I regard English instruction as a pedagogical art facilitating a student's advancement in the communication skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. I believe that enrichment in these four areas also coincidentally and crucially contributes to an individual's growth in cognitive development.

I believe that students learn best when they are exposed to information, concepts, and skills through multi-modal experiences. I believe in the importance of the self-generated gestalt "Ah ha!" moment and I believe that active participation can lead to mastery and appreciation of most subjects.

Studies show that the more a student can discover, self-teach and experience concepts, the greater the chances are that the student can also remember these concepts as well as creatively and insightfully develop higher levels of cognitive growth.

Accelerated Learning Techniques, which integrate art, drama, music, movement, rest, color, logic, and emotion, through the experiential modalities of vision, hearing, and activity, help students effectively assimilate information and realize higher levels of thinking.

Utilizing a variety of cognitive pathways like artistic, verbal, mathematical, logical, spatial and musical talents and strengths, (see Gardner's Intelligences), can add to the richness of a student's understanding.

In my English classes we work in teams as well as individually. We have contests for extra credit and we have times where individuals volunteer to earn bonus points through class response. We peer-assess as well as self-evaluate. Students have graded and extra credit professional point opportunities to be leaders, team members, organizers, speakers and good listeners.

In many ways I try to involve the various strengths and interests students bring to class to motivate and involve them in self-directing their engagement in the learning process. Our vocabulary assignments include opportunities for artistic characterizations. Some short story and concept comprehension checks involve mapping and metaphorical design. We construct masks, simulate events in our reading and play detective in grammatical quests.

We produce spontaneous skits as well as prepared play productions. We draw and diagram vocabulary and concepts. We read out loud with rehearsed expression and we read silently. We give speeches pretending to be lawyers in developing thesis arguments with appropriate, convincing evidence. We partner up and we work individually. We rehearse, practice and produce our work to meet increasingly higher expectations.

There are options to create musical CD's, sculptures and dioramas. We have a feast for Romeo and Juliet and a competition for best party.

I believe that instruction, in order to to be an effective art form, needs to involve variety and surprise, a combination of senses, interests, learning strengths and a quite a bit of fun. It needs to be eclectic and experiential in nature to reach, enrich and motivate the greatest number of students in the greatest number of ways for the greatest possible growth in subject mastery and cognitive development

- Prepared for the 2006 Advanced Placement Summer Institute
...AP English Language and Composition