ELA Methods I

Hi Sean, I would like to say, first of all, thank you for a great quarter. Not only in the classroom, but helping me figure out my trajectory. I tend to get a bit excited and not think things through and you helped me iron things out which I really appreciate. Second, thank you for teaching a class that I initially dreaded but ended up really enjoying. Not only did I meet more awesome people in the same program that I was in, but I also gained lots of great resources and learned the most about teaching that I have the past four years. It’s one thing to take Dr. Potter’s Intro to Ed class, it’s another to take a  look as to what we as teachers need  to teach and apply that to our students with different methods. The most important thing I learned was that we aren’t going to be perfect our first year teaching. We’re going to mess up and need to self-correct, but there are so many colleagues and guided texts that are there to help us do that self-correcting that we’ll figure it ...

1. “Percy Jackson and The Olympians” This is the most important series I’ve ever read, to this day. I love the message that Riordan portrays with having Percy being the son of a single mom, having ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia, and having a hard time in school. The different characters show that no matter your background you can make something of yourself. And just because you have a learning disorder doesn’t mean you can’t be the smartest kid in the room— all while teaching you about Greek and Roman mythology, as well as Egyptian and Norse mythology in Rick Riordan’s other series.  It’s great for students to read of characters that they can share some kind of similarity with them and connect more on a personal level than typical literature characters. 2. “The Help” The Help is a really important text, not just because I could read it a million times and not get bored of it, but because it gives a (fictional) look into what was happening at the height of the civil rights mo...

1. First Essay (that I could find) vs. the latest The earliest essay that I could find that I wrote in college was in Dr. Green’s Intro to Fiction class my 2nd year at Eastern. I did running start in high school and have no access to those assignments, but even then they were science based so I hadn’t been able to stretch my writing muscles until finally getting into his classroom, and it was rough. Not only did I have loads of grammatical and spelling errors, but even organization and concepts that I wrote about made no sense. If it was an essay that a student had given me as an assignment, I wouldn’t  have graded it as nicely as Green did.Compared to now, as I’ve gone through 2 years of upper level English courses and have really refined my skills as a writer (I think). In the beginning, I had an average grade of 75 on my essays in any of my English classes, versus now it’s between 85 and 90. My latest essay was the most complicated for me to write. It had nothing to do with a...

1.  Romeo and Juliet Text to Movie As my last presentation showed, I still very much remember this movie. this was the weirdest movie I had ever watched in school, and I think that’s why I remember not only the plot of Romeo and Juliet, but even some lines from the play as well. I think it’s so important to have films to show hard to understand plays (especially Shakespeare) and this was the first movie that I actually needed to watch in order to really and truly understand what we read in class, and i know there are a lot of students who feel the same way. 2. Schoolhouse Rock I still have these songs stuck in my head over a decade later. Not only did they have a ruin cartoon and catchy songs, but you actually learned  something while having fun in the classroom. “Shot Heard Around the World”, “I’m Just a Bill”, and “Conjunction Junction” are still my three favorites from School House Rock, and could still tell you frame by frame the entire video that went along with the...

Andrew Jackson Political Cartoon Presentation (9th Grade)  My first major presentation that I had to do was freshman year in front of both my English and History classes for a joint grade. I was able to get away with small presentations earlier in my school career but this was the biggest (so far). I was terrified and stuttered through my whole presentation, but made it to the end and actually learned something about presenting and that I’m not as terrible as I thought. This was a turning point in terms of becoming more confident in front of a crowd and conquering my fear of public speaking because of the kind and encouraging words of my teachers who offered advice on how to improve my skills.  2.  WCTSMA Presentation My Andrew Jackson presentation led me to being able to get on a stage in front of 300+ people and present a research-based PowerPoint on Spondylolthesis. It was a group project, but I had the biggest number of slides and speaking points. I struggl...

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OZzDLGaffny7Yn8y8QxHUrXnmS5odlRdRGpB0Ooj7sM Description: This article talks about how using feature films to help teach a certain set of literature helps increase understanding and the want/need to discuss similarities and differences between the different media’s. It not only talks about movies, but tv adaptions, plays, and radio programs. Not only does this article shed insight behind the reasons as to why to include different forms o media into the classroom, but also provides 3 other references to work with that provide materials and lesson plans from companies that are trying to encourage more films in English classes. Most lesson plans tend to avoid movie days except for maybe one or two a year. They’re time consuming and some teachers find them unhelpful or even harmful when it comes to understanding the text, when the opposite is actually more true. How to apply to the classroom: The article offers a few options, one being to bri...

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hvNcf0sMAw8OMLgcJJ88N19BjvGMXYERMIcF0t20GGM

I wanted to examine the different language CCSS between 6th grade and 12th grade to see how far a student would come from learning the supposed basics of secondary English ed language requirements, to what allows them to graduate. Looking at 6th grade, it’s pretty basic and they should have a good foundation just from, you know, being alive for a little over a decade. Using proper pronouns, intensive pronouns (myself, ourselves), and using punctuation in their writing and proper conventions of standard English, such as spelling correctly. These are traits that teachers can typically expect their students to already be at, but it’s the deeper stuff that we have to focus on, or if some students aren’t at the level, we have to work on to catch them up or go over it all again so that the students that are slightly behind don’t feel like their so behind it’d be impossible to catch up. THe more intense standards look really interesting to teach and i didn’t realize that they were a common co...

What is Brazen? Brazen  by Penelope Bagieu, is a collection of short biographies encompassing the lives of powerful women and their careers, as well as their fight against social injustice and fight for social change. This book highlights powerful women who aren’t inherently famous or known for their academic or sociopolitical activism, and how each woman had a hand in changing the world for the better-whether it be by stopping coastal erosion in Montauk, Long Island, or being the first openly transitioned woman in America, to being a spy during WWII against the Nazi’s.  Why did I choose this text? I chose this text because it offers a different perspective on history and those that influence it. In graphic novel form, it provides a really cool way to learn about such an interesting facet of world history and the whistle blower and “world-saving” effects that these women had throughout history- from the first woman OBGYN in Ancient Greece, to the firs...

I don’t have much experience with Graphic Novels in a Secondary Education setting, I think the closest I got was analyzing a political cartoon in middle school and that was it. In college though, I’ve experienced a few graphic novels and I, as a student, find them confusing. It’s one thing to be able to make up your own mind about characters and how they look and act, but it’s another to read one thing and get a completely different idea of how the character responds visually in the text. But, despite my inability to understand graphic novels, I can see how graphic novels can help students process and understand a text better. I could also see graphic novels being introduced to middle schoolers to help develop their understanding of symbolism and connecting the text to real world concepts and ideas with the help of identifying these with pictures provided by the author and illustrator. Graphic novels can also introduce a complicated topic, like in  “American Born Chinese” by Gene L...

I personally struggle with active listening in conversations and classroom settings that do not have a visual presentation to follow along with. I don’t think there would ever be a time in my classroom that I wouldn’t have some kind of visual aid for not only my students, but for myself as well to follow along with. Using visual or auditory aids, like the book says, “ students like to listen to stories, poetry, and radio dramas and theater. Listening to literature can also be a great pleasure”, would be a great way to not only help students with getting better at active listening, but also would enrich curriculum and diversify lessons. With 16.2 , “we need to realize that some of the listeners and speakers we are communicating with may face challenges in understanding the nuances of what we are saying”- being able to be a clear and concise speaker is not important just for me as a teacher, but as a student that will eventually move on from your classroom and into others, and that the a...

One aspect of this paper that I really enjoyed and connected with was on pages 23, 24, and 25- the “Learning Audit” and “What would it take to engage me (as a skeptical, resistant, Hostile Learner) In Discussion?”, and “Common Claims for Discussion. I related to the feelings and questions that come with being a skeptical and hesitant learner. Using these tools not only helps me, as a potential teacher,  realize what my students may be feeling and be reluctant to join discussions because of negative and hostile feelings towards the topic and the act itself. Using the “Learning Audit” questions can help to not only ground your lesson and make sure to keep your students on track, but also to really get a honest response from your students and recap where the discussion previously was left at. The “What would it take to engage me in discussion” form is also a great learning probe that teachers could use for their students in order to see if discussion based lessons is what works best f...

While reviewing the PESB requirements for English teachers, a few topics seemed worrisome to me. Mostly the topics that I’ve struggled with since I first started school and others that I just don’t currently have even the tiniest bit of knowledge about. The major one is number 6.0- “Speaking and Listening Communications” is a real tough point mostly because I have an auditory processing problem due to my learning disability, and my learning disability also makes it so that I attempt to talk as fast as my brain is moving and move through material too quickly or it all comes out incoherent. The reason I worry about this is because how can I teach kids about speech  and listening when I’ve struggled with it my whole life and still work to get better at listening and slowing down? Obviously, it’s something that’s being worked on but to make it a requirement puts a bit more pressure on me to really get it all under control, and maybe the tools that I end up learning to pass onto my stud...