Readicide - Teaching Ad Lit Spring 2016

Read-i-cide: noun, the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools. 

I have always enjoyed reading. I was a precocious kid, and a voracious reader. My sister would often get mad because I would ignore her requests to play pretend, content with my insular world of fantasy and YA Lit. I used to read upwards of 50 or 60 books a year, novels, novellas, comics- anything I could reasonably get my hands on. I was homeschooled until high school, and as I spent my days being forced to read at the much slower pace of my peers, I let my pleasure reading fall to the wayside. I became uninterested in the laborious task of keeping to a limit of so many pages per day, and that slipped over into the books I had once enjoyed. As my reading slacked off I replaced my time with other activities, and I didn't even notice. It's only recently that I've begun to get back into it as something pleasurable and not limited to reading for classes. 

"I have done many difficult things in my life. I have run a marathon. I have eaten escargot to impress a date. I have sat in the middle seat of a cross-country flight, wedged between a snorer and a person in desperate need of Gas-X. Worse, I have sat through Sex and the City. But all of these pale in comparison to the hardest thing I have ever done: stand in front of thirty-seven teenagers with the expressed purpose of teaching Hamlet." (Gallagher 76)

The first time I told someone I wanted to teach high schoolers their exact response was: "That's so difficult, teenagers are awful." Which, point. But. Is it not the mark of a person with good character to approach what is difficult with the openness and honesty it is due? Teaching without losing sight of our goals-- to make students into good citizens, to foster a love for reading that creates life long readers, to make our students interested in and exited about the world around them-- is the most difficult task we have set before us. That does not mean we should balk from it, or cover our ears with our hands and ignore the various nuances that come inherent in it. We need to change our stance, find what interest our readers, and deliver the material to them how they need it delivered.

"When I say thirty-seven teenagers, what I really mean is thirty-seven hormonal prehumans, who generally hate to read, who would rather talk about the game on Friday night, who have decided that since there is only a month to go before graduation that it’s time to gear down, and who have decided it is their mission on this planet to complain anytime I suggest they read anything academic.
Despite all this, teenagers, like all people, are willing to work hard when they recognize that their efforts will bring them something valuable. Thus, a mistake teachers make when approaching difficult text is that they don’t spend time teaching students the value that can come from serious reading." (Gallagher 76)

We must tailor our instruction so that students see the value in it, as it applies to their life. If we can find the sweet spot of instruction we can reach our goals with students, and create the type of people we need in the world. This is our duty as teachers. This is our highest goal. 

Blog #10: Final Demo Reflection

At the beginning of the year I suffered from delusions of grandeur and arrogance. I was going to be the best teacher in our class. I had the most to offer creatively, I was the best writer, I could connect with students better, I was this and that and all of it spelled out an easy ride to the top of what I imagined to be a pretty tough totem pole. The competition was fierce, but even with that I clearly had it in the bag. 

My mind changed pretty quickly when we got to the first round of demos. My peers were actually as good if not better than me in most cases at planning lessons and coming up with ideas and then executing those plans. I wasn't the best writer, not even close, and I wasn't the only person capable of connecting to teenagers. I was comfortably middle of the pack, and intensely uncomfortable with that. I wanted to stand out and impress everyone. This was my area to shine. And yet, I was barely even glimmering. I got discouraged. I let things drop. I started pushing my work back, and waiting until the last minute to get anything done, and as we watched successful demo after demo my motivation dropped and my anxiety ratcheted up. I was intensely proud of my peers, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't shake the sense that I was failing in comparison. The end times were upon me and I was not at all prepared. It seems silly and dramatic to think that this is why I was so nervous leading up to the demo. But I became convinced that failure was inevitable.

 When I got my topic one of the strategies in Noden's chapter was to have students solve a murder. To illustrate how this is supposed to work, Noden wrote a murder mystery. Except it wasn't actually a story, it was just a listing of clues. The students were supposed to arrange the clues into a paragraph. It seemed simple enough. I thought I could make it more exciting and actually write my own murder mystery to have the students read aloud in class. I'd be teaching from a whole text, not just discombobulated sentences then. It seemed smart and creative and fun. All things I want to be as a teacher. For some reason not a single part of me thought that might be too much work. Which, as someone who spends a lot of time pushing off schoolwork until the last possible second, really should have been my first concern.

 I lack foresight. I get caught up in minor details and then lose sight of the big picture, or I forget that the big picture needs actual details to support it. I spent, all told, about ten hours of time just writing/editing/beating my head against a wall on this lesson, and who knows how many more hours just worrying about all the different things that could go wrong. One of the things that especially stressed me out was that I couldn't figure out how to transition from reading the fake article to talking about paragraph structure. I got so fixated on the transition. on finding the right words that would magically take the classroom from A to B, that I forgot to plan anything to be at B. B just was. I ignored this, finished my lesson plan, and called it a day. I had the big idea done, my fake magazine article created and I figured the rest would fill itself in. A fit of inspiration would take me and I would give the best lecture about paragraph structure that anyone had ever seen this side of the PASSHE system. Fate and bravado would protect me and carry me through.

Fate and bravado did not protect me, Fate and bravado suck. Instead I tripped up exactly where I knew I would. That wriggly transition threw me off. I modeled the paragraph, sure, but not in the way I wanted to. I started my paragraph with an "I believe" statement, unintentionally reinforcing the idea that thesis statements should begin like that. Not my kind of thesis. But I panicked, and I had to follow through. I had wanted to actually show students the sequence from Noden's book, with the proper terminology and everything, but I somehow completely forgot about all of that. I didn't actually instruct anything. I just led a weird, rambling sort of discussion about 'controlling ideas' and support sentences. I had meant to call on students who don't normally participate, but instead I kept looking to Spencer to save me from myself. It was bad. I had way more time than I though I would, and nothing left to fill it with. The assignment sheet was meant to be their homework, but because I had so much time left I just made it a part of class. and even then we still had extra time left over. I honestly expected reading the fake article to take longer.

Time management is not a skill I've ever been good with. I'm going to have to change that.

It wasn't all awful, and the idea is still really cool and creative. I did alright, and I really liked how I started class, I just know it could have been so much better. I think ultimately that's what bothers me the most. I really disappointed myself with this demo. 

Blog #9 -Demo Reflection Numbero Dos

For our second demonstration, Sarah and I were assigned the topic of Pronouns. We had some initial difficulty narrowing down our topic to something teachable, primarily because pronouns was such a broad topic to us. We eventually looked at the book (like we were supposed to from the beginning) and narrowed our lesson down to a basic overview of pronouns, followed by an introduction to vague and clear pronouns usage with a focus on writing.

If I had a chance to redo that lesson I would practice it a little more before hand. Sarah and I had a few mishaps along the way, mainly involving talking over one another and both trying to teach the same part.  I would have either planned the lesson for a longer time period, or cut out something just because I felt quite rushed at some parts, and I'm afraid that transferred over to the students as well.

Most everyone gave us positive feedback, which was nice to hear, but we did get a few notes about being one-sided, which upon reflection, we did favor the side of the classroom we normally converse with as students. I regret that, and would like to have more equal representation in my classroom.

Blog #7: Mechanically Inclined

I think that so many people are afraid of teaching grammar because its a subject that you often have to approach backwards. By the time we, as high school teachers, will be coaching students in the concepts of grammar they will already have their own ideas fully formed about what is and is not correct in a grammatical sense. Much of our challenge as teachers then is not just imparting new knowledge, but also to get rid of the 'bad' knowledge that our students bring to our classrooms.  In this way I think I have learned more about English Grammar in many of my German classes than I ever did in my English ones.

What I mean when I say that is that frequently, in German class we would discuss the basic grammar of German. The easiest way for our teacher to teach us German grammar was to relate it to English grammar. Herr Unruh taught us grammar backwards. Thanks to this approach, it was much easier for me to understand grammar.

So, I'm not really scared to teach grammar. I just want to be able to teach it in a creative and engaging, and yes, backwards sort of way.

Anderson's vision is essentially to practice, practice, practice, provided that the practice is text based and meaningful. No busy work. he wants learning grammar to feel like play. His vision is creative and effective and seems to me a little bit "pie in the sky". I didn't agree with his comparison of marking errors to marking a child's artwork. For one thing, I remember art class in high school, and I definitely had my artwork "marked up" so to say. For another, if I don't mark a student's errors I can't imagine how they will know it's wrong. That frustrates me in my own assignments, when I get a grade without feedback, I need to know what the issue was or I can't hope to fix it.

Even with that I did feel like Anderson made several good points. I specifically liked his point about "correct-alls" that come form the student's own writing. I think that might be more helpful than simply not marking errors.

Blog #6: Demo Reflection

When we began the planning process for our teaching demos, neither Mackenzie nor I had a very clear idea of what exactly we wanted to do. We'd never taught a lesson before, and although we had an idea of what our topic was meant to be, we had no clue about how to make that into an actual lesson. And thus began a period of intense confusion as we tried to find a text that interested us and fit the topic of diversity. Luckily Mackenzie and I stumbled upon Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and an idea was born!

The comic became the central focus of our lesson and I think its what made our lesson a success.Nearly everyone mentioned how creative the lesson was and one of our peers felt it did a great job of engaging everyone! This was nice to read, especially considering that one of our main concerns was the full engagement of our students.

I think that the main concern our peers had was lack of authority, Apparently there were a few side-conversations going on during our lesson that our students thought we should have stopped. I either didn't notice or felt that stopping them would have drawn the focus away from the lesson. Apparently the focus was on these discussions though, so I think I would have been better served addressing them. For instance, during a part of the lesson where I was instructing two students were conversing while I was talking. At the time, I ignored it, but now I think I would have been better served by walking over and rapping my knuckles on their desk as I continued teaching. It would have re-engaged them in the lesson, without stopping my roll.

One of the better points that was shared with us via the peer-review sheets was that our class discussion was "incredible" according to one student. INCREDIBLE! I loved seeing that!

A little thing that also made me laugh was how divided the class was on my shoes. I got one student who said they were unprofessional, while another specifically mentioned them as being an awesome choice. It just made me laugh a little.

Overall I think our lesson demo went well and I think I definitely know what to work on for the ext one!

I loved working with Mackenzie, I know she's going to be a great teacher in the future. I can't wait to see all of us as teachers in the future actually, I know we're going to be excellent!

Blog #5: Lesson Planning

       Lesson planning is one of those things you know you'll eventually have to do as a teacher, but no one really looks forward to it. I am undeniably glad that I had Mackenzie to plan our first lesson with; without having that person to bounce ideas off of our lesson plan would have gone nowhere very fast. 

       My favorite aspect of lesson planning was definitely coming up with the activity. It was fun and exciting to be able to plan something fun and creative for the students and I liked being able to fit it into the scaffold. Even though it was difficult to arrange the project like this, it was a fun challenge. On the flip side, I though that writing out our rationale and filling in the student objective and teacher goals was our most difficult task. These parts often felt too obvious to really word properly and for others it just seemed like we were searching too much for what would 'give us the points' so to speak, rather than what the actual objectives or goals or rationale really was.

      I feel like this is the sort of skill that, once mastered, maintains a pretty steady difficulty level. Meaning, that once we completely understand how to write a lesson plan, whatever difficulty level it took for us to work through that mastered plan, writing future plans will continue to be that level of difficulty.Which is not something I'm looking forward to, honestly. But at the same time, having accepted that I feel better prepared to be a teacher and to teach effectively. Which is the ultimate goal as a teacher. 

Blog #4 Classroom Environment/Discipline

My ideal classroom would be set up the same way as my AP German classroom. When you first walked into that room you were greeted by colorful and humorous posters, which made it feel more welcoming and relaxing than my typical high school classroom. I want my future classroom to have this same aura. I would like to have the desks set up in small groups so that small group discussion can be efficient and so that kids can really bond with the peers at their tables and feel more comfortable sharing their ideas. I want my walls to be covered in humorous English themed posters, so that when their mind eventually wanders they won't be thinking about other subjects. I want an old fashioned chalk board at the front of the classroom and a white board in the back so that I can move from front to back and keep kids engaged and keep me from losing my mind standing still all day.

As for classroom discipline the most immediate experience that pops into my head occurred in my freshman year. We were in Biology and the topic of the day was evolution. Our teacher had started her lecture with a sort of general disclaimer that while you didn't have to agree with her she did have to teach it to you. The warning didn't sink in with one of the students. His dad was a pastor at a local church and this kid got very worked up about the creationism/evolution debate and essentially broke down in a faith crisis in the middle of class. He was very argumentative and confrontational and he kept asking questions she couldn't possibly answer before she yelled at him to leave the room if he had such a problem with it. He burst into tears in the middle of class and she sent him to the principal and made us spend the rest of class watching a video.

I feel like this wasn't very effective for a lot of reasons. Number one is that she let the situation escalate to the point of no return. The kid she had the altercation with was very well liked by everyone, so naturally we all took his side. This situation made us lose all respect for her and I remember that after that the rest of her class was a bit of a joke. Number two is that it made it nearly impossible for the kid to do well in her class after this. When you get in a screaming match with a teacher you can't go back to that teacher for help if you're having difficulty with a concept. Another reason it was ineffective is that it changed her relationship with the whole class, not just this one kid. I feel like if you, the teacher, are having trouble with a student it would be more effective to deal with it one on one, because that way what you say to that student only changes that one relationship. Her very public altercation made the rest of us begin to see her as just another adult looking to make our lives difficult, whereas before she'd been a fairly decent, if dry, teacher.


When it comes to classroom management, I think the most important take-away for me is to avoid public punitives. I remember when I was in high school that image was everything and I can imagine nothing more embarrassing than being yelled at by a teacher in front of everyone,  I think it would be helpful to be aware that sometimes kids have other issues in their lives that mya be affecting their performance in school, so taking the moment to talk to a kid after class, even if you have to write a note explaining their tardiness, could really make a difference.

The simple rules I would use would be something to the effect of Listen, Learn, Laugh. Essentially, if students listen to me, then they learn with me, and then they can laugh with me. I want my classroom to be fun, but we can only have fun if they listen when I talk and they respect me, just like I want to be able to respect them.