But the teacher didn’t do this. She taught a wide range of things which were connected only having to do with the one poem. Whether the pupils roundly understood these concepts was another matter, as is whether they remembered them a fortnight later.
On the same day I watched a lesson on Act 3, Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet. The scene feature ambiguity. Juliet is talking to her mother about her forbidden love for Romeo, but her mother thinks she’s talking about her grief over the death of her cousin Tybalt. Juliet deliberately hides behind this misunderstanding. She want to express her grief , but of course she mustn’t own up to her relationship with the forbidden Romeo. She isn’t lying to her mother, but she isn’t telling the truth, either.
The teacher had decided not do ‘do’ the scene but to build the whole lesson around the single objective that pupils would understand its ambiguity. In fact, it is two objectives: to understand the concept to ambiguity, and then to see it in the conversation between the Capulet women. What looks at first sight like a single objective is often in fact several: the concept must be understood, and then its use in the given context must be appreciated; these activities are not identical. Of course the text provides the context for the generic understanding, but your planning has to take account of this complexity and take pupils stage-by-stage to real understanding. In this case, the teacher had decided that, if the pupils could leave the room understanding ambiguity and its power in this scene, able to explain it to their mums at home and to remember it in three days’ time, then that would be an hour well spent.
From one single idea, the teacher constructed a lesson which began with a discussion of a scene from home and Away in which deliberate ambiguity featured, followed by a paired role play in which pupil A (teenager) her to convince pupil B (parent) that she wasn’t going to a party at her friend’s house, even though she was. She had to do this without lying, under some quite fierce questioning (Will there be lots of people there? Well, a few of my friend…). So, at the key transition points between such activities, the notion of ambiguity becomes explicit and roundly understood, and the pupils recognize it when they read the (appropriately edited) scene from Shakespeare.
The pebble-dash teacher who wants to explain everything in the scene will say that this approach doesn’t provide enough learning, there’s too much to get through to spend an hour on one or two idea; and his pupils will go on making notes on a dozen things a day and when later asked what onomatopoeia is they will hesitate and then tentatively assert that it might be the one where all the words begin with the same letter.
Of course, focusing on one, two or three key objectives isn’t limiting. The pupils are still learning about the plot of the play, the relationships within it; but the objectives provide a coherent narrative to the stages of the lesson which gives them confidence. Because they understand ambiguity, they understand the scene; the objective is like a torch in the darkness, allowing the pupils to move forward and see more and more.
This lesson features role play and discussion work, but this shouldn’t define it as an English lesson. Like most (arguably all) lesson, it’s a literacy lesson. Concepts may be explored in these ways (as we’ve seen) in any secondary subject. We need to involve pupils in discussion and that discussion needs structures. I have listed in the preceding pages some structures for group discussions. One of the best and simplest structures I’ve ever seen is the dartboard.
Like the continuum (for/against…) mentioned above, the dartboard is a simple, graphic focus device. You draw a dartboard some concentric circles; and pupils indicate opinions or predictions by placing marks on it. For example, whose fault is the tragedy in King Lear? Who caused the First World War? Pupils put the most blameworthy character in the middle, the least at the outside edge, and the others arranged between. They come to the main whiteboard and show what they think, disputing each other’s positioning. The dartboard can be used to show any set of choices: likely outcomes or predictions, favorites and non-favorites, most important to least important. Of course, pupils can simply be asked to make lists; but there’s something about the dynamic of the dartboard which focuses attention and demands argument.
What works well with the dartboard (or other similar discussion tool) is the progression from individual though to pair work to whole-class discussion. This is an effective movement in your classroom. Each stage is managed and timed. Two or three minutes’ silence, so people can have their own, original thoughts. Three minute’ pair discussion, where they can practice articulating their opinions. And then the whole-class discussion, where the central dartboard is marked and modified. This three-stage process is much more powerful than jumping unprepared straight to whole-class discussion. Any question-and-answer session works better when preceded by two minutes’ silence jotting. For one thing, this empowers the teacher because children who’ve had thinking time can’t opt when asked to speak.
Most of this chapter so far canters on speaking and listening. It’s sparse in some classrooms, and one way of developing your practice, with the potential for dramatic improvement, is in raising its status in your teaching. Of course, reading and writing are important too; often, they are the main focuses of school literacy policies.