It only takes a spark...
A story about my failures and my learning in teaching students in CHC2P for the blog series: Hindsight 2020. Originally published as part of Write-On, the 2016 Ontario summer literacy symposium, also published on the OHASSTA website It was hard to believe that they were the same students. Phones were put away (mostly), eye contact occurred between students whose heads were together in intense and sometimes spirited discussions about rural life in 1950s Quebec society. “Why did he just go to church and pray?” “I would’ve been so angry, I would just burn the sweater!” “Why didn’t he just send it back and get a new one?” “Who was the minority? Was it the francophones or the anglophones?” Part of the student-developed word wall *** The week before, Kim had been trying to get these same students working together. The desks were in groups and had been all semester. She had grouped according to the learning needs of particular activities, accounting for reading ability, first language, ...