Sooooo.... today the kids discussed the concept of identity within the movie Spirited Away. It sounds fancier than it really is. Mostly because they don't know that this is what they're doing.
I'm actually hitting the same ideas with this group of kids as their English teacher. She's teaching them the Crucible, and the difference between static and dynamic characters. When I walked into her room today, and saw character maps, I realized that I was essentially doing the same thing. She told me they were struggling. *Gulp* And here I was going to try to push them farther tomorrow! Screeching halt.
Over the last two days the kids have been building collages that represent a change in identity in the main character, and why and how this happened. Looking at where they are with their English class, I'm astounded with the work they did today. They know they're struggling with it, but I'm probably asking them to do the work of seniors or juniors. I have no concept of where these kids are with things like this, I'm used to chapter four vocabulary list stuff.
When I enrolled in college, I originally thought that I wanted to English teacher. Then I thought to myself, "wait a minute, I hate English". Meaning, I hate grading essays. But I really don't hate English. I hate grading it and English grammar. I love English class, and now I'm taking all the best parts and pushing it through a French sieve instead of an English one.
My hope is that the students will be able to transfer what we're doing with this main character to their own lives, and their own identities. I'd like them to examine an aspect of their identity (that they are comfortable with discussing) and digging to see how events and people have come into contact with it, shaped, influenced, changed it. Not bad for the chapter on adjective agreement, hein?
My action research project is focused on verbal and non-verbal perspective taking (thinking). I had a colleague take field notes for me during the collage conversation activity. I read them quickly before I left for the day. The one that sticks with me is "student stroked his chin as if he had an imaginary beard". Squeee! What a great note! Thanks English teacher colleague!
During the activity, I let my hearing wander. I heard French. French chatter. French French French. I let myself think back to the book exercises I was trying to get the kids to do last year, and how frustrated I was with their inability to transfer that info to anything in reality. Now they do it on a constant basis. Their favorite expression is "Je t'aime!" which they use as often as possible. I use it often as well, especially when they are frustrated, or being particularly annoying. they beam. They know this expression, and don't have to "think" about it. They just live those words.
I'm looking forward to going back through the video I took today and watching what I've got. I let the kids manhandle whatever they wanted, be as off-task as they decided to be, and giggle and distract each other. These are the behaviors that they think are non-learning behaviors. I'm convinced there is a gold mine somewhere underneath.
One area that I MUST improve with, especially if I'm going to continue this immersion next semester with all three classes, is scaffolding. Breaking down activities into really small pieces is difficult for me, and I find that i don't have the patience to do it. I think back to my Japanese class in 2006, and how difficult it was to follow, and I was at the head of the pack. The curse of knowledge is real, and it may be the only thing I remember from my methods class from my BA, but it's a key piece for me. I think I need to blog regularly about my work, in all of my classes, the reflection is so important! IB definitely has that part figured out.
So tomorrow: having the kids use their collages to build a huge character map on the board. Then discussing the ideas as a class. I've got to find a way to get my sleepy space-cadet boy involved in this... I'm going make him the marker captain I think. That way he has to write what everyone says on the board instead of spacing out. Next week they'll be working on their individual projects while I'm in Michigan, music, song, video, mobile, collage, whatever it is they want to do that shows an aspect of their own identity. Wish me luck!
