November 11

How can I help students write varied texts effectively for a wide variety of audiences and purposes?

By allowing students multiple opportunities to practice writing for a variety of audiences and purposes, educators are better preparing them for a range of real-world writing.  Milner asserts that the teacher’s role is to “not only set up the conditions for writing but respond through minilessons, conferences, and whole-class meetings.  The emotional tone of all of these encounters is encouraging, facilitating, and guiding” (Milner 356).   Arguably, teachers are also active participants in the student writing process.  By earnestly responding to student writing, the teachers plays the role of expert, while the student takes on the role of apprentice.

Authentic writing is the obvious way to engage students in writing to different audiences with different purposes.  However, I am moreso a fan of writing workshops.  I have seen them in action and found them absolutely brilliant!  From teachers reconstructing their classrooms into artist studios to students feeling a much greater sense of independence and ownership, writing workshops are probably the most engaging and impressionable experiences of the two (358).

November 9

How can I help students develop their ability to use and appreciate language?

How knowledge is transmitted from teacher to student plays a significant part in whether or not students will find 1. an initial interest in language 2. a lasting appreciation for language.  From kernal lectures to whole-class discussions, Milner makes it clear in this chapter that how we teach language is essential in helping students develop their speaking and writing abilities.  Like with anything we teach, educators must consider the developmental level of students as well as the group dynamics of the class before jumping in.

Students love to talk.  When I was a high school student I regularly communicated within the realm of my family and friends.  I enjoyed chatting away about pop culture, politics, relationships, and the in’s and out’s of my life with these people.  Students have no problem utilizing language in the household, workplace, and other social arenas, but when it comes to the classroom, why don’t students speak up?

Students want to talk about things that matter to them.  Great, now tie in what matters to them with what you want to matter to them.  If we capitalize on our students’ inherent need to chit chat in a constructive way and a more inviting way, we are opening up doors that can eventually lead to higher-order talk and writing as well as deeper, and more diverse discussion (Milner 20).   

November 4

My thoughts on…Reading Poetry

Poetry can be tough.  “If fact, our students often bring strong biases to poems, and those biases are often more negative than positive.  So we begin most classroom poetry encounters with many student resistances” (Milner 175).  This negative response from students is a reflection of what?  It might be their dislike of understanding meter and iambic pentameter.  It might be their confusion in decoding implicit messages and abstract symbols.  Or maybe, it’s just with the way we present and teach poetry.

Poetry is an art, but we treat it almost like a science.  Understanding all the complexities in what makes a poem is important, but like the chapter title suggests, we should be celebrating poetry first and foremost.  We shouldn’t be scaring our students with the technical aspects of constructing a poem when first embarking on a Poetry Unit.  We should be inviting them, almost appealing to them on why they should want to read poetry in the first  place.  As human beings, emotion is something that we all share and can all relate to on a basic level at least.  By capitalizing on the emotional appeal of a poem, we need to engage this basic human interest in order to inspire students to develop an appreciation for reading poetry in the first place.

November 2

My thoughts on…Responding to literature and drama

Milner’s section on The Death of Literature was very entertaining, although it would not be the first time I’ve heard an explanation for why print will be almost obsolete in the near future.  It is a sad truth for most English teachers to face, but I look at the transition from print to electronic as more so an eventual evolutionary change within our own field. 

Even though print is dying, it does not mean we can not help students recognize “the life of literature” as a “‘way of talking about important and difficult aspects of our universal experience’” (Milner 120).  This is very apparent in dramatic works, where emotions and actions can be seen, rather than just read aloud.  As a student, I always enjoyed reading plays, especially if the teacher gave us an opportunity to read and act out parts.  This simple extra step allowed me to carry out a more intimate reading of the play, and consequently discover a new-found appreciation for it.

October 28

My continued thoughts on…
How can I help students improve their ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze a wide variety of texts for personal literary, informational, and critical purposes?

According to Beers, to know your vocabularly means you have knowledge that extends beyond simply knowing the definition of a word.  However, in my high school experience, there were many moments where I felt teachers did just that.  At least one question on my pop quiz would ask me to define a vocabulary word. These quizzes did not only occur in my English classroom, but in my Science and History classes too.  Vocabulary, in my mind, was simply regurgitating the definition of a word, but not neccessarily its meaning or context.

In the reference guide given on Vocabulary Research, two truths stuck out to me the most. 
1. Repeated exposures to words in meaningful contexts improves comprehension
2. Teaching word parts improves recall and understanding (Beers 89-90)

I believe the first point relates specifically to what Dr. Smith spoke about in class regarding speed and accuracy.  During a speed-reading summer course I took in high school, students were given short chunks of material, but asked to read it several times before moving on to the next chunk.  In my naive head, re-reading a text over and over again defeated the purpose of speed.  It was not until after I had mastered “re-reading” did I start to pick up patterns and words more easily without re-reading them.

The second point also is significant because I believe by breaking a word down, you are introducing context, etomology, and meaning.  By translating the meaning behind a words prefix, suffix, and root, students will find an appreciation for WHY that word means what it means.  This makes it easier to decode more challenging and unknown words if they share a common prefix or suffix with a word they do recognize.

October 26

How can I help students improve their ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze a wide variety of texts for personal literary, informational, and critical purposes?

In order to assist our students in improving their literary abilities, Milner suggests we first unlock texts.  Literature is important, but the reality is that most people today receive their information through television, radio, internet, or other technological forms of media.  The high school literary canon does not necessarily a WOW students, but we can try to find a way to unlock these texts and make reading them much more accessible and enjoyable. 

For struggling readers a clear purpose for reading should be made first and foremost.   We can do this by applying multiple instructional/reading strategies like Words Walls, Rereading, and Pointed Reading (Milner 220).  Like with most things, confidence is key.  If we can give students the tools to read unordinary words and challenging texts with a sense of confidence, we are closer to motivating them to read critically and by choice.

Bat Assignment

Assignment: Bat Poem

The student will write a poem that indicates the reasons why he or she will:

1. Defend the bat.  Describe why bats are often misunderstood and are not an evil species.  
OR
2. Accuse the bat.  Describe why bats are rightfully portrayed as evil and frightening creatures. 

The student will incorporate what he or she gained from online research about superstitions and different cultural perspectives about bats.

Comments on SOL First Revision

There are many new additions included in the first revision of the curriculum framework for Grade 9 that I appreciate.  Reading Standards 9.2 and 9.3 strike me as the most substantial in guiding how we teach students the importance of word origins, sentence structures, and the dynamic relationship between the two. 

I particularly like the revised basic principles of media literacy and the emphasis on word connotation and denotation.  Standard 9.5 recognizes the importance in discerning fact from opinion, which is critical in understanding a non-fiction text.  I am almost dumbfounded to find out that this characteristic was not included in last year’s standards.

Regarding the Writing Standards, there were two new characteristics that I especially value.  9.6 offers new emphasis on the formulating of a thesis statement, which is necessary to master at the beginning of high school.  Without this skill, students will suffer through writing and continue to produce pieces that are incongruent with the main focus.  9.7 offers more writing guidance in terms of voice.  Students often lose conviction when they write their persuasive essays in passive voice, or more pathos-centered writing in active voice.  To clarify the distiction between the two voices is vital.  I believe these two new additions will be very helpful in shaping students into more effective writers.

I would like to see more interdisciplinary connections made in the next revision, but I applaud the broadened understanding of Media Literacy; I believe this will engage student interests the most and in turn, hopefully prompt interdisciplinary dialogue.

My only remaining questions are:

Why is dramatic presentation eliminated from Communication Standard 9.1?  Regardless, I am happy to see that group diversity and cooperation is further reinforced within this standard.

Why was defining plagerism and recognizing its consequences removed from the Essential Understanding section of Research Standard 9.8?

October 21

WHAT do we need to know about designing units as opposed to lessons?

Designing a lesson is similar to designing a unit, but not as extensive.  Lessons typically require teachers to prepare learning goals and activities, along with their supporting materials.  When a teacher plans a lesson, the question of how learning will take place must be answered.  Teaching styles, IEP accommodations, and learning differintiation must be taken into consideration at this time. 

 Units encompass multiple lessons that are based around the same essential questions, knowledge, understanding, and skills.  The goals of the unit should lead what we teach during the lesson within the unit.  Backward design is a helpful way to keep our eye on the main goals, rather than on the creative, and sometimes more insignificant extremities of the lesson.  The considerations we make during lesson planning should be similar to unit planning, but are not the same.

October 19

IN what ways do our goals affect instructional design?

Goals are critical in guiding instruction.  A teacher’s instructional design should be based around long term objectives, as well as short term goals. OUR GOALS as teachers should be positive, attainable, and measurable; similar to objectives.  Goals are the starting points, but follow-up questions must be asked in order to shape our instruction to these goals accordingly.  What will my students learn?  What must I equip them with in order to learn this?  Why is this material important to shaping what they will learn after this?…