Page 146 - Getting of the fence

Chapter 6
add more variety in approaches to my lessons. That is going to be my starting point. That is what I am going to focus on and explore how I can play with that concept. You could even consider taking one approach per lesson” (Liz). Ralph experienced a richer repertoire in his teaching methods, allowing him to improvise more in class and being able to play around more with interpretations and tasks. “I found it very playful for myself. Also, that I could decide, on the spot, I’m going to do something different now. I can still teach those texts by heart, but I can now do it in a different manner. I now regularly start a lesson thinking about which new things I can tackle. I enjoy that” (Ralph). Ralph explained in more detail what the content of playfulness looked like, again focusing on variety: “What I used to like a lot, was to include a wide variety of topics in my lessons. Music, paintings, photographs, clothing. That part of me has woken up again. And the idea about linking the texts to current affairs. That is also a bit of a cultural change, because it was always like, ‘just read in silence’. But now it is more about involving the students, which can be done in many other ways. You could also involve drama.”
Including students
The teachers noticed that in year 2 they were more aware of the rationale for their curriculum, which helped them in sharing with their students why they wanted them to work on certain tasks. For Caitlin this sense of sharing focused on the overall purpose of the literature curriculum: “I think I knew better this year, I could make clearer why literature, why reading is so important or what it can give you.” Ralph and Sarah, who both actively included their students’ perspectives in year 2, experienced a different interpretation of the inclusion of students. Whereas Ralph was more focused on asking the students how they feel about a certain text and how they interpret it, Sarah included their perspective by focusing on the relevance of the literary texts and connecting literary texts to contemporary issues. “That you ask them how they see certain themes from literary works in today’s society and the role this could have played in how they interpret the world. We included, for example, the following question in our exam: Do you think Byronic heroes are still relevant in present or modern day fiction or films? I think that using literary texts in this way is very cool. I actually think this is the most noticeable step we have taken this year” (Sarah).
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