We need to start thinking about our curriculum creation in
relationship to an educational buffet, especially a buffet of the past verses
the buffet for the future.
Currently, our students are led to this buffet with so many
choices, and no directions. Very few things are labeled, food choices are mixed
and matched in stomach-turning ways. The buffet changes every year, and for many
of our students it feels like none of the same food appears as they go from
freshmen to senior English. And the
worst of it, is the timing…students are rushed into the room, told to grab and
eat on the go. They might enjoy the food
at one station, or might want another “taste,” but there is no time. And thus, the meal ends and they go home with
a devastating belly ache.
Things need to change.
This buffet needs continuity; that continuity should start with their
freshmen year and builds up unit by unit, and more importantly semester by
semester. Students need to see that the lessons
in English are not in a vacuum, and there needs to be more recursion. There also needs to be more richness to the
lessons and to do that we need to slow down.
Students need the chance to browse, sit down, and really digest the
curriculum that is served. We also need
to think about choice—and maybe this is more for upperclassmen—and letting the
students pick their own reading so
students can see they are also a part of curriculum creation.
We all know “fast food” is not good—yet why are we still
teaching a “fast food” curriculum?
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