How I Found My Idiom
Hint: it didn’t involve jumping up on my desk
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot (John Cleese) skewers eight wedding guests while trying to rescue Prince Herbert from a tower prison. His servant tells Lancelot to sneak away but Lancelot demurs. “No! It’s not right for my idiom!” (which is being dashing and heroic).
Through bitter experiences in my first few years of teaching, I struggled to master Socratic — or redirected — questioning, the preferred method of teaching literature at that time (1970s-1980s). Eventually, I realized it just wasn’t right for my idiom.
Ideally, here’s what’s supposed to happen when a teacher uses redirected questioning. Let’s say we’re discussing Macbeth. My job is to ask factual questions (who, what, when, where) and thinking questions (how, why). So I begin:
ME: Clarence, what are the witches planning at the beginning of the act?
CLARENCE: They are planning on meeting with Macbeth.
ME: But why? Elvira?
ELVIRA: To give Macbeth their predictions.
ME: Glynis, what were those predictions?
GLYNIS: That Macbeth would be Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King.
Now that I’d brilliantly elicited factual answers from my students, it was time for thinking questions.
ME: Elmer, what do the witches mean when they say to Banquo, “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater? Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none?”
ELMER: Banquo won’t be a king, but will feel happy about it.
ME: Lydia, do you agree with that?
LYDIA: I think the witches mean that Banquo won’t be king but his descendants will be kings, so that will make him happier.
And so on, and so on, with all the kids actively involved in a thought-provoking discussion.
Except it never worked out that way. My experience was closer to this:
ME: Clarence, what are the witches planning at the beginning of the act?
CLARENCE: I dunno.
ME: Clarence, did you read Act 1?
CLARENCE: Act 1 of what?
ME: Never mind. Elmer, what about you?
ELMER: Huh?
ME: Elmer, did you read Act 1?
ELMER: Uh, no.
ME (noticing Lydia’s hand waving): Lydia?
LYDIA: Can I have a pass to the bathroom?
In 32 years of teaching English to kids from ages 11 through 19, I never had a class — Developmental, Academic, Honors, or Advanced Placement — in which:
1. More than 20% of the students had read the assignment
2. More than 5% of the students were actively following the discussion
3. More than 5% of the students were willing to contribute to a discussion, even if they had read the text.
I can’t imagine how other teachers managed to do Socratic questioning but they did. I suppose they also mastered ways to coerce or cajole their students to read assigned literature.
Two other weaknesses prevented my success at redirected questioning. First, I got excited when a kid had an insight, and I’d yell “Yes!” and jump around, so it was no use trying to redirect the question.
Secondly, I could not bring myself to pick on shy kids. One of the cardinal rules of redirected questioning is to force the quiet kids to participate. The outcome is supposed to be something like:
ME: Esmeralda, why would it be better to beget a line of kings than to be a king?
ESMERALDA (who has never raised her hand): Because Banquo’s heirs will rule Scotland for generations, making Banquo the progenitor of a royal dynasty.
What did happen when I picked on a shy kid was this:
ME: Esmeralda, why would it be better to beget a line of kings than to be a king?
ESMERALDA (stares at me in wild panic, shrinks into her seat, turns bright red, and utters small whimpering sounds)
It took much trial and error, studying educational journals and attending conferences, but I finally found the answer. My “idiom” (which I always knew) was lecturing.
I was an animated, passionate lecturer who would leap onto my desk, or stride up and down the room on students’ desks (as they frantically grabbed their books or handbags out of the way)
But lecturing was not enough. It was important for students to think critically and find evidence in the text — yet I was lousy at redirected questioning. What to do?
My solution was to lecture and ask questions differently. I’d prepare an instructional handout for a book or play, and give it to the kids; this was my lecture. Then I’d create a set of comprehension questions to be answered in paragraphs and required specific textual evidence.
Then I’d follow up with a creative assignment. Example: after my students finished a set of critical thinking prompts based on Kafka’s Metamorphosis, they had to write an original allegory that showed an understanding of allegorical elements.
But, battle-scarred, I knew that many of my cherubs used Cliff’s Notes (no internet back then), and a fair number of my cherubs did not do homework. And of course, there would be no interaction (the goal of redirected questioning).
So I arranged each class into small groups, so they could redirect to each other. I could quickly see if a group was producing or lounging, and intervene and get them back on track. Every kid read at least some assigned text to find evidence.
It wasn’t easy for me to stop myself from interjecting my ideas (naturally, the kids tried to get me to do this), but once I mastered my impulses, I enjoyed presiding over classes in which many students were actively thinking about the literature (or at least engaging with it).
Shortly before I retired, I repurposed my idiom into an in-service course for other teachers. Moral for new teachers: you might find yourself dangling from a rope now and then, but be like Lancelet and find your true idiom.
