MULTIPLE TEXT READING INTO WRITING PROJECT: JOY AND PASSION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING

The three texts involved in this activity all concern the importance of students’ deriving pleasure from learning, being excited about discovery and thus becoming more creative and innovative. They also touch on the teachers’ role in this endeavor. This is a highly topical issue in many countries. It is recommended that you make notes on the texts or annotate them as you work through the reading tasks as you will be required to bring everything together in the writing activity.

BEFORE YOU READ

·         How important is deriving pleasure from learning?

·         What advantages does it have?

·         How would you describe the teacher’s role in this process?

NOW WATCH THE VIDEOS

Effective teachers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egtx_GPoNJU

Teachers make a difference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlp7UvLvqXI

What makes great teachers great? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaLGt460e4

TEXT ONE: WHERE’S THE JOY IN LEARNING?

By: Annie Murphy Paul

Published: MindShift; April 19, 2012

Level of difficulty: **

Note to the Student: this is a difficult level two so don’t make this the first activity you do.

QUESTIONS

1.       What led Mantala to study joy? The lack of……………………………….;and especially …………………….

2.       What classroom practice was found to have a negative effect on the joy of learning? Why?

3.       What appears to be the prerequisite for the joy of learning?

4.       Why exactly is the joy of learning more likely to emerge when students aren’t pressured with deadlines and unfavorable comparisons?

5.       What is the effect of giving students the opportunity to exercise some freedom in how they learn?

6.       Why is expecting children not to play in class unrealistic and counterproductive?

7.       Why does collaboration work so well?

8.       What conclusion can be drawn from all the information in the text?

TEXT TWO: NINE TENETS OF PASSION BASED LEARNING

By: Tina Barseqhian

Published: MindShift; July 13, 2011

QUESTIONS

1.       What is the contradiction concerning the reward system in education? Why is this a mistake?

2.       What is the guaranteed way to get people to work hard and even experience hardship to reach their goal? To make sure that……………………………………………………………………………………..

3.       What educational policy does the writer criticize?

4.       Why is a ‘streamlined performance metric, teacher proof schools and continuity between levels’ valued over creativity?

5.       In what respect is ‘Island School’ different from other mainstream schools?

6.       Which approach to education is the case of the student who is interested in cooking an example of?

7.       Why can this approach to education be so successful?

8.       Why exactly is digital media essential in formal education in the current century?

9.       Why is it important for teachers to publish and share their innovative work?

10.   Students learn to benefit fully from technology and the internet first of all if………………………….and second of all if……………………………………………………………………

11.   Why is it necessary for teachers to be passionate about what they do?

12.   What are the two important advantages of keeping in contact with parents?

TEXT THREE: ARE WE WRINGING THE CREATIVITY OUT OF KIDS

By: Annie Murphy Paul

Published: MindShift; May 4, 2012

Note to the Student: read the whole text carefully

QUESTIONS

1.       What does “this crucial window” in the phrase “Parents and teachers must intervene during this crucial window” refer to?

2.       What happens to children if parents and teachers don’t intervene?

3.       It is implied in the text that encouraging kids “to be attentive and stare straight ahead” is…………………………………………………………………………………………………… (Use your own words)

4.       What quality do kids with attention deficit disorder have which could in fact benefit them?

5.       Which sentence best summarizes Lehrer’s second proposal?

6.       Which sentence best expresses Lehrer’s ultimate purpose?

WRITING TASK

Use the information in the three texts you have studied to write a problem solution essay about the ways in which joy of learning and passion can be introduced into teaching and learning.  Follow the suggestions below and add any opinions you formed while working through the reading tasks.

In your introduction: use notes you made on text three. Explain that every child is born with a creative spirit that needs to be kept alive. Explain also that kids need help discovering their passion and that they need to be taught grit to be able to achieve it.

In your first developmental paragraph: make use of text two to criticize the current approach. Make sure your topic sentence reflects this idea. Here are some notes I made on the text; you can add to them or use them as they stand. Remember to add information and support from your own experience too. Here are the points:

·         We pay lip service to the importance of passion and creativity but reward the reverse.

·         People need to feel they matter and that what they do matters.

·         Teachers should be allowed to be creative.

·         What is learnt in school should become a way of being in the world

In your second developmental paragraph: make use of text one to discuss how the current approach could be amended. Make sure your topic sentence reflects this fact. Here are some notes I made while reading the text; make sure to add information and support from your own experience too.

·         Allowing students to work at their own pace

·         Avoiding comparisons

·         Avoiding long speeches

·         Granting students a measure of freedom in how they learn

·         Allowing students to play

·         Encouraging students to share and collaborate

In your conclusion: write a restatement. The suggestions you have just made amount to a mini revolution in education as they require a change of mindset. Explain that this may take time but that we should be facing in the right direction

Note to the Student: study this plan carefully for next time. You won’t always be getting so much help.

MULTIPLE TEXT READING INTO WRITING PROJECT: JOY AND PASSION IN TEACHING AND LEARNING KEY AND TEACHER’S NOTES

Like the other such tasks on the blog, these three texts also slot into place beautifully paving the way for a brilliant writing task which draws on all three texts. This activity, like others like it, will help develop the strategies and cognitive skills students will need in their departments. It is also challenging, meaningful and fun so it should go swimmingly.

TEXT ONE: KEY

1.       Research on feelings; positive feeling

2.       Prolonged speeches; because it is teacher centric

3.       Surmounting a series of difficulties to reach a goal

4.       Because joy is often connected to finishing a task or solving a problem

5.       Joy

6.       Because play is the child’s way of seeking pleasure

7.       Joy experienced together and shared adds up to even more joy

8.       Academic excellence can coexist with delight

TEXT TWO: KEY

1.       We say we want creative passion driven students yet we reward the opposite; because we don’t prepare kids to be successful in the real world.

2.       They are doing work that matters with people that matter.

3.       Assessment based education

4.       Because that is what is easiest to measure

5.       It implemented a schoolwide enrichment model focusing on talent development and nurturing multiple intelligences.

6.       The schoolwide enrichment model. This is the best, most precise and shortest answer; however, the sentence beginning ‘finding a hero…’ is also acceptable.

7.       Because it is a way of being in the world

8.       Because passion involves an extreme performance with a deep questioning disposition

9.       To tap into the wisdom of trusted peers

10.   Teachers guide students; teachers show students what is instructive and appropriate

11.   Because passion is infectious; OR, because being around passionate people is the best way to become passionate.

12.   It gives parents a chance to tell the school what their kids’ competencies are and where their expertise lies; teachers can create resident expert walls

TEXT THREE: KEY

1.       The years covering the third, fourth and fifth grade

2.       Children become self conscious and self aware and then they shut themselves down.

3.       Wrong

4.       Distractibility

5.       Choose easy, work hard

6.       Keeping children’s creative spirit alive