Reality Check.

I've been searching for a good metaphor for BC's curriculum documents,. I think the IRP's are a travel plan: a rough guide that starts with the beginning - Kindergarten - and plots a journey to the end - High School graduation. For those who like to travel with a plan, the IRP's are a great resource. For those who prefer to wander and see what happens next, they are likely a cumbersome travel partner.

For a fledging teacher like myself, the IRP's are an overwhelming but necessary guidebook . The Key Concept’s, PLO’s and Suggested Time Frames will help focus lesson planning for the first year. Once we have a firmer grasp of the realities of our school or classroom, we can adjust accordingly and become increasingly “off-book”. Instead of creating a lesson to meet PLO’s, we’ll be meeting PLO’s simply by creating lessons we know will help our students get to to the next step.

Just who are these students anyway? We’ll be spending the next 7 months talking about them without actually being in front of them. How can we learn about how they learn, think and act in the meantime? Some of them might be like Zenia from Bosnia, as told in Ruth Shagounry’s article - they may have dark, troubled pasts that lie beneath their quiet exteriors. Even a class full of middle-class 12 year olds will have varied histories and experiences to draw upon. And if we tap in to these thoughts and experiences in just the right way, our learners will be transformed in to English Language Artists.

Robert Probst suggests we can do this by summoning our inner Tom Sawyer: we can convince the students to paint the fence instead of telling them how to do it. They’ll easily build their oracy, language, writing and reading skills if we avoid instructing them and instead focus on how fun it is to use. Oracy can mean more than debates - it can be integrated in to every day classroom life through announcements, small group discussions, and interviews. We’ve even had the opportunity to try out some techniques such as a Tea Party, Jigsaw and choral reading to see how it feels. Nancie Atwell persuasively argues that writing workshops are the key to engagement, and that students are engaged in the process of a writer through revisions, feedback, the participation of the teacher and ultimately a piece of work they can be proud of.

Just as I cringe at the size and “dry” nature of the IRP’s, today’s ELA students will also disengage from learning if you present ELA as a static, unchangeable subject. A series of spelling tests, book reports and prescribed topics will shut off their brains pretty quickly. My job is to hide the PLO’s under blankets of creativity, so my English Language Artists don’t even know they are there.