"Creating Reading/Writing Workshop"

Alyssa Spotts

Dr. Mary Styslinger

EDSE 786.001

1 December 2015

Workshop Narrative

Students silently file in from the hallways right as the tardy bell is about to ring. Most people are always late to this class because it is literally the last classroom at the end of the longest hallway in the school. As students emerge through the classroom door they find their seat amongst the perfectly aligned rows. The teacher's desk is in the upper right corner of the classroom and the board is straight ahead. There is no need to turn around, turn to your right or turn to your left because everything that is important is straight ahead. Today marks the very first day of the Frankenstein unit. The students all moan and groan because they know exactly how this first day will pan out over the next 90 minutes.

The teacher will show them a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and ask if students know anything about the author. Of course many of them will not, which is a seamless transition into the 30-45 minute presentation that she has prepared just on the author's biography. The students will sit quietly and seep in all of the important facts about Mary Shelley like where she was born, her hobbies and the history of the time period in which this novel takes place. All the students violently scribble away on their notebook paper because they know tomorrow, there will be a quiz on all of this useful information. And once they have taken the quiz and made mediocre grades on them, they can give themselves the permission to forget all of the useful information their teacher spent all class period teaching them.

This is exactly how my experience was when my English IV teacher began teaching us Frankenstein. I know she had good intentions and she was probably just following what was the rage in English instruction at the time. Not that this was that long ago, like five years ago. Nevertheless, she taught us Frankenstein in the way that she did because she thought that it was impactful. I share this to put teaching strategies in perspective. Most, if not all teachers, do not mean to harm their students when they teach using particular methods. On the contrary, they strategically choose how they will teach a particular concept to their students. Teachers plan according to their students' needs, curriculum guidelines and to meet the standards. Teachers have good intentions.

So, over the next few pages I am going to share my version of a Frankenstein unit, keeping in mind that these strategies will soon be out-of-date within the next several years. However, what I have in mind for my students, classroom and unit is with the best intentions and with the most caring of hearts. That doesn't change the fact that our society is continuously changing day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year. Education must mold and become fluid with it's society, so that what we are teaching is impactful and is relevant.

I would begin the unit with an anticipation guide. These questions will pertain to the essential questions that are the backbone of the unit. So, the questions will deal mostly with issues of scientific advancement's effect on human development, cloning, and creation and creator relationships. I would also like for the students to do some research of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley themselves. I believe that students retain information, that they seek out themselves and that interest them, more than if a teacher stands at the front of the room and barks out facts at them.

So, students will spend time researching Frankenstein, the monster, Mary Shelley and her background in small groups. Then, I will have them display this information in a creative way and present it to the class. A “jigsaw” would work out well with this activity too. I would have the students form a group with students of other groups. Once students have a better understanding of the author, background knowledge of the time period, the characters and their roles within the novel, I will have them focus on studying the format of the text. One reason Frankenstein is very unique is due to the format that Mary Shelley wrote the novel. I think it's important that students have an understanding of the way the text flows. Students should be exposed to other kinds of writing that mirror the same or similar format. Once they have interacted with other texts like Frankenstein, then they will feel more comfortable with Frankenstein's layout.

So, students have completed an anticipation guide, researched Frankenstein in small groups, have shared that information with their peers and have studied the author's craft. Once we have gotten to this point, I would like to conduct a book pass of a selection of several young adult (YA) novels that I have previously selected based upon shared characteristics with Frankenstein. These novels may have overlaps in themes, characters, perspectives or may be re-tellings of the original story. The book pass would serve as a means to narrow down the selection to about three or four books, depending upon the size of the class. Once students have voted upon their choices, students will be placed into three or four small groups that correlate with the YA novel they have chosen.

For the next week or two weeks, the students will be spending the majority of their time studying their YA novels. Day-to-day I will have activities planned for them to engage in in their small groups. will relate and connect with the core text, Frankenstein. The students will meet with their groups a few times throughout the course of the week or two set aside for the YA novel. As each group is meeting, they will be working towards some sort of goal to reach by the end of their YA novel. They will also be sharing with other groups about the novel that their group is reading. As the students are reading the YA novel, I will be supplementing their study with other texts. These texts will include but will not be limited to the various short stories, poetry, films, picture books, artwork and informational texts that are included in my resource collection. The students and I will engage in discussions, socratic seminars and utilize various technologies in order to further comprehend the text sets we are working with.

Once the students have finished the YA novel, the class will begin studying Frankenstein together. I want to inform students up front that we will not be reading every word or every page of Mary Shelley's novel. This text can be a little difficult for struggling readers because it was originally published in 1818. Thus the language may be too archaic for students to be able to break down into simpler terms. Since I already have that working against me, I want to make this text as accessible as possible. This is one of the reasons why I have the students engage with a YA novel first because they will most certainly latch on to that book quicker than Frankenstein. Not that Frankenstein is not interesting, but if students become interested in a very similar novel that deals with similar issues as the core text, they will be more apt to give the classic a fair chance.

Once we have begun Frankenstein, I want to be making tangible connections between the YA novel and Frankenstein, other texts and Frankenstein, the world and Frankenstein, the society and Frankenstein and their lives and Frankenstein. I think the texts that I have compiled for my resource collection that will help me make these connections the best are the YA novels, the New York Times articles, the films and the picture books. Sometimes students do not realize how much classic literature has permeated the society in which they live. I am sure the majority of them are clueless about the vast number of texts that have taken Mary Shelley's tale and have made it their own. Each re-telling is also a representation of the world at the time those re-tellings were written, and a representation of the current society. I also want students to critically think about how the stories have been convoluted and altered in ways that actually take away from Mary Shelley's original story. On the other hand, I want them to analyze how the differences may also add something that the original story does not.

The further the analysis process of Frankenstein, I have chosen text sets that allow me to teach different literary theory and criticism. I think that it is important that students are exposed to a variety of perspectives in order to begin to completely understand their world. Individual lives can be so confining because we, as individuals, only experience one life. So, it is near impossible to peer into the lives of others. However, the beautiful thing about literature is that it gives us that opportunity. I think in order for my students to be well rounded citizens of the world, they must be able to think and evolve with other perspectives in mind. In order to be open-minded students, my students must engage with texts that come from all walks of life and opinions.

Lastly, I want the book clubs to come together once again to create a final product for all of the new found knowledge they have gained over the course of the Frankenstein unit I have created for them. Students will be meeting in their book club groups periodically throughout the unit, even after the book clubs have finished. However, at the end of the unit I want them to create a final assessment together. I think that the multi-genre project is a great one to wrap up all of the ideas that have been formulated throughout our study of Frankenstein. This is especially true because throughout the unit, I have exposed my students to a variety of different genres. Of course, I would spend some dedicated and purposeful time to their projects. In order to prepare them even further, I will have them do another book pass with texts that include multiple genres within their pages. As they are sifting through the pages, I will instruct students to write down what they observe about those different texts. I want them to note how they incorporate all of the different genres, how are they connected and a list of all the different kinds of genres they note. After each student has had a chance at looking at each text, we will come together as a class and discuss what they noted. Then, I will continue scaffolding them into the project by giving them time in class to work on the project together. At the end of the unit, I expect my students to come up with beautiful masterpieces that display their knowledge of Frankenstein.

I don't want to discredit my English IV teacher that had been the teacher in the story I recounted earlier. I know that she truly had our best interests in mind. She was one of the best English teachers I ever had in grade school. I tell that story because I want to make clear that Education is a fluid system. Fads come and go, and recycle even. What was “in” five years ago, may not be “in” now, but it may be “in” again come 2020. It is our job as educators to not necessarily follow the bandwagon, but to follow the needs of our students. If our students need old fashioned teaching methods, and the basics, then teach them that way. If they need something more relevant, do it. Education is a beautiful thing because of the fluidity but also because of the freedom we are given with the way in which we want to teach our classrooms. My interpretation of how Frankenstein should be taught is not more correct or better than the way that I was taught it. It is just a different way.