It's a Boy Thing

We may be in the minority, but Bags and Chris are in full accord on this one: AI is going to do until damage to boys' learning in English. Only this week, articles in the Christchurch Press "Number of illiterate uni students ‘at crisis level’" and the Otago Daily Times article "Despair over Literacy Levels demonstrate that the literacy of University students in the towns where we teach is falling off a cliff–and we already know that this is even worse for boys. This conversation explores exactly why AI is such a disaster for the classroom, what we're doing about it, and why we thing it should go the way of "Whole Language" teaching of reading and Modern Learning Environments - to the dustbin.

Bags explores how she creates rich discussion in her English classroom.

Bags and Chris compare notes on how they tend to approach the preparation of students for the Unfamiliar Texts section in the New Zealand English Scholarship examination.

Bags relays an experience she had recently with a student who was struggling to speak in front of the class and then Chris grabs the microphone and talks for too long in order to attempt to explain how Grammar for Writing actually works in the context of a Year 9 classroom.