Continued from my Chapter-One thread: Based upon the research presented by the department chair (the most effective way to improve student writing proficiency and reading comprehension is to simply guide them through more experiences doing both), I tested the proverbial waters over the next few years. I scaled back on projects and increased the amount of classroom time dedicated to analyzing the rhetoric of literature, including non-fiction w/emphasis on media literacy, as well as the number of both formal- and non-formal voice assignments. Writing did improve. Comprehension scores also rose. I had always enjoyed positive feedback from students over the years, but what followed surprised me. They would come back from other classes, suggesting their thrill at teaching the class what we had already learned; college students returned their thanks, claiming Comp. 101 and undergraduate literature courses to have been a breeze after their high-school experience. I think the improved results were noticed elsewhere as the department chair recently assigned me his long-cherished AP World Literature class to teach.

I believe I saw and still do see the big picture and I am fighting a daily battle to convince an increasingly non-book motivated population to apply themselves to the challenge. Projects can help motivate. I’ve seen it, but as the authors point out, they do require a lot of time. I do still assign small-group research and keep papers and point scoring as open-ended as possible. Because, hey, the research says…