Graceful Professors and Teaching the Blues
Thank God for graceful professors. I'm still fighting off the illness that began a week and a half ago. I am starting to consider going back to the doctor for another round of antibiotics. The real bummer of it (beyond feeling more needy and demanding on my wife than normal and not being able to offer much in return) is that I feel like I've lost the last two weeks in the homework battle. The biggest fight was trying to get on the ball and get a research paper done in time for tomorrow's due date.
I realized last night that there was no way this was happening, and resolved to plead for mercy from the prof (of course the syllabus for the class says late papers will not be accepted, so I'm a bit worried, but feeling so sick that I really don't give a damn at the moment). I asked for an extension, explained the situation - going to the doctor last week and having a 2 day excused absence from school probably helped - and, thankfully, she has given me an extra week. It probably doesn't hurt that she's been really sick, too, and missed the same days I did last week.
On a positive note, the one productive thing I managed to complete in the last week culminated in me teaching a sample lesson to my English Methods classmates. I designed a Unit Plan on "The Blues, Langston Hughes, and You," and last night taught the introductory lesson. I began with the scene from the movie The Blues Brothers with John Lee Hooker playing his song "Boom Boom" on the streets of Chicago. We then took a look at lyrics from 2 current pop songs (one by Alicia Keys, the other by John Mayer) and the words to a poem written by Langston Hughes. They were presented without title and author. My classmates picked out the poem b/c of the language that was used, but we talked about how there were a lot of similarities. I then played clips from the two songs.
Next we created a reverse timeline, beginning with today's pop artists and working back to the 1950's. I was able to display and stress how today's music is heavily influenced and informed by the blues. We talked about why we might study the blues in an English class, and I suggested that by the time we finished the unit, we may find some other and more powerful reasons other than its connection to today's music idols.
I wrapped things up with an activity for small groups; each was given the same 3 paragraph history of the blues, and each group focused on one paragraph and filled out a graphic organizer with the who, what, when, where, why, and how information. I played some more John Lee Hooker as background music while they worked. The students then presented the info to the rest of the class. This helped us see where John Lee Hooker, from the video clip, fit in. It also helped us to complete our reverse timeline where we were stuck around the 1950's.
Teaching was exciting, a bit nerve-wracking, and very rewarding. I'm going to have the chance to teach this lesson in a high school classroom a week from Friday, so we'll see how it goes over in the real world!
Yesterday's weight: Unknown | Yesterday's workout: None (still sick)
I realized last night that there was no way this was happening, and resolved to plead for mercy from the prof (of course the syllabus for the class says late papers will not be accepted, so I'm a bit worried, but feeling so sick that I really don't give a damn at the moment). I asked for an extension, explained the situation - going to the doctor last week and having a 2 day excused absence from school probably helped - and, thankfully, she has given me an extra week. It probably doesn't hurt that she's been really sick, too, and missed the same days I did last week.
On a positive note, the one productive thing I managed to complete in the last week culminated in me teaching a sample lesson to my English Methods classmates. I designed a Unit Plan on "The Blues, Langston Hughes, and You," and last night taught the introductory lesson. I began with the scene from the movie The Blues Brothers with John Lee Hooker playing his song "Boom Boom" on the streets of Chicago. We then took a look at lyrics from 2 current pop songs (one by Alicia Keys, the other by John Mayer) and the words to a poem written by Langston Hughes. They were presented without title and author. My classmates picked out the poem b/c of the language that was used, but we talked about how there were a lot of similarities. I then played clips from the two songs.
Next we created a reverse timeline, beginning with today's pop artists and working back to the 1950's. I was able to display and stress how today's music is heavily influenced and informed by the blues. We talked about why we might study the blues in an English class, and I suggested that by the time we finished the unit, we may find some other and more powerful reasons other than its connection to today's music idols.
I wrapped things up with an activity for small groups; each was given the same 3 paragraph history of the blues, and each group focused on one paragraph and filled out a graphic organizer with the who, what, when, where, why, and how information. I played some more John Lee Hooker as background music while they worked. The students then presented the info to the rest of the class. This helped us see where John Lee Hooker, from the video clip, fit in. It also helped us to complete our reverse timeline where we were stuck around the 1950's.
Teaching was exciting, a bit nerve-wracking, and very rewarding. I'm going to have the chance to teach this lesson in a high school classroom a week from Friday, so we'll see how it goes over in the real world!
Yesterday's weight: Unknown | Yesterday's workout: None (still sick)
posted by Josh Frank at 2:06 PM| permalink |
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