Revision Sucks!

Banging on about the same old thing, in preparation for an exam, has the potential to make everyone (including you) sick. If you have found yourself in that place, I hope this helps…

My Year 11 class are sick to death of revising for the AQA Language paper! For the past half term, that has been our relentless focus. We have weekly mock exams, targeting individual areas for improvement. I am assessing exam work, home work, class work, after school work, oral work and any other work, providing as much feed forward as time will allow; with all this work going on, we could soon forget we are here to learn.

So as not to turn them off our wonderfully creative subject, I have been disguising exam preparation behind sessions such as murder mysteries and the annihilation of celebrities that we all love to hate. Lately, I have felt utterly exhausted by the pretence and they were beginning to see through my mask; although everything we were doing was worthwhile and very focussed on the right skills and content, it was all getting a bit samey. They needed a higher challenge. This called for something completely different.

One of my favourite things to teach is the A Level Text transformation. This is where A Level pupils get to choose from a wide selection of literature and transform the original into a separate genre of their choice (not necessarily nonfiction at A Level but for the purpose of what I did with this we looked specifically at nonfiction). In the past, pupils have transformed Kate Chopin’s work into transcripts between psychiatric doctors and their patients, Shakespeare’s plays into forgotten sonnets and even the work of Donne has been given the transformation treatment and became an article from Nuts Magazine. This is such a wonderfully creative process and yet must be based on a sound technical understanding of genres. I love it!

Boom! The idea hit me; why not use this technique for teaching nonfiction texts at GCSE?

In an ideal world, I would like to begin teaching pupils about the multitude of literature poems that they must get to know intimately for their summer exam. This content is purposeful as the literature exam can often be left as an after thought. Unlike the language exam, it is not cashed in as a golden ticket at the end of the year. I know that keeping the class focussed on the goal of their up coming Language exam is sensible, especially given that it takes place directly after the Christmas holiday, but by taking this idea of a text transformation, I could kill two birds with one stone.

MANHUNT

My Year 11s already understand the effects of language and structure and they get the need to interpret the meaning of a text based on its genre, audience and purpose.  Therefore, presenting them with a poem and asking them for their own interpretation was not a terribly demanding task… this is just the starter.

I hooked them by using the image below and asking: “Would you still kiss your lover if they looked like this?” As well as being the basis for a rich discussion, this gave the pupils a taste of the purpose of our chosen poem Manhunt by Simon Armitage and off they went exploring. To succeed, they had to successfully interpret the language, structure and meaning behind this poem before moving to the next stage.

Your Point Being…?

WHAT?

The outcome of the overall task was for pupils to have a deeper understanding of the technicalities involved in the creation of nonfiction texts. They should be able to repeat this method as an independent revision task without my assistance.

To maximise the benefit to them, they needed to recognise how each step of this process could assist them in their language exam. Thanks to our half term of revision, the exam structure and expectations is embedded in their minds. They could make connections fairly easily with little prompting from me (the connections are highlighted at the end of this post). They also had the added bonus of developing their understanding of a literature poem (one down plenty more to go).

HOW?

They were doing this by analysing a literature poem for language, structure and meaning, as well as choosing a nonfiction text (leaflet, blog, newspaper, magazine etc…) to transform the poem into. They had to analyse the nonfiction text before beginning their transformation and recognise which features of the poem would need to be transformed to create a successful end product so that their final transformation would be technically accurate.

WHY?

Because we were sick to death of exam preparation and it was time for a challenge. This is essentially an A Level task but my students could take it! Pupils are able to prepare for their Literature exam (albeit under the cloak of language) and do something interesting and different as well as relevant and challenging.

Search for Meaning

After analysing their nonfiction base text and poem, pupils produced a text of their own creation.  The guidelines for success were to have used the meaning, structure and language from the original poem but to have created a technically accurate product for their chosen genre. For example, if they had chosen to write a persuasive speech, they might have analysed a speech by Barak Obama for its structure, language, techniques etc… and then mirrored his techniques in their work. The content of the speech could be about victims of war, this would demonstrate an understanding of the original poem’s meaning; they might also have used the repetition of metaphor to emphasise the message and reflect Simon Armitage’s language and structure. This technique is effective across both genres and so by choosing it, pupils demonstrate skill in selecting appropriate techniques, which can cross over genres.

Example of end product

Review

As pupils are analysing texts they are able to compare the effectiveness of language (Question 4 on the higher exam) on a chosen audience and understand how language must be changed to create a new genre. They are gaining a deeper understanding of the structure and presentational features of texts (question 3 on the higher exam) and also comparing how texts are created. They are retrieving information and ideas (question 1 on the higher exam) to demonstrate that they are able to understand and interpret the meaning of a text (question 2 on the higher exam) and its effect on an audience. All of which lead to a final product, which further enhances their written skills (questions five and six on the higher exam) leading to exam success.

Same message, more challenge, more interest and, in the long run, more use.

First lessons can be great fun! Most pupils still look neat and tidy and possibly even eager to learn; they are at the very beginning of the honeymoon period and you still have a chance of making a great first impression on them. You are all rested after a long break and the marking has not yet piled up on your desk so you feel a little less stressed than usual.  

However, if you have left all of your planning to this final weekend of the holidays and still feel a little groggy from all the sun and sangria meaning you now don’t know where to start, you can use the following reflection to give you some inspiration for that first lesson back. This is how I am going to start my year with Year 9.

 Connect

Begin the lesson as an angry teacher. Be unreasonable, demand silence and bark orders at the poor, unsuspecting children. Displayed on the board behind you is the above slide, which should give them the clue that this is an act. The idea is to provoke a strong reaction from them about unreasonable behaviour. Get them to discuss the effect of this behaviour on learning. Pupils should end this first task understanding that classroom expectations are not unreasonable, nor are they there to spoil fun; they are there to create order, harmony and an excellent working environment.

I love getting dramatic! However, I know lots of teachers who would absolutely cringe at the thought of starting the term in this way. As an alternative, you could have a scenario on paper about an angry, unreasonable teacher for them to analyse. Whichever way you choose to deliver this initial meeting, they should see that negative behaviour has a negative effect on learning and this should be teased out in the conversation that follows.

Learning Outcomes

Throughout the lesson, classroom procedures and expectations will be made explicit. For example, at the end of the above task I will explain that, although I was shouting certain orders at them and this was unacceptable, some of those orders will be true of every lesson. I will reinforce my entry routine: line up outside and await my instruction to enter; all pupils are expected to collect their files and go to their allocated seat etc… This lesson is all about setting the scene for the year ahead and the following learning outcomes are shared:

• What? To explore the expectations of our classroom
• How? By getting to know each other and the classroom rules. You will need to be observant during the tasks to spot the classroom expectations
• Why? To have a great start to what is going to be a fantastic year

Pupils must demonstrate that they have understood my expectations by the end of the lesson and this is made clear. Throughout every task, I will continue to explain my expectations and have them demonstrate to me what this looks like in practice. For example, this term we are exploring our identity and what makes us tick as human beings. Our investigation question is “who am I?” Pupils will be learning how to express personal thoughts through writing. As I explain this new information to them, I will also explain that I expect all pupils to put 100% effort into their work.

During the explanation of the learning outcomes, explain that pupils should be observant and the outcome is to know my expectations. Pupils should be prepared to recall my expectations later in the lesson.

New Information

To set the scene for my particular unit, I will share some information about what makes Mrs Ashes. I am not saying divulge your inner most secrets and make best friends with your class but pupils love to see a human element to teachers. The following image shows that I love to exercise, eat pizza, go out to dinner with friends etc…I am demonstrating to them that I expect everyone to take part in the sharing process, I make this explicit to them and I am modelling this myself.  

Search for Meaning

Now set them the challenge to write down as many things as they can think of about themselves. A good way to do this is using the think, pair and share method. Pupils have a moment to write their personal ideas down; they are then given time to share their ideas with a partner before sharing with the class. When pupils share with the class I demonstrate another expectation as I ask for no hands up and choose pupils to answer.  I do not want anyone opting out as I want my classroom to be full of active participants.

Next, I ask pupils if they can make my name rhyme with any of my loves. Of course they can create: “My name is Lisa and I like Pizza.” I purposefully put the pizza in for that effect. I explain that they must call me Mrs Ashes as this is a sign of respect for all of the hard work I put into them but for the purpose of this task I am using my first name (another expectation thrown in there).  I then get them to work together to create their own rhymes for their own names. Once again, ask pupils to try their best, take part, be non judgemental and helpful towards each other as they work in order to continue reinforcing the classroom expectations.

Once I am happy that pupils have something to go on that will be memorable for me, we play the memory challenge game. This helps me to learn pupils names quickly and also helps me to reinforce rules such as respecting others, taking part and being non judgemental. Pupils stand up and recite their rhymes – or none rhymes if they have a crazy unrhymable name. They can also add an action if they are a particularly lively class. I then go back around and attempt to remember as many names as possible by recalling their rhymes and or actions.

Demonstrate

Finally, bring pupils back to the original learning outcome of exploring classroom expectations. Expectations have been made clear throughout the lesson and now it is time to see what they have discovered. Set the pupils a small amount of time to recall (on paper) as many expectations as they can. Stop pupils and see who has remembered the most. Pupils enjoy the competition element of this final task and they also demonstrate that they have been observant and can tell you what you expect of them in the classroom.

Review

Pupils should have a clear understanding of your expectations by the time they leave this lesson. Continue to review these expectations in every lesson and be consistent with them.

I used to get pupils to create a classroom contract but I find that allowing them to live through the expectations is far more fun and has a similar outcome. I hope this reflection gives you some ideas for your own first lessons back.

Have a fantastic first week back and a fantastic year!

I knew from my findings last week, trying to get Year 9 to analyse social class divides and their implications upon Blood Brothers was always going to take more than just reading the text. We had some more fun today…

Connect

As the pupils entered the room, they were given a small slip of paper and asked not to open it until I gave them permission to do so; they were told that I would let them know by saying the word “now” and from that moment on, until told otherwise, they were unable to say anything other than what was on the slip of paper that they held.

They were to begin by walking around the classroom and just greeting each other as they passed one another on their journey. When I said: “NOW!” they were to find at least three people of a similar social class to themselves and stand under the appropriate signs which were situated at opposite ends of my classroom: upper or lower.

When the pupils opened their papers, they found sentences not unlike the following: “3. y’all reet?” and “1. Good day good fellow” which they began reading out loud to each other…allow for raucous laughter and extreme volume…pupils found their comrades and congregated under their newly appointed social class signs. The numbers which were printed at the start of their slips of paper corresponded to the tables that I wanted them to sit at, making for an easy transition from standing to sitting with no argument.

The Challenge

The pupils’ challenges were all the same (to create an artistic interpretation of social class divides) but what they had available to them to complete the challenge differed greatly. I had purposefully planned for a larger percentage of pupils to be lower class and I provided them with very little. They had one piece of paper per group, one pair of scissors between them all, one pot of coloured pencils and one highlighter.

Poverty

Whereas, the upper class had a multitude of resources including paints, glitter, sparkles, highlighters, scissors, glue, and different coloured papers…the list goes on. The rich were allowed to leave their seats and ask for any resource they felt they needed, after all they could afford it, leaving the poor to make do with what little they had. They were not allowed out of their seats at any time.

Abundance

The Outcome

I presented pupils with the following outcomes:

WHAT? To investigate the implications of social class divides

HOW? Through immersing ourselves in one of these roles

WHY? I left the why blank for them to work out for themselves.  I wanted to use this as a starting point for their review discussion.

As the pupils worked, I observed their behaviours carefully, noting down any discussions which helped me to make my point. Here is a snippet of what I heard:

“It’s so not fair that they have all of that stuff and we have nothing!”

“We could steal something from them because we need it.”

“We are totally better than the lower classes.”

“I hate the upper classes.”

“I’m just going to take their rubber, they’re only lower class.”

“We’re stuck here and they can do whatever they want. It’s not fair!”

“There’s lots more of them than there are of us…probably because we are special.”

Without realising it, pupils began to display behaviours which occur in real social class divides in societies like that of Liverpool in the 1980s. The pupils found that with difference came jealously, suspicion, self importance and even crime. There were positive behaviours too; lower class pupils began to improvise when they found that they did not have the materials they need. I was slightly horrified to find one of my pupils putting gum in his mouth and using it as glue but he definately gained points for improvisation. When I stopped them to review at the close of the lesson, I left plenty of time to reflect on these behaviours and how it felt to be part of a fractured society; afterall, the lesson was not to “create a perfect representation” it was to “investigate the implications of social class.”  

I returned to the why of my outcomes and asked pupils, “Why have we been learning like this? How has it helped us with our understanding of Blood Brothers?” The answers came with confidence: “This has helped us to feel what it is like being Micky and Eddie.” “We can understand what it was like to be in a fractured society and we will be able to see it better in the story.” “We can analyse social class better when we know what we are talking about.”

The pupils now had a real life experience to draw upon; they felt jealousy, they felt lack, they felt self importance and abundance. They could picture life in Micky and Eddie’s Liverpool because, for one lesson, they had lived it.

One week ago, the pupils told me that Blood Brothers was a boring play; Fingers crossed, I think I am beginning to change their minds.

Even in poverty, working hard can pay off

Pupils do not live in the same world as us. Their immediate interests, beliefs and experiences are quite far removed from our own and often, as a result of this gap, we can lose pupils’ interest in our own beloved topics.

I wrote recently of the year 9 class that I was boring senseless with my favourite play Blood Brothers and of how a change of perspective from my point of view of what is exciting and fun, can create a more engaging learning environment. Today I am at it again.

The culture in many schools today is to enter students early for examinations. Like many other Year 11 pupils in the country, my class already have their final grade for GCSE English Language. We are now working towards their English Literature exam.

To put the reflection which is about to follow into context, this class are not A* students; with blood, sweat and tears, we have achieved grade Cs and they cannot see the point in having an English Literature qualification. Common questions lately include: “How will poems help me in the construction industry?” “When will I ever use this knowledge again?” “My apprenticeship only asks for a C in English Language; why should I learn about Literature too?” I endeavoured to show them.

Th Outcomes

Rational

I wanted pupils to recognise the link between skills learned in class and skills which may be required of them in the work place. Analysing poetry is not just about spotting alliteration and explaining what it has been used for. Pupils are learning to look beyond the obvious, to appraise, to explore and come to their own conclusions; we are often working in teams in order to achieve this and so I wanted to create a simulation of a work place experience that could demonstrate how useful these skills may be.

The Simulation

The Meeting Table

I set the room up like a board room and had the sign “Poetry Inc” displayed upon the whiteboard; playing alongside this, I used the music from The Apprentice to create an exciting atmosphere for the pupils to walk into. The situation being that we were a team of researchers working for the exam board AQA. We were employed to find appropriate poems for the English Literature exam. We were preparing to present our findings to the boss of AQA; this meeting was to take place in one hour and we must be confident in our ability to pitch our chosen poems (poems that we have already studied in class). We would need to demonstrate that they contained all of the necessary elements that pupils can use to explore (interesting language features/ structural devices/ obvious set theme etc…).

 The pupils were treated like adults and I attempted to give them adult choices by providing them with refreshments such as still and sparkling water and a few nibbles. The ‘code of conduct’ was explained to them as a polite reminder but they were told to feel free to help themselves to snacks as we worked. I wanted them to feel grown up, to feel that they were making an informed choice for their actions which was not just down to following the usual school rules. I also wanted them to have a glimpse of what life could be like when they are out there in the real world.

My Role

As pupils entered the room, they were asked to sign in under my name as chair person. I included my achievements after my name in the form of letters: BA Hons, QTS and AST. I explained that my position as chair person was important as I had worked hard to get where I am. I have qualifications which I am proud of and that can have influence over me gaining a high paid position. I asked them to look at their names and aspire to be the best that they could be rather than settling for the employee position they were in currently.

The Tasks

The lesson itself was merely a revision session. I set out all of the tasks that we were going to cover as an agenda. The tasks lead pupils in making informed decisions about which poems they would happily put forward to the boss and which poems they felt we needed to discuss further before he arrived. A letter from the boss was used to explain the expectations and was later used to review. Pupils worked in pairs before presenting their findings and then we worked as one big team to discuss the issues and the resolutions.

 This class are not angels! I expected a degree of immaturity and I was ready for it. I prepared warning notices and a disciplinary office so as to emulate what could happen if they were to break the rules in a work place. I only had to serve two notices for a momentary lapse of maturity and nobody entered the office. On the whole, the pupils engaged with the task and appreciated the change of environment.

Didn't need it..

At the end of the agenda I had added AOB and used this as an opportunity to reward hard working pupils. There are a handful of pupils who never complain, who turn up day in and day out putting in110% and they deserved a mention. I wanted to show pupils that with hard work comes reward and so this handful of pupils were my employees of the month. I presented them with a little prize (some mini eggs) and a huge round of applause.

 With this lesson, I wanted to engage and inspire pupils to work hard towards their Literature qualification. Regardless of whether they were going to be a brick layer or a lawyer, they should always aspire to be the best that they can possibly be.

At the beginning of this week my Year 9 class were not looking happy. Their topic this half term is contemporary plays and I have been so looking forward to teaching them all about my favourite play Blood Brothers. Unfortunately, I had one of those horrible moments that many of us have as teachers of a subject we love. For some reason, they just didn’t enjoy it!

As I read out loud the hilarious scene where Micky wishes to be just like his big brother, I was expecting that they would naturally want to investigate the magic behind this little gem of a monologue. However, I raised my head to see a number of seriously bored faces. I took a post it survey at the end of the lesson to ask pupils what they thought of Blood Brothers; to my horror, my suspicions were confirmed and, as funny as the play is, they weren’t enjoying it. Something had to be done!

I could go one of two ways with this information. I could explain to them that they were wrong and if we continued to read the play and get to the good bits, they would learn to love it as much as I do. Why wouldn’t they? There was swearing and everything! Or, I could rethink my approach and attempt to match it to their experiences to recapture their enthusiasm.

I wanted pupils to analyse Micky’s “wish” monologue but for some reason, they were just not engaging with the text. My outcome was for them to understand how important structure is when organising a play and what effect that structure had on an audience. The way I had been going about it, expecting pupils to enjoy the play alone, was not working. Here is what I did instead:

Connect

I gave pupils cut up, Christmas cracker style jokes. They had to match the jokes with their punch lines and discuss what each joke had in common. We discussed how jokes had to be delivered in a certain way to make them funny; we looked at how the pun was usually so obvious that you feel you should have seen it coming. This set the scene nicely for a lesson of exploring the art of creating laughter.

New Information

We then went on to examine two clips. One from Harry Enfield, which worked well to compare to the character of Micky as he is a grown man dressed as a child for comic effect, and one from Catherine Tait from which we pulled ideas about comic timing, delivery, storyline, repetition and expectations of stereotypes.

Search For Meaning

Pupils were presented with their challenge. To use the ideas gathered to make the rest of the class laugh. They had to create a funny monologue in the style of Micky’s wish. They were to think carefully about the character choice, structure, delivery, language choices and timing just as they had seen in the examples. This was immediately met with groans as the fear of having to perform for their classmates consumed them and almost sent them back into their protective stare out of the window phase. However, when I explained that I would be the one performing the monologue as they would be busy watching for the effect of any structural devices used; they immediately fell to work scribbling down ideas for their character.

Demonstrate

Once the monologues were complete, I went to work making a fool of myself in the name of fun and learning. I ensured that pupils knew the environment was a ‘no put down zone’ so as to protect my feelings and help me with my confidence. This was very important as I am going to be asking them to do some performing themselves next lesson. By modelling that performing in my class is safe, I hope to encourage them to feel safe enough to take part too. Two of the six monologues did not make pupils laugh. These monologues consisted of me acting like a baby but had no real storyline to them and so pupils didn’t ‘get’ what they needed to laugh at. Information like this proved rather useful in the review.

My Rap

Review

Pupils were asked to review their findings from the lesson against what they knew about Micky’s wish and came up with: There needs to be sense behind the silliness; it works better if you create a character or create a bit of background. Because we know who Micky is and where he comes from, before he does his monologue, it makes sense and so we laugh. They explained that the monologue created by the first group was funny because of the rhyme that they used and this related to Micky’s monologue as he used rhyme; however, his rhyme was used to add to his childishness.

My pupils had the potential to be turned off English this week. If I had continued blindly enjoying reading in my best scouse accent as the pupils stared eagerly at the clock or blankly out of the window, I would have raced through the play at a far faster pace but I could never have received this post it review response:

Post it review