What Does a Flipped English Class Look Like? An Example Using Chaucer

Back when flipping classes became the newest trend in conversations about pedagogy, it always bugged me when people would say that "English teachers already flip their classes." Behind such statements the assumption, I think, was that because English students would get content at home (by reading a novel, for instance) it makes possible opportunities for active learning at school (an example being a lively classroom discussion perhaps). As an English instructor, I've always thought that such an assessment misses the point when it comes to "flipping".

The questions we should be asking when designing a flipped course are as follows:

1. What doesn't have to take place during class time (due to tech tools and connectivity)?

2. What should be taking place during class time (but usually doesn't due to time constraints)?

If reading and writing are the skills that dominate the focus of a given English class, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that those are the 2 things that should be taking place in class (even if they demand a lot of time). If discussions and what I call "setting up the book lectures" don't have to take place in the four walls of the classroom (due to technological resources), perhaps activities such as these can take place a-synchronistically outside of class.

Here's something I did this week, for instance, for a unit covering Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:

Step One: Instead of "setting up" Chaucer in class by lecturing about or discussing together the historical and literary contexts of Chaucer's work, I recorded a podcast (using GarageBand, but if you don't have a mac, check out Audacity, which is free online) that covered in 20 mins. what would have taken at least one entire class period. (You can listen to the podcast by going here).

Step Two: I also created an online discussion thread that prompted students to share insights and thoughts about the podcast they were required to listen to. Every student had to contribute at least once to the discussion, which also was a way for me to monitor that students were listening to the required material. In my case, I utilized the class's portal page to set up the discussion (we use Finalsite at Oakridge), but one could make use of several free, online programs such as Slack.

For almost every unit now, I follow steps 1 & 2.  Students can complete the requirements easily over a weekend, and they're ready to get down to the business of practicing the skills of reading (and writing) together come Monday morning.

Step Three: Students come to class, and first thing, there's highlights from the weekend's online discussion projected on the digital screen for everyone to see. Naturally, it creates conversation at the beginning of class, but quickly, we turn to the text, reading closely together the first lines of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Each person gets a specific task (like determining tone, cataloging imagery, detecting allusions, etc.), and with everyone, I model how to read closely the opening passages on the Knight and the Squire. (This gives me the chance to show the difference between idealizing or satirizing a given character...)

Step Four: Students break into groups, and each group gets a character that's portrayed in the opening Prologue. I project on the screen a URL to a Google Doc that everyone can access and edit, and on that doc are questions to guide each group as they read critically the passages that were assigned to them. (The doc looks something like this).

As groups, students must catalog and cite the concrete details that "stick out" after reading the passage in question. Second, they have to discuss and write down any commentary they infer collectively based on the details they've cited. At this point, they're also determining whether the passage is satire or something else. Their third task is to pretend that they're going to write a paragraph about the character in question. With this in mind, they write collaboratively a topic sentence that makes clear the main idea of the passage. (While all this is going on, I get to hover from group to group, helping where I can but mostly listening to the learning that's taking place among peers)

Step Five: After each group is finished, they have to present their work to the class. Someone reads the passage aloud, followed by a brief presentation of the concrete details and commentary they noted. Lastly, we workshop as a class the topic sentence they've constructed, discussing together its merits as well as where we see room for more development. Everyone participates in this process.

Step Six: Once everyone has shared their work, we return to the Google Doc to complete the final task: namely, to create a Meme that makes clear the most important characteristic or flaw related to the character in question. Of course, this activity gets a lot of laughs, and sometimes we post them online for others to see as well.

The lesson I describe above works well with block scheduling. One would have to modify or break apart the stages if dealing with shorter class periods. To me, this is what a "flipped" English class would look like: We front-load the need-to-know info and facilitate much of the more open discussion outside of class so that class time can be spent practicing the art of reading and writing for each other in real time. It went well this week, and students appreciated the collaborative approach. Now we're repeating a similar process (minus the podcast) as we read some of the stories (specifically, "Pardoner's Tale" and "Wife of Bath's Tale"). After that, it's Macbeth, which means another podcast (which you can check out here).

More on Authentic Audiences for 21st Century Students: Why We Read, Write, and Think for Each Other

Joel points out in his post the fact that independent school teachers often have a lot of pedagogical & curricular autonomy, which is mostly a good thing… mostly. 21^st century technologies, however, have brought changes to almost all areas of our cultural landscape – changes which make clear that teachers with autonomy need to revisit questions about the benefits of collaboration and connectedness (if not for their sake then for the sake of today’s students). One reason: we’re not the only experts to whom students have access whether at school or outside of the traditional classroom. Technology has made this evident and undeniable. More importantly, in my opinion, connectedness and collaboration make it possible now for teachers to provide authentic audiences for their students’ voices in ways unthinkable in the recent past, and one thing that can bestow purpose and meaning on a student’s learning experience is the presence of a real audience.

More than ever, it’s possible to have students read, write, and think for each other (as opposed to doing such things for their singular teacher) – making the activity more real, more connected, and perhaps more fun. In recent years, I’ve been employing various digital, web 2.0 technologies to get my students to connect and collaborate with students in classrooms from other campuses. (Go here to see how my students at The OakridgeSchool connected with classes at two other campuses, Greenhill School & TheHockaday School, to read together James Joyce’s collection Dubliners. Of course, we did it again last year, this time studying William Shakespeare’s history play, Richard III.)

One of my favorite methods we experimented with was getting students from one class to frame questions for their peers in other classes from different campuses. We did this through various means:
-my students at Oakridge collaboratively posted blog articles (here) that always concluded in a series of questions for Greenhill and Hockaday students.  Greenhill and Hockaday would respond employing various modalities of expression such as text, video, or mp3. (More examples: Greenhill which leads to Oakridge's response;  Hockaday which leads to Oakridge's response; Greenhill which leads to Oakridge's response and then to Hockaday's final word)
-we also had the advantage of augmenting our digital collaboration with visits in person to each other’s campuses – something that’s only possible with the benefit of geographical proximity. Using the responses of the Greenhill students (which were born out of the blog), Mr. Garza (teacher from Greenhill) visited The Hockaday School, bringing his students' questions to their Hockaday peers.
-Hockaday blogged about their perspective of the visit, providing insight and more questions for both Greenhill and Oakridge classes as we struggled with what were very difficult literary works.
-Greenhill students made use of Audacity to record an mp3/podcast both for Oakridge and Hockaday students. Their recording was guided, of course, by the evolution of questions being posed by classes from the other campuses.
-Using GarageBand, Oakridge then responded in kind by putting together their podcast response; here's some highlights:



Oakridge student citing Hockaday student's blog post

At this point, students were citing each other by name, complimenting each other’s readings with expressions of appreciation. They were reading and thinking for each other, serving as meaningful audiences in a community of collaborators. I can’t emphasize it enough: namely, the joy they felt once this exchange became real – once the students received a validating response from an unknown peer who heard them and who cared. As a teacher who is a community of one, I can’t recreate that kind of meaningful learning experience on my own, but by collaborating and connecting with other campuses, such an experience can be designed and realized with ease and joy.



Greenhill student addresses Hockaday teacher's point

What happened next, however, was even more amazing: simply put, we started writing for each other. For me, this first occurred when my students sat for their 9 week midterm. Instead of a comprehensive exam, Oakridge students wrote essays for their Hockaday and Greenhill audience and posted highlights on the blog. (See Hockaday’s response here) Never had I seen developing writers operating so keenly in terms of connecting word, audience, and purpose in their writing. These students weren’t grudgingly writing for me, the teacher; they were eagerly sounding out their voices to peer groups across the digital channels of the internet. Eventually this evolved into composing more formal papers to conclude the project, but in many ways, their compositions were not traditional at all. Students wrote to each other (to each other’s teachers). Many of my writers chose to cite blog, mp3, and video pieces posted by students from other campuses. It was a real learning community full of curious writers and readers, open-minded speakers and listeners, and there was so much joy! By formally engaging nontraditional, digital resources, students were learning the connections between digital literacy, research, and composition as well (while validating each other’s voice in the process!).

So why should we integrate technology to craft authentic audiences for our students? When a student writes for their teacher and that instructor is the only one who will see that composition, why should she make it great? But if she’s writing for a communal audience of peers and teachers alike, not only will she feel the push to make it better, she will act on the desire to make it great because there’s an authentic audience! Bottom line, it makes their learning meaningful, relevant, and worthwhile, and one might just catch them enjoying the process as well.

-Jared Colley