Initial Thoughts

I must admit I'm very skeptical about this project. This class is specifically geared towards secondary ed students, and I don't understand why we are being sent to a day care facility. I want experience teaching the age level that I am preparing for, and I am definitely not planning on teaching preschoolers. I don't see what benefit this will have for me as a high school English teacher. Also, I have no idea how to create a lesson for this age group. I don't know what books they read or the kinds of questions that I can ask them about the reading. I'm just afraid that this is going to be a waste of my time.
Also, I have never taught a lesson before. I have completed two practicums; I was in a middle school class doing mainly observation and grading, and I was with an ESL teacher traveling from class to class working with small groups. I have never been in front of a group of students and taught, and quite honestly I'm terrified to try it. I know that I have the ability to be a great teacher, but my shyness and fear of judgement makes me hesitant to try. So, my fear of failing as a teacher and my lack of knowledge over what to teach makes this project very daunting.

Ch. 5

I have always been an avid reader, and when I was in elementary school I was reading books that were way above my grade level. But reading this chapter made me realize that while I enjoyed reading books and I had a good comprehension of them, I never learned to formulate questions from them. I took what was said in books at face value and never stopped to question why a certain character did this or what the significance of a certain event was-- it was just part of the book. And I've realized that I've let this attitude permeate my thinkings of everything else in life such as religion and relationships. All through school I hated when we had to fill out worksheets about questions we had from the text-- I could never think of a single one. I think this is going to be a challenge to me as a teacher, because one of the biggest duties of an English teacher is formulating questions and causing students to think about what they are reading. 

This concept of allowing class and small group discussion requires, like all things, some balance. I am in a class right now (college level, mind you) in which every class period we arrive having read 2 chapters of a boring text and having at least one "well thought out" question about the text. Then we get into small groups and discuss the questions and chapters. Then the class as a whole discusses the most interesting question from each group. This happens every Tuesday and Thursday. I am sick of it. Many students like me have not been taught how to formulate constructive questions or how to ask things of the text. Regardless of that, doing the same activity day after day without fail is monotonous and a poor way to learn. The professors even have the gall to be frustrated with us when we don't participate enough. Sorry for the rant-- the point is that every lesson needs to be well thought out and activities need to balanced in order to maintain the interest of the students. Discussion is interesting and vital to overall development as a learner, but there comes a time when discussion is nothing more than a boring recitation of the day's reading.

Excerpts from Delpit

I thoroughly enjoyed both of these selections! The first piece clearly explained my current dilemma: will I be teaching lower-case reading and writing or Reading and Writing? Because of my love of English I tend to enjoy reading and writing for their own sake, but I need to learn that not all students will be as enthusiastic about it and I will need to create real-world applications for them to understand the purpose of specific styles of writing and reading. I also enjoyed this selection because it encourages first year students to "be mean" and demand success, even if at first it makes you the unpopular teacher. Students always complain about the teacher who "actually makes us do work, a lot of it!" While this is truly intimidating for first year teachers who are eager to make their place in a new school, it is important to remember that our primary job is to make sure those students leave our class well educated. While it may lose us popularity points at first, in the long run teachers who demand excellence are the most respected.

The second piece really struck a chord with me because I live in the northernmost Appalachian area of Ohio and I am planning to teach in a low-income or poverty area. While the area I grew up in is not as socioeconomically deprived as is depicted in the selection, there was definitely a distinction between the educated middle class and the "unintelligent hicks." Even northeastern Ohio has its fair share of southern accents, and those students were viewed as not being able to learn as well as others. Reading the story of Donny literally brought tears to my eyes as I was made aware of the extreme prejudice these students face and the stereotypes that I harbor in my own mind. If I expect to teach my future students I must start now removing those prejudices and realigning my worldview to include the idea that all students, not just the ones who talk like me or have educated parents, can learn. 

My only concern in reading these selections was that by the time these marginalized students reach my high school English classroom it will be too late for me to make much of a difference. By that time the students' opinions of school and literacy will be pretty well set, and their lack of education may prove to be more than I can handle. What impact can a high school teacher have on a student who has been ignored and passed along since early elementary school? Especially when schools are so focused on teaching to the test and following a specified curriculum?

Ch. 14

One thing that I have been struggling with lately is the question of true literacy. What is literacy? What should our students be expected to know when they graduate? What should I be teaching them in an English classroom? Because of my childhood with and love of books and reading I automatically want to say that I need to be teaching my students how to understand, process, and think critically about a piece of text, and then translate those thoughts into coherent writing. Other sources claim that students need to be taught how to become interested in reading and make it more exciting, and that reading anything is good enough. Still others say that literacy is not limited to a page and that students need to have technological as well as book-reading skills. Who is correct? And is it possible to teach all three?
Perhaps it is because of the area I come from, but as I read this chapter I doubted the students' excitement over the new projects in their classroom. In high school I never heard of anyone listening to podcasts, wikis were used to find quick, easy information for a paper, and video projects were bothersome tasks that took too much planning and team work to produce. Because most of us rarely interacted with these technologies, incorporating them into a class would have been even more work for the teacher, who would have had to teach the technology as well as the concept. Also, I personally don't think that technology improves learning, it simply garners more interest. So while students may be more intrigued by the assignment initially, it is really not producing any better results than a traditional assignment would. 
Maybe I just have a bad attitude towards technology because I'm such a paper-and-pen type of person. Computer malfunctions hinder progress, software glitches frustrate the students, and shooting off a two sentence discussion board post is a much easier assignment than writing a full-out response to a reading, and often takes less thinking. I'm also a very private person, and I'm not entirely comfortable with knowing that anyone can read what I'm posting right now. I don't entirely trust technology, and I'm not sure why. I think the best plan for me would be to ask my students at the beginning of the school year the types of technologies they interact with regularly and how they would like to see those integrated into our class. This will spur me to learn more about the specific tools they enjoy and attempt to use them effectively in the classroom.

Ch. 8

I have taken a couple ESl classes at Olivet, and it seems that most of the information I learned in those classes was reflected in this chapter. There are so many theories regarding teaching ELLs, and many of them are contradictory. One point that I feel may have been somewhat overlooked in this chapter, but is assumed to be understood, is that no language is better than any other. This concept seems to be the focal point of most of Olivet's ESL classes. While many people are quick to claim that English is the best language because of its international usage, the fact is that all languages follow precise structures and have unique rules, and no language can be said to be more precise, rule-bound, or grammatical than another. We as teachers must make sure that all of our students understand this concept; it will help to remove much of the ingrained prejudice and misplaced pride in English speakers and will be encourage ELLs to not be ashamed of their native language.
A question that I have been considering lately is the role of education-- are teachers supposed to help students pass a test and cover required material, or are we supposed to create life-long learners who are proficient in multiple literacies? This question applies to nonnative as well as native speakers. I enjoyed the discussion in this chapter about allowing ELLs to read a particle work n their native language and later transfer their discussion of it to English. At first I was hesitant about this idea, assuming that allowing them to access the book in their native language would be a way of dumbing down the text and making class easier for them. But if our goal as educators is to develop critical thinking skills and real world application tools, it should not matter what medium or language the material is read in; the fact that they are reading and thinking about the material should be enough. So while we should encourage our ELL students to branch out and attempt to read things in English that will challenge them, it is important to allow them to continue to learn in their native language until their proficiency in the English language is enough to express their thoughts with.

Ch. 7

I completely agree with the steps the author laid out for teaching vocabulary. In high school I had a vocabulary book that we worked out of every week, and not a single word was relevant to what we were reading in class. I memorized the words for the test every Friday, and promptly forgot them right after. What would have been much more helpful was discussing the vocabulary in books such as The Scarlet Letter or Hamlet, which I often had to read with a dictionary. 

Even though I feel that I have a somewhat extensive vocabulary, I know that I struggle with giving definitions for words, which will pose a problem for me in my classroom. I can use words correctly in a sentence but when asked to define it or provide synonyms I am at a loss. It will be important for me to completely understand all of the class vocab words before presenting them to the students. But first I need to decide what I think "knowing a word" actually means. I had never thought about all of the connotations of that phrase before reading this chapter. I always felt that being able to use the word in a sentence proved knowledge of it, but I can see how knowing synonyms and multiple meanings would show an even greater understanding. I like the idea of the concept circles; this would show that the students understand what the word means and also how it relates to other words. 

Ch. 4

"Create time for students to pursue particular areas of interest within your topic or content area-- move beyond the idea that all students must study the same thing at the same time."
I feel that as a teacher this concept will be very difficult for me. I fear that if every student was working on a different topic and a different type of project it would be impossible to grade their work accurately. What kind of rubric would cover an oral report, an essay, and a group project? The purpose of having students study different things concerns me also. In my AP English class we often divided into groups and each group would read a different book from the AP list. Then each group would summarize the book and discuss the main themes in the hopes that the rest of the class would learn enough about the book to use it on the AP test. However, merely listening to a summary and oral review of the book is not enough to actually learn the book. If students each work on their own projects, what is the end goal? Will the rest of the class learn about each others' projects? Will all students be expected to learn something from all projects or is it more on an individual basis? If this concept will work, I think it must be very strategically planned and specific guidelines set up so as to ensure each student is learning a particular standard or concept. 
"Help kids understand that arriving at insights as a result of struggle is worthwhile."
Another dimension to understanding I was unsure about was the idea that you must struggle to acquire true understanding. I agree with this idea, but how can we convince our students of this? Some students are simply not motivated to learn, and asking them to struggle over a particular concept will most likely deter them from even trying. I suppose if the content is something the student is interested in they will be more willing to struggle over it, but otherwise it can be difficult to teach someone self-motivation.