A Native Returns 6

A NATIVE RETURNS #6

In the normal course of events, I rub elbows with many people and involve myself in conversations with a variety of groups. Frequently, when they discover that I am an English teacher, the complaints roll in and threaten to engulf me. These attacks are often in the form of humorous and good-natured needling, but . . .

The businessman says he cannot hire secretaries who can spell, punctuate, or file alphabetically.
The shop owner announces that he cannot hire workers who can read and understand written directions that will help worker learn a new skill.
The college instructor sarcastically states that whatever the incoming student was doing before he arrived, he wasn’t studying English.

As soon as the fact that I am the head of a high school English department is established, I am suspected of being responsible for the whole mess. I have very little defense because I am not sure that there is a mess.

I can point out that, more often than not, the critics are products of the same system. The argument does not make much of an impression: there is something sacrosanct about “the good old days.”

All of these criticisms probably have some degree of validity, but they cover a variety of needs. Teachers of various disciplines complain that the student does not show that he has learned to use his native language. The student may very well have learned to use his native language, but he often sees no connection between using it in the English classroom and using it in the science or social studies classrooms.

At Oxford Hills High School, we understand the need for the student to realize and appreciate that what he learns in one classroom applies to what is being taught in another classroom, and we are working in that direction.

Last spring we made a small beginning with juniors by combining a term paper in social studies with a term paper in English. The student was assigned a topic by hi history teacher who evaluated the student’s coverage of the subject matter. Meanwhile, the student’s English teacher showed him how to research and organize the presentation and evaluated that part of the paper.

This year we have expanded this cooperation to the science and math departments and have included several grades. We have employed a consistent method of the mechanics of the paper so that one teacher does not tell a student one thing while another teacher tells him something else.

In English the student learns how to describe a process, how to describe a place or person, how to present an opinion, and how to narrate and event. In another class he learns the facts, theories, processes, and events of a particular subject.

The result should be that the student will discover that the methods and approaches to composition that he has learned will make his assignments in other subjects easier and more acceptable.