Reflection

What strategies have you learned? I have learned how to use literature circles in the classroom, making learning personal, engaging students, and using different ways of grouping. Literature circles are NOT groups of students who fill out a worksheet while reading and a literature circle is NOT  a repetitive, pointless activity. Literature circles are meant to be student-centered, intermixed (including a variety of students per group), and engaging. One thing that I think of when I hear literature circles is that it's OK for our students to "venture" away from role sheets, assigned questions, etc. as long as it somehow pertains to the content that the class is studying. More meaningful, effective discussion can arise from this. Also, making learning personal opens the door for students to connect to topics, characters, and issues more so than not including or challenging them to connect personally. I keep thinking back to when I taught the Holocaust section earlier this semester. It may be challenging for us to get our students to get to the point where they are able to connect emotionally/personally to topics, and then to share their feelings, but we should press forward, and always ask them what their thoughts, feelings, etc. are because it shows them that everyone has a voice. And, if there are quiet or silent students in your classroom, challenge them by asking why they are quiet or silent, why they don't like something. These questions apply to topics that are "lighter" than the Holocaust, but no less important to ask. Obviously, asking how students relate to topics, characters, and issues creates an engaging atmosphere. Emphasizing student voice and choice does this as well. Ask you students what types of projects they would like to do. Challenge them to use certain media and technology (video, audio, Prezi, etc) that you may not be as familiar with--don't limit your students just because you are limited--allows them to be creative and perhaps work with a media that they are comfortable with or one that they may want to explore for the first time. Why not? Creativity and choice are two powerful words that could make a huge difference in the attitude and ultimately the outcome of how and what your students will learn while they are in your class... Different ways of grouping is an easy and effective way to manage your class. If you use pictures, names, words, colors, random questions, etc. to group students, it can provide for easy transitions, and uncomplicated management within your room. Plus, it's fun and not as boring as always counting off one by one. 


 What have you come to understand about both preparing and delivering engaging and rigorous content to your students? It's hard. It's fun. It takes a lot of time. It's rewarding. You put all this time into making sure you accommodated for a wide variety of learners. You have to make sure you have good transitions between activities. You have to make sure you have good effective activities that fit together and pertain to an essential question or a theme that you are presenting to the class. But it is so fun. I loved putting together my lesson about the Holocaust and apathy and I am having fun with my Shakespeare group. Both were/are challenging and it's not "fun" all the time, but it's fun all the time in the sense that I'm learning so much during the processes.... It's also so rewarding. You put all this time and energy into the final product, so it's rewarding to have it finished and put together. It's rewarding to see how a lesson goes, especially if you have no idea what to expect or how your students will react. I didn't really think that I accomplished as much as I wanted to when I did my lesson, but it's still rewarding to be able to say, "OK, I think this part was good, but how can I make it great? Maybe I could have done this better..." I think that it is so hard, fun, time consuming, and so worth everything that is put into preparing and delivering engaging and rigorous content to students.  


 What has your performance and the performance of others in the class taught you? Both have taught me that you're not going to succeed in meeting all of your expectations all the time. BUT, you still need to move forward and ask yourselves those questions that I stated in the previous question. I've also learned that you need to have a coherent theme, idea, essential question, or something to tie together what you do in the classroom. If you assign activities or assignments that don't seem to go together, then your students may get confused. Along with this, you need to let your students know why you're assigning what you are. I feel that if you are unable to justify what you're doing in the classroom, then why do it? What's the point? It's awful when this happens--you get apathy. Your students may shut down, becoming uninterested and just not care about anything that you present in this manner, OR they may still do the activities/ assignments, but then what are they learning in the process? 


 What are your current philosophies and beliefs about what it means to teach literature specifically? Creating an avenue for my students to connect to literature, become engaged, and produce life long readers--readers who want to read on their own. Teaching literature doesn't have to be teaching from a huge anthology, front to back in chronological order. It shouldn't be just this. It should produce life long readers through emphasizing creativity and student voice and choice. It should far surpass the classroom,.   

Where are you as a teacher of English today? I am in the process of learning and developing who exactly I want to be as a teacher. I know how I want to teach and what types of things I want to accomplish, but I am still learning and developing this. I think I always will be. The point where I am right now is learning strategies and developing my thinking from a teacher's perspective, which will hopefully never stop. I think that I will always be developing new strategies and ways of engaging students.