Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Looking Forward


I've been thinking a lot about writing.  I've never been a big writer at all.  I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always wanted to keep a diary.  I've never been able to.  The only time I consistently remember writing is during the Myspace and xanga era and then again when Facebook notes were a thing.  I've been told that I have a way with words (whatever that means), but I've never enjoyed writing on my own.  Social media was my motivation.  I like the attention.  I love when people see me in between classes and tell me how much they loved my facebook status the other day.  I love when my friends tell me they were laughing out loud over a piece I wrote on Tumblr.  I, like my students, need a real world purpose.  

Recently, reflecting on my teaching, I realized that I am not a huge proponent for writing.  In my early essays and teaching philosophies, I stress that all aspects of English are equally valuable for students-- they need to be able to read, write, and discuss in order to fully grasp the content.  In practice, however, I find myself gravitating towards fun activities and Socratic Seminars, mostly because my students hate writing.  This is not a good approach, though.  That is why, in planning my first unit for next semester, I made a conscience decision to include writing in a big way.  The unit is Freakonomics, a very interesting book with just about zero unifying themes-- the perfect book for blog posts.  I've comprised ten tough statements to discuss in a pre-reading activity.  My idea is that students will continue to examine these ten statements throughout the reading of the text and discuss them in blogs.  I want them to be able to pull quotes from the text to support their opinion on either side (the statements are things like, people will do anything if the incentive is big enough).  This way, hopefully, the writing will be interesting for them because they will be expressing their opinions and they will have the real world audience of their peers and the rest of the internet.  Like in this class, students will have blog partners and will be required to reply in some way to their partner's blog.  Students will know that people other than me are reading their blogs.

I've also been getting into Thought Catalog a lot recently.  I love the short, hilarious, non-fiction pieces and plan to incorporate this into one of my units (probably my Into the Wild unit).  I think that the idea of getting their writing onto a real website is a cool motivating factor for my students.  However, Thought Catalog is pretty selective, so there will need to be a lot of conferencing to make sure the pieces are good enough.  I have anticipated, though, that if the students feel they've done a really good job on their piece and it doesn't get onto the website, it may be discouraging.  I'm toying with the idea of creating my own class tumblr where I can put up students' exceptional writing.  Students will still want to be good enough to get on the website, but it's less constrained. 

Creative writing is what I'm most passionate about, though, and am so excited to incorporate poetry (especially spoken word) into my Raisin in the Sun and Great Gatsby units (as well as in my informational units, just not as prominently).  The fact of the matter is, spoken word is freaking cool.  I want to show my students that there are people out there doing this still, people their age, and encourage them to record their poems.  I'll also create a youtube channel for that work.  I really think that social media is a fantastic motivating factor for students of this generation.  

These are all just ideas, but I want to make sure that I'm not neglecting writing.  Hopefully I find ways like these to make writing interesting and meaningful for my students!

Please please enjoy some of my favorite spoken word videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgxU73Eifgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVD-HsHoUNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0QiFy8dmX0

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Rough Draft

Storm LOVES KPop and Psy


  • "I don't like to think about that because I don't like compliments, so it's weird.  And I don't want people to think I'm like, "let's go to school!" because I hate school. I hate school. I don't really like the idea of school. I go cause it's required and you can get a good job and stuff but I don't like coming off as someone who's enthusiastic about the idea of learning...even though I kind of am...but I like to get my ideas out. I feel like the way people perceive you, no matter if it's true or not, that is what you are because the world is how everyone sees something. So even if I'm not stupid, if everyone thinks I am, I am because that's how it's determined kind of. So I feel like I need to be very clear with everything- if I have an opinion or something, I need to get it out there cause I don't want someone to get the wrong idea about me. It's kind of self-conscious on my part, but, you know..."
  • Motivation- reading from Beers
    • Doesn't like to read things people tell her to read
    • Doesn't enjoy school even though she's "good" at it
    • Parents care about grades, she cares about learning/bettering herself/the way others perceive her
    • Her level of motivation depends on the amount of boredom/other factors
      • If her parents are trying to talk to her, she'll pick up anything to read in order to avoid talking to them
  • Interested in
    • foreign language
    • fashion
    • photography
    • psychology/informational readings
    • art
    • Korea, specifically
  • Likes to read
    • psychology books
    • fashion blogs
  • Does not like to write anything
  • Procrastinator
  • Perfectionist
    • never feels like any of her work is even relatively good, even if it warrants a 98
  • Is friends with the top ten students of her class, so she doesn't feel smart compared to them
  • Her favorite English teacher is Mr. Barner because he lets them do whatever they want. She just wants to do her work at home at the last minute and spend time in class doing whatever she wants
  • Wants to be a fashion photographer when she grows up
    • another puzzling question as to why she's so motivated to do well

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Storm's Motivators



Storm and I had such an interesting talk about her and school.  After observing her, I realized that Storm is one of the top students in all of her classes, not just in ours.  I was adamant to get to the point of what motivates Storm to get such good grades and participate so actively in classes.  Her answer: nothing.  She said she hates school, she doesn’t particularly like writing, and she couldn’t care less about grades.  Until this point, I won’t lie, I had seen almost all of my past self in Storm.  When Storm told me that she didn’t care about grades, only her parents do, I was baffled.  She had said it before, but she really meant it!

We went on with the interview and we came to a question about where she thinks her abilities lie in comparison to her other peers.  She answered truthfully that she felt she was ahead of most of her peers, but that her friends are the top ten of the class and she’s thirteen, so in comparison to them she never feels above average.  At this point, I pointed out to her that she is ahead of most of her peers and I also mentioned that she actively participates even when the teacher doesn’t ask for anyone to.  I asked her what her motivation was. What follows is one of the most insightful things to ever come out of a fifteen-year-old’s mouth ever in all of time:

"I don't like to think about that because I don't like compliments, so it's weird.  And I don't want people to think I'm like, "let's go to school!" because I hate school. I hate school. I don't really like the idea of school. I go cause it's required and you can get a good job and stuff but I don't like coming off as someone who's enthusiastic about the idea of learning...even though I kind of am...but I like to get my ideas out. I feel like the way people perceive you, no matter if it's true or not, that is what you are because the world is how everyone sees something. So even if I'm not stupid, if everyone thinks I am, I am because that's how it's determined kind of. So I feel like I need to be very clear with everything- if I have an opinion or something, I need to get it out there cause I don't want someone to get the wrong idea about me. It's kind of self-conscious on my part, but, you know..."

So yes. So. Much. Insight.  I’m not sure that many average teenagers think this way, which is why it was so cool to have this little window into Storm’s mind.  The thing that is even cooler is that that night I went home and read Beer’s chapters about motivation and basically connected everything to what Storm said.  Storm’s motivators are internal so they’re very strong and, lucky for her, they correlate directly with school. 

Storm surprised me again when we discussed reading.  It makes sense in the context of the above quote, but before I understood her motivations I was surprised.  She told me that she hates to read anything someone gives her to read.  If she’s not required to read, she’ll read anything, apparently.  This goes back to different motivators.  It’s really good to know this about Storm! I know that she’ll read the books, though, because she doesn’t want to appear dumb. 

Enough about motivators.  I should throw in here quickly that Storm and I also discussed the possibility of her being a fashion blogger.  This, she claims, is the only time she would ever want to write outside of school.  She is already thinking of creating media (something Jenkins mentions as being essential to technological literacy).  

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A Day With Storm

This is what I felt like following Storm around all day


Today I had the chance to observe my student (and by observe my student I mean follow her around and record every action she made and every word said).  Unfortunately, all of Stormageddon’s classes were extremely busy today—one had presentations of multimedia projects, one had a mock trial, and one had necessary group work.  In between all of the hubbub of the day, I was able to ask Storm just a few of the questions that I hope to ask her about her attitude toward school, reading, and writing.

I already know from last week that Storm takes school kind of seriously but her parents take school very seriously.  From today’s observation, it is clear that Storm is one of the smartest, if not the smartest, student in all of her classes.  She’s one of those students that’s just worlds above cognitively.  When I asked her if I could make a copy of the essay she just got back for my mentor teacher’s class, she replied that of course I could but, “it’s not very well written. I mean, I got a 98 on it, but I don’t think it’s any good.”  Even when Storm is slacking, she is excelling.

While in my mentor teacher’s class, during a short break, Storm asked me what I had been typing all day.  I told her I was typing every time she did anything or got distracted or said anything, etc.  I mentioned the distraction because it is something I’ve noticed in our English class and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.  After our conversation though, when Storm heard me start typing while she was talking off topic with her friend, she reacted, “No! Dangit! I have to pretend that I stay on task because I hear you typing!”  I told her not to change anything she was doing because I wanted to see a true representation of how she behaves in class, so she went back to talking.  Later, she explained to me what I already kind of suspected, which is that if she is talking it’s usually because she is bored or because the teacher or a student or activity is annoying her.

When I did have a chance to ask Storm a quick question about school, I decided to ask her what she would change about her school experience if she could.  She replied that she would like for each teacher to give each student one free day a semester.  One day where if that student had a lot going on, they could skip their work without penalization, as long as it’s not a big project.  I think that this is a good insight into the mind of Storm as well as the difference between her and other students.  She didn’t jump to “no reading” or “no math”, but a reasonable solution to a problem that truly affects her life—too much homework.  She also mentioned, in not so many words, that teachers could collaborate to make sure assignments didn’t overlap as much as they do.

Today was an interesting day with Storm, definitely. I’m looking forward to getting more of her insights on reading and writing, but for now I’ve learned a lot about her attitudes towards school already.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Stormageddon Dark Lord of All


I’m so happy to finally write about something happy and not something that stresses me out! Yay!

I got a chance in third block to interview the girl I will be doing my case study on. Yes, the student I am following around and prodding with personal questions is in fact a girl, despite the misleading pseudonym.  At the end of the interview, I asked her if there was any particular pseudonym she would like to go by and this was her reply.  Apparently, it is a Doctor Who reference and apparently, that baby really is Stormageddon.  The Doctor, who claims to speak baby, meets a baby named Alfie who, he says, likes to call himself Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.  So there we are.

Already, I have learned something about my student.  Stormageddon Dark Lord of All (whom I will refer to as Storm for short) is a very active participant in class and an avid reader, so I was excited to interview her.  I knew from our previous interactions that she loves fashion.  She comes decked out to class every day and most of our conversations consist of us commenting on a piece of clothing the other is wearing.  When I asked her what she enjoys, though, fashion didn’t even make the list.  Storm loves photography, art, foreign languages, theatre, and singing, to name a few.  This surprised me because I knew Storm reads psychology books for fun, so I was expecting a more science, less art based person.  When I asked her what she wants to do in the future, though, it did not surprise me that she said she would like to be a fashion photographer or an interpreter; I already know that she speaks fluent Korean and is very passionate about fashion.

I also learned about Storm’s family.  I learned that her mom is from Trinidad and that her dad works in D.C. for the Navy.  She has a sister who’s a senior at Clarke Central and they kind of get along. 

Probably the most interesting thing to me, though, is the fact that her parents do not accept mid-level A work. A 95 is unacceptable.  We talked about whether or not grades are a motivation for her and she said not really.  She would be happy with a mid-level A, but her parents are focused more on her doing her absolute best and pushing to higher than what is expected of her. 

I see a lot of the characteristics of an independent reader in Storm.  She’s the kind of student who enjoys, I mean actually enjoys, the classics.  I’m not sure that any of the YA books on Melissa’s list would challenge her enough. She’s that kind of reader.  But she doesn’t write much (I’ve learned from previous conversations).  Storm doesn’t do any writing outside of school writing, but she also can’t complete writing at school.  Every time we give the students in class writing time she does other homework and says she’d rather finish it at home.  Therefore, I’m also not sure a writing workshop would benefit her.  Obviously I have a lot more to learn about her learning styles, but this is a good start I think.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Major Coronary

(I got this picture by googling screaming at books. Pure. Gold.)

Okay guys. Here come the mini heart attacks again.  All of this reading for all of these classes is converging at once and I have so many conflicting ideas that it’s crazy.  We’ve been talking a lot about assessment and what matters when you assess and I’m not going to lie—I have never thought about assessment.  When I picture my classroom, I picture everything but assessment, in fact.  Now it’s all I can think about.  It consumes my mind.  Here is the big question—what is important to assess?  The content, the presentation, both? If both, at what proportions?

Before I freak out, though, I should probably explain what I got from the readings.  According to the Digital Writing Workshop, “what we’re really after is helping [students] compose more substantive texts, both individually and collaboratively” (page 35).  Okay, good. This is a concrete definition of what we are aiming for.  I feel like we haven’t had one in a long time.  All of these philosophical questions about our teaching, planning, and assessment styles are awesome, but not knowing the answers is killing me and what’s killing me even more is that I probably won’t know the answers to them until I’m actually in the classroom.  So of course when I read in Chapter 6 of Hicks that “instruction and assessment are intertwined and that digital writing makes that relationship even more complicated” (page 105), I don’t feel a million times better (can you blame me?).  

Aside from the assessment strategies of Hicks, which seem at the least to quicken my pulse to an nth degree, Pathways to the Common Core actually kind of calmed me.  (I’m about to quote a large piece of text, but it’s really important to me, so we’ll all just have to deal.)

The image of a routine for writing is not just about sitting down to write, however. A writing routine involved understanding what it means to work at your writing. Writing anchor 5 states that writers will “develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach” [18].  The CCSS are closely aligned, then, with the practices researched by Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist Don Murray, documented in a Writer Teachers Writing (2003). Murray described how journalists learn, even when writing to deadline, to revise on the run, to try out different leads and endings, to consider and reconsider each word, comma, sentence structure in order to convey precise meaning: they know that writing is a process. (page 106) 

So what does this have to do with my assessment concerns? I’m so glad you asked! This is another clear example of what to assess.  Although I don’t see myself as the kind of teacher who fits a goal to a standard, I think that as a beginning teacher with so little definition of my philosophical views, it is important to have an idea of what other educators think is important.  As I was composing my goals/assessments chart for Peg, I would be happy with my goal and then panicked when I couldn’t find a standard to fit it.  Add in the digital component of goals and assessments and I’m a goner. 

Unfortunately, my mentor teacher does not use any form of digital literacy. As Hicks says on page 38, “’Couldn’t I do this with journals or writing folders?’ Indeed you could.”  This is my mentor teacher’s approach.  For his on-level classes we keep writing journals, including daily writing examples.  He does not seem though, to be “conferring outside of class time […] building relationships and responding to writers at their point of need” (page 38).  I know that he definitely does not confer outside of class time.  He may be building relationships based on the advice he’s given me about forming relationships with students.  As far as responding to writers at their point of need—he gives feedback on the journals every few weeks.  I think that he’s given feedback twice on the journals all semester when they write every day.  And these are struggling writers.  I have no idea what the students do with this feedback.  It makes me wonder if there’s something we can do to make the feedback more meaningful? Can we make revisions required? Or some reflection on the feedback? I’m not sure. More assessment to think about…and you know how excited I get about unsure assessments…


Thursday, September 6, 2012

Where I'm From (Part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCUgN2V8hvI&feature=youtu.be

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Stressin'




This isn’t the image I had in mind, but the one I wanted to use is a comic strip from a newspaper in the 90s and I don’t really have access to that right now so this’ll do. But! I’m going to explain to you the comic from the 90s because it’s really important to my thought process.  My dad posted it on my brother’s door when it was first in the paper.  It’s a drawing of these parents looking into their kid’s room and he’s got lines of cocaine and jars of weed and all of these other drugs overtaking his room.  His dad’s speech bubble simply says, “At least he’s not downloading music”.  This is how I view most adults’ stances on technology, which is why I suppose I chose the current visual. 

So why is this important?  I’m going to be honest.  I’ve been having a lot of trouble synthesizing all of the ideas from these various articles into one blog post.  It would be simple for me to write on just Atwell’s piece, but that’s not the assignment, is it? No. It is not.  The thing that drew all of these texts together for me was 1) the emphasis on organization and 2) the emphasis on new literacies as an ethos.  In Digital Writing Workshop, Hicks points out that “teachers could invite students to use a blog to post comments on a teacher-initiated discussion. Yet this would not be new, as it is simply using a traditional pedagogy (teacher-led discussion) with a new technology” (page 16).  So back to my thought process.  I chose the visuals because it seems to me that even when teachers understand how to work technology, they are still not understanding the culture of a new literacies stance; they are still not understanding how such a stance could benefit their kids.  All of these texts did a good job of including examples of a new literacies curriculum. 

Atwell describes the purposes of her writing workshop and goes into detail about the criteria.  She mentions one very important criterion in my mind:

Publication in a writing workshop must be a given: student writers need access to readers beyond the teacher if they're to understand what writing is good for, and if they're to write with care and conviction.

Smagorinsky chimes in:

When possible, teachers provide additional readerships for students’ writing, such as having students send their arguments about local policy issues to key stakeholders, enter their writing in competitions, send letters and other writing to newspapers, post their writing on the Internet, and otherwise use their writing for authentic communicative purposes (page 23).

I know that we have already discussed this qualification of a new literacies stance, but it has recently become much more important to me.  You see, as I’ve been researching this stance for this course, I’ve become paranoid that I’m not doing it correctly.  Technically, I haven’t done anything yet, but our discussion in Michelle’s class about the difference between a traditional classroom and a non-traditional classroom and how some of us have plans for our November Units that resemble a traditional classroom got me all worried.  This qualification of a new literacies stance makes me think that at least my students can get something out of the experience even if the feedback is not from me. Is this making any sense? I feel like this is the most disconnected blog post I’ve done.  Oh well…

Another of my concerns is the organization. When Atwell went into detail about the organization of her classroom, I’m quite sure I had approximately 40 heart attacks.  Her organization was so meticulous that it made me nervous.  I know that the reason she included such detail is so that other teachers could model her example, but dear lord! I am not an organized person…not like that, anyway.  Is it possible to have a successful writing workshop without that much organization? Is a writing workshop even something I would consider with my class?  I’m not sure.  Time will tell.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Geeking Out


I love all of this information on digital literacy.  I think that the most important lesson, still, that I’ve learned is that digital literacy is a completely new kind of curriculum.  There is a difference between incorporating technology and incorporating technology in a meaningful way. That being said, I particularly like the idea of implementing hanging out, messing around, and geeking out into the classroom.  I also love that most or all of the ideas from The Digital Writing Workshop can translate into these three categories.
The concentration on student interaction with technology in “Living and Learning With New Media” seems really important to the new media literacy curriculum.  Because the emphasis is based on how technology shapes students’ ways of thinking, we should be examining the ways in which they interact with technology.  One quote I found especially poignant from this study is found on page 25:
Although some view these activities as dead-ends or a waste of time, we see them as a necessary part of self-directed exploration in order to experiment with something that might eventually become a longer-term, abiding interest in creative production.
This quote is especially significant because it questions the views of adults.  Adults, the people who control what these kids do for seven hours a day, many times do not see worth in how their students chose to spend their days.  If adults do not see the meaning in their students’ interests, they are less likely to embrace them, which is a huge set back for education.  It is therefore important to examine the meaning in technology in order to embrace the benefits of technology, and there are many benefits.
            Once the adult or teacher has decided to questions her views, she must then implement them, which is where the research done in Ito’s study and the lesson plans provided in The Digital Writing Workshop come in handy.
            The “hanging out” aspect of new literacy has changed the way students interact with one another.  Online is a place where everyone has a valid view and all peers are categorized as “friends”.  In the classroom, we can implement this new community with discussions, small group activities, and other interactions with peers.  Because students are in basically constant contact, it seems counterintuitive to try to isolate them for a large chunk of the day.
            The “messing around” aspect of new literacy is where a little bit more classroom instruction comes into play.  As the quote above shows, there are various benefits of the messing around stage that translate directly into the classroom.  Giving creative assignments such as photo-essays, podcasts, and video production allow students a chance for “unique opportunities for expression” (Hicks, 65).  If a student is individually interested in the topic or the means of presentation of the topic, they are more likely to have continued interest.
            “Geeking out” provides so many benefits—interaction with others, self-taught learning.  Having one project a semester when a student can choose any medium to present on a book or topic would tap into that geeking out side. 
            All in all, these three kinds of interactions with technology are ones that I have experienced myself and would love to have had implemented more in my classroom.  Although the Digital Writing Workshop provides many examples of lesson plans and ideas, I’m excited to get to a more topic specific version of these lesson plans.

As I publish this, I see that I've forgotten to examine the ideas presented in the readings as seen in my classroom at Clarke Central.  On a daily basis, my MT allows the advanced students to interact with one another in small groups, the on-level class as a large group.  Although he uses youtube clips every once in a while and assigns students drawing assignments, I haven't seen much evidence of him attempting a new literacy education.  I will continue to critically observe though, and see if I've missed anything after reading these pieces.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

New Media, New Rules


I would like to start off this post by saying that I love Ken Robinson.  His TED Talk is my favorite of all time.  Of. All. Time. Here’s a link: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

            If you took the time to actually watch this twenty-minute video or if you’ve seen it already, you’re likely to infer that I’m all about creative lesson plans.  I have always believed in using technology in the classroom, but I’ve never experienced a teacher who’s done it correctly.  Most teachers were more like Carol from Bailey’s article when she was first starting out with a multimodal curriculum.  Teachers would use a multimodal curriculum as an addendum to a traditional curriculum.  These teachers were always easily my favorites, but if I had a teacher who implemented an entirely multimodal curriculum, I don’t think I would be able to contain my enthusiasm about school.  These articles have therefore already changed my view on multimodal education.  I always thought that what my teachers were doing was the beginning and the end of using technology in the classroom, but if I can become an effective enough educator to use a multimodal model at all times, I’ll not only be adding to a basic curriculum, but changing it into a new, better (in my opinion) media one.
            As mentioned in the video on Henry Jenkins’s post and in Bailey’s post, “students engage in far more sophisticated literacy practices outside of schools than inside”.  I think this is one of the most important statements from the articles.  Just because students don’t want to learn in school doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn in other areas of life.  In fact, they are learning in other areas.  That’s why it’s our job as teachers to make learning interesting for these modern-day readers.
            In the same stream, it is touched upon in the Jenkins interview that in today’s world, writers of media are expected to be not renaissance men, but experts in one or a few areas with everyone contributing to a common, shared knowledge.  This basis is supported in the Herrington and Moran piece when they talk about using blogs as an alternate form of writing.  This method seems a sustainable way to modify a classic essay, as it allows for interaction with others.  If we are going to teach a multimodal curriculum as a social curriculum, we must allow students to interact with varying viewpoints and opinions.  If each student believes in the power of their knowledge, they will gain confidence in their knowledge. 
            One issue that I grappled most with was the connection that students have to text.  We’ve talked about the Common Core standards limiting the amount of self to text reflection.  Although I understand that this does not mean the end of material students can connect to, I think it’s important to analyze this standard within the confines of a multimodal curriculum.  It can’t be all about an individual student’s connections to a certain song and why that is important to them, they must be able to draw important criticisms from the music, as stated in Bailey.  Obviously, higher forms of learning need that support from the text, but how do different texts affect the strength of the evidence? How do I get students to draw support from movies, television shows, and magazines when I’ve never had this experience myself and how do students keep their connections with such texts out of the conversation?


Thursday, August 16, 2012

I Am From

I am from books, books, rows of books
(new but dusty,
smelling of must).
I am from my dad's rock-hounding spoils
    amethyst
    quartz
    agate,
The smell of polishing dust,
I am from the tree house
   and my mother's daffodils
   which seemed so good for picking
   but which earned me a spanking.
I am from the paper-trunk tree, its layers never ending.
I am from "friends come and go, but family lasts forever"
I am from "tell your brother you're sorry" and "let's all calm down".
I am from Anthony and Anne,
   tales of grandma from when mom was young.
I am from her lasagna and real spaghetti sauce.
I am from Miriam's lily paintings and the Lennox pattern kilt.
I am from precious memories--
   rings and pictures stored in a green, Italian music box
   playing "Come Back to Sicily".

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLL


Okay, sorry that I may or may not be the corniest person ever, but any time I hear or see the word goal, I think of soccer announcers— hence the title of this post. But this is a serious topic so I digress.
When I first set out to begin my career in the English Education program (a feat decided upon my freshman year), I had vague realizations of my aspirations. I wasn't sure exactly what kind of teacher I wanted to be, only that I wanted to be a good one.  If I'm being honest, I still don't know exactly what kind of teacher I'd like to be, but I have a starting point in this student teaching experience.  I guess, then, that is my ultimate goal—to find out what kind of teacher I would like to be.  To find out how strict or lax to be, how traditional or innovative (not one or the other, but where on the scale).
I have so many other goals, however, essential to my end goal.  For instance, my initial goal is to find out how to interact with students in this new environment.  I’m used to working with different types of learners after three semesters of tutoring at Classic City High School, but the dynamic of a classroom is completely different.  I feel awkward and out of place in the classroom so far, some of this perhaps due to my awkward relationship with my mentor teacher.  I don’t know my place in the classroom and need to have a conversation with my mentor teacher about that.  I’m not sure how much I should discipline the students or why he’s not, but I hope to get clarification on this subject.  In order to actively interact with the students, my very first goal was to learn every name of every student in my classes and I have done just that.  Hopefully I’m on my way to becoming a confident teacher!  In an ideal world, I would be comfortable in front of a full class by the end of this semester and most definitely by the end of my student teaching experience.
The topic of student teaching next semester brings me to my next goal—to learn how to properly write a lesson plan and how to prepare worthwhile lessons.  Again, many goals fit into this one.  How do I benefit different types of learners? How do I make sure the content is not too difficult or easy for students in the same classroom?  How do I best teach writing to different learners? How do I best teach reading to different learners?  I must learn to teach to different learning styles.  I must learn to scaffold and differentiate.  I must be able to tailor this knowledge to benefit my lesson plans.  I believe this goal encompasses several important classroom components, which is why it itself is important.  However, at this point, I don’t even know where to start when writing a lesson plan.  My mentor teacher calls his lesson plans “filling in boxes” and what he writes is rarely what we do.  This flexibility and ability to change lesson plans based on the needs of the students is certainly beneficial, but I need to learn the rules before I can break them.  Therefore, I wish to write effective lesson plans.
I hope these classes will work, as stated, as cohesive units.  I believe all of the courses are important to becoming the best teacher I can be, which is, after all, my true goal.