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RE 6575 Final Reflection
(This class was amazing in a thousand different ways and I will, and already have, taken away a lot from it into my professional teaching life. With that in mind, I have broken this reflection into two pieces: my current teaching practices and what I will continue to improve via technology and the ideas learned in this course.)
My teaching is centered on several current literacy and learning theories, all of which tend to rely heavily on engagement as this is by far my greatest strength.
I currently use high interest young adult literature to engage my students in the learning process. These books provide an arena where students can foster what we, my students and I, call their reading selves. A reading self is, as my students have defined it on my wall, simply “the part of us that wants to be able to read good, write good, and to learn new and cool things.” These novels feed all of these desires in that they are of a high interest nature because they apply to the student’s lives as they live them now in the present, unlike the traditionally taught literature that often applies only to the future self. For example, we read Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper, which is a novel about an African American youth who gets drunk after a basketball game and drives his friends into a concrete wall. Everyone survives the experience except his best friend, who dies screaming the main characters name, “Andy..Don’t let me die like this…Andy…Andy.” The remainder of the is told through many writing styles (newsprint, journals, student poetry…) and directly deals with the fact that Andy is so depressed that he kills himself. This novel deals with teenagers that face the hardships of parental abuse, drugs, boyfriends and girl friends, and the struggles to perform to the standards of the established American education system whilst having learning disorders. This novel basically, in some way, tells the story of the lives of my students as they read it. High interest is not a significant enough statement to explain their connection to this novel and the seven others we study throughout the semester. It is with this novel and through this novel that I am able to engage and then teach the kids who no one else thought could learn.
Also as a portion of my current teaching theory of high engagement and support of student learning, I use advanced technologies in my classes to facilitate learning. I use MacBook laptops and LCD projectors with my students to develop enriched lessons that include YouTube videos they have found on their iPods that they want to share with the class as they think it relates to what we have been studying. For example, one of my students found a clip of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and another clip of the nuclear bombings of major cities in Japan. He spliced these together on the MacBook to show the class his interpretation of what causes and effects are. This is only one example of this daily exercise that students do individually and in small groups. We also use document cameras to edit our papers as a class; I use “our” here because I also write with them under the document camera so that they can see the struggles that I have when writing and gain encouragement as to the facts and processes of how difficult writing can be, even with a degree in English. This peer editing allows students to engage in a collaborative style of writing that makes an individual assignment part of the group. Also, it provides an audience to write to, much like when students post their papers to their blogs in order for other students and parents to post comments on their creativity and make suggestions for future improvement. Perhaps the greatest piece of technology that we use is the class sets of iPods. We use these for reading short stories, practicing grammar, playing vocabulary development games, and a thousand other uses. I also use technology for assessing student needs in the classroom. I do this through poll based online assessments that immediately let me know if a student is comprehending the lesson or if we need to go over something again in a different way. Also, technology is the medium that students take quizzes and tests for the same reason.
Another teaching theory that I currently use is the notion that students gain comprehension through working in teams and supporting each other. This use of collaborative discussion is one of the main tenants of understanding anything and has been a part of humanities path to comprehending the world around them since the dawn of time. For example, in the olden days, families use to sit around large camp fires, stoves, and fireplaces and discuss the things that were going on in their lives, providing a deep comprehension of both family events and family values. In our society today, we no longer set around fires, but we still engage in these discussions through Facebook, texting, and even Twitter. My point being, that it is human nature to discuss things in order have developed understandings, so a classroom can be greatly benefited by using the framework of this. In my own class, to facilitate discussion that leads to comprehension, students are placed in “Fire Pods,” groups of four desks that face one another, yet are also positioned to demand a greater discussion via the whole class. This allows me to have students discuss materials on three levels: 1. Within themselves (What happened, why did that happen) 2. Within a group structure (What do you think happened, why do you think that happened, Well I think) 3. Within a large group structure (what our group thinks has happened, what our groups predict is the reason why). This leveled approach is always supported by the instructor, me, and is usually guided, but not limited, with thought provoking questions that are representative of engaging higher order thinking skills. Since I have started using this structure in the classroom, comprehension scores and general interest has risen greatly from (30%-80%) in my students.
In the future, taking the things I have learned in this class, I will continue to change and remold the lesson structure that I currently follow, using technology as my source for doing so and using our frame work for inspiration. One thing that I will use in my classes is the Visuwords as I have had some limited success already with it. I will use it to help students understand word development and concept definition mark ups. Also, I will use the captioning software to help my students develop their abilities to think and read through highly engaging videos, and I will use this too to develop my ESL/ELL students proficiency in English. I will also use the notion of studying print structures to help students understand how written compositions should look and how a text is structured to help them read with automaticity. Also, I will place a much greater focus on the generation of ideas for their papers through some of the organization software that we looked at. I will also use Vyew to help students who are suspended stay current with the class by placing videos and podcasts of actual class lecture, directly into the Power Points.
“I am an American, but I have to become an American for everyone else” ~ First Generation Chinese American
The final reading post, a memoir of posts
So memoir is my favorite form of writing, especially since I can’t write dialogue worth a crap. I liked in the Multigenre Memoir Project document when it says, “…memoir is your version of a memorable moment.” I think that is how I will begin explaining it to my kids. They tend to get caught up in the details, just like their teacher does sometimes, but that really isn’t the point of memoir. Memoir is meant, in my eyes, to be an experience of an experience, which sounds weird but if you have ever written one, then you know what I mean. It’s like you re-experience the experience as you remember it and try to pull out specific details from it. I also like the notion that my professor at App told me one time, he was a thousand years old, he said, “William, stop all that damn writing and start living,” which I took to mean get out of his office and go have fun, but as I raised myself from the chair, he said, “Writing a memoir is like picking one moment and reliving it however you want to, don’t worry about what actually happened word for word, worry about the experience, the emotions, the rush of that first kiss, the molded blackness that engulfs you when death knocked at your fathers door…” That being said, I also really liked the, “A study of Memoir” text in that the teacher told her kids not to fear being sort of liars, but to focus on the inner truths of the experience. Boy is also shaping up to be a good novel. I like the honesty of it, but my favorite part by far was right in the beginning when his father’s doctor comes to mend his broken arm drunk and nearly pulls it off trying to fix a dislocation that hadn’t happened. I laughed and nearly threw up. It was awesome.
I should also mention that the story of the professor is not all that true, as I was trying to prove a memoir-ic point that you are now reading, he did say “William, stop all that damn writing and start living,” the rest of it is not exactly what he said, but what I said for him in my head. I can’t for the life of me remember his words, but I remember my words interpreting his. Interesting.
My kids fav’ poetry videos
Persona Poem
Persona Poem: Auschwitz
FIRST STANZA
I am a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust; a darkened and secreted sin
I wonder how the Beautiful Devil was set to live like a lion king with stained guiltless blood still on his teeth
I hear whispered cries in the air
I see too warn wooden beds
I want the world to stop looking to me as a symbolic excuse for others actions
I am a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust a darkened and secreted sin
SECOND STANZA
I pretend that they will not remember when they come, that they will smile when they see me
I feel the suburbs of Oswiecim repenting
I touch Birkenau with blood stained soil and ashened stove pipes
I worry the Interessengebiet will not be a big enough gap
I cry for what I was made to perform
I am a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust a darkened and secreted sin
THIRD STANZA
I understand one million is too many to gain forgiveness
I say coughed pentatonic apologies from a guilty conscious
I dream of fatherless children and twins escorted first in rows and then on pathology tables
I try to keep “Arbeit Macht Frei” hidden like the lie it is
I hope medical advancements will surpass organized mass murder
I am a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust a darkened and secreted sin
Resource for both pictures and poem factual information:
(2009). Panstwowe Muzeum: Auschwitz-Birkenau. Retrieved from en.auschwitz.org
Research notes list in Writers Notebook:
I Am __________________
Stanza One
I am _____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I live ____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I wonder _______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I hear __________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I see __________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I want _________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
I am___________________________________________________________
Stanza Two
I question____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I feel _______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I touch ______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I worry ______________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I cry ________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I understand _________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
I am ________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Stanza Three
I say ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I believe______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
I dream _______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
I try __________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
I hope ________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
I was once _____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
But now I ______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
I am___________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
Persona Poems (My definition):
Persona poems are another way to give a voice to an object, a place, an event, or even a person. They are useful in all contexts and help us think about the experiences, thoughts, and suggested opinions of anything in literature and/or research. They allow us as the readers to become a part of the story, to go deeper into the narrative, to find more information and knowledge than we can acquire with a simple reading. They teach us and help us remember the things we have been taught.
