"...and Not to Yield": Explorations in English Education

This week is our Spring Break, so it’s the perfect time for me to reflect on the workshop practices in my high school English Language Arts classes. For those who have been following my journey into workshoping, much of this will be familiar; however, this blog will also highlight many of the revisions I’ve made since its inception. This is a bit lengthy, but I hope it can be of some assistance. CLASS STRUCTURE I divide my class into three sections, as follows: ·          15 minutes of independent reading time. Students enter the room, rearrange the desks as their class decided upon , and settle into reading their self-selected novel. ·          20 minutes of direct instruction. This may be modeling a reading strategy, modeling writing, lecturing on a new topic, or reviewing the expectations of an assignment. My co-teachers and I may ask questions and engage the class at this time, but often it is direct instruction, and sometimes only lasts ten or fifteen minutes. The

Being in the thick of transitioning to a workshop model can be overwhelming and tiring. My students have been working hard (often quietly and independently) and I have been working to conference with at least two students a day (who was I kidding to think I could reach upwards of five in one block?). We were settling into a routine and that terrible Specter of Perceived Rigor started looming again. So I decided to change things up. Twitter has been a great forum to gain ideas from other educators, and so many have been championing and sharing their stories of student voice and choice (such as @CRCarter313 at the elementary level). I acknowledge that I have been hanging onto control for a while (including desks in rows and silent workshop time), which is why I began the move to workshop to begin with: it’s about my students, not me. THE SHAKE-UP Last Friday, I tasked each of my classes to rearrange the room in a way that worked best for them. I have two section