My New First Day Lesson

I was asked the other day about how I was feeling about the upcoming year, and my response surprised even me, though it also captured a notion that has been growing in my mind for some time: I am the most optimistic I’ve ever felt coming into a new school year. Why? At no point in my 20 years in the classroom have the interests of my students, the preferences of the job market, and the wider societal discussion of what matters all aligned so clearly and closely with the skills I teach. To understand that, let’s think about the last 20 years.

Two decades ago, my English major in college was often the punchline of jokes. Even then, English and other humanities majors were already in serious decline, and my friends—all of whom were in fields like engineering, medical sciences, or business—often poked fun at me for choosing such an antiquated path. It was almost like I had picked up churning my own butter or wearing a top hat.

Of course, my friends and colleagues were simply repeating the prevailing wisdom of the era. Since the dawn of this new millennium, there have been constant impassioned calls for an increased emphasis on science and technology and coding education while very few voices argued very loudly for the value of the humanities. The text was that the future would be a STEM one; the subtext was that humanities majors were reserved for those who didn’t want to be a part of that glistening, mechanized future (or be employed in it).

The results of this approach were highly predictable. Majors like my English major were already passé when I declared in 2003, but today they are nearing extinction. Take my alma mater, the University of Michigan. Since 2003, English majors have decreased an additional 70% and Communications majors have decreased by 92%. At the same time, Biophysics, Applied Statistics, and Computer Science have increased by 771%, 580%, and 513%, respectively.

I should say that this is not meant as a criticism of those who promote or pursue a science and technology path. The world needs brilliant, thoughtful computer engineers, statisticians, and medical researchers, but it also needs brilliant, thoughtful historians, anthropologists, and yes, readers and writers in a number of fields.

It needs balance, which brings me to why I feel so optimistic about the school year to come. A side effect of the world suddenly filling with the inhuman voice and impossible speed of Gen AI has been a lot of discussion concerning the value of the humanities (and surprising new job opportunities for humanities majors). One way to think about these shifts is that even the most ardent AI evangelists acknowledge the need for a human in the loop, and who better to fill that role than someone who has studied the humanities.

Further, younger workers are increasingly drawn to work that relies on the skills commonly taught in English language arts classes. Recent polls found that more than half of Gen Z respondents said they would like to be influencers and more than three-quarters said they want to be entrepreneurs. Some may roll their eyes at how seemingly unlikely success in the influencer/entrepreneur paths is, but when looking at the world right now, the interest in those jobs actually makes a lot of sense. At their core, the role of both influencers and entrepreneurs is to offer unique, fresh perspectives and voices. Those are two things that Gen AI—which is designed to make predictions based on common patterns—is poorly suited to do. Our English Language Arts classes, on the other hand, are all about helping students to cultivate unique perspectives and clear, fresh voices. Hence my optimism.

A way that I’m thinking about it (which I first heard from a teacher at my school) is that much like the photograph’s ability to capture reality led to dramatically more interest in perspective in visual art, it seems like the ability of large language models’ to mimic speech and thought is seemingly leading to more interest in unique and uniquely human voices and perspectives.

And so this year I plan to lean into discussion of perspective and voice from the very first day. Here is my lesson plan for doing that:

My New First Day Lesson

The Context

I’ve long had students write the story of their names on the first day. I do this because I want to establish from the start that my class is one where they will share their stories. Further, when students share their name stories, it also makes it easier for me and their classmates to remember their names (as stories make things easier to remember) and it ensures that my first interaction with students isn’t me mispronouncing their names or calling them by the wrong names during role.

The lesson below keeps that core idea and builds on it by introducing the discussion of perspective and voice that I want at the center of my classes all year. Also a big thanks to Timm Freitas of the Garden of English course for AP Lit and Lang teachers, whose first day lesson for AP Lang classes inspired the approach I take in this lesson.

The Why

I want students to see how their voices and perspectives can be enhanced by thoughtfully listening to others, learning specific tools and language moves, and more consciously leaning into the voice and style they already possess.

The Lesson

1. The lesson begins by telling students that we will start the year with them telling their story. We will do this because their story, starting with the meaning connected to their names, will matter in this class. The telling of their name stories also comes with some advantages: It takes the place of the dull role call, it makes their names easier for all to remember, and it helps avoid the common but poor first impression that comes when a student’s first interaction with a teacher is a mispronounced or incorrect name. Here are the directions I give them and here is a link to all of the slides:

2. In previous years, my students shared their name stories directly after writing them. This time though, students will be asked to put the stories aside for a moment and answer the following question with a table partner.

Once students discuss this question with a table partner, the whole class will then discuss it while the teacher writes the answers down on the board.

3. After the class discusses the answers, the teacher will add something additional to the list, if it hasn’t been mentioned:

And here is roughly what I plan to say around it:

For me, a central job of an ELA class is to build, cultivate, and clarify your perspective and voice. What is interesting about both your perspective and voice is that they are wholly unique in the history of the world. No one who has ever lived has seen things or said things exactly as you do. Quite literally, you have thoughts and say things every day that are unique in the history of the world. At the same time, your perspective and voice are in a sense not yours at all. They are a mash up of the perspectives and voices that surround you and came before you. The way we develop our perspectives and voices is by listening to those around us and bringing in bits and pieces from their perspectives and voices that help us to better understand and express ourselves. You can think about both perspective and voice as a giant tapestry stitched with the language and ideas of those you’ve encountered. One of my core goals in this class is for you to encounter new perspectives and voices that will help you to further build and refine your perspectives and voices. Today, we are going to play with that with your language stories before sharing them with the class.

4. The teacher will then tell students that seeing how others do something can help us to get new ideas for how to do it too. The class will then look at name stories from two noted authors, Sandra Cisneros and Nate Marshall. As they do that, the students’ job is to look for things to add to their writing. Here are the name stories:

5. Next, the teacher will ask the students to do four short revisions, each lasting no longer than a few minutes, of their name stories: one aimed at improving the content, two aimed at improving the style (through adding metaphors/similes and parallel structure), and a final one that invites them to really lean into their own voices.

6. To end, students will have a few minutes to select the parts of their name stories they wish to share and polish them up.

My plan is to have all the students turn them in, so I can use them to take role. Just 7-8 students will share them each day, which will allow students to really take them in.

Next Steps

The Fresh Start Effect means that the lessons and ideas we present very early in the year have a potentially stronger impact than pretty much everything else. That is why, against the backdrop of everything going on right now, I plan to lead with perspective and voice and then to continue talking about them and the students’ idiolects pretty much every day after. But more on that to come next week.

Until then, thanks for reading and yours in teaching,

Matt

Two Reading Suggestions

For those looking to dig deeper, here are two articles that got me thinking about human voice and perspective this week:

How We Speak Has Gotten Extravagant. Literally. by John McWhorter

Feedback: Human or Not by John Warner