English literature has gone from being considered primarily British literature to being any literature that is written in English. This allows for a multicultural canon within the family of what’s considered English literature.

English is spoken by over 1.5 billion people worldwide. The English language is everywhere, literally. As a teacher in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I see the desire for the local population to lean our global language. They want to be able to read, speak, and listen to English so they can engage with the world and access a much broader pool of tertiary education opportunities and subsequent career options. Although many schools, including my own school of employment, accommodate these local students, we also see the danger in glorifying the western culture and allowing our ethnocentricity to create a students body who believe the West is better than the East, especially the developing South East Asian countries. An introduction to regional literature, either originally written in English or translated into the English language, helps promote a more balanced student perspective on global issues and ideals.

A school-wide (or class-wide) balanced perspective may not always be easy to gauge or assess but a developing cultural competence will likely be seen through many “windows” of observation - a comment made, a friendship fostered, a journal entry, a debate, a casual conversation, a video production, or a prevailing mood of cultural tolerance and acceptance.

English language arts curriculum has access to literature from all over the world. There likely is not a culture in existence that a student could not be given access to through literature. Here at Logos International School, we use local stories like First They Killed My Father, Angkor Priestly journals, and A Dragon Apparent to ensure students have adequate time to engage with their own culture while studying the English language and preparing for a cross-cultural university education.

Differentiation

Differentiation is for every student in every classroom. No two students are exactly alike. While there are similar levels of readiness, learner profiles, and levels of interest, each student brings into the classroom a nuanced background that requires careful consideration as a teacher prepares the content, process, and product of a lesson (McCarthy, 2014).

There are, however, some learners who require considerably more differentiation than others and these are the learners who will receive the greatest benefit from a teacher’s efforts to differentiate instruction at the needed levels. It is important to keep in mind that these students may come from all walks of life and may have varied academic backgrounds. Students who need the most differentiation in one subject may require little alteration in another subject. Jesse is a case in point. A bright, relatively engaged student, Jesse excels in math, science, drama, and plays after school sports. Obviously, quite well rounded, Jesse is not a troubled student who may have a stereotypical need for learning support and significant instructional differentiation. Regardless of his positive academic and behavioral background, Jesse found himself in need of differentiation in his 12th grade Philosophy class.

The evaluation for Jesse’s need of content and process differentiation came early as a result of daily formative assessments. Formative assessments take the form of online daily wrap-ups, weekly low-stakes 10 question quizzes, and plickers fun quizzes at the beginning of class. In addition, students record confusion and clarity in a philosophy journal. After two quizzes, a few wrap-ups, and an initial review of student journals, it was clear that the content being taught in Jesse’s philosophy class was not being delivered in an accessible way, at least for him. This is not uncommon for a subject like philosophy that often students are not introduced to until university studies. Clearly, a plan for instruction modification was in need.

The plan for differentiated content, process, and product was successful enough that the teacher adopted a few new learning strategies that benefitted many other students. Until this point, content had mostly been delivered through mini-lecture and students outside class reading. While the mini-lectures seemed effective in introducing students to new concepts, the textbook clearly required more scaffolding during class time. The teacher began differentiating content instruction by incorporating a type of readers workshop (Kleine, n.d.) where students who had proven, through formative assessments, to have a solid grasp on the content, were partnered with a circle of students who were struggling, of course, this included Jesse. Each learner is given a second reading of the chapter and the teacher is able to engage with each circle to enhance content acquisition.

Another content differentiation strategy adopted uses screencastify to make a 5 minute video covering the key concepts of each chapter. The screencast video is released to the students the day before the class mini-lecture and can be previewed to help the student prepare for the lesson. Student come with a few questions even before the lesson begins and they are asked to record the answer to their question if their question is answered during the lesson. Students with unanswered questions are then given time to ask at the end of the mini-lecture.

To differentiate for process, Jesse, along with four other students who were identified as requiring differentiated instruction, were asked to meet with the teacher for 10 minutes during Thursday’s lunch period. During this time the teacher models the processing of the content by having a conversation with himself. It may sound something like, “I wonder what it means to think presuppositionally? You know, the word presupposition can be broken down by looking at its prefix and suffix…”  At first the students observed this external processing with reservation but after about 4 meetings, were able to engage in the process themselves.  

The reading workshops proved to be a better way to tackle a difficult textbook for many learners (and the learners who do not need the reading workshops are leading them, thus, acquiring many other skills), and lunch period external processing was goofy but seemingly effective (especially in building teacher and student relationship). This left differentiation in product. A menu of activities proved to be an effective way to allow for many different learners to choose from a variety of activities that suited their learning styles and preferences. Students are able to choose very challenging activities that counted for their weeks work or from a number of activities that will give them access to multiple areas of the learning content.    

References:

McCarthy, J. (2014, July 23). 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-ways-to-plan-john-mccarthy

Kleine, R. (n.d.). Rick's Reading Workshop: Overview. Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/reading-workshop-overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The [person] who can make hard things easy is the educator.”

While I endeavor to accomplish this in, during, and throughout each unit, the test of my success as an educator comes from the results of an assessment - do the students now possess the complex skills and knowledge at a level where long term understanding has taken place? Have they learned what I’ve attempted to teach? The idea of an assessment, both formative and summative makes sense; students need to prove knowledge and skill acquisition. The challenge is in developing an engaging assessment that accurately measures student learning.

Below, I will attempt to describe a good formative and summative assessment that is intended to assess understanding for a particular standard and its accompanying learning objectives. But first, let me define these two different types of assessments, if not for any other reason, for my own external processing needs. A formative assessment is an informal, often low-stakes, check for understanding (Alber, 2011). These informal assessments can be quizzes, ticket-outs, quizlet type games, journal entries, or even a conversation with a student after class. The idea is to check for students learning along the way and assess if content comprehension is taking place long before the big high-stakes test or project. The summative assessment, on the other hand, is the high-stakes “end game” that determines whether or not the students have a high, mid-level, or low skills and knowledge comprehension for the whole unit’s content. Although these summative assessments have been traditionally pen and paper tests, they are not bound to that format and many teachers are creating and discovering creative and effective ways to structure summative assessments (Wolpert-Gawron, 2012).

A simple breakdown of the unit will assist in determining the effectiveness of the following assessments.

Big Idea: Authors usually know the rules and use them to inform and move the reader.

Essential Question: How has Mary Shelley used dramatic conventions to define themes and effect    

                                  readers?

Virginia State English Grade 12 Standard: Analyze how dramatic conventions including character, scene, dialogue, and staging contribute to the theme and effect.

Five SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) objectives have been developed to guide instruction and the creation of activities for class learning. The 5th lesson objective is relevant as it includes the preparation for the formative assessment: By the beginning of next class SWBAT justify the thematic contribution of 2 characters in Frankenstein (other than Frankenstein and the monster) by completing the “prepare for pop-up debate” worksheet.

Formative Assessment: a pop-up debate will be used to measure students understanding of author’s use of  minor characters in developing themes. Students will be evaluated using the self-evaluation sheet (see pic below). In addition, students will answer a wrap-up scaling question on a Google Form (see pic below). The pop-up debate allows me to see the students in action and carefully observe debate content to listen for keywords, phrases, and impromptu dialogue that indicates students level of content comprehension, in this specific case, their understanding of how Shelley uses minor characters to define themes in her book Frankenstein.

Summative Assessment: In testing for unit content knowledge, or in this case the skill and content knowledge in each objective, the students will create a Screencastify presentation. Each student will create a script that includes a definition of dramatic conventions, an explanation of how authors use them in general, three specific examples from modern literature (from students recreational reading list; my students read 50% academic and 50% recreational; Kelly Gallagher, Readicide), and three specific examples from Frankenstein. Students will make slides with at least 1 graphic/picture per slide (to enhance understanding) and keywords or phrases that help guide the presentation. Combining script and slides, student will use the free Chrome application Screencastify to record their video. A rubric is distributed that includes details like proper citations, etc. The screencastify video will allow students the final opportunity to prove unit content learning in an engaging and creative manner. The process of writing (script), connecting content to graphic, reading (script), and reviewing multiple times for editing, etc. will enhance the likelihood of long-term memory transfer. In addition, creating a Screencastify offers a “real world” skill and technology proficiency that can be applied to other learning opportunities.

Alber, R. (2011). Why Formative Assessments Matter. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/formative-assessments-importance-of-rebecca-alber

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2012). How Can We Make Assessments Meaningful? Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/making-assessments-meaningful-heather-wolpert-gawron