By Thomas R. Whitakert the heart of every TeachersInstitute is a process of "learningthrough vision and re-vision."

That is why we've placed on our cover themost vivid of the thirteen pieces in JasperJohns' "Catenary Series," on exhibit thispast winter at the Museum of Modern Artin New York. Its mixed media and its vari-ous images are certainly hard to hold in asingle thought. Composed in acrylic overaquatint and etching, it recapitulates therecurrent images of every other piece in theseries and incorporates a number ofglances at Johns' earlier work. Johns' sub-ject has always been "perception," and thispiece corresponds to the "learning through

vision and re-vision" to which this numberof On Common Ground is dedicated.

Consider the Museum's account of theartist at work: "Johns began this series withleftover, rejected sheets from two editionsof prints. He spent a month cutting andpasting elements and painting and drawingover them to come up with these thirteenworks. They offer an almost musical senseof transition in tone yet remain linked the-matically." In rather similar ways eachTeachers Institute, as it links a school dis-trict and an institution of higher education,discovers and enacts the meaning of the"Understandings and Procedures"; seminarleaders, as they revise their understandingof content, pedagogy, and collegiality,

develop seminars that are neither universi-ty classes nor professional developmentprograms; Fellows, as they re-vision theirclassroom work, write adventurous cur-riculum units; and the League itself, as itdraws on the experience of the Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute and the NationalDemonstration Project, expands through acollaborative diversity of communities,institutions, and teachers.

The images in Jasper Johns' piece alsohave resonances for us. That American flagin the upper left-hand corner boldly echoeshis well-known "Three Flags," which wasour cover image on the very first issue ofOn Common Ground. It keeps before us

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On Common GroundStrengthening Teaching through School-University Partnership

YALE-NEW HAVEN TEACHERS INSTITUTE® NUMBER 13, SPRING 2009

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®

Learning Through Vision and Re-VisionJASPER JOHNS, UNTITLED (CATENARY SERIES), 2001

(continued from front cover)the intended scope of the Yale NationalInitiative and its continuing efforts — asmost recently detailed in #12 of OnCommon Ground — to ensure thatTeachers Institutes in every state mayreceive some Federal support. The sun-like nebula against a blue sky adjacent toa nineteenth-century illustration of a fam-ily in paler blue may suggest the doubleemphasis on Sciences and Humanitiesthat is central to any Institute. The color-ful bits of a harlequin costume withechoes of Picasso, the little stick-figures,and the dribbles of purple are tributes toan energy of creative play that is illustrat-ed in one essay after another in thesepages. And the "catenary" itself, which wesee dipping and rising from the lower left-hand corner? That shape, made by gravi-ty's pull upon a chain or string suspendedbetween two anchoring positions, leadsthe eye across pictorial space rather likethe bridge images that we have often usedas metaphors for the collaborative work ofTeachers Institutes. The essays fromMartin Gehner's national seminar on"Bridges: The Art and Science forCommunity Connections" will in factallude to a Spanish architect, engineer,and artist — Santiago Calatrava — whohas made use of the catenary in his aston-ishing designs.

But first we must glance at the "learningthrough vision and re-vision" of the YaleNational Initiative, as it moves to bring intothe League yet more Teachers Institutes.This past July, on the inauguration of theIntensive Session, James Vivian welcomedto Yale and New Haven seventy-fourNational Fellows and twenty-six collegeand university faculty members from nineof the communities participating in theNational Initiative — as well as theInstitute directors from Pittsburgh,Houston, and Philadelphia. At the fourthAnnual Conference in October he wel-comed the returning National Fellows aswell as a range of district and universitycolleagues from Atlanta, Charlotte,

Chicago, DeKalb County, Houston, NewCastle County, New Haven, Philadelphia,Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Francisco, andSanta Fe. The Conference panels, discus-sions, and reports included "From NationalSeminars to Local Classrooms," "TheTeachers Institute Approach," and "Stepsand Strategies in Planning a New TeachersInstitute." There were also group sessionson planning for seminars and planning orstrengthening a Teachers Institute.

This number of On Common Groundfocuses on such continuing teaching andlearning. We include essays on "teaching"and on "planning," followed by statementsfrom seminar leaders and Fellows thatreflect upon the national seminars, thewriting of curriculum units, and classroomteaching. And we include images that willprovide some vivid further comment.

Essays and ImagesWe begin with a condensed version of areport of research by Rogers M. Smith thatdocuments the effectiveness of theTeachers Institute approach in fosteringteacher quality. With "StrengtheningTeaching" we have placed two images thatmay remind us of states of accomplishmentat earlier moments in the history of teach-ing in America. One is "Country School"(1871) by Winslow Homer, a great artistbest known for his landscapes who alsohad a strong interest in elementary educa-tion. The other is one of five panels fromHonoré Sharrer's "Tribute to the AmericanWorking People" — a remarkable altar-piece triptych in idealized realism with acap-clad worker in the central panel —which here depicts a mid-twentieth-centu-ry schoolroom.

The piece by Langdon L. Hammer,"Teaching Voice," then invites us to hearthe "voice" in what we read and what wewrite. With it we have placed "The Gift ofReading," one of several paintings byEdward Gonzalez that dramatize readingas an interpersonal and communityprocess. (Fittingly enough, a new public

school in Albuquerque now bears hisname.) The perspectives opened up bythis essay will be further developed inLangdon Hammer's two other contribu-tions to this number: "Remarks on WritingCurriculum Units" and "Listening forVoices."

The following piece by Peter Conn,"Teaching: The Key to EducationalChange," offers an account of the emer-gence of the Teachers Institute ofPhiladelphia as an active force for change.With this essay we have placed WinslowHomer's subtly beautiful watercolor"Blackboard," which continues the themeof elementary education found in many ofhis oils. The geometrical marks on theteacher's blackboard belong to a method ofdrawing instruction from the 1870s, whendrawing was understood to have a practicalapplication in industrial design, but theteacher herself suggests in face and stancethe deep presence from which creativeaction can emerge.

We will say more about the planning of aSan Francisco Teachers Institute in our edi-torial introduction to these pieces. Here it isenough to note a major theme that runsthrough Dongshil Kim's comments fromthe San Francisco United School District,Linda Buckley's from San Francisco StateUniversity, Peter Novak's from theUniversity of San Francisco, and LisaErnst's story of the planning as experiencedby an elementary school teacher. All fouremphasize a commitment to "an ethic ofsocial justice" that has been implicit in theTeachers Institute approach from its inau-guration more than thirty years ago in NewHaven, but that attains a fresh explicitnessin these words from San Francisco. Withthese essays we include three celebratoryand instructive images that evoke aspectsof that metropolitan area: a lithograph of"Treasure Island from the Golden Gate"; aquilt by Faith Ringgold called "DoubleDutch on the Golden Gate"; and "UrbanFreeways" by that long-time San Franciscopainter, Wayne Thiebaud.

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2 ON COMMON GROUND

Whitaker: Learning Through Vision and Re-Vision

SPRING 2009 3

Contents

Credits: Front Cover: Jasper Johns. Untitled (Catenary Series). 2001. Acrylic over aquatint and etching, 18 3/16" x 26 13/16". The Museum of Modern Art, anonymous fractional and promised gift(352.2006.10). © 2009 JasperJohns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY. Page 4: Winslow Homer. The Country School. 1871. Oil on canvas, 21 1/4" x 38 1/4". Saint Louis ArtMuseum, Museum Purchase. Page 5: Honore D. Sharrer. Panel from five-part painting Tribute to the American Working People. 1951. Oil on composition board. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington,DC, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation. Photo Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY. Page 6: Edward Gonzales. The Gift of Reading. 2008. Oil on canvas. ©2008 EdwardGonzales. All rights reserved. Page 8: Winslow Homer. Blackboard. 1877. Watercolor on wove paper, 21 5/8" x 15 1/4". National Gallery of Art, Gift of Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., in Honor of the 50th Anniversaryof the National Gallery of Art (1990.60.1). Page 10: Treasure Island from the Golden Gate. 1937. Color lithograph, 15 x 51 cm. Courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Page12: Faith Ringgold. Double Dutch on the Golden Gate, from the series Woman on a Bridge #2. 1988. Acrylic on canvas, 68 1/2" x 68". ©1988 Faith Ringgold. Page 13: Wayne Thiebaud. Urban Freeways.1979. Oil on canvas, 44 3/8" x 36 1/8". Private Collection. © Wayne Thiebaud/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Page 14: Thomas Eakins. The Writing Master. 1882. Oil on canvas, 30" x 34 1/4". TheMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1917 (17.173). Photo Credit: Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY. Page 15: Jacob Lawrence. In theNorth they had the freedom to vote, Panel no. 59. 1940-41. Casein tempera on hardboard, 12" x 18". The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. © 2009 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation,Seattle/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Page 16: Lewis W. Hine. Icarus Atop the Empire State Building. 1931. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photographyand Film. Page 19: T. M. Pritchard. Coalbrookdale Bridge. 1779. Photo courtesy of the Yale University Press. Page 20-21: Santiago Calatrava. Puente de Lusitania. Color photograph. © Hartill Art Associates,London, Canada. Page 22: Aaron Douglas. Image accompanying Listen Lord: a prayer from God's Trombones: seven negro sermons in verse by James Weldon Johnson. 1927. Courtesy of the Yale Collectionof American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Page 24: Augusta Savage. Lift Every Voice. 1939. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. Courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature,Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Page 26: Jasper Johns. Numbers in Color. 1959. Encaustic and newspaper on canvas, 66 1/2" x 49 1/2". Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Gift of SeymourH. Knox, Jr. (K1959:10). © Artist or Artist's Estate/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Page 27: Unknown Photographer. Rice paddy fields, Japan. Ca. 1880. Photograph. Photo Credit: Adoc-photos/Art Resource,NY. Page 29: Sol Lewitt. 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 Cross and Tower. 1984 Yale University Art Gallery, The Janet and Simeon Braguin Fund. Page 32 (Left): Catherine Parr, attributed to Master John. Ca. 1545. Oil onpanel. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Page 32 (Right): Kensington Vivier, "The brinded cat hath mewed." 2008. Page 34: Claes Oldenburg. Floor Cake. 1962. Synthetic polymer paint and latex on can-vas filled with foam rubber and cardboard boxes, 58 3/8" x 9' 6 1/4" x 58 3/8". The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, Gift of Philip Johnson. (414.1975). Photo Credit: Digital Image © The Museum ofModern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY Page 35 (Top): Severin Roesen. An Abundance of Fruit. Ca. 1860. Oil on canvas, 25" x 30". The Art Institute of Chicago, Americana Fund (2004.2). Page35 (Bottom): James Peale. Still Life with Balsam Apple and Vegetables. Ca. 1820s. Oil on canvas, 20 1/4" x 26 1/2". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Maria DeWitt Jesup Fund (39.52). PhotoCredit: Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY. Back Cover: Jacob Lawrence. The Migration of the Negro, Panel no. 59. 1940-41. Tempera on gesso on composition board, 12"x 18". The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy. (28.1942.29). Photo Credit: Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

1 Editorial: Learning Through Vision andRe-VisionThomas R. Whitaker

4 Strengthening TeachingRogers M. Smith

6 Teaching VoiceLangdon L. Hammer

8 Teaching: The Key to Educational ChangePeter Conn

Planning a San Francisco Teachers Institute10 Planning for Social Justice

Dongshil Kim11 Fulfilling our Strategic Commitment

Linda Buckley12 A Legacy in the Making

Peter J. Novak13 A Teacher's Road Toward an Institute

Lisa A. ErnstSome National Seminars and CurriculumUnits from 2008

14 Remarks on Writing Curriculum UnitsLangdon L. Hammer

"The Theory and Practice of Democracy"15 Teaching the Basic Dilemmas

Ian Shapiro16 The Ethic of Risk in Teaching

Jesse Senechal"Bridges: The Art and Science for Creating

Community Connections"18 Building Bridges in a Seminar

Martin D. Gehner20 Puentes, Civilizaciones y Cultura

Maria Cardalliaguet Gómez-Málaga21 Bridges: Inspired by Nature

Karen R. Yarnall

22 Listening for VoicesLangdon L. Hammer

23 Finding Voice Through Personal NarrativeVictoria L. Deschere

24 Speak Words, Recite MessagesBonnee L. Breese

"Estimation"25 Making Estimation Precise

Roger E. Howe27 Rice to Feed the World

Elaine Yee Lun Tam28 Experimenting with Estimation

Sharyn F. Gray30 Estimation in Ecology

Brian P. Bell"Approaches to Shakespeare"

31 Finding a Variety of PossibilitiesPaul H. Fry

31 To See or Not to See? Kimberly K. Turner

"Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes"33 Human Nutrition and Biomedical Engineering

W. Mark Saltzman34 The Way Food Works

Kristin Peterson35 Getting an Early Start to a Healthy Life

Kathleen G. GormleySome Curriculum Units from 2007

37 Chess Game and DetectivesChristine Freeman Shaub

38 The Whodunit as Open Sesame to Critical ReadingWilliam Sandy Lewis

39 Interpreting the Origin of the Elements Ram Bhagat

"American Voices: Listening to Fiction, Poetry, and Prose"

By Rogers M. Smith

Editor's Note: This piece is a condensedversion of Rogers Smith's full report ToStrengthen Teaching: An Evaluation ofTeachers Institute Experiences, which isbeing published this spring by the YaleNational Initiative.

or thirty years, the Yale-NewHaven Teachers Institute has beendeveloping a unique model for

improving teacher quality. This approachhas now been tested and substantiated by aNational Demonstration Project and theestablishment of continuing TeachersInstitutes in Pittsburgh, Houston, andPhiladelphia. The Yale National Initiative,which now offers annual seminars forteachers from eleven participating commu-nities in ten states, is encouraging andfacilitating the establishment of yet moreTeachers Institutes across the UnitedStates. As this summary of recent researchwill indicate, Teachers Institutes signifi-cantly strengthen teachers in all five of themajor dimensions of teacher quality. Theyalso include all seven elements now recog-nized to be crucial in successful profes-sional development programs.

In recent years, educational researchershave converged on the conclusion that thebest way to help students learn is toimprove teacher quality. By common con-sensus, quality teachers are:

1. Teachers who really know their sub-jects;

2. Teachers with good basic writing,math, and oral presentation skills;

3. Teachers with high expectations oftheir students;

4. Teachers who are enthusiastic aboutteaching; and

5. Teachers who can motivate all stu-dents to learn.

Researchers also agree that most tradi-tional forms of professional developmentfail to foster teacher quality along these

five key dimensions. They are limited induration, content, and active learning, leav-ing teachers uninformed and uninspired.But high quality programs exist, andresearchers are gaining knowledge of theirkey characteristics. Recent studies stressthat these programs feature:

1. A focus on content and on pedagogylinked to content;

2. Active teacher learning;3. Teacher leadership;4. Extended duration;5. Collective participation by teachers

from the same school, grade, or subject;6. Alignment with state and local stan-

dards;7. Ongoing evaluation.As researchers also suggest, districts may

face a choice "between serving larger num-bers of teachers with less focused and sus-tained professional development or provid-ing higher quality activities for fewer teach-ers," since "good professional developmentrequires substantial resources" in terms oftime, expertise, and dollars. The GatesFoundation recently stated that an "effectiveprofessional learning community" requires"teachers who work together to meet sharedchallenges and improve their skills. Theyneed ongoing, job-embedded professionaldevelopment." These needs cannot be metthrough forms of professional development

that feature brief workshops for passiveaudiences of large numbers of teachers.

How do Teachers Institutes provide thesenecessary elements of teacher quality andprofessional development? At the heart ofthe Teachers Institute approach are partner-ships between institutions of higher educa-tion and public schools. Teachers Institutesoffer five to seven seminars each yearmeeting weekly over roughly threemonths, led by university or college facul-ty members, on topics that teachers haveselected to increase their mastery of whatthey teach. Institute programs focus oncontent and pedagogy linked to that con-tent; active teacher learning; extensiveteacher leadership; seminars of substantialduration; and the development of curricu-lum units aligned to state and local stan-dards. And, to varying degrees, they alsoinvolve continuing evaluations and oppor-tunities for collective participation. InInstitute seminars teachers gain moresophisticated content knowledge and alsoenhance their skills as they prepare cur-riculum units adapting the themes of theirseminars for their students. Most teachersare enthusiastic about the seminars and theopportunity to teach the units they havewritten. They expect more of the studentstaking them. And they succeed in motivat-ing their students to learn at higher levels.

4 ON COMMON GROUND

Strengthening Teaching

WINSLOW HOMER, THE COUNTRY SCHOOL, 1871

F

Rogers M. Smith is Professor of PoliticalScience at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Institutes are especially well-suited toensure that teachers do not learn advancedcontent in isolation from attention to how itcan be conveyed effectively, and that theydo not passively receive content from cur-riculum prepared by others. Instead, theyresearch and write curriculum themselves,challenged and aided by their peers toensure that it is exciting for students andteachers alike. The Institute approach doesembrace the alternative of "higher qualityactivities for fewer teachers." Each Instituteoffers seminars for roughly 50 to 80 teach-ers per year. But through dissemination oftheir units, Institutes can have an impact onfar more teachers than they enroll; and overtime, significant percentages of teachers inparticular schools and regions can be directparticipants. In New Haven, nearly 600teachers had been Institute seminar partici-pants by 2005, including 32% of the teach-ers then at work in New Haven highschools, 25% of the middle-school teachers,and 14% of the elementary-school teachers.

Annual surveys in the last six years ofover 1200 teacher participants at all fourexisting Institutes in New Haven,Pittsburgh, Houston, and Philadelphia

show that teachers chose to participate inInstitute seminars out of desires to improvethemselves in precisely the areas that arevital to teacher quality. When asked tochoose among twelve reasons for partici-pation in the seminars, the teachers at everysite listed the "opportunity to developmaterials to motivate my students" as theleading reason. Teachers drawn from allgrade levels and all subject areas partici-pated out of desires to obtain materials tomotivate their students (93.2% to 94.7%),to obtain curriculum suited to their needs(84.6% to 89.3% at the four sites), toincrease their mastery of their subjects(85.5% to 90.5%), and to exercise intellec-tual independence (85% to 91.6%). Thedata on unit use also show that after teach-ing their Institute units two-thirds of allparticipants rated them superior to all othercurriculum they had used. Roughly 60% ofall participants rated student motivationand attention as higher during these units,producing substantially greater contentmastery.

The surveys also revealed that, in con-trast to most professional developmentprograms, there are no widely shared criti-

cisms of Institute seminars. Instead, over96% of participating teachers praised theoverall program, rating it "moderately" or"greatly" useful, in a remarkably consistentrange running from 96.5% in Houston to100% in Philadelphia. Only 3% of therespondents said the program was usefulonly to a small extent. Fellows also over-whelmingly "agreed" or "strongly agreed"that the seminars provided them with pro-fessionally useful new knowledge and thatthe seminars raised their expectations oftheir students. These data strongly supportthe conclusion that virtually all teacherswho complete Institute seminars feel sub-stantially strengthened in their mastery ofcontent knowledge and their professionalskills more generally, while they alsodevelop higher standards for what their stu-dents can achieve.

Strong testimonials over the years byteachers, university faculty members, anduniversity and public school administratorsalso indicate that the Institute approachgenerates significant corollary benefits thatare not easily grasped through surveyresponses and not always visible in a rela-tively short time period. Perhaps the mostimportant of these include:

• The development of teacher leadershipcapabilities, as many teachers serve asTeacher Representatives or SeminarCoordinators;

• The development of teacher collabo-rations and teacher networks, as teach-ers gain knowledge of who their fellowteachers in other subjects, at othergrade levels, and in other schools are,and what they are doing in their class-rooms;

• The development of university facultywho see themselves as partners inimproving public education, ratherthan passive, often critical recipients ofits graduates;

• The development of university-publicschool institutional partnerships inways that promote respect andstrengthen education in both settings.

(continued on back cover)

SPRING 2009 5

HONORE D. SHARRER, TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN WORKING PEOPLE, 1951

By Langdon L. Hammeran you hear me? This is some-thing people say when they stepup to a podium, and we in the

audience nod assent or call out "No!Louder!" from the back row. It is an honestrequest for information, but it also has arhetorical purpose: the question allows thespeaker to put off the business of speakingfor a moment and create the bond with heror his listeners that is essential to effectivespeaking. Every speaker needs to be heard.

It is the same thing for the writer. Thewriter, however, is not in the room with us,and there is no point in posing a questionfor us to answer. So the writer has to haveother ways of beginning, other rituals ofcontact. "I am an invisible man," RalphEllison begins his novel narrated in the firstperson, Invisible Man. Although we can'tsee him — we can never see the writer weare reading — we hear him, "a disembod-ied voice," as Ellison puts it, speaking to usin the present tense across time and space.

There is no mystery more profound in lit-erature than the power of language likeEllison's to create a speaker, who, while weare reading, is present to us as someone wehear as clearly — no, more clearly, moreintimately — than someone speaking to usfrom a podium. But voice is not only aproperty of great literature. It is present inany writing that compels our attention,reflection, and response.

Two years ago in the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute and last year in theNational Initiative, I led seminars on voice inAmerican literature. In both seminars, theFellows were excited by the topic and, Isensed, frustrated by it. Excited, because"voice" points to the living experience of lit-erature that tends to be minimized or putaside in the "teaching to the test" they domuch of the time in the classroom; and frus-trated, because "voice" is hard to pin down ina definition and teach, and harder still to test.

What is it we hear when we hear a"voice"? There is a lot that can be said in

reply to this. I am going to give a singlesimple answer, which comes in two parts.A voice is not a thing but an action thatestablishes a relationship. A voice is some-thing that must be heard, and it is not avoice until it is heard. Built into any voice,and constituting it as a voice rather than asmere information or noise, is an address,explicit or implicit, to an audience.

We speak as teachers of trying to get stu-dents to discover their own voices. Theassumption is that, in the silence of theirheads or hearts, there is a voice, soliloquiz-ing, that they need to learn to get down onpaper: an essentially private or personalvoice. This may be the case, but in order to

discover it, students need to learn to hear it.They need to learn to be auditors for whatthey have to say, which means learninghow they sound to someone else; and in theprocess they need to recognize that they —we, all of us — speak differently to differ-ent people. This is a basic goal for anyoneteaching writing at any level: to help stu-dents learn to project an audience for theirwords, and to hear what they write. Thegoal is an impossible but necessary one: tolearn to speak and listen at the same time.(Practically, composition theorists tell us,these activities can be sorted out into thestages of draft and revision, the first onefocused on getting the words out, the sec-

6 ON COMMON GROUND

Teaching Voice

C

Langdon L. Hammer is Professor of Englishand of American Studies at Yale University.

EDWARD GONZALES, THE GIFT OF READING, 2008

ond on shaping them for an audience. Thefirst is called "writer-based" prose, the sec-ond "reader-based" prose.)

If the audience is one half of the equationcreated by voice (the "you," implied orexplicit), the other half is the resonance, theparticularity of the voice, the sound of the"I." What makes our words resonate? In thecase of acoustic voice, the body is key. Theresonance of a musical instrument resultsfrom the sound of air moving in a craftedobject which has a specific history, certaindimensions, and particular material proper-ties. Our voices are resonant in just thesame way. Acoustic voice is embodiedspeech, words that resound in the instru-ment of our bodies. It conveys an astonish-ing amount of facts about us: our age,weight, race, gender, and behind these, thesound of a region, a family, an education.(All of this and more we begin to infer andguess at, almost instantaneously, when wepick up the phone and hear a stranger'svoice.)

Above all, though, embodied speech con-veys feeling. Feeling is signified through

physical gesture and facial expression, aswell as vocal pitch, tone, and volume.When we put that together with the idea ofaudience, then we come closer to a defini-tion: voice communicates not only infor-mation but feeling; and the feeling com-municated includes how the speaker feelsabout communicating it to a particularaudience.

But voice on the page is precisely, asEllison terms it, "disembodied." When wetalk about a writer's voice, we are using ametaphor. We don't actually "hear"Ellison's narrator. Rather, we imagine hisvoice as we read; we hear him in ourmind's ear. We are doing something com-plementary to what we ask of student writ-ers. We want students to listen to them-selves while writing and to put themselvesin the place of their readers; and we asreaders, when we read skillfully andexpressively, give voice to what we readand put ourselves in the position of thewriter.

This is one reason that reading aloud, byteachers and students both, is an essential

classroom activity for every level of theschool system. To read a text aloud, withthe feeling that comes with understanding,is an act of interpretation. It requires thereader to take in the writer and speak forhim or her, while enabling that writer tospeak for the reader. A complicatedexchange takes place that depends on aspeaker giving voice to a text, and viceversa. When we read aloud, the writer isbeing heard.

"Voice" is tone; "voice" is style. So it istempting to think of "voice" as the lastthing to be taught, as an ineffable effectthat writers graduate to when they havemastered the more easily assessable nutsand bolts of composition. And no doubtthat is the case: it is the goal toward whichan education in reading and writingaspires. But it is also where that educationstarts. "Voice" is the beginning of writingand reading, their premise and foundation.It is the first thing a speaker must establishup there at the podium: "Can you hearme?" "Yes, we can," we answer, and thespeaker can go on.

SPRING 2009 7

Whitaker: Vision and Re-Vision(continued from page 2)

As we turn to national seminars and cur-riculum units, we begin with LangdonHammer's "Remarks on Writing CurriculumUnits," which expands on one aspect of"Teaching Voice." With it we have placedThomas Eakins' penetrating study of 1882,"The Writing Master" — in fact a portraitof his father, who taught the old style ofcopperplate calligraphy in the schools ofPhiladelphia. For the seminar on "TheTheory and Practice of Democracy" wehave used two quite different images. WithIan Shapiro's "Teaching the BasicDilemmas" we have placed an image ofvoting by African Americans from JacobLawrence's "Migration Series." And withJesse Senechal's piece on "The Ethic ofRisk in Teaching" we have placed LewisHine's photograph, "Icarus, Empire State

Building" — a Depression era reminderthat, despite the old legend, constructiverisks may indeed lead to success.

Martin Gehner's "Building Bridges in aSeminar" is then illustrated by a photo-graph of "Coalbrookdale Bridge," the veryfirst cast iron bridge. And the essays oncurriculum units by Maria Cardalliaguetand Karen Yarnall, which focus on Spanishbridges and organic form, are linked by aphotograph of the Puente Lusitania (1991)designed by the Spanish architect and engi-neer, Santiago Calatrava.

The images relating to the seminar on"American Voices" suggest both personaland community voices that have shapedAmerican history. With Langdon Hammer's"Listening for Voices" and VictoriaDeschere's "Finding Voice ThroughPersonal Narrative" we have placed "Listen

Lord: a Prayer" (1927) by Aaron Douglas, amajor figure in the Harlem Renaissance andfounder of the Art Department in FiskUniversity. With Bonnee Breese's "SpeakWords, Recite Messages" we have placedCarl Van Vechten's photograph of AugustaSavage's sculpture "Lift Every Voice,"inspired by James Weldon Johnson's mov-ing hymn and created for the 1939 World'sFair. Two lines from that hymn may stillspeak for all of us today: "Sing a song fullof the faith that the dark past has taught us;sing a song full of the hope that the presenthas brought us . . . ."

The images we have placed with accountsof the seminar on "Estimation" are various-ly abstract, realistic, and conceptual. ForRoger Howe's "Making EstimationPrecise" and Brian Bell's "Estimation in

(continued on page 9)

By Peter Connow in its fourth year, theTeachers Institute of Philadelphia(TIP) has emerged as a vital

force for educational change, both in thecity's public schools and within theUniversity of Pennsylvania faculty. TIP'sdirector, Alan Lee, provides exceptionallyable leadership, and has done sofrom the program's earliest days.Alan is a veteran Philadelphiateacher, which means among otherthings that he has seen the coming— and the going — of numberlessreform projects. "Every five yearsthere is a new wave of reform,"Alan has observed in a recentinterview with the PennsylvaniaGazette, "the new silver bullet, thenew reforms which will undo thedamages of the previous reforms.And at various times thesereforms seem to hint rather darklythat it's the teachers that are theproblem." Alan concludes:"Teachers should not be theobjects of reforms, they should bethe agents." That final sentencecontains the core proposition thatguides all of us: public schooleducation depends above all onthe quality, dedication, and imagi-nation of teachers.

Just about every study of efficacyin the education of children hasreached the same conclusion: thekey is teaching. The most success-ful teachers combine a mastery oftheir subject with a fierce desire tocommunicate what they know totheir students. TIP, like the otherTeachers Institutes around thecountry, works to stimulate and enhance theskills of the teachers who take part.Consequently, TIP is conceived as a part-nership, from the initial design of seminartopics, to the conduct of each session, to thedevelopment and completion of the curricu-

lum units. At their best — and teachershave testified that the seminars oftenachieve their best — the seminars are colle-gial spaces in which teachers can learn fromeach other, and can apply the semester'swork to their own pedagogical priorities.

TIP came to Penn in the first instancebecause of the enterprise and enthusiasm of

Rogers Smith, a professor of political sci-ence. When Rogers moved to Penn fromYale, he brought with him years of experi-ence in the New Haven Institute. He wasconfident that the model would work atPenn, and he enlisted the support of a widecircle of Penn faculty and administratorswho shared his vision. The nucleus he ini-

tially gathered has grown steadily, and nowincludes some of the university's most sen-ior and accomplished faculty.

Penn, like most other urban universities,is home to a large number of programs thatusefully connect the university to thePhiladelphia community. Faculty and stu-dents from all twelve of the university's

schools spend countless hours eachyear working in dental clinics, hos-pices, child welfare agencies,schools, homeless shelters, neigh-bourhood gardens, and communitycenters. Within this broad array ofactivities, TIP is making a distinc-tive contribution, by engagingdozens of K-12 teachers in its pro-gram of intensive seminars. Classesare held on the Penn campus, andteachers are given university ID's(which include library privileges)and email accounts. We have not,alas, solved the problem of parking,a non-trivial concern for teacherson a tight schedule in a crowdedurban area.

TIP's work proceeds under theauspices of a formal partnershipwith the School District ofPhiladelphia, which recognizes thevalue that TIP adds as a uniquelypowerful instrument in teacherdevelopment. TIP is funded througha combination of private philanthro-py, foundation grants, universityindirect support (office space), andan allocation from the SchoolDistrict.

Over these first four years, TIPseminar topics have ranged fromimmigration history to modernAfrica to the science of public

health. Nearly one-hundred teachers haveparticipated, and they have designed akaleidoscope of provocative and profes-sional curriculum units. Here are just a fewof the titles, which will give a taste of therange and scope of the units: "Sew Me aStory: African and African American 'QuiltLore'"; "The Story of Us: An Urban Fifth

8 ON COMMON GROUND

Teaching: The Key to Educational Change

N

Peter Conn is Professor of English at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.

WINSLOW HOMER, BLACKBOARD, 1877

Grade Class Creates a Living HistoryThrough Memoir and Photography";"Teenage Obesity and the Problems ItPresents for High School Students"; and"The Physics of Music: Making Waves in aScience Classroom." Note that many ofthese units are interdisciplinary. The ques-tions that elementary and high school stu-dents ask often do not fit into the sharplydemarcated areas of conventional methodsand materials. Each unit is carefully cali-brated to meet the Philadelphia SchoolDistrict standards, but each also expressesthe particular knowledge and passion of theteacher who wrote it. (For access toall the curriculum units, go tohttp://www.tip.sas.upenn.edu).

Teachers themselves attest to the highstandards of TIP's seminars. "We wantquality professional development," saysRita Sorrentino, a computer teacher at WestPhiladelphia's Overbrook ElementarySchool. "What we get in our schools iseither canned or packaged.... You pay yourmoney, you get the handouts, and then yougo home and it's up to you to know what todo with it." By contrast, TIP seminars offerteachers the opportunity to engage asscholars in open-ended inquiry; nothing iscanned or packaged. Teachers do inde-pendent and often quite original research,which in turn provides the energy theybring back to their classrooms. The devel-opment of the units, typically 8,000 wordslong, requires a substantial investment oftime and effort.

According to social studies teacher SamReed, because you make that investment inmastering the content, "when you take itback to your students they're enriched byyour enthusiasm." Instead of the methodsand classroom management strategies thatreceive the bulk of attention in schools ofeducation and top-down teacher develop-ment modules, TIP offers access to anexciting world of academic content andintellectual autonomy.

Based on my own experience in leading aseminar on twentieth-century American lit-erature, I can confirm what Rita Sorrentino

and Sam Reed have to say. The sessionswere consistently lively and productive,and the conversation quite typically tookplace at a high level. The units demonstrat-ed a sustained commitment to excellence:mastery of secondary sources, compellingexamples, strong and clear pedagogicalpurposes. On top of that, we had a lot offun: we were a diverse group of profes-sionals, representing a diversity of opin-ions, backgrounds, and teaching positions,responding to each other's opinions andinterpretations with candor and mutualrespect. I do not want to make invidiouscomparisons, but these were surely amongthe most rewarding classroom hours I havespent in several decades of teaching atPenn.

Aside from its focal work, TIP is alsoexploring mutually beneficial collabora-tions with other Penn programs. For exam-ple, TIP has joined with the GraduateSchool of Education's Teach for Americamaster's program. Several of the TIP facul-ty have given presentations to TFA stu-dents, and TIP teachers have led workshopson curriculum design and implementation.

Needless to say, there remains much todo. Philadelphia's public schools, like thosein most other American cities, face a for-midable assortment of problems. Studentscome from homes that are disproportion-ately poor. Teacher turnover is high, as arestudent absentee and drop-out rates.Adequate and equitable funding, especiallyfrom the Commonwealth, remains more adream than a reality. School buildings areoften dysfunctional and modern equipmentis frequently scarce. Despite these obsta-cles — in many cases precisely becauseof them — the great majority ofPhiladelphia's teachers remain resolute intheir devotion to the education of the dis-trict's two hundred thousand students. Thecity's future is to a large extent in theirhands, and they deserve far more recogni-tion and support than they typicallyreceive. TIP embodies a thoughtful, provenstrategy to help the city's teachers do theircritically important job.

SPRING 2009 9

Whitaker: Visionand Re-Vision(continued from page 7)Ecology," which challenges students to esti-mate the number of horseshoe crabs on abeach, we have chosen Jasper Johns'"Numbers in Color," which seems in effecta visual game of "find the numbers." ForElaine Yee Lun Tam's "Rice to Feed theWorld" we have chosen a photograph ofthe rice fields that provide so much of theworld's food supply. And with SharynGray's "Experimenting with Estimation inElementary School," which includesaccounts of constructions with base-tenblocks and digit cards, we have placed aphotograph of an elegant Sol LeWitt con-struction, "1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 Cross andTower."

Paul Fry's description of his nationalseminar (at first called "Race and Genderin Shakespeare" and later "Approaches toShakespeare") and Kimberly Turner'saccompanying piece "To See or Not toSee?" both deal with the question of "visu-al portraits." We have included a pair ofillustrative images. The Tudor portrait fromthe National Portrait Gallery has beenrecently identified as that of Catherine Parr,the wife of Henry the Eighth. The veryexpressive painting of Lady Macbeth wasmade by a student after Kimberly Turner'sclass had studied the compositional andinterpretive strategies of Tudor portraits.

Comments on three curriculum unitsfrom national seminars in 2007 are alsoincluded here. From "Across theCurriculum with Detective Fiction forYoung People and Adults," led by Paul Fry,we have William Sandy Lewis' "TheWhodunit as Open Sesame to CriticalReading" and Christine Shaub's "ChessGame and Detectives." Both contain inter-esting accounts of the Fellows being con-tacted by authors represented in the units;and Christine Shaub's piece also describesa "Snitching Awareness" project carried outby several of her students, which receiveda Delaware award. From "The Science andTechnology of Space," led by SabatinoSofia, we have Ram Bhagat's "Interpreting

(continued on page 17)

By Dongshil Kiman Francisco's planning of the Yalelocal Teachers Institute is framedwithin the context of the District's

Strategic Plan Beyond the Talk: TakingAction to Educate Every Child Now.Through this plan, we are called to takeaction to ensure that ALL students experi-ence a rich and rewarding education that

prepares them to be productive world citi-zens. As part of this moral imperative, wecommit to making social justice a reality,engaging high achieving and joyful learn-ers, and keeping our promises to studentsand families. Embedded in these goals arespecific objectives which call for us to cre-ate an environment for students to flourish,ensure authentic learning for each student,prepare the citizens of tomorrow, and cre-ate learning beyond the classroom.

The research is indisputable. The surestway to improve student outcomes and

ensure the kind of learning environmentdescribed above is to staff every classroomwith a high quality teacher. Preparing tohost a local Teachers Institute here in SanFrancisco will allow us to offer specificcontent-based professional developmentopportunities that increase the knowledgeand skill of teachers.

Following the model of the YaleNational Initiative, we expect to workwith our University partners to provideseminars that integrate curricular areas ininnovative and meaningful ways. The

10 ON COMMON GROUND

Planning a San Francisco Teachers Institute

S

CHELSEY BONESTELL, TREASURE ISLAND FROM THE GOLDEN GATE, 1937

Dongshil Kim is Executive Director forProfessional Learning and Leadership forEquity in the San Francisco Unified SchoolDistrict.

Editor's Introduction:We present here four perspectives on theplanning for a new Teachers Institute inSan Francisco. Like the PittsburghTeachers Institute, this new Institute will bea three-way partnership, involving aschool district and two institutions of high-er education. Discussions about the possi-bility of a San Francisco Teachers Institutebegan with the invitation in 2007 for sever-al administrators from the San FranciscoUnified School District to attend theAnnual Conference in October in NewHaven. In 2008 five teachers from thisDistrict became National Fellows. Whenthey came to New Haven for the IntensiveSession in July, they were accompanied byseveral faculty members from SanFrancisco State University and the

University of San Francisco. During thenext two months, meetings for planning anInstitute were held by representatives fromthe District and the two universities. A"Declaration of Intent to Apply forPlanning" a new Teachers Institute wasthen submitted to the Yale NationalInitiative by the San Francisco UnifiedSchool District, San Francisco StateUniversity, and The University of SanFrancisco.

Under the leadership of SuperintendentCarlos Garcia, SFUSD had initiated aStrategic Plan, "Beyond the Talk: TakingAction to Educate Every Child Now," inwhich the District committed to makingsocial justice a reality by increasing itscapacity to teach all students effectively. Anew Senior Executive Director of

Professional Learning and Leadership forEquity, Dongshil Kim, has been designatedto serve with Jeanne D'Arcy (Supervisor,Mathematics and Science) as districtliaisons to the planning process.

A San Francisco Advisory Council hasbeen established, comprised of NationalFellows, faculty and administrators fromthe two universities, and administratorsfrom SFUSD. According to theDeclaration, additional faculty representa-tives from the universities will be added tothis Council along with potential philan-thropic and corporate partners to form theSan Francisco Teachers Institute PlanningCommittee. The planning process willinvolve the proposal of a Planning Director,the submission of a Planning Application,and a Nine-Month Planning Phase.

Planning for Social Justice

By Linda Buckleyan Francisco State University'scommitment to the Yale TeachersInstitute model, like that of

SFUSD, emanates out of our strategiccommitment to social justice and equity.This strategic priority is the signature valueof the SF State campus culture. Realizingthat social justice and equity are ideals thatmay never be fully realized, SF Statenonetheless remains committed to the pur-suit of these ideals in the classroom and inscholarship whenever this is possible andappropriate. As scholars, the faculty sup-port research and activities that addressissues of structural and social inequality inour communityand globally. Aseducators, thefaculty and staffare committed toincreasing thecompetencies thatenable our cam-pus communityto interact effec-tively in a diverseenvironment.

The San Francisco Teachers Institute willprovide SF State faculty with the opportu-nity to fulfill this commitment furtherthrough classroom exchange with Fellows,which translates into improved curriculafor underserved students. While universityfaculty, in general, typically focus on thelatest innovations in content, they are oftencriticized for neglecting attention to peda-gogy. Because seminar faculty are encour-aged to engage in interactive, project-basedapproaches, we expect the Institute experi-ence will move our own faculty away fromthe traditional "lecture/Socratic method"seminar and toward 21st-century project-and studio-based approaches to learning.Conversely, the public school faculty typi-cally place much emphasis on pedagogicalinnovations, but lack the opportunity to

participate in faculty development activi-ties related to content. Both sets of facultydeal with underserved and highly diversepopulations of students, and the seminarswill provide the context for exchange anddevelopment that will benefit both sides.

Another direct benefit of the SanFrancisco Teachers Institute will be thestrengthening of the relationship betweenour university and the public school district.In a sense the Institute will help us close thecommunication loop from SF State toteachers and back to the university. In ourinteraction with the Fellows, we have dis-covered that most of them were trained asteachers at our own institution. Now we

will have theopportunity tohave their pro-fessional feed-back and inputthat can be incor-porated into fac-ulty interactionwith current SFState students.This dialoguereifies the inte-

gration of theory and practice within ourlocal context.

The Institute will also provide us with theopportunity to further our commitment tosocial justice through research. We havealready begun discussions of developing agrant proposal to assess the impact of theInstitute on teachers and on student learn-ing. While some research already existsregarding the impact on teacher retention, itappears that no research has been conduct-ed to investigate the impact of the model ondirect student learning. One of our strate-gies for funding the Institute will lie insecuring a grant to research these issues.

In conclusion, the Institute will bringtogether the strategic interests of threeinstitutions in the Bay Area. The three willbe collaborating to improve curricula,advance research in teaching, and improvethe education of children throughout SanFrancisco.

SPRING 2009 11

Yale summer seminars have inspired ourteacher Fellows to create lesson units thatconnected to students' cultures, chal-lenged their creative thinking and solu-tion-seeking abilities, and raised theirconsciousness around environmental andsocial justice — all of this while deepen-ing content knowledge for teacher andstudent alike. The relevancy, immediateapplication of learning, and fostering of21st-century skills and capacities will allbe important considerations as we plan forour local seminars.

In addition to carefully planning aroundthe content of our seminars, we move for-ward knowing we must also pay attentionto pedagogy. Our district data are clear —we have not yet served our AfricanAmerican, Latino English Learner,Samoan, and Special Education studentswell. The patterns of student achievementfall too comfortably along demographiclines. Indeed, that is so much the case thatwe must question and then addressinequitable practices in our classrooms, ourdistrict, and our larger systems. Beyondbasic differentiation, our teachers must beversed in Critical Race Theory and pre-pared to employ Culturally andLinguistically Relevant Pedagogy. Ourcurrent teacher Fellows have expressed aninterest, commitment, and urgency aroundincreasing their understandings and knowl-edge in these areas so that they may con-tribute to diminishing the predictive powerof demographics on student outcomes.

We have many more steps and consider-ations ahead of us as we continue planningour local Institute. Through it all, we willendeavor to inform our actions and deci-sions with the best research and anirrefutable resolve to provide a qualityeducation for all students. If we are able torealize the kind of professional develop-ment described so far in our local Institute,we can be confident that we are on ourway to staffing San Francisco schools withhigh quality teachers who are engaginghigh achieving and joyful learners in everyclassroom.

S

Linda Buckley is Associate Vice President ofAcademic Planning and EducationalEffectiveness at San Francisco State University.

Fulfilling our Strategic Commitment

Both sets of faculty deal withunderserved and highly diversepopulations of students, and theseminars will provide the contextfor exchange and development

that will benefit both sides.

By Peter J. Novakhe University of San Francisco isthe first Jesuit University in theUnited States to join the process

for planning a Teachers Institute. Togetherwith San Francisco State and the SanFrancisco Unified School District, we arebeginning the detailed process for estab-lishing the most western of TeachersInstitutes to date. A not-so-surprising affin-ity exists between these three institutions— all of which are dedicated to promotingan ethic of social justice in education.

This year also marks the 410th anniversaryof a landmark educational reform for JesuitInstitutions. The "Plan and Methodology ofJesuit Education" was a coher-ent, concise, and in-depthrationale for education thatguided Jesuit Universities inover 22 countries since itswriting in 1599. It has much incommon with the Articles ofUnderstanding upon which allTeachers Institutes are based— providing a frameworkaround which local education-al institutions can apply theirown unique models whileretaining a method and struc-ture that has proven effectiveover time.

At the heart of Jesuit peda-gogy is an understanding thateducation has an impact oncivil society. Like a TeachersInstitute, Jesuit Educationpromotes an underlying ethicof providing quality instruc-tion to all students, and is atestament to the effect thatthis education will have incontemporary society. The Jesuits under-stood the importance of articulating andspreading a successful educational modelthroughout Europe in the 17th century and

the following three centuries. We are confi-dent that the Teachers Institutes are gener-ating a similar legacy and we are proud tobe a part of this historical moment.

The development of a San FranciscoTeachers Institute has had a relatively fastgenesis. USF began sending teachers toNew Haven in the summer of 2008. Froma university perspective, the key to devel-oping an Institute is in recruiting enthusias-tic faculty. During the summer we receivedproof of just how successful the Yalemodel is in generating enthusiasm amongparticipants, but I was unprepared for thefollowing email from one of our Politicsprofessors who wrote to me at 2 a.m. after

a conversation with colleagues went lateinto the night:

I've spent the last two days workingwith a fourth grade teacher fromRichmond VA and an AP politicsteacher from Chicago on theFederalist Papers and Tocqueville andhow to bring that into their classrooms.

It's an amazing experience. . . . I cantell you that we both want to do what-ever we can to make this work, and thefour faculty from SFSU and five teach-ers from SFUSD are committed tohelping you and others in the adminis-tration to get this up and running. Butfor now, I'm still way too invested inthinking about how a fourth gradergets to know about Madison's view ofhuman nature. It's pretty cool stuff.

I could not have had a more validatingemail to the promise that a San FranciscoTeachers Institute holds. Yet, while thecommunication and enthusiasm betweenthe three San Francisco-based organiza-

tions has been wildly success-ful and positive, the overalleconomy has been less thancooperative. It has dampenedsome of our initial enthusiasm,but it has also forced us to bemore creative in our approach.

Although none of us can yetsupport a full-time PlanningDirector, we are all thinking ofways to fund a part-time posi-tion to help develop theInstitute incrementally. Onemeans of support was suggest-ed by the emphasis inTeachers Institutes upon apeer-based model of teaching.Faculty members who attend-ed the summer intensivebegan to see how our ownteaching could be enhancedthrough working with col-leagues in the public schools.They have proposed to theUSF Faculty Association thatthe summer intensives, the

October National Conference, and the sem-inars themselves be eligible for fundingfrom the faculty development fund. Theyhope that the guaranteed funding fromthese resources will at least maintain thesame infectious level of enthusiasm fromthe faculty as we continue to plan anddevelop a San Francisco Teachers Institute.

12 ON COMMON GROUND

T

Peter J. Novak is Associate Dean of the Artsand Humanities and Associate Professor ofPerforming Arts at the University of SanFrancisco.

A Legacy in the Making

FAITH RINGGOLD, DOUBLE DUTCH ON THE GOLDEN GATE, 1988

By Lisa A. Ernstn the fall of 2007, several administra-tors from San Francisco UnifiedSchool District were invited to attend

the October Conference in New Haven.Through their participation, officialsmade the commitment to select teachersto participate in the YaleNational Initiative. In thespring of 2008, five teachersbecame National Fellows:Elaine Tam, Art Concordia,Sarah Pooner, Sally Meneely,and I began the journey.

Over the years, much hasbeen tried and implementedin the area of teacher profes-sional development. Everydistrict struggles with the bal-ance of funding, equity, cur-riculum, standards, andteacher training, along withstandardized testing. SanFrancisco Unified SchoolDistrict is no different. Thedistrict has always encour-aged teacher leadership, pro-grams and strategies thataddress the variety of learn-ers, and curriculum develop-ment. But what we do notoffer at times is the opportu-nity for professors to workwith educators to bring thedepth and knowledge of thecontent to the classroom. For a veteranteacher, the Yale National Initiative is partof the puzzle that our school district cannow incorporate into a ProfessionalDevelopment Plan. A Teachers Institutewould provide many opportunities for theteachers — a selection of seminar topics,leadership, collaboration across gradelevel and subject area, and a close work-ing relationship with the seminar leaders— to meet our students' need to becomeactive participants in the 21st Century.

After attending the OrganizationalSession in May, the San Francisco UnifiedSchool District National Fellows met regu-larly prior to the Intensive Session in July.We met to reflect, to clarify our thoughts,and to guide each other through what wasexpected of us in the Intensive Session.

Even though we teach in various schoolswithin San Francisco, across grade levels,and across the curriculum, we began toform a professional learning community.

During the Intensive Session in July, pro-fessors from San Francisco State Universityas well as University of San Francisco alsomade the journey with us to New Haven.They observed, and participated in, variousworkshops. Like the Fellows, they too wereexcited and determined to spread the wordof the Yale National Initiative. We met anddiscussed how this collaboration would ben-efit not only the classroom teacher but theprofessor as well. As a group, the professors

as well as the National Fellows wereempowered to make an Institute a reality.

Before returning to San Francisco, I wasasked to be the City Representative. When Iwas asked, I knew that collaboration andcommunication between Yale and SanFrancisco Unified School District were

going to be crucial to the devel-opment of an Institute. Throughthe process, I was inspired to bepart of the journey. Of course attimes it can be daunting, butbeing true to the National Fellowswas my first responsibility.

Approximately two monthsafter participating in theIntensive Session, San FranciscoUnified School District officials,National Fellows, and professorsand officials from San FranciscoUniversity and San FranciscoState University began a dia-logue directed toward planningof an Institute in San Francisco.After numerous meetings, underthe leadership of SFUSD, alongwith the leadership of theUniversities, the Declaration ofIntent was submitted to Yale.The plan is that the SanFrancisco Institute would beginin 2009.

We know that state and feder-al funding is always an issue inany program. With state budg-

et cuts and federal cuts to education, weare fortunate that we have San FranciscoState University as well as University ofSan Francisco as our partners. Hopefullythrough all our resources, and under theguidance of Yale, we will be where weneed to be to launch the Institute in 2009.What one sees in the Yale Initiative is thatit truly embodies collaboration, owner-ship, and collegiality — assisting the edu-cator from the bottom up, rather than fromthe top down. The next stage in this jour-ney for us will involve the search for aplanning director and the securing offunding.

SPRING 2009 13

I

Lisa A. Ernst is a Sixth-Grade Teacher atAlice Fong Yu Alternative Elementary Schoolin San Francisco.

A Teacher's Road Toward an Institute

WAYNE THIEBAUD, URBAN FREEWAYS, 1979

By Langdon L. Hammer

Editor's Note: These remarks were offeredto the assembled National Fellows duringtheir meeting in May 2008. The art of writ-ing curriculum units has long been of con-cern to Teachers Institutes, and they haveaddressed it in many ways. The schedulefor an Institute seminar regularly includesa "prospectus" and "first draft" whichbecome subjects of discussion for theirauthor and the seminar leader.Very often the "first draft" alsobecomes subject of discussionamong all Fellows in a sessiondedicated to that stage of thewriting. Such discussions areunderstood to be an integralpart of the investigation of theprocess of "pedagogy as relat-ed to content" as highlightedin Rogers' Smith's piece in thisnumber of On CommonGround. Most often TeachersInstitutes also hold introducto-ry group sessions for allFellows which are devoted tothe process of writing a cur-riculum unit. These sessionsare usually led by a panel ofseminar Coordinators whohave had previous experiencein the writing of curriculumunits. The national seminarsin New Haven have regularly followedthese Institute procedures. In May of2008, during the meeting that precedesthe July Intensive Session, it seemedappropriate also to include for theNational Fellows some remarks byLangdon Hammer, who has long had aprofessional interest in the practice ofwriting and who was currently leading theseminar on "American Voices." We arefortunate, therefore, to be able to includein this number of On Common Groundthree closely related pieces by him whichaddress different perspectives on what is

for Teachers Institutes a central seminartopic: "Teaching Voice," "Remarks onWriting Curriculum Units," and "Leadingthe Seminar on American Voices."

'm going to say a few brief things aboutthe process of writing that may be help-ful to you as you create your curricu-

lum units. Composition theorists talk aboutwriter-based and reader-based prose.Writer-based prose is the first thing that gets

put down, something in which the idea isclear only to the writer, if anyone; whereasreader-based prose is, of course, prose thataddresses the reader and seeks to anticipatea reader's questions and responses, and tobuild them into the writing. These two dif-ferent moments of writing you can identifyas draft and revision. As the piece of writ-ing moves towards successful completion,it is becoming progressively and moreeffectively reader-based. As you are work-ing, you are learning to identify with, proj-ect yourself into, the position of the reader,and ideally a number of potential readers.

Who are your readers? For your curricu-lum units they include your seminar leader,

the Fellows in your seminar, and also yourcolleagues, the teachers that you work withand who work in the same school environ-ment as you do. But of course part of thepower and interest of the Teachers Instituteconcept is its online documentation, whichmakes your units accessible, via the Web,to the whole world.

This is a remarkable opportunity as wellas a responsibility. It vastly expands andpotentially complicates the sense of who

your audience is for your units.Fellows have told me that theyhave gotten responses to theircurriculum units from teachersin Germany, South Africa, andmany places in the UnitedStates. So the potential audi-ence for your units is verywide. I think you want to write,therefore, for people who don'talready know you, who are notpart of your seminar, who arenot part of your school. Thatmeans that you need to write insuch a way as to make avail-able to them the topic thatyou're working on. You need toavoid the jargons that aredeveloped in particular settings— whether the setting is theseminar, or that of your school,or teacher training that youhave had that others may not

have had. You want to write as clearly andsimply as you can as you get your ideasand plans out there. When you introduceterms, you need to define them briefly andcogently.

There are two further points that I thinkbuild on what I just said. The curriculumunit is a piece of writing: whether you areworking on Nutrition with Mark Saltzmanor Math with Roger Howe, you are writing.You are trying to make your material acces-sible to an audience through writing. Thatmeans that you want to make it interesting.You want to get your potential readers toconnect with it. You want to get some of

(continued on page 17)

14 ON COMMON GROUND

Remarks on Writing Curriculum Units

Langdon L. Hammer is Professor of Englishand of American Studies at Yale University.

THOMAS EAKINS, THE WRITING MASTER, 1882

I

By Ian Shapiron the summer of 2008 I led a seminaron The Theory and Practice ofDemocracy. Twelve teachers partici-

pated in the seminar. They were quitediverse in their interests and prior teachingin this area. The units they producedranged from concerns with electoral poli-tics in the U.S. (partly prompted by2008 being an election year), to con-stitutional politics and the AmericanFounding, to the impact of themedia (including the internet) onU.S. democracy, to democratic poli-tics as viewed through and influ-enced by literature, to the enfran-chisement of marginalized groups,and specific policy issues such asthe distribution of income andwealth and terrorism and civil liber-ties. Most of the units are aimed athigh school students in courses inhistory and social studies, but twoare designed for literature courses,and one is designed for fourthgraders.

It was a heartening experience towork with such impressively com-mitted teachers, one that is bothchallenging and humbling. We atYale are spoiled by the fact that ourstudents are among the best pre-pared and most highly motivatedstudents in the world. I wasimpressed by the ways in which theteachers in my seminar thought cre-atively about how to motivate verydifferent populations of students, bymaking abstract issues of democrat-ic theory resonate with their every-day experiences through insightfulchoice of reading material (including fic-tion), design of games that would engagetheir students, and use of cleverly-chosenexamples close to their lived experiences.The result has been a fine menu of units,summarized below, that can be deployed toteach the basic dilemmas of democratic

theory and practice to a variety of studentpopulations.

Three of the units are primarily concernedwith American electoral politics, in additionto primaries, conventions, and the generalelection. One explores debates about elec-toral reform and different electoral systems.Another focuses centrally on political par-

ties and the Presidency in light of theConstitutional Convention of 1787. Andanother uses the lens of two knife-edgeelections two centuries apart (1800 and2000) to illuminate such institutions as theElectoral College and the ways in which thesystem responds to political crises.

Three other units look at democracythrough literature and political theory. That

by Jesse Senechal, who describes in thesepages his teaching of the unit, exploresearly twentieth-century African Americanliterature to illuminate the tensionsbetween the ideals spelled out in theDeclaration of Independence, theConstitution, and the Bill of Rights, on theone hand, and the realities of racial injus-

tice on the other. Another unit usesa variety of historical sources toexplore these same tensions, with afocus on excluded minorities andmechanisms for their empower-ment. And a third unit deploys anintensive study of Bryce Courtnay'snovel set in mid-twentieth centurySouth Africa, The Power of One, toilluminate the tensions amongdemocratic and other values, andthe ways in which leadership oper-ates in democratic settings.

Three other units attend to thenature and adequacy of Americanpolitical institutions from the timeof their design down through thepresent. One focuses on a systemat-ic comparison between the U.S.and the Roman Empire, with aneye to whether there are lessonsfrom the decline and fall of Romefor the contemporary U.S. Two ofthem focus on the mechanics andfairness of the system of represen-tation created at the ConstitutionalConvention. One spans the periodbetween the Revolutionary Warand the adoption of theConstitution and the Bill of Rights,and deploys simulation activities toget students to grapple with theproblems the founders were trying

to solve. The other is intended to get stu-dents to evaluate U.S. constitutionalarrangements in the light of evidence fromother democracies concerning federalism,the separation of powers, an independentjudiciary, and different electoral systems— illuminating the plusses and minuses ofdifferent institutional arrangements.

(continued on page 17)

SPRING 2009 15

The Theory and Practice of Democracy

I

Ian Shapiro is Sterling Professor of PoliticalScience at Yale University.

Teaching the Basic Dilemmas

JACOB LAWRENCE, IN THE NORTH THEY HAD THE FREEDOM TO VOTE, 1940-41

By Jesse Senechal

Editor's Note: The curriculum unit that setthe stage for this essay is "Our SpiritualStrivings: Understanding African AmericanIdentities in a Conflicted AmericanDemocracy," prepared in the seminar on"Democracy in Theory and Practice." Thereading, analyzing, and writing proposedby this unit will help students understand(1) the principles and ideals of Americandemocracy, (2) the tensions in earlyAmerica between egali-tarian principles andracial injustices, (3) howAfrican American writersdiscussed these tensionsas a basis for construct-ing individual and collec-tive identities, (4) howAfrican American poetryin the early 20th centuryis partly a response tothose tensions, and (5)how the students' ownfreedom to publish can bea form of opposition toinjustice and a way ofestablishing an empow-ered political identity.

t's 4 o'clock on theWednesday beforeThanksgiving, thir-

teen weeks into theschool year. I have justfinished a day of teach-ing. I look around my classroom with thequestion in mind: where am I with myunit? There is a bulletin board on the backwall put together by students from myclasses with an American Flag and hun-dreds of words written in red and bluemarker representing the best and worstthings about America. There is a collec-tion of video clips on my computer desk-top, waiting to be edited, of studentsdebating whether the promise of the

Declaration of Independence has been ful-filled. There are personal reflective essaysin the portfolio drawer about each stu-dent's understanding of his or her power /disempowerment in society. And there arethe journal notes I just took on today'smemory of my 2nd period class, where anunplanned discussion broke out about sto-rytelling, multiculturalism in Disney'sPocahontas, and the relationship betweenNative American and African Americanexperiences of oppression.

Although none of these classroom arti-facts are direct results of the teachingstrategies I outlined in my unit plan, theyare all inspired by the research and writingI did during the intensive summer sessionin New Haven. They certainly would nothave happened without it. Of the strategiesthat I did write into the unit, I will say thatsome I have already scrapped, and others Iknow I might not get to. While I'm sure thecore of the unit — the writing of Du Boisand its legacy — will make its way into theclass, when and how are still up in the air.

This uncertainty in teaching could lead toanxiety. But not only have I decided not tobe anxious about it, I have also decided toembrace uncertainty as a necessary condi-tion of teaching. In fact, I think the processof writing my unit — surely the most thor-oughly researched and conceptually ambi-tious unit I have ever written — led me tosomething of a revelation about teaching.

While I always thought of teaching as abalancing act between concept and lesson,between theory and practice, as I completed

this unit, and movedinto the implemen-tation, I began see-ing a related aspectof this dynamic:that teaching is alsoa balancing actbetween control andrisk. The process ofwriting this unit didnot so much leaveme with an idea ofhow to control thedelivery of a pre-scribed content, as itgave me a senseof new authorityregarding the con-tent that provided abase for takingrisks. The questionshifted from 'whatare the best methodsfor teaching stu-dents about Du

Bois?' to 'How might my new depth ofunderstanding about the ideas of Du Boisaffect the dynamic of classroom dialogueand activity?' and, an extension, 'What typesof new pedagogical risks will this contentauthority allow me to take?'

In many ways the dominant mode in ourschools is one of control. Whether we arecontrolling the movement of studentsthrough the hallways, or the process ofdelivering content, or the scope of what istaught and how it is assessed, there seemsto be an obsession throughout the system

16 ON COMMON GROUND

Jesse Senechal is an English Teacher atArmstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia.

LEWIS W. HINE, ICARUS ATOP THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, 1931

The Ethic of Risk in Teaching

I

SPRING 2009 17

of schooling with ensuring standardiza-tion and predictability. This is surely dueto the fact that schools are rife withunpredictable variables; namely theminds, voices, bodies and agency ofyoung people. Particularly in urbanschools that serve traditionally disenfran-chised communities, there is a fear of let-ting down the guard, of losing control. Mypoint is not to suggest a relinquishing ofcontrol; schools need structure and plansand organization. Rather, I am suggestingthat our schools need to balance the urgeto control with a real support for the ethicof risk in teaching. At least for me it iswhen I start taking risks in the classroomthat I feel closest to my ideal of authentic

education: an education that involves acollaborative, productive, and ultimatelyliberating dialogue between student,teacher and content.

Along these lines my planning hasbecome progressively more abstract. WhenI started teaching fourteen years ago, Iwould spend hours in front of the comput-er laboring over a detailed script for a step-by-step lesson plan. This year, especially inregards to this unit, I have tended to planby assembling collections of texts, images,and core questions to share with the stu-dents. The collections typically representtense juxtapositions of ideas that can beresolved through discussion and throughwriting. Right now the plan for Monday is

looking like this: (1) an excerpt ofFederalist #54 where James Madisonargues that the slave's true character is bothperson and property; (2) detailed architec-tural drawings of slave ships showing howthe slaves are stored; (3) a passage from theautobiography of Olaudah Equiano, aslave, using rich imagery to describe theslave ship experience; and (4) the question:what image of Africans do these workspresent?

I'm worried about this lesson. The con-tent is strong and I'm not exactly sure howmy students, almost exclusively African-American, are going to take it. But I thinkmy uncertainty speaks to the possibilities.It suggests that this is a risk worth taking.

Whitaker: Visionand Re-Vision(continued from page 9)the Origin of the Elements," an experientialunit for minority inner-city students whichuses the construction of collages to illus-trate the relationship between microscopicand macroscopic structures in the universe.

We conclude with "Nutrition, Metabolism,and Diabetes," another national seminarfrom 2008. With Mark Saltzman's accountof leading the seminar and KristinPeterson's "The Way Food Works" wehave placed two "still life" studies thatemphasize the attractiveness of fruits andvegetables: Severin Roesin's "AnAbundance of Fruit" and James Peal's"Still Life with Balsam Apple andVegetables." And with Kathleen Gormley's"Getting an Early Start to a Healthy Life"we have placed a photograph of "FloorCake," a sculpture by a contemporary mas-ter of Pop Art, Claes Oldenburg.

We close this number of On CommonGround with another appropriate blackboardimage — this one from Jacob Lawrence's"Migration Series," depicting twentieth-century African American students.

(continued from page 14)your own passion and concern for your sub-ject matter into that piece of writing —because, just because you care about it, doesnot mean that someone else will automati-cally. You need to show why you care aboutit. And how do you do that? Not by displayor raising your hand, but rather by being asconcrete, as specific as possible, getting asmuch of the immediate feel for the materialyou are discussing into the writing itselfthrough examples and quotations.

Ralph Russo said a moment ago that yourcurriculum unit is yours, and that is impor-tant: it's what I mean when I say you wantto get some of yourself, some of your pas-sion, into that writing. It's also true that thisis a piece of writing that has your name onit and it's going to be there on the Web. It isa form of publication. You want to do theabsolute best job you can, therefore,because you're presenting your work to apotentially international audience. Youwant to do yourself proud — and your stu-dents, and the Institute. But most of all Ithink, you want to do right by your subject.

(continued from page 15)Finally, three other units deal with partic-

ular policy issues confronting U.S. democ-racy. One is concerned with the internet andfocuses on getting students to understandhow the proliferation of new media outlets,networking sites, search engines, and elec-tronic media shapes democratic practices. Italso pays attention to the ways in whichthese new media can be abused or operateas instruments of responsible democraticempowerment. A second unit deals with thechallenge to U.S. democracy posed by theWar on Terror since 9/11, with a particularfocus on court cases and how the pursuitand prosecution of terrorist suspects affectscivil liberties. And the concern in the thirdunit is with the economic inequalities thatpersist despite the democratic institutionsthat many, since Alexis de Tocquevillewrote in the early nineteenth century, havethought would erode inequality. This unitfeatures a contrast between the ways inwhich distributive politics are made in theNew Mexico legislature and by the tribaloyed by the Pueblo of Pojoaque.

Hammer: WritingCurriculum Units

Shapiro: Teachingthe Basic Dilemmas

By Martin D. Gehnervery day people use a surprisingnumber of bridges as part of theirpaths of travel between home and

their destinations of work, school, shop-ping, recreation, or other point of activity.Generally, bridges are taken for granted asefficient links along a path of travel. Ofcourse every individual has their ownhabitual routes according to their need.Bridges are essential elements in the infra-structure to connect communities, culturesand nations. Some hold distinctions asicons of identification for a region or a city.Many bridges have pushed the limits ofdesign, science and technology to achievenew and beautiful edifices which serve thepractical function to provide memorablepaths for humans to travel. Those whichhave endured centuries of use are admiredfor their durable service and also for thequality of design, the high craft of con-struction, the enduring science of materialapplications, and the impact on the sur-rounding community. Innovative visions,together with a clear understanding of theart and science associated with a time andplace in history, truly are noteworthy anddemand the orchestration of numeroushuman skills to build a bridge.

A bridge is one of those structural ele-ments in the landscape whose beauty isexactly what you see. The form displays amathematical system of resolving all theforces placed upon it while its visualimpact may be a poetic artifact that depictsa cultural time and place. Some bridgesfunction as utilitarian elements. Somebridges are beautiful structures of extraor-dinary achievement. A bridge may be soutilitarian that people using it ignore therole it fulfills in daily community life.However if a bridge fails, the impositionon many lives raises an acute humanawareness about the economics associatedwith its creation as well as with its com-modity as a significant community link.

A seminar on bridges offers an interestingbroad base of study topics for creativeteachers to explore their interests whetherin history, art, science, social studies, plan-ning, community development, economics,environments, engineering, architecture,language, music, or other related topics.The story of the Brooklyn Bridge offersdrama and insight to the innovation ofbuilding caissons plus the entire technolog-ical development of the design and con-struction of a suspension bridge. Thisbridge is a bold and unique structurerevealing a historic period of society.Similarly, the very first cast iron bridgebuilt in 1779 at Coalbrookdale, Englandcreated a milestone in the early years of theindustrial revolution. This cast iron archstructure became a striking contrast to theprevious masterful use of solid masonrymaterial for creating arched structures andbridges. The use of cast and wrought ironin this structure also brought a beauty tothe iron craft of mortise, dovetails andkeyed joints. Yet the bridge's benefit forhuman use and safety established a realityof significant community development.Since that bridge's creation, poets, artists,engineers, preservationists, historians, andtourists have embraced that object in thelandscape as an enduring example ofhuman commodity and delight.Throughout the world, numerous examplesof bridges have become integral to the fab-ric of a community and between communi-ties and cultures. A seminar on the art andscience of building bridges to connectcommunities offers unique opportunitiesfor Fellows to see their fields of interests asintegral to the spectrum of requirements formaking bridges.

The curriculum unit's focus logically fol-lows from the classes taught by eachFellow. The artists may study form anddesign; the science Fellows may studyphysics, engineering principles, or materialsciences; the social studies teacher maylook at the impact of bridges in a commu-nity or a region; the historians may study

historical or cultural contexts of bridges;the mathematicians may study forces orcosts; the environmentalists may investi-gate resources and locations; or, the lan-guage arts individuals may focus on cultur-al characteristics which developed theirlanguage. In each seminar, the range oftopics for curriculum units stimulates thepositive interaction between all partici-pants. It adds a dimension of influencedassessment for individual units as theydevelop.

Leading a seminar on bridges is not arelationship of expert and problem. It is arelationship between people who bringresources of their combined interests to thetable for generous sharing. Teaching goesbeyond expertise, it is a way of life —sharing knowledge and discovering indi-vidual interests within a context of awholeness of society. The analysis offorces internal to a bridge structure is asimportant as the visual beauty of the exter-nal bridge form and craftsmanship sittingin the community's landscape. The scienceof materials is as important as the safety ofa bridge for the functions it provides.

Fellows bring diverse perceptions aboutbridges and when all individual views areshared, varied arrays of ideas spawn newpossibilities for enriching initial percep-tions. This seminar offered an opportunityto experience a hands-on process fordesigning and making a model bridge. Theproject created a base for Fellows to devel-op an avenue for their students to beinspired, and challenged, by involvement insimilar appropriate classroom projects.When the Fellows design and build theirindividual bridge models, they generallyexchange ideas about bridge type, form,material, construction details, structuralsupports, loads to be imposed, structuralstability, and craft skills. Mutual sharingflows as uninhibited collegiality primes thelearning possibilities. Each participantbecomes an equal learner pursuing knowl-edge worthy to share with colleagues andstudents. The process becomes the forerun-

18 ON COMMON GROUND

Bridges: The Art and Science for CreatingCommunity Connections

E

Martin D. Gehner is Professor Emeritus ofArchitectural Engineering at Yale University.

Building Bridges in a Seminar

SPRING 2009 19

ner of similar classroom activities throughthe implementation of their curriculum unit.

Curriculum units are developed withfocused topics yet based on selected back-ground information which establishes afoundation for the unit. For instance in2008, a unit for an art class expanded thetheme of inspired by nature and studied thebridges designed and built by a currentarchitect/ engineer/ artist SantiagoCalatrava. His work, including many beau-tiful bridges, is influenced by natural struc-tures, forms and motions. Another unitbeing used in San Francisco is based onbridges in earthquake country. Althoughbroad based, that unit is highly organized toexpose students to very detailed aspects ofbridge design and construction practicesappropriate in the region. Another unit isbased on the theme of learning from mis-takes wherein the students study bridge fail-ures and the technical issues surroundingspecific examples. Together with the addi-tional units' topics, these examples merelysuggest the exciting potential for developingclassroom activities that capture the imagi-nation and interests of recipient students.

The phrase building bridges is used fre-quently as a metaphor for an event or arelationship having very positive conse-quences. It links activities rather than splitsthem and seeks cooperative relationshipsrather than disjointed competition.Certainly the phrase should be used todescribe the work of the Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute and of the Yale NationalInitiative. The significant partnerships ofinstitutions are vital to support teachers andstudents in their quest to learn and to devel-op personally and professionally. A stu-dent's creative spirit needs positive nurtur-ing which embraces their developing abili-ties and interests. Teachers Institutes pro-vide an exciting context of opportunitiesfor teachers to gain more knowledge whileinteracting with colleagues and concurrent-ly developing their ideas for curriculumunits. Within seminars, the interactionbetween a teacher from one discipline with

colleagues from varied disciplines and stu-dent grade levels reveals a substantive baseof opportunities for interdisciplinary teach-ing. The potential for curriculum units isenhanced by input from related disciplines.Within each seminar, ideas unfold like thebeauty of a blossoming rose.

As seen throughout civilizations, bridgesrepresent the developing use of materialsand systems of construction as known atthe time of creation. Natural materials arecommon in bridges. What is important isthat the materials used directly reflect thestructural systems employed in the makingof a bridge. When making models ofbridges in a seminar, material propertiesmust be simulated according to the type ofbridge model being represented. Forinstance, a brittle material may be excellentfor making a bridge dependent on com-pression in its structure such as in an arch.Or a suspension structure depends on amaterial having tensile properties. So therepresentation in model format shouldexhibit similar characteristics. The model

process helps individuals to discover char-acteristics about properties of materialsincluding the inherent methods of joinerybetween bridge parts. How supports areachieved, as they always are, the modelmust represent that requirement. Thestrength and stability of the structure mustbe integral to the whole structure. Althoughseminar time is limited, creating models ofbridges offers opportunities to see the real-ities of form, function, strength, structure,stability, material, and support as theycombine to create one whole unit of abridge as represented through the model.

Bridges will continue to be built as posi-tive connectors between communities andregions. Today's milieu tends toward inno-vation of material science, suspendedstructural forms, and developing methodsof construction. The future of the art andscience of bridge making will continue toplace demands on societies. What is mostimportant is that opportunity for individualstudent learning and development reachesevery young mind.

T. M. PRITCHARD, COALBROOKDALE BRIDGE, 1779

By Maria Cardalliaguet Gómez-Málaga

Editor's Note: This unit is intended for anintermediate Spanish course in high school.It approaches the study of bridges by way ofthe history and geography of Spain and itscivilizations, and the history of bridges onthe Iberian peninsula. The unit will intro-duce students to the study of art, and to thework of the architect and engineer SantiagoCalatrava. Most of the class activities willbe conducted in Spanish. The plans assume15 to 18 classes of 82 minutes each.

hen I found out I was acceptedin Martin Gehner's seminar on"Bridges: The Art and Science

for Creating Community Connections," Iwas overcome with a combination ofexcitement and uneasiness. The seminar, asinitially described, presented the perfectopportunity to inspire my students to valueglobal consciousness and tolerance towardsother cultures. At the same time, I wasaware of my limited knowledge of thearchitectural world and, particularly,bridges. Finally, when I discovered that theseminar would require me to build a physi-cal bridge, it seemed to become an extreme-ly challenging endeavor.

However, all my fears vanished five min-utes into my first seminar meeting. All of asudden, the seminar requirements were notas difficult as the written description sug-gested and I believe that it was due toProfessor Gehner, who masterfully led theseminar. I still do not know how he man-aged to do so, but not only did he help andsupport all of the Fellows, including me,build a physical bridge, but he also inspir-ited us to build invisible "collaborativebridges" among each other and in doing so,helped us collectively succeed in buildingour bridges and writing our units.

I wrote "Puentes, Civilizaciones yCultura" as a multi-purpose unit. I aspired tointroduce students to Spanish art, history,

geography and culture. As a result, I hopedthat my students would be able to recognize,describe, analyze and interpret different artstyles and, particularly Spanish bridges. Thestudents would also learn about SantiagoCalatrava and his work. Finally, they wouldstudy the different civilizations and culturesthat have shaped Spain's identity and itsgeography.

After writing the unit for mySpanish III classes, I had to modify itslightly because I was finally notassigned to teach that level this year.In addition, I had planned on teachingthe unit towards early springtime, butas I began planning before the start ofthe academic year, I realized that stu-dents would benefit from an earlyexposure to this curriculum at inter-vals over a longer duration.

Because I began teaching the unit inNovember, this article illustratesmerely part of our work in the intro-ductory stage of the unit. I began byassessing the students on their knowl-edge of Spain. At first, the resultswere neither encouraging nor far frommy expectations. Initially, studentswere not too excited when I men-tioned that we would be learningabout Spain. They, however, seemedto liven up when I explained the dif-ferent components of the unit and theactivities that we would develop. Ithen showed a documentary onSpanish Roman Ruins, Cathedralsand Castles hoping that the visualswould trigger their curiosity toward art andmonuments, something that is quite foreignto them. To my surprise, I found many stu-dents taking notes and engaged in themovie. Even previously apathetic studentsasked a lot of questions when I stopped thefilm in order to briefly explain something.

As part of the introduction to the unit, weread about Spain: its geography, history,traditions and so on. Students then wereasked a set of questions about Spain. Next,we moved into the geography section ofthe unit. We worked with maps and read

about and discussed the division intocomunidades autonomas. We also analyzedhow and why these communities weredivided and how they are both independentand part of the central government. At first,students seemed to struggle to understandthe concepts since they appeared to be veryabstract. When I related such concepts to

their close equivalents in the United States,they understood.

For students, the most enjoyable part ofthe unit thus far has been the mini-projecton these comunidades autonomas. Iassigned each student one autonomouscommunity and we all went to the libraryso they could search relevant informationon a couple of very thorough, interactivewebsites that I had suggested. These web-sites allowed students to watch videos andpictures while looking for the answers to

(continued on page 32)

20 ON COMMON GROUND

Maria Cardalliaguet Gómez-Málaga is aSpanish Teacher at Hill Regional Career HighSchool in New Haven.

W

Puentes, Civilizaciones y Cultura

By Karen R. Yarnall

Editor's Note: This unit is intended for 3-DDesign art classes in high school. It includeshistorical study of the design and function ofbridges, and detailed study of the work ofthe Spanish architect and engineer SantiagoCalatrava, focusing on his aesthetic, his

range of constructions, and especially hisbridges. Students will create bridge modelsbased on objects from nature, and will ana-lyze and evaluate their own bridges andthose of their peers. The unit is aligned withthe Delaware State Art Standards.

efore taking Martin Gehner's semi-nar on bridges, I must confess thatI used to traverse bridges without

giving them much thought. After participat-

ing in his seminar, I will not be guilty of thatagain. I could hardly wait to share my unitwith the students in my three 3-D Design artclasses at the beginning of the school year.

Each person in my seminar had a differ-ent approach for his or her unit. In my unit,students examined Santiago Calatrava'sworks and used structures found in nature

as a basis for the design and con-struction of their own bridges.Calatrava is an innovative architectand artist whose striking buildingsand elegant bridges are often inspiredby nature.

To introduce the unit, students firstworked in small groups to brainstormpurposes and uses of bridges. Theresults varied from connecting com-munities to bungee jumping andkeeping enemies out with castledrawbridges. They used the sameactivity and listed types of bridges.The key to success of this variationof "Think-Pair Share" was keepingthese short.

The students in my three classestypically range from valedictorians tospecial education inclusion students. Iexpected different levels of under-standing and sophistication, and thatdid not detract from the final results.Compression and tension are two ofthe forces that are integral to theunderstanding of bridges. I wanted allof my students to understand at leastthese forces, which can be simplifiedto pushing (compression) and pulling

(tension). I knew that my AP Physics stu-dents would probably have a better under-standing of these concepts than I, and Iencouraged them to take these understand-ings to further levels (taking them and "run-ning with them"). Using materials likeswimming pool noodles and string, stu-dents in groups determined which werestrong in compression and which werestrong in tension, and charted their results.They enjoyed a variety of short learningactivities like this. Because I had nevertaught any of these activities before, I

quickly discovered that the activities wentmuch better in my second and third classes.The first class ended up being my guineapig class so I started switching the orderaround.

Through a Power Point presentation, stu-dents learned about bridges and innova-tions in historical contexts. This was fol-lowed by a Power Point highlightingCalatrava's works plus a video and accom-panying interactive activities in a computerlab. Students went outside and sketchedpossible sources of inspirations like leavesand acorns for their bridges. After somestruggles with drawing on graph paper,they used their problem solving skills tobuild their own bridges, frequentlyexchanging ideas with their peers. Theylater assessed their own bridges and thoseof their classmates.

At the end, students had to write whatthey did not like about the unit on bridges.Some of the comments included, "Taking atest on them," "How long it took before weactually got to build them," and "…figur-ing out where to put the towers and cablesso my bridge wouldn't collapse."Comments about what they liked mostincluded, "I liked learning about the histo-ry of bridges" and "I liked getting to seehow bridges have evolved and changedover time" and "Getting to use spraypaint." I did wonder if that young man wasthe one who lightly spray-painted "I loveart" in the grass. It has since worn away.One young lady wrote, "The thing that Iliked most was learning about the futuristicDubai Bridge and using nature as an inspi-ration for our own bridge."

At the culminating art show, visitors weresurrounded by an array of bridges. Aceramic bridge with soaring butterfly wingtowers was next to a graceful foam-corecable-stayed bridge with piers that resem-bled abstracted tree roots. A balsa woodbridge that had trusses that looked likedeceptively delicate leaf veins was next toa ceramic brick beam footbridge with agiant eye motif. The ideas inspired from

(continued on page 36)

SPRING 2009 21

Karen R. Yarnall is an Art Teacher at NewarkHigh School in New Castle County, Delaware.

B

Bridges: Inspired by Nature

SANTIAGO CALATRAVA, PUENTE DE LUSITANIA, 1991

By Langdon L. Hammeroung people learning to read lit-erature — and not only literature,but any kind of writing that can't

be reduced to information — young peopleneed to learn to hear voices. This may beespecially true for Americans. The litera-ture of this nation arose in a vital culture oforal performance: sermons, speeches,debates, and drama were crucial forms ofexpression in early America. This traditionlies behind a continuing preoccupa-tion with voice in American literature:over and over again, American writ-ers imagine themselves not as writ-ing, but as speaking, to their readers.Responding to American literature,we respond to its long history of indi-vidual voices.

Our seminar on "American Voices"explored American literature as thecreation of particular speakers in mul-tiple forms: fiction, poetry, and prose.We encountered some of the bestknown, most arresting Americanvoices — the poet who calls to read-ers across time in Whitman's"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," the enter-taining teenager who narratesHuckleberry Finn ("You don't knowme, without have read a book by thename of 'The Adventures of TomSawyer,' but that ain't no matter"), andthe visionary Civil Rights leader whodeclared, "I have a dream" — whileexploring the rhetorical techniques bywhich these voices were created, andthrough which they go on speaking to us.

Our readings and discussion included, insequence, some classics of American liter-ature: sermons and speeches by PatrickHenry, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth,and Martin Luther King, Jr.; poems byWalt Whitman and Emily Dickinson,Robert Frost (and Frost's letters on what hecalls "the sound of sense" as well as his lec-ture "The Imagining Ear") and LangstonHughes; and Mark Twain. We were con-

cerned with the ways in which voice isconstructed on the page, and the expressivefunctions of sound in writing.

Huckleberry Finn introduced the questionof dialect, and its repeated use of the word"nigger" prompted long discussion of thehistory of that word and its usage today. Wediscussed an essay called "Teaching the N-Word" by Emily Bernard, a professor ofAfrican American literature at theUniversity of Vermont, which speaks about

her experience discussing the word in hercollege classroom. We also read newspaperarticles and personal essays dealing with thequestion of Black English, James Baldwin'sshort essay "If Black English Isn't aLanguage . . .," and selections from AliceWalker's novel The Color Purple and RalphEllison's novel Invisible Man. Ellison'snovel, like Twain's, presents a view ofAmerican literature as multi-voiced, mixingmultiple forms of speech and tradition.

Some of the teachers in our seminar teachstudents whose first language is Spanish,

and we included two weeks of discussionof Latino/a authors who speak of the expe-rience of learning English, and who reflecton the situation of Spanish speakers in anation dominated by English. We readessays by and interviews with RichardRodriguez, and essays and fiction by JuliaAlvarez, Gloria Anzaldua, and SandraCisneros. These authors helped us extendour discussion of dialect to the question oflanguage acquisition and the experience of

speakers of English as a second lan-guage.

I say we discussed these texts andissues, and indeed we did. But we alsospent important time in our seminarlistening to each other read those textsaloud. When we read texts aloud, weare interpreting them, giving voice tothem, and finding ourselves in them. Inturn, however, the texts that we readaloud give voice to us, enabling us tothink and feel in ways we may nothave before. This is an activity, essen-tial to reading comprehension and topower in writing, that teachers canmodel for their students.

My idea in creating this seminar wasthat a focus on voice would be a use-ful way into the study of literature andthe practice of writing for students ofall levels. Advanced as well as begin-ning students often feel resistancetoward or anxiety about reading andwriting. But most young people areexpressive speakers and shrewd lis-teners who are well acquainted with

the pleasure and power of oral languagefrom their daily interactions with eachother and their families, and from theirexperience of music, video, and othermedia. The seminar aimed to develop con-ceptual and practical strategies for drawingon students' existing talents by using theiroral skills to establish a foundation for theirwork as writers and readers; and theFellows took up this project in a wonderfularray of ways in a series of curriculumunits designed for the full spectrum of pub-lic school classrooms.

22 ON COMMON GROUND

American Voices

AARON DOUGLAS, LISTEN LORD: A PRAYER FROM GOD'S TROMBONES, 1927

Y

Langdon L. Hammer is Professor of Englishand of American Studies at Yale University.

Listening for Voices

By Victoria L. Deschere with JessicaLauver

Editor's Note: "In Their Shoes: FindingVoice Through Personal Narrative" wasprepared in the seminar on "AmericanVoices." Students will focus on "voice" and"personality" by learning to read and emu-late the styles of professional and nonpro-fessional writers. Through imitating thestrategies of others, they will seek to findtheir own voices. The study of autobiogra-phies will lead to the writing of the stu-dents' own memoirs.

hate grading students' essays: an iron-ic dislike for an English teacher. Myessay is about… Point one.

Point two. Point three. I hopeyou enjoyed my essay. It's mind-numbing. But what could Iexpect: I forced them into an arti-ficial style. Form without person-ality. Purpose without life. It'shard to realize how crucial voiceis in writing until the haze ofutter tedium has set in.

When I was accepted into LangdonHammer's seminar about voice, I began tobelieve that writing could be enjoyable notonly for my students but also for me. Ifound the students' self-knowledge andtheir fluency with certain techniques inwriting provide the basis of voice instruc-tion. When considering voice develop-ment, I created a unit that hinges on twoprinciples: imitation and meta-cognition.Give the students examples of lively writ-ing, excite them to write with a diversity oftechniques and help them contemplate whothey are. Sitting in a Yale dormitory writingmy own unit, I dreamed of long hours ofenjoyable reading of student papers

because finally they were alive.Reading Walt Whitman, Emily

Dickenson, Julia Alvarez and LangstonHughes during the seminar, I felt com-pelled to write. Their skilled artistrycoursed through my veins. I needed toinstill that joy of word play into my stu-dents. My students began their journey bystudying memoirs from our district-recom-mended anthology to see how to write withvoice. As a class they interacted with eachpiece to determine what techniques theauthors used to infuse their writing withpersonality. Students found the mastersused word choice and sentence fluency, aswell as standard and non-standard forms ofEnglish to make words come alive. After

exploring published works, students wrotetheir own memoirs and tried to imitate thetechniques in their readings. What cameout of their pens was their own voice.Although occasionally they tried a turn ofphrase or two that was not theirs stylisti-cally, their peers, during the revisionprocess, would quickly identify the wordsas inauthentic and guide the author towardssomething more in keeping with their char-acter. Most of my students are still findingout who they are; therefore it was mostexciting to see how many of them began towrite with an individual voice.

In first teaching the unit, I had the stu-dents complete a meta-cognitive exercise,immediately after publication, in whichthey analyzed their own voice for authen-ticity. I recognized that I was more objec-tive as a writer after distancing myselffrom my own work and decided to give mystudents the same opportunity. Theyapproached their writing and dissected itlike the works from our anthology but only

after a one-week hiatus. Adding this breakfrom their writing to their analysis, createda new perspective for the students.

Some students really struggled with this.This may be because they are still exploringwho they are, or are not comfortable inter-acting with a text critically. For these stu-dents their analysis was shallow: "I usuallyyell a lot. So using a lot of ! is really me. Imean I am really emotional." When I teachthis unit again, I plan to conference with thistype of student to scaffold their analysis.

Other students were more comfortablewith literary analysis and self-evaluation.Their journals showed insight into theircharacter and ability to write in the sameway: "I want to do my best. I try really hard

at school and take care of my littlesister. I use correct English eventhough my friends don't. I have tobe a good example to my sister."Some students would recognizethat the difference in their writingstyle related to actual personalitytraits and would be able to explaintheir reason for the change.

This awareness of self and genuine voicewas also evident in the peer conferencesduring the revision process. Students didnot just look for spelling and punctuationerrors: they interacted with the authorabout the choices they made about style.That has never happened before in myclass. Unfortunately when writing was crit-icized, students became much more sensi-tive to the comments because this assign-ment was close to the writers' hearts. Onestudent took a risk writing her memoir inpoem form. When her editor laughed at thefree form poem, the author scribbled allover it and left the room crying. Next year,lesson number two is how to give and takecriticism.

This September I sat in my living roomeagerly lapping up one hundred and twen-ty memoirs as I would a well-writtennovel. The students spoke with sincerityand verve; they made me laugh andbrought me to tears. I can't believe it: I lovegrading student essays.

SPRING 2009 23

I

Victoria L. Deschere is an English LanguageArts Inclusion Teacher at Louis L. ReddingMiddle School in New Castle County,Delaware. Jessica Lauver, a Seventh-GradeEnglish Teacher in the same school, collabo-rated with her in teaching the unit and writingthis article.

Most of my students are still finding out who they are. It was most exciting

to see how most of them began to writewith an individual voice.

Finding Voice Through Personal Narrative

By Bonnee L. Breese

Editor's Note: This high school unitexplores how oral procedures and formshave influenced the African Americancommunity and American society as awhole. The study of relationships betweencommunicator and audience will lay afoundation for the students' own perform-ance writings and class readings, and willimprove their listening skills.The unit is aligned with severalPennsylvania State AcademicStandards.

n this age of high-speedtechnology, my studentsgravitate to television and

Internet media to hear and viewthe most up-to-date informationconcerning the Presidentialcampaign, as well as to beinformed by listening and view-ing the debates. I have had touse my curriculum unit's lessonsin a timelier and more creativeway, beyond the confines of thecurriculum guides supplied toteachers by our District. The unitI developed and created, "SpeakWords, Recite Messages: TheOral Interpretation of the Word,"had to be slightly altered to meetthe needs of my Senior HonorsEnglish classroom discussionsas first-time voters were con-cerned by the evolving informa-tion over the last few weeks.Students were talking about theelection, they were registeringto vote, they were asking ques-tions in class, expressing views on ourclass blog, and in the hallways, and listen-ing attentively to speeches made, andadvertisements that aired. Students wereattempting to take political buttons,posters, and flyers from wherever they

thought they could. Furthermore, I waswatching young people throughout theschool community trade political campaignbuttons like I've never seen before — I hadto change the plans.

I introduced the concept of voice as apower, language as medium. Voice wasimportant to the Presidential candidatesand to my students as they canvassed edu-cators in their thinking about what was

being heard daily in the political arena. Myunit in its purest form was to include onlyspeeches from African American politi-cians and prominent figures in AmericanHistory. However, I was now given anopportunity for comparison and contrast ofthe reactions and responses of both candi-dates — in their political pasts and in thepresent. The call and response speaker was

noted and studied; and why was it that onecandidate preferred the arena style plat-form while the other clearly was swal-lowed by the method? My students had toquickly learn the techniques and the histor-ical tradition of the oratorical style.Students were interested in hearingMalcolm's "Ballot or the Bullet" speech,rapidly responding when hearing facts thatstill ring true for them in their lives. They

attentively pointed out that U.S.Senator Barbara Jordan in herspeech given at the DemocraticNational Convention in the1970s cleared the way for thenSenator and now President-Elect Barack Obama to speak in2005 for the same venue. Theschool community was hypedand many other senior studentswanted to be in my class. Mystudents were taking the discus-sions in the lunchroom, thetutoring and computer labs, par-ents were emailing… my childneeds a more fundamentalfoundation to find the informa-tion you have requested. I keptthem on the web, listening tospeeches checking and balanc-ing the facts as well as the opin-ions, students stood on bothsides of the aisle — untilObama came to visit our City,their neighborhood in a streetrally.

After the election, the dis-course about language contin-ued in few students recitingfrom memory poetry they wereassigned. "Language is power,"

I wrote on the board, and then continued byasking students to explain their position onthe statement. Several of my studentswrote in their journals, "...language is apower that everybody has...." These fewand simple words led to a clear divide ofbeliefs and attitudes in the class. The state-ment led most students to stand on thepremise that the statement was either true

24 ON COMMON GROUND

I

Bonnee L. Breese is an English and SpecialEducation Teacher at Overbrook High Schoolin Philadelphia.

CARL VAN VECHTEN, AUGUSTA SAVAGE'S 'LIFT EVERY VOICE', 1939

Speak Words, Recite Messages

SPRING 2009 25

By Roger E. Howestimation is a word that is heardoften in mathematics education,but it is rarely explained. The idea

of estimation is to say approximately howlarge quantities are. To implement this ideaeffectively, estimation has to be linked tothe same structure that supports exactarithmetic: our base ten place value system(or decimal system for short) for writingnumbers.

The decimal system is a marvel ofsophistication and efficiency. It allows usboth to represent numbers compactly andeasily, and to manipulate them in importantways, primarily by means of the standardarithmetic operations: addition/subtractionand multiplication/division. Learning howto perform these operations with numbersbrings students into contact with the sub-stantial formal structure underlying placevalue notation. In learning the ins and outsof the arithmetic operations, they maysometimes forget that the primary use ofnumbers is to express magnitude — thesizes of quantities. Estimation entails refo-cusing on this basic purpose.

Magnitude is reflected directly in placevalue. Let's recall the basics. With the dec-imal system, any whole number can beexpressed using only ten symbols (the dig-its), organized in carefully arrangedsequences. A given sequence, such as 123,stands for a sum: 123 = 100 + 20 + 3. Eachof the terms in this sum has a special form:it is a digit (i.e., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)times a power of 10. The place of the digitin the sequence tells what power of 10 itshould be multiplied by. The 3 is multipliedby 1, which is 100; the 2 is multiplied by 10,which is 101, and the 1 is multiplied by 100,which is 102. The key to making this workis to insert a 0 wherever the correspondingpower of ten is not needed to express thenumber. This principle is most dramatical-ly used in the numbers like 100, and 20 and3, in which only one digit is non-zero.Because the 2 in 20 appears in the second

place, with a zero to its right, we know thatit means twenty, not two; because the 1 in100 appears in the third place, with twozeros to its right, we know that it stands forone hundred, not ten or one. This is theprinciple of place value.

Although the individual digits of a num-ber are important, the first key piece ofinformation about the size of a whole num-ber is conveyed simply by the number ofdigits in the number. Looking at the num-ber of digits provides a crude sorting ofnumbers into collections or bins of num-bers of roughly comparable size: any num-ber in a given bin is within a factor of ten ofany other number in the bin. For example,9,999 (the largest four digit number) is lessthan ten times 1,000 (the smallest four digitnumber). As loose as this is, it is the firstthing to understand in estimation: if you candetermine the number of digits in a number,you know something important about itssize. When financiers talk about six figuresalaries and seven figure salaries, they areshowing their grasp of this idea.

Sometimes just knowing the number ofdigits needed to express some quantity isenough. However, often one wants to knowit more accurately. The second stage of esti-mation is understanding how place valuelets us gauge the accuracy with which weknow numbers.

Most children learn place value in termsof vocabulary: ones, tens, hundreds, thou-sands, etc. What is important for estimationis relative place value. This amounts to theobservation that the relative value of twoplaces depends only on their separation.Thus, 10 is ten times 1; 100 is ten times 10;1000 is ten times 100, and so on. Any placeis worth ten times as much as the placeimmediately to its right. Similarly, anyplace is worth 100 times the place twoplaces to the right, and 1/10 of the placejust to its left, and 1/100 of the place two tothe left; and so forth. The relative placevalue of two places depends only on theirseparation, not on their specific locations.

This means that in any base ten number,most of the value of the number is in the

or false. Three students believed that thestatement was neither true nor false, mere-ly a way to communicate to a mass of peo-ple at a particular time in a society. Whohas the power, they declared, citing presentpolitical sources, popular teachers and stu-dent leaders. Through this portion of theunit's study students expressed varyingviewpoints that were based in the precursorresearch completed on the African oral tra-dition. "Your language is your culture'svoice," wrote a male student. "In my eyes,language is just a bruise left by a strongernation, the survival, and the preservation ofthe other," added another. A female studentwrote, "language and power... not everyonehas this exquisite gift… it is able to beobtained through cultivation and practice."I was impressed with another female whowrote, "Language shows your intelligence,power shows your understanding..." Iqueried further — dialect, what about it?Clearly the unit was taking on its own lifethrough its power — student's language,their understanding, and their willingnessto learn more.

Next, let the recitations begin, and theydid with students angrily learning memo-rization techniques and poems taken fromPoetry Out Loud resources. Seven groupsof students were assigned to memorize par-ticular poems; all were written by poets ofother ethnic and racial backgrounds so thatstudents would be able to reach beyondtheir own voice to gain a clearer under-standing of the voice of the author.Students were digitally recorded and thebest of show were videotaped for perform-ance purposes. This was an exciting way tobegin using the unit in the classroom.Social studies teachers were asking howthey could collaborate with me on thework, and my principal came to visit whenthe class was asked to be a part of a videoconference with other students of NationalFellows across the country. There was somuch to do, a great deal to learn, a wholemedley to say — and then some, inapproaching the unit! Later, more will betold to you through — my students' voices.

EstimationMaking Estimation Precise

E

Roger E. Howe is Professor of Mathematics atYale University.

leftmost few digits. In fact, one can showthat the leading (i.e., leftmost) digit of anumber always accounts for at least halfthe size of the number. Even in extremecases, such as 199, with a small leadingdigit and large succeeding digits, the digitin the leading place is worth more than allthe others combined. The leading two dig-its always account for more than 90% ofthe number; the leading three dig-its account for more than 99%; theleading four digits account formore than 99.9%, and so forth.Thus, one does not need to knowvery many digits of a number toknow it to very high relative accu-racy. Estimation is about determin-ing the first digit of a number, andoccasionally the second. The firstdigit (along with, of course, thenumber of digits) very often isquite sufficient.

In fact, it may be difficult inmany situations to know accurate-ly more than the first two digits ofa number. More than three is ask-ing a lot. Another way of interpret-ing the statements above about theleading digits of a number, is thatif you know the first two digits ofa number, you know it to withinless than 10% error; knowing thefirst three digits means knowingthe number to less than 1% error;and 4 digits leaves less than .1%possible error. Each additionalknown digit reduces the error, orincreases the accuracy, by a factorof 10.

When one is dealing with numbers thatarise from measurement, that are used todescribe the real world, it is difficult toachieve four digits of accuracy. Indeed,that much accuracy might not even makesense. For example, take the radius of theearth. It is somewhere around 4,000 miles.You can state it more accurately than that,but it does not make sense to specify it tothe nearest whole mile, because the earth isnot a perfect sphere. The bulge around the

equator caused by Earth's rotation; thelumps and dimples like the Himalayas andthe deep ocean trenches; and other irregu-larities, mean that it only makes sense totalk about the radius of the earth to about ±10 miles, which means the last decimalplace in a figure like 3958 should beignored. Use 3950 or 3960.

Opinion or election polls give another

kind of example. These polls usuallyinvolve asking 1000 to 1500 people fortheir opinion about an issue. When theresults are reported, they are usually assert-ed to be accurate to within ± 3%, less thantwo digits of accuracy. There is a good rea-son for this: to get the error down to ± 1%or less would cost ten times as much!

Even counting, which might seem asstraightforward and precise a process asever could be, is subject to error. In fact,

accurate counting is hard. As I was writingthis, an op-ed piece appeared in the NewYork Times (by Charles Seife, on 4 DEC,2008) on the recent senatorial election inMinnesota. The official tally after the clos-ing of the polls gave the Republican candi-date a lead of 137 votes, out of nearly 3million. This is closer than one wouldexpect if each voter just flipped a coin. A

recount was of course called, andsome districts were even recount-ed twice. Despite the best effortsto be careful, the two recountsdiffered by about .02%, or .0002.So this extremely careful counthad four, but not five decimalplaces of accuracy. The error doesnot come simply from recordingmistakes. From one count to thenext, ballots can appear or disap-pear, making even the total num-ber of votes uncertain. This rateof error would give an overallerror of about 600 votes out of the3 million cast, larger than the gapbetween the candidates. Seifemakes the point that we willnever know who the winner"really" was. A similarly ambigu-ous vote, in Florida in the 2000presidential election, has hadmajor consequences for all of usover the last eight years.

Thus, a full understanding ofestimation includes awareness ofthe limits of accuracy. Oneshould be suspicious of numbersreported with too many (especial-ly, more than 3) non-zero digits.

Expressing a real world number to manydigits is not merely confusing, it is proba-bly misleading.

The seminar explored these ideas andtheir implications at some length. Welearned the usefulness of one-digit arith-metic (and even, in some situations, of zerodigit arithmetic!). The units produced bythe seminar Fellows vary in level from firstgrade to high school, but they all incorpo-rate these ideas in a meaningful way.

26 ON COMMON GROUND

JASPER JOHNS, NUMBERS IN COLOR, 1959

By Elaine Yee Lun Tam

Editor's Note: This unit, written for sixth-grade math classes in a school that offersChinese language immersion, is being con-ducted in Cantonese. Working with theworld population, students learn about theplace value of large numbers, notation inpowers of ten, and rounding and order ofmagnitude. Then, starting with the Chineserice dumpling (zong) as a basic unit, theyuse scaling and proportion skills to esti-mate the rice needed to feed a population.They then explore area and volume to esti-mate the necessary storage, and apply pro-portion skills to find the land needed forproduction. The unit relates closely to thesixth-grade cultural study of the DragonBoat Festival, during which families tradi-tionally make and distribute to their neigh-bors such dumplings.

earning is part of the process ofteaching. The opportunity to par-ticipate in this year's national sem-

inar on "Estimation" led by Roger Howewas a rich learning experience for me. Iwas excited to learn with fellow colleaguesin depth about the topic of estimation andto write a math unit that complements thelanguage immersion design of my school.

I have planned to teach this curriculumunit in two parts. In the fall semester, I amteaching the first part, which deals with thepopulation numbers and estimations ofrice mass relating to area and volume. Theclass looked up the online U.S. and WorldPopulation Clocks. It was hilarious whenthe students tried to copy down the chang-ing population number. They were quickto come up with the reasons for thechanges in population, which led to ourdiscussion of the nature of estimation.When we compared the population of dif-ferent countries or cities, I introduced theidea of using multiplicative thinkinginstead of addition or subtraction. The stu-

dents were intrigued by how simple it is tomultiply and divide using the exponents inpowers of ten. More importantly, the com-parisons were more meaningful to the stu-dents. It was especially eye-opening forthe class when they realized that our sisterschool in Beijing has about seven timesour student population, a ratio similar tothat with populations in Taiwan and HongKong. I wanted the students to stick withthe multiplicative way of thinking as wemove into the next part of our unit in esti-mating the mass of rice.

As part of a math professional develop-ment to learn about students' math think-ing, I was asked to interview a couple ofstudents. I thought this would be a greatopportunity to try out the rice mass estima-tion problems. This pre-assessment exer-cise gave me insights into student thinkingand was helpful in determining the effec-tive teaching moves for this part of the unit.

To introduce the idea of estimations forrice production, the class taped flat base-ten sticks on file folders to build squares ofvarious sizes as pretend rice fields. We

spread grains of uncooked rice over thesquares to represent what can be grown inan area of land. The squares were groupedaccording to the length of their sides — forexample: 3 cm., 6 cm., 9 cm., and 18 cm.The students were to estimate the mass ofrice that would fit the squares.

By this time, most students agreed thatmultiplication is the way to go; however,they were surprised that their estimateswere still too small. They had focused onthe length of the sides of the squaresinstead of thinking about the proportion ofthe areas. A simple teaching move I madewas to use the overhead projector to showpouring of the rice from a smaller squareonto a larger square. I manipulated therice by pushing the rice around in the larg-er square to help the students see the pro-portion of the rice in the larger area.Another move was to cut out smallersquares to fill the larger square to showthe multiplication factor in the area.Lastly, I asked the students to record thearea of the squares and used the data to aidwith their guesses.

SPRING 2009 27

L

Elaine Yee Lun Tam is a Mathematics andCantonese Teacher at Alice Fong Yu AlternativeElementary School in San Francisco.

UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER, RICE PADDY FIELDS, JAPAN, CIRCA 1880

Rice to Feed the World

28 ON COMMON GROUND

By Sharyn F. Gray

Editor's Note: This unit, "CrunchingNumbers for Lunch," teaches estimationskills through examining environmentalissues at the school site. Its overall goal isfor students to make sense of statisticalreporting and very large numbers throughevaluating the use and waste habits of theschool community.

n developing this unit, which I am nowteaching, I was determined to create thecontext for students that I feel is lacking

in much of our curricula. Therefore, thoughmy national seminar focused strictly on esti-mation, my unit integrates the teaching ofmathematical practices by focusing on situa-tions in which wemay use thesepractices outsideof math class oreven outside ofschool. I decidedto focus on thegrowing trend to"go green." Mygoal was to bring aglobal issue downto a context kids are familiar with and usemathematical techniques to analyze a prob-lem that exists in their world.

One of my readings, Garbage Land: Onthe Secret Trail of Trash, by ElizabethRoyte had me all fired up. I decided that itwould be my mission for every child toknow about the effects of trash upon ourworld. After discussing the question withRoger Howe, I agreed to present the studyas an analysis, not a problem. I would teachthe students how to get the data, how tocalculate the numbers, and let them decideif my assumed problem really even exists.

Given the challenge of teaching a newmath program, I decided to teach my unitto a smaller group of students who remainin class while other students attend band.We started off by reading The Lorax by Dr.

Seuss. The kids quickly understood that inDr. Seuss' opinion too much waste leads tosevere consequences. I breathed a sigh ofrelief as they indignantly began designingposters and bumper stickers about the evilsof pollution. We then moved on to readinga newspaper article that was chock full ofnumbers and numerical statements. Thestudents understood that a number such as"100 thousand" is "really big" but had nopoint of reference for understanding themagnitude of such a number and what thatwould really look like in their world.

At this point we jumped into the mathe-matics with a series of lessons on relativeplace value, analyzing the number 1,234 inits various forms. We modeled the numberusing base-ten blocks, stacked them up, and

made a littlebuilding that fitinto a 100 squarecentimeter foot-print. Studentsalso created thisnumber usingdigit cards bro-ken down intothe relative placevalue compo-

nents, stacking cards that read 1000, 200,30, and 4, and aligning them on the rightedge with the smallest number on top. Thenumber read visibly as 1,234, yet the cardscould be taken apart into their various placevalue components. We then started separat-ing out the cubes in our model, and the val-ues on the cards, and writing these differentrepresentations numerically. After a fewminutes the students recognized that 1,234= 1000 + 200 + 30 + 4, modeling it withtheir cards and writing it on their whiteboards. Suddenly, someone noticed as theywere pulling their cards apart that if the1000 and 200 stayed together, they had1200 + 30 + 4. Hmm. This set off a flurry ofinvestigation, and in five minutes our whiteboard was covered with equations, such as:

1230 + 4 = 12341030 + 204 = 12341200 + 34 = 1234

The students worked in small groups. Igave the rule that they must share theirthinking and explain their guess mathe-matically before they measure the rice onthe squares. A few students asked mewhether their guesses were correct or not.Other students in their group would jumpin to respond that there is no correctanswer because the "harvest" can vary.They shared the reasons for their guesses.Some students were surprised that othershad come up with the same estimates, buthad totally different mathematical expla-nations. One group even decided tomanipulate the rice by piling the rice inthe squares and guessed very high num-bers. Their reason was that they wanted tohave an abundant harvest. I was ecstaticwhen one group concluded that a theoret-ical estimate is better than guessing theactual measurement by luck.

After the exploration of mass and area,we continued with estimating the rice inrelationship to volume. The students dis-cussed the multiplicative relationshipbetween area and volume before theymade the cubes for measuring the rice.Upon a suggestion from other colleagues,I thought this would be an appropriateplace to introduce the idea of rate, thevolume per amount of rice. Since the ricegrains fill up the cubes compactly, there isless manipulation of the mass by the stu-dents. They can apply the strategies ofestimation to make their guesses by usingthe rate. At the moment, we are complet-ing this part. The students are enthusiasticas they discover the power of exponentialgrowth in the mass of the rice in thecubes.

I have made many discoveries about mystudents and my teaching while workingthrough this first part of the estimationunit on rice. I am excited about teachingthis math unit because I believe that it willhelp students make sense of what estima-tion is and learn how math is connected tothe real world. I look forward to complet-ing the second part of the unit in thespring semester.

I

Sharyn F. Gray is a Fourth-Grade Teacher at theWood Gormley Elementary School in Santa Fe.

We modeled the numberusing base-ten blocks, stacked

them up, and made a littlebuilding that fit into a 100

square centimeter footprint.

Experimenting with Estimation

In fact, this group "got it" so well that Ihad them teach what they learned to therest of the class when they returned fromband, just to see if they could translate ourdiscussion into a conversation amongfourth graders without my input. I then hadall students write exit cards to see if theycould in fact reiterate their learning, andwas pleased with the results. I plan to con-tinue this technique of having the researchgroup communicate their findings andteach new concepts to the other group on aperiodic basis, as it seems to work and hasreinvigorated my instincts that there reallyis something to constructivist theory.

Once the main group was comfortablemanipulating these numbers, we movedinto larger numbers, playing games to rein-force place value concepts and emphasiz-ing the significance of the leading digit.One day there was a heated discussionbetween two gifted students about where toplace three eights when trying to create thelargest nine digit number possible with thenumbers 8,7,5,2,1,2,8,8, and 3. The studentwho was not in the instructional groupthought the eights should be the leadingdigit in each period, i.e., 8_ _ , 8 _ _, 8 _ _since the eights were the largest digitsavailable and would make each periodhave the largest value possible. She hadcome in on the tail end of our discussionabout leading digits, and made a leap to alogical, but erroneous conclusion. Theother student insisted that the eights all beplaced in the millions period, because "Ifyou put the second eight here, it's 80 mil-lion and that's greater than if you put the 8there, because that's only eight hundredthousand, and millions are always greaterthan thousands even if you have hundredsof them." The best part came momentslater, when that student, who is incrediblygifted but also classically unmotivated,turned around and said, "This is fun."

In preparation for actually designing ourstudy of trash, I felt I needed to assess mystudents' ability to calculate area and vol-ume and assess relative proportions. Wehad visually experienced this with our

earlier experiments, but our study couldeventually require manipulating largernumbers. We therefore read Russel Ash'sbook, Incredible Comparisons, whichsent students on quests to determine howmany pencils would make the area of aQ.(189), how many dry erase markers itwould take to measure the height of anEgyptian pyramid (2004), and how manyTeddies it would take to cover the couchin our classroom.

I feel at this point that the group is readyto start designing its investigation into useand waste in our school. Teaching this unit

has allowed me to reconnect with my ownideas about the nature of learning, and Ihave since decided to open up the subjectmatter to allow for more student input. Iplan to model the cafeteria waste problemas an instructional series and then have thestudents develop their own investigationsof something in the school community. Weare currently working on a unit in our reg-ular math program on data collection andanalysis which will prepare the students fordesigning their own investigations. I ameager to see what my students decide toinvestigate and conclude.

SPRING 2009 29

SOL LEWITT, 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 CROSS AND TOWER, 1984

By Brian P. Bell

Editor's Note: "Estimation in Ecology"focuses on the horseshoe crab census inDelaware Bay as a geographically andbiologically relevant instance throughwhich to introduce students to conceptsand procedures that are necessary formathematical estimations of quantity.

ecause my students find math tobe both difficult and boring, I tryto create entertaining ways to

teach them "difficult" concepts. To makethis unit entertaining as well as applicableto the real world, I decided to use the cen-sus of horseshoe crabs in theDelaware Bay as the centralfocus.

I began by teaching the studentsplace value, then rounding, deci-mals, exponents, powers of ten,and order of magnitude. After amonth on these concepts, I decid-ed it was time for them to solvetheir first estimation problem. AsI began talking about what prob-lem we could solve, I looked outmy classroom windows at the new footballfield in the back of the school — and anidea hit me: "How many blades of grass arein a football field?" One student called out,"Mr. Bell, that's impossible!" So we tookthis time to talk about the usefulness ofestimation. No one will probably everknow how many blades of grass are in thefootball field, but that doesn't mean wecan't come up with a reasonable estimate.We discussed how estimation is differentfrom a guess — that it is based on math,observations, measurements, and some-times the prior knowledge of a subject.

In order for the students to see how dif-ferent a guess may be from an estimate, Iasked them first to guess how many bladesof grass were in a football field. Each stu-dent shared their guess with the class prior

to starting our estimation. I then askedthem how we could start on this problem— what would we need to know, whatobservations or measurements might weneed to make? They decided that we need-ed to know the measurements of the field.The students then proposed counting theblades of grass from one side of the field tothe other. After we discussed the problemswith this method, we agreed that we mightneed only to count a yard's length of grassto begin an estimate. Having done that, thestudents worked a few multiplication prob-lems and arrived at an estimate of432,000,000 blades of grass in a footballfield. Some further conversation about per-

centages helped them to understand thatthe figure 2 does not represent a significantportion of this overall estimate.

The students then spent some time learn-ing about the horseshoe crab of theDelaware Bay and its importance to us.This was interesting to them because ourschool is less than an hour from some ofthe best horseshoe crab spawning beachesin the world. After a couple of days learn-ing about the horseshoe crabs, we beganour final project. I set up our "beach"across four long lunch tables in the cafete-ria, a total of five meters. I used Smartiescandy for the males, and SweetTarts candyfor the females. The female horseshoecrabs are larger in real life, so I wanted touse something that would replicate this sizedifference. The total number of Smartiesand SweetTarts was just over 3,200, thoughI did not share this information with thekids until the following day.

The students were given a piece of string,a small grid (1.5 in.), a meter stick, and adata table to complete this exercise. Theirgoal was to use their materials to count thenumber of crabs in one grid every 20 cm.,then use their numbers to estimate thenumber of crabs on the tables. I told themthat my assistance in this activity would beminimal, because I wanted to see if theycould use the concepts they had learned inclass without me. My principal, Dr. ClaudeMcAllister, came to the cafeteria toobserve them during this lesson. Hewalked around to the different groups andasked what kind of numbers they weredetermining, and how they were determin-

ing them. He reported to me thathe was impressed with the stu-dents' knowledge of the conceptsand their ability to apply them ina real world situation. The nextday in class, we discussed theirestimates. Most of the groupsoffered reasonable estimates ofthe actual count of 3,200 horse-shoe crabs. Some however, werenot very close, so we used thatopportunity to discuss their meth-

ods, learn where they made a mistake, cor-rect their mistake, and then determine anew estimate. One group in one of myclasses actually gave an estimate of 3,200!

At the conclusion of this activity, I hadthe students each write a letter to my sem-inar leader, Dr. Howe, telling him in theirown words what they believe they learnedabout estimation. A few of the lettersmade me realize that some students willneed more practice with estimation,which I intend to incorporate into my les-sons throughout the year. Overall the let-ters let me know that thanks to RogerHowe, and Gary Kreamer, of theDelaware Department of NaturalResources and Environmental Control,who offered guidance and proofread mypaper on all horseshoe crab facts, I hadcreated an entertaining unit that enabledthe students to solve "difficult" problemswith confidence.

30 ON COMMON GROUND

B

Brian P. Bell is a Mathematics and ScienceTeacher at Meredith Middle School in NewCastle County, Delaware.

I told them that my assistance inthis activity would be minimal,

because I wanted to see if they coulduse the concepts they had learned

in class without me.

Estimation in Ecology

SPRING 2009 31

By Kimberly K. Turner

Editor's Note: This curriculum unit, pre-pared in the seminar on "Race andGender in Shakespeare," aims to encour-age students in an inner-city middleschool to apply to an art project the read-ing strategies being concurrently learnedin an English class, and to gain an appre-ciation of aspects of Shakespeare's playsand their historical contexts. Students willexamine how "identity" is communicatedin Tudor portraits and then use similartechniques to create their own "portrait"of a Shakespearean character.

here are two things that keep meengaged and motivated after teach-ing for 17 years: my own personal

love of learning and the pure joy thatcomes when students exceed my expecta-tions. I adore Shakespeare and the Tudorperiod of English history, and in SeptemberI was very excited to share this with my ArtI students, though not without trepidation.This was Shakespeare after all, and I wasplanning on doing my unit with eighthgraders. Would my students also enjoyShakespeare's plays? I have taught longenough to be fairly confident about know-ing what my students will do and how theywill respond to a unit. I was hopeful thatthey would enjoy it, but I was completelyunprepared for their response. They literal-ly fell in love with Shakespeare.

I had purchased ten copies of the threeplays on which we were focusing. Iassigned each student one book to read andasked that they read one act for each classperiod. There was much whining. The

usual comments were made. "That is toomuch!" "We can't read that much!" "Thatwill take too long!" I gave them my com-passionate yet firm directions and basicallysaid, "That's the assignment." The nextclass period I got the first of many shocksthat came with teaching this unit. Most ofthe students had gone ahead and not onlyread the act assigned, but had finished thewhole play and wanted to check out a dif-ferent play! I did NOT expect that. Beforethe end of the unit, several students hadread all three plays and had started readingplays that they found on their own.

I was also surprised by how involvedwith the characters they became. I had ini-tially planned on only focusing on threeplays: Macbeth, Othello, and The Tamingof the Shrew. I felt that these were playsthat my students would find engaging. Iwas surprised that a few students had, on

Approaches to Shakespeare

By Paul H. Frywas delighted to lead an enthusiastic

group of Fellows in a Summer 2008seminar for the Yale National

Initiative called at first "Race and Genderin Shakespeare" and later "Approaches toShakespeare." We read Macbeth, TheMerchant of Venice, Othello, As You LikeIt, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew,and Romeo and Juliet, in that order. Wewere a diverse group, including severalhigh school teachers, some with AP class-es, one from an arts and performance mag-net school, one from a vocational and tech-nical school, and one art teacher — ofwhom more in a minute; several middleschool teachers, one a specialist in theteaching of English as a second language;and a third grade teacher. Responding tosuch a broad range of interests, needs, andeducational development, these teacherssaw a variety of possibilities for teachingShakespeare in the classroom, both within

the mandated exposure to Shakespearefrom the ninth through twelfth grades andin more surprising contexts. The rubric ofthe seminar, featuring "race and gender,"was not of special interest to a number ofteachers, though five did write curriculumunits specifically on that topic and morebroadly concerning character and identity.Four others took up topics involving cul-ture, politics, and religion, topics in whichidentity understood as individuality shapedby group characteristics is still an impor-tant consideration. Even the tenth unit,focused on the sonnets, touched on themesthat reflect character.

The "visual portrait" as a means of learn-ing about characterization is a widespreadpractice among teachers lately. Typicallystudents are asked to draw their characterwith no concern for a likeness, even just todraw a stick figure, and then place aroundthe figure various attributes (thoughts onthe head, feelings on the heart, actions onthe limbs of the body) supported by quota-tions from the text. Several of the units for

our seminar entailed such a lesson idea,but Kimberly Turner's adaptation of it isquite a different matter. She is an artteacher, and her purpose overlaps onlypartly with the motive behind the "visualportrait": Using both costuming exercisesand also the chance of a drawing lesson inoil pastels, she wants students to developan image of a Shakespearean character asthe sort of human being he or she mightactually look like; but an equally impor-tant part of her well-informed unit is theteaching of the relationship betweenElizabethan portraiture and contempora-neous art-historical developments on theEuropean continent. She has sent me anumber of examples of her students' work,and I must say first and foremost that theyare splendid displays of artistic talent anda real tribute to Kimberly's skill as an artteacher. The students' loving attention tofidelity of costume is also remarkable, andshows how much historical atmospherethey absorbed without perhaps havingbeen fully conscious of doing so.

I

Paul H. Fry is Professor of English at YaleUniversity.

Finding a Variety of Possibilities

To See or Not to See?

TKimberly K. Turner is an Art Teacher at LucilleM. Brown Middle School in Richmond, Virginia.

their own, read other plays which had char-acters that they wanted to explore. Theywere so excited about the characters theyhad "discovered" that they were willing tobuy the play to have it in class to use. Inever expected students to happily buytheir own copy of a Shakespeare play.

After our in-depth analysis of the charac-ters and our study of the Tudor period andTudor portraits, the students were given thechallenge of deciding how their selectedcharacter would be portrayed in a portrait.They needed to think about what theircharacter would wear, how they would beposed, their expression, and any items thatcould be included as symbols. During thenext week they brought in clothing, wigsand objects while I asked other teachersand friends if we could borrow anythingappropriate. I even found an inexpensive

Halloween costume that was a Tudor dress. Since these were 8th grade students, who

can try very hard to exude coolness, Iexpected them not to object to dress-up butto be a little wary about looking foolish.Again they surprised me. They loveddressing up. The sheer joy that the studentshad on that day is hard to convey, but Iknow it is a day that they will rememberfor the rest of their lives. I certainly willalways remember it. A day that had thepotential to be chaotic with students dress-ing up and posing, and having their pic-ture's taken, went shockingly smoothly.

Their enthusiasm for dressing up contin-ued into the studio part of the project.Every day that they came in, they immedi-ately pulled out their drawings and wentright to work, skipping the habitual five toten minutes of socializing. This particularclass comes back to the art room afterlunch every day, where the usual topics ofdiscussion are social in nature. But now allthey talked about was Shakespeare!

I was not the only adult to be surprised bymy students' enthusiasm. The Englishteacher, who was concurrently teachingRomeo and Juliet, told me that she couldsee a difference in the students' engage-

ment. The two of us took the students on afield trip to the Folger ShakespeareLibrary. After our time there, the docentsexpressed their appreciation for the stu-dents' interest and prior knowledge. Theysaid they were very pleasantly surprised byhow engaged the students were, and thatthey were one of the best groups withwhom they had ever worked.

And, best of all, the high caliber of theirart surprised me. They exceeded every oneof my expectations. At a time in my careerwhen I feel confident about assessing mystudents' capabilities, it is a joy to be sur-prised by them. This unexpected reactionfrom my students is what I will carry withme in the future, just as I know they willlong remember this unit. These are thetypes of lessons that make teaching joyousand confirm all of the reasons I beganteaching so many years ago.

32 ON COMMON GROUND

KENSINGTON VIVIER, THE BRINDED CAT HATH MEWED, 2008CATHERINE PARR, ATTRIBUTED TO MASTER JOHN, CA. 1545

(continued from page 20)the questions about their comunidadautonoma. The majority of my studentswere excited about the project. At the endof that class I gave them the option of tak-ing home their projects in order to insertpictures and to polish them. To my ownsurprise, more than two thirds of the stu-dents did so, bringing back serious piecesof work. Maybe they will continue toimpress me with their group Power Pointprojects and class presentations to follow.

This is only the beginning of the unit. Wewill then move through the history and arthistory sections, look in some detail at dif-ferent styles of bridges (Roman,Romanesque, and Gothic) in different partsof the country, and finish with a yet closerlook at modern bridge architecture bystudying Santiago Calatrava and his workin depth. The last part of the unit will con-sist of a collaborative project. I am lookingforward to it and (secretly) hoping to wit-ness the kind of energy and collaboration Iexperienced this past summer while attend-ing Martin Gehner's seminar.

Cardalliaguet: Puentes

By W. Mark Saltzmanumans eat, drink, and breathe tobring into their bodies the rawmaterials for growth, repair, and

generation of the energy necessary for theactions that bring pleasure to life. In mostcases, the adult body achieves a dynamicstate called "homeostasis," in which theamount of nutritional input balances ener-gy need, so the weight of the individualremains constant with time. Even with nat-ural mechanisms of homeostasis, mostindividuals gain weight as they age,because of changes in their rate of activityand changes in the metabolicprocesses in the aging body.So to maintain good health,every person must be con-scious of the changing nutri-tional needs of their body asthey age.

Good nutrition is the bed-rock of human health. But,even in our information-richsociety, it is difficult for citi-zens to define the elements ofgood nutrition. Conflictinginformation from healthexperts and misleading adver-tising from food manufacturers compoundthe problem. The relations between foodintake, nutrition, and human health arebecoming increasingly important in theUS. The Center for Disease Control (CDC)reports a dramatic increase in obesity in theUS over the period from 1985 to 2005. Anddisorders of metabolism, such as diabetes,create tremendous challenges for manyindividuals in the US and other nations.

This seminar provided an overview ofhuman nutrition from the perspective ofbiomedical engineering. From a mechani-cal viewpoint, the human body is an ele-gant machine that requires inputs for sus-tained operation. In the seminar, weaddressed major questions regardinghuman physiology: What are the processesresponsible for input of nutrients and raw

materials? How are molecular nutrientsextracted from ingested materials? Howare these processes controlled?

Specifically, the seminar covered the fol-lowing topics:

1. Healthy diets2. Fats, carbohydrates, and proteins3. Nutritionism (or the industrialization

of nutritional information)4. Diabetes — the chemical and

anatomical changes that result fromthis disease, as well as ways to treatthe disease

5. Carbohydrate metabolism

6. Protein metabolism7. Fat metabolism8. The Western diet and disease9. Drinking and water10. Micronutrients11. Food allergiesThe discussions were enhanced by our

reading of two books: In Defense of Foodby Michael Pollan and Eat, Drink, and BeHealthy by Walter Willett.

The Fellows prepared curriculum unitsthat covered a breadth of information ondiet and metabolism and health. The rangeof material was impressive, as well as therange of grade levels that the seminar pro-duced units to satisfy.

Several of the units focused on materialthat was appropriate for high school stu-dents. One, called "Eat to Live," useshands-on activities to introduce the chem-istry and function of the important classes

of biological macromolecules. Another,called "Stoichiometry — A Necessary Toolin Chemistry," uses food chemistry to illus-trate the principles of chemical reactionstoichiometry. And yet another, called"School Lunch: How Healthy Is It,"explores the use of graphic design in thepresentation of nutritional information, andencourages students to test the health valueof the foods provided in their own schools.Kristin Peterson prepared a unit called"The Way Food Works" that focuses on theshort- and long-term effects of ingestedfood on body metabolism and health —

and writes in these pages about herteaching the unit.

Many of the units were addressed invarious ways to elementary schoolclassrooms. One, called "Fast Food,Fast Track…To Nowhere," describessome of the problems with obtainingour nutrients from fast food. Another,called "Healthy Choices Leadto Healthy Bodies," explores the useof hands-on activities related to foodto teach science concepts. LoriPaderewski prepared a unit called"Food Allergies Beware: We KnowYour Secret" which provides infor-

mation to help elementary school teachersand students keep their classrooms safe forstudents with food allergies. Another, called"Feeding our Bodies, Fueling our Minds,"presents information on digestion, healthyeating, and improved academic perform-ance. Yet others focused on some specificaspect of nutrition. One, called "HighFructose Corn Syrup: What Is It GoodFor?" discusses the prominence ofhigh fructose syrup from corn in our nation-al diet. Another, called "DevelopingStudent Leaders Through NutritionalEmpowerment," uses "Service Learning"projects to teach nutritional information andleadership skills. And Kathleen Gormleyprepared a unit called "Getting a HealthyStart on Life" which focuses on the rela-tionship between food, the process of diges-tion, and exercise — and also writes inthese pages about teaching the unit.

SPRING 2009 33

Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes

H

W. Mark Saltzman is a Professor of Chemicaland Biomedical Engineering at Yale University.

The seminar provided an overview of human nutrition from the perspective

of biomedical engineering. From amechanical viewpoint, the human body

is an elegant machine that requiresinputs for sustained operation.

Human Nutrition and Biomedical Engineering

By Kristin Peterson

Editor's Note: This unit, prepared in theseminar on "Nutrition, Metabolism, andDiabetes" is designed to teach the com-plexities of digestion and metabolism on ahuman cellular level, while emphasizingthe consequences of food choice on ourhealth. It will fit into the InternationalBaccalaureate program for biology, a two-year course taught to juniors and seniors.

t's that time of year when we're bom-barded with food. Families andfriends gather to savor meals of holi-

day treats and specialties: succulent meatsand sauces followed by potatoes and rolls,topped off with cookies, candies, and pies.As if the temptation weren't enough, we'reencouraged by our families to stuff our-selves, then go back for seconds. Meals area huge part of our culture and an importantway to share time and show appreciation

with family and friends. Yet with obesityand diabetes on the rise across America, it'stime we took a second look at our loveaffair with food.

As an athlete and the child of a giftedcook, I've always had a fascination withfood. In my first two years of teaching highschool biology on the south side ofChicago, I made improving student nutri-tion a personal mission and spent weeksemphasizing the importance of understand-ing what we eat and why. Of course, dayslater I'd find kids eating chips and guzzlingsoda for breakfast. I needed inspiration. Ineeded the concept of a healthy lifestyle tomatter to them. For many of my students,my class may be their last formal exposureto health and nutrition. If they rememberone thing from biology, it should be thefunction and understanding of the foodthey put into their bodies. It is somethingeveryone does each day, and it will affectour lives at some point.

When an administrator at my school toldme about the Yale National Initiative, I

leapt at the opportunity to take MarkSaltzman's seminar on "Nutrition,Metabolism, and Diabetes." Not only did Iget to travel to Yale, but I found the inspi-ration I needed in a fantastic group ofteachers led by an extremely knowledge-able and patient professor. I left NewHaven in July armed with twenty-fivepages of labs, activities, and lecture materi-al, and a great sense of determination.

Though my unit may be modified for anylevel of life science or biology, I wrote itspecifically for juniors in my InternationalBaccalaureate section, a rigorous college-preparatory degree program taken by asmall percentage of our students. Thesestudents are leaders in the school, and I amconfident that they will carry the unit'smessage to their classmates and othersthroughout the community. We began withthe concept of energy, since my studentsrecalled that this was the primary purposeof eating. We then moved to the energymolecules themselves: carbohydrates, pro-teins, and lipids. Using molecular beadkits, my students put together monomers(building blocks) of each of these nutrientmolecules, then assembled them into larg-er molecules, then broke them down againto simulate the actions that are constantlyoccurring in each of their cells. For exam-ple, they worked in pairs to construct mul-tiple glucose (a monosaccharide, or singlesugar) molecules and then simulated chem-ical reactions to link them together intoglycogen (a polysaccharide, or starch).They prepared a brief video demonstratingthe process and explaining as they built andthen broke apart the molecules. One of thechallenges of molecular biology is that weare dealing with things we cannot see.Even though the kits we used to simulatethe molecules are thousands of times larg-er than the molecules themselves, it gavethe students a hands-on approach to theway that these molecules grow in size tostore energy and break apart to release it.

After examining the energy nutrients, wediscussed blood sugar and insulin. Many of

(continued on page 36)

34 ON COMMON GROUND

I

Kristin Peterson is a Science Teacher atGordon S. Hubbard High School in Chicago.

CLAES OLDENBURG, FLOOR CAKE, 1962

The Way Food Works

By Kathleen G. Gormley

Editor's Note: This unit for third-graders,prepared in the seminar on "Nutrition,Metabolism, and Diabetes," aims toencourage the adoption of a healthylifestyle. Its interdisciplinary approachmakes use of science, mathematics, andphysical education classes. Its content isalso aligned with standards in English andLanguage Arts.

few weeks ago, the mother of oneof my students shared a story. AsCharlie was completing his math

homework, he looked up at her andannounced, "Mom I am going to go to Yalesomeday so you have to make sure I workhard!" My participation in the Yale NationalInitiative has helped me to inspire my stu-dents to set their goals high. After a fewweeks in my third-grade classroom, Charlieis not only expecting to go to Yale, he real-izes he will need to work hard to get there!

This past summer in Mark Saltzman'sseminar on "Nutrition, Metabolism, andDiabetes," I developed a curriculum unitcalled "Getting an Early Start to a HealthyLife." There are many reasons to teach aunit about nutrition and healthy lifestyles tothird-grade students. The incidence of dia-betes is growing among young people. Thisincrease of diabetes has been linked to theincrease in childhood obesity, which is aworrisome trend. I want my students to payattention to what they put into their bodiesand understand the effects that foods haveon their mood, activity level, and academicperformance. I want them to be aware ofhow their bodies feel when they engage inphysical activity. Giving students this infor-mation early in their lives will enable themto begin healthy practices now that willbenefit them throughout their lives.

My curriculum unit integrates standardsfrom Mathematics, English/Language Arts,Science, and Physical Education. Using

SPRING 2009 35

A

Kathleen G. Gormley is a Third-GradeTeacher at Highlands Elementary School inNew Castle County, Delaware.

SEVERIN ROESEN, AN ABUNDANCE OF FRUIT, CIRCA 1860

JAMES PEALE, STILL LIFE WITH BALSAM APPLE AND VEGETABLES, CIRCA 1820s

Getting an Early Start to a Healthy Life

36 ON COMMON GROUND

(continued from page 34)my students have family members with dia-betes and were very interested in glucoseregulation. Next was digestion, where stu-dents learned the basics, then tried theirhand at digestion. Students digested albu-min (egg white protein), potato starch (car-bohydrate), and milk (protein and lipids) tosimulate digestion in the stomach and smallintestine. They selectively added differentenzymes and used indicator solutions todetermine if molecular breakdown hadoccurred. A final lab determined if starch orsugar could be absorbed in the small intes-tine, using dialysis tubing to simulate theorgan. The interactive, hands-on approachof the lab aided the students in understand-ing the significance of the different

enzymes and the location of the differentphases of digestion and absorption.

My goal was to make the unit applicableto the students and to involve them on a per-sonal level whenever possible. As the unitprogressed, they had more and more ques-tions, and then began to draw conclusions oftheir own. I finally feel the connection that Ihad been looking for in previous years — atrue appreciation for what fuels our body.

There's actually quite a bit of unit remain-ing, including a project where students areto research different "long-term" effects offood and broadcast that information to thecommunity. Most importantly, though, Ihope they look at their holiday meals just alittle bit differently, and consider theirhealth as well as their appetite.

this interdisciplinary approach helps me toshow my students how these subjects areconnected instead of teaching skills andtopics in isolation. The students are learn-ing about healthy living while they add uptheir total number of calories for a day, aweek, and a month. It is exciting to watchas they tackle adding numbers in the tensof thousands. Because the columns ofnumbers are connected to their lives, theyapproach their work without hesitation.They are writing in journals about makinghealthy choices using the newly learnedvocabulary. They are classifying this newvocabulary into nouns, verb, and adjectivesduring word sorting activities.

As we proceed through the unit, studentswill use laptops to conduct research andreport on the digestive process. They willthen choose how they will present theinformation they have learned, join interestgroups to create power point presentations,or posters, or possibly write songs.

Because students learn better throughactive participation, my new lesson plansinclude some practice in Yoga one hour eachweek with a trained instructor. Exercise andYoga are about mind, body, and spirit. The

ultimate goal is to achieve balance in life.Experiencing Yoga provides my studentswith an overall awareness of their bodiesand gives them a positive outlook on physi-cal fitness. Every Monday afternoon wepush our desks out of the way and lie downour mats. After each session, students recordtheir reflections explaining how their bodiesand minds are reacting. Charlotte sees animprovement with her balancing from weekto week; Nate is learning the importance ofstretching his spine. The students are nowsetting goals for what they would like towork on next week: Shanelle is going to lis-ten to the instructor more and not foolaround with the person on the mat next toher. Every week the students become morefocused during the session. I expect that thisenhanced focus will soon transfer into otherareas in our classroom.

Authentic, real life implications increasethe interest level for my students. The stu-dents are reporting on data collected fromtheir own lives. They are keeping logs thattrack their daily food consumption andphysical activity levels. As a result, stu-dents are becoming conscious of the foodchoices they make and the physical activi-

ties they engage in. Perhaps more impor-tantly, they are beginning to see the con-nection of these two elements — eatingand exercise — to living a healthy life. Igive this connection a visual reference byasking the students to use balance scales.Students place weights on the left side ofthe scale to represent the calories in fromfood. Next they place weights on the rightside of the scale to represent the caloriesout from activity. If the scale is balanced,they realize they are on the right track. Ifthe scale is not balanced, students are ableto make judgments about how to create abalance. Students then graph calories in onwhite paper and calories out on a trans-parency. We place the calories out graphon top of the calories in graph and studentsare able to see if their intake matches theiroutput.

As I prepared this cross-curricular unitbased on state standards and includingactivities that would be effective with mystudents, I gained much from my experi-ence with the Yale National Initiative. But itis my students — like Charlie, Charlotte,Nate, and Shanelle — who are reaping thegreatest rewards.

Peterson: The Way Food Works(continued from page 21)nature were easily evident in some. Others

were so abstracted that the sketches on thegraph paper had to be examined to deter-mine the source. The variety of bridges wasas rich as my students' imaginations.

I heard one of my students tell another,"Watch out for Mrs. Yarnall. She's obsessedby bridges now!" I explained to him that Ijust wanted to share my passion. I think thatI did. In 10 years, my students will notremember which bridge is the world'slongest or tallest. Those are not enduringunderstandings. But I do think that most ofthem now have a greater appreciation andunderstanding of them. They may even havea chance to have an impact on the buildingof a future bridge in their communities.

Yarnall: Bridges

By Christine Freeman Shaub

Editor's Note: This unit, entitled "PoliceInvestigative Challenges: To Snitch or Notto Snitch, That is the Question," was pre-pared in "Across the Curriculum withDetective Fiction," led by Paul H. Fry. Itaims to enable students to learn about thetechniques and challenges of solvingcrimes where there is an uncooperativewitness.

These past few weeks, I have had theopportunity to indulge in some of myteacher's Yale experience. Who wouldhave known that by reading a simplestory [Edgar Allan Poe] that a per-son's mind could be opened to so manynew things, all at one time? I believethat I am thinking the Yale way.

Ashlee Henry, 10th-Grader

ithin the confines of teachingthe law, unorthodox questionsarise. As a legal vocational

instructor at Howard High School ofTechnology in Wilmington, one of myresponsibilities is to teach my students theexpectations of the workplace, as well asthe trade. In teaching 10th-gradersIntroduction to Criminal Justice, I wasfaced with students who were resistant toexposing important facts related to solvingcriminal offenses. When I posed hypothet-ical questions to my students about sharinginformation as a witness, the students didnot want to be labeled as a snitch. In takingthe national seminar "Across theCurriculum with Detective Fiction forYoung People and Adults," with Paul Fry, Isought to develop a curriculum unitfocused on how students could betterunderstand the investigative challengespolice face with reluctant witnesses. Theidea was to hone in on the effects of snitch-ing, witness intimidation, and ethnic andsocial perspectives in policing. All are key

factors that can hamper a successful crimi-nal conviction.

In teaching the unit, I chose to use sever-al books, the first being Snitchcraft byEdera Davis. This book presents the socialphenomenon of snitching, police corrup-tion and the use of paid confidentialinformants. Ms. Davis offers an "After theBook" section that presents helpful ques-tions for discussion and resources. Theexciting part of teaching this unit was theinterest evoked in the students by the read-ings. The students wrote a synopsis andoffered opinions on the snitching problemthat was presented in the book. Theycheered for the success of the main charac-ter, but were disappointed when he waswrongly convicted. I think the most sur-prising and exciting part of teaching thisunit was having author Edera Davis actual-ly contact me after the unit was published.She commented, "I tried to incorporate val-ues I was raised with [in the book], theneed for education, prayer, respect, not toprejudge based on race, and an understand-ing that there are consequences for youractions. I really believe the public shouldknow there are teachers like you and pro-grams like the Yale National Initiative, try-ing to address present day issues with ouryouth." I was encouraged by Ms. Davis'words and shared them with my students.Her book was certainly a catalyst in help-ing me to address this timely issue withAmerica's youth.

The next story was by the father of mod-ern mystery, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe wrote"The Murders in the Rue Morgue," a clas-sic murder story in Paris. DetectiveMonsieur Dupin (Poe writing in the firstperson) worked to solve the murders. Poecompares the analytical strategies used bya chess player and a detective as a means todecipher key moves in piecing together thepuzzle. The reading and vocabulary werevery complex for the 10th-graders. Myteaching strategies were basic: read aloudand echo reading. Armed with our diction-aries, we entered the world of DetectiveDupin. We examined witnesses and found

their accounts obscure. After reading Poe,there was a vocabulary test and essay writ-ing connecting snitching to the story.Student Karmel James states, "Not everywitness will tell you what you need toknow, detectives must find ways to solvethe crime by using just what the witnesstells them. Maybe the witnesses in the'Rue Morgue' were afraid to 'snitch'because of repercussion of what wouldhappen to them; that's what detectives facetoday." Student Ebony Spriggs states, "inorder to get a witness to tell, sometimesyou have to use the proper motivation, andbe crafty, so that you can get them whereyou want them. Detective Dupin was verycrafty."

Another component to teaching this unitwas a project-based assignment. The stu-dents created informative brochures onsnitching to pass out to the community.The brochure addressed snitching as amoral dilemma; it explained police andcourtroom procedures and defined lawsrelated to witness intimidation. Three ofthe students decided to start a "SnitchingAwareness" campaign at our school.School Resource Police Officer DetectiveDiane Brown, along with studentsGursimrat Kaur, Jonathan Vargas andJeanine Mowbray conducted informativesessions in 9th-grade classes. They alsomade oral presentations to the Mayor ofWilmington James Baker, Public SafetyDirector James Mosley, and WilmingtonPolice Chief Michael Szczerba. The stu-dents explained that in many of their com-munities, witnesses were reluctant to bewitnesses because of fear. They offeredinterventions to help law enforcement offi-cers and the community with this prob-lem. Their work was recognized bySkillsUSA, an organization wherestudents demonstrate occupational andleadership skills in local, state and nation-al competitions. For their work in"Snitching Awareness," the studentsreceived a silver medal in Tech PrepShowcase-Public Service Administrationfrom the State of Delaware.

SPRING 2009 37

Some Curriculum Units from 2007

W

Christine Freeman Shaub is a LegalVocational Teacher at Howard High School ofTechnology in New Castle County, Delaware.

Chess Game and Detectives

By William Sandy Lewis

Editor's Note: This unit for high school stu-dents, "More Than Just Whodunit — Usinga Mystery Story to Motivate Tenth-GradeStudents to Read," was also prepared inthe seminar "Across the Curriculum withDetective Fiction." It incorporates a studyof the major elements of any story or novelbut emphasizes material that may arousethe students' interest as a puzzle thatrelates closely to their own experience.

t all started with a May train ride fromPhiladelphia to New Haven. Little didI know that my mind would be thor-

oughly boggled by what I would experi-ence there. It was the introductory week-end of the Yale NationalInitiative's summer intensivesession. Paul Fry was to be theleader of a seminar entitled"Across the Curriculum withDetective Fiction for YoungPeople and Adults."

I had been an avid reader ofmysteries for many years (I learned duringthat weekend in reading his "The Vicarage"that for W.H. Auden "…the reading ofdetective stories is an addiction like tobac-co or alcohol.") and I jumped at the chanceto study mysteries at Yale and somehowfinagle my love of the genre into my teach-ing at my high school in SouthwestPhiladelphia. Over the course of that week-end I was to learn that despite the belittlingprotestations of Edmund Wilson in TheNew Yorker, many critics would agree withJohn Rebus, the protagonist in Exit Music— a mystery in Ian Rankin's Scottish series—"…that cops were like the priesthood,the world their confessional." Like a priest-hood, detective-story heroes take the placeof a deity and serve its interests. They arethe arbiters of rightness whose job it is toeliminate the bad and repair the good. Thatis, the world is once again set right in a

mystery story. Once again the rents andtears in the social fabric are repaired by thesometimes fumbling efforts of a flawedprotagonist.

All of this was news to me. All I knewwas that I loved to read mystery stories.And I wanted my students at my highschool in Southwest Philadelphia, who arelow-income, mostly African American,digital natives, and abstemious readers, toshare in the delight of participating in thesolving of a mystery. I hoped thereby toovercome their deep-seated reluctance toengage in sustained and careful reading.After all, who does not like a good mys-tery? At the time of writing my curriculumunit, I taught tenth-grade English. Myduties now involve teaching twelfth-grade

English students, who will therefore studymy curriculum unit.

I knew of a good writer of mysterieswhose books I avidly read and whosehumorous easy-going style would appealto my students. And — to boot — he hadwritten a mystery in which Sheriff WaltLongmire has to set things right on thestreets of Philadelphia. So, during the sum-mer session I created a curriculum unit onKindness Goes Unpunished by CraigJohnson. Craig Johnson lives in Ucross,Wyoming, pop. 25. His main character isSheriff Walt Longmire of fictionalAbsaroka County in Wyoming. His faithfulsidekick is Henry Standing Bear, aCheyenne Indian, whose independent atti-tude is an antidote to the Tonto stereotype.In Kindness Goes Unpunished, Walt andHenry Standing Bear drive to Philadelphiain Standing Bear's unique, antique FordThunderbird to visit Walt's daughter, alawyer in the city. From that innocuousbeginning things quickly take a turn for the

worse. In many mysteries, the settingbecomes like a character in the story. Soit is in Kindness Goes Unpunished.Philadelphia becomes a major player in thesolving of the crime, as Walt follows clueswhich take him back and forth all over thecity.

I finished the curriculum unit onKindness Goes Unpunished and wentabout trying to bring the teaching of it tofruition. An email from Alan Lee, the inde-fatigable director of the Teachers Instituteof Philadelphia, brought a pleasant sur-prise. Craig Johnson was interested inmeeting with me, having found my cur-riculum unit on the web. He liked what Idid and wanted to incorporate my unit intohis own website as an example of what

could be done with his storiesin schools. When he was inPhiladelphia, Alan Lee and I metwith Craig Johnson for — at hisrequest — "a steak and a Yeunglingbeer," and we talked about his craft,and about how to use his mysteriesin the classroom. Craig said he

would be delighted to come to our school todiscuss his stories, and what goes into cre-ating characters, plot, and all the other ele-ments of literary creation.

Thanks to my involvement in the YaleNational Initiative, I have been able to cre-ate a curriculum unit which will allow meto share my enthusiasm for the mysterygenre with my students, and which willencourage reading among my studentswith an appealing and entertaining assign-ment. And I have had the opportunity tomeet with a prominent writer who has gra-ciously agreed to share his experiences andinsights with my students.

I am looking forward to teaching mycurriculum unit on Kindness GoesUnpunished to my senior classes. Whenthe ennui known as senioritis numbs theacademic enthusiasm of this senior class,I'm hoping that this curriculum unit willexcite their interest and boggle theirminds, just as mine was boggled duringthis experience!

38 ON COMMON GROUND

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William Sandy Lewis is an English Teacher atCommunications Technology High School inPhiladelphia.

I wanted my students to share in thedelight of solving a mystery.

The Whodunit as Open Sesame to Critical Reading

By Ram Bhagat

Editor's Note: This experiential curriculumunit in Chemistry for minority inner-cityhigh school students was prepared in "TheScience and Technology of Space," led bySabatino Sofia. It aims to teach scientificmethods, encourage reading across thecurriculum, inspire the development of cre-ative problem-solving skills, and enhancesocial and emotional intelligence.

reativity flourishes in classroomswhere there is a synthesis of manymodes of knowing. We should

recognize that interpreting the choreogra-phy of Alvin Ailey or compositions byJohn Coltrane involves a process of criticalanalysis quite similar to analyzing scientif-ic data or solving a complex math problem.My overall goal for this curriculum unit isto inspire urban minority youth, especiallyAfrican American male adolescents, todevelop creative problem-solving skillsand to enhance their social and emotionalintelligence. In inner-city schools, theteachers must design and implement cul-turally relevant curricula to prevent orreduce alienation, anxiety, low self-esteem,depression and aggression in the class-room. In his research on Urban ScienceEducation in low-income communities,Tobin describes the importance of cross-cultural competence. And Cox contendsthat curriculum designers who fail to incor-porate minority groups' values into the cur-riculum are refusing to accept and legit-imize the students' language.

Chemistry teachers are desperatelyseeking ways to hook their students onthis abstract and intimidating subject. It isfrustrating for students to hear boring lec-tures for hours each week. That one-dimensional approach also misleads them:they learn to dislike science and considerit a bland subject. On the other hand, inad-equate resources make it extremely diffi-cult to conduct sophisticated scientific

experiments. In Style Magazine, July2004, Brandon Walters wrote, "when heli-um fills balloons it makes them rise, butwhen it fills an Open High classroom,helium makes students dance." My cur-riculum unit is an imaginative approach toteaching students about the birth of mat-ter. In technical terms, this approach com-bines the principles of AestheticEducation, Science Education, EmotionalIntelligence and Multicultural Education(ASEM). Put simply, it integrates the per-forming arts — specifically drumming,dance, and drama — into the Chemistrycurriculum. I call this the "3D" process.For this unit, I added a fourth D, design,which encompasses the visual dimension.I believe that this method will ensure thathundreds of inner-city students will devel-op creative analysis, cultural synthesis,and emotional intelligence.

With the knowledge gained from theNational Seminar on "The Science andTechnology of Space" led by ProfessorSabatino Sofia, I navigated an excursionfor my students from the origin of theUniverse to the formation of the elements.Using a classic film, photographs of micro-scopic and subatomic structures, as well asmacrocosmic images from the Hubble tel-escope, my students created a unique col-lage to depict the relationship between theSystem of International Units (or MetricSystem) and the various levels of structur-al organization. Considered in itself, thisvisual art project, entitled "Measuring theCosmos," aimed to display the relative sizeof structures on various levels of organiza-tion. But the goal of this activity was forstudents to create a visual interpretation ofdistance and perception.

After viewing and discussing Powers ofTen by Charles and Ray Eames, the stu-dents designed a 308.4 cm. (120 inches) by45.72 cm. (18 inches) collage, employingthe SI Units, to illustrate the relationshipbetween specific microscopic and macro-scopic structures in the Universe. Theproduct affectionately called ACosmograph was designed to be portable

with three equivalent folds. Images werearranged in an exponential hierarchy fromlowest to highest. Actual microscopic andmacroscopic structures were creativelyrepresented.

My students found this process-orientedexcursion quite challenging. They wouldlike to have had a prescribed recipe tohelp them solve the puzzle of theCosmograph design. However, throughthis educational process of aestheticinquiry, as practiced by the LincolnCenter Institute, they gained practicalinsights and strengthened core skills thatreadily apply across the curriculum andthroughout life. For example, abstractthinking and problem solving — skills asrelevant to studying a ballet performanceas to conducting a chemistry experimentor solving a mathematical equation —were required by this interpretive learningexperience. In the end, creative analysisand cooperative learning yielded phenom-enal results.

Frequently, students ask why they haveto take Chemistry or Physics. Does it real-ly matter? And many urban minorityyouth are uninterested in science becauseits pioneers rarely look like them.Experiential learning can help such stu-dents develop their social and emotionalaptitudes and connect with the essence oftheir humanity. James Wright, director ofMath Science Investigators (MSI) at theUniversity of Richmond, developed asummer program for middle and highschool students to cultivate the intellectu-al, social and emotional abilities of thesepotential scientists. Wright contends theMSI participants have more self-confi-dence taking honors and advanced classesin school. According to Michael Geisen,2008 national teacher of the year, creativ-ity may be sacrificed by "achievement" ascurrently defined. When very creative stu-dents show up in our classrooms, they donot fit into the current system. Twenty-first century classrooms should be able tostimulate various types of intelligence andprovoke imagination.

SPRING 2009 39

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Ram Bhagat is a Science Teacher at OpenHigh School in Richmond, Virginia.

Interpreting the Origin of the Elements

On Common Ground

Number 13, Spring 2009Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute®

Phone: (203) 432-1080Fax: (203) 432-1084E-mail: Common.Ground@yale.eduWorld Wide Web: teachers.yale.eduExecutive Editor, James R. VivianChairman, Editorial Board, Thomas R. WhitakerSenior Advisor, Jules D. PrownThe Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute is an edu-cational partnership between Yale University andthe New Haven Public Schools designed tostrengthen teaching and learning in local schoolsand, by example and direct assistance, in schoolsacross the country. In 2004, the Institute announcedthe Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching inpublic schools, a long-term endeavor to establishTeachers Institutes in states throughout the nation.

Strengthening Teaching throughSchool-University Partnership

®

(continued from page 5)A five-year quantitative study of the

impact of Institute experiences on teachersand students in New Haven further showsthat the Institute attracts participants roughlyequally from each identifiable demographicgroup: women and men, younger and olderteachers, new and experienced teachers,white and African American teachers —with the latter in fact over-represented. Thestudy also shows that Institute participantsalso had nearly twice the retention rate ofnon-participants in local teaching. Overall,over 50% of those who were teaching inNew Haven in 2000-2001 had stopped beingNew Haven teachers by 2004-2005, aturnover rate consistent with national aver-ages, especially in urban districts. Thatturnover percentage was substantially lessfor those who had been Fellows. The studydesign does not permit a claim of causality,but in light of the high percentages of NewHaven teachers who become Fellows, it isreasonable to view this correlation as sub-stantively significant. Because research sug-gests that experience within a district is morestrongly associated with teaching effective-ness than earlier experiences elsewhere, thisfinding is especially notable.

The continuing positive results of annualsurveys of teachers at each Institute siteand of national seminar participants leavelittle doubt that teachers consistently ratetheir Institute experiences and the curricu-

lum units that result favorably along thefive dimensions agreed to be key ingredi-ents of teacher quality. Though we haveless data on teachers' experiences in usingInstitute curriculum units, those data arealso positive. The New Haven quantitativestudy indicates that Institute seminarsattract a broad range of teachers from everyobservable demographic category and thatthose who choose to be Fellows are muchmore likely to continue teaching in the dis-trict than those who do not. These resultsare all the more credible in light of theways the Institute approach embodies thedifferent elements that researchers havefound to contribute to successful profes-sional programs: a focus on content and

pedagogy linked to content; active teacherlearning; teacher leadership; duration;alignment with state and local standards;and, somewhat less extensively, collectiveparticipation and continuing evaluation.

It is advisable for Institutes to continuesuch surveys and to undertake additionalquantitative and evaluative studies of stu-dent and teacher outcomes. Such evalua-tion can confirm, maintain, and improvethe impacts of Teachers Institutes as theycontinue to foster teacher leadership,develop supportive teacher networks,heighten university faculty commitmentsto improve public education, and createpositive partnerships between school dis-tricts and institutions of higher education.

Yale UniversityYale-New Haven Teachers InstituteP.O. Box 203563New Haven, Connecticut 06520-3563

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Smith: StrengtheningTeaching

JACOB LAWRENCE, THE MIGRATION OF THE NEGRO, PANEL NO. 58, 1940-41