In my earlier post, I provided a link to a multi-faceted research project for my American Studies students which focuses on either a national topic with internatonal connections or on an international topic with national connections. Though my students are in the early stages of an academic experience that will extend well into their senior year, they have impressed me so far with both the quantity and quality of their critical thinking as they explore, evaluate, and begin to hone their research topics. Consider the range of their interests by visiting their blogs, linked below:
Afghan & Pakistani refugees
Alternative energies
Antisemitism today
Asian mission work
Behavioral & psychological disorders
China & USA business
China & USA censorship
China & USA homelessness
China & USA obesity
Darfur & pop culture
Economics of global warming
Global recycling
Homosexuality: political contexts
Human trafficking today
Immigration policy: implications
Internet politics
Korea & USA education
Khmer Rouge tribunal
Literacy: cultural & political contexts
Mexican immigration
Oil politics
Pop cultural imperialism
Space travel: economic contexts
State religions
Universal health care
USA neo-nazism today
War on drugs
WW2 histories of shame
Youth gangs & mercenaries
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
American Texts, World(ly) Context
For more than thirty years I have taught high school English and history, and every day of the thousands I have spent in the classroom my students have taught me in return. Talk about life-long learning! Here’s my latest challenge, one which I hope you—whoever you are; wherever you teach, study, and learn; whenever you have a moment—can help me meet.
I’m currently directing an international studies program and, within it, teaching the junior English component of its curriculum. After two years of world literature and history in our program, juniors focus on American Studies before again returning to the world during their senior year. Seeking to build on what our students have learned during their freshman and sophomore years, my teaching colleagues and I endeavor to make American Studies more “worldly.” The challenge we face at nearly every curricular turn, however, is how to make not just connections between American Studies and the world, but connections that truly matter. In other words, how do we create and then employ a vibrant, global context for our instruction in American literature and history?
So that you know more about what I have done and am doing, I have linked to the syllabus of texts for my course, essential questions, and a multi-faceted research project that I recently created and which my students have gamely undertaken. I have also linked to the program I direct, The Glenbrook Academy, as well as two organizations that support my daily work in and out of the classroom—the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Studies Schools Association (ISSA).
As teacher, as student, as learner, what do you think? And what do you do that will lend a more worldly context to my students’ and my daily skirmishes with American texts?
I’m currently directing an international studies program and, within it, teaching the junior English component of its curriculum. After two years of world literature and history in our program, juniors focus on American Studies before again returning to the world during their senior year. Seeking to build on what our students have learned during their freshman and sophomore years, my teaching colleagues and I endeavor to make American Studies more “worldly.” The challenge we face at nearly every curricular turn, however, is how to make not just connections between American Studies and the world, but connections that truly matter. In other words, how do we create and then employ a vibrant, global context for our instruction in American literature and history?
So that you know more about what I have done and am doing, I have linked to the syllabus of texts for my course, essential questions, and a multi-faceted research project that I recently created and which my students have gamely undertaken. I have also linked to the program I direct, The Glenbrook Academy, as well as two organizations that support my daily work in and out of the classroom—the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Studies Schools Association (ISSA).
As teacher, as student, as learner, what do you think? And what do you do that will lend a more worldly context to my students’ and my daily skirmishes with American texts?
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