Writing as a Pre-Reading Strategy: Thinking like an Education Philosopher

-Dehumanization and schooling is the theme of the first writing project in two of my English Composition courses this semester. 

We will read chapter two from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he outlines the “banking concept” and “problem-posing” modes of education. Instead of diving directly into his prose, I wanted to see how students were already engaged with Freire’s ideas, even without having read his text. 

To do this, we examined several editorial cartoons that depict the banking mode of education and a couple others that point to the possibility of another mode of education.

After discussing what we observed and interpreted, students had the opportunity to talk in pairs about what they experienced in school. How representative were the cartoons of their own experience or observation? 

Using Mentor Texts to Reckon with Nuanced Reactions: Aly Wane's "A (Complicated) Prayer for Kobe"

Aly Wane, Human Rights Worker in Syracuse, New York 

To acquaint students with using the texts they read as mentors for their writing, I chose as our first topic, Kobe Bryant. I wanted to pick a timely topic that would help students work through their complicated reactions to Kobe's death.  I selected what was initially widely disseminated on a Facebook post by Aly Wane, a peace activist living in Syracuse, New York. Published under the title of “A (Complicated) Prayer for Kobe.” Wane’s piece has subsequently been published in the online magazine America: Jesuit Review. 

Wane’s poem enacts a dialogue going back and forth between the narrator’s contradictory feelings about Kobe Bryant and the moment of national mourning. Was Kobe a hero? A villain? To whom? And why? The poem doesn’t definitely land on one side or the other. Instead, Wane asks us to recognize our own messy, imperfect human lives that can’t be reduced to a single moment or action. As Wane points out, “I will hurt and harm the people I love."  

Attending to Affective Domain with Word Clouds

This Wordle captures students' responses on the first day of class.

This semester, I want to do my best to weave in social-emotional learning and affective domain into lessons or activities that engage critical thinking and writing skills. 

We began our first week of school this past Wednesday. I wanted students to reflect on their initial thoughts and ideas about being back in school after a six-week break. So during our first meeting, I asked the class of just under thirty college students to jot down three single words that describe their thoughts and feelings about being in an English class. Then at the end of our second meeting, I asked them about what they were thinking and feeling now that we've met twice. The Wordle above captures the "before" responses, the one below, the "after." The fonts size represents the number of responses.