Parks+Reflective+Essay

Dear Reader,

As I come to the end of the my undergraduate courses and prepare to embark on my become start my experience as a student teacher for ninth grade language arts and eleventh grade literature at Saline High School, I feel as though it is necessary for me to define my approach to teaching English to secondary students. As a potential English Language Arts teacher, I want my future students to be engaged and interested in what they are learning. To me, this means providing my students with choices, in both their reading and their writing. When students are able to make choices in the classroom, they feel as though they are invested in their own leaning and, as a result, are more likely to become engaged in what they are learning and develop critical thinking skills. I also believe that it is important to create a nurturing and safe classroom environment where students, regardless of their unique background, can feel comfortable in both expressing their thoughts and opinions, and trying new things. I believe that an essential part of creating a safe classroom environment is leading by example, and showing students that you accept of others regardless of their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexuality, etc. I also believe in incorporating activities and learning experiences that cater to students’ different learning styles. Research has shown over and over that students learn in different ways, and no two students are the same. Thus, if I want my students to be successful, I need to cater to their individual learning needs. As Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I believe that my best articulation of this belief is evident in the Analytical Writing Projectthat I completed for my Social Foundations course. In that assignment I argued that in a democratic classroom, a reflective practitioner works to develop citizens for competent participation in a commonwealth by subtracting materials from their pedagogy that serve as obstacles to the growth of student genius. As a history major as well, I believe that it is vitally important that education prepare students to be active participants in a democratic society. However, our current educational system prepares student to do well on tests, but they never have the opportunity to reach their full potential or exhibit their inherent genius. there is a solution though, which is grounded in the fact that students are able to become highly qualified citizens when they are able to acquire the ability to think critically, have internalized a sense of responsibility, and have developed empathy for their community. Emphasis on subject matter is not necessarily a bad method, we simply need to utilize subject matter properly and realize that subject matter is simply a tool in allowing students’ genius to grow. For me, this means utilizing subject matter to teach students about their own lives and how they have developed their beliefs, assumptions, biases, and perspectives of the world.

I believe that James Banks articulated this very clearly in his article “The Canon Debate, Knowledge Construction, and Multicultural Education,” in which he advocated that “students should be given opportunities to investigate and determine how cultural assumptions, frames of references, perspectives, and the biases within a discipline influence the ways knowledge is constructed” (10). Providing students with a multicultural education is one of my main goals in becoming an English teacher, because I believe that one of the best ways to acquire a multicultural education is through literature and studies in language arts. This is best demonstrated in my choice to create my Summative Unit Plan on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel //Persepolis//. Although the Middle East plays an enormous role in the foreign policies and interactions of the United States, many Americans lack even a basic knowledge of the cultural history of the Middle East. Such a lack of knowledge has fostered ignorance and prejudice against those of Middle East heritage, which has detrimental effects on the peaceful and efficient functioning of an increasingly globalized society. Consequently, throughout my unit plan, I provide my students with numerous experiences that allow them to examine their preexisting social prejudices so they may be accepting and understanding of all members of a their society. For instance, I have my students keep a journal throughout the unit for that they can keep track of their own thoughts and revelations that occur during their reading. I also have students participate in many group or partner discussions because I feel that it is important for students to be able to express their opinions to the peers because it not only fosters meaningful discussions, but also makes them more confident in expressing their opinions to the entire class.

Because I know that many students would be approaching Persepolis with little to no prior knowledge about the Iranian Revolution, I have them watch a documentary and do a group WebQuest assignment. Understanding cultural, geographic, and historical context is an important part of reading and understanding literature. Every author of literature, in creating their works, has been influenced by events of their time period and their personal experiences - Marjane Satrapi is no different. However, fictional and historical characters are also influenced by their time period and cultural influences as well. In my second journal entry, I discuss how my reading a historical fiction novel about Queen Elizabeth I of England prompted me to do further research about her. However, in developing my Summative Unit, I thought that it would be more beneficial to have my students do the research beforehand so that the class could have more in depth and meaningful discussions about //Persepolis//, and so that their reading would not be continuously interrupted by historical explanations and research.

In both of the summative assessments that I created for my //Persepolis// Unit and my Formative Unit on //Wintergirls//, students were given a choice in the topic that they will write about. I learned about the importance of providing students with choices in my ENGL 408: Writing for Writing Teachers class. I discovered that, when students write about something that is important or significant to them, the feelings and ideas that they have for that topic show through in their writing. Not only does that make for effective writing, but it makes their writing interesting to the reader as well. I made one critical error in developing my summative assessment for my //Persepolis// Unit, which was that I gave my students only one day to work on their final essay, and consequently did not give them ample opportunity to go through the writing process. However, I corrected this by revising my unit to give students two more days to work on their essays and have them edited by a peer before turning them in for a grade. In addition, I revised my Summative Unit to include two reading quizzes on days when groups are assigned to discuss one specific chapter from the book. This was done to ensure that students were not only reading the chapter that their group was assigned. I explored the idea of administering reading quizzes to students in my Teacher Research Project. I discovered that there are conflicting opinions over whether reading quizzes actually motivate students to do the reading, but for the purpose of my unit, I felt as though it was appropriate to administer two reading quizzes, which would not have a significant on impact on the students’ grades.

Although I believe that it is important for students to understand the grammar and mechanics of Standard English, I believe that it is equally as important for them to understand that no one actually //speaks// Standard English naturally. For example, Standard English is most commonly required for writing that has a general audience, such as a speech, cover letter for a resume, public service announcements. However, in the book //The Power of Grammar//, Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton assert that “we commit ourselves to teaching voice, which, beyond its more ineffable traits having to do with personality, is composed of word choice, punctuation, and syntax--in other words, partly of grammar. We consider, thus, how grammar matters not only for how it transfers power but for its intrinsic beauty and its revelatory qualities” (10). The words that are chosen, the artful syntax that weaves them together, the punctuation that guides their flow - these are the elements that make a piece of writing enjoyable to read. These elements also allow the writer's voice and feelings to come through from the words you're reading. Thus, it is important for me to ensure that my students understand that the mechanics of Standard English can contribute and enhance the meaning of their writing, without undermining their own unique voice. As someone who comes from a family of individuals with multiple dialects and accents, I recognize that there are certain prejudices and stereotypes that others have about different dialects and accents. For example, my sister-in-law grew up in southern Georgia and has noticed that, when she speaks to someone from a northern state, they sometimes dumb down their language because they think that she is uneducated based on her accent – even though she is an English teacher. Once again, this is an element of providing students with a multicultural education; understanding that teachers and students must respect one another’s cultural heritages and the aspects that come with them, including accents and dialects.

When I attended the “Reading and Writing in a Decade of Standards” conference on Social Justice, I learned about how anti-Semitic propaganda had been circulating for many years //before// the Hitler came to power and orchestrated the Holocaust. It was a powerful example of how language can have a tremendous impact on an individual’s belief and identity. I also explore the how propaganda was used during the Iranian Revolution and in the formation of the Islamic Republic in my Summative Unit. However, in his book //Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms//, Randy Bomer discusses non-verbal literacy, which can have a dramatic impact on a person’s life as well. My group and I explored the impact of non-verbal literacy in our Formative Unit on Laurie Halse Anderson’s //Wintergirls//. In the Formative Unit, we had our students consider how the main character’s family, perception of societal values and norms, socioeconomic class, race, and gender impacted her body image. Exploring the importance and impact of non-verbal symbols is an excellent way to incorporate visual materials into the language arts classroom.

My transformation from a student of English to a teacher of English has been a long and arduous one, but nevertheless rewarding. I have always loved reading and writing (I discuss my favorite book in my first journal entry), but never really knew why I was a good reader and a good writer. Consequently, I never felt completely confident in my ability to help others become better readers and writers themselves (I explore what I have discovered has made me a better reader in my third journal entry). Overall, I feel much better prepared to enter student teaching after taking my College of Education courses, specifically this class and ENGL 408. There were a number of things about this course that helped me build my confidence. Most importantly, I felt as though it was extremely beneficial to develop a unit with a group first and then as an individual. Working with a group was an excellent way to consider and incorporate multiple ideas and teaching perspectives. However, working on a unit on my own helped me to realize what learning activities I believe work the best, and thus helped me to discover exactly what kind of English Language Arts teacher I want to be. Overall, I feel as though I have grown exponentially in my abilities as a potential English teacher since the start of the year. However, there is certainly more room for me to grow, which I will undoubtedly be able to do next semester as I gain more experience in an actual English Language Arts classroom.