WEBVTT

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>> My name is Pete
Weyler, and I am a ninth-

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and eleventh-grade
English teacher,

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and I also have a
section of TV studio.

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I try to ensure rigor in the
classroom by thinking back

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to my own college career and
thinking about what we talked

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about in my classes, what
my professors expected,

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the ways that I was
expected to write.

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And I tailor my assignments
to that.

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I want them to write
a thesis essay that is

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like the thesis essays that
my professors expected.

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I expect them to do it

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in a little less
sophisticated fashion,

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and I build that
backwards into ninth grade

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so that my expectations in ninth
grade are for the same kind

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of thing, just not
quite developed

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to the level of sophistication.

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And every year at
University Park we expect them

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to increase in sophistication.

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So as sophomores,
they are expected

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to write more sophisticated
essays as juniors, as seniors,

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so that when they are
headed off to college,

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they are already
writing in the ways

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that they need to
write in college.

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One of the key ways we develop
rigor in our classrooms is

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that we show students
the original material,

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the original problems, and
ask them to think about it.

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We expect them to be
historians, we expect them

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to be mathematicians, we expect
them to be literary critics.

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So rather than just
feeding them a theorem

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or feeding them a
literary interpretation,

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we give them the original
material and we ask them

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to generate a theorem,

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we ask them to generate
some literary criticism,

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we ask them to judge,
interpret history based

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on original documents.

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>> Student, speaking to
class: So the criticism.

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There is a lot of
controversy on Millay.

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Some people like her, some
people don't like her;

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some people like the way she
writes, some people don't.

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Some people find it boring,
which I'm sure some of you will.

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Some find it interesting.

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Diane P. Freedman said that
"Millay's poems make visible

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through the theater of the
personal how identity functions

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in culturally determined ways."

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So first of all, that just
explained how her poem explains

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who we are in society
based on the culture.

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>> Weyler: In the ninth grade,

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I am asking students what
they think of the literature.

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We are reading this literature,

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and instead of presenting
some sort of interpretation

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that I have come
to over the years

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or that I have been presented in
my past, I am letting them know

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on the first day
that I expect them

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to think about this material.

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I know that the history
teachers do the same

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with original documents.

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It's not just reading what
historians have come to believe

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about these documents.

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They are given the documents and
they are asked on the first day,

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"What do you see here?

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What do you notice?

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What meaning can you
make out of this?

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What sense does it make?"

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And then once the
responses come,

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we are not giving the
students feedback as much

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as asking other students to
give each other feedback:

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"What do you think about
what she just said?

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Does that make sense to you?

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Does anybody have a
different opinion?"

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And what evolves then is
a classroom conversation

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that begins when
they first get here

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and is reinforced
in every class.

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>> Weyler, to class: Should we
be calling her a modern poet?

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Should I even allow
somebody next year

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to research Edna
St. Vincent Millay

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as a modern American poet,
or is she just an example

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of an anachronism,
somebody who is

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in a different time
and a throwback?

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>> Student: I don't think
necessarily the way you write

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the poem should categorize
you as modern or not,

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it's more what you write about.

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And since she just
used iambic pentameter

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and wrote the poetry-it's
just the issues she wrote

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about is what we
should focus on.

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>> Weyler, to class: Like?

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>> Student: Like, in
the 1920s and how love

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and women and all that stuff .

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. . war.

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>> Student B: She wrote
about nature, and Frost wrote

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about nature a lot, and
Frost is a modern poet.

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>> Weyler, to class: Although,

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so did our transcendentalist
poets, right?

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And they are from
the 19th century.

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>> Weyler: In the
eleventh grade,

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I am going to give them
Hemingway and Faulkner,

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and we are going to
lay them side by side.

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And I am not going to give
them a lecture on the style

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of Hemingway and Faulkner.

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I certainly could;
I have read plenty

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and could give a pretty
good lecture, I think,

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on the differences
between their styles.

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But that would be my
learning, not theirs.

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Instead, they read
Hemingway, they read Faulkner.

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And then we hold them side
by side and I ask them,

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"What are the differences
between these styles?"

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We ensure rigor by taking a
look at what the alumni have

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to tell us after they have been
in college for one or two years.

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We have a very active outreach

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to current college student
alumni of UPCS asking them,

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"What were you well
prepared for,

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and what did you
feel surprised by?

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What do you feel like you should
have been better prepared for?"

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And then we come back
in our faculty meetings,

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and we have very frank
discussions about what we need

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to do to better prepare them.

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We ensure rigor in the classroom
by looking at current research.

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There is some research
out there that suggests

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that there isn't enough literary
criticism that is encountered

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by students in high school,
and that certainly is something

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that I lacked in my own
high school preparation.

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So we work that back in.