Reinventing English

So, my co-op and I have this 19 minute class called "advisory". It's basically our homeroom kids coming back to us before lunch. A lot of other faculty members think it is pointless because there isn't really much you can do in that time period. It's purpose is "supposed" to be "advising" students on areas where they need help. The problem is, when they come for advisory, all they have on their brains is food and social time. So, he and I have been brainstorming ways of making advisory period more fun. The other day I said to him that maybe we can expand the advisory concept from school-focused to all inclusive. He seemed to agree.

Sorry for the random tangent there, but it was for a purpose. I just read the Reinventing chapter and thought to myself that this is kind of what we had in mind. For the past six months or so in our classes, we keep bringing up the terms "critical thinkers" and "media literacy". The only problem here is that 19 minutes isn't a lot of time and we can't do this in CA because time is already strapped as it is trying to cover all of the mandated material. Also, the administration has been very clear that advisory isn't supposed to be used for other subjects (as in, we can't have them write every single time because that is too much like CA class).

I have been thinking that our advisory class is the perfect way to bring up the events of the world and have our students begin to analyze and form their own opinions. This first chapter really reinforced my idea