Learning is Active
Active learning instruction can positively impact the culture of middle and high school English classrooms. According to Jeffrey Kaplan’s research on learning communities, learning is active and “children come to school to do projects and live in a community that gives them real, guided experiences, in turn fostering their capacity to contribute to society” (338). It is commonly accepted that active learning instruction fosters this creativity, real-world application, and social interaction. Teachers in this model serve as facilitators, mediators, and coaches rather than lecturers.
Active learning is also a key component in inquiry-based instruction; it is a piece necessary to help build classroom competence and prepare students for college and real world reading and writing. According to Zmuda and Tomaino, authors of The Competent Classroom- A Creative Teaching Guide, creating a competent classroom means fostering an environment that is “a focused and thoughtful place. In the competent classroom, teachers and students work in a partnership, united in teaching and learning” (1).
Active learning practices naturally build this partnership in the classroom. As the learners progress, they begin to move beyond the basic rules of reading and writing and start to engage with their growing knowledge and understanding actively by assessing, reflecting, and developing new ideas and strategies (Earl 39). The key to creating this classroom culture is to give students a voice and encourage them to be invested in their learning and growth as readers and writers. The active-learning platform provides a safe place for students to try new things, immerse themselves in the educational realm, and really grapple with the skills and information they are processing. Thus, to implement a successful middle and high school English curriculum where students have the most potential for growth, active learning needs to be focal point for instructional practice.
Learning is Personal
Students learn best by active engagement with content and skills. In the English classroom, this often means incorporating assignments that are personal to students--be that specifically related to their own lives or the world in which they live. In his book This Time It’s Personal: Teaching Academic Writing through Creative Nonfiction, John O’Connor writes, “Inviting students to write about their lives alongside the literary texts they read--creating texts of their own--holds important implications for students’ self actualization” (15). Personal writing helps students realize the power that they hold and the voice that they have (15).
Mary Ellen Gleason mirrors this sentiment in her essay on intrapersonal intelligence strategies in the writing classroom. Gleason encourages the use of the personal narrative to help students “develop their self-knowledge as an aid in learning to write more fluently and with confidence” (96). Personal narratives allow students to be actively involved with their learning; they are experts because they are discussing their own lives. A similar suggestion for personal writing is the writer’s autobiography, “a chance for [students] to reflect on their own writing lives, both the triumphs and the failures” (O’Connor 26). Yet another opportunity for personal engagement in the writing classroom is the “occasional paper.” These papers are written spontaneously by students at some point during a several week period and are “intended to reflect responses to life as it happens; the idea is to take advantage of an occasion for thought, to explore the occurrences of a moment that would usually be dismissed as unimportant” (Martin 52). In this task, students are encouraged to engage with life outside the classroom and bring knowledge gained back to the classroom to investigate with peers.
O’Connor, Martin, and Gleason clearly argue that making the writing classroom a personal space is key to true learning. The purpose of each of the personal writing tasks they suggest is not to fulfill grading requirements. Instead, “they are works of art, attempts at understanding our lives and the world around us through writing” (O’Connor 23).
Learning is Reflective
As students become comfortable and engaged with learning by examining their lives and the world around them, reflection becomes a key stage in the learning process. Thus, classroom assignments should “build writing as a reflective practice, giving students the opportunity to become more self-conscious writers and thinkers” (O’Connor 18).
Teacher feedback plays a key role in this reflection process. Teachers should always strive to keep their comments as formative as possible; this helps reinforce the idea that the process of learning (rather than the product of a grade) is of utmost importance (Batt 209) and thus encourages students to maintain engagement with their learning. The success of a student’s revision process, and thus his or her final writing product, often lies heavily on the manner in which the teacher provides feedback. Thus, teachers should aim to minimize potential threatening or discouraging roles he or she might play while responding to student writing and instead embody a voice that motivates students to make improvements through active revision. A facilitative response style relying heavily on praise will help encourage students to continue to progress as writers and stay in tune with their growth as learners (221).
Along with using feedback to encourage student revision and learning, other reflection and evaluation strategies help students take ownership for their writing in more self-directed ways. Most learning researchers recognize the importance of encouraging metacognition and thus cultivating reflection. In this recognition, most note the following: students need instruction in reflective practice, reflective assignments should always respond to an authentic issue, reflection is often best in social or collaborative environments, reflection mid-process can be just as helpful as post-assignment reflection, and reflection strategies are most successful when practiced often. They also note that reflection is a dynamic, active process that can include talking, writing in a variety of forms, movie-making, blogging, etc. (“Metacognition- Cultivating Reflection to Help Students Become Self-Directed Learners” 1-2).
Self-assessment and regulation is another key component in reflection. Active learning theorists insist that students truly are their own best assessors; but they need guidance. In the English classroom, the following guiding concepts are key to successful student reflection: emotional safety, examples of what good writing looks and sounds like, real teacher involvement and consistent, relevant opportunities to practice reflection, targeted feedback, and open discussion (113-116). With consistent, meaningful reflection, students more easily find their voices and develop in to confident writers and individuals.
Concluding Remarks
To review, active, personal, and reflective learning centers on the belief that learning is not a passive endeavor. Students should be engaged participants in their own learning and encouraged daily to take part in a classroom culture where they investigate and take responsibility for their education. English classrooms where learning is active and collaborative, assignments are personal, feedback is encouraging, and reflection is meaningful provide an environment where students “find solace in the ability to question their assumptions, argue for their beliefs, and reveal their feelings in both open conversations and personal writing” (Kaplan 341). This place of “solace” is where true learning takes place.
Sources
Batt, Thomas A. “The Rhetoric of the End Comment.” Rhetoric Review 24.5 (2005): 207-223. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. Web. 2 March 2014.
Earl, Lorna M. Assessment As Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximize Student Learning. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Corwin, 2013. Print.
Gleason, Mary Ellen. “Intrapersonal Intelligence Strategies in the Developmental Writing Classroom.” Inquiry 16.1 (2011): 95-105. ERIC. Web. 2 March 2014.
Kaplan, Jeffrey S. “The National Writing Project: Creating a Professional Learning Community that Supports the Teaching of Writing.” Theory Into Practice 47.4 (2008): 336-344. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
Martin, Bill. “A Writing Assignment/A Way of Life.” The English Journal 92.6 (2003): 52-56. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
“Metacognition- Cultivating Reflection to Help Students Become Self-Directed Learners.” Sweetland Center for Writing. University of Michigan. n.d. Web. 13 Mar 2014. PDF file.
O’Connor, John S. This Time It’s Personal: Teaching Academic Writing Through Creative Non-Fiction. Urbana: NCTE, 2011. Print.
Smith, Michael W., and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinman, 2002. Print.
Zmuda, Allison, and Mary Tomaino. The Competent Classroom- A Creative Teaching Guide. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. Print.
