RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

Good Class Setting

My one sentence statement was: “I think the best setting for any class, especially one for writing, is one where students can feel comfortable openly sharing and debating ideas.”

I feel that this is extremely important, especially in English. With other subjects, students  may  feel that they open themselves up for embarassment, perhaps if they don’t answer a question correctly. The risk is even higher in English, where students are asked not to just recite what they have read, but to share their thoughts on it, or how it makes them feel. Because this setting can be a lot more personally revealing than most other classroom settings, I feel that my previously mentioned statement is quite important. Sharing ideas, and debating them, is an integral part of the English classroom, and one which I hope to promote in great depth. I think it is important that students know how to share their ideas, and how to be able to disagree with other people while remaining respectful and getting their points across. These are skills that students can take with them well past high school and into any professional or academic setting.

One activity which I have seen used in my own classes at times is debate. I enjoy these very much, because I think it is great to see a lot of different viewpoints that students, with their variety in backgrounds, will bring to the classroom. One wrinkle in this assignment that I have especially found interesting in the past is choosing students sides for them, or making them debate both sides of an issue, as this forces students to think about issues from another’s perspective and see both sides of the arguement. I think that this is a very valuable skill to have, and one that I want to encourage students to take with them past my class.

Trackback URL

Leave a Reply