THE ENGLISH COACH'S INSTRUCTIONAL PLAYBOOK

Educators Berry and Degen of Dallas-based Jesuit College Preparatory School present practical classroom strategies for English teachers.

This book is aimed at people who teach, design curricula, or create instructional material for secondary English classes, and it asserts that their students would greatly benefit from classroom instruction that’s informed by the expertise of neuroscientists, psychologists, and athletics coaches. Berry and Degen, who have four decades of teaching experience between them, champion class activities involving physical movement, as well as “movements of the mind” that hone the skills and thought processes involved in complex intellectual endeavors. They cite research that says that physical movement sharpens people’s memories, increases their motivation, strengthens connections between neurons, improves the brain’s adaptability, promotes social engagement, and automates skills. This book also proposes that, just as an athletics coach trains students to visualize a path to higher achievement with practice, an English coach can create a playbook to show students what expert performance looks like and how to get there. It shows, for instance, how teachers can prepare students to read closely, recognize patterns and draw conclusions, creatively organize evidence, and engage with evaluating their own writing. It also gives concrete examples of how educators, after challenging students, can provide “brain breaks” as a relief from information overload. In addition, the book recommends using instructional time only for clear, direct feedback, and not for personal anecdotes, so that students have more time for guided discovery.

The best thing about this book is that it aims to make teachers aware of how instructional choices can draw on scientific knowledge—specifically regarding the effect of neurotransmitters on learning, which is rarely included in professional development programs. To that end, it addresses the effects of dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, serotonin, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and cortisol. The authors also provide plenty of effective examples of how teachers can train students in specific skills. “The Quotation Game,” for instance, is based on the principle of chunking, which involves analyzing specific quotations, rather than an entire novel—narrowing the scope of the lesson while raising its intensity. The book uses excerpts from or refers to classics by Geoffrey Chaucer, Virginia Woolf, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, and George Orwell, among others, so that educators can make swift connections between what they learn from this book and what they apply in their classrooms. Another strength is the book’s emphasis on the direct relationship between repetition and neurological development, arguing that all students can excel via coherent strategies. This viewpoint may make teachers interrogate their own biases about struggling students. However, although the book addresses working with students with short attention spans, it does not talk about pupils on the autism spectrum. This seems like a lost opportunity to foster more awareness of neurodiverse students’ educational needs. However, the authors do effectively prod teachers into using peer editing as a part of classroom instruction, so that students can learn and grow together.

A useful professional development resource for English educators who are hungry for new ideas.