[etni] Fw: teaching literature
- From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:35:12 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: Esther Revivo - estherrv@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: teaching literature
Well, it looks like we're never going to be free of this HOTS issue!
Phyllis, I liked your poem, by the way. (POEM it is indeed!)
I had the pleasure of being with Bari Nirenberg in the same on-line HOTS
course, and believe me she is what we call in the States a "cracker jack"
teacher. (Translation: fantastic :) Bari wrote that teaching HOTS, "doesn't
mean that you can't be creative or talk about the literature or do any of
the things you've been doing all along." In essence she is correct if we had
enough hours to teach literature; writing; listening comprehension; unseens;
do projects; etc. (Ah! To think I never appreciated those years of 5 hours
per week!) My HOTS course with Mitzi Gefen was the best in-service course I
ever took in my 32 year teaching career.
I started teaching HOTS in my horrifically weak 10th grade class this fall
and stopped only when I heard the program was put on hold. (To remind all
and sundry: 1/2 of my 10th grade class lives in Sederot and I decided not to
make problems for them even though this makes me a "scab.") My girls are
"intellectually challenged," to put it politely, and they would have
problems digesting HOTS in their native tongue. Until this year I have
always adored teaching literature, but teaching HOTS with the literature was
for me like attaching a 10 ton anchor to my sailboat. I sank gloriously. My
pupils had an extremely difficult time understanding what I wanted out of
them, and I lost my joy of teaching literature. With the puny 4 hours a week
I have, I felt unbelievable pressure and like a prisoner who got a reprieve
when the program was put off.
I am ALL in favor of teaching HOTS in the native tongue beginning in
elementary school. As a child I never once decorated a school notebook.
However, I clearly recall doing unseens in the fourth grade, and was
assigned my first "research" project in seventh grade. Yes, our pupils need
to be taught to THINK and not learn by rote. And yes, EFL teachers MUST
teach literature; it is one of the joys of the English language and teachers
who have refrained from teaching literature have been derelict in their
duty. But why for heavens sake was the old Bagrut form of testing literature
not reinstated instead of this HOTS business? The course was an intellectual
challenge and a joy to do with Mitzi, but putting it into use in the
classroom was anything but a joy for me this year.
Hoping for a continued reprieve,
Esther Revivo
Ulpanat Tzvia Sedot Negev
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