Monday, September 25, 2017

Previewing & Pre-Writing: First Year Students Dive into Freire

I’m rediscovering how important it is to provide students with multiple “ways into a topic” when approaching a new text. I admit that I used to simply assign a reading and then be upset with myself and students for not understanding the text. 

Starting last year, I took intentional steps to to solve the problem of preparing students to read. My particular challenge this semester? To access prior knowledge and to provide background knowledge before plonking them into chapter two of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  


We began by examining a pair of images, an editorial cartoon and a GIF I'd found on Tumblr (if you recognize the image and know the source, please let me know!). Both are highly critical of what Freire would call the “Banking mode” of education. Students worked in pairs to identify the elements of the images that depicted the illustrators’ take on education: gloomy, mechanistic, quiet, systematic, conformity, deadly, boring. We listed these traits on the board. Next we brainstormed what a positive cartoon of classrooms might portray: rainbows, color, life, excitement, loud, and spontaneous. 

After generating these lists, I asked them to come up with our own names for the two modes depicted: Mummified Mode vs. Angels' Flight; Black & White vs. In Living Color; Mechanical vs. Organic. Remember, we hadn’t even set eyes on Freire's text. 

As folks shared, I noted that the concepts there brought up are in the Freire reading. I linked their words to Freire’s concepts, asking them to write down Freire’s version of their ideas. I wanted students to know that they are thinking along his lines AND to prepare them for the difficult task ahead . Some of the concepts students came up with included biophily, necrophily, education-as-narration, dialogue, teacher/student contradiction, and students-as-receptacles. Students sat up a little straighter when they heard me say that they could think along side Freire.

Our next move was to depict the “opposite mode of education”, one contrary or counter to the mode illustrated in the editorial cartoons. I encouraged students to draw their own illustration, to write a mini-composition, or to do both. We left the lists on the board and the cartoons on the screen for inspiration. I urged students not to be too concerned about being perfect - that this was an exercise to help us generate visual and textual fluency on our topic.

We used these stems for the "quick write" sequence.

After a five minutes of focused composing, folks moved about the room from partner to partner, sharing and explaining their "scribble draft." One class was large enough that we created a large "mingling" space in the room, like a cocktail party. In another class, we stepped out doors for round-robin sharing. I encouraged folks to jot down notes from their conversations.

When we returned to our seats, I set up a "flash draft" essay - a super quick focused-free write strategy to help them give their ideas shape. I posted three sentence stems on the board, one at a time at two to three minutes intervals.I asked them to copy each stem and use it to generate sentences. I challenged them to use material from the lists on the board, the new vocabulary, or ideas they gleaned from conversation. 

The homework assignment attached to this lesson was simply to transcribe their initial draft and to add any ideas or correct any mistakes they might want to clarify. I also asked them to do a quick metacognitive reflection on today’s lesson.
I leave you with a couple “flash drafts” students wrote on Freire’s work - PRIOR to direct study of his actual words. The bullet items are representative of students’ comments. I’ve taken the liberty of doing minor editing - fixing spelling errors and correcting punctuation.

Student Sample ##1: When I think of my K-12 experience, the mode of education I’ve mostly experienced was conformity because truly every teacher was teaching the same way, so, it was a black and white image of learning and not much of a good experience. Now that I am in college, [the] mode of educating I want is freedom. It’s more of a faster pace but not only giving the important information needed to pass the class. Now [that I am] learning, I find myself wanting to learn more. The atmosphere is also lot more friendly and makes it easier to learn. Given the world I want to live in, our society needs students who enjoy the learning experience and don’t let others destroy their ideas and destroy them.They can create something of themselves. They have the motivation to keep going.

Student Sample #2: When I think of my K-12 experience, the mode of education was very systematic. Teachers did not really care for students who didn't understand a topic. It was very clear to me that teachers might also have become zombies from doing the same thing every year. Teaching the same things and assigning the same old boring handouts and packets. Now I'm in college, and the mode of education I want is a motivated one. To me, being motivated is one of the most important aspect of learning because it helps me stay focused on the topic. It has also helped many students not get lost in lessons and are more willing to keep trying their best. Given the world I want to live in, our society needs people who are willing to keep an open minded and strive for peace. People who are motivated to change it for the better, and those might not know what they want to do but actually wanting to help and being part of that change is important. It would be the best to see people helping people instead of competition. Hopefully the mode of education is a big motivator for change.

    Students compose their version of education they want.
  • Talking with partners helped me out a lot because it gave me new ideas based on what we have talked about. 
  • Well talking with classmates helped me because with the pictures I would see the obvious parts but discussing with the classmate . . . helped me . . . to see the other parts of the images.

  • The activity that was most effective to me was [brainstorming the] modes of education because us as a class would tell the positives and the negatives of this activity.
  • I liked hearing other people share what they wrote because a lot of them had really good ideas that I took into consideration to make my paper sound better.
Students actually essayed, in the classical sense, their initial thoughts about Freire and his concepts - even before diving into his dense prose. Sure, their texts require more support, more evidence. But what a start!  And, in the tradition of  Michel de Montaigne, these students were able to use writing to test out their thinking about an important issue in their world. 


Special shout out to CW & Xris for their gracious help with revising & editing. 

No comments:

Post a Comment