Prompt 1: In class/based on my reading, I learned...
Prompt 2: In still have these questions based on my learning/what I read...or I have this/these question(s) about putting what I learned/read into practice in my future classroom...
Prompt 3: I can put what I learned in my future classroom by...
Prompt 4: Describe how what you learned/read helped you to grow and develop as a teacher...
In class I learned how to properly unpack a standard, something that will be extremely useful when unit/lesson planning, preparing my students for keystone exams, and even during the interviewing process. I can put what I learned in my future classroom by breaking down the standards into three sections. First, context: literature; second, skills: what the students will need to know how to do in order to master that specific standard; third, content: what the students will need to understand in order to master that specific standard. Unpacking a standard is extremely useful and something that I have not yet learned a whole lot about at Saint Vincent. I feel as though we should have learned this sooner, but better late than never!
ReplyDeleteBraden,
DeleteI 100% agree with you about the significance of unpacking a standard and what this means for our future students. By unpacking a standard, we as teachers are breaking down what it is we are asking our students to do and ultimately, what they should know by the end of our lesson. Unpacking a standard is definitely a very cool concept if you think about it! Before this class session, I hadn't really focused on or even thought about how or why I would dissect my lesson standard but now that Dr. McNelly provided us with this valuable teaching component, we as future English educators will never look at the ELA standards the same :)
What I learned about unpacking a standard and also how to determine the amount of frontloading a specific text requires will definitely help me grow and develop as an English teacher because both unpacking a standard and choosing the amount of interaction before reading a piece of text highlights the fact that not all of my students are going to be proficient readers. Therefore, it will be my duty as their teacher to assist them in getting the absolute most they can out of my lesson by scaffolding their understanding of the text so that all of my students are first able to grasp the text on a surface level then on a much deeper and rewarding level of textual understanding. This strategy of unpacking a standard was one that was very new to me but now that I know how to dissect a specific standard, my students will be able to perform their best and adequately understand what it is that I am asking them to do. Also, during pre-student teaching seminar last Wednesday we reviewed the specific requirements of our E-Portfolio and lone and behold, UNPACKING A STANDARD was right there in black and white! As pre-student teachers, we are required to provide a three to five minute video of ourselves unpacking a standard for our students. All I have to say is thank goodness I learned how to unpack a standard whenever I did because I definitely would be stressing about that component of the E-Portfolio!
ReplyDeleteIn class, I learned the importance of and how to unpack a standard. That is, I was given the opportunity to examine standards and analyze in a more in-depth fashion what they are really asking of students. Additionally, I viewed a plethora of strategies and lessons that demonstrated manners whereby one could implement the standards into a classroom via both thematic and traditional units. I suppose, with regard to concerns/questions as to how I may one day incorporate the standards into my classroom, my trepidation lies in discerning true student comprehension without utilizing the same forms of assessment each day. I do not want to become predictable or boring in the way I assess students, notwithstanding the fact that assessment is indeed imperative. How then (and how often) should I assess the students without the process becoming monotonous? Nonetheless, I am able to incorporate the standards into my classroom via strategies such as utilizing different texts and close readings in order to provide students with interesting material and valuable analytical skills as well as opportunities to collaborate. Thus, students are able to better engage with the material and subsequently gain mastery over the skills contained within the given standard. With regards to growth as a teacher, learning about how to actually examine and understand a standard for myself before expecting my students to be able to do so was crucial. I now for more confident in my ability to understand what the standards are asking me to instruct and the students to master. Now that I possess a better comprehension of goals and content of the standards, I can better convey to my class the goals which I expect them to reach. Clarity is essential in instructing any lesson and expecting students to gain mastery of a specific discipline. Through being able to unpack a standard, I can better prepare my students to work with them and ultimately become a better teacher by efficaciously implementing them into the lesson.
ReplyDeleteConnor, I completely agree with having the fear of monotony. How will we be able to have each student completely understand the content we are teaching and standard that we are implementing without being overly repetitive? We will find aid in differentiation to students varying levels of demand, but that is a completely different monster to tackle in its own right! The appropriate balance will take some work, but the overall goal of avoiding monotony while still fully incorporating standards in content will come with practice and experience.
DeleteWhat I learned in class is how to unpack a standard and that standards usually contain multiple terms and requirements for one standard.
ReplyDeleteI remember first looking at the standards and gasping in shock because of how much information was contained with them. For example, let's look at Standard - CC.1.2.11-12.D
"Evaluate how an author’s point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text." Students have to know how to evaluate an author's point of view, know the author's point of view or purpose, know the content of the text, and know the style of the text. That standard requires a minimum of four types of knowledge that students need to demonstrate during a test that involves that specific standard. When I first looked at this standard as a sophomore, I panicked because I thought that that meant that I had to teach the whole standard in one lesson, which I thought was impossible. However, as I continued through my education courses and gained some experience, I knew that teaching that standard in one lesson is impossible, but it is possible to teach that standard in several lessons so that students can combine their knowledge on the different aspects of the standard and be able to achieve that standard. As a teacher, I have to realize that the standards represent a long-term end goal for both my students and myself. Standards can be the focus of a unit plan because the different lessons in a unit plan will build upon each other and result in increased knowledge and skills that the student can blend together in order to complete a task or an assignment. I think that pre-service teachers tend to get scared when looking at standards for the first time because they see that a standard requires multiple skills and pieces of knowledge for a student to achieve that standard. Like I said, let's try and think of the standards as an end goal, both for students and teachers. If the standard is seen as an end goal, teachers and students can work together to build up to that goal slowly and efficiently rather than all at once (which is something we also need to keep in mind when completing schoolwork).
I love your concept as standards being the "end goal" for BOTH students and teachers. It serves as a point of accountability again for BOTH students and teachers. While our lesson plans begin with identifying standards, I like to use the standard as a check throughout my plan. For example, does my hook reflect upon the standard? Does my learning target reflect upon the standard? Is my goal, both as a teacher and for my students, attainable?
DeleteAfter completing the readings and attending class, I feel like I am better equipped with the ability to unpack a standard. While EVERYONE has commented on the standards thus far, I think this shows the importance of standards and how grateful we are as future teachers to be able to grasp the concept of taking a standard and implementing it into the classroom. Let me just speak honestly and say that that is a GREAT feeling. Standards have been a continuous struggle for me as I write my lesson plans; I pick a standard but do not understand it well enough to carry it throughout my plan. Having been in class, I also understand that a single lesson does not have the capability to have tons of standards in it. I felt such relief when Dr. McNelly explained that we might not even cover each aspect of a single standard during a lesson. I think that teachers sometimes cram way too much information into small lessons and it leaves students unclear as to what they are supposed to take away from the lesson. The learning target (derived from the standard) needs to understood by every student in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteTaylor,
ReplyDeleteI love how you emphasized the importance of standards for future educators and how we as future English teachers should feel grateful that we are able to grasp such a concept as taking a standard and implementing it into our own classrooms. I can definitely relate to your frustration with standards because I too, often find myself venturing on over to the SAS website and basically doing a scroll down the page to see if the standards my mouse lands on will apply to my lesson! The SAS website is just so densely packed and cluttered with pages and pages of standards so how on earth are we supposed to know which ones are the best for our lessons?! It is basically like finding a needle in a haystack! I also find that whenever I choose a standard from the SAS website, I often try to make my lesson incorporate every single aspect of that standard which is something that Dr. McNelly reiterated that our lessons will not do. Like you said, it is okay if we do not cover each aspect of a single standard during our lesson. It is much more about the quality than the quantity regarding the standards that we choose to guide our lessons :)
I have to reiterate what Taylor has already said, because standards are a big deal! During our class, we spent much-needed time learning the purposes standards have to our lessons, and how to unpack them in order to appropriately implement them to benefit our students. Before this lesson, I was unsure of even what each letter stood for, let alone how to use them to my aid in lesson planning. Not to mention, the SAS website did not exactly provide an easy navigation in order to understand the purpose of the different grade "bands" for content areas. Now, with the help of a well-explained lesson, applying appropriate standards to my lesson plans and being able to coherently unpack them will become easier -- with a little practice of course. This skill will assist me in my future classroom for as long as standards are prevalent. Not only will this be beneficially for me as the instructor, but it will enable my future students to take as much as they can from the properly planned lesson.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually going to connect what we learned in this class with my ED 220 class, which some of you may have taken. In our teaching of English class we learned to unpack a standard, which is what everyone else enjoyed, but we started to touch on pulling good pieces of writing to help us achieve these standards. In ED 220 we discussed the measurements used to make sure the texts are appropriate: these being qualitative, quantitative and consideration of the reader an task. With these two abilities, unpacking standard and choosing a text, the life of an English teacher become less strenuous. Is this a good story? Is this poem to complex? Now its about choosing inferences, or foreshadowing or whatever a standard wants us to teach and applying it to writing that we as an English teacher know to be good and grade appropriate. All that is left is to consider rigorous yet enjoyable worksheets, discussions, or graphic organizer that helps to funnel ideas into one place.Tthe point of this post is to show that the life of an English teacher is tedious, but we have more than enough resources, if we are willing to search, to help us educate our students with the best material we can find.
ReplyDeleteNate,
DeleteThe life of an English teacher is not tedious. :( Haha! But I understand what you are saying. Unlike other teachers, we do not just teach out of one textbook for an entire year. We have the world of literature, nonfiction, articles, etc. to choose from, and that seems a little intimidating. But I think that the plethora of works to choose from is what separates English teachers from other teachers. We have the power to choose AWESOME articles or stories in order to help our students achieve and understand the standards. How cool is that!? I am excited to one day choose the works that my students will enlighten my students' minds. English teachers, we got the power! :)
Following the “unpacking a standard” trend, I also agree that learning how to “unpack” a standard was extremely helpful in order to better understand the standards. I knew what the standards were since my freshman year of college but I never fully understood their significance or benefits. Now, since Dr. McNelly broke the standards down, I have more of a grasp about the concept of utilizing standards as guidelines and/or goals. I also am thankful that Dr. McNelly explained that standards could take weeks to fully teach, which made me think that there is slightly less pressure to teach as many standards as possible in a school year. Breaking the standards down into bite-sized chunks helped me understand that standards are complex structures, and the students need to understand every part of each standard in order to successfully learn and meet the standard goals. While I am lesson planning and/or unit planning, I now look at a standard and think, “How will my students understand every part of this standard?” instead of thinking, “Does at least one part of this standard relate to my lesson?” After last Tuesday’s lesson, I understand that very word in a standard counts. No word left behind.
ReplyDeleteGoing over how to unpack and use standards last week was so important because it is a crucial skill that all future teachers need to have. If a teacher does not how to accurately use a standard, it will be a disorganized mess. It is also useful to remember that each standard has a lot to it. So, a lesson should not have a large number of standards associated with it. If there are a bunch of standards to a lesson, then the teacher is probably not doing his or her job correctly. Even one standard can take multiple classes to master. These are all critical facts to remember when it is time to teach.
ReplyDeleteIn class this week, I learned the difference between text dependent and non-text dependent questions. With regard to text dependent questions, students must have access to the text in order to answer the questions. These kinds of questions involve finding the answers within the text itself. With regard to non-text dependent questions, students must think deeper, beneath the surface of the text in order to answer these more subjective questions. Both kinds of questions are important and both kinds of questions benefit students for a fuller comprehension of the text. I can put what I learned to use within my future classroom by using a mix of both text and non-text dependent questions.
ReplyDeleteBraden,
DeleteI very much agree with your statement of how you said both text- and non-text dependent questions are vital to the student's learning process because both types of questioning involve different thinking abilities and skills. Like you said, both types of questioning techniques help student's comprehension of texts and they also provide students with opportunities to make personal connections and real-world applications with the text which is a major component of reading and understanding literature.
In class this past week, I learned how to develop a learning target and pre-reading and during-reading strategies using Kate Chopin's text, "The Story of an Hour." As my group worked together to brainstorm possible strategies we could use with this piece of text, we made sure to choose the best strategies that would successfully scaffold Chopin's text for our students. It was very helpful to actually have this piece of text in front of us and be able to flesh out our learning target and standards that we wanted to address while teaching this text. Our group was able to collaborate and communicate effectively during the process and we each contributed to the individual learning stages that we decided upon for this text. Also, learning how to develop Text Dependent Questions at various levels was another very rewarding aspect of Tuesday's class since it provided me with the knowledge of how to challenge my future students with my questions and also how to promote higher thinking and critical thinking abilities in my future English classroom.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed that we practiced working with others! I feel sometimes that I will be all alone when I step into my classroom; while I am so excited to start my own lesson plans, in the early stages I feel it is essentially to have a support group to lead me in the right direction(s). My coordinating teacher in pre-student teaching also talked about the sense of loneliness; he claimed the best schools will make sure that you don't feel alone. I found a great sense of relief in both our practice during class and my own experiences in classrooms.
DeleteIn class this week… I learned how to cooperate with other teachers and plan a lesson around the segmented piece of text "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself." While I learned a great deal about reading strategies in 220, it was great to be able to take a piece of text and figure out what strategy would best work in a given situation. Not only did we need to look at the text, but we also had to think about what prior knowledge students would know, their maturity level in dealing with a piece on slavery, and the lessons that would occur before and after this piece of text was read.
ReplyDeleteI can put what I learned in my future classroom by encouraging students to read a certain text multiple times so that they can grasp the concepts found within the text. Even though I am an avid reader myself, I still miss little details found within a text that I do not discover until I've read the text again. My AP English 12 teacher told me the same thing one day before class. She said that even though she has read all of the curriculum novels multiple times, she continues to read them because she always finds something new to talk about with the class, hoping that someone else caught that same detail as well. Lately, I have found myself rereading assignments if I know that I wasn't reading deeply.
ReplyDeleteI think that a lot of students believe that they need to read the text only one time to understand all aspects of it. I, as their teacher, need to encourage them by modeling the positive results of reading a text multiple times. However, this can be more feasible with smaller texts, but even students can reread certain passages in larger texts to fully comprehend the words on the page. The only way that students will completely comprehend a piece of text is to read it, read it, and read it again, very similar to how practice improves a skill.
This week in class I learned two super valuable skills: how to collaborate with fellow English teachers and how to quickly plan a lesson/activities in a group setting. Planning a class activity for students with fellow English education students was an eye-opening experience. I observed as my fellow classmates thought out loud and went through the lesson planning process. For example, I observed how one classmate paid more attention to the historical influence on the work while another student paid more attention to the literary elements in the work. I also learned how to consider others’ ideas when planning and how to build on their input in order to come up with creative ideas of my own. Saying my ideas for a lesson out loud to a group, I realized my own thought process when I plan a lesson. I also was forced to quickly plan a lesson, which is something I have never done. By being forced to rapidly plan a lesson, I realized what is crucial to teach and incorporate in a lesson and what is not as important. For example, it was more important to think of ideas of how to motivate the students to read a work rather than thinking of ideas of how to test their knowledge about the work. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work with other “teachers” to plan a lesson plan. This exercise significantly helped me by making me more aware of my own planning style and allowing me to observe other teachers’ planning styles.
ReplyDeleteRachel -- great observation about how different teachers are able to recognize the different aspects of a text. Both historical and literary aspects are so important in teaching a work, and having different teaching styles and ideas collaborating is a really positive aspect to the lesson!
DeleteThis week in class, I was able to collaborate with my peers to create a lesson activity, just as I will with co-teachers when I am in my own classroom. It is amazing what you can come up with when working alongside bright minds that have the same goals for a classroom, and both groups proved this to be true by compiling great lesson ideas for two very different texts that could easily be used in an English classroom. Sometimes I find myself forgetting or misunderstanding important aspects of the lesson planning process, so working with other future English teachers helped strengthen my ideas and what I was struggling with, and also taught me the value of collaboration or even co-teaching when I am a teacher.
ReplyDeleteIn class, I learned the importance of making sure that students are not overwhelmed with reading a piece of text. Students have to learn how to carefully read text multiple times and not just once. I learned how to accurately create useful questions for students to answer based off of a piece of literature. After reading a piece once, the question should be one that requires comprehension. A question for the second time reading the piece should be about structure and craft. For the third read-through, the question should focus on making an inference. We practiced this with the "Gift of the Magi" activity in class. I thought that practicing how to create questions was really useful.
ReplyDeleteI honestly love the idea of co-teaching, I actually got to co-teach with Rachal Glatt in Dr. Hazer's class, and hopefully be able to teach with another professional one day. Just like in class, its about listening to the other people who will be helping you and create an intricate weaving between what the other teacher will do and what you as a partner will do. I feel like students will get richer perspectives on a text, and hopefully better activities to aid them in their journey through novels.I also enjoy having another person to bounce ideas off of in case mine are too grandiose. The class was also a good way to start us thinking on our lesson plans and what we hope to create for Dr. McNelly.
ReplyDeleteIn class this week, I learned how real-world reading is an integral component of the modern-day classroom. Real-world reading can be incorporated within the classroom through integrated thematic units and also through various instructional tools such as advertisements, commercials, newspaper articles, primary source documents and also relevant videos and supplemental pieces of text. Real-world reading allows the students to make vital connections to what they are learning and reading and it also aids in comprehension and critical thinking skills. I am definitely a huge advocate for incorporating real-world readings into the everyday classroom because it broadens students literary focus and also allows them to draw from their own personal experiences as they are reading. Real-world reading is a major component of my co-operating teacher's classroom and I know it will be a vital component of my future ELA classroom as well. For my thematic unit plan that focuses on human darkness and loss of innocence, I am planning on bringing in numerous sources of real-world texts such as primary source accounts of Holocaust victims and also video clips and music videos that relate to the themes human darkness and the loss of innocence.
ReplyDeleteYour unit plan sounds so amazing- I can't wait to see the end result. I totally agree on the incorporation of real-world reading; my cooperating teacher assigns the "article of the week" in which students have to find something different on a given subject. The students seem to love it!
DeleteDuring class last night, I learned the importance of real-world reading and how to incorporate these sorts of texts into the classroom. Additionally, I was able to refresh my mind about many of the literary lenses that we all had previously learned in Literary Criticism II. For my lens presentation, my partner is Taylor and we will be covering the New Historicism lens and teaching you all a little more about it and how to use it! I will be able to incorporate real-world reading into my class by providing texts that are easily relatable to my students' lives and also relevant in today's society.
ReplyDeleteBraden,
DeleteI am looking forward to yours and Taylor's literary theory presentation on New Historicism next week because it certainly has been awhile since I've had Lit. Crit. II so it will be nice to get a little refresher on your literary theory! Nate and I are going to be honing in on the literary theory lens known as Post-Colonialism and last night we were able to choose a text that perfectly captures this literary theory and we divided up all of our work so we are pretty excited to see how it all comes together and how everyone responds to our Post-Colonialism literary theory presentation! :)
I loved tonight's class in looking through texts in different lenses. It reminds me of my undergraduate coursework at PSU; I was a TA for a Women's Studies class and we examined things closely under the feminist lens, then I majored in Sociology so everything was examined through the sociological perspective... I also had a few history courses and one professor weighed heavily on the biographical perspective. My hope as a teacher is that I won't weight too heavily on one lens but rather I'll be able to incorporate them all into my classroom. I learned tonight the importance of looking things in different lenses and how it effects the readability of our students.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of looking through other lenses, I thought our lesson on "Reading the World" tied in closely; just recently, my pre-student teaching cooperating teacher reminded me that not all of my students are going to be English teachers. When Dr. McNelly reminded us of that again, it really got me thinking about preparing my students for the REAL world.
While I love reading short stories and novels in the ELA classroom, I can incorporate real-world reading in my future classroom by actually bringing real-world texts into the classroom. From what I'm hearing and seeing in the classroom today, a lot of pre-student teachers have co-operating teachers, my co-operating teacher included, who integrate real-world texts, or nonfiction texts, into their curriculum. My co-operating teacher uses the Scope magazine, a monthly magazine that includes an article, a story of fiction, and other activities for students to engage in. For September's issue of the Scope magazine, their featured article was about 9/11. This article was very beneficial to the students because the present generation of students in schools today can't remember 9/11 or were born after the event, so they don't have knowledge about the event like our generation does. Many of the global events today spawned from 9/11, so it is essential for students to understand what occurred on that day so that they are better able to comprehend the current events in our world. I also think implementing real-world literature keeps students involved in the world that they will soon be entering. If we, future ELA teachers, can implement real world reading in our classroom in a meaningful way to our students, then we increase their chances of becoming real world readers, who they can then become involved with and change the world for the better. As much as I love reading Gone With The Wind, it doesn't tell me about what is currently happening in our country. Do you want to know the literature that can do that? A daily/online newspaper.
ReplyDeleteIn this week’s class, I learned that teaching literary theory is actually okay in high school. My mind is blown. I know that I wished that my English teachers would have at least lightly touched on the subject of literary theory, but only one English teacher introduced “different lenses” to me. I will definitely entertain the possibility of teaching literary theory in my future classroom. Literary theory plays a more significant role in our world than most people think it does. Teaching literary theory to students will also help them open their minds and become more aware of the world around them, especially the societal criticism around them. Literary theory will urge students to read text with a variety of different lenses and will assist students with interpreting the meaning of a text. Literary theory is crucial to critically thinking and unlocking the meaning of text. I enjoyed the literary theory activities that we did in class, especially the Plath poem exercise. After this week’s class, I am confident that if I were given the opportunity, I would teach literary theory in my future classroom.
ReplyDeleteIn class, I learned the importance of incorporating real-world reading/texts into the classroom as well as introducing literary theory to my students. I feel that real-world texts such as articles, newspapers, blogs, videos, webpages, etc. can provide a unique perspective when examining texts and developing analytical and comprehension skills. Much different than novels, short stories, and poetry, these works must be read and examined differently thereby allowing students to broaden their thinking and views towards literature. These types of texts are also ones with which most students interact on a daily basis and may prove more interesting for them. Nevertheless, I do not advocate for the removal or even diminishment of the novel, short story, and poetry as major elements of the ELA curriculum. These traditional pieces allow for students to think in a deep and unique way and are far easier (especially with regard to novels) to incorporate standards into their instruction. Real-world texts, from my own research and personal experiences, serve as excellent supplemental, introductory, expository, and information pieces from which students can broaden their understanding of another topic. Therefore, I advocate for a combination of the new and the traditional. Also, the use of literary theory in a secondary curriculum is a new idea—as far as my experiences go—that I like. I did not receive any information about any such schools of thought until college. Teaching these theories now can provide students with a stronger basis of understanding for viewing their texts at the present time as well as providing them with an introduction into material that is very challenging at the collegiate level without previous knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI actually talked to my younger brother this weekend and asked him all about his English class. Partly to see what book they are reading and to see what his teacher does with each book. He said they usually just do packets and fill out vocab as they go along. I was kinda sad. I was hoping for cool lesson plans and worksheets or graphic organizers. Sadly, he was doing vocab Fridays. But with class last week, I saw that it is really easy to teach different books, especially since we can teach literary criticism to high school students. I remember when I was in high school, and I thought books were just written to be pretentious. Even in AP English my teacher just taught us how to write papers and didn't teach us different lenses to use. So teaching literary criticism would definitely help students see that books are written with multiple purposes and can be read with multiple ideologies, and all these can be right. All students can read a piece differently and still have a well written and educated paper. So maybe I'll just have to teach my younger brother some of these literary ideas.
ReplyDeleteIn class this past week, I learned about the importance of literary lenses. When students look at a piece of text, they are going to bring different ideas to it based upon their own experiences and what they have learned already. With literary lenses, students can look at pieces in unique ways and see how different forms of literary criticism change the way in which poetry (or other pieces) can be understood. In class last week, we learned this with nursery rhymes by looking at them using various lenses. Also, the poem "My Papa's Waltz" demonstrated that we all had differing ideas about what was happening in the text. Students will have unique and creative ideas and it is important to learn how to teach literary lenses without overwhelming the students but still teaching them that it is useful to look at something in a particular view to get a better overall knowledge of the work and also the world.
ReplyDeleteNo one tell Dr. Snyder or Dr. McDaniel, but I wasn't completely thrilled that I had to take Literary Criticism I and II. It's not because I did not enjoy the classes or the concepts, it just that I did not think that this would ever matter to me because, after college, I would be teaching middle or high school classes and literary theories would never need to be covered. This, I learned, was not the case, much to my excitement and surprise! Literary theories SHOULD be taught to secondary level students, it's just NOT. After class on Tuesday, I learned strategies to include lenses that I can use as a future English teacher in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteI love days when we get to see each other take an assignment and make it creative in their own ways! While we were all saddened to hear that we did not delve into lenses during our personal experiences in high school, it is rewarding to know the future is going to be different than the past. Also- let's talk about how much fun tonight was! I think our future students would be thrilled to watch a sing-along video clip from Mulan and then wear sunglasses as we read The Great Gatsby. We are all talented and bring different ideas to the table- I like to think as our class as our own version of professional development. In constantly sharing ideas with one another, we all continue to grow as future educators.
ReplyDeleteTaylor,
DeleteI completely agree with how you said that even though we as high schoolers did not study literary lenses, future high schoolers will have different experiences since we are learning how to incorporate literary theory and lenses into our future teaching. We as future educators are going to put an end to the status quo and open our students eyes to literary theory BEFORE college for a change and that will be very refreshing! I know that if my high school teachers taught me literary theory and lenses in high school, I would've been much more prepared for my college English classes so I am very glad that this new generation of teachers are now prepared to make a difference :)
After last night's class, I feel very capable of teaching literary theory/literary lenses to my future students by accurately describing the lenses and relating them to various pieces of text. I really enjoyed our literary theory group presentations because they allowed me to see a wide range of strategies and tools that I can use in my future English classroom with all of the different types of literary lenses. I never really touched upon literary lenses in middle or high school so I think exposing students to literary theory at a young age such as in middle school, can have profound benefits. Students will be able to read texts through various lenses while breaking down key concepts, themes, literary styles and also, author's intent as they are reading. Overall, I believe our literary theory study proved to be extremely useful and gave us all a thorough understanding of how we as future educators can incorporate literary theory into our classrooms without overwhelming our students.
ReplyDeleteAfter last night's class, I feel as though I have a pretty decent grasp on how to apply each of these to a text, and also what to look for when choosing a text that applies to each lens. Additionally, last night I learned that often times there are many lenses that could apply to one specific text, and it's not a bad thing for students to be able to read a text through several different lenses. In the classroom, these lenses are easily applicable to any close reading activity or any sort of in-class reading. As a teacher, just make sure that you are explaining the lens of focus and then front-load in order to get the students' minds thinking in that focus and their eyes seeing through that "lens" --a poor knock off from Nicole and Connor's presentation.
ReplyDeleteOr with Nicole and Connor's Gatsby reading in mind, through the lens of T. J. Eckleburgh.
DeleteThanks for mentioning the lens of T.J. Eckleburgh, Nate. His lens would force students to look at the morality of the characters regarding their actions and so forth. I need to keep that in mind for future lessons.
DeleteI like the fact that Literary theories give students something to look for as they read a novel. It means they will be reading a little more closely as they attempt to understand a novel. If a student knows post-colonialism, new historicism and deconstructionism, the student will be able to think about how the time period effected the novel and reflect, as well as, consider who is being colonized or othered. Its like a KWL chart but better because the student can use their knowledge on AP tests, PSSAs and even in papers in your English class.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we are all pursuing the same exact or extremely similar degree makes our Teaching of English class an enjoyable and efficient learning experience. From each presentation on Tuesday night, I either gained a new teaching strategy, piece of text, or insight into a literary lens. In Connor and Nicole’s presentation, I enjoyed discovering Fitzgerald’s use of “economic terms” in The Great Gatsby by reading some of the text through a social class lens. In Marissa and Nate’s presentation, I was introduced to a wonderful poem that I could use with younger future students (sometimes it is difficult to find simple but deep poems). From Braden and Taylor’s presentation, I gained a wonderful piece of text about Arthur Miller that I would definitely use to frontload The Crucible in my high school classroom. Gabby and Anastasia’s presentation introduced me to the concept of teaching deconstruction criticism in the simplest manner possible. Teaching of English is such an enjoyable class because we learn so much from each other as we are all future English teachers. We share in the challenges and in the joys of the wonderful world of the English language arts.
ReplyDeleteAs Rachel mentioned in her blog post for our most recent class, I enjoyed seeing everyone's creativity and how it helps to foster new ideas and teaching strategies to use in our future classrooms. One thing that I have always enjoyed as both a student and a student teacher is partaking in class projects that allow creativity. For example, in my AP English Literature class, which I had senior year, we had to complete a creative project that followed each book that we finished reading. After we read "Wuthering Heights", everyone had to present an example of a Byronic hero to the class, which could include examples from television, movies, other novels, pop culture, etc. My presentation focused on Damon Salvatore from "The Vampire Diaries" while other students used other characters from pop culture as their focus. There were presentations that focused on Severus Snape, The Phantom of the Opera, Rumplestiltskin from "Once Upon a Time", and Eponine from "Les Mis" just to name a few. What I liked about that class was that we, the students, could be creative and talked about something that we were familiar with, thus aiding us in building new knowledge. In other words, we were able to construct our own knowledge from what we knew in our life and connect that to concepts in our classes. Since I know how beneficial those type of projects are to students, I plan to implement creative projects in my future classroom. Not only do students demonstrate what they have learned in the classroom, but they can present their knowledge in a new and meaningful way that helps them to make sense of the content in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, everyone did wonderfully on their presentations on literary lenses! Each group gave such different ideas on how to teach the literary lens, further proving that we as English teachers have many options and opportunities to teach the topic with middle schoolers and high schoolers. Because we are all pursuing the same career, it is awesome that we are able to share our knowledge and ideas with one another so that we can grow in our professionalism together during the course of this class. Each group provided the class with ideal examples of how to teach a lens to a class, and provided example about how their lesson could be adjusted to fit into any level of education from middle to high school. Now that we have been given the ability to teach literary lens to one another, I feel confident that I will be able to explain this to my own class, and even use the examples given during the presentations!
ReplyDeleteLast night's class can successfully be summed up in only one way: LIT CIRCLES ARE AWESOME!!!! My own personal experience with lit circles has been pretty rewarding all in all because they have been a part of my literature life ever since I was in middle school. I always enjoyed "circling up" with my classmates and being able to discuss the pieces of text that we were studying and our own individual questions, concerns and surprises that we found as a result of reading the text. However, not only am I a strong advocate of lit circles but I also am a lover of the famous "fishbowl" lit circle technique! Aka~ the Socratic Seminar. In class last night, we really learned about some good strategies that we can use in our future English classrooms. For example, I totally fell in love with the topic blast strategy and being able to break down a specific topic down into 6 sub-topics/categories and building upon that topic from there to gain further understanding and knowledge. Overall, I will definitely use lit circles and socratic seminars in my very near English teacher future by allowing for student choice with texts so that my students are more motivated to engage in valuable and rewarding discussions with their classmates.
ReplyDeleteLast night we learned about literature circles and how a teacher can remove their control over the class conversation, allowing students to speak openly. This technique provides teachers with the opportunity to evaluate each and every one of their students' speaking abilities and ideas from the text. Additionally, last night we learned about the Socratic Seminar, a technique that I am interested in potentially using one day (I had never heard of it or seen it used during my high school years). I found it to be interesting because there could be two conversations going on within one classroom due to back-channeling. Socratic seminars could be useful for debating controversial texts, forcing students to find claims within the text and support their claims with evidence.
ReplyDeleteBraden,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mentioned that lit circles are specifically designed for the teacher to release their control of the class conversation and allow for students to speak openly with one another and engage in valuable conversations. I too love the concept of Socratic Seminars and how there could be two conversations going on within one classroom due to back-channeling. Back-channeling is something that I have never done before so I would definitely be interested in learning how to create one for my students. Socratic Seminars are perfect for controversial pieces of text like you said so that they can flesh out their claims and illustrate the pieces of evidence they were able to find.
For what I was present in class, we discussed at length about literacy circles. Today, I saw both an AP class and a general English class; I began to wonder what tools I would need to bring in order to facilitate in each of these classes. While I think that literacy circles could be performed in both classes, I think that the preparation for each would be entirely different from one another. The AP students could talk and talk and talk... My general education students avoid eye contact with their teachers so that they aren't called upon. I think the answer lies in finding the appropriate text(s) for our students and thoroughly explaining our expectations for literacy circles. The better prepared we are, the better our students prepare themselves and participate in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I would like to implement into my future classroom is literature circles, which can be a very effective means of encouraging student discussion over a piece of text. When I establish literature circles in my future class, I plan to instruct students how to use the different roles in the literature circle before I let them embark on their own reading adventure with the literature circle roles. I would like to use literature circles when students are reading something that they choose compared to when they need to something mandated by the curriculum. If students must read a specific text as a part of their curriculum, I prefer to have whole-class discussion so that all of the students are able to discuss that text at large and at length with each other. However, if students choose what they want to read for literature circles, those discussions will be more intimate in that fact that they will be more small-group based discussion; the whole class does not necessarily have to be privy to the smaller literature circle discussions. I think that the overall benefit of using literature circles is to encourage discussion over a piece of text within a small group of students.
ReplyDeleteI am thrilled that we learned about literary circles in class last week. Since I enjoy Dr. Lindey’s classes so much, I have always aspired to incorporate some literary circles into my own classroom someday. Literary circles are important because they prepare students for their future careers, no matter what they aspire to do in the future. In order to frontload my literary circles, I would explain to students how in the future, they will more than likely have to attend conferences, conventions, business meetings, school board meetings, etc., and literary circles are a wonderful introduction to engaging in these kinds of communication. Students learn how to verbally express their thoughts as well as how to acknowledge others’ thoughts and build on their ideas. I am so glad we watched the video of the English teacher who used tangible objects in his literary circle. I appreciate creative teachers. I am so excited to try out literary circles in my future career. English is fun!
ReplyDeleteI think it was useful to learn about literature circles last week. I remember being a part of literature circles during my middle school and high school years. I think it is helpful to understand the pros and cons to using lit circles in a classroom. You do not want to have an over bearing student in the group who ends up doing everything. At the same time, you do not want there to be too much discussion of other topics. As a teacher, the activity would have to be explained and monitored carefully so that it is not a waste of time. As students engage in the literature circles, it would ideally get better the more times you use it. I think last week was helpful in planning on how to use literature circles in a classroom of my own someday.
ReplyDeleteI always try to relate to ED 220 since I'm in that class as well. I feel like the literary circles are perfect when they are a part of a good text set. Create different circles for different stories and allow students to start discussing the theme across multiple stories and media. Maybe even try to be innovative and alter the experience of the students, creating a deeper knowledge. An example would be having students who are supposed to represent one side of an argument and always disagree to create a devils advocate in the class. I really liked the background conversations as well. The students can talk through the internet and provide counterpoints for the arguments presented by the students speaking.
ReplyDeleteLiterary circles were a staple in my AP Literature class during my senior year, especially with the perfectly small group of six. We were able to dive deeper into the text, discuss, and see the work from the different perspective of our peers. After discussing this strategy in our class, I now know and understand the different strategies and tactics to use for specific literary circles. I particularly enjoyed the video we watched of an English teacher implementing a Socratic Circle, using toy dinosaurs and cups for the students to show that they felt confident about making a contributing comment. These examples of lit circles are exactly what I would like to use in my own classroom after graduation, not only to discuss novels and fiction, but real world text as well.
ReplyDeleteThe focus of the past week was regarding methods of allowing more freedom and academic discussion for students. One of the most interesting modes of instruction one may implement to accomplish such a feat is the literacy circle. This strategy allows the teacher to step back from directly instructing the class and for students to guide their discussion and begin to construct their own comprehension via collaboration and individual sharing of ideas whilst concurrently broadening their own understanding. Thus, students are able to engage with the material as well as with one another. The teacher, furthermore, is to provide guides, questions, and or assigned roles in the group. This style of implementation is the manner whereby I would prefer to utilize the activity. My greatest fear, and at times my greatest struggle, is maintaining control over a large group of students. Therefore, I can not attempt allow students to have total reign in the classroom and need to ensure that they are on task at all times in order to maintain control. It is certainly useful insofar as it deviates from an extensive lecture with passive listening by students.
ReplyDeleteI feel like we did a million gazillion awesome things last night in class that I can hardly choose which one I would like to blog about! But since I have to make a decision and choose, I am going to spend some time reflecting on the mini lessons that we worked on and created in our small groups with different styles of writing such as inform and explain, analyze and interpret, and also express and reflect. I really enjoyed being able to have the opportunity to flesh out these different writing modes by honing in on them and discovering various writing strategies that would benefit and motivate our future students to go beyond the typical five-paragraph essay and write in a different, more appealing format. One of my favorite writing strategies that we talked about last night was probably the one that utilizes just strictly pictures because it is so different than all of the other writing strategies we have learned about thus far. I think my future students would enjoy using just pictures to analyze, explain, or interpret a specific piece of text because it allows for more creativity and broad thinking. For example, I really liked how Taylor's group used the picture of animals being crushed by a tree to illustrate how we the human race are responsible for deforestation and the deaths of many many forest animals as a result of our actions. Also, this "only-picture" strategy emphasizes how we as teachers can and certainly will use pictures to introduce our students to a particular topic/writing style and we can get their creative juices flowing by just initially showing them a picture and having them analyze and build upon their thinking from there.
ReplyDeleteAfter last night's class, I feel as though I understand the basics of how to mentor a writing exercise for my students. For Gallagher, it is especially useful for students to have examples of the exercises they are working on, thus allowing them to model their paper after ours, the teacher's. Additionally, for Gallagher, teacher's failure is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are attempting to write in front of your class and your ideas are simply not flowing how you wish, this is a good lesson for the students that writing is a process and that it takes hard work. I feel as though modeling texts within the classroom will be easy to incorporate, it just might take some time and preparation on the end of the teacher.
ReplyDeleteBraden,
DeleteI completely agree with how you said you now feel comfortable with the basics of how to mentor a writing exercise for future students. I never really understood the true importance of mentor texts before our class last night so I am very grateful that I am now aware how to incorporate mentor texts into my lessons while also providing students with key opportunities to write. I have never actually written a piece of text from scratch in front of students before so it is definitely kind of scary to think about! But I believe writing with my students and showing them that participating in a "cold-write" is extremely beneficial to the writing process considering it illustrates to them how their teacher is right there with them, every step of the writing-process way! :)
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ReplyDeleteI absolutely love to write... but I think I would have to be honest and get a little anxious free writing in front of my students. Would they think I was still a good writer? Or would they feel better knowing that I don't just start writing and it immediately sounds amazing? For student-teaching, I will be teaching an inclusion classroom how to write a research paper. I think I'm going to write my own research paper alongside the students so that they can see a 'live' example on how to properly write a research paper. Crossing my fingers it goes well!
ReplyDeleteOne of the most valuable aspects of last week's class that I shall take with me into the profession is the utilization of mentor texts. These tools can help students to better understand how their writing should look and function. The collaborative style of preparing to write and creating a text, as proposed by Gallagher, encourages a great deal of student participation and thought as opposed to a teacher centered explanation of simplistic example or outline which the student follow. Instead, the strategies for writing noted in our small group presentations were very useful in allowing students the opportunity to think broadly about a topic, brainstorm, and think deeply about what they are writing and the importance/impact thereof. These are the kind of strategies I hope to utilize in my classroom as I want writing to be a thought provoking experience through which students convey meaning rather than plug words into a predetermined formula.
ReplyDeleteI totally forgot to blog since we haven't had class for two weeks. Oh jeez. Haha! Reflecting back to two weeks ago, teaching students how to write is a long and intricate process. But teaching students how to write is one of the most valuable skills that we will ever teach our students. Just think, we are the people who teach other people how to effectively communicate their ideas and make the world a better place. How neat is that!? Gallagher makes it sound pretty awesome, especially when he says that you may not be able to effectively write in front of your students during a demonstration. Hm. I agree with him that it would be a humbling experience. I also think that students need to see how teachers are just human. Perhaps that is one of the most important lessons that we can teach our students... We are just human. Everyone. We all make mistakes. But we all have unique ideas that we need to communicate with the world via writing.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have forgotten to blog since we didn't have class during these past two weeks. You are not alone, Rachel.
ReplyDeleteI am still having questions on using mentor texts in the classroom. I'm focused on how to determine and teach a mentor text in a classroom. Sometimes when I'm teaching, I love having the creativity to invent my own lessons, but there are times when I feel that I need some sort of manual to help me teach certain topics and concepts. Mentor texts is one of those concepts that I feel I need that manual I mentioned earlier. While I understand the purpose of having a mentor text, I'm still having questions as how to teach it in the classroom and to determine what constitutes as an exemplary mentor text.
During class last night, I felt like we all did a very good job taking a look at what exactly we as future English teachers need to focus on when preparing our students for the literature PSSA exam. Even though we do not enjoy "teaching to the test," we cannot avoid the inevitable; that we are evaluated based on our student's performance on these exams. The most important concept that I took away from class last night is the use of mentor texts and real-world student samples of past constructed responses. As I incorporate these mentor texts and examples of good writing and bad writing into my English class, my students will be able to understand what it is they should and should not do when writing an essay on the PSSA based on past student samples and examiner's scoring explanations. All of these sources would adequately provide my students with the valuable knowledge and skills they need to aim for that 4 on the writing or 3 on the reading.
ReplyDeleteAs Marissa already stated, it is essential that we help our students prepare for the PSSA's/Keystone Tests and any other standardized tests that they will need to complete in their academic career. With that being said, I would like to implement consistent PSSA/Keystone practice in my classroom. As students practice their skills of writing within a specific time and learning to become concise in their writing, they will gain more confidence to do well on the test, thus increasing their scores. Also, PSSA/Keystone practice does not have to be very intense practice sessions that take up a whole week; in fact, the practice sessions can occur as mini-lessons and frequent timed writings. The trick will be to not overload the students with PSSA/Keystone practice but ensuring that they practice and hone all of the necessary skills to ensure that they are successful on the PSSA's/Keystone tests.
ReplyDeleteNicole,
ReplyDeleteImplementing consistent and persistent PSSA/Keystone practice is essential to the modern-day English classroom because our students really do need to get as much practice and exposure with the PSSA/Keystone writing/reading prompts as they can before testing begins in the spring. I really like how you said that by providing our students with vital testing practice opportunities, we are helping them develop much-needed confidence and comfortability with these tests so that when testing day comes and they go to open their booklets, they are adequately prepared and ready to defeat that test! :)
While I was in elementary school, middle school, and high school there was little year-round practice for PSSA/Keystone testing. Quite simply, our preparations were typically crammed in the month before the tests were given and we would do nothing but practice. I feel as though it would be much more effective, based on what I learned in Tuesday's night class, for teachers to implement more of a year-round regular schedule for practice, such as PSSA/Keystone practice on every other Thursday for example. This way, students will not get sick of these practice exercises and they will be much more attentive and inclined to perform well. In addition to increasing student motivation, this will serve as a break from what they have going on in class.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Braden said, I too believe that instruction for the standardized assessments needs to be implemented year-round. The month before our exams, each and every day was spent preparing for the test. When the exams were over, we had completely forgotten what we were learning about in the classes and our teachers basically had to start over. Instructional time was at a complete loss. Instead of being able to move on, teachers had to go backwards and teach content that was already taught. This was increasingly problematic as we began to prepare for our final exams. We would get study guides and not know any of the material that was taught just before our state exams. Also, spending a month to prepare for a state exam is completely unnecessary if you've already been preparing students throughout the year. You do not have to tell the students that the assignment they are getting is really preparation for the state exam. It should not matter if the content is being implemented into the curriculum.
ReplyDeleteI am thankful that we talked about different styles of writing that we can teach. I am even more grateful that Dr. McNelly encourages us not to just have students write research papers. In order for students' writing to significantly improve, students need to be exposed to several kinds of writing. I enjoyed the writing exercise that involved the restaurant reviews. Restaurant reviews and crticisms are the kind of writing that students will hopefully participate in outside of the classroom. So why not teach how to properly write these kinds of writings in the classroom? How many of our students are going to write research papers after post-secondary schooling? As an English teacher, I want my students to be exposed to various forms of writing and to know how to emulate these writings. I especially want to expose my students to forms of writings that they will use in their everyday lives, such as restaurant reviews or blogs.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, one must remain professional in teaching and completing requirements by the district and the state in which they work -- this means teaching to "The Test", and encouraging students to perform to their best abilities. As discussed, when a teacher blows off standardized test preparation, this influences the student to think it's okay to do so as well. Teachers should provide a positive example for their students, because the tests really are important! They're not perfectly implemented, but at the end of the school day, students and teachers alike must take them seriously. Dr. McNelly gave us examples of how to properly and professionally prep for the tests that loom overhead all year long. I think that test prep should be practiced in a variety of different activities and focuses, at a scheduled time every month, like every second Thursday or for a few days at the beginning of each month.
ReplyDeleteI sadly was not in class last week, so I flipped through the powerpoints and talked with a couple people to see what I missed. I just need some more clarification on how to effectively use a book in a unit. I know that there is an anchor text, but what other ways can a novel be used? Also, how does one effectively teach nonfiction. My English teachers never let us read memoirs or books like Into The Wild, so I feel like I need some more clarification.
ReplyDeleteDuring tonight's class we talked about the correct way to provide feedback for your students' writing. Since writing can be such a difficult skill for students to acquire, it takes time and serious commitment from both the student and teacher. Additionally, teachers are responsible for motivating their students to develop their writing abilities, so it is equally as important for teachers to pay attention to how they respond to their students' writing. If students feel defeated by writing, often times due to poor teacher feedback, this could ultimately destroy any progress the student has made. Some great ways of providing student feedback would include: being specific with your comments while using language that the student can easily understand, providing an equal number of good comments as bad comments, and using successful student work to model the correct way of completing the assignment. The application of these methods for providing feedback is extremely important for student growth and also their desire to improve.
ReplyDeleteBraden, I really like how you said how it is important for teachers to pay attention to how they respond to their students' writing because if students feel defeated by writing due to poor teacher feedback, their progress/improvement could ultimately be completely destroyed. We as future teachers need to realize that we cannot attack our student's writing every single time we sit down to grade papers because we will eventually run ourselves down and wear ourselves out. Instead, we should hone in and focus on one or two specific things that we think our students need to work on so that we provide concise and consistent feedback to our students.
DeleteWell, today is a very good day to be an American citizen! It is a brand new day and we have a brand new President! The Trump supporters have successfully pulled through and now President Trump (I cannot believe I am actually calling him that :)) can finally roll up his sleeves and drain the swamp once and for all! Wohooo! In other English 7-12 teaching methods news, I thought last night's class was extremely valuable because it gave me insight into how to go about teaching the novel. I learned about two different methods on how I can teach the novel, part-to-whole, and also whole-to-part, so I feel like I have a variety of strategies and skills up my sleeve so it will be interesting to see which method my students respond best to! :)
ReplyDeleteAmidst all of the political drama that encompassed our country during our last class, I was quite happy to be in our own little bubble and discussing how to teach novels in our English methods class. Reading and teaching novels is the one aspect of being an English teacher that really excites me, especially since I enjoyed reading novels in my past English classes while in high school and middle school. I always like to think of a new and creative way to build students' interests so they are encouraged to read the novel rather than rely on Sparknotes or another similar source. I am curious to try both approaches to teaching a novel in my future classroom to determine which is the best way to teach the novel and get students involved with the text. Now of course not all of my students will immediately love the novels chosen to read within in the curriculum, but I hope to give students the chance to read a novel of their own choosing. After all, one of my main goals as a future English Language Arts teacher is to not just get my students only reading for the classroom, but to get them "hooked" on reading for life.
ReplyDeleteAfter learning about Ariel Sacks' "whole novel approach," I desperately want to try her approach with a class of my own. As a student who often finished the novel early in my high school English classes, I would have love to engage in Ariel Sacks' whole novel instruction. One of my favorite parts about her approach is the beginning of the process with her creative front-loading. I would love to give each student their novels in a bag with a note and perhaps an object that relates the novel in order to motivate the students. I think I could make this a really fun experience for my students. The part I really enjoy about Ariel Sacks' whole novel approach is the letter that she writes to the parents, informing them about the novel that their children are reading. I think parents' knowledge and assistance is a crucial component of students' success in the classroom. Ben Daghir, a recent graduate from SVC, taught at my high school last year and he sent letters home to the parents throughout the semester. My brother was in Mr. Daghir's class, and my parents were thrilled to receive letters from Mr. Daghir. They enjoyed knowing what my brother was learning in class. As a future teacher, I would like to try Ariel Sacks' and Ben Daghir's approaches to teaching a novel.
ReplyDeleteI am all about Arielle Sack's "Whole Novel" technique! It is such a fresh and innovative approach to teaching a novel to students, and I would love to discuss it a bit more in class, since we inevitably ran out of time during Tuesday's class. I have never previously heard of a novel being introduced to students that way, and I feel as though it could be very successful in a 7-12 English classroom. It was also an inconvenience to the whole class and the teacher during a novel unit when some students would complete the book within the first week, while other students finished right on time -- Sacks' approach would dismiss this problem, all the while filling time with supplemental work to accompany the novel unit. This may be my favorite tactic that we have discussed in this class thus far!
ReplyDeleteLet me tell you, hearing from another person who just graduated and got a job as an English teacher was extremely amazing. But I definitely thought last weeks class was very insightful. Mostly I'm excited to receive more tip on how to grade papers. I recently spoke with the English teacher at Derry High school and she said she never takes any papers home to grade. Students grade their own tests right after they take them. Derry uses a special writing model too, so grading is even simpler. Its just nice to learn how to put our time into important things like lesson planing and coaching instead of grading stacks of paper. The teacher at Derry said if the teacher is bogged down and going crazy, the students are bogged down and not learning.
ReplyDeleteIn class this week, we paid special attention to assessments! I've already taken Dr. McNelly's graduate class on assessment but it was awesome to review the information again. I especially enjoyed the concept of writing the blueprint before beginning to teach. It becomes a guideline and a means of accountability for the teacher. I think it returns to the concept of planning; we need to do the majority of our work before we enter the classroom. In the classroom, the students should be working harder than we do. In terms of making assessment, I recently observed a class at Hempfield and was given a copy of the assessment the students were taking. With use of test-taking skills, I'm almost positive that I knew ALL of the answers. Every non-exemplar that we discussed last night was on this exam. I would love to know how the students did in terms of performance; regardless, their performance score will not demonstrate their level of learning.
ReplyDeleteTaylor,
DeleteI completely agree with your thought on how the concept of a test blueprint is extremely helpful for educators when designing an assessment for students. With this valuable blueprint, teachers are able to strategically plan which questions they want their assessment to focus on and emphasize while also utilizing the different levels of knowledge when choosing questions and also question types. I have never made a testing blueprint before in my college career but I think that would be something beneficial for us to do as an assignment!
Based on my reading of Burke and our class discussion, both of which focused on the topic of assessment in class, it is very evident that teachers need to look at testing and assessment with a fresh set of eyes. When it comes to assessing students, we are only assessing their test-taking skills and not assessing them on content and skills that they learn in the classroom. While it is not possible to eliminate tests, we as teachers need to create more effective tests that actually assess students on what they are learning, which includes both content and skills. Also, all assessments do not come in the form of a paper test. Assessments come in many formats, all of which should be utilized in the classroom since these different formats make it possible for teachers to differentiate within the classroom. Therefore, assessment is not a concept to be taken lightly in the world of education. Teachers need to constantly review and reflect on their assessments so as to improve them. Our students reap the benefits of learning that only result from improved and effective assessments.
ReplyDeleteBased on Tuesday's night class and everything we have read about assessment, I believe that it is a lot more difficult to create test questions than I had originally anticipated. There are so many factors that a teacher must take into consideration, including the wording of the question, the distracting answers, the selection of A,B,C, or D, and even to make sure that students have enough room on the paper for a response, etc. I agree with Nicole's comments regarding the fact that as teachers, we must make the best of test-taking and make the process as effective and useful for our students, even though we may not agree with testing over assessing. Implementing assessment into our classes must be used as a tool to measure student growth and not a means of determining a student's obedience.
ReplyDeleteAfter class on Tuesday night, I feel like I really was able to learn how and why teachers need to assess their student's learning over the course of any given unit. It is those beneficial and thought-provoking assessments that allow students to grow and develop as critical thinkers and learners, not the ones that provide students with silly alternative answers. Even though our students may not like taking tests or we as teachers may not like giving them, they are very much a vital component to the learning process since assessments allow teachers to gauge how much their students really do know at the beginning, middle, or end of a comprehensive unit. My cooperating teacher does not give her students any form of assessment other than short writing assignments or essays so I have yet to see all of these strategies in action but hopefully next semester I will be able to implement them into my own lessons whenever I take over the class.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest ideas I shall take away from class is the importance of utilizing a rubric and making criteria clear for students. Of course, as I learned, this is easier said than done. Each students' ability varies, and as the teacher I need to ensure that I am assessing their ability to think critically and comprehend information rather than assess their ability to take a test. It becomes so easy to create objective multiple choice exams where students can simply, memorize, guess, and forget. Rather, thought provoking, open ended question are superior to require students to analyze and think deeply so as to asses a conceptual, lasting understanding of the text as well as an overarching theme and skill. Thus, I must still remain objective in evaluating answers whilst concurrently allowing students some room to offer dynamic answers that demonstrate a deeper understanding of the content.
ReplyDeleteSince our class this week was online, I spent my time digging into the concept of digital literacy and how we as educators can utilize technology in our future classrooms. As an aspiring English teacher, I believe that some sort of technology should be integrated within my classroom whether it be through various "Google A Day" challenges, student video creations, or simply just online note-taking strategies. Overall, we as teachers need to recognize that not all of our students are going to come into our classroom as technology whizzes so we need to provide them with the proper guidance, instruction, and practice so that they are able to get the most out of their technological resources.
ReplyDeleteThis is my combined blog about assessments and digital literacy.
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful that we learned about assessments in class two weeks ago. I have not learned much from my other classes about assessments, so I am thankful for Dr. McNelly teaching about assessments. I feel more comfortable now composing my own assessment. After learning about the different parts of assessments, I decided that I think short answer questions and essay questions are the best form of assessments on exams because students write their ideas out on the paper.
After our online class, I am ready to try out different forms of technology in my own classroom! I want to try out digital storytelling, and after reading an article about snapchat in the classroom, I am even considering ways that I could incorporate snapchat into my own classroom. One of the best parts about our Teaching of English class is that we are learning about all of the opportunities and resources that we can utilize in our classrooms. The options seem endless and also promising! I am excited for my future career as a high school English teacher!
Funny enough, I learned how to create tests in my high school's AP English class, and we were ruthless to all the teachers who made awkward questions. But in all actuality, it was fun to think about how to properly word a question and get students to think about what they learned. The test blueprint makes so much sense, but I haven't shadowed anyone who has used one yet. I feel like being able to ask thorough and well worded questions is the key to any student's success. If they are uncertain, the assessment is unreliable and the hard work of all the students and teacher has gone to waste. But I feel like I can go out there and give some really good tests with higher level thinking and no silly answers.
ReplyDeleteNate, you learned how to create tests in your high school's AP English class?! No way, that is so cool! I wish I could've been in your AP English class! I think that's a really rewarding concept that all students should understand. Even if our students do not want to follow in our footsteps and become future teachers, they should still be able to see how and also why the test questions we are asking them to complete are important. I think teaching about creating tests and the various types of test questions in a high school class would definitely provide students with more appreciation for tests as well as important insight into how we as teachers structure tests for none other than our individual student's benefit/learning.
DeletePart 2: I really like the idea of digital story telling! Its like slam poetry but better. I feel like students would be able to get into the lesson and start to create their own voice. Students write how they speak, so being able to explore speaking and writing, and connecting them together, will make students understand the connection between thought and written word. Plus, the creativity and connection to technology applies to so many standards and helps promote digital literacy.
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