When you look back on your high school year was senior year English a real highlight for you? Probably not. I remember vocabulary workbooks, weekly themes, reading a whole-class novel (or not reading it) and talking it to death during class. I am certain that there was not much happening that connected to “real life”. Thankfully for some of next years seniors that will not be the scenario….
I just read a new curriculum for 12th grade english, written by a highschool english teacher in my school district and it is so exciting I want to go back to highschool and take the course! The title is Literature and Media Literacy and the class will examine just that; how literature, current issues and the media interact to effect society. Mentor text will be used and the teacher will model her own thinking about an issue. Reading, research and writing will be constant as students examine literature and various types of media pertaining to an issue of interest to them.
Imagine, giving high school seniors the respect and responsibility to develop their own research questions, there own purpose for reading….I think there are a lot of lucky seniors out there who will have much better memories of their English class.