In the spring of 2010 I made a joke that landed well with the ninth grade class I was student-teaching at Atlee High School. I don’t remember the joke, but I remember the response of my (Catholic-trained) cooperating teacher.    

“We’re not comedians,” he growled at me after the students were gone. 

I think of that comment a lot. Our business is education, not entertainment. My cooperating teacher, who took his job as an educator seriously, wanted to make sure I didn’t lose sight of that. (Which is not to say he was a bore. In fact he had a fine sense of humor, and he shared it with his students often — but it never interfered with his instruction.)  

Eleven years later, I still try to keep that principle in mind when my creative instincts and pedagogical impulses start to comingle.

Like so many of life’s endeavors, it requires nuance. In most high school classrooms it’s ridiculous to think you’ll get by with simply speaking softly and expect an attentive audience — unless, like the nuns, you carry a heavy stick.   

What I’m saying is that over the past year of online instruction I’ve strayed from my cooperating teacher’s saintly ways, grasping for any possible way I could use the tools of the online setting to spark interest and investment in the lesson.  

I will now publicly confess these transgressions and assess myself the requisite penance for their gimmickry. 

 

Break-out room bonanza 

I was initially resistant to break-out rooms. It didn’t seem plausible that students would participate in such a sterile and distant setting. For the most part, I’ve been proven right. I still use them occasionally for brief group assignments and quick discussions, but the operative word is always quick — no longer than five minutes. 

What they’re most useful for, I’ve come to conclude, is conferencing with students. It can take up to thirty minutes to get through every single student, but with my English 12 students, it’s an invaluable part of the class, and I make sure to do it at least once a week. What I lose in time lecturing and leading whole class discussion I’ve found that I make up in cultivating a rapport with students, which comes in handy when you need them to participate in a discussion in front of the whole class or you need to guilt them into turning in late work. 

The drawback is that students have to be trusted to work on their own, and they often don’t, because they’re seniors and they’re at home during a pandemic. Despite this, I think it’s a worthy investment in time and effort. 

In my opinion there’s nothing gimmicky at all about this use of technology, so I assess myself no penance. 

 

Showing off my kids

At the beginning of the fall we were instructed to keep our children away from the cameras during class time.  During a pandemic when your children are home all day for the family’s safety and your better half is also a teacher with her own classes to teach as well, this is easier said than done.  

I realized pretty quickly that a hello from my four-year old Charlie or a quick peek at baby John was an easy way to get the chat humming with compliments and help cultivate that all-important rapport. When Jackie and Charlie were running late one afternoon, I strapped on baby John and tilted up my web cam so I could stand while teaching. The lesson went well. I don’t think the students were horrified by the lack of professionalism.

As for John, he fell asleep during my lecture, to the surprise of none of my students. 

As penance I will read one Penny Kiddle book. 

 

Buttons 

At the beginning of my two-week paternity leave, I left my students with a challenging task: work together to develop a class motto, as well as a mascot. The goal of the assignment was to promote class unity and boost morale. I had just finished reading my Julius Caesar bio, and I was interested in copying the tactic of each legion adopting its own standard, a source of pride. 

It was also a chance for students to work together in my absence, the stakes somewhat lowered. It wasn’t an activity I would have assigned in a traditional classroom, where a full class discussion can sometimes get too heated without proper moderation by the teacher. But after two months with these classes, I had a feeling they would be up to the challenge. 

And I was right — both classes submitted excellent mascots and mottos. 

I sent these to my invaluable TA Megan, who apply a little graphic illustration magic to them. Then I made use of the button press I acquired last year: 

Every student received a class button for Christmas!

While I think this activity falls within the borders of gimmickry, I do think it has been well worth the time and effort. Despite the obstacles of the online setting, student participation, effort, and performance has surpassed my expectation all year. Part of this is probably just due to having generally great students. However, I think it’s important to feel a sense of comradery, especially in these gray winter months. 

For my sins of gimmickry, I will reread the 138-page AP Lang course description.         

 

Unboxing

A few weeks ago I heard the mail truck putter down my cul-de-sac, ten minutes or so before fourth block started. 

As I brought the mail into my house, I had an idea: what if I opened my junk mail in front of my class? 

What if, indeed. I quickly turned it into a warm-up activity, which I implemented five minutes later. I show the students a piece of junk mail, students brainstormed the rhetorical purpose of the mail and what choices might be used to accomplish said purpose. 

The piece of junk mail I used that afternoon was from a local funeral home in Winchester. It made for a morbid but intriguing discussion about purpose, context, and exigence. Many students correctly acknowledged that I probably would not be cold-called by a funeral home were it not for the pandemic.  

Then I opened and read the mail, and we worked as a family to establish what choices were made to accomplish the purpose of securing my business (in pre-paying for a funeral).  

The entire activity took ten minutes, tops. No way would I have bothered with such an activity if we were in the classroom together. But the intimacy of teaching from home allowed for this weird activity, which I likened to the unboxing videos that are popular on YouTube.

Was the spontaneity and weirdness worth it? I think so. That said…  

For penance I will read Horace Mann’s Lectures on Education.  

 

The Guest Speaker 

At the end of October my AP Lang classes were struggling to explain how rhetorical choices work together to achieve the speaker’s purpose. I decided to enlist the help of someone instantly familiar to all the students: John Champe himself. 

The skeleton was twenty bucks at Home Depot. To get his mouth moving I drilled hole in one of his molars, ran some fishing line through it, then threaded it through another hole in the back of his head, where I could manipulate it off-screen. 

Then there is the content of John Champe’s speech itself…

There was a point to the activity: identifying and analyzing the combination of rhetorical choices Champe uses to achieve his purpose. 

My students participated in lesson, and it was certainly one of those days where the chat was filled with comments. But is the point to entertain or educate? Upon reflection, it was probably difficult for them to reach any sort of edification after such an onslaught of gimmickry. 

As penance for my shameful choices, I will read Intitutio Oratoria, in the Latin, in its entirety, by candlelight.