The Miller's Tale

Hello everyone,

Last week I taught a lesson on the Miller's Tale to three periods of ENG IV, a 12th grade class. The class had begun reading Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and just finished the prologue. I enjoy The Canterbury Tales very much, and was excited to be able to teach a lesson that, criminally, was not included in the assigned textbooks they were reading the Canterbury Tales in. I chose one of my favorite tales, and perhaps the most iconic of Chaucer's oeuvre, The Miller's Tale. It is one of the funniest and grossest of the tales, and satirizes some vary basic and eternal human vanities; greed, ego, lust, scatological humor, etc. I was fairly certain the students would enjoy the tale on a surface level, for its shock value if nothing else, but I decided to focus on the concept of satire. In their reading of the prologue, which I observed in my 30+ hours of field experience, I noticed that students could generally comprehend the text well enough, but did not understand what Chaucer was attempting to accomplish on a satirical level. For lack of a better word, I did not feel students were "getting" what makes the Canterbury Tales such a timeless part of the literary canon. I designed my lesson with the hope of giving students the tools to identify and analyze this satire in all of Chaucer's work, not just the Miller's Tale.

After asking the class about Hugh Hefner, I opened the class with this video. We watched the first 6 minutes and a half of the video. Initially, I just wanted them to be able to visualize the character sin the tale and have an example of how Chaucer's jokes still apply to people's flaws today, but the video ended up serving an even better purpose. For struggling readers or more visual learners, students often referred to the main characters of the tale as "Oh, the hot chick from the video," or "Oh, the guy in the background who had a crush on Alison." I was able to pause the video at about 6:32 and display this to the class, which gave everyone a clear picture of the tale's four main characters. I found this helped students who struggled with Chaucer's complex syntax to identify description with the appropriate character.

I split about 200 lines worth of selections from the tale I felt characterized all of the main characters and showed students the climax (and, of course, the kissing of the "nether ye"). Because I only had an hour, I wanted to be able to really focus and dig deep into excellent examples of satire. In my first two periods, I used a round robin style, as my field experience teacher usually did, hoping to keep students in their comfort zone. In the third period, I read myself in my most active and engaging storytelling voice, and felt the class was much smoother and focused for it. I found that the more enthusiastic I was, the more enthusiastic student discussion became. It was great to see some of the students' faces light up in understanding, or snickering at a joke as I explained it. The climax, of course, really gripped the students, with many oohs and aahs and eeewwws. This is pretty routine for any class reading of the Miller's Tale, but it was so satisfying for me to see students I had observed to be uninterested in class or reluctant readers previously engaged in the class reading.

I feel that the students did understand what I was trying to get at. I have not heard back from my teacher, but I sent an email inquiring how the homework went. The questions I had originally designed as class discussion and reflection after the reading was assigned as homework by the field experience teacher, which I was very grateful for and impressed by; she placed a lot of trust in me to teach her students well. Unfortunately, I was only able to model an ideal answer for two of the periods in class after reading; we ran out of time in the first period, and I am unsure how the students will feel about the questions. In the class reading, I focused on breaking down every chunk I passed out and identifying elements of satire. Thanks to a class I had taken on the Canterbury Tales with the wonderful Professor Clasby, I was well versed in the society of the time and was able to fill students in on plenty of background knowledge.

Unfortunately, the students I mentioned earlier to be reluctant or struggling readers did not seem to receive the lesson well. I am worried I failed them, and wish I had had more time to go over the text and questions with them individually. Some of said students seemed completely disengaged by my reading, sleeping or texting through my lesson at times. I also think that was a bit of respect issue. I was not their teacher and a merely a "special guest," and did not have many opportunities throughout the semester to earn that kind of disciplinary command a teacher needs to work for. I will update this post when I receive word from my field experience teacher on how the homework assignments went. Hopefully my lesson was successful. My teacher told me after she thinks it went very well, and two of my classmates were there to observe, Pascal and Olivia. Perhaps they can give a more neutral third-party opinion.

Field Experience

Hi All,
I'm so excited to finally be able to contribute to the blog! Yesterday was my first day in my field experience and it went really well. My field cite teacher, whom i'll refer to as Ms. X, is one who I had observed last semester as well. She teaches both 7th & 8th grade. I observed both a 7th grade English Methods class and a 8th grade English Language Arts class.
In the 7th grade class, it was particularly interesting. Ms. X explained to me how this year South Miami K-8 decided to implement a class designed to strictly reinforce concepts commonly found on the FCAT. They work out of a textbook that is partnered with individual workbooks. Each chapter the class reads together and then does the accompanying work on that chapter in their workbooks. The chapters vary and are completely random. I lucked out that the chapter the students were reading was one I personally have an interest in--basketball.
Ms. X let me help out and move around the classroom as the students filled out their workbooks. They read a passage on Kobe Bryant and his desire to "up his game" enlisting the aid of Michael Jordan's former trainer. For a solid two paragraphs, as well as the topic sentence, of the chapter spoke of Bryant's desire to "up his game." However, the discussion quickly changed to how the way to do that was by focusing on his nutrition. The chapter went onto discuss: digestion, energy, vitamins, and overall nutrition. The students were asked simple questions of: what is this chapter about? however, many students did not have the desired answer of "nutrition." Instead they wrote things like: Kobe wants to up his game, Kobe wants to be like Mike, etc. While their answers were humorous and endearing (in terms of their pop culture references), they nevertheless were deemed "wrong."
I experienced my first real dilemma in providing a rational to the students. I explained how the text repeatedly referred to Bryant's nutrition as the basis of his self proclaimed "under performance." However, the 7th graders were quick to point out the topic sentence is about his desire to up his game. I couldn't just openly admit that, that was a huge fault in the writer. Or the FCAT in general.
Overall, my first experience was an interactive and enjoyable one!
--Brittany      

Gender in the Classroom

Hello everyone,

Here are the links I used in our discussion last class. If you have a spare half an hour, I highly recommend watching the video / reading the article. Very interesting food for thought.


Lana Wachowski's HRC Visibility Award Acceptance Speech

The gender-neutral Swedish pronoun, 'Hen'

Fifth and Final Field Experience Reaction

This was from my last field experience visit.

Q: Do you plan new lessons each school year or do you re-use them?

A:  Ms. X said that she changes the novels she teachers some years so that she doesn’t get bored. Ms. X also attends workshops every year, and she takes the knowledge she learns that she likes, and changes minimal things within her lessons.

Q: Is there a limit as to how many students you can have per class?

A: She said that the limit is 25. However, if two teachers are in a classroom the limit changes to 50.

Q: What are the most common academic barriers you see within your classroom?

A:  She said that it depends on the classroom, even in the honors classes, but she said she notices barriers of access. For example, a lot of them don’t have internet access or they lack experiences. Ms. X also said that a lot of students are on free or reduced lunch, and so those demographics usually lend itself to students who haven’t been exposed many cultural experiences which can affect their academics. She also said that there isn’t a lot of reading material at home, and their reading skills suffer.

Observations & Reflection

·       Ms. X's students were talking very loudly and not doing their in-class assignment. She was able to re-focus them by using appropriate levels of dominance. She let them know that class-time was not for socializing but for learning.

·       Ms. X uses proximity to her advantage. When a student is not on task, she walks over near them and they quickly got back to work.

·       Upon arrival to the classroom, Ms. X was shouting at one of her students, I felt that this was inappropriate and could have been dealt with in a better manner. I would definitely never shout at a student as I feel that it is not only inappropriate but not conducive for the kind of classroom and relationships I want to have with my students.

·       In a sarcastic manner, Ms. X said to one of her students that had not been in class for a while “oh how I’ve missed you”. I thought that was rude and probably didn’t make the student feel welcome and so I disagree with how she handled this. I felt that it became obvious to the student and the rest of the class that Ms. X was not fond of this particular student. While it is natural to be more inclined to some students more than others, it is not okay for the teacher to express it and remain neutral.

·       During an assignment that Ms. X was guiding them through, she told her students that if they could not come up with an example of a paradox that they were “brain-dead”. I was shocked that she said that because I felt that it was inappropriate and I would never say that. This is not conducive for a positive, encouraging classroom that motivates students to try their best.

Fourth Field Experience Visit

I had my fourth field experience visit and noted some observations, strategies, techniques and approaches that I agreed with and would implement into my own lessons. Again, I asked her a set of questions. Last week, I was supposed to teach a small group of students however she emailed me saying that she was sick and not coming to class that day and so I was unable to teach students. I hope that I will have another opportunity to do so.

Q: How much time do you devote to planning lessons?

A:  Plans bi-weekly. 2 hours a week.

Q: Do you think teachers assign too much or not enough homework?

A: Some give too much and some give none. It depends on the teachers.  Ms. X said that her assignments have to be relevant and that she doesn’t assign busy-work.

Q: Are there any areas you feel need improvement in your teaching?

A:  Ms. X said that she has to work on her time management skills. Also, she said that she is always a little behind; there is some part of the lesson she didn’t teach her students and that she takes a long time to grade papers, tests, etc.

·  Ms. X engaged her students by using technology and other mediums to get the information to her students. She had them listen to someone sing a poem about the Vietnam war and simultaneously read the poem.

·  Ms. X had her students fill out a poetry analysis handout in which they had to reflect on the title, summarize the poem, recognize different kinds of figurative language, observe the poet’s attitude, and identify the theme.

- I really liked the poem analysis handout because it made it clear to the students what Ms. Fernandez expected from them.