In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, the following is a brief note of thanks: Dr. King, thank you for setting the precedent.
Jan182021
Oct292020
What is a Calling?
While I teach my students primarily online, I have some designated time with them in a seventy-five minute afternoon session, held once a week. While these sessions are designed to offer a space for continued study and socially distanced peer interaction, I also use this time as a means for getting to know my students on a level beyond academics. My afternoon sessions have become more of a reflection of self and purpose, both academically and personally.
In keeping with this theme, I am a fan of Oprah’s Super Soul Sundays because I can always find a short video clip of an interview seasoned with meaning and most fitting for personal reflection. This past week, my students and I watched Oprah’s interview with Steven Pressfield entitled “First Look: 4 Questions to Help you Find Your Calling.” Following our viewing session, some students were perplexed about the idea of a calling, while others were most confident about identifying the calling they finally had an opportunity to identify and share.
I asked students to select a question or two from below and share their response(s) on the classroom blackboard.
- What is a calling?
- Where does one’s calling exist?
- Is a calling spiritual?
- What is your calling?
- What wonderings do you have after watching the short clip?
Following our blackboard reflection session, we spent about twenty-five to thirty minutes sharing perspectives and questions. I was pleased to discover the following:
- While the majority of students believed they were too young to know their “calling,” both my boarding and day student group included at least two to three students who identified their calling.
- About half of my students believed that a calling is not spiritual. Rather, these students believed a calling is the result of lived experiences.
- While the majority agreed that a calling should bring joy to one’s life, students couldn’t define the true definition of joy, so they settled for aligning one’s calling with a feeling of sustained happiness.
- One student asked if playing video games is his calling because he is happy and looses track of time when he plays.
- Every student coalesced with the idea that finding one’s calling must be prioritized as the ultimate goal in life.
What is your calling? How and when did you discover this calling? What are your overall thoughts about the idea of “a calling”? Also, if additional understanding is required, another great example by author Wes Moore can be found here. I’m always looking forward to your your responses…
Oct222020
Mr. George Floyd and Rhetoric
While my students continue to struggle and persevere in various ways with our new educational approaches (i.e. online learning, schedule changes, day and boarding student separation and pacing guides), my goal is to help them relate to the world by first understanding who they are as authentic beings preparing to launch beyond the (perceived and very real) obstacles at hand. This is my core reasoning and rationale for continuing to work alongside them. As I struggle, persevere, evolve and inevitably allow myself to shift as a result and in spite of year ‘2020, I produce creative works and projects as a means and portal of continual discovery. I am grateful to have spectacular students who enjoy the learning process.
In this spirit, while focusing on a rhetorical device unit and how speakers, authors, filmmakers and overall artists use rhetorical strategies in order to reach their audiences, I asked my students to create their own creative project incorporating at least two to three of the plethora of devices we’ve studied. Students were provided with an array of creative options to choose from. And of course, they also had the option of proposing their own creative idea. I had fun sharing the creative options because I have many creative souls in my courses, from photographers to singers, from poets to documentarians.
The following is my rhetorical creative project model for my charges. I chose to construct lyrics–incorporating several rhetorical devices–and sing a song about George Floyd whose life ended while in police custody. My written analysis, following the video performance is an example of the compositional/analysis component of the performance.
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Mr. George Floyd
“Mr. George Floyd” centers on memoriam of an individual whose life was taken violently and cruelly while in police custody. Mr. Floyd’s murder was filmed by a bystander who was unaware, at the time, that this footage would spark protest and demand for reform of methods used by law enforcement when apprehending individuals suspected of a violation of law. I intentionally included three rhetorical devices—epistrophe, loaded words (in analysis) and hyperbole–for a more structured composition; however, most importantly, I aimed to pay tribute to Mr. Floyd by methodically and melodically–through song– appealing to human emotion in order to raise awareness regarding injustices still prevalent in our world, today.
Rhetorical devices incorporated:
- Epistrophe– “Mr. George Floyd”-Shared at the end of successive phrases for effect and as a reminder of the individual the piece is centered on; say his name…
- Loaded words-Violently/cruelly/murder-included to speak truth to what I witnessed. Ironically, law enforcement is responsible for keeping order and “peace;” In reality, law enforcement’s conduct was a demonstration of the exact opposite.
- Hyperbole and colloquial language—“this life just ain’t gon’ be the same”—life is not going to be the same following our witnessing of this murder. And it hasn’t been. I understand that Mr. Floyd’s murder in itself will not transform all that is necessary for justice to prevail. Nevertheless, for those who needed a wake-up call and heeded to it following Mr. Floyd’s death, life is not going to be the same. I must emphasize that I share this phrase in the most positively connotative manner. Use of colloquial language was inspired by listening to the mother of Mr. Floyd’s daughter. In a saddened state of pathos, the language of her testimony will continue to resonate……
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Share your thoughts regarding rhetoric or creating with students. As always, I’m looking forward to reading your perspective…
Sep142018
Why is the Essential Question Essential?
Why is the Essential Question Essential?
What is an essential question? I remember when I was in my capstone course at Temple University when my professor posed this question to my cohort and me. He said the essential question is essential for framing a unit. You can “hook” students into whatever stories you read in the unit by connecting all of these stories to a question that they will continue to investigate.
I didn’t quite understand how one question could possibly address all of the texts read in one unit at the time. I initially considered this one question to be quite limiting. I thought, why should we create the same question for reflection across texts? Why not investigate different questions and ideas?…
While reflecting on the challenges I had with constructing an essential question, the jazz tune “I Can’t Get Started (With You)” by Ira Gershwin, sung by Ella Fitzgerald, came to mind; I simply could not understand how one question could apply to all readings. I had difficulties getting started myself.
Today, I understand more than ever before why the essential question is dynamic. The essential question allows for:
- Purposeful reading: Students read with intention and use the question as a guide for deeper understanding
- A starting point for further investigation: While students are learning how to formulate their own questions, the essential question is a starting point
- Higher order thinking: The essential question should be an open-ended question. This creates a space for students to begin investigating other aspects of a given text
- Transfer of Learning: The essential question transfers from one reading to the next. Considering this, students have the opportunity to critically think about how this question applies in different contexts
- Interdisciplinary connections: Students understand how to apply the question across disciplines for a more dynamic learning experience
Michael Smith (my professor in the capstone course) and Jeffrey Wilhelm both agree in Going with the Flow (2006) that for an essential question to work, it must be debatable and most of all, it must be meaningful. To provide you with an idea of what makes an essential question, the following are five questions created according to the aforementioned criteria:
- How can literature serve as a vehicle for social change?
- How does conflict lead to change?
- What is truth and who defines it?
- What is reality and how is it constructed?
- What does it mean to be invisible?
Overall, these questions are created while backward planning and reflecting on what is essential for students to know and understand in a unit. Most importantly, these questions help when guiding students into more critical areas of inquiry. What essential questions do you and have you used in your classroom? In what ways have these questions changed the way you approach a unit? I’m looking forward to your comments….