Reflections

Reflection 1: Observation

At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this project. My strength resides in working with high school aged students so I was hesitant about working with younger ages. Meeting them for the first time left me very intimidated because I wasn’t sure how to start. Immediately though, I was pulled into their activities as they invited me to start playing house. It didn’t matter who I was, my name, or why I was there; all that mattered was whether or not I wanted plastic ketchup with my plastic burger and how tall we could make a tower of blocks. My short time each day for the first week was filled with these fun games, reading books, and marching like dinosaurs to flatten the world.

I can see from the first few days that the workers are devoted to these kids. Even in the frustrating moments, they find something to smile about; the kids are hilarious. Some of them are so young that each little achievement, no matter how insignificant it may be to an adult, was the greatest discovery to befall mankind. The toddler age children on the main level always stop what they are doing to wave at us. I don’t understand what is so exciting about us, but it warms my heart every time. Even though they can’t read yet, the preschool children were always eager to look through books. They were so smart; they could already interpret what the books were conveying, making up their own storylines based on the picture. I’m looking forward to learning more about them with these fun activities. Even though the first day was somewhat confusing as to what I should be doing, I had fun observing their routine.

Reflection Two: Interaction

            As week two begins, I find myself becoming more involved in the kids’ activities. They’re engaging in more conversation, asking me questions and allowing me to be an active part in their secret society. The school-age kids reminded me of my students in Korea from last summer. They were always asking questions and wanting me to run around with them from activity to activity. Without even trying, I became privy to their world. It was amazing how quickly I could find my place amongst them, despite being older and more or less a stranger to them.

Working with the preschool teacher has been a great experience so far. Her enthusiasm has encouraged me to stay energetic even when I’m tired. I only have a brief time with the kids and want to make the most of it. Sometimes it seems like we aren’t doing much for the

One of the things I enjoyed most about the preschool class was the pre-lunch activities the teacher had as a piece of their routine. Reading stories and dancing to music, despite being repetitive each day, has been a fun way to get the students occupied and entertained simultaneously. Watching them dance around, laugh at silly lyrics, and grab the other Olivet helpers to join in was such a fun moment to experience. There seems to be an unspoken opinion that if the students aren’t doing instructional work that they aren’t learning. Watching them interact and develop social skills through self-directed playtime and dancing to music has helped me see that there are more ways to teach a lesson than traditional classroom settings. Hours of practicum, ESL camp and volunteer hours have shown me that any place can serve as a classroom. The center of the basement play area becomes a classroom every time the teacher gathers her students to hear a story or dance to songs about dinosaurs and bubblegum.

Reflection Three: Lesson

Literacy was the reason we started this project. Forming friendships with these kids to begin with and then taking this interaction to apply to a lesson of sorts. Unable to think of h

Since the age variation is so different for the school age students and the limited time between learning that they would be present in the last week and my last day, I hadn’t given thought to what I would do for a lesson. Having spent more time with the preschool kids, I wanted to end the project by doing an activity with them. Knowing they are still learning letters, I couldn’t do anything too demanding from them with language or reading, but I wanted to share my love of reading with them.

I chose the Very Hungry Caterpillar to read to my students during the transition period between playtime and lunch. The hope for reading this book right before lunch was to stimulate some conversation among the kids. Many were distracted by the call for bathroom visits, but we got a chance to talk about what we would eat that the caterpillar ate in the book. Most said the cake and pizza. I was pleased that many of the kids recognized the book and were excited to hear me read it to them.

The greatest concern I have as a teacher is being unable to maintain control of my students. Staring the education program three years ago, I wasn’t sure if I could handle the necessary assertive behavior required of teachers. Since then, projects such as these have helped me grow in my ability to be a leader in the classroom. Getting the chance for individual interaction, regardless of the age group and conversation topic, was the greatest gift this project could give me. While I am uncomfortable at times with maintaining a conversation as the sole provider of discussion, I enjoyed the practice. Once the students got interested in a topic, I found myself having a hard time adding my own part to the conversation.They loved talking about their favorite foods! I'm glad we did this project. and I wish I could keep going as a volunteer.

Service Learning Project

I think this is a great idea. It's community-driven and the kids seem wonderful. However, I don't know if I have been completely out of it during class time or if we discussed anything about the actual project--requirements, activities expected of us, etc-- before going to visit the location site. I'm also somewhat nervous about working with toddler-aged kids because I have no experience teaching that age group and don't know how to develop a lesson for that group.

Tom Sawyer: Ahead of his Time

If there was ever a moment where I suspected such an impossible fact, I would be undoubtedly confident of it now: Mark Twain is a time traveler. He saw, he knew that there would come an age where students forsook their duties and shirked everything over to the teacher/professor, leaving the latter to grasp for straws by calling on the students who always volunteer for the sake of the others. Of course this is not the case for every classroom, thank heavens for that. Robert Probst's chapter in Beers' book illuminates the necessity for a change in how teachers approach uncooperative students. I'm curious, however, as to why this has become such a problem. Where did this passive learning style come from? 

Regretfully, there have only been a few classes where I've been taught how I can teach content to my future students. For this reason I am both disappointed and overwhelmed at the task at hand: devising lesson plans that work. So far this book has provided me with a hundred and one ways to take down the olliphant Legolas-style and this chapter is no exception. Of all the examples he provides, the most provacative one that I can find is simply to demand. We are the teachers. If students don't want to write, read, or work in small groups, they have the choice to either admit defeat  and give into the Balrog that is their daily assignment or lose points for the day. Probst's emphasis on having the students ask more than just the easiest questions, but rather ask questions that bring depth to the reading. It's tempting to give them the questions we believe to be relevant and helpful in understanding the text better. What would that teach though? Leaving them accountable for their own understanding--with teacher guidance--makes the reading less of an assignment and more of an activity.

Preconceived Misconceptions

After reading Ladson-Billings and Purcell-Gates in "The Skin We Speak," I'm reminded of the Freedom Writers film and book because of the collaborating themes of the reading and the fact that I will be teaching an age where catching students who are struggling is almost pointless. Much like Erin Gruwell, most teachers will enter a high school where the socio-economic status, ethnicity, and race are far from being the only things that divides the student body. Both readings deal with the unfortunately fundamental reality that not all citizens are created equal...at least in the eyes of other citizens. It is a cruel reality that seems to have transcended the discrimination laws long after their creation. It seems both idealistic and unrealistic that I would hope for a change in this mindset--the latter is unbearably depressing to fathom. While it's easy to agree with readings such as these that current actions are not acceptable and as a result make vows to change such actions, but how do we translate calls to action into reality? Reading and doing are completely different.

I said before that high school teachers are faced with the challenge of catching and helping students almost too late in the game to be helped; I also said "almost." By omitting that possibility for students, we are condemning them to their own worst self-criticisms; if they look in the mirror every day and think "I'm too stupid to do this. I don't want to try anymore," we should be prepared to be the ones holding the mirror that is mouthing those words. I'm not saying teachers are entirely responsible for permitting failure--there are a myriad of guilty souls (some who may not even know they have this role)--but it is the teacher who is tasked with the job of doing as much as they possibly can to change that reality. The reason many teachers are in that profession today is because someone along the line gave them the encouragement to keep going, (and judging from our class' response) many are their own teachers. The other part of the equation is the students themselves; teachers do not simply divine a love for learning in each student's brain. They have to be willing to accept the work, which may not always happen.

What teachers can (and should!) do is some reaching of our own. Confining students in a small space for eight to nine hours of the day where their lives are dictated by a shrill bell, hauling textbooks, and expectations difficult to attain is not going to help if we make relevancy void to them. Ladson-Billings uses the tool of playing to their tastes by having them write their own version of The Bittersweet Saga of Sugar Cane and Sweetie Pie. Even if a student doesn't like writing, the best way for them to improve is to have them practice and not with the dread worksheets. I love daily writing prompts, weekly grammar focus points, and applying the reading in written form. Worksheets subscribe to to the mediocre serpent of bureaucratic nonsense that we need to be standardized in all aspects of our educational development. 


Purcell-Gates' segment, while somewhat irrelevant for a potential high school teacher, does display a fundamental need to get students immersed in the content they are prepared for. The segment on social class and "Donny's" mother being ignored by the school, despite her pleas to put her son into the right grade, was the icing on the cake. Such discrimination seems worthy of a lawsuit. It is one thing if the parent's request does not match with the student's performance level, but treating her opinion as worthless despite the clear justification is not acceptable. By that point, also, they are condemning Donny to a continuous struggle with content he is not prepared for. Using these preconceived misconceptions about students and their parents only leads to a failing grade on our part.

Technological Technicality

The first thing I identified with in Sara B Kajder's chapter of our book was her quote: "technology doesn't make our work any tidier." That gem is highlighted, underlined and starred in my book; I may even write a short story about it later. Why? This is because I identify with the simplicity of truth. I always hear people talk about the organizational, handy, helpful nature that technology provides for any profession when in fact that is not always the case. Not only do we have to first understand the tech, but we have to figure out a way to apply it in a fashion that all students (this does apply in most other fields) can readily understand. In a previous blog, I mentioned my sister's ability to wield tech like Lancelot wields a sword with minimal training and Kajder's chapter highlights the fact that most children today are much more comfortable with technology at an earlier age than adults who have been exposed to technology longer. Yes, the technology gap is declining seeing as everyone wears an Ipad or Iphone or the cursed Nook/Kindle like bling, but there are students who may not be as savvy with a mouse (myself included in that category). To bring this thought full circle: the person using the technology, not the technology itself that makes it tidy. How they incorporate technology into their daily lives and stick to it determines the effectiveness; kind of like a diet plan, only for mental health.

Kajder returns to a similar theme that Beers touched on in her first chapter: students feel like "school is about fitting things into tight little boxes that you measure with a test." They oppose restrictive curriculum and so do I. One way to escape the lecture drone trap is by making class fun! active! relevant! Well, that sounds great, but there does need to be some learning that goes on, which is where relevancy comes in. (For the most part) teachers want their students to do well AND enjoy their time in the classroom and in order to do that, there needs to be the addition of tools. Kajder's chapter brings out the technology aspect. The list of reading and writing that kids are engaging in outside of school seems fairly familiar: weblogs, fanfiction, wikis, podcasts, digital video, etc. Yes, I engage in the guilty pleasure of fanfiction, but beyond that podcasts are the primary technology I frequently use. Listening to Mugglecast (a Harry Potter based podcast) Hypable (a fandom based podcast) and RoosterTeeth (a machinima based podcast); I can listen to people talk about what is relevant for me. They are also a source for news on specific subjects.

I consider the podcast to be a new level of radio: people who would've never been connected prior can reach out and vocally share information relevant to both. Incorporating podcasts into the classroom setting  can bring an outsiders opinion on a topic. I know my future students will hang on to my every word and revere the insight I bring on our reading material--Othello, for example--but having an outsider's opinion couldn't hurt either. Literary podcasts are available on Itunes and (with extensive screening before they reach the classroom) can easily be transferred into the classroom environment, even if I have to bring in my own laptop to do it.

The class blog is also a tool that has great potential for classrooms, particularly for high school. The students can share their responses, observations, creative ideas all based on the same assignment and break through the stone wall of silence that often occurs in a class discussion (the fact that Kadjer encourages it to be self-governed, not teacher governed, also makes it appealing). By starting with this medium, I have a feeling that students could organize their thoughts easier and then make the outstanding contribution to class discussion that teachers dream of on the eve of the First Day of School. I guess this is leading up to the fact that I would use class web blogs as a catalyst for class discussion. Despite my minimal experience in front of the classroom, I am fairly confident that I hate lecture-based class time (with the burning passion of a thousand and one suns), especially when I am the lecturer.

Concluding thought: Technology is great, but it can't replace real instruction.

Not just English

The interview with Cynthia Mata Aguilar, Dangling Fu and Carol Jago in Beers' book outlines the basis for successful ELL integration in the classroom. Of all the things I'm hesitant about regarding teaching (and that list progressively gets fuller everyday), it probably is working with ELL and ESL students. I am excited to have them in my classroom, but I am unsure of how to give them the education they need. I really wish I had access to this article before I went to Korea for the ESL camps. Their discussion on letting the students teach the teachers by listening and learning about cultural backgrounds makes me wish I had asked my students more questions on how they learn in schools, what is most difficult for them to understand, etc. As it was my first time teaching, I did not know what to expect and not knowing where to start teaching an ESL lesson terrified me. Now, several months later, the camps are coming full circle as I am learning to apply necessary strategies to encourage ELL learning. This chapter did a great job of proving feedback, multiple commentaries on ELL education, and options for teachers to consider reshaping in their own classroom.

The need for ELL education is rising in American schools, as is the need for teachers who are able to provide more than just a basic understanding of the English language.I've heard that education majors will soon have to take ESL classes in order to accommodate for the massive need. Beyond being a mere degree requirement, these classes are essential potential teachers need to know how to reach all of their students. One of our main jobs as teachers is to make students feel secure in the learning environment, which means something different for everyone. Specifically for ELL learners, security comes from not just acknowledging their unique status as English language learners, but evoking a cultural sensitivity so they do not feel like outsiders. No college class can prepare a teacher for everything in their own classrooms, but such classes are do make a difference in how potential teachers can approach their instruction of ELL students. I liked their connection to learning a second language as a "constant trial and error" in order to form a language habit. ELL learners are asked to read, write and verbalize English while taking cue from English spoken instruction; having them practice at every opportunity will help.

What we ask ELL students to do is incredible: learn English while at the same time comprehending the content, in English. In some cases, the content alone is difficult to understand, let alone in a second language. I liked the interviewees idea that a student's first language needs to be the scaffolding for their second language. By reading assignments in their primary language, students are better able to cope with then comprehending the English version. Students who speak English as their primary language find it difficult enough to understand Poe's The Raven--requiring ELL majors to first read the English version of that poem would be unfair. Analytical thought first in their primary language can aid their response to the work in English. 

Vocabulary Redux

In Janet Allen's chapter of the Beers book, I was reunited with an age old realization: vocabulary has been demoted to a surface level concept. Teaching vocabulary seemed to officially end after eighth grade when the spelling and vocabulary worksheets were no longer handed out and pertinent words were addressed during discussion/lecture in high school. Rather than learn the words individually outside of the daily lesson, they were interwoven in our daily reading. Learning from Hawthorne, Lee, Homer, Joyce, and many others, I felt confident in my knowledge of words--at least which ones work in place of another. The curse of the synonym/antonym feature on word document is that I know the words, and by reading books with said words I have an understanding of what group they are clustered in (definition-wise) but little beyond this.


I also suspect constant runaround of information as a primary culprit. We spend twelve years of school learning virtually the same concepts only to higher degrees each time. sure the lesson is skipped over every two years, but we all return to those algebraic equations that we were taught in 6th grade for the remainder of algebra and beyond in high school. We elaborate on "Jane ran" to say Frazzled, Jane ran to the supermarket; her roommate had drunk the last of the milk, leaving Jane none to make dinner with. This paradox of learning translates into the vocabulary realm as words are emphasized early on and then  forgotten--the above concept in reverse. Less emphasis is placed on vocabulary as we get older and any instruction remains in an elementary level.

In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin is taking a test on American history, commenting on how subjects are only asked to be memorized to a certain point until it can be "forgotten"--test day, essay due date, etc. This perversion of a system that is designed to educate rather than teach manipulation is evident also in the vocabulary teaching style. In my classroom, I would like to place more emphasis on Allen's definition of "knowing" a word.

Allen's idea of a word of the day ritual is one that I would like to include in my own classroom. Alongside this, though somewhat unrelated, I would like to have a grammar lesson of the week that my class focuses on outside the regular schedule. These, along with daily writing prompts will probably make up a majority of class-time, but it would give the students more chances to work on specific skills in writing.

Who sailed the ocean blue in 1492?

Keene's chapter seeks to understand what it means to understand? It seems that my entire education is based upon the learn by chapter and then test method. Once the test was over, little review (save for when a test would be given) was placed on what we learned. Subsequent years were spent building upon what we learned the year before, just more in-depth. Basically, if we didn’t understand it the first time, we had the opportunity to re-learn it which eventually reinforced placing less stock in what we were learning because the same material would be regurgitated the following year. It is a cruel fate that school must now be seen as a place where learning does not offer more than a set curriculum of re-hashed information. What Keene proposes is to reevaluate the methods used to teach. She says “ they had learned in the classroom, understanding meant remembering the facts long enough to answer questions, completing a project, or scoring well on the test (Beers). There is little incentive for students to learn save for the grade. In a way, school could be seen as a job for minors. They arrive at a set time, perform the bare minimum of tasks when instructed to do so, and leave, hopefully receiving the payment of a high grade.

This chapter acknowledges that learning has lost its mojo to induce creative thought and stimulating discussion. Students who are ingrained with the modern mindset to merely teach curriculum in order to prepare students for what they need to achieve on tests or aptitude tests become baffled by the idea of actually sitting down in a circle and discussing what they are learning. Keene calls for a more rewarding definition of comprehension and understanding so we can start teaching from it. The basis of this concept starts with teachers simply seeing their students understand the concepts. Observing what works, what doesn’t and how students are engaged in different activities can help us help them. It is the hope that students will go beyond merely understanding and evaluate the significance that each lesson can bring to them. 

Keene divides the different stages of learning as so: concentrate, dwell, struggle for insight, manipulate our own thoughts, explore, discuss, create, feel. It seems impossible to accomplish this in one sitting for a lesson, but since they function as stages, the learning process could span from two days to two weeks on one subject. All that matters are that the students are learning. Even though they are focusing on one subject, they can still draw additional information from one subject. In an English class, after reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, students can establish the basic information given, consider the implications of the story, start to draw conclusions, change or evaluate how they think, do research or confide in an outside source, defend any conclusions, and then create a product reflecting their learning process. Giving the students semi-controlled free reign to explore their learning, rather than just telling them what they need to learn about x-book, allows them to find the underlying messages, significant points and later be held accountable for their learning.

If a majority of the students understand the concepts, then it should be okay to move on, right? Wrong. Even if a majority of the students comprehend what is being taught, they still possess the capability to draw more--especially in literature--as the students struggling to understand. By holding the students accountable for their learning will help ween students off the tempting preference of being told what to learn. I like the idea of having random writing assignments, in class Socratic seminars, and consistent practice over specific technicalities such as grammar. By reinforcing an environment that requires constant recall of what they've already established, students are not susceptible to the Bueller syndrome. it is not merely the mindset of the teachers that needs to be restructured, but also the students. They are the ones learning primarily and should be challenged to explore beyond what they are expected to do.

Changin' Times Take 2: Genre Explosion and Censorship

Before I delve into the response for this chapter, I should mention a legitimate citation for the book I'm responding to:
Beers, Kylene, Probst, Robert and Linda Rief. Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2007.-note on this book: the chapters are all written by different authors so their names will be acknowledged, but they all come from this source.

Now that my conscious has been cleared for the present moment, I would first like to comment on the title Teri Lesesne uses- Of Times, Teens, and Books as well as the first sentence. She, like the previous author uses Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" as a primary thought to describe the current status
To be honest, the first three pages were read with the opening of Zach Snyder's film "Watchmen" playing through my head. Bob Dylan has that effect. This song represents more than political and social distress during the mid 20th century. In an age where everything is being--regretfully--digitalized, no medium can escape this fate. Books sadly do not possess the higher authority to transcend this new medium and have become slaves to a textually impaired youth. Even now as I'm writing, I am reminded of the chore reading for classes has become. This is half due to the quantity of reading that 19 credit hours implies, but also because I have become so ingrained in the power of images: websites devoted to captioning pictures, manga (which will be discussed later), movies, television, and even instructions for how to use tissue paper. On that last one, the package of tissue wrap came with image instructions on how to unfold, and then fashion the paper into the gift bag, making me fear even more for the fate of humanity than the hype of such mundane things as a Kardashian wedding/72 day reception.

Back to the topic at hand: Books. Lesesne goes through each new segment of young adult literature that has become popular in the past decade. Stop One: manga. During my high school years where I was the idealistic hopeful future English teacher that saw books only to be used with words and few images. Since then, it has taken the acquisition of a boyfriend who enjoys manga and a relatively open mind to see that manga does possess some literary merit. While they can be seen as easy reads, they provide a challenging element that few books printed in English offer: you have to read them completely backwards. The frames inside the pages alone are daunting enough. The fact that they also have to be read from right page to left page is enough to make a person catatonic if they aren't adequately informed prior. Beyond the science fiction and fantasy genres, manga has expanded to an educational plane with historic fiction. They are particularly helpful for students who work best with a visual aid. I enjoy manga because I get a taste of another culture and can later watch the anime television show to see the full cohesive movement of action that the books create.

We have reached the pinnacle of young adult literature in the past two decades. With a multitude of material never created, authors have leapt on the YA bandwagon to reach all types of teenagers. Some lean to the masses with flat plotted vampire craze- so-called books while other tackle legitimate issues teenagers are undergoing. Lesesne lists a massive amount of current books--most of which I have heard of but never had the chance to read. If you noticed my disdain for the vampire world, you should already know the answer to how I felt about her mentioning Twilight in more detail than Harry Potter. If not, return to the phrase "so-called books". Beyond that, however, the availability of books has expanded to offer almost any genre, plot, or outcome that a reader could hope for.

Her section on taboo books and censorship makes me consider how I would approach both topics. I do not believe in an all-consuming censorship on sensitive subjects because of the sole fact that many of these books depict what real teenagers are dealing with. While it's great to sugar coat the world in candy mountains and rainbow ponies, the reality is that many students go to school with fear, doubt, and truly traumatic experiences that they have to undermine for the sake of the many. If we exclude these books, their legitimacy as people is diminished even further because we are saying that their situations are something to be kept a secret. Christian teachers are not allowed to share their faith with the class for fear of making a student feel unequal; how is that different from a book being censored for sensitive situations that an actual student may be going through? Protecting the majority by making the minority feel unequal. While the two are not established under the same laws, they represent fundamentally the same thing.

I am not advocating a total recall in censorship, but I feel that there needs to be a maturation of school systems and parents. Hermione Granger's famous quote "Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself" comes to mind. Fearing the taboo topics and censoring books such as "Catcher in the Rye" by  Salinger will only desensitize the educational world into nothing more than a holding cell for young adults until they enter the adult world and realize that they were being sheltered from the fundamental truths of the world. We're already hurting students by limiting their educational potential by standardizing everything based on a test, what is there to gain by adding censored icing on the cake?

Bob Dylan's "The Times They are A-Changin'" is exceedingly appropriate to characterize today's adolescent generation. Immersed in the digital world, they have been granted opportunities that many Alvermann refer to as "digital immigrants" are unable to keep up with the massive amount of communication. While a part of me would like to join them in their immigrant status--mostly due to the lack of competency that I possess in the technological--I am unceremoniously categorized alongside people such as my sister who can hold a cell phone for five minutes and learn more about it than I can in two years. Alvermann connects this realm of technological literacy with the linguistic literacy challenges in education. The fact Alvermann is trying to make is that literacy is no longer found solely in the classroom; that literacy itself is being reevaluated to exceed mere language.

The old order of adolescents (now today's middle aged and elderly) whose youth was classified as a "purgatory or holding area for not-yet adults by Appleman (2001). Alvermann draws a very depressing picture of how things used to be with langauge and then relates it to how this generation has technicolored the world of langauage. Like Dorothy falling into Oz, we have fallen into an era of creative expression that coincides with the use of language. Using art, music, gestures, and movement, language is being expressed beyond the written word by adolescents. The visual cohesively intertwines with text to create art in ways not previously available.

The extended metaphor created by Steven Johnson in his book Everything Bad is Good for You that Alvermann uses discusses how the world would react to books being introduced AFTER video games. While this is a highly unrealistic concept with superficial justification, he does make a valid point that people would reject such a medium for reading after growing accustomed to not having to rely on one's own imagination and analytical powers. There is a power struggle between the visual and textual where one challenges the other in competency as the source of knowledge for today's adolescent age. Many cases offer compromise, but there is still a question of how both can work together to improve literacy. Perhaps this is due to both my lack of abilities with technology and an absence of hand eye coordination (or any coordination for that matter) but I feel that the text pedagogy, rather than visual should take precedence. We've already proven ourselves to be a visual oriented society; why not challenge ourselves to maintain the skills incorporated into reading- imagination, analyzing, critiquing, etc.

Blog Two- What they should know...

After reading about the need to avoid teaching standardized content, the question of “what should we then teach and what overarching themes should be incorporated into that content?” While the content is our own responsibility, Burke lays out plainly what students in this era need to be competent with and how teachers can incorporate that into lessons in the English classroom. Technology competence, reasoning skills, leadership, teamwork, evaluating, integrating, flexibility—and lo behold, he manages to connect this with a person’s literacy. Burke doesn’t just define this as merely the ability to read, but to comprehend and analyze and respond to what is being read. He emphasizes the need for not just one type of person, but multiple that make up a successful workforce that can collaborate on what needs accomplished and can effectively do so.

The three literacy skills—information and communication, thinking and problem-solving skills, and interpersonal and self-directional skills—are clearly laid out and make sense to coincide with literacy. As future teachers, our employers are looking for these skills not only in our own abilities, but also in what we teach. In many of my high school classes, the technology incorporated was limited so the strategies my teachers incorporated were mostly within the realm of Socratic seminar. This method is not discounted entirely; however the age of technology would demand a more collaborative integration of technology. As a future teacher, I do think it is important to use technology so students can become more comfortable with using it for more than just checking their social networking websites. However, I am not an advocate for replacing the element of human interaction. Teamwork does work with technology as the middleman, but it won’t surpass the benefits of working in groups where students can see and hear their peers directly. Online discussion threads, while having the opportunity to be arbitrary, do possess the value of freedom for the student. They can share what they may not be able to conceptualize immediately and then come back to class with a better grasp on the lessons.

What I believe Burke was trying to evoke in his writing was that teaching should be student centered. Everything he claims students need to excel at in order to achieve and maintain a good job involve letting the students be innovative for themselves. Not to be confused as a way to be lazy, but there was the implication that teachers are merely the guide that directs students to their own critical thinking. This is especially true for high school students who respond better to working with their peers and having the freedom to discuss the concepts explored in class. Giving the students opportunities to direct their own learning will prepare them to direct their own work as adults.

One idea I got while reading this chapter was to encourage students to free-write with only a line of un-translated Latin. This came from Burke’s section over synthesizing; having the students look at a broader picture without the specifics of the translation would be an excellent way to get them to look at words and try to develop a personalized image of what they are responding to. In order for the free-writing to be complete, they would receive the translation and then build off what the Latin actually means and seek out a broader picture. While it may not initially coincide with his concepts from the synthesizing section, the idea sprung from Burke’s comment by Pink to see relationships from apparently different things.

Blog One- Getting them to Write

Finally! Three years at college with education classes spewing the good graces of NCLB and at last I find a published someone in the education field who does not see the value in punishing schools that are struggling. Having to read through text books devoted to promoting the statutes of NCLB and speaking with various high school teachers about their experience with having to meet adequate yearly progress, I’m finally desensitized to the idea that standardization is a good thing.

What I’ve noticed that Beers alluded to in her first chapter is that when students do not find relevance in the curriculum, they separate themselves into an “underground” realm that places value on their interests. School loses its legitimacy when the students are not given the primary focus and becomes based on a series of standards that no one can pinpoint to benefiting the student’s future.

While complying with NCLB does promise some good benefits, such as holding every student to the same standard with necessary concessions made to students with disabilities, the ideology behind meeting “adequate yearly progress” does not coincide with a practical use of school materials. What does “adequate yearly progress” do for employers seeking an innovative worker? Students, contrary to what some may believe, are not mindless drones. They see when they are being fed irrelevant information, and react with rebellion (or for those who fear losing their teacher’s pet status like I was, do nothing but accept the mediocre garbage that teachers gave in order to justify taking practice standard exams). In my high school, my class far surpassed the Illinois standards for the ACT, PSAT and the AP tests and we were given a pizza party. While food does draw crowds, we all knew that this was provided for us only because we made the school look good. This is not to diminish the teachers who brought about the school’s success. In fact, our teachers offered more opportunities to be expressive in addition to learning the NCLB curriculum. While I only speak from experience with our school’s English and History departments—I avoided math and science like the plague due to my inadequacy in calculating the amount of moles in a chemical equation…not even sure if that’s scientifically correct—each department was highly praised by parents and, yes, even students.

The principal is an enthusiastic educator and now works with the school system ten miles from my hometown that are failing miserably by incorporating more AP classes into the curriculum. I am hesitant to support his method because the risk that students who are forced into these classes by demanding colleges and parents and even peer pressure. This issue is not just about achieving adequate yearly progress with standardized testing; the gap established between remedial and AP classes creates a  potential sense of inadequacy into the student mindset. The fear of being thought of as dumb is just as bad as the fear of not being popular, or even well liked. Many students in my school were forced by their parents to take these classes in order to earn college credit without regard for whether or not they were actually ready for such an advanced curriculum. The ever famous Admiral Ackbar quote “It’s a trap” comes to mind as students are being enrolled in classes beyond their current skill level or students who are ready for such a higher skill level are held back because they do not have the same advantages of the other students. High school is supposed to prepare students for both adulthood and college, but instead, the curriculum is creating cookie cutter, take the test and never remember it afterwards, lacking innovative adults who have not been given a chance to learn for themselves. With the amount of opportunity students are given in this age of technological explosion, it is depressing to know that the only opportunity they have to express themselves comes from outside the curriculum.

Blogging, while it does have the potential to be an online diary, could potentially be the best instructional tool an English teacher assigns their class. Allowing the students to choose their point of interest to write about weekly, whether it be the environment, an issue being addressed in Congress or a response to a piece of literature, helps the students’ interests are being acknowledged. Who knows? They might even learn something about writing and finding credible information to respond to in addition to writing about what interests them. If this were done on a secure blogging network that connects nationwide classrooms, the students could learn about critiquing work. It is the fate of every internet writer to bash something with a keyboard-shaped club. Take that brutish tendency and transform it into something constructive!