Room at the Top

As the time gap continues to expand between high school and college I become more aware of the fact that literature too many adolescents is nothing more than a waste of time, making the art of teaching English all the more challenging. During my high school days book reports were more of a break than a dilemma as reading and writing always came as second nature, but now I realize my love for literature is rare amongst teens, especially boys, and as I enter into the profession I need to ask myself, how am I going to make English appealing to as many students as possible?
Most importantly the literature and activities in the classroom must hold the attention of the students, which means the texts need to in some way be relatable. Simply reading typical high school books and writing five page reports on each will not due, but instead reading books that offer teens helpful insights into their own lives and formulating creative response opportunities will create an atmosphere of learning that is not forced but instead sought after.
Far too often teachers create a routine that becomes the death of any students love for reading, for example boring lectures during the reading and boring assignments afterwards. I’m not saying that I can’t have a routine, but rather make it flexible and different for every book; I need to use different activities so students enjoy coming to class each and everyday. Examples that we have used in class for example are great for this, such as the found poem, and use of different text that the author wrote to further the learning experience. Both these and many others bring variety into the classroom, and in my opinion will help information become more memorable in student’s minds when compared to lectures. Basically what needs to happen during the reading of text are activities that will help students best connect to the book. Active learning is essential, I feel as many others do that it is the best way to learn; I intend on basing much of my class on student interaction and input. Let the students voice their opinion, not only with me but with each other, I know some teachers fear the idea of group work but as long the students are able to stay on task their diverse opinions make for the best discussions and the best learning experiences, and again the key to keeping them on task in interesting books and interesting activities.
Post-reading activities again can be diverse, such as art work if the circumstance is appropriate, and of course essays or papers. Most importantly in this case is I cannot be closed to different forms of responses as long as the students are dedicated to them, in other words as long as the different activity isn’t a solution to slack. Essays of course will be dominant in the response area, and these again cannot just target the basics, I need to allow for creative writing, maybe a written interview with the author, a fictional one of course, or something such as the addition of a scene or letter a character may have written, something to show the student really understood the book.
After looking on Jenny’s blog I too became interested in Nancie Atwell because of her ideas for a writing workshop, and researched other areas that might provide information about effective workshops:
http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/hswriting/workshops/workshop1/
http://www.learner.org/resources/series194.html
The first website is the better of the two as it offers steps for creating an effective workshop for high school English teachers and then offers sample workshops for teachers to experiment with. The second is more of a workshop for the teacher as it basically offers advice for teaching writing and literature. After researching into these websites and evaluating my high school experience I am confident that as long as I am committed to providing and allowing variety