9th Grade Academy English Class at NHS

[Anonymous]

I am observing Mr. Dubé’s 9th grade English class at Northfield High School on Monday and Wednesday mornings, which is definitely going to be greatly beneficial to me, as I would like to become a high school English teacher. This class isn’t quite typical, however. Northfield High School tracks students, and the students in this class are part of a program called 9th Grade Academy, which, according to Mr. Dubé, “focuses on 65 students who struggle with school the most for a variety of reasons (reading, test scores, motivation, mental health, etc.).” The goal that the administration and teachers have for the students in this program is to help them pass their classes, so that they can build that motivation that will keep them on track to graduate and move on to college or a career. Before I visited the class for the first time on Monday, I took a bike ride to the high school the day before, to make sure I knew the way to go, and found a floor plan of the high school online, so I wouldn’t get lost looking for the classroom (I took a picture of that floor plan, which came in handy on Wednesday as I got lost trying to leave the school). When I got to Mr. Dubé’s class, I had some time to spare, so I got to talk with him a bit about the students, his own background as a St. Olaf alum, and the way he teaches. He always starts by projecting the plan for the class onto the board, both on a powerpoint slide and written out in dry-erase marker on the whiteboard, with the goal of the period, the to-do list (homework), and the “today” list (what will be covered in class). On Monday, the goal was to continue the reading of Fahrenheit 451, and work on some grammar (nouns, proper nouns, and pronouns).

The Monday class began by two students volunteering to share any pieces of good news they had, which I found was a fun way to encourage interaction with the teacher, and create a welcoming learning environment. The teacher then reminded everyone to continue using their planners for writing down homework, and emphasized that the planners would be checked regularly. The goal there is definitely for students to remain organized with all of their classes within the Academy program, and to be held accountable for their level of engagement with their classes. The subsequent grammar lesson was directed in part by the students’ own difficulty with capitalization and punctuation in their regular journal assignments (paragraph-length assignments the teacher gives students a few times a week), and also by Mr. Dubé’s goal of having the students learn to take notes. The students had to copy down the definition of a noun and proper noun, as well as examples, then do the same for pronouns. The students had no questions, and there was no application of this in the classroom–they have a quiz on Friday and it is expected that they apply these concepts to their future assignments. The journal assignment for that day was to select a character from Fahrenheit 451 and describe an important character trait, using the RACE method of analysis (Restate question, Answer question, Cite evidence, Explain evidence). Not all students had done the assignment, but all were able to talk about a character’s personality using examples from the text. The rest of the class was spent listening to and following along with a Youtube reading of Fahrenheit 451, which the teacher periodically paused to ask students basic comprehension questions drawing on earlier points in the text. It seemed that the same two or three students would always respond, and many students had trouble recalling what had occurred in the previous sections when called on.

Once a week, the journal assignment is a “personal entry”, so the students can write about whatever they want. This week, they had 12 minutes to do this in class on Wednesday, and write a minimum of 6 sentences. The goal here is just to have the students practice writing, not as much reflecting on their thought processes. I found it interesting when one student shared she had written about the covid cases at the school, and how many students believed that they would be back online by the end of the month. When she shared this, a few other students nodded. This really seemed to reflect the attitude that many of the students have toward returning to full in-person learning.

The two periods I visited on Monday covered the same content, and the student groups were quite small (only 6 people were there in the second period)–many had been sent home due to a covid case on campus. There were significantly more students when I visited the class on Wednesday. In addition to the students and the teacher, a teacher’s aide (I think she is a guidance counselor) sits in the back corner, and walks around the class periodically to check if students are paying attention, taking notes, or need any help. Something that really stood out to me when connecting this classroom experience to Piaget’s theory was the line between concrete and formal operational thinking. It seems that though these students are 9th graders, and are therefore at the age when formal operational thinking can occur, many are not at that stage yet in reading or writing. The comprehension questions that the teacher asks during the class are not metacognitive, and don’t deeply analyze the meanings of the text–instead, they check for basic comprehension and retention of material. The teacher shared with me that it was very difficult to get the students to read the text on their own at home, and so getting them to read and understand it in class was already a win. Even though the teacher is nudging them toward formal operational thinking in journal assignments that ask for more evidence-based analysis, this level of thinking does not yet seem to be one that can come up naturally in class.

I really appreciated the way that the teacher spent time reading with the students in class, as well as allowing them time to write. The focus on organizational skills such as using a planner or practicing taking notes are also useful in the long run. The teacher does not assign much homework, the bulk of the work being done in class. These aspects align well with the goal of the 9th Grade Academy program, which is to help students pass their classes, but I do wonder about the amount of actual teaching that the teacher is able to get done when so much time-consuming work (reading, writing assignments) is done in class. The periods at the high school are quite short, and so there hasn’t been much opportunity for any types of activities relating to the reading that would engage students in different, more creative ways with the text. The focus right now just seems to be getting through the book.

I also thought about Piaget in this regard – the learning is extremely curriculum and “standards” driven: knowledge of nouns and pronouns, reading books from the canon. From what I have seen, little comes from the students’ “spontaneous interests” or their own individual poking around and experimenting with ideas about the text. I wonder how a teacher in this situation can strike a balance between teaching the necessary material that will allow less motivated students to pass the class, and allowing space for more student-driven learning in the classroom. I also wonder whether introducing more creativity into the classroom would influence the classroom dynamic, and motivate students that way to engage more with the class materials.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by admin.

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