#Ranciere18 - Students Need to Take Responsibility for Their Learning. Do the Circumstances of Schools Make It Possible? A Guest Post by Joel Backon

A couple of comments before I begin. First, I am in awe of the blog posts and Twitter responses I’ve seen to date, and thank Jared for organizing this “book club”.  Second, Chapter Three, Reason Between Equals, seems to be the core of Ranciere’s argument. Consequently, I’ll try to tackle the first three sections and leave it to a colleague to handle the rest.

This portion of the book is about intelligence in the broadest sense of the word. As I understand it, young children appear to have a similar intelligence because they are driven equally by instinct and need (paraphrase of 51). One can infer from the next portion that lesser people “...develop the intelligence that the needs and circumstances of their existence demand of them.” (51) So most children are somewhat similar to lesser people. It is now easier to understand that some people exercise will, reflection, and veracity, qualities that propel them to new intellectual heights, as long as their self-knowledge is strong (metacognition) and they don’t follow the path of Icarus. As an ignorant schoolmaster, how am I to understand such a worldview? Does it not create the kind of caste system that was prevalent in the nineteenth century and was seriously challenged during the Sixties? Why isn’t it okay for people to know what they need to know without being classified as lesser people? Are we destined for an intellectual elite or will we be able to create a society that transcends needs and circumstances for higher callings, even if those callings are not the traditional prestigious professions?

Will we be able to create a society that transcends
needs and circumstances for higher calling?

I would like to argue that Ranciere is suggesting something here. If we ask students to take responsibility for their own learning, they will push beyond needs and circumstances because they will feel emancipated (Ranciere’s term - I would say empowered). That’s how the Flemish students learned French. Jacotot emancipated or empowered those students with clear goals and an expectation that they would be successful. His strategy is at the core of good teaching. I’d also like to argue that Jacotot’s strategy would be far more difficult today because we are cursed with knowing more about how kids learn. We are faced with institutional obstacles that grew out of the factory model of education and failed to disappear or be replaced. We now value autonomy, mastery, and purpose (Daniel Pink), and in doing so, have little use for grades, seat time, standardized assessments, late penalties, and detailed rubrics. They are designed to crush the wills of our students so they revert back to needs and circumstances. We must teleport Ranciere to the twenty-first century so he can help us retool our craft to ignite the best from each one of our students.

"We now value autonomy, mastery, and purpose... and in doing so, have little use f
or grades, seat time, standardized assessments, late penalties, and detailed rubrics."

Argument complete. I’m not an English teacher; literary analysis is not my strength. As a historian, I pick up artifacts from texts and try to reconstruct them into something meaningful that will propel us forward today. Trying to figure out exactly what Ranciere means is not a challenge I relish. Using his thoughts to connect with my own experiences and the world around me is more my cup of tea. Please analyze my argument at face value first, and then apply the literary analysis so I can better understand Ranciere’s intentions.

This has been a post by Joel Backon (@jbackon) for the #Ranciere18 reading project. Go here to see the google doc, and go here to join the hypothes.is group.

#Ranciere18 - Part of Your World - A Guest Post by Nick Dressler

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible

-Walt Disney

I’m not the kind of teacher who works for the summer, but don’t get me wrong: I like a good vacation.  Two weeks is about right.  Just enough time to take the family somewhere nice, see some sights, try some new food, maybe—procure a little inspiration.  Then it’s back home for summer school, a couple enrichment camps, and a little gardening before the term starts back up again in August.  Perfect.

This year, my wife and I found ourselves a little antsier than usual, so after school let out for the summer, we jetted off to the UK.  That’s right, reader: London, England.  The capitol of Western culture.  We hit the streets as soon as we landed and enjoyed a quick drink on top of some Yorkshire fish and chips.  Delicious.  When we finished, though, my imploring glance toward my wife was met with a silent riposte and furrowed brow that said it all: “This isn’t up to snuff; let’s get out of here.”  I’m not one to say no to my wife, so we moved on to France, straight away.  Paris, more specifically.  The capitol of Western culture.  Enchantee, Paris.  Immediately, we did the Paris café thing.  Dark coffee, magnifique.  The crème brulee, tres bonne.   Absolute paradise, it was; my little family seated under an umbrella beside some old-looking red brick streets, my little children wiping their cute little mouths of croissant crumbs with cute little napkins, not a care in the world; me—as we speak—drawing my laptop from my backpack for a hasty blog about education.  On my left wrist: a handy, ironic eighties calculator watch that most people think is a Walter White thing, or maybe an homage to that kid from Stranger Things, but the truth is it’s the same watch Ryan Gosling wears in Half Nelson; I bought it immediately after I saw that movie, when Bryan Cranston supported Frankie Muniz and those Stranger Things kids’ parents were seeing off the very decade the show would reference some two decades later.  That’s right: I out hipster the hipster, everyone.  I was there first.  On the other hand, literally, on my right wrist, I sport a blue, rubber Micky Mouse Magic Band with which I can purchase anything at any of the parks, eyes blinded to the bloody cataracts of capital streaming from my wallet.  It drips quietly, the money.  Gone without a whimper.  It also opens my hotel room door.  I am quite the contradiction, nowadays.

Oh, did I forget to mention?  By London and Paris, I meant their miniature, Mouse-sanctioned simulations, as featured at Epcot Center—my family and I are in Disney World, of course; we didn’t even need to cross the Atlantic and we were hand-delivered the highlights of Europe right to our faces, right to our eyes, right down our distended gullets.  Eliminated are the inconveniences of international travel: no extra flight, no unnecessary walking, no dirt or grime in the streets, no pesky foreigners, and no awkward fumbling through un petit peu de francais.  I don’t even need to crane my neck to view the top of the Eiffel Tower as the good people at Disney have condensed it down to just a third of its actual size. What we have is all we want, just a distilled version of England and France right here in the culturally comfortable humidity-hug of sun kissed Florida, USA.  Disney has even shipped in some incredibly qualified English and French citizens to work as waiters in these countries.  Anything for authenticity at Disney World; anything in the name of fun.

All disingenuity aside, I have to admit this Disney World is, if anything, creative, even if it triggers night sweats in Baudrillard.  I consider the different rides and shows and architecture examples of some very innovative people bringing worlds of fiction to life, which is, for me as an English teacher, part of the daily challenge of my job.  These guys, though, they’ve got it down.  Every single detail. Before we left for the park this morning, for instance, we took a dip in our hotel’s Finding Nemo themed pool where my six-year-old son heard audio from the movie piped into the water itself only to be heard when a swimmer dips his head beneath the surface.  Incredulous, he returned to my pool chair.  “You were right dad; Disney world is awesome!”  Just wait, my son, you haven’t even seen the parks yet.  It was like Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” all over again: I can try to describe it for him, but until he experiences it, he will not—he cannot—fathom my description. 

And here is where my two current ventures—Disney vacations and Ranciere texts—intersect (I’m the only one reading Ranciere at mini-France, believe it or not).  Disney world, with all its creative magnificence, stupefies us, which, as Kristen Ross explains, “implies a sense of wonderment or amazement” (7) to the point of inaction.  Disney is attractive, sure, and to the right audience, it can be inspirational.  I imagine, for example, a select group of young visitors go on to lead creative lives after sampling the Disney wares and might even offer their trip to Disney World as a formative experience.  But for the vast majority, Disney World is the goal in-and-of itself.  It’s not a starting point; it’s the end—save up enough money to get the family to Disney, swallow the oily spoonfuls of their fully ripened creative juices, return home, repeat.  For these, Disney world is not creative emancipation from the shackles of possibility that it might be for some.  No, Disney World is the illusion itself—that fetishized social opium that keeps the masses content, quiet, and, more importantly, homogenous.  The people at Disney don’t want my kids, their customers, to go on to lead creative lives, they want my kids to come back to Disney World, to watch their programming, to develop a sense of brand loyalty so my kids buy into the product Disney offers.  Going to Disney World alone becomes a sort of American Dream—a carrot just large enough to galvanize we languid mules through the drudgery of our quotidian lives, be it school or that inhuman rat-race known as the working world.

© BANKSY - photomontage of Napalm Girl by Nick Ut 

This is the problem with capitalism.  Not only are there winners and losers, but these positions are entirely liquid.  Winners don’t have to stay there de jure as they did by virtue of being born into the upper classes during feudalism.  Winners in a capitalism must necessarily become conservative to protect their spots at the top.  Generation upon generation legally exploit the lower classes of their product—their economic capital, their social capital, their creative capital—sometimes stupefying but always stultifying the ambitious proletarian to inaction, failure, and conviction of personal futility.

As part of the capitalistic superstructure, then, our schools must do the exact same thing, only we the teachers take on the role of Disney World and our stakeholders the park-goers.  Our job is to make the content stand on its head.  We’re supposed to interpret it, jazz it up, decorate our rooms with it, relate it to the lives or our students, to contemporary events—we spoon-feed material to our students the same way Disney stuffs our faces with their productions, and, trust me, they learn to eat it, and ask for more if need be.  And although some of our students go on to use what we have taught them to enhance their lives morally and materially, the vast majority learn to play our game simply to graduate to the next grade until they are eventually finished with the ordeal altogether, school being nothing more than a necessary obstruction to the commencement of their actual lives when they graduate from the university. 

I don’t think we teachers do this consciously, so don’t take this as an accusation, as such; however—and Ranciere is clear here—teachers who explicate, despite positive intentions, do nothing to raise their students and, in fact, create a stultifying gap between their intelligence and their students’ the same way Disney World does between their “cast-members” and their fans.  Disney claims only to show, to entertain, to present, not to encourage or improve.  They don’t want you to match their levels of creativity, they want you to hemorrhage bucketfuls of capital into their mouse-eared buckets because you cannot and never will be able to do what they do.  And you know it.  And after you spend your year regenerating your capital, they want you to do it again.  Same goes for schools.  Pay us to enrich you.  Take a break.  Go to Disney World, for crying out loud.  See France and England while you’re there.  See Morocco.  But after that, you come back and do it again and again.  Always come back to school, the unending circle of power from which there is no messiah and no redemptive nirvana.

From Sir Ken Robinson's Changing Education Paradigms

So what do we do?  Even if Ranciere provides what proves to be the perfect recipe for success, it’s not like our school system is in any shape even to absorb such a teaching philosophy—not when grade point averages, standardized test scores, and college scholarships rule the roost.  After all, Ranciere admits that, while Jacotot’s method proves students can and will learn anything they want to, what they want to learn might be nothing at all.  I don’t know about you, but if my students learn “nothing at all,” I am out of a job, and my progressive philosophy of teaching statement will do nothing to hinder the executioner’s ax.  So, again, what do we do?

I recommend starting small.  Winston Smith small.  We can’t expect a total overhaul of the school system at once; it’s the little rebellions that lead to reform.  Change what we can in our classrooms.  Pick one assignment if we have to—one activity, one policy, one discussion.  If we really believe what Ranciere says, we need to get the momentum moving in the right direction, and change will come.  Organic food hasn’t always been available at local chain grocery stores, has it?  But it is now.  Something changed for the better, and the results are there for all to benefit.

This has been a post by Nick Dressler (@nick_dressler) for the #Ranciere18 reading project. Go here to see the google doc, and go here to join the hypothes.is group.

#Ranciere18 - Week One: "Translator's Introduction" from The Ignorant Schoolmaster

Starting this week several of us are reading together (at a leisurely pace) a very important book for me as an educator. In many ways Jacques Rancière's 1987 polemic, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, has become a kind of motivational manifesto for me - a mantra of sorts that keeps me focused on what matters most in my role as teacher. My loyalty to its message, at times, has inspired mockery and disbelief in others: You can't possibly believe that all students are equally capable of being intelligent? After all, this is the book's central thesis: "ALL people are equally intelligent" (xix).

So what's your gut response to such a statement? Does one wince with disbelief? What do we mean when we say "intelligence"? What does it look like when it's being demonstrated? How can we measure it or should we even ask that question? 

Which of the following images, for instance, showcases a greater display of intelligence?

"The hierarchical division of head and hand" (xviii).

One of Rancière's targets is the myth that there are different types of intelligences that can be arranged spatially/directionally in terms of hierarchies (low to high). Such space reifies (or makes natural) the gap between the knowing and the ignorant; the explicators and the listeners; the capable and the incapable; the ones who must be heard (subject groups) and the ones who need not be heard (subjugated groups). But common sense says this is the case, right? I mean, some of us simply know things that others don't, and it's on us to tell them what they need to know. Right? If teaching were defined as the act of transmitting knowledge, then yes, perhaps this is just "how things are" and teachers are tasked with leading the ignorant out of the cave by showing them/explaining to them the Truth of things. But perhaps the task of the teacher needs to be re-conceptualized, not as "a kind of muscular theoretical heroism" to enlighten the masses, but as an authority who demands the equally intelligent to chart their own truth:

The problem is not to create scholars. It is to raise up those who believe themselves inferior in intelligence, to make them leave the swamp where they are stagnating – not the swamp of ignorance, but the swamp of self-contempt (101-102).

It is the explicator who needs the incapable and not the other way around; it is he who constitutes the incapable as such (6).

There aren’t 2 sorts of minds. There is inequality in the manifestations of intelligence, according to the greater or lesser energy communicated to the intelligence or by the will for discovering and combining new relations; but there is no hierarchy of intellectual capacity (27).

Whoever teaches w/o emancipation stultifies. Whoever emancipates doesn’t have to worry about what the emancipated person learns (18).

Emancipation is the idea that every common person might conceive his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity, and decide how to use it (17).

Our problem isn’t proving that all intelligence is equal. It’s seeing what can be done under that supposition (46).

The last quote here brings up some questions for me: Does R posit the equality of intelligences for strategic purposes alone? In other words, is he trolling/provoking us in some way? OR Is he simply stating upfront that one cannot prove nor disprove his thesis, therefore why not make Pascal's wager? 

A few more thoughts...

The Lesson of Althusser

Both Rancière's teacher and mentor, Louis Althusser may be France's most influential Marxist thinker from the 20th century. Rancière, however, turned his back on Althusser's anti-humanist, structuralist program, which can be seen in R's student-centered, agency-focused approach to pedagogy. Althusser was a big believer in the master-student relationship: "'The function of teaching,' Althusser wrote in 1964, 'is to transmit a determinate knowledge to subjects who do not possess this knowledge. The teaching situation thus rests on the absolute condition of an inequality between a knowledge and a nonknowledge'" (xvi). 

For Althusser, emancipatory education was only possible if we recognize the present impossibility for students to be equal (with each other or with the master) and instead focus our reformist energies toward distributing more equally the same quality of instruction (by well-trained, enlightened masters) among all students of all classes. I want to suggest that Rancière reverses this claim: It is impossible to make the distribution of instruction equal, but we can assert axiomatically that all students (and teachers) are naturally, equally intelligent. The hard work of pedagogy is ac/counting for this. If schools are unequal spaces for equal intelligences, the task of pedagogy becomes political, namely demanding those who are not "counted" in the unequal space of schools to assert their equal right to be counted. 

The image above does not make a case for unequal intelligences: each animal has the equal, verifiable capacity, but the learning space or environment created by the administration of the "same exam" does not equally verify or account for each animal's natural capacity. The space (and method of verification) is unequal, not the students.

The Practice of Equality: Our problem isn’t proving that all intelligence is equal. It’s seeing what can be done under that supposition.

Rancière speaks of his thesis as being an axiomatic starting point, a pure concept in Kantian terms that orders the way we experience the landscape of learning. Even if one thinks his claim is strategic or performative, and less a statement about capital "T" truth, there's still something of value to be investigated - namely, how the pure concept of equality reshapes the space-time continuum of our learning landscapes.

We as educators have a lot to say about the hard work of "closing achievement gaps," but the space-time continuum of a world occupied by unequal intelligences is one where the gaps can never be fully overcome. According to Rancière, the grim-visaged war of unequal intelligences will never completely smooth its wrinkled fronts. By starting with the pure concept of equal intelligences we begin to close the spatial and temporal distances between the learned and the learner, between the master and the student. 

Ultimately, we need to rethink starting points, instead of outcomes, which can make us sound reckless in the ears of certain administrators. I think of the example of the Hubble Telescope. No one knew what was out there or what would be the outcome of pointing the world's most expensive observation device into a void of complete darkness. I'm sure some people thought the original scientists were reckless for proposing it, but here we are years later still discovering the infinite wonders of a universe that proved to be much larger than anyone could initially have imagined. What can we do if we start with equality of all intellects? What have we mistaken for darkness that on second look could reveal an infinite amount of wonders beyond our imaginations?

This has been a post for the #Ranciere18 Reading Project. Please feel free to comment and join the conversation.

If you want to get more involved, our google doc is here and our hypothes.is group is here. Email me at jcolley@theoakridgeschool.org if you want editing access to the Google Doc.

Student Choice in Reading: Let Students Decide Whether They Want to Read a Shakespeare Tragedy, Comedy, or History Play

One thing is certain: when students are given choice—whether limited or wide open—they read and write more.  -Kelly Gallagher, "Moving Beyond the 4x4 Classroom"

Why Is Reading Such a Chore?

What makes something a chore? Is it the essence of the activity itself, such that mopping the floor, for instance, is inherently more chore-like and more obligatory in nature than doing something else, such as watching a movie? Is it really that ontologically simple? Surely not. The idea that something is a chore due to the nature of the act itself is an obvious oversimplification: it fails to account for the importance of context. That's why cleaning the house can also be therapeutic, perhaps even fun. The word chores functions, not as a label for a certain set of activities, but as a description for how one feels about the activity he or she is engaged in. The question has more to do with why one is engaging in a given activity as well as how one came to be motivated to do it in the first place.

As teachers of reading, this is exactly the kind of oversimplification we are battling when students enter our classrooms and say, "I don't know. Reading is just not my thing. It's such a chore." They have become convinced that reading is one of those activities that falls under the category of chores.  How can we convince them otherwise? How can we get them to experience the joy of reading again?

What happens when, over time, an activity that one used to enjoy begins to feel more like a chore? Whether it's something that's leisurely or something that demands a large amount of work, an activity risks becoming a chore, in my opinion, when one (or all) of the following factors starts to seem amiss:

1. Agency in the form of having a choice in the matter.

2. Purpose in the form of knowing why you are doing the thing in question.

3. Relevance in the form of appealing to one's interests and/or passions as an individual

Even things we enjoy doing can become a chore when we no longer feel a sense of agency, purpose, or relevance, which brings up the important question for all teachers:

How can we make students see reading as something other than a chore? How can we prevent what Kelly Gallagher calls Readicide, namely the "systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in our schools"?

Kelly Gallagher suggests several things for combatting the phenomenon of Readicide. One suggestion that's challenged me to grow as a teacher and designer of curriculum is the idea of providing more opportunities for student choice, thereby getting students to exercise agency in determining what texts or books seem most relevant and purposeful to them. 

Core Texts: Community at the Cost of Agency?

I am a big fan of building a learning community around the collaborative study of a core text, whether it be classic or contemporary, but I slowly have come to realize that, if that's all I'm doing, students will inevitably lose sight of one (if not all) of the above three factors (namely, a sense of agency, purpose, and/or relevance).  Community is important, but so is agency. In agreement with Kelly Gallagher, I think there needs to be a balance, but in no way can I claim to have made room for choice to the extent of a "20/80 model" like that in Gallagher's class. 

On a quick side note, I personally think there are strategies one can employ for purposes of empowering student agency even when one is reading a singular text as a class. I suggest the following ideas:

1. Let students choose to be a certain kind of "expert." Sometimes I'll create four reading groups: Group 1 reads for setting, historical/authorial context, etc.; Group 2 reads for character development and analysis; Group 3 reads for theme analysis and development; and Group 4 reads for rhetoric and literary style. Each group is responsible for being the experts in the room when it comes to discussions that relate to their topic of choice (Go here to read more).

2. Allow students to have more direct influence over what you discuss and how. There are so many technological platforms that make this possible. I often use google docs as a back channel for students to make clear to me what they want to talk about and address in the novel we're reading (go here to read more). My friend, Joel Garza, often uses hypothes.is to amplify student voice and particularly to empower the quieter students in his classroom (go here to read more).

3. Gamify the experience for the students. I've written extensively about the pedagogical benefits of gamification, which can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

4. Allow students to persuade each other and to choose democratically a core text for the class to read.

I don't think that assigning core texts necessarily implies a lack of agency, purpose, and/or relevance for students, but it does demand us to be intentional and creative as teachers. On the flip side, promoting student choice for reading also doesn't need to be seen as a threat to cultivating a sense of community in a collaborative classroom. There are ways to foster community while allowing students to direct their inquiry more independently, whether limited in nature or in a completely open framework.

Student Choice in Reading

A couple years back, NCTE published the article "Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in Reading" and the first reason the authors identified was the idea that "Choice empowers students":

School is sometimes a frustrating place for students. Their technology-rich world is robust with opportunities for decision-making and choice, but when they enter the classroom, the opportunities for choice are much more limited. When students are routinely assigned books to read without any opportunity to act on their own judgment, many end up dreading the reading and often fail or refuse to complete it. But when we provide students with choices (even within parameters), they make their own decisions and they feel empowered and important. (Campbell, Dubitsky, Faron, George, Gieselmann, Goldschmidt, Skeeters, and Wagner)

I emphasized the 2nd and 3rd sentences because I think this gets to the heart of how choice connects to relevance and purpose, especially for the 21st century student. Our students' technologically-laden world is one that constantly invites them to make choices, to interact, and even to manipulate the things that capture their interest. This is why school can seem so frustrating at times: They don't have that same sense of agency.

*****

This year, when designing my latest unit on William Shakespeare, I was debating whether to do a Tragedy, Comedy, or History play, and it occurred to me: Why not let the students choose? I knew I would limit it to a 3-option choice, meaning there were still strict parameters when it came to exercising student agency. Despite how minimal it was, a significant change in student engagement was immediately evident due to a simple gesture on my part: I trusted them to make a choice based on what sparked their individual interests the most, and simply put, that excited them.

Ss are exploring the first scenes of the #Shakespeare plays they’ve chosen to read. Already, I see more interest & engagement b/c Ss have a choice in the matter #engchat #aplitchat #edchat pic.twitter.com/TfZEb1EJTU

— Jared Colley (@jcolley8) January 12, 2018

Working off the thematic question of What does it mean to be the Other?, I selected three very different plays: Othello, Merchant of Venice, and Richard III. On the first day, I framed each text for the students (we watched movie trailers for each one as well...). We also identified common themes across the plays, and I encouraged them to explore each option a little more by getting on YouTube, Google, and other platforms to find out more information.

Once students selected the play that perked their interest, they received the following instructions:

(1) Based on who chooses what play, you will form “reading groups” with other students who are reading the same text as you.
(2) On the class calendar, each reading group is scheduled to lead a class discussion on various days on a weekly basis.
(3) Groups will lead class discussion only on the due dates for completing each Act of the play (meaning there will be five scheduled presentations for each group).
(4) On those scheduled due dates, each group is expected to present their ideas in a 10-15 minute period of time. Each presentation will be followed by a 10 minute harkness-style question and answer session, and all reading groups are expected to participate.
(5) Presentations will be based on the questions related to the themes that are listed below. Groups may use the same question (or questions) for multiple presentations as long as each presentation develops the revisited question further.
(6) Expectations for each presentation:
     (a) They must be at least 10 to 15 minutes in length
     (b) They must address at least 3-4 of the questions that are related to the themes
     (c) Students must turn in presentation notes, outlines, or scripts
     (d) There must be multiple citations of the text to provide evidence
     (e) Presentations must be cogent, prepared, and collaborative: everyone has to talk
     (f) Optional: Students may use media, visual aids, etc., to enhance the presentation

My school's schedule operates on an ABABC block schedule, meaning I get to meet with students for 80 minutes on either A or B days, and I see every class for 45 minutes at the end of the week on the C day's modified schedule. The reading plan looked something like this (with a few improvised adjustments along the way...):

For each play, we identified 7 common themes we wanted to talk about: (1) Prejudice towards Otherness (2) The idea of Bonds, especially with Family (3) Marriage & Love (4) Hatred (5) Honesty & Trust in a World of False Appearances (6) Gender Politics and (7) Justice vs. Vengeance. There were 3-5 questions for each theme that potentially could be applied to any of the three plays, and students could use any of those questions to frame their weekly discussions on the days they were assigned to lead the class meeting.  (Go here to see the complete google doc that contains the questions as well as the rest of the resources related to the project)

It was very much an experimental risk on my part. How would it go with students talking to each other in class discussions while reading different texts? Would it fall flat? Would students make interesting connections? Overall, I was blown away, watching students teach, challenge, and make connections for each other in organic conversations that were purely student led. By giving them choice, the students gave back as well both to me and to each other. There were days, no doubt, when it was dry, and by the end, I think we were all ready to move on. However, with a few adjustments to the calendar and to the volume of discussions, I will definitely be doing this again next year.  As the authors make clear in "Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in Reading," providing students with more choice (whether it be limited or open) empowered them to have more meaningful conversations, to deepen relationships with both peers and the teacher, and to think more independently as developing learners (Campbell, Dubitsky, Faron, George, Gieselmann, Goldschmidt, Skeeters, and Wagner). I saw all of this at work on a daily basis when students took ownership of their choice to read a Tragedy, Comedy, or History play, and although there were a lot of student-led discussions and presentations, there was also time for independent reading, group preparation, and small group discussions with the teacher. 

For a final project, students had the following choices as well:
1. Team up with 1 or 2 other students from your class section (or from another section).
2. Decide whether you want to partner with peers who read the same play or with people who read something different.
3. Select one of the seven themes from the student-led class discussions.
4. Choose to either create a digital essay (using sound, image, & text) or a podcast episode (using sound and voice) that explores the theme you selected.
(Again, Go here to see the complete google doc that contains the final project instructions as well as the rest of the resources related to the project)

We examined examples of both mediums and discussed their merits and flaws, and students were let loose to make their compositions, and overall, the final products were creative, funny, and diverse. You could tell they had a good time: With all the options, I think it felt less like a chore and more like an opportunity to take a risk and be creative. (One of my favorites was a podcast created by 2 sophomore boys where the episode would periodically be interrupted by Shakespeare-era adds like the one from the company "2 Murderers for Hire"). I will say, I had no idea what to expect with the digital essays; it was new territory. Overall the products were beautiful, and to demonstrate, I leave you one on Richard III created by Rosalind K. & Reagan L:

Works Cited

Campbell, Bridget, Andrea Dubitsky, Elizabeth Faron, Deborah George, Kelly Gieselmann, Brooke    Goldschmidt, Keri Skeeters, and Erica Wagner. "The Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in the Reading." English Leadership Quarterly, National Council of Teachers of English, 2016. Accessed 27 March 2018.

Gallagher, Kelly. "Moving Beyond the 4x4 Classroom." Kelly Gallagher: Building Deeper Readers & Writers, Gallagher & Associates, Inc., 15 July 2015. Accessed 27 March 2018.

Gallagher, Kelly. "Reversing Readicide."Educational Leadership, ASCD, March 2010, Vol. 67, No. 6. Accessed 27 March 2018.