Welcome to Blackboarddreams.com! During the summer of 2012, I envisioned using a blog as a meaningful extension of my classroom where there would be resources aplenty and a communication hub. After a summer of trial and many an error, the website went live in the spring of 2013 and has been an e-home away from home for my students ever since. Here, parents and students can access the following: homework assignments, updates on the happenings and direction of the class, complementary materials, writing and research resources, exemplars, class forums, and more! I am most excited about using this website as an e-community built on the Blackboarddreams forums. My students and I use the forums to examine author’s craft in search of a deeper understanding of the readings and to use those readings as a catalyst for critical discussion of our world and ourselves.
So that is Blackboard Dreams! Here’s a bit about me: My name is Sean Leon. In 2002 I moved to NYC to join the NYC Teaching Fellowship. After teaching four years at a middle school in the Bronx, I was offered and accepted a high school English position at The Beacon School in Manhattan. Beacon—a prestigious college preparatory public high school known for its portfolio-based assessments, art and technological infusion across disciplines, and international travel—gave me an opportunity to give life to my vision of the English classroom. This vision is fundamentally shaped by the understanding that all instruction and assessment take place in a dynamic, human environment that must be factored into the day-to-day pedagogy of the class. So, as a priority, the English experience should be humanized in design and humanizing in effect. My classroom becomes an inclusive, democratic learning community where literacy acts as a conduit for holistic education.
Pedagogically, an inquiry-based framework shapes all literacy instruction and assessment. As a principle, I believe all instruction and assessment—formative and summative—should recognize the multiple intelligences and learning styles of the student body and should be varied accordingly. To that end, my classroom features an infusion of technology and the arts to help communicate content and to assess understanding. Additionally, I use the Socratic seminar and Socratic hybrids to facilitate discussion and catalyze the writing process. Ultimately, in satisfying the educational and civic responsibilities of a humanities classroom, I hope that quantitative and qualitative metrics show my students to be improved analytical and critical thinkers.
A closer look at the nuances of my classroom will reveal it to be a place where literature, vocabulary, and grammar/style instruction are integrated. It’s a place where my students understand that great writing must be not only clear and concise, but also purposeful, powerful, and elegant. To this end, writing and its instruction are conscious and methodical processes rooted in close examination of student writing and published writers as means of instruction. Here, formative assessment is critical to every step of the writing process (i.e. peer revision, topic sentences, paragraph development, inductive reasoning across paragraphs, evidence choice and analysis, etc). With clearly outlined and properly scaffolded writing instruction/practice, all students, regardless of ability, can become great writers. Naturally, to truly be effective, the writing workshop must be complemented by a thoughtfully-designed, rigorous literature curriculum.
Literature instruction and discussion would satisfy both Nabokov and Vonnegut as my students and I embrace didactic and aesthetic approaches to literature. I aim to have my students appreciate literature as a reflection of certain universal truths that allow us to see ourselves and others as part of a larger whole. Ideally, my students see literature as more than something written by someone once upon a time; rather, they see that literature may be a microcosm of life that facilitates discovery of self and world and fosters empathy. I aim to have them inhale the experience of each novel, poem, and short story. I want them to “hold [their] breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny” as we search for meaning in literature, in self, and in the world (Nafisi). This literary approach has resulted in discussions that have accounted for some of the most inspiring moments in my classroom. Additionally, I expect my students to appreciate each text as a work of art wherein the author has manipulated language, as a painter would color and stroke. In both cases the artist aims to achieve certain effects. In examining those effects, my students and I vigorously explore literary devices and elements as we critically and analytically deconstruct each text in search of meaning. Here, daily literary analysis and criticism informs my students’ ongoing writing process as they work toward a thesis. While the aesthetic approach to literature helps my students hone their analytical and critical thinking skills, it’s the didactic approach that has them talking about class in the halls and around the dinner table.
While my voice and instruction are fundamentally critical to the foundation of my classroom, I stress to my students that so too are their voices and perspectives. With emphasis on listening, thinking, and notetaking, Socratic seminars allow them the intellectual autonomy to take ownership of the conversation and more broadly, the learning experience. For instance, in my senior Existentialism class one will hear my students arguing that the progressive socio-theological views of Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard are devalued today in light of their respective sexist views. In a sophomore class, one will hear my students frame Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me with DuBois and Baldwin to argue that the American social and political landscape will forever be fragmented by the manufactured construct of race. In another, one will hear students parody or satirize social, economic, and/or political subjects in the spirit of Orwell’s 1984and Huxley’s Brave New World. In my freshman English class one may walk into a spirited debate over whether or not Hamlet is indeed a tragic hero. In each case, my students question, analyze, synthesize, and critique in pursuit of a cogent argument. Quietly, along the way, they develop a sense of confidence in their voice—perhaps the greatest takeaway from my class. While my students develop a sense of confidence in their voice, they are also expected to work with others and appreciate the difference of opinion that often defines a humanities course. Ultimately, the intimate relationship that my students develop with the content enables them to both understand the content and enjoy the learning process.
My expectations are high, yet I am always available to help my students meet those expectations. My students and their parents will tell you that I rarely leave the building before five o’clock as I continue to address the varying needs of my students. During lunch and after school my classroom is often abuzz with students as we discuss literature, writing, and life against a backdrop of R&B, folk, hip hop, or country music. I am proud of this and have missed it dearly in my time away from the classroom. I love what I do and I am passionate about helping my students not only succeed but also have fun and laugh along the way. I take pride in the laughter and smiles that mark the landscape of my classroom. My students have been successful in the most quantitative ways one measures success and I understand the importance of this measure of success, yet I also place value in the more subjective, qualitative success that is measured in laughter.
