Reflective Blog

Wow. This class brought a whirl wind of emotions for me personally, but it ended up being one of my favorite classes. Coming into a level 400 class as a freshman, the word intimidated doesn't even begin to describe how I originally felt. My father and I, after several emotional phone calls, decided that I should "give it a try and see how it goes." After the first few classes, I began to trust his faith in me. I looked forward going to my Wed. night classes because the time flew, and I felt like the class grew into a comfort zone for discussion.

I feel like this class has helped me significantly as an upcoming English teacher. Not only has it exposed me to lesson plans, PA standards, and different teaching methods, it helped me branch out and have discussions with people going into the same field. I learned that having colleagues is important, especially in education! You're not going to have the best ideas sometimes, and it's very beneficial to bounce ideas off someone who has a common interest in teaching students in a fun and rigourous way. Additionally, I feel ahead of the game. Going into  ENG 424 as a freshman has exposed me to the realistic side of teaching. It's work! I never knew the amount planning, revising, and prep work it took in order to make a lesson run smoothly. It was very eye-opening, but it made me more dedicated to the final presentation to the students... after all my number one goal for being a teacher is to be  encouraging towards my students so they can succeed. If the "right" activies are offered, they can reach an array of students. This leads me to my next point, knowing your students! This class has taught me that as an educator we must take the time to know each and every classes strengths and weaknesses. Graphic novels, drawings, free writes, discussions, and group work are all different activites that reach out to students with different learning styles. I think many aspring teachers assume that they will be teaching high level english classes, including myself. After reading YGBB and other accounts, I now have a different understanding for students at all levels. I do still wonder how an untracked english class would work, and I often think about what activites would pair nicely together for groups of students at different areas of intellegence. I'm not fully there yet as far as meeting the needs for a wide array of students, but I do feel more aware of the possibilites and look forward to being exposed to situations like that in the future. I know I have much, much more to learn but I feel like I progressed a significant amount on my road to becoming an English teacher. Right now I'm at the point in my life where I'm ready to learn more about teaching. I feel like I'm not personally ready to jump into the field, but I'm one step closer! I'm eager to take what I've learned from this class and collaborate it with my future knowledge. I'm on the right path, I've just got a ways to go.

Throughout the course, I learned a lot of good stragies that I plan to incorporate in my classroom. Some of these include:

1. BLOGGING!: I love blogging for this class. I feel that it is an effective way for students to put all of their thoughts together before coming to class, and being able to speak in a conversational style. Addtionally, I think that students will love this idea because it's not simply writing in a journal. With the blogs, all of their peers can read the remarks said, and students are more likely to refine their thoughts before turning an assignment in.
2. Grouping: Grouping doesn't have to include counting off by three's and meeting in an opposite corner of the room. Groups can be picked through shapes, pictures, book groups, and marks in the corner of a worksheet. I liked working in groups, and I think it allows students to discuss their thoughts before presenting it to the class in a whole group discussion. It also allows different groups of people to interact and different opinionated people to correspond to one another. CAUTION: groups can get out of hand, so teachers must be aware of this. Teachers should walk around and engage in the students conversations and keep them on task. One way to do this by giving students a timeline of how long they have to complete the amount of questions/discussion topics. Also, ringing a bell or something of the sort gives students a warning that they must get back on task etc.
3. Literature Circles: This could work great in untracked classrooms. It allows the students to make choices in their learning with books that interest them. I liked the stragedy where one teacher gave students a three-four minute preview of each book before coming up with a choice. This made students look through each book, read the summary, and get a quick idea about each book before choosing. Another thing I liked about this was having students rank three or four books in order of which they would prefer to have first, second, third etc. This allows the teacher to have some wiggle room with groups, and it lets the students still feel like they are picking what they want to do. As for role sheets, I don't really like them. I know they are a good starter or "training wheels" but it doesn't allow much room for open discussion. I like the format of literature circles where they were more like book discussion groups rather than work-sheet form.
4. Socatric Seminar: I liked the idea of having only a small amount of students talking at once while the outside circle listened to their peers. Also, I liked the shape of discussion. Being in a circle allows for an intimate experience with the other classmates and doesn't seem so structured. One thing I think we would have to remind students is that it's not a place for debate; It's merely a place to discuss ideas.
5.Gallary: This is such an awesome idea, and who doesn't love post-it notes! This could be used for so many different activites, but one way I think it could be used is by seeing where the class wants to go next without having it become personal. It could also be used to give critism to different activies/lessons that students may or may not have liked. If the majority of students agree with a particular note that they did not want to incorporate in literature circles, it's time to pick a new idea. Teachers must constantly be moving in the personalities of their classes. Some classes will want to focus more on one thing while others will focus on another. It's our job to meet the needs and interests of our students!
-Others include stations, connecting texts, and incorporating technology in a classroom

As far as lesson plans go, I feel like I'm somewhere in between 1-10. This is the first time I've ever been exposed to lesson plans that go this much in depth. The only other experience I've had with them was for my tutoring in high school. Lesson plans require teachers to meet the standards provided by the state. Sometimes an idea sounds great, but as no connection to the standards or text provided. I've learned that you have think ahead, and ask yourself what you want your students to learn from your lesson. After coming up with a solid list of objectives, then the creativity comes in. I'm not saying every lesson has to have bells and whistles, but no student wants to sit through 180 days of lecture either. We have to engage our students, and that's half the battle with lesson plans. After developing the plan, worksheets and extra resources are probably needed to enhance/extend the ideas so it takes a lot of research and time to come up with a unit worth giving to the students. Also, I learned it's probably a good idea to go through an outline of what you want to cover, and always over plan. Things won't always go the way you want, and teaching is always a learning experience. Keep notes from year to year and always look for improvment. I know for my personal 20 teach, I went through several ideas before discussing them and then actually exposing it to the class. I think that the most influential learning experience came from group-1. The sterotypes, although worked wonderfully, were very distracting. We need to work on classroom management skills, they are just as important to the classroom setting as making rigiorous lesson plans. I've learned to expect the students who give you trouble, and understand them.

Literature is the foundation for teaching other areas of english, not the focus! Novels, articles, and poetry all help students become more aware of the world around them, their writing ablitiles, literary terms, and other criteria the state expects us to teach them. Teaching a novel is more than going over characters, setting, and plot, it's about going into the themes, motifs, character development, language, and use of style. These are the things that open up new doors for students, and if they can relate to a novel we've done our job. If the student is aware of the major themes or character flaws etc. and are able to connect them in the most personal way, we've allowed them to see the beauty of literature through different techniques and literary functions.