When my senior-high literature students told me they didn't want to read the anthology of stories I had assigned, I asked them to bring me alternative suggestions based on interviews with parents, friends, and even bookstore clerks. At the same time, I had them devise criteria for selecting a book. They decided they wanted something that expanded their knowledge of society, helped them learn about their own identities, increased their vocabulary, inspired them to write, disturbed their own belief systems, and was fun to read. They suggested titles ranging from works by Stephen King to Kurt Vonnegut to Charles Dickens. But the newest translation of The Brothers Karamazov ranked highest according to their own criteria.
Involving Students
Each week the class read about 80 pages and completed three written assignments. The first assignment was a personal vocabulary list showing how each word was used in its original context and then in a piece of original writing. Second, they wrote journal entries reacting to the events of the story and making a connection to their own lives. These were read aloud and discussed each week. Finally, there was a 5–10 page paper on a topic that connected a particular aspect of the students' lives to those of the characters in the story. Sometimes the papers were written in groups; they were always edited and rewritten.
One paper related a chapter about torturing children (“Rebellion”) to the group's own experiences with or knowledge of child abuse. Another compared students' personal beliefs in God to Ivan's beliefs. For one paper, the class formed teams to research the trial of the policemen who had beaten Rodney King. Each team wrote an essay that compared and contrasted that trial to the courtroom drama of Dmitri Karamazov. Throughout the semester, pairs of students presented a 45-minute lesson on a topic related to the novel, such as Russian language, Russian history, Dostoyevsky's life, Pushkin, or current Russian literature.
The final exam was a natural extension of the course. Its purpose was to have students demonstrate they understood the complex ideas of the story and that they could generalize their knowledge and apply what they learned to their own lives. We held a mock trial to answer the question, “In an American court today, would Dmitri Karamazov be found innocent or guilty of patricide?” I impaneled a jury of local community people, and a prominent local politician served as judge. We used a vacant superior court room to add to the authenticity of the setting.
Except when asked to advise, I left the students alone for two weeks to prepare. They worked cooperatively to cast roles, make props, and agree on ground rules. Then they split into competitive teams, one for the prosecution and one for the defense. Each student was responsible for creating a costume and learning a part for the trial. No essential facts from the story could be changed. The prosecutor and defense attorneys were told to rewrite and update their opening and closing statements, but they could not create new evidence. In true Dostoyevskian spirit, the trial lasted four hours. The result was high drama and a clear demonstration that the students had indeed achieved what they intended to learn.
Grading was also a natural. Before the trial, the students developed criteria for assessing one another's performance. They weighted such things as preparation, contribution to the group, knowledge of their parts, costume quality, ability to convince others, and what they contributed to the whole. After the trial, students wrote narrative evaluations for themselves and every other class member. I added my own written observations.
Making It Authentic
- Does this activity provide opportunities for the students to achieve something that they perceive as real or genuine?
- Does this activity challenge, inspire, and empower the learner to take risks and exceed personal limitations? (And am I, the teacher, willing to ask for more from the students than they ask from themselves?)
- Are the students and the teacher committed to having this activity make some difference in their lives?
The conversations about these questions will always focus on two fundamental topics. First is commitment. My aim is to have the students discover that an activity, no matter how exciting, can be authentic only after they own it personally. There must be a personal commitment to create value from the lesson, and this commitment must go beyond the drive for good grades. I literally ask the students to promise they will be responsible for finding value in the lesson.
The second factor is risk. Students must be willing to experience discomfort, failure, rejection, and, worst of all, being wrong. Learning becomes an adventure only when it challenges students to expose all that they already know for the promise of new, unimagined possibilities.
These three questions work for any subject, be it math, science, art, physical education, or social studies. For any activity to be perceived as genuine and real, students must have some way of applying what they are learning to their lives right now. Authentic learning requires that students have something at stake, some goal or mission that they have identified as worth a risk. No activity, then, is inherently authentic. Authenticity is created through the commitment and risk of teachers and students.
