Haven't finished reading the book yet, however, I found this article online just today and thought it was interesting! Nicki Minaj at Collins Academy in Chicago. http://rapfix.mtv.com/2011/05/20/nicki-minaj-surprises-chicago-students/
I would use phonics, including the International Phonetic Alphabet (which Marva Collins used to explain the vowel and consonant sounds in English), to help my students learn how to sound out unfamiliar words so they could apply the “IPA formula” to facilitate their own independent reading. I would also encourage students to read aloud to keep track of comprehension, especially when teaching Beowulf or Shakespeare and Chaucer whose archaic vocabulary and stylized syntax can confuse students. A foundation in Basic English grammar is also essential for students before they get into college. Most American students don’t learn English grammar until they take a foreign language course in college which puts an unfair burden on the professor and the student. (I was one of these students; in fact I am still shaky with some points of English grammar). I liked the drills Mrs. Collins used to review English grammar and phonetics—I firmly believe this approach would work and intend to find some way of using it in a high school setting without losing my students’ attention. I want to make sure my students know the IPA, English grammar, and are exposed to a multicultural cannon of literature that will serve them well in college. More than that I want them to be exposed to various ideas, to realize that reading is necessary because it opens the mind to the world of the present, past, and can help inform the future (history repeats, and literature consistently borrows from past and current events to create new styles); and I want them to be able to express themselves concisely and aesthetically.
Question: What are some great books and poems from various cultures that might be interesting to middle and high school students? (I’m especially interested in Asian , South American, and African Literature since I was not exposed to much from those genres and I think they get overlooked sometimes in the push for European and North American literature. )
1. There are so many different ways that I don’t know where to start! First, I guess I should begin with Marva’s unprecedented determination to teach. She was shunned at the first school she worked in because she cared so deeply about her students, both successes and failures. Marva’s determination pushed her to open a new school that started with only four children and grew to hundreds. Her method of teaching was what was truly different. She believed in her students, first and foremost. She flattered them constantly and fought against everything they had previously been told from parents, teachers, or other students. Marva exposed young children, ghetto children, black children, poor children, behavioral problem children to Greek literature, monosyllabic words that a grown man would not know, and she used phonics, a method many teachers did not believe in, to teach her class. She did not leave anything out. She never excused the children as too young or too stupid. She made her own rules. She taught all ages and all levels of reading in one class, yet managed to reach all the children’s needs more thoroughly than anyone had ever done previously. She did reprimand children for bad behavior, but loved each of them until they could fight back no longer. She provided individual attention to every student, which provided the students with a caring attitude that they had been deprived of for so long in the other educations they were receiving. She does everything different in the education she provides.
I took several classes on African literature and I have to say, the books i read were some of the most interesting I have ever read. I will look back at the ones we read to see if they would be too much for middle school/high school, but Dr. Palmer would be a great person to ask!
Haven't finished reading the book yet, however, I found this article online just today and thought it was interesting! Nicki Minaj at Collins Academy in Chicago.
ReplyDeletehttp://rapfix.mtv.com/2011/05/20/nicki-minaj-surprises-chicago-students/
I would use phonics, including the International Phonetic Alphabet (which Marva Collins used to explain the vowel and consonant sounds in English), to help my students learn how to sound out unfamiliar words so they could apply the “IPA formula” to facilitate their own independent reading. I would also encourage students to read aloud to keep track of comprehension, especially when teaching Beowulf or Shakespeare and Chaucer whose archaic vocabulary and stylized syntax can confuse students. A foundation in Basic English grammar is also essential for students before they get into college. Most American students don’t learn English grammar until they take a foreign language course in college which puts an unfair burden on the professor and the student. (I was one of these students; in fact I am still shaky with some points of English grammar). I liked the drills Mrs. Collins used to review English grammar and phonetics—I firmly believe this approach would work and intend to find some way of using it in a high school setting without losing my students’ attention.
ReplyDeleteI want to make sure my students know the IPA, English grammar, and are exposed to a multicultural cannon of literature that will serve them well in college. More than that I want them to be exposed to various ideas, to realize that reading is necessary because it opens the mind to the world of the present, past, and can help inform the future (history repeats, and literature consistently borrows from past and current events to create new styles); and I want them to be able to express themselves concisely and aesthetically.
Question: What are some great books and poems from various cultures that might be interesting to middle and high school students? (I’m especially interested in Asian , South American, and African Literature since I was not exposed to much from those genres and I think they get overlooked sometimes in the push for European and North American literature. )
1. There are so many different ways that I don’t know where to start! First, I guess I should begin with Marva’s unprecedented determination to teach. She was shunned at the first school she worked in because she cared so deeply about her students, both successes and failures. Marva’s determination pushed her to open a new school that started with only four children and grew to hundreds. Her method of teaching was what was truly different. She believed in her students, first and foremost. She flattered them constantly and fought against everything they had previously been told from parents, teachers, or other students. Marva exposed young children, ghetto children, black children, poor children, behavioral problem children to Greek literature, monosyllabic words that a grown man would not know, and she used phonics, a method many teachers did not believe in, to teach her class. She did not leave anything out. She never excused the children as too young or too stupid. She made her own rules. She taught all ages and all levels of reading in one class, yet managed to reach all the children’s needs more thoroughly than anyone had ever done previously. She did reprimand children for bad behavior, but loved each of them until they could fight back no longer. She provided individual attention to every student, which provided the students with a caring attitude that they had been deprived of for so long in the other educations they were receiving. She does everything different in the education she provides.
ReplyDeleteI took several classes on African literature and I have to say, the books i read were some of the most interesting I have ever read. I will look back at the ones we read to see if they would be too much for middle school/high school, but Dr. Palmer would be a great person to ask!