Metamorphosis: One Teacher's Change/One Class' Reaction

Abstract

y first visit as a classroom researcherwith DP's eleventh-grade Englh class, a glance around the room told that this was a fairly traditional setting, a classroom physically divided into two sides, with short rows facing toward a center aisle.DPs desk sat at the end of one aisle; at the end of the other, a podium and chalkboard stood guard. A bookshelf against one wall served as a case for dictionaries, a few battered paperbacks, and bedraggled extra copies of student texts. From September through October, students were discussing, reading, and writing about Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson (and the school's soccer and football teams). The students were large, with voices that matched their size; later I learned that the majority of the varsity football team sat together in DP's class.