a discussion and asked for student input. No input received. She then asked students to connect their drawing to the annotations they were supposed to make on their copy of the story. She started discussion and waited for student input again. No input received a second time. Finally, she used a technique she calls the "write around" to get students in conversation with each other through writing to grow their confidence enough to speak aloud about the story. Pay dirt. She and the class followed the write around with a rich discussion about the idea behind the text and what makes it an effective story.
That's an excellent lesson, but so much of its driving force derived from students' lack of communication of an easy text. The questions stemming from this flooded my brain far more quickly than I could reach out for answers to them. Did she foresee all those separate places where the students might not have a response and have a corresponding activity ready to flesh out their thoughts or was some of the lesson pure ad lib? If it was all planned, how long did it take her to develop the skill of accurately judging where her students would need extra help (speaking in terms of the amount of time into spent with these particular students as well as the amount of time into her career)? Did she have more backup plans in case the students still weren't quite comfortable? If so, then how many back up plans? Alternatively, if part of the lesson was cobbled together on the fly, was it difficult to keep her cool in front of the class while she thought of other courses of action? Thinking more practically, how many days did the lesson take? Between reading the story aloud, drawing, writing, and making three separate attempts at discussing the story, it seems like a long lesson for one class period even without the transition time needed between those activities. Given the difficulty of engaging readers in discussion, the effectiveness of this lesson could be in peril if it spilled over into another day of class. Getting a class engaged in the same short story could be challenging if an entire class period went by without the students seeing the results of their effort in the form of greater textual understanding.
I know I've focused a disproportionate amount of space on this one sample lesson, but the questions it raises have resonated with some of my greater anxieties about being a teacher. As someone who is relatively new to planning and organization on such a grand scale, it seems like there isn't enough time in the day to account for all the variables and nuances of instructional planning. I'd absolutely love the opportunity to read about or see a teacher in the process of planning a lesson. I want the gritty details of putting it all together, but I often feel like I'm just seeing the polished product of the author's efforts. It's a bit like walking into a room for the last five minutes of an A-Team episode.
As helpful as it is to know that her plan worked, it would be even more helpful for me to see her struggle with creating it. She shows what she did, and tells why she did it, but falls short of explaining how she came up with it. Perhaps that information doesn't fall within the scope of her book, but it's still the source of a not insignificant amount of nervousness for me nonetheless, which is why I chose to write about it at such length.
