Legend Journalist

Over the recent break, I finally got around to reading a book that my mother-in-law gave me over two years ago,  the memoirs of Walter Cronkite, a famed journalist whose career spanned half of a century. The book detailed his life from childhood to his retirement in the 1980’s and chronicled his love for telling “the story” to viewers and readers.  Walter Cronkite was the CBS Evening News anchor for a few decades and was admired by millions.  One of his early career influences was a journalist by the name of Paul White.  When asked his advice of how to deliver material, Mr. White simply said, “You tell them what you’re going to tell them, you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them.”  This will surely defeat any attempt at subtlety. Walter Cronkite followed that advice throughout his career and if you are old enough to remember – he was very good.  If not, find a clip of him (yep, it may be black and white).

Teachers often follow the example above throughout lessons. If you follow the “oldie by goodie” style of Madeline Hunter, you give the class an anticipatory set, you present information, let them work it through some sort of guided practice, and then you close with a summary.  That is fine, but there are a few things to add along the way.  As I have said at every “Lunch & Learn” throughout the year, often the last people to know what the goals are the very ones that we want to achieve the goal – the kids!  It is wise to tell your classes at the beginning of a unit just what it is that you want them to “get smarter about.”  It should not be a secret.  People have a much better shot at achieving something if they know what that something is. I saw a great example of this on Wednesday during 8^th period Read 180 as Amanda Tuel and Ginger Weilbaker had kids doing things that they were not able to do a few months ago.  However by establishing what it was they desired as a result, providing instruction-review-relevance-instruction-review-relevance and so on, really good results are being achieved.  The student growth just smacks you in the face.  Give that some thought as you present your units of instruction – tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.  In the end, the chances of your kids reaching those desired results will being enhanced.