Of High School Students and Literature

On this episode we meet two high school English teachers and discuss what a modern English Department looks like.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the assembly podcast.

(00:16):
I'm your host, Daniel Bader.
In our last episode, we dove into the new K-5 curriculum for literacy standards, the
result from a new law passed in Wisconsin called Act 20.
Today I want to talk about the other end of the spectrum, about high school literacy.

(00:37):
This comes up because this week I've been getting a whole bunch of photos from one teacher
in particular, Maggie Jordan, of her students reading of Mice and Men.
It got me interested in what our students do in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade and
where those standards come from and how we keep things interesting for our older students

(01:03):
and also where teachers get their motivation and what they think about when they're building
their classes.
So joining me first is Maggie Jordan.
And then she's new to the district, but she's been an educator for 10 years.
She's been here in South Montana for two years.
And then John Leroux, who has been with the district going on 29 years.

(01:27):
So super excited to hear what that will say and the energy they bring.
First, let's start with Maggie Jordan.
Welcome to the podcast.
Maggie Jordan, an English teacher at South Milwaukee High School.
Thanks for being here.
I'm so excited.

(01:47):
Thank you.
We were thrown together this week because you shared some photos of your students, 10th
grade students, reading of Mice and Men to each other.
Or out loud, I guess, a dramatic reading.
Yes.
And that got me thinking that we talked about elementary literacy last podcast in the last

(02:09):
episode.
It got me wondering just kind of how, what modern literacy looks like for high school
students.
That's a very valid question.
So just speaking to of Mice and Men first.
So chapter five, there's this infamous barn scene and in the barn, one of the main characters

(02:30):
kills another main character in a barn.
And so for this unit, I decided to bring in hay and we were going to read in the pod sitting
on hay bales.
And it was honestly magical how much hay brought the literature to life.
I was wondering about the hay bales and all the pictures.
I thought, oh, the people on the pod are decorating for fall.

(02:52):
It was specifically for this.
Yes.
This is specifically for of Mice and Men and just the amount of chatter and questions that
a simple hay bale could bring up also drew into this appeal or this excitement.
And so yesterday for chapter five, we did that in the pod pretending we were in the
barn.

(03:13):
And luckily for weather wise, today we got a beautiful day and the final scene of the
book is down in the brush.
And luckily, South Milwaukee is covered with brushy areas.
So we were able to go outside today and read that final scene.
Go ahead.
Well, I was going to, so if we could back up one second.

(03:34):
So tell us about of Mice and Men if people haven't read it and why 10th graders, it's
appropriate for 10th grade.
Totally that's a, that's a very valid question.
So actually this is one of the very few novels that we read as an entire class.
So of Mice and Men is a novella.
It's centered in the 1930s by John Steinbeck and it's just the story of true friendship

(03:59):
and they're chasing this American dream, which unfortunately they never get to achieve.
And so this story is really great to start off sophomore year because it draws on all
of the skills that they learned from their ninth grade year.
And we get to take a look at them together.
And because it's so short, we're able to fly through it within the first month of school.

(04:23):
So we can really get into research and get our hands to where we need to be.
And so it's nice to start off as a whole class novel and we won't see another whole class
novel until second semester.
So the students will be choosing choice books.
And then if we look at their ninth grade year, their ninth grade year was more short stories

(04:44):
or short nonfiction articles.
The only full class reading that we did was Romeo and Juliet, which was another great
way to have students acting out and putting their own modern adaptation to the end and
also another, you know, faithful ending.
I think I got my prom date reading out loud, reading Romeo and Juliet out.

(05:08):
She was bambolio.
Okay.
I love that.
That's my, I remember doing that in 11th grade.
So that's more of a 10th grade thing.
Yeah.
And so then, yeah.
So with Romeo and Juliet, we did the biggest cheese competition to see who could give a
cheesier pickup line for Romeo.

(05:29):
And so I selfishly love classroom books because we can have these very authentic real life
moments.
And when students have a book that they choose, the hope is that they get super into it, but
then we can't have these shared experiences of communal reading or communal inside jokes
that you wouldn't get unless you were reading that specific novel.

(05:52):
Yeah.
That's kind of my question.
It sounds like a pretty heavy chapter to do as a group read in a circle.
How did they, how did they react to that?
I mean, that's a very serious part of the book, right?
Yeah, they are, they are such serious scenes, but I think that life is super serious.

(06:13):
And so it's like talking through these serious moments and like having the tools and the
strategies in order to dive into the heavy, right?
Because sometimes life's get, get super heavy.
And if you don't have the tools to talk about these things, then they like fester inside.
And so creating those spaces to dive into these, these themes, I find to be super helpful.

(06:37):
Sure.
And I guess I would say in popular culture, those kinds of things are, those scenes are
pretty, pretty predominant, right?
Watch any thing on TV is like that.
But to read it in a group like that, it's very intimate.
And I would, I would think it'd be very engaging for a student who, you know, we always think

(07:00):
of them as jaded, but they're not there.
They want to be engaged, right?
And it brings it literature to life.
And I think other subjects are especially English.
The project is writing.
And so to make literature 3D or to like be acting with like our bodies and our like full
selves, I think that helps engage students who might not necessarily like English.

(07:25):
And so over the past few days, it's been really nice to see certain kids shine.
Who normally are a little sleepy behind their desk or not really engaged being like, I hate
writing or I hate reading.
This kind of brings that to life.
And how does, I mean, tell us generally like for 10th graders, what are the goals of the

(07:46):
year?
What do we?
Totally.
So the English department is super, super great.
And I'm just gonna come, come up here.
We have all of our learning.
We have all of our learning targets and I don't know why I'm talking to the microphone
as if it's a live video.
And so every year the English department sits down and we take, we take a handful of skills

(08:07):
that we want students to master at the end of each course.
And so we look at what ninth graders are doing and then we scaffold up to say, okay, this
is what they should be doing by 10th grade.
This is what they should be doing by 11th grade and 12th grade and so on.
And so we set aside these power standards to make sure that we're hitting them.
And so as we're looking at our standards, it's like really the sense of building on

(08:32):
what they started last year.
And so looking at this first unit, why it's super great is we have a lot of those same
skills of like finding textual evidence or being able to clearly state an argument.
And now we're gonna be taking it to the next level with research in terms of now you have
to synthesize this and be creating your own, own idea.

(08:53):
Interesting.
Look, just for our listeners, could you read maybe one or two of those?
Totally.
So students will assess and utilize textual evidence to analyze character, theme, and
other literary elements and make references.
And so looking at this, our textual evidence or analyzing characters, taking these scenes
and acting it out, like why would this character, George, have chosen to kill his best friend

(09:20):
Lenny?
What were his choices and was he justified in doing that?
And so another one would be an example of students will evaluate validity and argument
across multiple accounts in a variety of texts.
So looking at that one, that will be our next unit.
That will be research.
And so now we have the one text of Mice and Men.

(09:43):
And now in our next unit, we're gonna be having them take these themes and say, where do we
see this in 2024?
And so it's very beautiful because now they're gonna be analyzing their own lives or their
lives in South Milwaukee and saying, what do these sources say about identity?
What do these sources say about socioeconomic status?

(10:04):
What do these themes say about myself?
And so it's very exciting where we're headed.
And you taught freshmen last year, right?
So are these the same suits you're seeing them again?
I have half and half.
So I would say I have half of the same students that I had last year and it's a joy to have
them back.
And then I have half that are new to my class, but not new to South Milwaukee.

(10:28):
Got it.
Got it.
So you could build on those skills, right?
And you know, well, you know, at least half of them and where they were at the end of
the year.
Yeah.
And it's so, so great to watch this, this growth and this progression and this maturity.
And then what else do we do in 10th grade?
What else do students do?
So we, you started the year with this, this novella and then you said it's kind of research

(10:51):
projects.
When they sum it up, what's it going to look like in June?
Yeah, that's a, that's a very fair question.
We talk more about like literary analysis and rhetoric and literary criticism.
And so those are like the main three things that we're transferring up.

(11:14):
Okay.
So tell me about, so this is one part of their experience and South Monk High School in the
English department.
What are the other experiences that they have?
The English department, I could speak so highly of each of my colleagues and it's just so
great to be a part of the English department.

(11:37):
So English nine and English 10 are just the standard, if you want to call them survey
courses where you get a smattering of everything.
And so that's English nine and 10.
And then their 11th and 12th grade year, they get a little bit more choice and a little
bit more opportunity.
Also sorry to leave out honors English nine and now English 10 has moved to AP seminar,

(12:02):
which is super great.
That was not an offering for English 10 last year.
And so 11th and 12th grade year, we have AP research.
We have AP literature.
We have so many AP classes, I'm blanking on them.
But in regards to the writing electives for English, we have three writing electives.

(12:27):
We have composition, media studies, and journalism.
And so these three choice English classes that you can take and as an 11th and 12th
grader really focuses on writing skills.
Katie Swanson has a really, really great composition class that focuses on writing for a various

(12:48):
amount of mediums.
But I think she does a really great job because students who hate writing will leave her class
feeling more empowered and confident to write.
And so that's just so great to see.
And then media studies is obviously I'm biased because that's the class that I teach.
But media studies has us really looking at the media.

(13:09):
And I just think that teens are so invested in their screens and what's happening.
And so it's our job to teach them to identify this bias or it's our job to teach them how
to look at all of these messages and kind of parse through creating meaning of that
and what knowing or unknowing messages are being sent.

(13:33):
So we have a really fun time in media studies.
This year we added a TikTok unit just because I have no idea what TikTok is.
And so I got to see what all of this buzz is about.
And just like the power of what these messages are being sent and scroll time.
And it's been really great with our cell phone policy to talk about like the addictiveness

(13:58):
of screen time.
And so I guess it's awesome to see how their emotions are validated but only shows the
more important reason why we have the caddies.
Yeah sure.
Yeah that makes sense.
And they'll kind of see maybe the adult take on why that is.
And then our two literature courses are diverse authors and writers.

(14:21):
And the other literature course is themes in literature.
And so those two courses focus more on the reading aspect as opposed to the writing aspect.
So once you get out of your freshman and sophomore year a lot of windows open as to what's possible.
Yeah that is really interesting.
My high school did not have that.

(14:42):
I was an honors English student but there were not electives for that.
Like these sound fascinating these classes as an English geek sound really interesting
to me.
Absolutely.
And I just think of my 12th grade year I was stuck in British literature and we read Middle
English and Beowulf.
And I'm not saying that doesn't have its time and place and like as an English person I

(15:04):
can geek out for that.
But that's not everybody's jam right.
And so I think that what is super unique about our department is that you do get that choice
of what sounds interesting to you.
And students can really tailor their experience to what they want to get better at.
And so I think writing no matter what your profession is if you struggle with that like

(15:29):
this is where we need to take you so outside of this building you can be successful whether
you are a nurse writing up reports or a police officer writing up reports.
There are just so many reports to be written and so they need to know how to do those things.
Sure and yeah and emails and being taken seriously and then you know resume writing or just like

(15:52):
said any communication you may have being able to write effectively is key.
Joining us on the podcast is John Leroux one of Maggie's colleagues.
John welcome to the podcast.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for having me.
You're welcome.
Tell me what you teach here.

(16:13):
How long have you been in South Mark?
I teach English here at the high school and I am starting my 29th year here in the district.
So I've been around the block for a while here.
And what grades or classes do you teach now?
Right now I have a few sections of the sophomore English so Miss Jordan and I work together
with the sophomore curriculum and then I'm teaching diverse voices and literature which

(16:37):
is a junior senior combined elective.
Okay and what I would hope to have a conversation about is maybe you could expand on the conversation
we had about curriculum standards.
How do you guys as a department decide even where to start with your ninth graders and

(16:58):
walk it out to 12th graders?
We started a lot of it comes from the common core state standards you know because you
know we have a list of standards this is what the state says by the time a student is finished
with whatever grade these are benchmarks they should be hitting.
So a lot of our curriculum development came from there.

(17:19):
There are subtle differences from grade to grade but that's really where we kind of started
because you know they had this question of okay what do we teach and how do we teach
it you know those decisions need to be aligned with some standard somewhere it can't just
be you know what I think I'm going to do this for no particular reason with no particular

(17:39):
desired outcome.
And so where do we want students to be by the time they leave here?
Like what can we say through an English program that we want students to know?
Yeah and that's an interesting thing I think when you think about it from that perspective
I think the best way to explain it is because we have a number of students who are going

(18:04):
directly from South Milwaukee High School into four-year colleges.
Are those students equipped to be successful in reading and writing at the college level
and not just get by but they'll manage very well.
Students who are maybe not going the four-year route it's not like they don't need to have
a basic set of literacy skills.

(18:25):
You know can they read effectively?
Can they be critical readers and you know can they be critical consumers of the information
they're reading?
Can they go beyond just saying this is a piece about something can you dig below the surface?
Can you articulate the themes behind that?
Writing wise at the academic level are you prepared for academic writing?

(18:51):
If you're not going the academic route are you prepared in the workplace?
Can you communicate effectively with whatever sort of writing you would need at the workplace?
And that's I guess that's kind of mixed bag because every student has individual needs
and I think the easiest way to say is whatever your individual needs and where you see yourself
going can we help provide that for those students.

(19:13):
When you start with those state curricula are there is it like a checklist by 12th grade
students should be X Y and Z or is it more nuanced than that?
Well it's I think a checklist is a pretty decent way to look at it.
If you look at the Common Core State Standards which is you can look at online you know you
will have a pretty massive list of literacy writing you know communication standards that

(19:37):
students should be able to accomplish.
And then so Ms. Jordan was saying that as a team you guys look at those and each year
maybe it's each year how often do you look at them and when are they due for a refresh?
Well it's kind of an ongoing process.
I mean we're fortunate in the English department that we have a group of people who have been

(20:00):
really willing to work over the summer and really do some hardcore collaboration like
what do we want to do, what does 9th grade English need to look like, where are the things
that they seem good at, where are the things that when we see students coming from the
8th grade what do they need a little bit of extra focus on.

(20:20):
Because in a perfect world every kid walks out of 8th grade in any school on the planet
going I can do all these things that 8th graders can do but the reality is some kids are better
at some things that you know there are deficiencies.
So we have to on one hand here's what we want but also let's look at where they are because
there might we might need to adjust some things based on what we're seeing trend wise.

(20:44):
Got it got it and what is the creativity for you as an educator 30 years in the in the
field when you take those how do you keep interested in it and and how have you refined
your craft?
That's a good question I think in terms of interest I am the kind of person I'm always
looking at new things that I can use that might be more engaging or thought-provoking

(21:09):
for students maybe things that are more time bound for and for example in diverse voices
I've got a little bit more leeway with that because you know there isn't necessarily a
here's the canon of diverse voices books that kids have been reading since the 1940s it's
more of a all right what can we use that will give students a sort of overview of different

(21:33):
perspectives from people and communities and walks life that they might you know they themselves
might not be very familiar with.
You know for example as I as I tell my students like we're reading a piece written from the
perspective of a young woman whose mother is Mexican born American and whose father

(21:53):
immigrated from Mexico and I say well I don't know what that's like okay because I'm neither
the above I'm just a guy born out in the country in South Carolina so I don't really understand
what it's like to be the child of immigrants to be someone whose language whose primary
language wasn't English but it's important for you to understand things like that's important

(22:15):
for you to understand the sort of challenges and obstacles and life that people live outside
of my own kind of narrow tunnel.
Now that's also nice because as we well know here in South Milwaukee we do have many students
who are sons and daughters of immigrants you know first generation American students so

(22:36):
those students are able to read and understand and appreciate something like that differently
because even if the student over there and that their desk isn't a Mexican American maybe
they're Serbian but they have an experience of I know what it's like to come to the United
States and have to assimilate to a new culture to learn the you know to learn the norms to

(22:57):
learn things that right now aren't really obvious to me and there that's a steep learning
curve but at the end of the day it's a fun class to teach and I find that really fascinating
because it forces me by nature of the topics to always I'm always kind of hustling looking
for new things like hey this would be good you know and there's not you know there's

(23:21):
not ever a moment in that class where I feel like I've got enough I we're good here it's
always what else can I find you know and now at the sophomore level you know we do have
certain things that we we've kind of been sticking with but there's also room for can
I pull in some things that relate to that maybe okay we're reading of mice and men right

(23:42):
now can I pull in something that relates to the world today that might give this give
students an extra layer of understanding about the struggles and the obstacles that migrant
workers during the depression faced that might be more relevant in your 2024 so it and I'm
a curious person I'm always looking for more for more information on things just because

(24:06):
I recognize as I so might tell my students if you don't look beyond your your narrow
little tunnel you miss everything out there and I grew up in a narrow little tunnel and
there was a lot of stuff out there and just by my life experiences I didn't have a lot
of exposure to a lot of things growing up in a small town in the country in South Carolina
so as an adult I've kind of made it my mission like I need to learn as much of what's outside

(24:30):
the tunnel and so I try to share a lot with my kids so they get a sense of there's a bigger
tunnel than any of us maybe are aware of.
Oh interesting yeah I could see if as a curious person how you can adapt to those those needs
how have students changed since you started teaching you kind of hinted at that at the

(24:53):
some of the topics that you're you're discussing but you know I you know maybe they're not
students have never really been interested in the classics until they really get a deep
read into them but but what are the attitudes what do they need with today that they didn't
need before or what do they what do they need then that they don't need now?

(25:14):
Well I think one of the things that I believe about all students I believe this is true
as much now as it was in 1992 when I started teaching and it might have been true in 1922
every kid wants to be successful right I know a student wants to come to class and ring
up ring up zeros so part of our challenge is to figure out how we can help them be successful

(25:38):
and trying to help kids succeed by forcing them to read archaic texts that they can't
really connect to is hard so to me the big thing that is changing is when we were kids
like there were there wasn't much of a question like here are the things you read not a lot
of real work about how these relate to the real world is like these are the the golden

(26:03):
text you know Moses delivered these down from the mountain carbon tablets this is what we
read in eighth grade this is what read ninth grade this is tenth grade and there wasn't
a lot of variety or anything and I think the one thing that students maybe need now more
than ever is they need the variety because you know human attention spans are changing
and that's not me being the old man yelling at the clouds that's just an honest assessment

(26:26):
of the world around us people don't have the attention spans that they had 30 or 50 years
ago we have a lot of distractions so I think one of our challenges as educators is how
do we find things that are a going to be able to you know capture their attention but not
just in an inner because I can entertain people all day long but that's not the goal here

(26:46):
the goal is I want to hold your attention but also force you to think force you to to
look beyond the surface and ask critical questions and I mean I'll use anything that I think
will accomplish that goal yeah yeah sure and you know I've Miss Jordan I were talking about
her media studies class and just how there's a section on tik-tok and there are some really

(27:09):
creative people that are using literary themes in these short form videos I can totally see
how they're adaptable to you know a classroom or something that you could teach how do you
know it kind of gets any said every kid wants to be successful how do you assess you've
had some big concepts big ideas here that we've talked about a lot of its pinned on

(27:32):
curiosity how do you assess how students doing how do they know how they're doing aside from
I mean because obviously you have to write a paper or create some sort of summative project
is one way but a lot of it comes down to the sort of individual conversations that you
have with kids and one of the things I try to do a lot of because you know we know in

(27:55):
a class of 25 or 30 kids there are gonna be some students who will dominate conversations
you know they've always got the hand up they're always want to add stuff and it's easy in
that case to kind of sense what those students are getting out of class because they're volunteering
all of it so I think one of the things that I always try to make sure I do is make sure
that I'm connecting with students who are quieter because I don't want you to think

(28:18):
that your contributions aren't viable just because you don't raise your hand and that's
where it's nice from a technology standpoint even do simple things like allow students
like put a comment in the stream right because not every kid's gonna want to raise a hand
or you're drawing attention yourself for yeah there's a lot of social ability there yeah

(28:41):
but you can put a comment in the stream and then I can respond to that privately hey that's
a great idea I'm glad you asked that question when you said that it made me think of this
other thing that I are you familiar with this so it allows for some pretty interesting dialogues
which in a conventional discussion in class you're not always going to get all of that

(29:06):
got it yeah interesting how does that maybe maybe parents know I mean I don't have a high
schooler yet but what is the online space it sounds like you have a pretty at least
an avenue outside of that classroom discussion to have a discussion what are those tools
that use well there's really two things number one is just the Google classroom you know

(29:29):
sometimes like a lot of times we'll when we're doing a unit we'll have like a reflection
document like okay so we're gonna read a passage a day in class we might start by saying okay
well I want you guys to spend five minutes if the the theme of the of the passage is
about overcoming obstacles or or about courage I might say okay well to start off with I
just want you guys to spend about five minutes writing about why it's important in life in

(29:54):
general to to be courageous in difficult situations if you have an example in your own life like
well I had to have courage in this condition with a situation right about that but if you
don't want to write about yourself you can just focus on the human condition and say
you know in general people in life need to have courage in situations because and that's

(30:15):
fine and then we do the reading and then I'll give them a chance that the second part of
the of the document is right now let's look at some of what the text supports like let's
start to form some conclusions based on what the author is saying so that's a primary way
but then I also will sometimes I'll say okay here just leave me a comment in the stream

(30:35):
like what's a question you had or was there something because you know we talk about how
reading is a subjective experience how you and I can read the same page of a text and
something occurs to me that you might just not see at all and then you might notice something
that I might not have really given a second thought to so I might put a comment in the
stream hey when you guys get done with this leave a comment something you notice a question

(30:58):
you had a connection you can make so just to kind of inspire them to look at not not
everything has to be a full paragraph response like hey you know what I read and a thing
popped in my head but then I also and I use this a lot more when we're working on more
summative pieces but I'll also tell students like if something pops up you know I get that

(31:19):
not every kid wants to ask in class you're always because we have our our Google your
Google messaging like just pop me a message say hey here's something I was wondering about
here's a question I have here's what I'm stuck on the assignment so we do I think we facilitate
some of those questions because I mean I get it you know every student wants to get out

(31:40):
of class because we only got about four and a half minutes before you got to be in your
next class or you got to get out of school right after school because you had to go pick
up your siblings from school you got to go to work like not everybody has structured
time during the school day so it's nice to be at least have that availability now there
are limits I'm not responding to an email at 3 a.m. but you know I generally try to

(32:05):
because it's important to have boundaries I'll try to say okay well if you shoot me
an email by 8 or so I'll hang on and take a look at it but if you shoot me an email
at midnight there's a better than average chance I will be sleeping because I'm an old
man.
Well I'd say that's pretty generous 8 p.m.
Well and that's you know it's not like I'm hard on the on the computer till 8 but I get

(32:27):
my work done at home we've eaten dinner I've cleaned up and I've got some time and I'm
reviewing work or whatever it's not like as teachers we all know we have so much work
to do it's not like okay as soon as I walk out of the building I'm free and clear there
are always things on the plate so I always try to carve out some time where I can either
get things done for the day or try to get ahead and for the next couple of days and

(32:48):
I figure if I'm doing that 7 o'clock to 8 30 just trying to get some things done if
I'm also feeling a couple messages from students questions or observations you know I can certainly
take the clerical work or whatever and just put on the burner for a moment and answer
my students comments.
Yeah so I'm giving away my age but I had to turn papers in you know in writing and then

(33:15):
they got marked up and sent back we've talked a lot about reading and response to reading
but can you go into a little bit of writing and what the standards are for writing and
how you and the rest of the department shepherd along their writing skills?
Sure well we have we work together and collaborate on rubrics so if we're writing literary analysis

(33:37):
papers there's a literary analysis rubric that the department follows so which is nice
because by the time you're a junior or senior this isn't the first time you've seen this
rubric so you already know because you've seen it several times before these are the
expectations so as we're even though it's not a physical piece of paper we're still

(33:58):
able to look at we're still able to make comments we're still able to to refer to the rubric
and it is it's different because you're right back in the you know the olden days as the
children would say you know you got the paper out there's the red ink bomb and you know
you underlining you're highlighting you're doing these things but you know you can do

(34:19):
that with technology it just it looks a little different.
Yeah and I suppose you can get some real back and forth and and actually develop something
better than having to take that red red letter paper back and and fix your original document
and turn it in again you guys can see what each you're commenting on in almost real time.

(34:41):
Yeah that's nice and also I think the other thing to me is a real benefit with that is
that you know our English department policy is that students can resubmit papers so and
when I tell students like hey you you have high expectations for yourself you want to
get an A or B in the class a C isn't a death sentence okay C is you have some good ideas

(35:03):
but we've got some work to do but let's look at the feedback I gave you let's sit down
let's talk about let's put our heads together let's really look at what you have and how
that goes from what you're doing right now to and I understand for students it's how
can I better my grade but it's also how can I become a more effective writer and I say

(35:25):
this to kids all the time I don't and I use this phrase loosely but I tell them like I
don't particularly care about your grade that's between you and your family I care about your
growth as a as an academic writer and if you focus on the growth the grades as sure as
I'm sitting here your grades are gonna take care of themselves because you're performing

(35:45):
you're growing and I will I'll see that you'll see that anybody who has eyes will see that
the work you're doing is paying off and yeah the grade will improve but more importantly
you'll be better at what we're trying to get you better at.
Is there anything that I didn't ask you about when it comes to curriculum development or
stand standards for our high school students or some of the classroom activities that that

(36:09):
you did want to share?
I think the thing I probably just want to highlight is when I look at our department
you know we have a lot of offerings you know when I first started here back in the old
building it was all freshmen take English 9 or English 1 as we called it all sophomores

(36:30):
take one semester of like the literary side of English 10 and then communication so they
had a speech and then a literature and writing juniors took English 3 you know your typical
American lit and then your seniors took world English 4 which was world lit and we had we
had AP English and that was and then there was like there was drama offering but there

(36:54):
wasn't a lot kids could really choose from and so we made the decisions department a
couple years ago while looking at the standards like so we changed it from at these so all
kids are basically an English 9 or English 10 but then at the junior senior level in
addition to the AP classes they can take you know we have diverse voices in literature
we have themes in literature we have composition we have media studies we have journalism we

(37:19):
have different sort of mini you know mini blocks if you will 18-week courses that aren't
forcing every kid to go okay every junior has to read Huckleberry Finn every junior
has to read Henry David Thoreau while I love those they're not for the masses necessary
the most you know compelling pieces of reading and I get that as much as that pains me to

(37:42):
admit as an English guy I understand that not every kid loves Ralph Waldo Emerson all
right I get it so we did a lot of work to change what we were doing but we didn't change
anything about our adherence to standards like the state standards all the things that
we're trying to strive for as far as like targets all that was in place and we just

(38:03):
sort of reimagined how we were going to get to that point and you know so it looks different
than it looked 29 years ago I started you know I think my first year teaching juniors
was my third year here in the building so 1998 and at that time it was English 3 English

(38:24):
4 you know and that was just here are the things we do and so we're radically different
now in terms of the the content but the concepts the skills that is where this all comes from
and we've we put a lot of work in at the at the department level to make sure that if
you're in my diverse voices class you're doing a certain number of big assessments

(38:47):
and these are things we're targeting miss Krijacek for example teaches she teaches one
of the themes in literature classes we collaborate all the time even though we're teaching different
classes they have the same types of assessments that we're hitting the same targets we're
just hitting them from different literary perspectives and so it's you look at all

(39:10):
that and you think man as a department we've absolutely worked our tails off to make this
work for our students and you know I'd be lying if I said that didn't feel good because
it does feel good to know that when we sit in the room together when we're working on
curriculum over the summer wherever we've got a lot of people who put a lot of thought
a lot of you know we sweat a lot to make this work for our students and we firmly believe

(39:34):
that's good for our kids so you know at the end of the day I put my head on the pillow
at night going yeah we're we're doing what we need to be doing for our kids okay well
let's leave it there John Leroy thank you so much for being on the SMI podcast it's
been my pleasure thanks I promised Maggie Jordan that I would kind of summarize the

(39:57):
courses that are available and it is an impressive list so worth reading I think English 9 and
10 there's nine English 9 English 9 honors English 10 and then AP seminar and then for
11th and 12th graders there's AP language and composition AP literature and composition

(40:18):
AP research composition diverse voices in literature journalism publication writing
media studies and themes and literature if you are a student or a parent of one of these
of a high school student definitely dive in and ask a guidance counselor about these courses

(40:40):
or talk to your student about what they might be interested in far and beyond you know what
I experienced and it'd be really exciting for my kids to experience thanks again to
Maggie Jordan and John Leroy for coming on the podcast thank you to the rest of their
department there are many that didn't weren't on the podcast but I appreciate all their

(41:04):
work this has been the SMI podcast if there is a future episode you like here please email
info at sdsm.k12.wy.us thanks again and we will see you next time