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all a teacher can do – is work with students to create a classroom culture, a climate, a curriculum that will nourish and sustain the fundamental inclinations that everyone starts out with:  to make sense of oneself and the world, to become increasingly competent at tasks that are regarded as consequential, to connect with (and express oneself to) other people. 

I once sat in on several classes taught by Keith Grove at Dover-Sherborn High School near Boston and noticed that such meetings were critical to his teaching; he had come to realize that the feeling of community (and active participation) they produced made whatever time remained for the explicit curriculum far more productive than devoting the whole period to talking at rows of silent kids.  Together the students decided whether to review the homework in small groups or as a whole class.  Together they decided when it made sense to schedule their next test.  (After all, what’s the point of assessment – to have students show you what they know when they’re ready to do so, or to play “gotcha”?)  Interestingly, Grove says that his classes are quite structured even though they’re unusually democratic, and he sees his job as being “in control of putting students in control.”

teaching the basics of analytic writing, every day, in virtually every class.

a coherent, well-turned paragraph

the essay questions were just too difficult. Many would simply write a sentence or two and shut the test booklet.