Skating

Mark Fletcher, UK

Mark Fletcher is Learning Consultant to the OISE Group of schools, Director of Teacher Training at the School of English Studies Folkestone, a Dozent of HNSW, Switzerland and author of many teaching resources. E-mail: Mark@brainfriendlylearning.org, markfletcher100@yahoo.co.uk

In the prologue Wordsworth writes about his childhood, and in this passage describes the excitement of skating on the frozen lakes at night.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory identifies eight intelligences, and has done much to discredit the previous limiting notion that IQ can be quantified solely on the basis of linguistic and mathematical tests. His taxonomy of different intelligences is by no means set in stone but usefully identifies: Musical- Bodily Kinaesthetic- Spatial- Logical/mathematical- Linguistic- Inter personal- Intra personal- Naturalistic.

Question 1 Does Skating, for you, show evidence of all eight ‘multiple intelligences’?

Question 2 Link that to the NLP concept of learning channels which we all use with our individual mix of strengths - Visual, Auditory, and Kinaesthetic.

How would you assess Wordsworth’s learning style preferences?

And in the frosty season when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us- for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six- I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel,
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures,- the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastwards were sparking clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star
That fled, and flying still before me gleamed
Upon the glassy plain.

Ponder point

How did you approach this exercise?
Did you read the poem aloud?
Did you use highlighters to differentiate elements?
How much did you see in your mind’s eye or respond to in a physical way?
Are there phrases which you particularly relish?
Did you notice if the poem did or didn’t have a rhyme scheme?
Do you feel like discussing it with a colleague?
Does your reflection on the way you did this exercise reinforce or challenge the image you have of your learning strengths?

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology & Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.