My creative lesson at Presbyterian High School

My “creative” lesson was not so much as creative as it was a different style of approaching the novel for the students. As it was highlighted in the first post, Friedrich is approached in a very methodical manner, whereby only the key chapters are covered in depth in class. In these lessons, a summary is provided, the chapter is read through as a class and the teacher highlights important quotes and issues along the way.

Although I understood that Literature is being approached this way so that the Secondary 1 students can find this new subject manageable, I found it problematic as students took the novel just as it was being taught to them- in chapters. They did not make cross-references to other chapters or understand the significance of certain events. They also did not sympathize with the character Friedrich for the sufferings he had to go through as a Jew.

So in my first lesson with the class, I started the lesson by claiming that the chapter in focus for that lesson (“The Pogrom”) showed ‘Change’. They looked completely mystified as they never had approached a chapter thematically before. Then, instead of reading through the entire chapter with them, I highlighted important quotes from “The Pogrom”, where these quotes were either on an event or a character. For every quote from “The Pogrom”, I followed it by a quote from another chapter, on the same event or character. Then for every pair of quotes I showed, I flashed the questions “Is there a change in how Jews are treated?” and “Are they being treated better or worse?” and told them to mentally consider them.

Essentially, the lesson flowed like this.
Claim about ‘Change’
“The Pogrom” quote 1
“The Way to School” quote 1
Questions flashed.
“The Pogrom” quote 2
“The Way to School” quote 2
Questions flashed…

Again, I can’t say I was being creative. I was just presenting the chapter to them in a different way. For one, they actually looked interested, paid attention (this class is notorious for being unable to do that) and responded well. I was able to guide them to the understanding that the seemingly random events/characters in the chapter do actually bear significance. Along the way, I introduced new concepts like ‘private space’ and ‘mob mentality’ which they happily applied effectively in their homework. This was my creative lesson.