Prose and Context

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Kate Chopin’s The Awakening—“Dangerously Immersed in Ourselves” By Karen E.B. Elliott   I remember the first time I read this book.  It was back in college was I was earning my B.A. at a liberal arts, secular school.  I loved the novel.  It intrigued me.  Perhaps it was because I identified with the main character as much as I could at the time; however, I certainly wasn’t married yet.  I had not been pregnant nor had children to care for.  As a woman I was allowed to vote and express basically any opinion I had as a woman. But exactly like the main character, I was white;  I was raised with privilege in zipcodes my parents chose carefully in which to live in order to guarantee me of sustaining that privilege.  So in that case, I complete “got” Kate Chopin’s main character. I can recall my male professor’s interpretation of the ending (which I quickly came to learn is mostly everyone’s interpretation), and it just didn’t sit well with me. Even though I really liked him, I felt he was trying too hard—to please the women in the room—as if to say, “Hey ladies, I’m with you on this one.”  He, like many of my professors, whether male or female, were self-proclaimed feminists.  I, too, was a self-proclaimed feminist, but as a Christian.  And that’s a hard one to explain or justify to the secular cynic or faithful Christ-follower.   The interpretation of Edna’s apparent suicide (spoiler alert!) at the novel’s end appears to be read out of context in a frightening post-modern analysis of literature—where our feelings about the text (or any text) determine its meaning. This approach raises serious questions, and any self-proclaimed intellectual would raise his or her eyebrows when anyone looks at a text in this manner.  Interestingly enough, however, this is exactly what Edna does with her own life.  Although Chopin wrote this at the turn of the 20th century, her main character is incredibly post-modern, and more accurately, Edna is the post-modern middle to upper class American.  Whether Christian or secular, Edna represents the typical American who already has it all—everything’s going for her—but she wants more. Despite her education and wealth, she is trapped, but not by the very oppressive, anti-woman Louisiana society in which she lives—she is trapped by her inability to bow down to anyone or anything larger than herself.  It is evident as the reader travels through her consciousness that she has an acute sense of God and His presence; in fact, she admits that “the Holy Ghost [has] vouchsafed wisdom” within her youthful mind and soul, but she is seduced by her own desires to do whatever she wants, no matter who it hurts (13). Kate Chopin’s craft and technique is nothing short of inspiring. On the surface she appears to be a transcendentalist as Edna goes to the water and within nature to find herself—to find the answers of life—but she does no transcending of any kind; in fact, Chopin turns on her reader in not-so-subtle ways.  Although at first, nature seems to “speak to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace,” and yet, when Edna enters the ocean with the intent to transcend, Chopin reminds the reader that the sea is not Edna’s native element; she had “attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had received instructions from both the men and women; in some instances even the children…A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there was a hand nearby that might reach out and reassure her” (13; 27).   Chopin furthers the futility of Edna’s efforts with her strong description of the ocean, and she intentionally recycles phrases—reuses them—particularly at the novel’s end so that her reader will be reminded of what’s really happening to her character.  Like the natural elements, Chopin seduces her reader and invites them to look at nature’s veneer.  She describes the sea as swelling “lazily in broad billows,

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Transcript unavailable for this episode. Danah Hashem's Edutopia article on the single point rubric can be accessed here.

Cultivating Character in the Classroom. My name is Renée LaRoche.  I am currently teaching Academic English at Lexington Christian Academy.  I graduated from LCA in 1992 and it’s wonderful to be back home. For the past fifteen years, I’ve taught in public charter, traditional public, and private schools.  I’ve had 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grade classrooms independently, and when my children were young, I substituted for students in Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade. Regardless of what grade, setting, or role I have found myself, I’ve noticed how important it is for me to cultivate character in my classroom.  It is with that energy and passion that I find myself sharing with you today. Wherever you are, it is my hope that you’ll be able to take whatever works for you and leave the rest. Whether you’re a teacher, a colleague,  friend, family member, or if somehow you just happened to find this podcast.. I hope that it speaks to you in some way. Before I begin, so that you have some background understanding, I am currently teaching seven students who are enrolled in our Academic English and Cultural Immersion Program here at LCA,  Each of them are in eighth grade and are in their first or second year here in The States. A main focus of our program is to “develop fluency in English before moving on to Upper School.” My students take Academic English, American Studies, STEM, Arts, Music, and Physical Education.  The goal is to prepare them for success in an English-speaking college preparatory school. LCA is focused on cultivating one’s heart, mind, body, and soul.  The first unit of each school-year for me, in my classroom, concentrates on identifying, supporting, and communicating just that. I begin my year by ensuring that my classroom is designed for an optimal learning environment  I know that this might mean different things to each person who hears this… For some, it might mean that a classroom library includes all genres. To others, it might mean that flexible seating is available. Whatever systems or physical environments feel right to you, I support that.  I, personally, love color, comfort, and order. Therefore, my classrooms have always included brightness, organization, and flexible seating options. A tool that I’ve used to create sacred learning spaces for me is the book, “Creating the Peaceable Classroom” by Sandy Bothmer. Even if you’re not into Feng Shui or don’t find value in integrating music or movement into your daily routine, as a teacher. I think that we can all agree upon  the importance of setting a serene environment. I perceive that it’s a goal for all educators! :) I feel confident that you might find some strategies or advice that could yield amazing results, wherever you find yourself. After initial icebreaker activities are over, my students’ first academic creation is to write I AM poems in where they share who they are and who they wish to be with their class.  The website, “Read/Write/Think” has fantastic exemplars, which I’ve used over the years. That being said, being that this type of activity is so common for “back to school” or “get to know you” activities, a simple Google search would yield similar templates.   In the first week of school, after the routines are reviewed, I find that the most impactful area of focus is on character.  Having that as a baseline is truly foundational. Within a week of getting to know my students, I give them a list of 143 Character Trait Vocabulary Words.  If you teach, you might revise this list, according to your students. Being that my students are English Language Learners, when they receive this list, it’s overwhelming as their vocabulary is several grade levels behind native English Language students’.  I use Marzano’s six-step process to learn vocabulary as I have found that it promotes better retention and application. Therefore, I provide a description, explanation, or example for each of the words,

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Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind—“A Good Woman is Hard to Find” By Karen E. B. Elliott, English Department Faculty February 26, 2019   Margaret Mitchell was once quoted as saying that “in a time of weakness, I wrote a novel.” Well, if writing one of the most read, translated, and published novels in the world was a weakness, I am sorry that she died so young that we’d never get to see her strengths. I decided to teach this novel a few years ago, and without a doubt, for most of my students, whether male or female, black or white, it’s their favorite. There are few novels whose characterization is so rich, even for the minor characters. At first, however, many of my students struggle—the novel is distinctly Southern—and for most of my beloved Northern, New England, so-called Progressive Massachusetts types, Mitchell dispels a lot of myths. She openly condemns Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and she attacks a couple of women from Maine in one particular scene (where they make racist remarks to Uncle Peter) that will make you want to change those coastal vacation plans. Mitchell shows that racism is not just a Southern problem, nor is it still. It’s a Northern one.  And according to Mitchell, what makes the Northerners far worse than the Southerners is that behind their supposed intellect, their apparent logic, and progressive politics, you’ve got a region of hypocrites who wear anti-slavery superhero capes, but what they’re really after is money, profit, political support, and all for the building of a new economy based on the rise of industrialization. The heart of the matter is accurately expressed by the famous Rhett Butler who not only predicts the war’s outcome, but also accurately pegs (and despises) the root of most issues—it’s hypocrisy.  He says to Scarlett, “It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names” (Mitchell 223).  This definitely applies to all of us, as the American way is to wear your best façade to church, work, school, or on your college application. As Christians, then, it is easy to identify with Scarlett, despite what we feel for or about her. She does not stand for any cause which will actually cost her anything.  She is truly ambivalent—we are attracted to her because we support her ability to survive and beat the odds, to play the world at their own game and seemingly win, but we are repulsed by some of her choices and what drives her to make them.  I have found that characters my students struggle with the most are the ones we can most identify with. She is, as Rhett declared, a hypocrite.  She feigns righteousness when she needs to get something, and her true nature arises when she is cornered like a cat.  She can be vicious.  And at the heart of it all, she doesn’t really care that much about what other people think—only if it means that it exempts her from the best parties.  She covets another woman’s husband; she marries her sister’s fiancé, but she loves her home and will do anything to save it, even if it means offering herself physically.  “I won’t let the Yankees [the world] lick [or take advantage of] me” she continually says, and don’t we all feel this way? She lives in a world that clearly doesn’t respect women—certainly does not acknowledge their intellect—and she knows that the world revolves around money, so she will do anything to get it, and all the time she rationalizes this acquisition.  She does believe in God, but she does not trust that He has her best interests in mind; in fact, she doesn’t believe that anyone does.  In many ways, she is the quintessential American woman, which is not flattering. Mitchell, however, does not allow her reader to laud her main character or rationalize her choices, much like we Christians like to do.  Scarlett is contrasted by Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, who Rhett claims (and makes no other claim like it about any other woman i...

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Alan Paton’s Too Late, the Phalarope—“Scarlet Letters in the Modern Age” By Karen E.B. Elliott   Alan Paton wrote only three novels—the first he destroyed; the second is his most famous (Cry, the Beloved Country), and then his third is ridiculously painful to read.  But it’s so amazingly good, and so apropos for our students, especially as we live in and confront the tempting, technological age.  Although this novel takes place in South Africa post-WWII, and although it’s about the other whites, the non-English Afrikaners—the Boers, original Dutch settlers of Africa’s cape—it’s about good, old fashioned sin and our human nature to give into it, to hide it, to indulge in it further, and then to ask God in perverted prayer, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Blameshifting, unfortunately, is nothing new.  Adam did it to Eve, and then Eve did it to the devil.  It seems that the first sin is Biblical self-indulgence (if eating of the fruit is metaphorical), and it’s the inability to want to be honest—not only with God, but each other (especially the ones we claim to love), and even ourselves.  What is new, however, is that due to technology, we don’t necessarily even need to blameshift.  With the click of a mouse or the subtle movement of our thumbs, we can open an icon, browse, and then for too many who are savvy, delete the evidence as best we can.  Personally, I think the internet is the devil’s playground. Our good intentions to use it wisely and for good quickly submit to distractions…and too often, dangerous rabbit holes that make Lewis Carroll’s world look more like “The Hundred Acre Wood.”  It’s the new realm where evil can work incredibly effectively as it lodges itself into our souls like a stubborn splinter—mostly because we’re hiding our indulgences with too-great-of-ease, and then we’re heading to our classrooms, our church pews, the pulpits, the board meetings, our dinner-dates, or T-ball games all in the name of the Lord, when all the while we’re headed toward destruction, and maybe even to our personal hells, while destroying our families and too often even the greater communities in which we strive to live and serve. Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or nothing at all, confession in the 21st century is not in our everyday vocabulary.  We don’t need it; after all, if you’re “born again,” baptized, circumcised or bowing upon your mat, we’re all set.  Plus, we’ve got Dr. Oz, Phil and of course Oprah and the Personal Growth section of Barnes and Noble, or worse, we’ve got those few family members or friends from prayer group who help us rationalize our sin because after all as an Evangelical, it’s very important to understand where the secular world is coming from. We’re just trying to live in the world, but most of the time, we are of it.  We have, or shall we say temptation has, convinced us that by understanding the other guy’s point of view, we’re really leading them to the Kingdom. But as the narrator of Too Late, the Phalarope declares, “because [he] did not entreat or repent, he was destroyed…[and we] were destroyed with him” (Paton 4).   This novel is a necessary read.  It convicts and re-convicts its reader.  Like the protagonist and anti-hero, Pieter, the reader can identify with the terror of being discovered when we know we’ve indulged too much in our sin, and when we pray, like Pieter, “it was another mercy that he sought, not to be saved from sin, but from its consequence” (157). The novel is not like Cry, the Beloved Country which is characteristically Christian and accepted as such even at secular, liberal institutions due to its African and multi-cultural setting.  Too Late, the Phalarope is much harder to swallow.  It goes deeper into the faith where many Christians are frightened to go.  Paton’s characters are in fact deeply committed Christians.  Their questions are not about God’s existence, is He real, or whether or not He is in fact absolute truth.  No,

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“How I Manage My Classroom: A Balancing Act” By Karen E. B. Elliott, English Faculty (1997-the present)   I always find it interesting how classes formulate—not according to a schedule, or what a student desires to take to graduate, or even what “track” they’ve chosen.  Whenever my classes meet, within the first few weeks of school, each section becomes their own entity—their individual personalities come together and sort-of become “one” being.  What I love about this is that each section, therefore, has different needs…even though I might be teaching all the seniors the same text. I love it because each class/section will look at a text differently depending on their individual and collective personalities, and as a result, I get to “see” a text in a new way with each group.  Consequently, what has resonated most with myself is the three categories of how students learn: Sequential, Global and Exploratory. I have realized that I do all three in one hour…which either means that I’m confused, or perhaps by default, I have learned over the years that the students do best with a balance.  Often I will begin class with grammar, historical lecture, or a pop quiz which helps with my Sequential learners who tend to “respond to logic, order and sequence and work best with information that is presented methodically” (Willis 57).  After this, I will often put students into groups—randomly chosen, and never the same kids together—to spend some time reflecting on specific topics/questions regarding the text, but at the same time giving them space to “enjoy discovery [and] frees them to experiment, create [different theories]…and explore their [literary] environment rather than be restricted by overly structured lessons”; however, little do these Exploratory learners realize, things are actually structured by myself, but they get the “interpersonal” engagement with their peers, which actually helps them focus and eventually present their ideas to the larger group (Willis 58).  Next, I’ll have everyone come to “Discussion Group.” Someone turns off the classroom lights, and someone else turns on lamps as we gather together in different chairs, sit on the carpet with cozy pillows, someone boldly likes sitting in my desk chair, and if others like, they can even stay at a table as long as we come together to discuss what they’ve done in group work. This is great for all types of learners because they are moving around, recharging, and they are used to the cues. Here, however, at “Discussion Group,” the Global learners have it—here, they get to “connect a new general topic to something more concrete” (58). Here, we make connections from the literature to the practical, and make things more applicable/personal.   What is always challenging, however, is when one particular “Learning Group” dominates a class.  This is like ordering a prime rib but getting scallops wrapped in bacon. Both are great, but sometimes they don’t always go together because someone’s allergic to fish.  As a teacher, however, this is what’s on the menu. This is your class. Own it. Know that nothing is a coincidence and that God has more faith in you than you might have in yourself.  If He thinks you can create the balance, then you can.   Willis, Judy. Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom.  ACSD: Alexandria VA, 2007.  

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“As a Christian Teacher, ‘Life is a Highway’” Karen E. B. Elliott, English Faculty (1997-present)   On more than one occasion, I will have a frustrated student sigh and boldly ask, “Mrs. Elliott, why do we have to read this?”  It’s a fair question, so instead of getting defensive because they’ve just attacked one of the so-called greatest works of literature and it’s also a personal favorite (which might be why we’re reading it), I ask the entire class, “All right, why do we read this? Why should we?”  After that, a great conversation inevitably ensues; however, if I let it, things start to evolve. For each student it gets personal. Naturally, questions create controversy, and controversy is not always fun—especially at a Christian school.  As an English teacher, this is where the fun begins and where class size is always an issue—the more students, the more questions—and I’ve got Milton and that other Shakespeare play to finish before midterm exams?!  Classroom management suddenly feels like “whack-a-mole” and I can’t get them to remember the difference between denotation and connotation. This is when it gets challenging and frustrating at an Evangelical, international, inter-dominational Christian school.  I have to cover all this, and lead them to Christ! And yet, Christ is exactly the only reason I am here.  My subject is just a medium.  It is through my passion for literature which Christ (in spite of my sinful self) works through me and somehow draws students toward Him.  And I don’t know why we are surprised when God does this through secular works written by people who don’t believe in Him, at least not publicly. Yet, we are all made in the image of God, and many authors unknowingly further our relationship to the One who has forgiven them, too, even if they have no inkling that they need forgiveness…even if a few of their ideas are, quite frankly, unforgivable.  Am I any different? And yet, God uses even me to help a particular student with serious questions—ones that will eventually determine their eternal life. I am a marked woman.  I have been asked to boldly and with great difficulty and elegance keep one foot in the world, but the other one under-no-circumstances not of it. Teaching literature at a well-known, high-standard, Christian school in Boston-proper is nothing short of challenging.  I must be careful. As an intellectual and Evangelical in the classroom, I feel as though I’m driving along the Pacific Highway. I’m so close to the rising paganistic-atheistic edge, that if I let my intellect or ego get the best of me, I teeter into the abyss and end up over my head in the eternal waters; however, if I trust in God, which is so difficult to do most of the time, I’ve got my best foot anchored to His side, and the journey is beautiful and He shows me the world in His proper perspective. This is what I hope to do with my students as we peer into the world, become aware of the jagged edges, the seductive and engulfing waters below, and how to help each other face the challenges it takes to journey in this beautiful but dark world where most of the time, the guardrails are few and far between. When I review literary terms with my AP class, we often revisit “irony.”  It’s not what happens is unexpected or the opposite. Irony is what was intended becomes the opposite. And ironically, many of my students are brought to Christ through much of the literature that we explore in class.  It’s through some of the most famous authors who unknowingly draw us unto the One who led them to inkwell or typewriter that reinforce my beloved students’ beliefs that there is absolute Truth and an all-knowing God who loves them, and asks much of them, but will, and has already, journeyed the worst road possible.

Danah: This is Danah Hashem speaking and, for this episode, our 8th episode, we wanted to deviate from some of the patterns we’ve been following in this podcast so far because we want to pause to reflect on and honor the passing of one of our colleagues, Lori Johnson. If you’ve been following along with the podcast, you may know her from her episode with her daughter, Alex Johnson, on summer reading, from our introductory episode, or you may recognize her voice as the introduction to each of our episodes thus far. What you may not know is that Lori is the true originator of this podcast as a whole. It was her idea, her vision, and her passion for continued growth and exploration in our teaching that created the opportunities and the motivation we needed to get this podcast off the ground. She’s the reason this podcasts exists, and so it seemed important that this podcast acknowledge in some small way her passing. On this past November 7th, we lost Lori suddenly and unexpectedly. The depth and breadth of this loss is overwhelming. This podcast represents the tiniest, most microscopic fraction of the ways in which Lori kindly and gently inspired us all to push ourselves to be better and to continue our learning. And so, in honor of all she did and all she left behind, we want to dedicate this podcast to Lori, and we want to take some time to reflect on the power for goodness that a loving, driven, and thoughtful teacher can have on the people and places around them. And so many of the members of the LCA community who have contributed to and supported the production of this podcast have taken the time to share briefly about the impact that Lori had on their lives and pedagogy. As we hear their words, we’d like to thank you for being a part of this episode, and honoring Lori alongside us. Rebecca: So, my name is Rebecca Lefroy, and I’m the newest hire here in the English department at LCA. Lori hired me in June, and I still remember my first meeting with her which was I think supposed to be a short meeting, but maybe went on for 2-3 hours in which we talked about all things education and, from that moment, I could see her enthusiasm for students, her enthusiasm for reading, her enthusiasm for, um, professional development and innovative pedagogy, and all those things were only confirmed when I came to work with her in September. Um, Lori and I taught middle school English together, and she had a whole wealth of information on middle school students and how best to teach them English. I would so often go to her for book recommendations for students. If you had a really specific need for a book for a student, she would know exactly what book would be best. She knew young adult literature inside and out, and was just so perfectly suited to that role, so, from a middle school english perspective, she will be missed hugely. She was also my mentor, so we should be meeting right now, and, um, in our mentor meetings, we had such fun discussing not only nitty bitty practical things like how to use the portal and how to report, but bigger ideas about pedagogy, about how to wrap up a lesson effectively, about the point of homework, um, about individual students and how best to address their needs and help them. She was always so available to me. Not only did she give me that full hour, but she would interrupt what looked like much more important conversations with other people to come and help me. She noticed when I looked troubled or worried about something, and she would check up that I was OK. She had a huge heart for developing new teachers, and I’m very sorry that I only got to learn from her for a couple of months. She also had a huge amount of energy. She had her finger in so many pies in the school, and I’m sure we’ll keep discovering more of those pies. She would come into school before me and leave after me, and I would be exhausted by the end of the day, but she would still be very merry and very jolly,

Mind the Gap: can the study of art in a museum context help young students with their own reading and then creative writing? Hello, my name is Rebecca Lefroy. I teach 7th, 8th and 9th grade at Lexington Christian Academy and am going to be talking about some research that I conducted in my previous school, in part for my Masters in Education. Although, as you can probably tell from my accent, I’m British, I was fortunate enough to actually do quite a lot of my growing up in Brussels and so completed the IB (International Baccalaureate) at an international school there. My experience of the IB was hugely positive; I thrived on the creative, holistic and interdisciplinary approach to teaching the arts. I was therefore rather surprised when I started my job as an English teacher in the UK and discovered that there are distinct gaps between the arts – we teach in different buildings; have completely distinct curriculums; and the subject names sit inside closed boxes on students’ timetables. I asked myself: why the gap? My interpretive case study therefore arose from two main perceived problems with our secondary English teaching: There seems to be a superficial gap between the arts subjects in secondary schools; Younger students tend to be taught a “checklist approach” to reading and writing rather than encouraged to view a text in a holistic way, exploring more abstract concepts. I wondered whether some of the more abstract concepts which younger students so struggle to grasp – for instance, perspective, symbolism and style- be taught through some other, perhaps more accessible, art form – such as art in an art museum? And could what is learned then be transferred back to the English classroom? I found Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s (1999) approach to museum learning compelling – “the audience is always ‘active’, whether or not museums recognise this”. Furthermore, I was inspired by Cremin and Myhill’s (2012) argument that teachers should avoid formulaic recommendations when looking at students’ creative writing and instead see writing as a design process which encompasses both word and image. Similarly, Barrs and Cork (2001) take a more holistic view of creative writing and suggest that exposure to high quality literature can help students develop a wider repertoire of styles and a stronger sense of voice. Thus, I wanted to see whether learning about abstract concepts through art in an “active” environment as well as exposing students to high-quality literature that “plays” with design could push them in their own reading and writing. The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK was an excellent place to carry out the basis of my research and provided a very positive learning environment for the students. It’s a very grand building set right in the middle of the Cambridge colleges and they have a very extensive educational program. So, one afternoon, with about 20 grade 6 students in toe, we packed our bags and headed to the museum. We spent about 2 hours in the museum and through engaging, interactive activities, we explored how artists can use perspective, symbolism and style in their work and what effect this has on the viewer. For our work on perspective, we used Alfred Elnore’s On the Brink; for symbolism, Salvator Rosa’s L’Umana Fragilita (Human Frailty); and for style, Monet’s Springtime. Compared to being in an English classroom, the students were much more willing to share their ideas, admit mistakes and take risks in the art museum. Interestingly, they also had more confidence in interpreting art for themselves than they did a written text in an English classroom. Through follow-up interviews, I found that, for some, this was because they found art an easier form to analyse because of the framing of the piece – “it’s all there in front of us” one interviewee told me – and partly because they felt more empowered to express their own interpretations of the piece in an open art museum space without ...

Hello! This is Danah Hashem, and thanks for joining me for today’s episode of Prose and Context. In this episode, I’d like to spend some time talking about flexible seating: what it is, how I’ve seen it work. All that good stuff. So, for those of you who are unfamiliar, flexible seating is a movement or a classroom strategy where teachers set up their classrooms with a variety of seating options, all of which differ in some way or another from the traditional desk-facing-the-teacher situation. This can include beanbags, couches, rocking chairs, all sorts of things. It often features large tables for collaboration instead of desks, nooks for independent work, or lap desks for mobile work. And all of that seating is arranged in different zones or areas, some are set up to facilitate group work, some for individual work, large discussions, all different types of scholarly work. The idea behind flexible seating is that each day, students come into class and make a decision about where and how they should learn that day. This is a way of differentiating your classroom to allow for different kinds of students, different learning styles, physical ability levels, personality types - all sorts of individual differences that our students come to class with on a daily basis. A lot of the ideology behind this idea comes from an article by Teresa Strong-Wilson and Julia Ellis that explores the classroom environment as a type of teacher itself. So traditionally and historically, we usually consider parents and then educators as any child’s 2 main teachers, so you’ve got the parent and the educator, but Strong-Wilson and Ellis explore the environment as a third teacher from which our students gather information and construct knowledge. So this is essentially what flexible seating is about. It’s about leveraging our classroom environments to help students get the most out of our time with them. So every teacher implements flexible seating differently, but what this looks like for my classroom is that I have a big selection of traditional desks, actually, if we’re being honest, more than I would ideally like to have, but those traditional desks are arranged in a U-shape, but I also in a far corner in the back have a small kitchen table with 4 chairs around it next to a bookshelf with a light. And then off to the side in a different corner, I have a carpeted space with beanbags, some floor pillows, and a large coffee table in the middle. And then throughout the room, I have scattered rocking chairs and papasan chairs with lap desks. And when students come into my classroom on the first day of school, I explain to them that they can sit wherever they want so long as they practice making smart choices for themselves. This means that they have to come into class each day, self-assess their status and energy level, inventory what they know about how they learn, decide what tasks they have ahead of them that class, and then choose a seat that accommodates all those factors. So they have to take all of that into account and then make a choice based on those factors. If partway through class, they realize that they’ve miscalculated or they need to adjust, they can get up at any time without asking and find a new learning situation for themselves. No questions asked. They also should be aware that one learning choice may not be the right one for every single class. So some days might be a desk day where you come in and you think, “ok I really should be at a desk today,” for whatever reasons. And then another day you might come in and think “ah, I’m just gonna grab a blanket, curl up on the beanbag with a pillow,” and that could be what’s right for the student for that day. They have to come in and make that choice every single class session. So most teachers who are new to Flexible Seating come in hot with the main question, which is ‘does this not create total chaos in class?’ I had the same question myself, but, surprisingly,

Let Them Teach You! Integrated Skills Civil Rights Unit for ELL Middle Schoolers with Nancy Nies Last spring, when I was unexpectedly teaching a mixed class of middle schoolers from China whose Toefls ranged from 25 to 50, I was running out of ideas how to bridge the gaps in their abilities. “Hey Steve,” I shouted out to my colleague in the hallway. “What am I going to do for the next six weeks?”  He replied, “have them teach you!” This podcast covers the development of a surprisingly successful unit on integrated skill building for international middle schoolers that grew out of that snatched conversation with my friend. In it, I’ll discuss how to build a unit that evenly develops the four foundational skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a way that is developmentally sound for a mixed-level group, that repeats the lessons with incremental increases in difficulty to increase mastery, and is content rich. Over a six-week time span, focusing on the topic of the Civil Rights movement, my students each read and researched three separate topics, wrote and revised three short essays, and gave three presentations all of which were practiced then presented formally where they taught the class what they had learned. Given the wide range in ability level, from early beginner to low intermediate, my goal was to help each student advance from where he or she was starting. Also, since the class was on American Studies, I hoped to give the entire class a basic working familiarity with the Civil Rights Movement with exposure to its key players, places, and events and with an ability to discuss those events using their newly learned and shared vocabulary. While the focus of the unit was researching, reading, digesting and presenting material, writing clear simple explanations for the topics, and learning to speak clearly to convey that information, I found many other useful skills were practiced in the process. First, they developed their rudimentary research skills, learning how to find websites beyond Wikipedia that defined their topics; second, they learned how to create a slide presentation, receiving basic instruction in layout, content, and design; third, they learned how to create a works cited entry for the websites they used since I required it on both their researched paragraphs and on their slides, and fourth, they learned how to separate definitional content--the What of their topics--from the more challenging significance of their content--the answer to the question of Why this matters. The other significant success for me as a teacher was how much I learned about how to create an effective assignment for both beginning and low intermediate learners. Since I was inventing this assignment where they taught their classmates as I taught it and since I was repeating the assignment three times, each time I could refine what I was asking for by seeing what pitfalls stymied their progress. And the pitfalls varied depending on the fluency level of the student. Learning how to better design a more effective and carefully structured assignment was a definite fruit of this reiterative labor. I divided the topics into three sections:      Definitions      Causes & Effects      People & Solutions Each section lasted two weeks and consisted of four separate tasks focusing on building different skills:      A reading component which consisted of Research into the student’s topic seeking answers to three overarching questions each student proposed.        A Writing component where the students answered the three questions and wrote short 1-paragraph answers using full sentences and explanations. This ran about a page.      A Speaking component where the students created slide shows which required editing the material on their essays into bullet points as well as designing slides that communicated clearly.      A vocabulary component where the students created a li...

In this episode, LCA British Literature teacher, Karen Elliott, discusses her passion for helping students find their faith in literature through the study of Beowulf. I teach a first-semester British Literature survey course to all the seniors, and whether they’re in AP or Honors, we always begin with the famous, anonymous Beowulf. After all, it’s the oldest, complete manuscript we have in the English language; however, that’s not why we read it (or why I choose to teach it).  This is a book where all of my students, their parents, and grandparents can identify.  Unfasten the sword and remove all the chain mail, you’ve got the most modern of men—particularly if you claim to believe in God, or the very least, something larger than yourself.  It is the first third of the story my seniors like the best because they can identify so much—Beowulf is a smart 18-year-old who has just finished his “senior year” in the Kingdom of the Geats, and he’s looking for some post-grad work or an internship.  He is young and has a questionable reputation; he wants to prove everybody wrong (especially his over-protective parents), so he irresponsibly goes overseas to kill a terrorist (a monster named “Grendel”), and then kills the terrorist’s mother (who makes “tiger moms” look like Elmo).  He actually succeeds, and then returns home to say “I told you so.” After that he rules for many years and gains much deserved wealth and material blessings according to his culture and era; however, that’s where the rest of the story actually begins, especially if you’re older, and you’ve gotten past some of those crucial “check-points” of what defines success (at least according to your own terms, and the world’s), and perhaps you’ve even surpassed them. This is when my students get judgmental and perhaps rightfully so.  They can’t identify with the middle-aged Beowulf, and God-willing, I hope they never do.  What I like about this text is that it shows an honest journey of a Christian who must “live in the world but not of it,” and yet, slowly and unintentionally, becomes “of it.”  As a result, God brings death and destruction upon Beowulf’s renowned career, success and kingdom. What is amazing is that Beowulf proclaims that it was not God’s fault—but all his.  In fact, the author claims that this realization “threw the hero in deep anguish and darkened his mood; the man thought he must have thwarted ancient ordinance of the eternal Lord, broken His commandment” (Heaney [trans.] lines 2327-2331).  If only we had such righteous, correct instincts about ourselves (and our Instagram postings). Inevitably this causes some reflection of what kind of man Beowulf was like as he was young when the story begins, and it raises questions as to how he changed.  The author (most likely a scop or monk), however, does not share this latter information. The only thing we know is that Beowulf reigned for many years, and that upon his death “they [his loyal kinsmen] said that of all the kings upon the earth he was the man most gracious and fair-minded, kindest to his people and keenest to win fame” (lines 3180-3182).   These are the very last lines of the entire text, and yet, due to Beowulf’s hubris, his kingdom, despite his fatal, final battle and securing victory over the dragon, is left to be taken by conquerors—his empire falls. Due to sin, left unchecked, everybody pays. Beowulf’s sin—metaphorically embodied in the dragon—destroys his kingdom; however, we aren’t allowed to hate him for it.  The author wants us to “extol his heroic nature” and give “thanks for his greatness” and “cherish his memory” (3173-3177). So, as some of my students say, “What gives?” That’s exactly it.  It was that too many blessings were given to Beowulf for his apparently great attributes.  After he killed Grendel, he was given an abundance of material blessings which King Hrothgar warns him to take caution; this is the man who raised his status and income-tax bracket.

In this episode, Lori Johnson interviews her daughter, LCA alumna Alexandra Johnson who is a senior at Calvin College studying to be a secondary English teacher. Alex is a serious reader and a podcast fanatic. By the time this episode airs, she will have read over one hundred books this summer, along with working full-time as a camp counselor to five and six-year-olds at Meadow Breeze Day Camp and consolidating her research for her honors thesis on the topic of freshman writing genre study and the use of college writing centers. Alex and I will be sharing some of our favorite young adult and middle-grade books that we read this summer in hopes that you may read them too and share the list with your students. Summer is a great time to catch up on the new books that have been published during the school year when it is difficult to read them while keeping up with lesson planning and grading. We hope you enjoy the episode! Topics: 01:02 - How to discover good books that you may want to read 01:58 - Favorite fantasy genre books of the summer 04:50 - Realistic fiction for middle grades 10:00 - Global Read Aloud 12:50 - African American Literature Resources Referenced in the Podcast: GoodReads: www.goodreads.com Moonglow by Michael Chabon Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton Posted and Ms. Bixby’s Last Day by John David Anderson Gary Schmidt (author of Okay For Now, Wednesday Wars, etc.) Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder Refugee by Alan Gratz Global Read Aloud: https://theglobalreadaloud.com/ Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds Track series: Ghost, Patina, Sunny, Lu by Jason Reynolds Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson Picture us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe    

In this episode, LCA World Lit teacher Danah Hashem explores classroom culture and ritual using tea parties. Episode Transcript: Welcome to Prose and Context, a podcast about lifegiving teaching by the English department at Lexington Christian Academy. (Intro Music) Hello! This is Danah Hashem, and thanks for joining me for today’s episode of Prose and Context. I am going to talk about tea parties in the classroom! Which sounds frivolous, but hear me out! I recently wrote a blog post, I maintain an educational blog called Pencils and Patience at pencilsandpatience.wordpress.com, and I recently published a post discussing this idea that I’ve been referring as my “Defense of the Classroom Tea Party.” Because, as much as this idea began accidentally and as much as it seems tangential to my classroom work with my students, I’ve actually come to find some very real, pedagogical value to these classroom tea parties in which my students and I actually drink hot tea together as we work on our classwork. As a tea lover myself, I have been accused of just trying to find excuses to buy more tea, and this accusation is not entirely wrong, but I’ve actually found real value to fostering this tradition or this, this ritual in my classroom. Now I understand 100% that we are really lucky here at LCA to have pretty small classes. My classes don’t usually go over 16-18 kids, and sometimes they’re really small, like 6 or 7 kids. So this is a pretty realistic possibility for me to maintain. But, even if you’re a teacher with larger classrooms, I think there’s a principle here that we can all consider. You know, this doesn’t have to be about tea. Ultimately this is more about the mindset and the kind of ethos that we create in our classrooms. I happened to accidentally create this ethos with tea parties, but I think there’s a lot of different ways as educators that we can think about creating spaces of sensitivity and confidence and places where our students feel really safe taking intellectual risks. I think we can always strive to be more intentional about fostering that kind of environment with our students. So this whole tea party thing actually started completely unintentionally because I personally drink a lot of tea, especially in the winter, especially, you know, the school week gets long and that little boost of caffeine is very helpful. I usually brew the tea in bulk, and, so I pour myself the cup of tea, and there’s extra. So whatever students are there, I’ve got this pile of mugs, and they’ll say, “Oh, can I have the leftover?” and I’ll pour them a cup too. And then, over time, this sort of developed into this ritual where students now walk into my room and say things like, “Oooo, what’s today’s tea?” or “ughhh I’m so exhausted, I need the tea today.” And so now I’ve created this expectation that there’s going to be hot tea in my classroom. Um, I don’t hate it because, quite frankly, there almost always is hot tea in my classroom, so this makes sense. But what this has meant is that pretty much every class, particularly classes where we are reading together or individually or where we’re having a discussion, uh when students come in, we get out the mugs and we drink tea! I again never intended this to be a piece in my classroom design; however, over time, I’ve really started to value and appreciate what this practice does for my time with my students. And I’d like to take just a little bit of time to talk more specifically about some of the really concrete reasons why I’ve found this to be super valuable. So, in the interest of getting us thinking about that, I would like to share with you my list of, um, why this has become this really important piece of my classroom pedagogy. And, again, this is much less about the tea than it is about being educators who spend our time thinking about different things that we can do in our classrooms, traditions, rituals, habits,

In our introductory episode, the teachers of the LCA English department introduce themselves, their pedagogies, and their goals for the podcast. Episode Transcript: Welcome to Prose and Context, a podcast about lifegiving teaching by the English department at Lexington Christian Academy. (Intro Music) Danah: Welcome, and thanks for joining us. This is our first episode. We wanted to take some time to introduce ourselves and talk through some of our goals for the podcast. So I am Danah Hashem, and I teach tenth grade World Literature. Karen: My name is Karen Elliott, and I currently teach 12th and 11th grade American and British literature and some cinema. Nancy: My name is Nancy Nies, and I teach 9th graders in an intensive English program, mostly international students from China, Japan, and Korea. Rebecca: Hello, my name is Rebecca LaFroy, and I’ve just moved from the UK where I taught English to 11-18 year olds, and here in the States, I’m going to be teaching it to 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. Lori: My name is Lori Johnson, and I teach 6th and 8th grade language arts, and do some technology in the school. We wanted to introduce ourselves and give some of the background of how we came to teaching, how we came to LCA, and, um, sort of the journey that’s brought us here. Karen: ah, my name is Karen Elliott, and my journey is very odd. Uh, I went to very liberal, secular schools which I really loved, and I gained a lot from that. My background is writing, composition, and comparative literature, and, um, I wrote for a small newspaper now defunct in New York City, and, when I got married and we moved to Boston and I was writing my dissertation, and I got a letter in the mail from a little school I’d never heard of: Lexington Christian Academy. And I came in to sub for a woman who was on maternity leave, and I never left. I love it here. It’s just, I knew it was my calling. Danah: This is Danah, and I also have an odd background. My undergrad is in chemical engineering, so I worked in biotech for about 3 years before exploring going into teaching. I had always wanted to be a teacher; I come from a family of teachers. Um, but it just wasn’t something that my life would allow at the time, but 3 years in, I ended up going back and getting my master’s in teaching and my master’s in literature, and one of the first interviews I got after I graduated was here at LCA, and I’ve been here ever since, and I love it. Nancy: My name is Nancy, and my background is 10 years as a journalist, mostly in magazines. And then I went back to graduate school in Victorian novel and feminist theory, and I spent most of my career teaching at college level, ah, women’s studies, writing across the curriculum, and English. And then, as my career went along, I ended up working with more and more international students which led me into teaching, both graduate and undergraduate students from around the world, and I loved it. So, as my job became more management oriented, I knew I wanted to stick to teaching, so I switched to high school, and I began here 5 years ago, and I’ve been focusing on these students who are newbies, and I also teach courses that are for students who have high levels of English, but, fluency, but, uh, don’t have the cultural background on how to write in an American academic context. Rebecca: My mum was a history teacher, so growing up, being a teacher was the one thing I didn’t want to do. Uh, however, when I came to apply for college, I knew I wanted to study drama, and so I applied for lots of different courses including drama, and one of them was, ah, called “Education with English Drama.” And that was the one that I ended up doing. During my college course, I set up an organization called Little Hats which took drama into elementary schools and enthused them about the world of drama, and I just found that I loved it. So I trained to be a teacher, um, and, ah,