Content Knowledge (Course II)
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