Pedagogy - Week 5

For the last few years, the World Literature teachers in my school have followed a curriculum map that focused on units, rather than chronology or themes. Poetry has been the last unit of the school year. I assume that is because it has been viewed as one of the less important units of the year. Persuasive writing and narratives have always been considered the most important. To be honest, I think this is because these two subjects are what appear on the graduation test. The writing exam requires a persuasive essay on a given topic and the English graduation test is 120 questions with narrative passages. This is only my third year teaching high school, so I never put two and two together until this year when the 10th lit teachers decided to change how they are teaching poetry. Instead of a separate unit, poetry will be taught "thematically" over the course of the semester (for block classes) or year (for traditional classes). I put thematically in quotes because the instruction this year is thematic in terms of genres of literature but it is not true thematic teaching. It's very hard to teach thematically when other subject areas teach chronologically (i.e. social studies). If the ideas behind these standards we are supposed to be teaching is to actively engage our students in a cross curriculum education, don't you think it would beneficial to plan with other subject areas and all teach in a similar pattern. I would love for a student to be learning about ancient Greece in history while reading Antigone in literature and discussing the development of ancient medicine in science. That would be fantastic and a way teachers could really integrate thematic teaching.