A welcomed change of pace…

Things took an interesting turn earlier this week here in the classrooms of Xi’an Middle School. Up until last Tuesday, I had been teaching my Senior 1 students using their Science-Society-Literature textbook in a very dry, straightforward manner. That is, I would typically read through the book’s passages with them, address the post-reading activities with them, and that’s about it. When preparing and executing these lessons, I knew that such a bland, unchallenging approach was not the most effective means by which to teach a student, but I thought that using such a style was what was expected of me; I thought that the students were used to such a style of teaching and learning and I was not to deviate too far from it.

I began to detect, however, an unmistakable sense of boredom and disinterest among my students during lessons taught in this style. Therefore, I made an executive decision to shake things up a bit and have my students focus their attention upon their own writing rather than their textbooks. The passage from their text was one outlining the steps necessary for the creation of a law in the United States legislature (the whole “how-a-bill-becomes-a-law” thing). After we read the passage, I drew focus away from the text by having my students compose their own works of procedural writing (writing that explains the steps involved in completing a specific task), and the class-wide increase in enthusiasm was downright palatable. The students were extremely eager to offer suggestions for specific tasks to be outlined (things in which they had a genuine interest), and were more than willing to explain how those tasks could be effectively completed. By granting my students a greater degree of responsibility in deciding what topics will be discussed during class and in which direction a class may go, I was able to engage my students in the classroom proceedings and make the topic much more meaningful to them. I will continue, of course, to cover the material deemed necessary by my school, but I’ll also do my best to temper the work of my students with activities that allow them to consider ideas and scenarios beyond what is printed in their textbooks.