December 7, 2009

American Idol It

During the first month of the semester, I did an activity with my writing class that helped shape the rest of the class. I gave them the topic of American Idol, put them in groups and told them to write down everything they knew about the topic.They thought I was crazy but they did it for a while. When they had exhausted everything they knew about American Idol, I asked them to think outside of the box and look for deeper meaning in the things they had written down.

At first, I got blank stares. Still, I held my tongue. I wanted to see what they could come up with. I didn't want to give them any further instruction because I wanted to see what they would do with my request. Slowly, activity and conversation started to pick up in the classroom. Soon there was much discussion and writing.

When I brought the class back together a little while later, what they had done was amazing. They had taken something as simple as "Simon Cowell" and turned it into a potential love triangle with Paula Abdul. They had taken American Idol auditions and turned it into a commentary on society and how we enjoy watching people self-destruct on live television. That piece of information was taken even further and before I knew it we had the entire chalkboard full of out of the box thinking and ideas. We had conspiracy theories, societal problems and concern over those crazy people who audition.

I asked them at the end of class, to write down what they had learned. Whenever I wanted them to dig deeper into their topic throughout the semester, I told them to "American Idol" it. Because of this activity, they knew just what I wanted and they got to work. These past couple days, as I reviewed their portfolios, journal entries, final research papers and final reflection papers, I realized just how much they have learned. About 70% of my class wrote something about how "American Idoling" their papers has helped them. It was a simple activity that I thought might work and it turned into a critical thinking exercise that defined our semester.

One student who never seemed to particularly like me wrote in her final paper that "American Idol" is not and should not ever be used as a verb and that she thought it was "stupid." Of all the research papers, hers was the one that lacked analysis and critical thinking the most.

Although I am mostly thrilled with the final papers (I gave some of the highest grades I've ever given) and with the progress of most of my students, it is this comment that will stick in my head. From now until I teach that course again, I will be contemplating how to reach all students in the classroom, how to get everyone to buy into the critical thinking I wanted them to do to create better papers. I hate that I will let one negative comment bother me, but I will.

It is dulled though by what happened after my final speech class. One of my writing students came jumping into my room with a paper in hand. It was her theology paper and she got an A on it. I told her I was proud of her; it was quite obvious she was proud of herself. As I packed up my stuff to leave, I asked her if she had come to show me because she applied what she learned in my writing class. Sheepishly she said, "Yeah," as she doodled on the board and drew a heart with the words "Love Ms. B" underneath.

Heart doodling to the forefront; American Idol as a verb comment to the back please.

Ah, now that's better.

If you'd like to see some other education in action, please check out this website for information regarding a cool science fair!