teaching with passion learning by choice

two key principles of passion and choice, the conceptfor our English minicourses was born.

Making It Work

We decided to offer our minicourses during the lasthalf of the spring semester, after state testing wascompleted and after spring break, when we could alluse a little boost to get us through the end of theyear. Each teacher developed a minicourse on a topicof his or her choice and wrote abrief description. We told stu-dents that for the next twoweeks they would be attend-ing a special mixed-grade-levelclass in lieu of their regularEnglish class and they wouldpotentially have a differentteacher.

We shared the descrip-tions of the minicourses (seefig. 1) with students and askedthem to fill out choice slips(see fig. 2) indicating whichcourses they were interested in.We sorted the students’ choiceslips by class period and stu-dent preference. To balance classes, we moved a fewstudents to their second choices, but the vast major-ity of students got their first choice. We created classrosters, organized by grade level, for each minicourseand distributed a complete set of rosters to every En-glish teacher, as well as the attendance secretary.

f you could teach anything youwanted, what would it be? Wouldit be something you enjoyed study-ing in college or an interest you just

discovered last summer? An area of expertise orsomething new you would like to learn? This is thestory of English department members who dared todream of teaching their passions and found a way tomake their dreams come true.

We teach at the International School of theAmericas, a small magnet school of choice locatedon a comprehensive high school campus in SanAntonio, Texas. There are 450 students in grades 9to 12, and our department consists of six teachers,one at each grade level plus two electives teachers.During a department meeting several years ago, wewere sharing information about what we were eachteaching in our classes when the conversationdrifted to how much creativity and freedom theelectives teachers seemed to have with their curric-ula. We talked about how great it would be for usand for students if we could all teach the things wewere most passionate about and interested in. Itwould refresh, renew, and reenergize our zest forteaching. It would give students the opportunity tosee us as lifelong learners with interests beyond therequired curriculum. And it would be fun!

As we continued to explore this idea, wequickly realized that what we wanted was to share ourpassions with students—we hoped students would bejust as passionate about our favorite topics as we were.We decided to give them the opportunity to choosethe courses they were most interested in. Based on the

Honor Moorman and her colleagues describe the enthusiastic response from high school studentsand teachers to the school’s annual tradition of English minicourses—mixed-grade-level classesthat take the place of regular English classes for two weeks in the last half of the spring semester.Teachers are given an opportunity to teach a specific topic they feel passionate about, while students can choose the minicourse that sounds the most intriguing to them.

Honor Moorman with Brad Dehart, Richard Flieger, Nancy Gregory, Liz Ozuna, Lindsey Perret,Donna Reed, Amy Stengel, and Lydia M. Valdés

Teaching with Passion, Learning by Choice

I

33English Journal Vol. 96, No. 4 March 2007

I S S U E S A N D I N N O V A T I O N S>

In our seven-year history

of English minicourses,

we have offered a wide

variety of topics.

Naturally, there has been a

strong literary component,

but minicourses have

allowed us to incorporate

authors and literary works

beyond the standard high

school fare—everything

from the Beat poets to

Enlightenment thinkers to

science fiction authors.

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selson

Text Box

Copyright © 2007 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

34 March 2007


FIGURE 1. English Minicourse Descriptions

The following is an example of the course-description listings we give students in order for them to identify their mini-course preferences. The courses included here have been selected from throughout the years to give English Journalreaders an idea of additional minicourse topics not already described in the article.

English Minicourses

The English Department is pleased to announce our annual spring minicourses. Please read the descriptions below andidentify three different courses offered during your class period that interest you. Then fill out the choice slip provided.We will try to put you in your first or second choice if at all possible. Enjoy!

Course: American Literature and the Broadway Musical (2000)

Teacher: Amy Stengel Periods Available: 1, 4, 6, 7, 8

This course will survey the achievements of the Broadway Musical as a dramatic element and as an influence onAmerican literature. Embedded in the best musicals are songs that greatly influence the drama and the plot of theplay. The songs establish characters, move the plot, and intensify the conflict. Without the music, the plays would be poor in comparison. This course will evaluate the songs, discuss musical theater as an art form, look at Americanmusical history, and create a literature review.

Course: The American Short Story: Preserving the American Ideal (2001)

Teacher: Nancy Gregory Periods Available: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8

In this course we will immerse ourselves in the works of America’s premiere short story writers, from F. Scott Fitzgeraldto Kate Chopin. We will read stories that explore, among other things, the mother-child relationship, teenage alien-ation, bizarre human behavior, and the fanciful pursuit of dreams.

Course: Secrets of Satire (2002)

Teacher: Richard Flieger Periods Available: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

This course will explore several areas of satire, including television, literature, and film. The emphasis will be on identi-fying some of the archetypes and techniques of satire, and determining what makes satire effective and amusing. Wewill look at classic work by Jonathan Swift and more contemporary examples such as The Simpsons, asking the ques-tion, “What makes this funny?”

Course: George Sand—Woman, Writer, Revolutionary Thinker (2002)

Teacher: Honor Moorman Periods Available: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) and the Brontë sisters are famous for having secretly taken on male pseudonyms topublish their works at a time when writing novels was an occupation reserved for men. But George Sand (AmandineAurore Lucie Dupin, the Baroness Dudevant) took things even further. She insisted that everyone call her George,wore men’s clothing, and smoked—shocking! In this minicourse, we will learn about the life and works of the inimitable George Sand through short readings and excerpts from a film called Impromptu. We will also examine herartistic influences, such as the poet Lord Byron and the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and sample the artisticworks of her famous friends, such as the composer Frédéric Chopin and the painter Eugène Delacroix.

Course: Fronteras/Borders (2003)

Teachers: Brad Dehart (4) and Liz Ozuna (8) Periods Available: 4, 8

What is a frontera? Where do your borders lie? What is art and how can it help us explore the nature of these very realand symbolic constructs? We will journey through the eyes of artists who describe borders through art, photography,film, video, music, prose, poetry, and short stories, and then create our own representation of the borders in our lives.

Course: Imagining Mars: A Look at the Red Planet in Fact and (Science) Fiction (2004)

Teacher: Liz Ozuna Periods Available: 2, 3, 4

Since long ago, when humankind first turned its eyes toward the heavens and their contents, Mars has captured theimaginations of its viewers. The Red Planet appears, perhaps more than any other celestial element, in myth, story,and drama, while it represents exciting, new territory for current-day science as we probe the mysteries of its surfacewith our latest robots and dream of ultimately sending humans to explore this next frontier.

Using a series of short video and audio clips, current technical writing, and selections from Ray Bradbury’s collectionof short stories, The Martian Chronicles, the class will examine what some of history’s most imaginative minds andcurrent-day scientists have said about our nearest neighbor, while reflecting on what it means to be human. Our workwill culminate in a short piece of writing that seeks to answer the questions raised in class concerning the mysteries ofplace, time, and humankind’s position in the universe and the nature of the genre of science fiction.


As a department, we discussed our expecta-tions in terms of student participation and assign-ments to be completed, and we agreed toexchange grades so they could be recorded as partof the students’ regular English class. Recognizingthat students would be reading, writing, and dis-cussing important ideas no matter which mini-

course they attended, we identified a number ofstate standards to be addressed in every mini-course. Thus, although students would be study-ing different authors, issues, themes, and genres,we were certain that they would develop their lan-guage arts skills and understandings along thecontinuum at each grade level.

35English Journal

Honor Moorman et al.

FIGURE 1. English Minicourse Descriptions—Continued

Course: Narrative Structure and Film: Rear Window (2005)

Teacher: Donna Reed Periods Available: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8

Thrills, chills, and suspense! Everyone loves a good story presented in the written word or in a visual medium. We willcomplete a comparative study of the short story of the same name written by Cornell Woolrich and film productionsof Rear Window, including a production by Alfred Hitchcock, director, who is famous for his suspense films, and the1998 “remake” of the film with Christopher Reeve.

Course: Poetry of War/Poetry of Peace (2006)

Teacher: Lindsey Perret Periods Available: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

War . . . huh . . . what is it good for? Join us as we explore the nature of war, the nature of peace, and the nature ofpoetry by looking at poems that have inspired and responded to conflict. We will examine poems that have spurredon wars, poems written as a result of war, and poems that advocate peace. If the pen is mightier than the sword, thenhow has this maxim manifested itself in the volumes of poetry written surrounding conflict and peace? We’ll exploremale and female authors from contemporary and historical time periods, and we will compose our own poetry.

Course: To the Countryside and Back: A Look at Chinese Culture (2006)

Teacher: Lydia Valdés Period Available: 2

What do you know about China and the explosion of China into the world markets of culture and business? Comeand explore a bit about the effects of communism and capitalism on the culture of the most populous country in theworld. Using the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, we will explore how Chairman Mao’s CulturalRevolution sent intellectuals to the countryside; and using Jia Zhangke’s latest film The World, we will watch “dailyloves, friendships and desperate dreams of the twenty-somethings from China’s remote provinces who come to liveand work at Beijing’s World Park.”

FIGURE 2. Minicourse Choice Slip

Minicourse Choice Slip

Name: _________________________ Grade Level: _________________________ English Class Period: ___________

First Choice: __________________________________________________________________________________________

Second Choice: ______________________________________________________________________________________

Third Choice: ________________________________________________________________________________________

If you are in one or more English electives in addition to your grade-level class, please check below and fill in theblank where applicable.

_______ This is the first choice slip I have filled out.

_______ This is the second choice slip I have filled out. The other one was for _______ period.

_______ This is the third choice slip I have filled out. The others were for periods _______.

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Our approach to the practical concerns of atten-dance, grades, and curricular alignment was simpleand straightforward, and it worked. So well, in fact,that we have organized our minicourses in the sameway for the last seven years. While we have the advan-tages of being a small department with 100 percent

participation and additionalintern teachers, the same plancould be successfully imple-mented in any school context aslong as there were enoughteachers involved for at leastthree course offerings per classperiod. Of course, the more par-

ticipation and the more choices for students, the better!With the logistical details worked out, we were

eager to see how the minicourses themselves would bereceived. The student response to our initial experi-ment with English minicourses was so positive, theyinstantly became an annual tradition. At the begin-ning of the next school year, students were already ask-ing what the minicourse topics would be that spring.

Course Offerings

In our seven-year history of English minicourses, wehave offered a wide variety of topics. Naturally, therehas been a strong literary component, but minicourseshave allowed us to incorporate authors and literaryworks beyond the standard high school fare—every-thing from the Beat poets to Enlightenment thinkersto science fiction authors. Excerpts from film adapta-tions of literary classics have also been included inminicourses such as Rebecca, Jane Austen on Screen,and The Wild and Witty Plays of Oscar Wilde. Someminicourses have approached films as texts, focusingon The Language of Silent Film; 2001: A Space Odyssey:Myth, Mystery, Masterpiece; Classic Images of Horror;The Image of America’s Rebellious Youth; and so on.

A number of minicourses have focused on rela-tionships between literature and visual art. In Exper-imental Art: A Look at the Aesthetic Avant-Garde,students explored the work of avant-garde writers,musicians, and visual artists including James Joyce,Virginia Wolff, Ernest Hemingway, E. E. Cum-mings, T. S. Eliot, Radiohead, The Smiths, PabloPicasso, and M. C. Escher. In The SouthwesternLandscape in Literature and Art: Focusing on D. H.Lawrence and Georgia O’Keeffe, students examined

stories, poems, and paintings inspired by the colorsof the desert and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains andcreated their own artistic impressions of the south-western landscape. In Fragmented Reality: Focus onStein and Picasso, students learned about the influ-ence Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso had on eachother’s work as well as on the artistic and literarymovements from modernism to postmodernism.

Another favorite minicourse theme has beenpopular culture. Students in Deadly Persuasionexamined the media’s impact and influence on theirlives through the work of Jean Kilbourne, Bill Moy-ers, and Neil Postman. Students in Protest in Ameri-can Music: A Political Rag analyzed music as a formof artistic expression and its use as a political mediumwith selections from Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger,Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and Steve Earle. Enter theTwilight Zone introduced students to Rod Sterling’scult TV series as they studied the art of storytellingthrough visual and print media. And The History ofBreakdance gave students a chance to learn about thebreakdance trend, initially a political movement,through documentaries, film clips, and literature.

While students always write in their mini-courses, some minicourses have focused specifically oncreative writing. Students in The TranscendentalExperience: Nature, Art, and Writing explorednature writing by Ralph Waldo Emerson, HenryDavid Thoreau, Diane Ackerman, Pablo Neruda,Annie Dillard, Langston Hughes, Basho, GabrielGarcía Márquez, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, andAlice Walker and then had the opportunity to createnature-inspired pieces. Finding Your Muse, or Let-ting Your Muse Find You immersed students in apoetry-writing workshop that culminated in a coffeehouse–style poetry reading. Other minicourses haveoffered students opportunities to produce science fic-tion stories, tales of mystery, and personal manifestos.

In keeping with our curricular emphases at theInternational School of the Americas, a number ofminicourses have also been designed to give studentsa deeper understanding of the connection betweenlocal and global communities. Students in For thePeople: Social Commentary through Public Muralsand the Related Literature explored social themesexpressed through mural art from around the worldand took a field trip to a local community to see howresidents there had expressed pride in their localculture and had honored their Mexican American

36 March 2007


Other minicourses have

offered students

opportunities to produce

science fiction stories,

tales of mystery, and

personal manifestos.


heritage through murals. In Looking at the MiddleEast through Children’s Eyes, students learned aboutArab culture and Islam through poetry and chil-dren’s books including Habibi, a young adult novelby San Antonio author Naomi Shihab Nye. As partof a minicourse called Understanding Genocide, stu-dents met a local artist and Holocaust survivor, readexcerpts from her biography, and hosted a commu-nity art show and lecture in her honor.

Other minicourses have encouraged students toexplore their family relationships and bring familymembers into the classroom. Several students broughttheir mothers to Life Patterns: Daughters Come ofAge in Women’s Fiction, which used quilting as ametaphor for examining mother-daughter relation-ships in fiction and in life. Fathers and Sons looked atfather-son relationships in short stories, drama, andtelevision, as well as in the lives of the participatingstudents and their teacher. And Exploring Cross-Gen-erational Relationships involved students in sharingtheir learning with significant elders in their lives.

A Community of Learners

The English minicourses provide a unique way forteachers and students to come together around top-ics they are truly interested in. They form newlearning communities that further strengthen thelarger learning community of our school. Theexcitement about minicourses has been so great, infact, that students began asking to help teach them.At least seven minicourses have been taught or co-taught by senior students under the supervision of afaculty member. And one of our colleagues in thesocial studies department has also chosen to partic-ipate by teaching a minicourse during his confer-ence period.

After each year’s minicourses, we have askedstudents to reflect on their experiences through open-ended written reflections and detailed questionnaires.Whether through written surveys or informal conver-sations, the overwhelming majority of the students’feedback has been positive (see fig. 3). Their only

37English Journal

Honor Moorman et al.

FIGURE 3. Students’ Comments about English Minicourses

Content• “I learned a lot about things I wanted to know but never had a chance to learn. It helps me with my understanding

of the world.”• “I feel as though it is a refreshing time for students and teachers alike because it is a break from the normal day-to-

day high school teaching. The seminars add to the diversity and richness of our school experience.”• “I was exposed to ideas that I wasn’t used to, and in that sense, I was pleased. To be challenged by new ideas

causes me to go in directions I was previously ignorant about. To burgeon in such a place as high school is rare.”

Enthusiasm• “Mini-courses are so much fun, they restore my yearning to learn and go to class with a positive attitude.”• “It gives us a break from our daily routine, and at the same time, the mini-course gave us a new perspective on

coming back to our regular [English] class.”• “I love getting to experience different things in English classes; it jumpstarts my brain.”

New People• “We don’t have much interaction in other grade levels except in electives. Most people already know everyone in

their grade, and this was a good opportunity to mix it up.”• “I love the mini-courses. It gives me the chance to work with new teachers, and meet people of all grades at ISA.”• “Working with a different teacher is always fun. Every teacher has a different technique. Basically, it’s fun to wake

up in the morning and wonder who is in your English class.”

Choice• “The mini courses I have attended were informative and fun. I enjoyed being able to focus on one subject and

being able to choose which course to attend.”• “The English seminar is awesome! You are allowed to choose what you want to learn about for two weeks. If you

are into poetry, then you do a poetry seminar, etc.”

Passion• “The fact that you chose to be there and teachers are sharing (not teaching) something they love creates a pleasant

environment.”• “I loved the idea of the mini-courses as soon as I heard about it. I thought it was cool that the teachers were able to

teach what interested them and we were able to learn from such passion.”


significant complaint has been that the minicoursesaren’t long enough—many students have asked us tooffer them year-round.

Students enjoy learning about subjects thatstretch beyond the traditional high school Englishcurriculum. One student wrote, “I think [mini-courses] are a great idea for exposing us to differentbooks and ideas that we might not otherwise get inregular English classes. The choices for the courseshave all been very interesting and it’s hard to choosewhich one to take.” Students are also insightfulabout the positive effect minicourses can have ontheir attitude toward other English classes. As oneexplained, “Mini-courses breathe new life into En-glish class when, near the end of the year, every-thing seems to be stale.”

Students tell us that they value the opportu-nity to choose their course of study and appreciatethe chance to meet and learn with students fromother grade levels. One student described it thisway: “Since you can choose which topic you want tolearn about, it grabs my attention to know I amgoing to come to school knowing and wanting tolearn. I feel I devote more time and energy when Ihave a choice of what I want to learn about. Work-

ing in a group with people I don’t know that wellhelps me open my mind to new ideas.” They alsoappreciate that their teachers create special coursesthat are personally meaningful to them. “Being in aclass where everyone was enthusiastic becauseeveryone was engaged, even the teachers, the classwas much more enjoyable. We all took risks inexpressing our opinions, and we deviated from thebeaten path to come to some, in my opinion, origi-nal points.”

The positive atmosphere surrounding ourEnglish minicourses indicates that we are achievingour original goal of bringing the joys of languagearts and learning to ourselves and to students. Asone student explained, “The English seminars are areally great idea. They’re a lot of fun, a great way tomeet people from other grades, and either meetteachers you haven’t had yet or revisit teachersyou’ve already had. I’ve had a great time in the top-ics I’ve chosen and you learn all kinds of interestingthings you usually wouldn’t cover in a regularclass.” Another student wrote, “Keep letting teach-ers do what they love. It makes us excited when ourteachers are excited.” We couldn’t have said it bet-ter ourselves.

38 March 2007


Honor Moorman taught English at the International School of the Americas for eight years. She is currently a secondary lit-eracy specialist for the North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas. The International School of the Americas(ISA) is located on the Robert E. Lee High School campus in the North East Independent School District of San Antonio, Texas.ISA attracts students who are curious about the world, who are independent thinkers, and who want to make change happenin their world. Students come to ISA from over twenty public and private schools in the San Antonio area. For more informa-tion about ISA, please visit http://www.neisd.net/isa/.

Call for Proposals

The Conference on English Leadership (CEL) is calling for proposals for their 2007 conference, “Charting theCourse: Leadership Strategies and Practices for Twenty-First Century Literacies,” to be held November14–20, 2007, in New York City. The Conference on English Leadership’s mission is to support the develop-ment of new and experienced leaders. The 2007 Conference is designed as an interactive collaboration whereparticipants will learn from and about each other and their leadership experiences. The presentation strandsare Leadership; Reading, writing, and . . . sharing what works; Multiple literacies; Standards, testing, man-dates, initiatives; Teaching and learning. Questions may be directed to Dr. Alyce Hunter at [email protected] program proposals by May 1, 2007, using the submission form at http://www.ncte.org/groups/cel/featured/123161.htm.


teaching with passion learning by choice

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