Surprised by Boys

 At the mid-point of the PBS Documentary on Napoleon (see previous posts), I asked my grade 7 students to reflect on the following:

1. What are Napoleon's most significant accomplishments so far?
2. Do you think he was right to crown himself  emperor?
3. What has surprised you most about Napoleon?
4   a. What are his character strengths?
     b. What are his weaknesses?
5.  Predict what might happen to him.

Today after school, I sat down to review their work.  Before I share what students wrote I would like to describe the atmosphere in my classroom during this unexpected exploration.

One of the weaknesses of middle school history textbooks is that they often present an "adult"-erated version of history, one that is sanitized and reduced to key dates and events - information with no context and no real story. The result is a failure to connect students to the people of particular time periods and worse, a climate where students go through the motions of learning but aren't necessarily thinking deeply or passionately about the subject matter.

This was not the case at all with the PBS documentary. Napoleon's full persona was revealed; students had the opportunity to see his humanity as well as his exceptionality.  They came to admire him, even though they did not particularly like him.

At one point in the documentary, I attempted to zoom ahead. I felt that students had a good sense of who Napoleon was and what he had accomplished and thought  we could skip over a few of his wars in order to see how his life ended.  This was met with a loud chorus of, "No's ...." When I questioned why, students responded with, "It's interesting. Seeing his strategies is the best part." I have to say I was not expecting this. It was boys in particular who protested loudly.  It took me a while to realize that most of the boys in my class are gamers.  A huge entry point for them into Napoleon's story would, of course, be his battle strategies. So much of what interested them even during discussions centered on this, whether it was how he placed his troops or how he used propaganda to manipulate others and promote himself. They were in awe of his intelligence and his willingness to sacrifice everything in order to meet his goals, including abandoning troops which shocked many of them.  This was not the only aspect of Napoleon's life that caught their interest, though.  His relationship with Josephine was a hotly debated topic.

Back to our writing assignment, and in particular, the boys.  So much discussion these days centers on how to engage boys, about how to get boys to write, about how boys are falling behind girls in academic achievement. After reading what the boys in my class wrote, I realized that there is nothing wrong with boys today. Give them a meaty enough subject; provide them with ample time to view, discuss, debate and question; allow time to explore deeply rather than rush through a topic and boys have no problem writing.

The work they submitted was carefully crafted.  They provided reasoned opinions supported with specific evidence - so detailed that I was surprised at what they remembered from the documentary.  They justified their interpretations. Subject specific vocabulary was incorporated.  They displayed  a superior level of insight and analysis. Sentence structure was fairly accurate. I was impressed. I would also say that this is not typical of what grade 7 boys produce independently, without prompting.

Given what my students produced, I've been reflecting on why it is often difficult to extract this level of written work from many of them.  I think it comes down to curriculum and how it's presented. It's lame.