Patron Saint of Nothing Week II: Teaching Discussion

TORDA'S SPRING 2021 TEACHING

Patron Saint of Nothing Week II: Teaching Discussion

4/20/2021

OVERVIEW: Last week, I asked you to consider the novel Patron Saint of Nothing from a literary perspective. This week, I'm asking you to think about teaching this novel to a class. As you do, consider what you learned from doing your group's Pecha Kucha and consider, as well, the overall ideas you gleaned from watching and responding to other people's Pecha Kuchas.

PROMPT: Consider out test class and outline how you might teach the text you read last week, consider why it would be great to teach, how it would be hard to teach. Respond meaningfully (roughly 100-200 words) to at least one other classmate.

TEST CLASS: Let's go back to Brockton. Let’s say that you managed to convince the faculty and parents at Brockton High School to let you teach The Patro Saint of Nothing in a 12th grade College Prep English class. Some quick facts about Brockton High (from Wikipedia, so, you know, grain of salt) and in general:

The high school is 60.9% African American, 20.8% White, 2.5% Asian, 12.3% Hispanic, and 3.5% other. In 2016 it was made so everyone could get free lunch. Out of its 4,250 students, 2,161 are male and 2,089 are female.

In 2008, Brockton students had a higher level of improvement on the English MCAS than 90% of the Massachusetts high schools. By 2010 it was one of the highest performing schools on the MCAS.[7]

18 Comments

Demi Riendeau

4/20/2021 02:49:20 pm

To teach this text, I would emphasize free reading—in the sense that I would not be prescribing themes or even background knowledge really. A lot of the information presented in this novel is explained in a manner that high schoolers could understand. This novel would be in the background for a few weeks and we would not really discuss it as a class except for journal check ins to make sure students are understanding the material and not falling behind. This will also be a time to engage with the reading experience and find what students are being drawn to individually in this text—as there are so many important elements.
Students final project would be very open ended and can be taken in many directions. Students will be tasked with creating something to do with the text. Examples would be given for those who needed a launching point. Students could create a journalism piece, another element to the ending, a research project on some of the events, a comparison to the United States. Anything that makes students think about this critically. I think this is a text that needs to be taught with loose guidelines. We would obviously go over main themes, passages, and other important elements but the final project should pull on the students own experience reading the text before the class discussions, which is why I wanted it to be a book that students read on their own while other lessons were going on. Quite honestly, having a projected that was so loosely structured might be a train wreck, but I also think we hinder student’s creativity with texts by prescribing one final modality of interaction with a text. This would give students not only freedom in how they present (which is a fake form of student choice in my opinion) but on what they actually spend time completing as well. students will engage and spend much more time on a project they care about and are curious about than just a simple paper at the end of a text.

Maria Pestilli

4/20/2021 02:55:58 pm

You bring up an interesting perspective that I had not thought about Demi. Maybe it would be better to treat this story as a more background assignment but I’m not sure. I do like the idea you brought up for a final assignment. I agree that students are often limited when it comes to their creativity in the classroom. I think that any chance for students to be creative is great because when I was in grade school the more open-ended projects were always my favorite. I do agree leaving it too open ended could be a mess, but I think you would just need to find the happy medium between the two extremes when it comes to that project. If done right, I think students would enjoy such as project.

Lauren Grisolia

4/20/2021 03:00:38 pm

I really enjoyed your lesson plan!! We both included having our students write journals which I think is a very effective way of teaching this work and how the students could form their own opinions, but not lose track of their ideas along the way. I also liked the project idea versus a paper because of the allowance of creativity it gives each student to do what they want to do and feel excited about the project all together.

Orlaith Connolly

4/20/2021 03:12:06 pm

A final project that gives students freedom of expression would definitely help get them engaged in the text as they read. Because they don’t have a specific assignment, they have a lot more options to explore; not only would they likely find it more interesting to create their own project, but it also allows for a variety of different ideas to be presented in the classroom because they will all likely create unique and individual assignments. I think your idea is very similar to what we talked about in our Pecha Kucha assignments, with this project idea the students has to find something they relate to or feel emotionally drawn toward.

Maria Pestilli

4/20/2021 02:51:06 pm

I would take time to teach my students about Filipino culture before we read the book. I feel like this would help them feel more connected to the story. I don’t have to spend long on it but I would at least take a day to do a mini unit on the culture. I would also warn my students about the tough themes present in the story before reading it. I would like to read the book as much as possible in class, but I would still have students read the book on their own at home. I also think before reading the book I would take important ideas from the book and have my students debate them. An example would be: “A person who has done drugs is inherently a bad person” and then I would give them the options of “Strongly Agree”, “Agree”, “Disagree” and “Strongly Disagree”. I would then have the differing sides discuss why they feel the way they do. Then I would do this assignment again with the same statements after the students have read the book to see if their opinion had changed. I think doing this could be a good way to show students how a book can change their thinking and I also hope it would open their eyes to more gray thinking instead of just black and white. That is all I can think of at the moment.

Samantha M Yidiaris

4/20/2021 05:03:42 pm

Hi Maria,

I think talking about Filipino culture is a very good idea, and not something I thought of. I'm sure it would help the students feel more confident going into the reading as well. Discussion in class is very important, and students in high school love to give their opinion on important topics like this. The way you set up your lesson is very smart. Having them go back to their previous opinions and seeing if their perspectives have changed after reading is very interesting, and a good lesson for the students.

Cora Roche

4/20/2021 02:52:58 pm

I think I would possibly use this book to talk about the war on drugs specifically. The Philippines is a country that has a harsher and more severe treatment of those who struggle with addiction and have a harsher punishment for people who sell it. We could also look at countries, like Norway I believe, that has completely decriminalized all drugs or other countries that have a more lenient and softer way of dealing with addiction and people who sell drugs. As it is an epidemic that is clearly plaguing our country, most people know someone that is struggling or has been lost to addiction, we need to empower the next generation of leaders into thinking critically about how we can help our communities (and country) both immediately and long-term.

Demi Riendeau

4/20/2021 02:57:36 pm

Hi Cora,

I love how you brought up this important topic. In an English classroom specifically there can be very powerful ways to engage students with fiction texts that teach nonfiction topics. I think there is so much to consider here with this topic and my main addition to your ideas would be the emphasis of scaffolds and cultural responsiveness. Not all students will be ready to have any difficult conversation that we bring into the classroom-- but this does not mean we should not have it, it means that we must provide support for them to get to a place where they can seriously discuss these topics. In addition, some students may have a difficult time discussing these topics due to personal experience. In these cases it is important to give students opportunity to share their thoughts privately and in multiple forms (journal entires, small group discussions, reflections, etc).
I think this is a great idea!
Demi

Adlai Greene

4/20/2021 02:53:37 pm

If I were to teach Randy Ribay’s text, Patron Saint of Nothing, in the classroom, I would want to use it in a unit on journalism. Throughout the text, Jason comes to learn the truth by exploring online, interviewing first-hand witnesses, and questioning falsified articles. This text covers more than journalism, but I think focusing on the journalism would provide structure from which to consider the other themes in this story. As our group discussed, I think it would be pivotal for students to have some free reign in reading this text. Instead of reading the text as a class or assigning chapters on a daily/weekly basis. I would want students to have the flexibility to read this text on their own schedule, that way they can experience the text and how it connects to them on a more personal level. As a text that examines truth and the things that get covered up, I think this text would also be beneficial in discussing social justice and activism, especially as it pertains to writing. I think this text could be extremely useful in calling students to action and showing them how they can grow from their investment in the things going on in the world around them. I think one of the hardships in teaching this text would be the sheer amount of topics you could discuss. This text has so many themes and touches on so many different topics that it would be difficult to allow students the freedom to share how the text impacted them without losing focus. Alternatively, it would be detrimental to block students’ experiences with this book by demanding too strict of a focus. I think finding a balance would be difficult with this text.

Lauren Grisolia

4/20/2021 02:54:37 pm

Teaching this novel can go in many different directions. High schoolers can either be really dedicated to the stories they read, or they can not be into it at all and miss the whole point or lesson all together. First, I would assign this novel as an independent read. As they read, I will have them workshop alone in class reading a journal of the reading so far one or twice a week. After about ten minutes of writing, I won’t have them share, just put it away and repeat until the novel is finished. Taking this way of reading I think is very important to the whole process of forming an understanding on what they, as a reader, thought of the book.
High schoolers tend to let their peers or teacher’s opinion affect the way they feel about a work that they are reading. Having them form their own ideas and keep their writings hidden away in their notebooks will make for a greater discussion at the end. To finish off the novel, I would create a project where I would invite each student to ask their parents, grandparents, or any family member they have access to about their culture and their family history. This might be hard for some students, because they may not have that communication accessible to them, but they can also use the internet and other sources to do their research. This would be a great way for students to learn about their past, and find the similarities or differences within their family history and what Jay found out about his. I think this lesson would definitely have some bumps in the road, but would make a great one at the end of the day.

Nicholas A Ceniseroz

4/20/2021 09:10:02 pm

That is definitely an interesting way to approach teaching the story by having them just not discuss their writings with others as they're still in the process of reading. I think you do have a point that young people can have a tendency to let what people say about something affect the way they feel about it, and that's why the whole thing of exclusively teaching things the "right way" can be flawed and hinder the creativity and agency of the students. Would there ever be a point where they would share their opinions? Like, after they finish and maybe you've already graded their journals, so they can't just back out of something they already committed to saying a few weeks ago? Or would it just be a thing where they write their opinions in the journal and the teacher is going to be the only one who sees it. While I do see some valid value to both, I do feel like it would be good for them to at some point be exposed to the opinions of others and properly discuss and evaluate the possible differing perspectives. Just, as you suggest, after they've more firmly established and committed to their own opinion so as not to simply be swayed by other people's interpretations.

Brittany Ann Oppenheimer

4/20/2021 02:57:21 pm

The Patro Saint of Nothing would be great and difficult to teach to this class for multiple reasons. First, I'll start off by what's great by teaching this. For starters, it would show the class that there is more to life then where they live now. This novel show how culture is different in other countries, how other people around the world see others in their own way. Sometimes, they can be bia's, sometimes, they can be racist, sometimes there are people who have this unwillingness to change, which, I feel is important to teach to a class. There are people in this world who will only see thing one way and only there way. That's how many of the characters in the Philippines come off when describing the people from America. Plus, it's also good to show that no matter what race you are, there are always going to be both good and bad people. Race does not define if you are a bad person. It's the actions someone takes that make you the way you are. That's what happened with Jun. He, in a sense, dug his own grave by playing around with taking and selling meth, yet, Jay still believed that he was murder because of his race. My class has to realize that no matter what, bad people will go out of there way to do bad things because that's what they like to do. Their actions is what defines them, no matter what.
When it comes to things that may be difficult to teach, there may be students who cannot relate to this story as a whole due to the environment they were involved in. Considering that 20% of my students are white, they would probably have the least amount of knowledge when it came to the culture and bias of the people from the Philippines. With that said, teaching students who know nothing about the outside world would be a great challenge. They might even get bored because these themes of justice and healing do not apply to them. That being said, the students who relate to this story will relate to it because of how they were brought up and the ones who don't will just need to ask more questions, do some research, or get help from the teacher to figure out why these themes are so important to other people.

james Gimler

4/20/2021 02:58:27 pm

I would probably teach this book in an unorthodox way. I would most likely have the students read the end of this book first for the verdict and show as we read beginning to end how the main character lives this almost fantasy world and also teach how perception is everything because the narrator says that the other character is innocent, and naturally, we believe the person we hear the story from and then realize how even if we believe that something is the truth, the reality could destroy the thin walls of perception that we, the reader, create in our own minds. I would want to this point to be shown because instead of feeding into the characters fantasy that the character in question is innocent and looking at the story critically without the narrators perspective and come up with their conclusions by themselves and using their own knowledge.

Orlaith Connolly

4/20/2021 03:05:26 pm

My discussion group went over several different aspects about The Patron Saint of Nothing that are important to cover when teaching this book in a classroom. One of the main points we talked about was familiarizing the students with the issues presented in the text. In a twelfth grade classroom at Brockton High, some students might be more or less versed than others on some of the social issues presented in the reading. Nick suggested a research idea where the teacher has the students look into drug related issues from all around the world so they can learn to rationalize the severity of this issue, and how the war on drugs either intersects or differs in a variety of places. I thought this was a great point and was able to relay it back to our class discussion about Long Way Down. Long Way Down concerns gun violence from the perspective of a black individual, and we talked about how it’s important to acknowledge in the classroom that gun violence is not limited to any race and can happen in any community. On a similar note, The Patron Saint of Nothing follows a young Filipino boy who is navigating a life surrounded by drug use and family issues. Like Long Way Down, I brought up how we should present drug related issues from a similar standpoint where anybody, no matter what ethnicity you are or how much money you have, can fall victim to drug addiction. It’s a very real concept that’s integral to teach in a classroom because it helps students understand how horrible drug addiction actually is, and how prevalent it is across the globe. Outside of helping them better understand the text, students could walk away with knowledge that can help them make safe and informed decisions as well as strengthen their understanding of what it really means to suffer from addiction.

Nicholas Ceniseroz

4/20/2021 03:07:30 pm

I think this story would be a good sort of entry point for educating students on the matter of how there are a lot of things going on in different parts of the world, since as a kid consuming exclusively American news it might be easy to forget that other things happen outside American. This is considering how the story is very specifically oriented around the Philippines and Philippino politics and drug problems. It could be an avenue to maybe have some kind of research assignment where students just look into news stories in countries other than America. Another way to go about it is to see how relevant the story is despite not taking place in America and we could have students be introduced to and research the drug problems in America. We can have them compare and contrast the issues and evaluate the possible universality of the issues approached in the story. There could an issue where perhaps some students just can't find themselves relating for one reason or another, whether it's related to gender or culture or experiences. And that's fine, because we can still evaluate from a scholarly standpoint why that disconnect might exist. We might address the students perspective and interpretation, while looking at the message and experience the author was trying to convey, and compare and contrast the two interpretations and why they may or may not differ. And different students might connect or disconnect in different ways for different reasons, and that will just enrich the discussion we can have surrounding what the story says and what we take from it and why that matters

Adlai Greene

4/20/2021 03:50:59 pm

I like the idea of the universality of the themes. Even though this text is specific to the Philippines and the culture there, the issue of drug addiction, your culture/heritage, right and wrong, etc. are relatable for all people. I think this would be a really key point to make to your class because it helps them to understand how the text can relate to them, but also how important it is to look through the eyes of others to see what they might be experiencing. We get a better picture of the world when we are willing to look at the world through the eyes of others and this could be a really great text to teach this.

Samantha M Yidiaris

4/20/2021 04:59:48 pm

I would teach this text differently than other texts we have read this semester for a few reasons. Since this is a 12th grade class, the students should be more independent and not have to rely on a specific reading schedule. So I would assign this text to be read at home or whenever they have free time. I would then set a due date for when all of the reading has to be done. Then, when all of the students have read the entire novel, we would have a discussion as a class about race and culture (in relation to the book). This can be difficult in a high school classroom because everybody has different backgrounds and opinions, but it would all be in relation to the text. Students love to debate and discuss their opinions on certain subjects with each other and doing that through reading, enforces further knowledge about the themes of the book, in a more unorthodox way. Having high school students state their own opinions can make them feel like there voices are being heard. I know in my AP English class senior year, we had a discussion about the book every time we finished it where we sat in a circle and you could only talk when you had the stuffed animal in your hand. So I would probably do that as well that way nobody talks over each other and nobody bumps heads with each other. Lastly, I would make sure everybody respectfully disagrees with each other if they want to disagree, and respect everybody's opinions.

Katy Bedig

4/25/2021 10:35:20 am

I would want to teach Patron Saint of Nothing using the before, during, and after reading method. In the before section, I would have the students read and watch news reports, articles, and videos of the current drug epidemic and politics in the Philippines. Some short reading or videos on what it is like and the pressures to be successful, etc. as a first generation immigrant, so they can understand Jay’s mindset a little better, along with talking about first generation immigrants. I would like to have them learn about the challenges of living as biracial in the United States (probably a lot of them will already have a good idea of being biracial because they might be but I want it to also be for those who aren’t, the biracial kids don’t have to explain it to those who aren’t, and it will help them communicate and feel heard and understood). The goal of these activities is to build background knowledge and understanding for the characters and plot we will encounter in the story. For the during reading activities I would break the book into a couple parts where it makes sense and do a response for each part. For after work, I would want to focus on cause and effect within the story using Brain Frames. The reason I want to focus on that aspect is because it will help them organize their thinking and be useful whatever they do after high school. For example, it will help them understand a character more deeply and think about how a pivotal moment in a story has causes and resulting consequences.

This book would be good to teach because it introduces students to different cultures, it focuses on current events that are happening so it might not feel so out of touch, and it’s overall message is that things don’t always work the way you plan but sometimes that brings the best results. Some drawbacks of this story are that it has yet another boy protagonist, parents of my students might be concerned about the violence, death, and drugs, and also the comprehension and readability isn’t particularly challenging for high school seniors.

Patron Saint of Nothing Week II: Teaching Discussion

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