Genre Reflection #2

How to Be Defeated From the Start: The Beginning of the End

(Genre Reflection #2)

First, try sleeping. Toss and turn. Try counting. Count the days of school you have left. 187. The beginning of a new year. Fall asleep. Turn off the blaring alarm. Roll out of bed. Grab your crooked, half broken glasses. Put on pants. They’re inside out. Try again. Look at the clock. Fifteen minutes left. Go time. Turn on the coffee pot. Burn the coffee. Grab a water bottle. Slip on your flats. Race for the door. Forget that you left the dog outside.

Enter into the desolate hallway. Smile politely at the janitor. Get stopped by the principal. Who decides to discuss the new Common Core Standards.  Listen to his ignorant commentary. Keep smiling. Just. Keep. Smiling. Slowly creep away. Mutter something incomprehensible.

Inspect your list of newcomers. Note the ones you’ve heard stories about. Have visions of desks being thrown. See a “Kick Me” sign in your near future. Prepare for battle. Get out syllabi. Open the door. Smile warmly at the sour faces. Ignore the kid who stepped on your shoe and spit gum on the floor. Breathe. 186 days left.

Talk about the importance of grammar. Listen to the boy in the back snore and smack his head on the desk. Laughter erupts the room. Keep calm. Continue on. 64 days left.

Admire the spring trees bloom outside your window.  The countdown is on. Bump into a student in the hallway. Take notice of the tears coming down their eyes. Sense frustration.  Ask the student if they’re okay. Look into their eyes. Feel compassion. Know something is not right. Invite them to your class. Let them speak. Let them be heard.

Realize students are human beings. Recall the reasons why you went into teaching. Allow the faint distant memory of the moment you knew.  When you once felt a passion for what you do. Try not to forget, students are human too. The difference starts with me and you. Try not to be tainted by the everyday view.

Organization...And Other Attributes I Wish I Possessed Blog #3

Blog Post #3

Various articles and books I have read say that organization is one of the number one indicators of success. First off, let me start by saying I am the last person who needs to be giving out advice on organization. Papers are piled on my desk; I find sticky notes on my clothes from time to time. I live in “organized chaos”. I’m confessing my greatest weakness to all of you in confidence that, prior to teaching, this unfortunate attribute to my personality will be gone by the time I become a professional teacher in my own classroom. What can I do to combat against my nature? I recognize this as a fatal flaw, and so I decided to speak to veteran teachers and colleagues on what they do in order to stay organized, effective, efficient, and not temporarily lose their minds in the process.  

The first step: Write in your planner.

 Daily, and stick to it.  This is a struggle for me. I begin every year religiously copying down every task and checking off every item as I complete it. As the semester progresses, however, I become less mindful. I realize that as a teacher I will have to become much more proactive with my planner and have materials planned ahead of time, ready and prepared to battle any mishaps, interruptions, or potential needs for a sub along the way.

The second step: Have your space organized. 

My books clutter my car, tossed into an oblivion of a dark hole that I must go digging and searching for the last place I had read it. Perhaps it’s in the back seat of my car, I recall reading it prior to class in the parking lot? This is a common trend of thought for me. A word of advice from my colleagues and mentors is to have a specific bag, place, and an organizational technique that becomes a habit. Not only does it allow me to locate where the book is, but it creates a pattern of organization. A habit that will lead to successful , clear thought. Imagine that. 

The third step: Be prepared. For anything. Ahead of time.

Again, I always start off strong at the beginning. The middle is always alright, and the end smacks me in the face. It’s because I do not prepare ahead of time. When the curve ball is thrown at me so to speak, I am not ready for it. This is not acceptable as a teacher from what I’ve been told. One must be flexible, have material ready to go in case the lesson runs short or be able to condense important material in a short amount of time because a fire drill may have interrupted your class, leaving you with half the time you had planned on having.

I have recognized my weaknesses. The number one being organization, an essential key to a successful career and life. To be scattered and all over the place will no longer be acceptable. It’s time for a change. So here’s to beginning a journey of student teaching with a new mindset and preparing to work on my weaknesses and turning them into strength. Fierce. Ready. Like a warrior. Like a teacher. For anything. 

 What’s your weakness, and how will you make it your strength?

KATE Conference

What an experience! First of all, I would like to say that I love my English Education family dearly, and just to be with them for two days straight (even though I see them all week) was wonderful within itself.  It was truly inspiring to be around so many enthusiastic teachers and to be exposed to a variety of strategies that I can use in my student teaching classroom as well as my future classroom.

  I found it refreshing that a majority of the keynote sessions I attended embraced and encouraged the integration of technology within the classroom.  A session that I attended on accident, with a lovely lady who didn’t want to stay, but I convinced because of the comfortable seating arrangement, was the most memorable one. In the session two teachers discussed the benefits of a classroom blog. It reminded me of what we are currently engaging in our own class. The session also allowed me to realize that there’s an opportunity to connect with students via technology as well as connecting with one another, not just in college, but in high school as well.  

After attending the behavior management session, I began to worry about my own classroom management skills. Although I have not had any troubles in my practicum, I know that I may be too lenient due to my own personality. It was a nice refresher in previous concepts that we have learned in our first year of student teaching. I would like to strive to be the “balanced” disciplinary teacher. Maybe in a perfect world, right?

Seeing Mrs. Megan Springs present was one of the highlights of the KATE conference! What an inspiration and what a nerve to present at such an event. I thought that she did an excellent job and I can only hope I have the guts to do such a presentation in the future. She also touched on the subject of further engaging students by embracing the technological advances in education that we are seeing implemented today.

Taylor Mali was quite an exciting experience as well! The readings that he did for us were entertaining and he seems like a down to earth, genuine person.  I’d have to say my favorite part of it was when he took Destinee’s phone and tried to take a video of himself. His accomplishments allow me to dream that someday I may be able to not only be an English teacher, but have fun with my own writing and exhibit that for my future students. 

In summary of all of the sessions that I attended, I would say that one major takeaway I had was this: education is dynamic, forever changing and molding as we progress in our society. We must be flexible and open minded in all aspects. Teachers have the largest impact on molding the future minds of tomorrow. Personally, I believe this to be an exciting challenge as a teacher. What a beautiful process and journey.  The secret to never growing old, is to become a teacher! 

Genre Reflection #1

The Bell Rings

How do we instill into the young minds

In such a short span of time?

Inspiration, motivation, dedication.

Understand the meaning of the syntax and inflections.

Going in the upward direction

Of higher learning, always concerning ourselves

With the meaning, constructing, creating, debating

The varieties of texts we are translating.

Why do we love what we do

How did the love of learning become within you?

Its not for the gratitude

A treat or a grade.

The answers lies in the progress we made.

Confidence in the words that you speak,

Literary analysis in the book we critique.

A never ending maze

Of well written essays.

The joy of a child when learning clicks

The ability to identify, analyze, and predict.

The future of tomorrow lies in the prize

Of a spark of excitement in a student’s eyes

When the concepts come together anew

And they push on to pursue

A better tomorrow for me and you

All that began with the seed of a gift

The key to learning is to always persist.

So when you ask me what I do

With only forty five minutes time of pushing through

Lessons, reading, and writing

Putting a spin on the lessons to make it exciting

And you ask me why I love to teach

It’s the accomplishment of taking a student where they dare to reach.

The Necessity of Literacy Comprehension and the Integration Within Our Lesson Plans

I read an article recently on the disturbing facts of reading literacy in the United States. To think that "1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read" is very disturbing as a future educator. (https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-literacy-america)  I see myself as an advocate for literacy because I believe my duty as an English educator is to be able to provide the necessary tools for ALL of my students so that they can successfully analyze, recognize, and infer the material being represented to them independently.  Teaching literacy in English means that I will demonstrate to my students how to use context clues, how to identify key words, how to determine the “bigger picture”, encourage higher level thinking/ questions, and how to identify suffix/prefix meanings of words, just to name a few of the many.

In other subjects literacy can be seen in the same light. An example of literacy in math would be the ability for students to understand different concepts, apply them properly to the problems, and also identify terms that correlate to the material. In science it may be the understanding of a complex system and recognizing the patterns that repeat themselves. Social studies literacy could be looking at a primary document and having the ability to understand the reasoning behind its importance and linking it to that specific historical event. The connections of the patterns within the subject areas and the ability to translate it to students in a form that they understand are what literacy means to me across the board. Not only do students understand the concepts in the moment but an effective teacher can plant the seed in a students’ mind and have it grow by the solid foundation given to them by a good teacher. There are many different objectives, expectations, and standards that I see are universal in the different concepts in literature. I observed my previous cooperating  teacher implement different reading strategies such as  jigsaw. The students would discuss a theme within their own groups, then regroup with others and share what they had learned about the reading material.

I’ve seen that it is important to recognize themes in literature. Each story has universal themes and to relate it back to the lives of the students is one of the most useful strategies because they are more likely to remember and become interested. To read efficiently is to have knowledge of vocabulary. A struggle that I’m hoping to overcome is the different reading levels of my students. In my bell work I would use a “prefix/suffix of the day” in a journal that they would keep with them each time they came to class, relating back to the reading that is currently taking place. 

The use of multiple strategies, I’ve learned, provide the optimal experience. Other concepts I would like to use in my classroom would be anticipatory activities. In the text of a previous class, I like the justification of background knowledge that Juan Phillips uses to connect the past to present learning so that students have a solid foundation of their learning material (Fisher & Frey 24). Not only is it a good idea to make the lesson intriguing but the layering of knowledge is just as important for the students’ long-term retention of the material.

At each of my placements I have seen that there are quite a few students who still do not have effective note-taking strategies. I walk around and talk with them as I  look over what they had written down (that's if they even bother to take notes). In my observations, I've seen that there were many students who just waited to get the answers from the teacher versus searching on their own. Their ability to retain the information just a few days later was startling. Regardless if I teach the middle school or high school level I will give students a mini-lesson on how to take notes. I would give them a participation grade because it would be solely for their benefit and not a use of control. A grammar chart is an excellent example for diagramming a story for its setting, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, resolution, and theme (Fisher & Frey 110). 

I’m excited to try out different strategies that I’ve learned throughout my student teaching experience.  The classroom benefits from a variety of strategies and the integration of multiple intelligences as I've stated in my previous post. I'm a huge advocate for variety and creativity that incorporates the usage of these multiple intelligences. It’s my goal to try to create a learning environment has the best possible results in the retention of literacy for all of my students so that they will be able to layer the knowledge I have given them and carry it over to other subject areas. What type of literacy strategies and lessons do you picture yourself including within your own classroom? How do you idealize a typical day within your class time? 

 

Word Count: 830

Resources

 https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-literacy-america

Fisher, Douglas, and Nancy Frey. Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.