Designing a lesson is something I feel I need to get better at doing. With this subject I'm going with the more experience the easier it will become, if that turns out to be false, well we'll just have to wait and see.
The chapter sort of starts out with a paradox, do we blame the new teachers when all they are doing is teaching the way they were taught by the old teachers. Well I say stop trying to blame and start trying to solve. Jago does this by explaining how she was taught to be a teacher. Much like students a teacher must always be ready and willing to learn. The teaching knowledge will never stop as long as you are open to it.
Then comes the actual lesson design, Jago uses The Odyssey as her example text, with a few other texts thrown in for good measure. She offers a very in-depth look at the thought and process behind designing a lesson, some new to me and some I've heard before but presented with new aspects. It definitely has a lot of helpful material that I don't think I could have ever thought of using. I really like the idea of comparing translations. It's a very implicit way to allow students to see other viewpoints of the same material. We want students to think critically, but at the same time allow for other opinions to intrude and possible change how they see things and what better way to model that then with two or more translation of the exact same material.
I think with a lot of the classics, you can have really great ideas on how to teach them in a fun and interesting way, but until the students connect to the text it may not be worth it. Take The Odyssey, which is an epic, and the story itself is immensely dense, complicated, and layered, all in a good way of course. Now some students may notice this right off the bat and it may even excite them. For the rest you need to figure out how to convey the mass amount of epic that is The Odyssey to them. I think Jago does and excellent job of this, she prepares herself and her students before they even start to read, which is always a good idea I think. "Students take over teaching" is another great way to connect the students to the text even if it is with a very specific part.
With this chapter I am trying to look beyond Jago's actual lesson and see something underneath the explicit assignment. I see encouraging participation, activating critical thinking, and comparing fictional characters to real life ones to establish and form a personal view of the world. All are important and none should be neglected. There is a lot to designing a lesson and I look forward to attempting it in the near future.
I agree that although planning lessons will be difficult, I think it will be fun. I have had fun trying to implement new ideas and technology into lessons that seem dull and dry, and it is really fun for more. The actual typing-out of the lesson plan is what will not be fun, I think. I also really enjoyed the part of this chapter when she included poems that were written in the point of view of the women of the story. That is something I would not have thought of but I thought it was very interesting to include.
ReplyDelete