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.

Differentiated Learning

As I start this new school year with many resources: colleagues, veteran teachers, and a well developed student teaching program, I ask myself, how will I use these tools to become a successful English/Language Arts  teacher? As I began my own reading of successful methods used within the classroom, I now more specifically want to know, how can I use differentiated reading instruction within my own classroom?

 In my discoveries I found that the first step to differentiated reading instruction is the use of a pre-assessment to see the reading level of each individual student. Thanks to the integration of technology within the schools in this modern age, there is software that is now being used in classrooms. An example of this type of software is used in my own classroom and it is called “Language!” The students enter into the program and they must complete a test that assesses their reading level.  When reading levels have been determined the teacher is then able to create lesson plans based on the given information. The results of discovering the reading levels of the students are useful to planning instruction within the classroom, but it is not enough. This leads into another concern of mine that pertains to reaching students of all different types of reading and writing skills within one classroom during only one class period. 

I believe that the solution lies in the approaches of class work and homework given to the students. The use of different types of assignments may allow the students to approach reading strategies that will be most beneficial to them. An example of this would be during the lesson of a story or novel to create a plot outline worksheet for students that would allow them to follow along the story by summarizing and comprehending key scenarios. For this type of activity the teacher would have to introduce the diagramming of a story and a set amount of chapters would be assigned along with a completion of the plot as it progresses throughout the chapters. When students return with their completed work they could collaborate in small groups discussing what they believed were the significant scenarios within the story. The small groups would then share in a whole class discussion and allow the teacher to guide the students in the right direction. This is an example of what I would like to do within my own classroom. 

The use of multiple intelligences is also an important strategy when planning for differentiated instruction. The flexibility and endless possibilities of differentiated instruction is what makes it so appealing to lesson planning and classroom instruction. An example of this would be to act out a scenario within a play or a novel. This allows kinesthetic, visual, and verb use. The students would be able to practice reading prior to acting it out in front of the class. As a teacher I would expect them to be expressive, clear, and concise in their reading along with requiring a summary of notes about what the chapter or scene entails.  They might even use a video camera and work in small groups and record themselves acting out an assigned scenario, depending on the grade level.  My challenge to myself is to find multiple resources and ideas so that I can make learning a fun and effective process for my students. I want to expose them to multiple differentiated learning strategies so that I can see which lessons will be successful in my future classroom. What type of lessons or strategies do you envision yourself using in your own classroom?

Word Count: 598

 Here is an example of a video I found on YouTube of student's at a high school acting out  a scene of Romeo and Juliet in class. :)

                                                                   Resources

(This resource explains and gives examples differentiated reading strategies for different levels of comprehension.) http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/subject/diff_reading_la.phtml

 

(This resource outlines the description of a variety of multiple intelligences and gives an example of a lesson that uses differentiated instruction.) http://www.walch.com/samplepages/065146.pdf