1-16-14

01.16.14

In-class prompt: Selecting a book

At one time or another, each of the following works of literature has been challenged or banned from a public school or library. What do you think is the basis of the banning of any of these books? Would you teach any of them in your classes? Why or why not? How would you rationalize using books from this list in a secondary ELA classroom? Can you see any of these books fitting into the overarching concepts and/or unit topics you identified previously?

Many of these books contain content that some may find inappropriate or disturbing. However, they are “classics” and usually have some historical content that should be taught. I would teach many of them in my classroom, but depending on the class level and maturity, I would have to choose carefully. “Fahrenheit 451” would easily fit into dystopian literature, but to be honest, I need to read more of these books to answer if I could incorporate any of them into my concepts.

1984 (George Orwell)	Native Son (Richard Wright)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)	Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)	Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)	The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)	The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)	The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)	The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)	The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)	Their Eyes Were Watching God (Z.N. Hurston)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)	To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

1-9-14

01.09.14

In-class (turned out-of-class) prompt: Envisioning contexts, choosing concepts, and identifying topics 

Imagine a community in which you’d like to teach.

– Characterize its people (e.g., values, careers, views of schooling).
– Describe the school (e.g., size, curriculum, English department, approach to grouping, mission).
– Select the grade level you’d be teaching & describe the students.
– Choose an overarching concept that would guide the curriculum for the grade level or course you’re envisioning.
– Identify a set of topics that could serve as the basis for instructional units within this overarching concept.

In an ideal world, I would love to teach in a place that is suburban or rural with a community that treasures learning and education. In that community, the members see teaching as a priority career since their children are going to make up the next generation and be responsible for the world. They see schooling/education as the first priority for their children in order for them to be successful. 

I would love to be in a school where each teacher was a part of a “team” in middle school. The school where I grew up would be an ideal size student body (approximately 750-1000 students; 5th-8th grade). I would teach 8th Language Arts–2 Honors and 2 Regular classes with 90 minute blocks (either every day or every other day). Our curriculum would be teacher-written (using each other’s materials, creating our own, or purchasing materials). In 8th grade, there would be 2-3 overall teams, so that there would be at least one other Language Arts teacher I could collaborate with to create curriculum. Our mission would be to improve our students’ reading and writing skills, as well as increase their love for reading on their own. 

Out-of-class prompt: Establishing self-selected goals

Each of you–whether you’re a practicing or prospective teacher–will have the opportunity to teach students in a local classroom this semester. Naturally, we all bring different strengths, attributes, and experiences to the table, so our goals for advancing our teaching practice and our professional learning are bound to vary. Thus, beyond the goals and objectives of the course, I encourage you to set your own goals for your time in the field. What specific goals are you setting for yourself this semester in terms of your teaching practice? (Note the word “specific” in the previous sentence; let’s move beyond generalities like “gain experience,” “improve every day,” and “survive.”)

 Ideally, I would love to have at least 2 weeks of lesson plans for all classes planned out in advance. Sometimes that is not possible when content is not written/provided, but now that I have found some fantastic and useful mini-lessons to use in that “lull.”

Also, I would like to be able to observe other practicing teachers at my school and see how their students respond to their methods. Maybe then, I can see how to adapt or change my method of teaching for the better.