Learning Letter

Hey Sean!

This class this quarter has been so insightful!  There are a lot of things that I had never really thought about when it came to an English classroom.

The ideas of what goes into the curriculum in an English class is something I never out much thought into. I just assumed that I would do the state required readings, along with tsing of the classics that I want to teach. But I really love the idea of using alternative books sources, like using graphic novels for students in the classroom. I think that was one of my favorite book mediums to read with the class.

I also didn't think much about interactions with students and classroom management. I mean, I know that a lot goes into that, but it is not something I thought needed to be planned. But it does. It's going to be a lot harder to just wing it than it is to reall plan your classroom management.

I think the most important thing I learned this quarter was really about myself. Sometime, I really doubt whether or not I am cut out to teach. It's when I'm allowed to do it in a safe space that I actually realize that I just need to trust myself. I may be nervous, but I look more comfortable than I actually am, and that this is something I want and can do.

I love taking your classes because it gives us these opportunities to grow and learn without fear if rejection.

Thanks so much!
Makenzie Curtis

American Born Chinese -- Mini Reflection

Teaching a lesson to students is already difficult. Teaching a lesson to your peers and getting feedback is even worse. Or at least that how I always imagine it to be. I always have what turns out to be an irrational fear that someone is going to tell me, “maybe teaching just isn’t for you,” or, “maybe you should choose a different career path.” But this never happens.

Looking back now, I think getting feedback on your lesson is a great source for teacher candidates. It allows us to see what awesome things we are doing that we might not have been aware of, and what we could do to improve. For example, I did not think that I seemed very confident in front of the class. However, apparently I hide my nerves better than I give myself credit for, and appear more comfortable than I am. For some people, it’s easy to act confident, that is, until you start looking at the little nervous habits people have that they are unaware of. Usually, mine is fidgeting with some item of clothing, but that day it was keeping my hands in my pockets. By doing this, I was unintentionally closing myself off to students, limiting my interactions with them.

I think that, overall, I did a good job connecting each part of my lesson together, and had good transitions between them. There are definitely a fews things that I can improve, such as leaving definitions up, or making sure the information on pictures I give students actually match up. When I printed up the pictures for them to discuss had the text printed on the wrong pages with ridiculous amounts of hyperlinks. This is something that I should always double check before handing out information to my students because it will become very difficult to understand for them. I'm really glad that we do our lessons in class this way, because it really does give us a safe environment to practice and improve our teaching.

Night

This book is one of those ones that as you read, you can't help but be sucked in, forced to keep reading, even if it makes you cry. Elie Wiesel has written a beautiful novel, and though it is a fictional story, it also serves a memoir. Everything that happens Eliezer, the main character, with a few details changed, are what happened to Wiesel.

I was in high school the first time I read this book. We spent a whole unit really trying to dive into what Wiesel went through, even watching an interview between him and Oprah Winfrey. It is hard to read about all the hardships, physical abuse and death that Wiesel's character is forced to face. For a high schooler, and even most people to day, it is difficult to imagine that people had to go through this, that people could hurt their fellow man in such horrifying ways.

The only other book that students will probably be familiar with that deals with the Holocaust at this point is "The Diary of Anne Frank." I think that this offers a great comparison, but also believe that "Night" gives a different viewpoint to the war. Anne Frank is a autobiography, an actual dairy. However,  "Night," though fictional, gives more insight into the actual death camps.

I absolutely love this book. It is gut-wrentching, but important to history.

Romeo and Juliet

Every high school freshman, and I do mean every, is required to read Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." It is probably one of his well known, and in some ways, most over done plays.

Personally, I enjoy "Romeo and Juliet," however I can see why people would think that it is cliché. It is about a 13 and 16 year old who fall in love, though their family's are feuding, thus causing multiple tragedies. If you look at the time period, 13 and 16 are about the ages that people would be getting married. However, looking at it now, when many don't marry until well into there 30s, people thing it is an over romanticized story of children who were too young to really be in love who end up committing suicide. Bleak right?

But yet, in never high school this is still taught. I think a lot of that has to do with language, it providing a challenge for it's readers. But it also has to do with the fact that the students are roughly the same ages as the charters, allowing for more in-depth reading, and allows for them to really get into the mind of the characters, feeling what they feel.

Whether or not we should still teach "Romeo and Juliet" in the classroom is not a debate for me. I will always choose to teach it, especially when you look at the alternatives. I think "Othello," "Hamlet," and "King Henry VIII" are too heavy and difficult for 14 to 15 year olds. Plus the content allows for many different topics to be brought up, such as young love, suicide, warring families, etc. That's the best part about literature, providing opportunities for discussions.

Things Fall Apart

Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is quite an interesting book. I definitely have been told for a while now that I need to read this book, especially if I want to be an English teacher. I love too that even though this book is fictional, it plays on a lot of real events or concepts in his own life, religion and cultural difference being some of them.

            This book really shows a different side of native Africans than many other books of the time period. Those were all a one sided view of the colonial oppressors’ side. This really shows the culture, language and heritage that was already in Africa before they were colonized and forced to change their heritage, such as their religion.

            This theme of fighting against change is a huge part of the book. Whether it be Okonkwo’s fear of changing himself, seeing as he wants to show absolutely no kindness or love, the struggle against change in societal rank, or the obvious fight between white colonial men trying to change the cultural of the natives they meet, this struggle is a basic underlying principle of the book. Though theire are other important themes, I believe that this one, and Achebe’s overall goal to change how society saw native African’s at the time this book was written, is the most important.

            This book is a great book for students, I believe, to get a different viewpoint then, say, Heart of Darkness. Though there are some violent aspects, I think that it over all is a great novel for them.

TPAs

I’m not going to lie. TPAs (Teaching Performance Assessments) scare me. To death. I have only had to do a few so far, yet they are difficult and tedious. Not only that, but every teacher I have ever talked to has told me that they are unrealistic in real classroom. That being said, they are required, and I’m sure there are some benefits to learning how to write them.

I really like the examples of questions we should be asking ourselves that this guide gives. Eastern’s template is a 2 to 3 page guide of boxes with maybe one question explaining what we should be filling out. Although that template is a great visual guide, it does not get us asking the things we need to. How are the students in this class? How many? What age? What are their proficiency levels? When I have worked on TPAs before, it has been hard for me to think of these questions off the top of my head.

I think I actually like these guidelines better than the ones we are using. Or at least the explanations they give. It has been difficult for me to understand in the past, so the thought of having to do twenty TPAs this quarter for three different classes has been really freaking me out. This really goes into more specific details in terms that are easier to understand. Plus having so many questions to think about makes it a lot easier to discuss what I want my students to be learning from this lesson.

Overall, I’ll still use Eastern’s layout for a TPA not only because I know it, but because it is required. However, I know that I will be using this handout in conjunction to that, and I am now more confident about writing TPAs than I was before.

Differentiated Reading Instruction: What and How

The article I read for this week's blog is called "Differentiated Reading Instruction: What and How." This article is based on an experienced second grade teacher's class. I love that they start out with more of the history of differentiated instruction, along with further going into detail about how it is put into practice. 

Assessment is absolutely key in the first stage of differentiated instruction. This is not done as a group, but rather finding what each child individually needs. Each school district has it's own assessments that they require, and these assessments, along with the teacher's knowledge, will help decide what kind of instructions kids need. Keeping notes on student's progress, and then conferencing with the students afterwards, will also help to formulate the kind of instruction they should be receiving. 

Another big key is how students are grouped. In Ms. Martin's classroom, she groups student's together based on reading levels, and as the year progresses, she moves them to different groups, depending on their individual progress. These groups can also be more general, based on whole-class, small groups or  even partner instruction, just depending on what the teacher thinks would be more beneficial. I'm curious to know if things like partner work could be beneficial to helping students read better. For example, if you pair a student who excels with a student who is struggling, would it be beneficial or more detrimental for the students?

Over all I think that this article had a lot to offer. Even though it is set in a second grade classroom, I think that some of these ideas can be "aged up" and used in a high school classroom. 

Tovani's Access Tools

After Tovani’s chapters 6-End, I chose to look at the Double Entry Diaries. I love this technique. This is a great way to build discussions and individual understanding. I personally am a huge classic literature fan, and just started reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. For books like this one, or other classics like Pride and Prejudice, it is easy for students to have comprehension issues. The language and the customs of the time are very different than our own.

That’s where the double entry diaries come in handy. By writing down direct quotes and page numbers, they can take a part that they are struggling with and focus down on it. Then, in the next column, they can write things under “This reminds me of,” “I wonder,” “I’m confused by,” etc. This allows them to not only locate the content they are struggling with, but to also have ways they can remember the meaning of the quotes. They can relate it to things they know and understand from their own lives.

We always annotated our books as we read them in high school. It was supposed to keep us on track with our reading, and we had an assigned number of annotations we needed to have. I really disliked them and would fake my way through them, seeing as they weren’t always thoroughly checked. I believe these diaries are a much better way to get students involved in what they are reading. It also helps clearly identify to myself as a teacher what my students clearly need help with.

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

First and foremost I want to say how relevant this title is to anyone who has ever taken a difficult class. Even in college now, there are times when I read things for classes over and over again, and I just don't get it. I hate it.

But then again, let's be honest with ourselves. How many times have you waited to do the assigned reading, and instead skim through and b.s. your responses? Often. In high school that was the competition in our senior AP English class. Though we were all intelligent kids, we were lazy and faked our way through most assignments, be it reading or writing. This "fake reading" is exactly the kind of thing Tovani discusses in these chapters.

I have always been a great reader and loved reading most everything I could. I don't think I have ever truly "fake" read anything, except for maybe textbooks. It's hard for me to comprehend why some people do not like reading. I never would have believed that a lot of it has to do with students not making a connection. For myself, a math book or a dry science or ed book have been hard for me to just skim through. I can't do it. But when I really sit down, i generally gain some sort of knowledge from it. So how do you help your students who are legitimately trying but not understanding?
I enjoy that she really tells a story as she goes along, and that this isn't just another dry textbook. I feel like she understands that we need to not only see examples on how to better our teaching, but also that it needs to be communicated in a better way.

This reading was one that actually really had me interested from the get go. I like the idea that as readers we are trying to expand our horizons and make connections whether or not we are consciously doing so. The example he gives is Romeo and Juliet, which is fitting since this is a play that we have been assigned for this course. He really explains the emotions and thought process the reader goes through when trying to relate to and understand the characters. I also really like that he gives us goals and guidelines as teachers to help establish better learning in our classroom. This allows us to focus on what we find important, but it also gives us some guidelines to follow to help keep our students, and ourselves, on track with the lesson.

I think as a teacher, I should really be incorporating these things, emotions of characters, how relate, etc. into my lessons. Maybe it's something as simple as asking my students to explain how they felt through out the chapter or the entire play. Or, maybe it can be a more focused lesson on the emotions of the characters, how they could have handled things differently, and how the time period played into their actions.

Of all the articles we have read so far, I think this has probably been the most useful one to me. It helps to lie out guidelines and structure for students, while still asking them to focus and work hard to expand their knowledge. It opens their minds up to new ideas on reading, hopefully making it more enjoyable to them, while helping to create new possible directions for lesson plans for us teachers.

Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

In this reading of popular culture in an urban secondary English classroom, they bring up the fact that they do not just teach classic canonical literature, though that is a big part of the English classroom. One of my favorite ideas from this text is that some texts, “offered more insights to the American psyche than most United States History texts.” This is true for a lot of books even outside of the US, and I think that it is an important thing to keep in mind as a teacher.

I also really loved that they took poetry and poets and were able to get students to make comparisons to hip hop artists that they listened to. I really think that this gets them more involved in their learning and gets them excited to work on the lesson that you have assigned. They use concepts that they want to talk about in their lessons, such as racism or heroism, and they take a book that can be used as an example of these topics.

By incorporating things that students can relate to, a teacher is showing she knows her students and knows they might need something more “recent” to get them to understand what they are learning. I want to be able to do this as a teacher; be able to know what my students are interested in and be able to use it as a tool to catch their curiosity. I don’t think that kids anymore are spending enough time reading, instead opting to play video games or spend their time online. That is all good and well, but I want to be the kind of teacher that doesn’t “force feed” their students literature, but instead encourages them to enjoy it and ask questions. If that means that I use a rap or pop artist to relate to them, as long as their music is appropriate, I will do whatever I possibly can to get them to enjoy reading.

Critical Pedagogy: A Look at the Major Concepts

In Peter McLauren's Critical Pedagogy, I found, first off, that he was much more easy to understand in comparison to the previous articles we have read.
I really like how he goes into the idea that knowledge is socially constructed. He explains that this knowledge comes to be when people of a the same race or social class agree. It is interesting that groups of people can look at a situation so differently from one another, like women's viewpoints on things verses those of white men. I love that his idea of critical pedagogy asks why knowledge occurs like this.
I also really loved his topic of hidden curriculum. My understanding is that this are the things that get taught, whet ere or not they were meant to, outside of a normal lesson. These can include rules and regulations in the school. But it also includes behavior, and the way that the teacher teaches and reprimands her students. He talks about how boys generally talk more in class or do not raise their hands to answer, but girls are the ones who get in trouble for this things more often. I think it is interesting that as a society we preach that men ad women should be treated equally, and yet we still subconsciously except different things from each gender.
I am very interested to see how our in class discussion plays out, especial since I feel more confident in this reading.

Chapter 1: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

If I thought that our last reading was dry or difficult, I was mistaken. I really struggled to read and understand this chapter.

My basic understanding is that what he is discussing is bullying. How it happens, and how it keeps happening. The oppressed (bullied) he demoralized enough that instead of rising up to defend themselves, they oppress others to feel better about themselves; they know that people are feeling the same things that they had felt. With this in mind, it is interesting to see who I believe he describes as the oppressors/the bullies. The teachers, who are supposed to be molding the minds and lives of their students, are the oppressors; their students are oppressed.

Overall I still have a hard time fully understand what he was trying to get across in this chapters. I think discussion will really clarify for me what he was trying to emphasize, but without it I would be completely lost. I have not had such a difficult time with a reading piece in a long time.

Discussion in a Democratic Society

In the excerpt from “Discussion as a Way of Teaching,” it talks about the importance of teaching in a classroom, and the allowance of students to speak and discuss their beliefs. This allows students and teachers alike to have access to a broader range of opinions, and to think, defend, and maybe even have their viewpoints changed.

            I love that the teacher, Steve, admits that he came in with a specific view on the issue of DNRs, that he is happy when his students have the same views as him, but then he is surprised by opposing view points. Instead of telling students they are wrong, he lets them have their own opinions and explain their reasons why. By doing so he allowed students to grow in his classroom.

            This is not always the case in classrooms. In all my experience as a student, there are always teachers who will tell you what you believe is wrong. It doesn’t matter what school type you’ve been in, parochial or public (I’ve been in both), there is always that one teacher who, if you don’t share the same opinion, they argue against you, not allowing a discussion. I want to be the type of teacher who allows open discussion in her classroom. I want to encourage participation in these discussions and to show my students you can have different opinions with out it being the end of the work.

            As a teacher, I do not think that my personal opinion should trump those of my students. I should be able to direct discussion and keep them from arguing, but yet still be able to allow everyone’s opinions to be heard, whether or not it is the same as mine. I should not come into class with unrealistic expectations of what my students will say, but instead to allow myself to be surprised and/or impressed by what they have to offer.

Introductory Letter Assignment

Hi! My name is Makenzie Curtis. I am beginning my fifth and final year as a Music Education Major and English Minor at Eastern Washington University. I'm actually just about to start my observations in a high school music classroom, and am so excited!! Previously I have worked in elementary and preschool/daycare environments. I cannot wait to get experience as a teacher with high school students now instead. I also currently have one middle school aged student I am teaching in guitar, and hope in the next year or so I will feel like I have enough experience to expand to more students.

Although my major is in music education, I have always had a love of English, especially the literature aspect. I have always been the kind of person who can't put a book down until it is finished, being driven nuts if I have other obligations and cannot read. I have only taught one English lesson so far, and even that was done in a class I was taking. I am actually less nervous about teaching English than Music, because even though I love and am experienced with both, I feel less comfortable with music. This might be more of the fact that I do not give myself enough credit, but even so, I feel as though I can use more experience in that area.

For this course in particular, I want to get as much out of it as possible. I think that the book list we are to read is very exciting, and I cannot wait to try putting things like graphic novels into practice, especially with students who do not love reading as much as I do. I think this will give me another opportunity to work on fully understanding TPAs and curricula as a whole, and I am very excited to see where this class takes me!