Preparing the Final Group Project (For Group Work Day on April 14 th )

Overview Teaching (Figuring out what you’re teaching) Teaching Check-in Questions – due on the class site by Friday, April 15 th at midnight Audience (Defining who you’re teaching & why?) Audience Check-in Questions – due on the class site by Monday, April 19 th at 9am Lesson Planning (Preparing how you will teach) Lesson Planning Check-in Questions – due on the class site by Saturday, April 23rd at 9am

Notes The first two check-ins are due before our next class; I expect you to focus most of your in class energy on Teaching and Audience so that you can provide thoughtful and on time check-ins about this part of your group project. For each check in, you should have one of your group members make ONE post for the whole group. Each check in should be marked with the appropriate category boxes (your group letter; the name of the check-in; and anything else you might think is relevant).

Teaching To teach is to give/share some material, skill or experience; make sure you’re not just taking information from audience. You’re teaching not conducting research. For example: Your group might be interested in sharing with others our discussions about how adolescence is a historically constructed category designed to categorize and regulate a new population of un(der) employed young people in urban centers. You might want your audience to think about what the category “adolescence” seeks to contain or regulate today. In your teaching, it’s not enough to make a video of people talking about what they think the term “adolescence” does. That would be just gathering opinions. You have to start by sharing the knowledge and way of thinking you’ve begun in this class. You might need to define what you mean by historically constructed category (as opposed to being an innate and natural occurrence). You’d need to inform your audience about the economic and social factors in the U.S. at the turn of the century that contributed to “adolescence” as an operative category. You would give examples. Then as a way to engage your audience in this idea you might ask them how they see the category working today. The material you teach should originate from some part of the course discussion, readings, and/or activities and then be supplemented with your additional research. For example: In the above example, you might begin with the Baxter reading as your main source, but you would then supplement the material he provides with 2 or 3 additional sources. You might look at his bibliography and follow up on a source that seems particularly relevant. You might find some articles on the crisis of adolescence in popular magazines like US News or The New Yorker. You will need to incorporate in your teaching some of the assigned work you’ve already done: (at least one person’s) graphic illustration and (some portion of each group members’) writing assignments (blogs, history paper, and monster paper). Note: You aren’t using the whole paper per say. You might take two lines from your monster paper that articulate a concept, or you might use a close reading of part of the novel as an example of what you’re teaching, or you might take some aspect of your history paper that wasn’t that important to your novel as historical context.

Teaching (check-in questions) What does you want to teach? Why do you want to share (teach) this aspect of the course with a community outside our class (i.e. why does it matter)? What is the central objective (i.e. the main thing you want to get across in your teaching)? Does this lesson emerge from our course discussions, readings, assignments? How so? What course materials will you use to help you teach this lesson? What kind of additional materials might you need to supplement those core materials? How do you plan to incorporate the graphic illustration (from at least one group member)? How do you plan to incorporate some part of the research, analysis, and/or theorization each of you have produced in your writing assignments? Note: If you are in Group E, you can think about how you might write your papers with your group ideas in mind. (Group D, you should already have an idea of what you’re writing and presenting on even if you haven’t actually done it yet.)

Audience You can pick your audience before or after you pick what you want to teach. Either way there needs to be a relationship between what you teach, who you teach, and how you teach it. Audience is as broad or narrow as you want. Your audience could be followers of a specific twitter feed or two of your neighbor’s children. Some things to keep in mind when considering who your audience will be: – How will you reach this audience (where are they and through what medium do they communicate best)? – What is your relationship to this audience? (i.e. Why should they listen to you?) – How will you know if this audience has heard you? – In what way do you imagine this audience would be most inclined to engage with the lesson? (i.e. asking questions, making debate, adding their own sources of knowledge, sharing the information with others, etc.)

Audience (Check-In questions) Who is your audience? Why did you pick this audience? What is your relationship to this audience? Where is this audience located? How will you reach this audience? How will you know if your audience has heard you? In what ways will this audience be most inclined to engage with the lesson? (i.e. asking questions, making debate, adding their own sources of knowledge, sharing the information with others, etc.)

Lesson Plan Lesson planning is about anticipating and preparing the necessary practical steps (what you will do) to realize your larger teaching objective. The centrals question in the lesson plan is “how will you teach this material and how will you know you’ve taught it successfully?” A lesson plan should address: – the main thing you want to communicate (i.e. central objective) – How you want to present that material (i.e. via performance, lecture, poster, debate, small group discussion, etc.) – the materials necessary (i.e. handouts, craft supplies, pencils, a video clip) to communicate your message – how you will assess whether or not your audience hears and understands your main point – A break down of the specific steps you will take to communicate.

Lesson Plan (Check-In) What is your main thing you want this lesson to communicate? What is the main thing you want your audience to come away with? Where, when, and via what medium (i.e. twitter, video, face-to-face) will this lesson take place? What is your general mode of communicating this lesson (i.e. performance, debate, discussion, lecture, etc.)? What materials are needed for this lesson? How will you acquire these materials? Briefly (3-5 sentences) describe what your vision for teaching this lesson looks like. Please detail at least 8-12 detailed action steps for how you will teach this lesson. How will you assess whether you have successfully communicated your main point? What will you look for as signs that your audience heard and understood you (i.e. a quiz; an ability to identify a related example; a certain number of Facebook comments or shares; a written or verbal reflection on the material; etc.)?