Learning Letter

This course as a whole was great. I am really glad I took this course. The assignments we completed required much thought and planning. Every lesson must have a plan and must have been well thought out. With the book talks, our first big assignment, I did mine on “The Kite Runner”. Now, “Kite Runner” is a long book; about 300 pages worth of information and my first mistake was to read this whole book in one setting. Not one of my brightest ideas but I did it. Reading this book in one setting of 6 hours, though I had a sense of accomplishment, was shown through my lesson. There was not as much preparation for this lesson that there should have been but it all worked out. Should have spent more time but it opened the door to other assignments.

            Our other big assignment was our unit plan which I also did using the “Kite Runner”. This was a much different assignment than I had ever done before. Very time consuming and not fun but I also really enjoyed it. Just to be able to see the amount of and planning it takes to go into one day’s lesson and each of the assignments. Made me really think about how I can make this apply to the students. So many hours of planning, typing, and asking questions; so many hours well spent I must say.

            The other assignment was the mini lesson. This was an exciting assignment and really got me to thinking about the theories and stories we read in class. Why they are important and how would I go about communicating the objective to my own students. The lesson plans really helped me see why, as teachers, we are supposed to   plan out every lesson. When teaching this lesson, I had to account for what my students knew and did not know. None would have gone as well as it did without the planning.

            As for my participation in the classroom, I found that classroom contribution plays a lot but does not mean you have to comment all of the time. This course as a whole has been great. I think the discussions, novels, and assignments we did taught me so much. Education requires so many different key parts like TPA lesson plans, novels, and teaching examples and I am glad we got to experience this as a class. I think I learned a lot this quarter and I plan to use what I learned and the texts we read as a teacher in my future.

How Do You Know What They Have Learned?

The “best strategy” to teach students so that they learn is. . .  well dependent on the student it could be a million and one ways. There is no correct way of teaching but there are multiple ways that should be used within a classroom. No we cannot reach every learning style ever time but we can try with what works for most and then help out the other kids.

This article talked about the many different aspects of teaching literature and how to go about using each of them. In each situation, the article talks about some common factors such as giving feedback (verbally or orally) , but also stating what the goal of each assignment is. I have found that when students know what the goal of the assignment is then they seem to know what goals they must reach and usually have a plan to achieve it.

“The value of writing to help students learn is to use freewriting and journaling as a means of engaging with texts.” The whole goal is so that students can find the reasons to reading a text and the value in each. When give an opportunity to just jot down some ideas, concerns, and what they think the topic is about, then they would be more equipped to followup and move forward from that.

One of the main topics I really enjoyed reading about and that I have appreciated as a student is feedback. Whether it be positive or critical, I have found it to be helpful so that I can learn and build off of mistakes and correctness. It is also helpful to when students are able to provide feedback and critique someone else’s work as well as their own. They learn more from their peers and even get more ideas from them because they view them on the same playing field.

To grade understanding can be tricky but as long as there is a method to ones madness then the students are more inclined to learn more with a purpose. You can give feedback, create a rubric, or even grade on a question to question based exam, but in the end it all comes down to what will wok better for the student. 

Katie Brown

Katie Brown was the 189 Regional Teacher of the Year. She is from the Bellingham School District and teaches at Shuksan Middle School. She received her Teaching Certificate in 2003 & BA, in 2000 fromWestern Washington University. She reviewed her masters from
Seattle Pacific University. (Education) in 2009.
She has been an ELL specialist at the elementary school for 2 years and has cumulatively worked there for 11 years.
Before becoming a teacher she volunteered at low income high schools which helped her with her decision to becoming a teacher.
It is amazing how she, according to the odd website, praises other teachers above herself. She recognizes other teachers for what they do and does not hold herself higher than anyone person.
She has been an ell specialist for 2 years now and that is what she enjoys. It's not the recognition of herself she is flattered with but the recognition of her students is what she is really proud of. Her goal is to see all of her kids succeed and many of them appreciate all that she does and has taught them. "My year as the 2014 Washington State Teacher of the Year may have come to a close in September, but my journey as a teacher-leader has just begun. I hope to inspire many more teachers to come along for the ride." She has posted this on her blog about how her only goal is to help her student succeed.
Questions
1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
2. How has this impacted your way of teaching?
3. Do you have any new goals for this year?

Readicide

 Reading. The way many people find information, learn about events, and to be able to enjoy fiction. It is amazing and astonishing to me how unimportant reading has become in schools. I can remember reading so many different novels in schools that I would never run out of things to read. I read for class but also for fun during the school year. Reading is a great habit for kids to begin so that students will be more inclined to read information outside of the required texts. One of the quotes in the book says “students who do not develop the habit of reading books, newspapers, and magazines end up seniors in high school wondering why they never heard of a guy named Al Qaeda.” Students will stop reading and wondering with curiosity and what will they turn to?

I know that my master teacher, though hard to teach a novel with the new common core curriculum, still teaches at least one a year. Novels are very important to any students learning but now because of the new standards it is much harder to teach. Many teachers now are trying to pass their students by teaching to  a test and that limits what students do learn. I really enjoyed this book because it made me think about how I can still become an effective teacher even though I am having to teach to a test. There is no reason why students cannot or should not read longer novels. I am not saying that schools are cutting out reading all together but they are minimizing the importance. The only way I can see this improving is if teachers do all they can to pass their students as well as allowing them the opportunity to read.

Reading plays a key role in many aspects of education because it teaches new views and allows reinforcement of previously obtained knowledge. 

TPA Lesson Plan

General reactions/responses to TPA lesson plan

This lesson plan is very useful and easy to follow and I really like how it has those dummy proof questions with follow up questions. I think they do not ask too much and lay out exactly what is being asked of the students.

What in here seems valuable and worthwhile?

I think that the most valuable and worthwhile portion of the TPA lesson plan is the focus of the objectives and standards. They give the whole lesson plan worthwhile and allow for teachers to have a focus; like a rubric in a way. By putting the objectives on the lesson plan, it allows for other people like administrators and substitutes to follow when coming in cold. Past experiences have taught me that when teachers have thorough plans laid out the students tend to be way more focused and set up for success.

What questions and concerns do you have about the TPA lesson plan?

I am somewhat confused on how to incorporate parent and community connections. Knowing that parents have email helps with that portion but when it comes to community I get somewhat lost. Is it focusing the lesson on the community or the material and content towards how it can involve the community? It is hard to tell what students will and will not take from the class but my main question is towards what should be put in this section; is it broad or specific?

Why might this be a useful exercise for beginning teachers?

A useful tip may be to teach one or two lessons as practice in order to see how the class goes. I have found that after some of my mini lessons that I have taught, when writing out my plan after teaching it has helped me see what direction I should be going. But when in the regular classroom, this could be helpful so that a teacher can be prepared and thorough to note where things went right and where they went wrong. It is hard to gauge where some students are until after a few lessons.

All in all, I do not foresee many problems with this lesson plan other than having to be strictly focused. It does not seem to leave room for change or different outcomes. In order for this to work, teachers must be flexible and ready to alter their lesson at any time. 

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

One chapter that really stood out to me when reading this book was chapter 6, Connecting the New to the Unknown” and I really appreciated the section “This is Language Arts—Who Cares About Social Studies?” I know that when I was in the 7^th grade I did not make many connections between classroom content from history to language arts or math to science. Come to find out when I got to high school all material being taught had a purpose and was being taught concurrently with another class and it “never crossed her [as well as my] mind to use information in one class to help her [me] with another.” Who knew there was a rhyme or reason to the education system. Looking back, I now understand that what I was learning in one class I could use in another. Not always but some of the times. I realized this more in high school when my English and history teacher, all 3 years I was there, co-taught their classes because it made more sense and the content would cross over most of the time.

“Since good readers make connections between the new and the known” it is clear that many students need to be explicitly told that other classes have something to offer in order for students to fully comprehend the material. No teacher in middle school really explained this to me but it makes sense. When using other classes for background and other types of information, this opens doors for  students to be more equipped and will give them a much better understanding of the material.

Even as teachers, it is easy to forget how implicit we may be at times when we have done something enough to make ourselves think that who we are teaching understand it but in reality every year is a new group starting fresh as should our lessons. It is exciting to first teach a lesson because you are slowly learning it too but over time it just becomes repetitive. Taking the time to reinforce what you are teaching will be more beneficial to your students. “By noticing your process as a reader who connects existing knowledge to new knowledge, you will be well on the way to teaching your students how to use the same strategy.” 

Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education

The article I read was called Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education, and I found it on the NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English, and this is a “professional association of Education in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts.” This article I read had 7 different beliefs of how to implement social justice in the classroom including: A goal that evades easy definition, A grounded theory, A stance/position, A pedagogy, A process, A framework for research, and A promise that helps break down the needs of showing social justice in the classroom and how teachers can educate their students about the topic as well.

Social justice is definitionally complex; it ignites controversy, is not neutral, and varies by person, culture, social class, gender, context, space and time. In fact, when definitions are consensus bound, a consensus definition of social justice is not likely to satisfy the most open-minded of thinkers.” It is amazing to me how often we can forget that social norms can hinder us in many aspects if we are not aware or choose to not be aware. In the classroom, for instance, as teachers we must be able to be a neutral administrator. We must be willing to take multiple sides of an argument and point them out without showing some sort of favoritism. Especially towards our students, we must not group or compare people to another. Students are majorly influeced by what their parents and friends believe and their belief system is what comes from that. How a student comes into his/her beliefs is influeced by what they are taught, see, and hear so in order for them to form their own opinions and beliefs, there must be a neutral influence for them to find their own beliefs to open up many other doors. Not to say that it is easy but teachers must be aware of this and willing to educate their students about social justice as well. 

critical Pedagogy

This was a very interesting research based article. I was amazed at how they approached their classroom; their approach is more to give the opportunity to teach with a student attractive focus. They turned their approach away from modern education styles to reach their dynamic. Using the text as well as the movie to give them an insight. “These young people are also able to come together as members of a common culture, a youth popular culture that frequently transcends race and class.” The only way they believed their students would understand is to show them in a new way. They used  “the film text as  great equalizer” for students to understand the social issues of the book “A Time to Kill.” Even the students at the time stated that they could relate to the feelings of carl Lee, the main character. “Their willingness to identify with the text enables them to bridge heir worlds with the film text and to embrace the text at a critical level.” They were able to connect with the book when they could see the actual characters come to life. “It is important to state up front that we watch film, not merely as entertainment, but as an intellectual activity.” The film opened up a new opportunity for the students and it was beneficial. Books always play a key role in any child’s education and teachers always find ways to teach them but now a days students are focused more on the real life and relation side of any book which is why I believe that movies, plays, or any other sort of real life reenactment helps relate to any piece of literature when done well. These teachers took a great approach to teaching and I am excited to see that there are more creative ways that teachers are learning to teach off of and that it is beneficial for students. They approached it with the mindset of leaning and let the students in on their goal which allowed them to have the mindset of actual learning. 

Peter McLaren

“The critical educator endorses theories that are, first and foremost, dialectical; that is, theories which recognize the problems of society as more than simply isolated events of individuals of deficiencies in the social structure.” Education is not so inward focused but outward focused. This article was very interesting because it pointed out many things about the education world. We tend to, as society, categorize people and stick certain people in blocks thinking that is the only way people function. We discriminate, even when we do not notice and it is easier to allow for people to be stereotyped because it is what we are conditioned to. Education is socially constructed  meaning “that it is the product of agreement or consent between individuals who live out particular social relations (of class, race, and gender) and who live in particular junctions of time. . . . Constructed symbolically by the mind through social interaction with others and is heavily dependent on culture, context, custom, and historical specificity.” Education is based on location, students, and teacher dynamic. Each of these (class, race, and gender)plays a role in the process. For example, when it comes to education in the classroom among the students the teachers are “more likely to value the opinions of a middle-class white male student, than that of a black female” and we cannot really answer why that happens other than prejudice.

“Teachers need to recognize that power relations correspond to forms of school knowledge that distort understanding and produce what is commonly accepted as truth.” It all comes down to how we view certain aspects of the world and it is up to each teacher to recognize their views and flaws in themselves in order to educate. Another thing the article pointed out is that resistance theorists challenge the schools ostensible role as a democratic institution that functions to improve the social position of all students—including those groups that are subordinate to the system. They question the processes by which the system reflects and sustains the logic of capital as well as dominant social practices and structures that are found in each class, race, and gender divided society.” And I think this is interesting because we want to be different in how we teach and be open to every child but it is hard to not let experiences weed their way into our approach to them. We just have to be aware and willing to step apart from that and just focus on the students as a whole. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The education of students is very important. How they learn and what they learn is held up to the teachers and administrations. Paulo Freire makes a good point “the student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means. . . . to memorize mechanically. . . it turns them into containers and receptacles to be filled by the teachers.” (P. 1) the thought that students are being taught as containers is just scary. I do not understand how teachers can even have the power and effect they think this is an effective technique. The “banking concept of education in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.” I know for me that I never learned that way. I do not just absorb information or retain much of what a teacher teaches without having the practice and application. Teachers are not the only ones that can teach students nor are they non influential. Many teachers have the knowledge within their content area and “the teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them.”

I could not imagine teaching students with the mentality that I am the only influence students have. That is a very scary thought. Students are not meant to just absorb and sit there; they have to be able to apply what they are learning but they are not the only ones learning. Teachers learn just as much from their students as they can teach them.

“It enables teachers and students to become subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality.” Problem posing education does not do much of anything except give more of an impact to students than earlier learning and teaching techniques. 

Approach to Reading Literature

Literature has a way of speaking through its stories. I never knew there were so many ways of thinking about literature. “Readers. . . have an overall sense of the whole meaning they are reading, writing, or thinking about; but they orient themselves differently to the ideas they are creating because their expectations about the kinds of meaning they will gain or create are different.” (P. 2) There have been many times that I have read something expecting one ending and totally getting another whether it be in a play, short story, and novels. Wanting people to end up in a certain place or a story to end a certain way but it is funny when stories are based on history and the endings are more real and I want to separate reality from fiction. But it is taking the reality and putting them into context. Even poems by John Keats; his poetry bothered me and I just thought they were sad and depressing but it was not until I studied his life that I completely understood why he wrote the way he did. “When we finish reading we rethink our interpretations.”

When bringing literature into the conversation there must be an answer to all questions but many directions a conversation can go even when they are planned one way which is what lesson plans seem to do. I really liked how this article approaches literature with a solid look at how it is focused for the students. “Codified interpretations and particular points of view are discussed and considered, they are usually introduced and analyzed only after the students have had an opportunity to explore their own interpretations.” Students are free to interpret and discover answers to why stories are written the way they are meant to be interpreted giving the students free range to figure out and dive into literature with the help of a teacher. 

Common Core Standards

Some of these common core standards I have found, though they are similar, have different standards that build off of one another that students are required to know. In my education 413 class we discussed how education, when writing TPAs, are going away from blooms taxonomy and moving on to this new DOK idea that does not focus on the verb but what the verb leads the students in what they are learning. In the article, it was discussed that “common core state standards set general goals for students learning but they do not specify what or how to teach.” It leaves much of the teaching to the teacher’s discretion giving them the ability to “develop innovative ways of teaching that curriculum by framing the construction of your classroom”  but also giving not rules but guidelines that are to be followed. These goals are set so that students coming and going into different school systems within the country will always know close to what the students will be learning giving an equal playing field among student bodies.

When going over each of the standards I found that the goals are attainable because as students progress so do the standards not by changing them but building off of them.

In the article, I really liked how they put the experience of a teacher and her thought process within that system. Kyle, the teacher, said “my first year was mostly about surviving rather than looking critically at what I teach and why I was teaching it.” She had to learn at the pace of her colleagues and was not given a chance to trial and error. Another problem Kyle found was in diversity. When she was expecting one thing but got another out of it she learned that school systems will not work without diversity.  The playing field is not even and each student is not given equal opportunity when learning. “Because the majority of students n schools in 2030 will be students from non-dominant cultures, it is essential that teaching and learning be relevant to students from dominant backgrounds.” We as teachers must teach to our growing communities and society. We will be leftg behind if we cannot prepare students for life after high school.

8^th Grade      

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.1

Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.3

Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.           

           

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.7

Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.10

By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

12^th Grade

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.2

Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3

Analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.7

Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)

·         CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.10

By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.

By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Discussion Articles.

Discussion can play a key part of any high school and middle school classroom for not only the students but the teachers as well. Students can offer so much more insight as a collective than a stand-alone teacher. I really appreciated both of these articles because they explained what it means to have discussion in the classroom that is effective and also ineffective. In the beginning of the first article the teacher discusses how they went into a classroom discussion with an expectation of how they thought it would go to end up learning something and ending up with a different thought process than he had began. His one sided argument turned into an open debate in order to allow students the opportunity to share their opinions and talk through their thought process. There is only so much one person can bring to a conversation but discussion allows for learning and growth. The teacher figured out that though he had one opinion not everybody is going to agree and he had to be prepared for that. (One of my biggest fears is getting into a classroom and making a statement that I believe to be true and to be proven wrong; I do welcome it and am always open but I do not always expect it.)

“A good discussion is one that leaves issues open for further inquiry and in which as many questions are raised as are answered.” (Article 2) There is not always one opinion or answer to most open ended questions. There are many points of view that are meant to be out there. Though it is true that discussion is good and beneficial I do think that there is a time and place for everything and there is a difference between discussion and debate which can sometimes be lost. The benefits definitely outweigh the downfalls. We may go into a discussion and end up changing our mind or even having stronger views but in the end we always will learn something.

This is an article I plan to hold on to and look into further.