A few weeks ago, Wendy Jackson brought this popular YouTube video to my attention:  a young man explaining that he has dropped out of school because traditional, institutionalized education was getting in the way of his learning.

It got me thinking about our English Department and the important role our discipline has to offer high school students.

In our media-centric society, I believe that the subject of English has some of the most vital skill sets to pass on to students. It is in English class that students are taught how to analyse texts and evaluate online resources, how to organize information and communicate clearly, and how to publish accurate, relevant, and valuable information and ideas.

Equipping Digital Citizens

While we equip our students for the world they will face outside of high school — for the online discussion boards in college and university (moodles, wikis, blog portals, and more), and for the communication and research technology of the workplace — we should equip them to be positive contributors to our wired world. While we cannot, and should not, attempt to familiarize our students with every technological tool available, we should remove anxieties students may have about technology and empower our students for using online, electronic communication to make the world a better place. (Image by waffler)

From Memorization to Searching

From the trivial facts found in any almanac, to the masterpieces in Shakespeare’s folios, we educators love the information and ideas that great minds before us have passed on.  Many of us have gone to the trouble of memorizing trivia about subjects we’re passionate about.

Our students, however, live in a world where trivia is at their fingertips.  They sometimes come to class with the impression that information is “cheap” or even worthless because it’s so readily available.  In other words, it’s not worth learning.

And here’s what I want to say to them, or at least to show them in our classrooms:  Information and ideas are valuable. They shape our culture and run our economy.  But unlike when I went to school, memorization isn’t the single greatest key to uncovering the value.  Smart searching is.  Yes, technology can deliver facts at a keystroke, but a foray into a search engine’s results can be a murky swamp.  Students must be taught to discern and evaluate relevant information, and knowledge is required for this recognition. Organizing, comparing, ranking, discerning, evaluating, and ultimately communicating: these are the critical skills that they need to be able to work with information and ideas. (Image by a trying youth)

Critically Analyzing Texts

Ontario’s Ministry of Education recognized the need to equip students for an information society by adding “Media Studies” as one of the four major strands of the 2007 English Curriculum, on par with Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication. Though I continue to begin each course with a brief Media Studies unit, I see a great need to embed the use of media throughout the course, in the teaching of the other three strands.

The school board has also added an emphasis on Differentiated Instruction, increasingly offering choices to students — choices that teach to the multiple intelligences. As English teachers, we give students the framework for understanding text… any text. We provide a wide range of texts and present many formats for analysing and understanding these texts. A classic text such as Shakespeare, which is unfamiliar for most students and is an excellent equalizer, becomes a launching pad for students to explain using their own derivatives (an audio cast, a Movie Maker slideshow, blog postings and discussion forums). (Image by skippyjon)

Creative, Clear Communication

The English language continues to be transformed and our jobs as educators is not to defend and preserve the language as we know it, but to teach clear and intelligent communication. Though it used to be said that the spoken word perished while the written word remained, the information superhighway has made even the written word free — that is to say, it is not only inexpensive, but it is liberated. And, being liberated, it is ephemeral (it is easily deleted) and it is easily lost (under a mountain of other words). The written word no longer remains bound to text books on a shelf in a classroom. The written word is free. We shouldn’t try to bind it with strict writing styles that do not reflect the medium in which citizens interact, but we must allow students to try their ideas in a manner appropriate for their future. Student creativity must be stoked, not squashed. It is in the English classroom where this creativity and these necessary communication skills should flourish. (Image by Caitlinator)