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Class Anatomies
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This page highlights materials that document a single class period (Hutchinson’s group discussion of A Call to Assembly; a grammar lesson and class discussion on 12/5 within Bristol’s Othello unit; a “mini-lesson” and related small group discussion on 3/23 within Venson’s Humanities unit on the Middle East) or a single project/unit that stretches over several class periods (Grossman’s assignment on teaching using group discussion). We refer to these as class anatomies because they are designed to expose the underlying structure of a single class or unit of instruction. 

Reflecting the different histories, purposes, and authors of these sites, the websites provide different examples of the kinds of materials and resources that class anatomies might contain, but, in general they provide some sense of the setting or the larger course that surrounds the class or unit; some audio or video discussion of the teacher’s plans or their reflections on what happened; examples of relevant curriculum materials; and some video from the classroom.

Yvonne Hutchinson
“I’m hoping that they will make their own meaning of this text and [that] it’s rich enough to invite discussion of all kinds of levels about the text itself, but also, more importantly, the implications about what it says about them – about the social issues involved even though the story is dated…” [Pre-class interview, Audio]

Pam Grossman
“One of the central issues we face in teaching C&I has to do with how we prepare new teachers 1) to teach sophisticated reading strategies to all students, particularly to struggling readers, and 2) to organize discussion of literature in which students do the lion’s share of the work.” [From Context, PDF]

Travis Bristol
"Just having them spend some time thinking about something, some line, some word, some metaphor, predicting something that may happen in the play, that's what I wanted them to do, and in some ways I think that's what happened.“ [from 12/5 after-class interview]

Emily Venson
“That has been an ongoing project since the beginning of the year – teaching kids to be self-sufficient readers, writers, and members of an academic discussion.” [3/23 interview, Video]

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