Response to Stasis and Change

This article really made me think and I found it extremely fitting for where I am at in my educational career. The article really made me think about what I was going to need to do to change school and the way English is taught today. It blew my mind when the author talked about how the way English is taught in schools today hasn't changed since the of WWII. To me that is ridiculous and unnecessary. The world is constantly changing and progressing, education should be doing the same. I also found it very interesting when the author is discussing how many teachers, parents, administrators, politicians and so many other people who have stake in schools and determine what happens there don't vital and important things about language and literacy and what it takes to teach those.  I think it so very true but I applaud the fact that he was strong and secure enough to actually state this and acknowledge that truth in his article.

I got all kinds of warm fuzzies at the beginning of his article when he talks about how teaching ultimately comes down to the interaction between student and teacher. I have always said that my relationship with my students will always mean more to me than the curriculum that I am teaching. Not to say the curriculum isn't important but the relationships I build will always be most important. Going right along with that topic I think are the two questions he asked at the end, the "what we need to know" questions.

The first question is "What kinds of communities do we wish to create and inhabit?" I think this plays such a huge role in the relationships we build with our students as well as how we can prepare and shape them for the emerging global culture. We as teachers have so much power to instill within our students positive, loving, adventurous and creative individuals who challenge and explore the world. Are we doing that? Are the relationships we make with our students building and filling them up to know all they are capable of?

The second question "How do writing and reading shape our understanding of ourselves as beings in the world?" Again in think this can have huge correlation with what we instill in our students as a result of the relationships that we build with them.

Teaching a Prep Class on Wednesday 12-2-15

The second day of teaching did not go as well as the first day. Student's were very nervous and anxious and didn't really want to go up in front of the class to preform the commercials they made. To try and help calm their nerves, my co-teacher and I created a model of a commercial script and acted it out in front of the class using as much inflection and enthusiasm as possible. 
We gave the student's some time at the beginning of the class to make some revisions and add to their commercials before we went over ad explained peer review and our expectations for that. I feel that we really needed to take more time than we did on going over peer review. We were able to get all the necessities or peer review in as well as what good and bad feedback looked liked but it was very brief and I think our students would have benefited from more time on that subject. After we we gave them time to peer review, we gave them time to look over their feedback they received and make changes accordingly. It was funny to see responses from groups once they got their feedback, some groups were upset, others were excited to make their commercials better and others were just yup, the feedback was accurate. My co-teacher and I then circulated and helped groups with corrections and answered an last minute questions before groups presented. We picked the order of the groups ahead of time so that their wouldn't be too much time wasted.....or so we thought.The first three groups were stoked to go first while the next couple dragged their feet to come up.Many groups wrote the script correctly but didn't perform with much enthusiasm. One group made a rap to go along with thier commercial and another made a dance. Overall the groups worked hard and did a great job with the format and persuasion aspect to this project.

Monday 11-30-15 Teaching a Prep Class

The first day of teaching I was very nervous. I wasn't nervous because of the content or the grade or anything like that, I think it was just because they were student's I had never met before and I didn't know how they would perceive me or respond to me. I also knew that this was a prep class and that all the student's had IEP's and I wasn't sure what levels or disabilities I would be presented with.

 

Once the students started to arrive and I was able to greet them and see faces, I started to feel much more at ease. As we started to teach the lesson, I could still see my partner was a little nervous so I tried to talk as much as possible and make sure our expectations were clear etc. The students enjoyed watching the commercial and most of them seemed excited about the overall assignment of script/persuasive writing. We showed them examples of a script and discussed aspects such as punctuation and format of a script. We also touched on purpose and audience so students would be thinking about why they were writing the script as well as who they were writing too. We then broke students up into groups of three and had one person from each group blindly reach into the bag and pick out a random toy to base their commercial on. Some students had a really hard time starting and thinking of a particular setting for their toy but once we started circulating the room and throwing out ideas for students, we could see it became much easier for them. With the exception of one group students did a great job of staying on task and working on their commercials/scripts for the remainder of the hour. Overall the first day went well and I felt the students really got a lot out of the day.