Plan Less Expect More

by Elizabeth Breau, Ph.D.

The best learning often takes place unexpectedly. I entered teaching at the university level, and although I put a great deal of thought and effort into designing my syllabi for each class, I almost never planned my lessons. Instead, I began most classes with a version of the question, “So, what did you think of the reading?” Usually, a thoughtful discussion would ensue.

My first non-university teaching job was at a Jewish day school whose seventh and eighth grade English teacher had quit six weeks into the school year because the eighth grade boys were so awful. There were no books. I knew absolutely nothing about what a seventh or eighth grade curriculum should look like, so I taught Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Black Beauty, and The Outsiders because I had read them at that age. No lesson plans were required, and although I eventually added grammar and vocabulary components to the curriculum, I continued not to plan how I would teach the books until I arrived in class.

I had similar experiences at an all-boys Catholic school. I gave periodic plot-based reading quizzes to ensure the students actually read and assigned essays about each book, but I gave no thought to what would happen during each class period. Discussion usually took care of itself, as when the boys in a summertime high school gender studies class debated the masculinity of male soccer players who shaved their eyebrows.

When I took my one and only public school teaching job, however, my habit of winging my way through class based on how the students responded to the assignment came to a wretched end. Suddenly, I was required to submit two weeks of carefully structured lesson plans and indicate how they matched various curriculum standards.

The tenured teachers in my department circulated a template that everyone used without ever changing any of the pre-printed goals or standards. I filled it in as often as I had to and ignored it as much as possible. However, my wellhoned teaching style, which had won me stellar reviews and an award at previous jobs, was also stymied by word wall requirements (I taught in four different classrooms) and being written up for “not displaying student work.” So, instead of actually teaching The Bluest Eye, I had to create an arts and crafts assignment that wasted weeks of class time and taught nothing.

Poster projects yielded similarly dismal results: one or two paragraphs of text surrounded by pretty pictures and crooked block lettering does not encourage critical thought about a complex novel in nearly the same way that an essay does. It’s coloring, and coloring is generally not considered part of a rigorous high school English curriculum.

Instead of dumbing down English instruction with arts and crafts and No Fear Shakespeare, I suggest that English teachers raise standards instead of continuing to lower them. Tell the story of Romeo and Juliet ahead of time if you must, but teach it in its original Elizabethan English. Read Huckleberry

Finn in the original and ask the students whether they think it should be censored or discussed. Expect more of them, not less.

One student at that public school tried to drop my AP Literature class because he was failing. I refused to sign the form because I did not know whether he was capable of doing the work since

he had not yet turned any of it in. Six weeks later, after several more quizzes and short assignments, he asked to “see my F.” I showed him his B+.

Elizabeth Breau, Ph.D. (she/her), is an awardwinning writing coach and private English tutor. Her book, History According to SAT: A Content Guide to SAT Reading and Writing, won a silver medal in the teen category from the Nonfiction Authors Association. You can reach her at historyaccordingtosat.com.