My Learning Letter

My Work (Book Talks, Mini-Lesson, Unit Plan):

            Throughout the quarter, I could tell that every assignment we were given was going to make us better teachers. For my book talk, I chose Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli. When I started reading my book, I used the double-entry diary from Cris Tovani. I started the book by asking Tovani’s questions (I wonder, this reminds me of, I visualize, I am confused about, etc). I think this helped me build background knowledge throughout the book as I continued asking myself those questions without the diary. I learned a lot from my book as I read and re-skimmed it for the purpose of telling others about it. I had to think about what the most important points were and how I could actually use the book in the real world. The book talks were really good practice for when we conduct book talks in our classrooms. I really liked that each EWU student presented so many lesson ideas and had diversity of texts. Some were great for study in class and others were awesome to interest kids in reading. I love that I have a big file of books to temp my students with.

            I learned a lot from the mini-lessons. Although I thought I taught fairly well, some of my classmates are teaching rock stars! I felt in awe when Trish was teaching about some of the history of the Holocaust. She was such a good story teller. History is story telling! I think that Sean’s lesson on identity was really powerful as well. I learned during my own lesson that I need to be careful with my time restraints. I chose good texts but I had to rush the class to get everyone to complete the work in time. I need to work on the length and complexity of my tasks and giving clear directions. Also, I need to work on speaking loud enough. I think I learned the most from my peers. Anna taught me to be firm when addressing distractions in the classroom. Russ taught me to relate activities throughout the lesson to each other. Several displayed how to have students interact with the learning targets through paraphrasing and defining. John and others showed me good techniques to validate my students’ answers and work. Aaron taught me to be more sensitive when giving feedback by saying, “I noticed…” Dr. Agriss reminded us all to not have our backs to the class when writing on the board and to tie our learning targets back into our lessons at the end of the lesson. As a student, I learned that I am a really bad listener. I hardly ever hear directions; thus, I distract my elbow partner when I ask them what we are doing. Somehow, I magically zone out every time the teacher gives directions. I know my students do this too so I think it is good to ask them to repeat the directions to you.

            I am really proud of my unit plan. I definitely think it needs a lot of editing but I know that I put a lot of thought and passion into it. I used research to support my rationales and activities. I created a student voice tracker and I think my calendar and evaluation plan are really useful. Although this project was difficult, I learned a lot from it. I learned that the best way for me to create a unit plan (or even just individual lessons) is to start with really good objectives of the skills and knowledge students should gain. Next, I should create an assessment that actually assesses all those objectives. Then I can start writing daily objectives for how to get my students to the assessment and the activities that will help the students reach the daily objectives. Instead, at first, I tried to write my lessons without clear unit objectives. I had to go back and really understand my objectives and assessment before I could write useful daily lessons. I also learned a lot about good resources for teaching the Holocaust. I think USHMM.com might be my favorite website right now. Again, I had a problem with trying to pack too much into my lessons. It was difficult to write the schedules for each lessons because I realized I did not really plan well for time constraints. Nevertheless, I think all my activities relate well to the unit objectives.

Theories & Discussions:

            These are not going to be in order of what we read but more in the order of influence over my thinking.

            Langer’s “A Response-Based Approach” and Brooksfield and Preskill’s “Discussions of Democratic Society” taught me a lot about discussion. In discussions, our students should learn from each other. Although many teachers rely on guided discussions, students can gain a lot from unscripted discussions. In my own classroom, my students have taught me so much about texts that I did not see before. When we let students really engage in free discussions, they arrive at their own conclusions. They become confident to be independent thinkers and explore their own hunches. Students can become responsible thinkers and good listeners through discussions where everyone is involved.

            McLaren’s “Critical Pedagogy: A look at Major Concepts” taught me a lot about how we teach our students to think. Starting in middle school, we give our students dystopia books to read to start questioning their world. McLaren posits that students should study the contradictions of power in society. There is a dominant culture that rules subordinate cultures. I think of Sidney White where the “Greeks” (sororities and fraternities) want to destroy a house a bunch of “nerds” live in so they can enjoy more privileges of power. When students look at these problems they learn how to think to build solutions. In social justice, we teach our students how to ask meaningful questions and discuss from every perspective. Students free themselves from the prejudices of the dominant culture or other cultures to create equality for the good of all. They recognize problems and explore solutions. In these discussions, different perspectives should be shared.

            Fiere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed outlined some of the problems we have in education. The oppressed try to live like their oppressors but cannot. They must earn their independence together. In our classrooms, we can give our students opportunities to be good citizens and question authority. In my current class, we are questioning the problems in the media. I had two periods actually create a list of questions they would ask an advertiser and my friend who works for a marketing agency in radio and TV commercials is going to record himself answering them for my students. They asked some really hard questions like, “Do you think it is right to stretch the truth?” I think they are beginning to see how they are influenced to buy certain ways, especially by popular culture and advertising. Teachers can use popular culture to connect students’ interests to classic texts. Sometimes students understand a complex text better when they can relate it to something from their culture. It can also be used to connect the lives between the elite and common cultures. Advertisers use it to make people feel like they need to be cooler. When teachers use popular culture and connections to the community, they are veering away from banking education (teaching information without an application) and moving toward problem-posing where students have room to create solutions.

            In Tomlinson’s “Mapping a Route to Differentiated Instruction,” I learned that we need to teach students the objectives at their personal level. They can reach the objectives based on their readiness and interest, not how many different activities a teacher has for them. I think students can differentiate their own learning through questioning and choosing texts of various difficulty. Tovani (I read it, But I don’t get it) helps students understand difficult texts through writing in double-entry diaries and asking themselves questions as they read. Good readers consistently check for their own understanding. They make connections between what they read and what they already know about the subject or the world. Teachers may find that students need various levels of scaffolding to understand a subject. Through tools like popular culture and informational texts, students can build background knowledge that will help them understand and apply their lessons.

Influence on me as a teacher:

            We use double-entry diaries almost every day in my classroom as we read various texts. In my reading group, I often stop discussions to ask students what passages remind them of or to check if they understand the words they are reading. When students ask why they have to write in the double-entry diary, I explain that writing helps us organize our thoughts and prepares us for the assessment. We use discussions nearly every day. In my groups, I try to give my students room to ask questions and answer themselves. We will soon be practicing literature circles where they will direct their own questioning and cannot be lead to an answer. We also studied The Giver by Lois Lowry as a dystopian text. Through it, students really got to question Jonas’s society and their own. They thought about which society really was better in several aspects and took a stance. They got to decide if various aspects of the book were moral or not.

            I am not very good at creating lesson plans yet, as I learned from my unit plan and mini-lesson. I really need to practice writing well-timed lessons. Now I know to start my lessons with the overall objectives and assessment in mind and then my lesson objective before I start planning my activities. I can start being transparent when teaching my students the connections between the lessons and the objectives. I also want to incorporate pop-culture in my lessons. I read about a rap song that could be good in a Holocaust unit. Students can study various popular songs for parts of speech. We often mention movies in class and sometimes we study them. I think it would be good to start incorporating more types of popular culture in the classroom. They care too much about their lives out of school to ignore it.