How Should English Classroom Look Today?

Randy Bomer writes, "Today's classroom should not look like the English classes of the 1940's or even the 1980's. Students now engage in dozens of literacy activities that were unavailable just a generation ago." 

Jim Burke writes , We are all very much striving to maintain our humanity in the midst of so many political, professional, technological and cultural changes that would strip our classes and curriculum of the very humanity that places our discipline in the Humanities.

I am reading Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms and the New English Companion by Jim Burke.  I had read Burke's original English Companion and I want to see what had been added and was new.    I am trying to read it through the eyes of a prospective new English teacher to consider how it might be meaningful at the stage in teaching English.   An interesting way to explore it as I am nearing the end of my career of teaching and English.  I am a crone these days - check the out in your dictionary. 

If I were a new teacher in the field I would use Burke's book to try to form my own beliefs about teaching English.   WIth all of Part 1 I am challenged to define what teaching English should look like in Our Brave New World, what new millennial generation students will be like, and how we might teach so students learn, remember, use and enjoy.   

One particular highlight for me was
Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

• Develop skills with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information 
• Create, critique, analyze and evaluate multiple texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments. (NCTE, 2008) 

See update 2013 21st Century Literacy Defined . NCTE Position Statement
As a new teacher what would these highlights mean to me as I planned my classes, developed my curriculum, used the curriculum of my district.  How and where would I see these skills needed in the common core standards?   How would I have students develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for the 21st century?  

See discussions about 21st Century Literacy.
N.C.T. E.  published 21st Century Literacy statements.   See responses
NCTE Writing in the 21st Century
N.C.T.E. Position Statements Multimodal Literacies


I remember thinking when I first read this book in 1999 this is an "out of the box thinker, an avant- garde, new innovative English teacher of the future.   I remember he had practical tools for thinking, writing, brainstorming, and he wrote about reading the world - an literacy in a much broader sense that "English classrooms" of the 60's. When he first published his book he had developed a FREE for all resource spot on the web with his tools of thought and resources, English Companion.  Of course, that changed, - as publishing on the web for free did not mesh with publishing companies I am sure.

So I start my writing today - a journey of thought with highlights of ideas that would make sense if I were to begin my career tomorrow.

I am a skimmer , so as I read Chapter 1 and skimmed all of Part one, I flipped through the rest of the book.   One resource I would use if I were a new teacher is p. 81 Tools for Writers. While it is labeled tools for writers, for me Burke has provided visual representations, diagrams, charts forms that can be used for thinking, brainstorming, writing, and not only generating thought and ideas byt sharing them in the future.  If I were a new teacher I would go to Burke's Blog,  Burke's English Companion website and save it on my blog, use my blog as a resource for myself as a future teacher.  I would return to Burke's Tools for Teachers and use Burke's graphic organizers, tools for thought, tools for writers.