Starry Night

Starry Night by Van Gogh

This week I continued my exploration of inquiry based teaching in my Year 7 English classes. We are currently working on a poetry unit and I thought that this provided a great opportunity to put into practice what I had learnt from MoMA. As it turned out, there was much more to it than just a beautiful piece of art.

I started the week with the simple inquiry question: “What is poetry?” They were mostly silent to begin with but once people started mentioning types of poems, the names of poems and poets started flowing. It was also interesting to see the technical language they used such as rhyme because it gave me a good insight into how much work will be required to teach them analysis skills. This tied in well with the course I have been doing on differentiation and it was pleasing to see the two ideas intersect.

I then followed this mind mapping activity up with a hands-on poetry experience. One of my fears when I teach poetry is that students think poetry is either incomprehensible garbage or just a laundry list of technical terms applied to words, lines and stanzas. I remember at school how much fun I had discovering poetry through the work of William Carlos Williams and I wanted them to know that poetry is accessible and fun. So, with a pen in hand, we headed out to the school oval with a 5 senses scaffold (created from a 5 sense picture of Google images). My idea was simple: experience the oval and write a poem about it. After a few brief instructions, with most students ignoring my pleading to “please do this activity by yourself”, I had them touching and eating grass, sniffing the breeze, examining the various items left on the oval and gazing upwards at the sky. We then headed over to some tables and wrote. Unsurprisingly, many of them chose to write acrostic poems but I told myself that next time I would push them to write something more ‘proper’ because I didn’t want to be too restrictive this early on.

The next day, having already successfully written one poem, I decided to try the activity again but using Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. I got the idea from the MoMA education page using their theme based categories. Not only was the painting visually appealing, particularly the way the stars are portrayed, but it captured a wonder I hoped would inspire the kids. Moreover, I decided to team teach the lesson with my colleague as we both had reduced classes due to a school activity.

Using the same 5 sense scaffold, together we elicited responses to the painting. Using that great question of “what else do you see?” we were able to generate an extensive list of items and feelings. I was really impressed by the way the students could see different interpretations in the painting, such as the hills being a tsunami or wave, and the interactions the painting generated as students were keen to share their ideas. In fact, they were so keen to share that we had to remind them to share with the class rather than just blurt out answers to their friends. Next we got them to write a 7 to 10 line poem about Starry Night.

I was amazed!

The quality of the work they produced was out of this world – and only 1 or 2 acrostic poems in sight. From poems about drowning to trips down some filled alleys, the students were able to use the 5 senses to create moving poems as diverse as the class itself. Moreover, everyone was able to complete the task and I didn’t hear a single complaint about poetry being boring or too difficult. I especially loved being able to share some of the poems with the class as both of us teachers discussed how our childhood memories effected our own poems. The highlight though for me was the work of a Chinese student who is just learning English and the wonderfully natural way he crafts his poems. He often asks for help because he sees himself as weak in English but every poem of his I read amazes me with its grace.

Thus, inquiry based learning once again came up with the unexpected and rewarding. The painting and activities is definitely something I will reuse plus this way of getting the students to write poetry is really effective. Rather than complaints about poems being too boring or difficult, artwork allows them to express what they see in the work and how they interpret the world. The results so far have been wonderful and I have the pleasure of putting their poems together in a book for the class. Just like the glistening, golden stars in the painting, my students really showed me how they shined.

Silence is Golden

One of the great things about the internet is the range of professional development opportunities that exist for teachers. From Sophia (www.sophia.org) to Coursera (www.coursera.org ), there are a range of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that offer a vast array of courses for teachers of all subjects and persuasions. Last week, I began another online course with coursera.org called Art and Inquiry: Museum Teaching Strategies For Your Classroom. Run by the Museum of Modern Art, it focuses on using art to promote inquiry based learning that models the education programs run in the museum.

One of the most exciting things about the course is the direct and practical way that I have been able to use it in my classes this week. Having not taught history for a few years, this inquiry based learning approach suits history pedagogy and the approach of my school. More importantly, it has made class more fun and a nice change from a content heavy curriculum.

I first tried it with my Year 9 class where we are studying slavery and industrialisation. Previously, class had been focused on source analysis and note taking from PowerPoint presentations. Naturally I was a little tentative, the literature said silence was my best friend and the thought of standing there in front of them waiting for a response seemed a little scary. However, I took a deep breath and just began to write on the board my inquiry question: “How do we stop slavery?”

Silence.

More silence.

A tentative hand went up from one my regular contributors, who made a comment about the Emancipation Proclamation. Then another hand: make rich people slaves for a day, then another: pirates from Somalia, and another and another. By the time I had finished the mind map on the board; my fears had been erased and replaced by genuine excitement. This class had a wealth of ideas and historical knowledge, especially about American history, that had previously been in hiding. Moreover, they were engaging in debates about these ideas across the classroom without prompting. This seemed too good to be true.

Drawing on the two key ideas, the Emancipation Proclamation and whether slavery still exists, I set them a simple pair-share research task with a time limit of 20 minutes. This is where the rubber really hit the road: you could have good class discussion but what I wanted to see was research and detail. And off they went, as everything from Yahoo answers to Wikipedia to newspaper articles to YouTube started appearing on their screens. Even better, this was focused, organised work where I didn’t need about 10 different reminders to get exercise books out to take notes.

To finish the class I held a plenary session where I got each subject area to share their findings. Rather than the usual reluctance to provide an answer, usually where there is only one correct response and it goes to a regular contributor, I had everyone battling to get their voice heard. So much so that my regular contributors were starting to feel left out. Moreover, each person was able to add something new or different to the subject. So class ended with 90% of my planned content, back-up in case the experiment failed, waiting for another day. The lesson hadn’t gone quite in the direction I expected but the students were enjoying it and left the room buzzing.

I next tried it with my Year 8 class studying medieval history. Having done a little more reading, I centred this lesson on some pictures of medieval punishments to get them thinking about law and order. The inquiry based learning literature focused on unsolicited viewing and the use of the questions: “What else do you see?” and “What do you see that makes you say that?” So I just put up the pictures on the Apple TV and waited to see who would speak first.

Unlike my Year 9 class, these guys had no issues in putting forth an opinion. The problem was, so many good ideas were coming out I needed to slow it down so that I could get all these ideas on the board. Importantly, just using these questions, I was able to go beyond the obvious content of the punishment itself to expose some of the social issues involved with crime and punishment.

Also unlike my other class, the content for my inquiry question (How were medieval criminals punished?) was a lot more structured and focused. Using a good video from a Tony Robinson television series and their textbook, I was able to direct them to the key ideas around the topic. However, unlike previous lessons where textbook work was greeted with a groan, the students eagerly delved into the text to find out more information to support what they had seen in the video.

Importantly for me though, when they posted their answers to the inquiry question, it contained all the detail outlined in the curriculum documents and more. They even debated their answers and were suggesting areas in which more detail could be included. This was the best lesson I have had with this group and a quick straw poll at lunch confirmed the success of the class.

So a week into my new MOOC and it is already paying dividends. The inquiry based learning approach has re-energised my classrooms and shown me a new side to my students. I can’t wait for the coming week to see what question we will answer next.