Session 1
1. One outside School
experience that has expanded or deepened my subject area content was going to
the Asimilar Conference. Over one
weekend I heard from a lot of different scholars about different aspects of
English and Language Arts. I learned about
different pieces of literature, different ways to teach poetry, the connection
to film and literature, and ways to teach personal narratives. Although I could only attend sessions on one
topic, I was able to talk to colleagues about many of the other topics and even
those conversations deepened my understanding of broad range of
English/Language Arts topics. This conference is something that I would like to
attend yearly. This conference teaches
teachers about the most current content that is available and ways in which to
take the current content and incorporate it with the traditional content. Because
curriculum and pedagogy is always changing, this would give me an opportunity
to continue my education and also learn new ways of teaching the material
2. Based on the
discussion about the Ball article in class, learning content knowledge happens
a lot in the field. Although I learned
and read some of the literature in high school that I teach, I do not feel that
it prepared me to be able to fully understand and appreciate the material. The few English classes I took in College, I
felt were not sufficient enough in teaching me enough about the subject area. Especially
as an English teacher I have to now look at literature a different way. In high school reading literature was about understanding
plot, characters, themes, and symbols, but now as a teacher I have to read with
the intention of “how am I going to teach about these characters, themes, plot,
and symbols?” The subjects are always changing.
There are always new pieces of literature, new concepts, and new ways to
tie in your subject matter into everyday life.
There is no way that I can know everything about my subject matter, but
this means, as a teacher having to always learn more and experience more. Taking classes, going to museums, reading different
types of literature are all ways to deepen your understanding of the
content.
Our class focused the fact that being an educator is not merely
teaching subject matter, but helping students create inquisitive critical
thinking minds. Teaching is not just
about giving the students the information in hopes that they can recite the
correct answers back. We want our students to be able to go out in the world
and ask those hard questions and work in a team to come up with solutions to a
problem or to keep searching for answers.
You also want to know your subject well enough where you can
help the students get to the critical thinking process. You want your students to understand the material
well enough where they can start asking questions and deepening their
understanding of the content.
3. For my line of inquiry
I know that I want to focus on student’s motivation for reading and writing in
the classroom. I want to look at what types
of literature motivate them, bring that literature in the classroom, and tie it
into the units and classic pieces of literature. I also want to use these different pieces of
literature to motivate students to use their personal knowledge about
themselves and the world around them to make the literature or the articles
more meaningful for them. I don’t know a
lot about the research that is out there about student’s motivation to
read. I have found a few secondary
sources. One of my experiential learning
sources would be to talk to librarians about what they have seen students read
and enjoy and to read some of that literature.
The Cal Shakespeare Theatre I believe would also be a good
resource. They run summer programs that
work with High School Students with understanding and performing Shakespeare’s
work.
Because my questions are so broad I am thinking that I might
just focus on one genre of literature.
Maybe my questions should be “what are ways in which to motivate
students to read and make connections to Shakespeare’s work?” This may help me focus my Capstone Unit Plan.
Content Question: What motivates students to read and what types
of literature are they reading?
Pedagogical Question:
How can you incorporate the literature the students find interesting and
motivating into the core literature curriculum?
I responded to:
Allison Broude
Sarah Wilkerson
Monica Mitra
I responded to:
Allison Broude
Sarah Wilkerson
Monica Mitra
