Reflection+Letter+-+Valerie

Dear Reader,

Teaching is said to be one of our society’s noblest professions in the world; it requires an enormous amount of skill, dedication, passion, creativity, and commitment to students every single day. There is nothing more important for the future of our children than our teachers. With this being said, this is my promise to my students, their parents and my school system: I promise to demonstrate my skills to the best of my ability at all times, to show my passion for my job every single day, to come up with creative lessons, activities and assessments that will engage my students to showcase their knowledge, and lastly, I promise to show my commitment to my profession every single hour of every single day. Just as President Barack Obama stressed within his //Five Pillars of Education//,

//"From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it's the person standing at the front of the classroom."//

This is my goal, to be the positive force standing in front of the classroom. This quote solidifies what type of teacher I want to be at all times – one in which is dedicated to her profession and more importantly, dedicated to her students. Within this letter I hope to show you how I have progressed as an educator.

Throughout my life, there have only been two professions in which I have ever put into deep consideration; Super Woman or a Teacher. Since I was never given a super human strength at birth or any kind of super power, actually, teaching was the next best thing – teaching English Language Arts and History to be exact. Teaching is where I found my passion, my super human strength. My love for reading and writing has always been a passion of mine, as I have always tried to get those around me to be just as engaged as I have always been. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it did not. This is what I hope to one day be able to teach my students, to love and have a passion for not only English but rather, a passion for //something//. If students are able to see how passionate you are about your work, maybe they too will be driven to be passionate about their future professions.

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I attended the Ann Arbor Public School System. I was able to receive the best education I could imagine. I significantly remember playing on a travel softball team, composed of 15 girls from various parts of Michigan my senior year of high school, where we would practice every Sunday during the school year. Often my teammates would talk about what books they were reading for their AP English class, books such as //1984, Of Mice and Men,// and //To Kill a Mockingbird// – books I had read in my standard 9th grade English class. These girls were seniors in high school – I was astonished. I thought to myself, we are entering college in the next few months, how can one possible be ready for the amount of intensive literature we are about to receive when they were not challenged by their teachers? This was a question I pondered for years during my journey through the College of Education. For the __Summative Unit Plan project__, I was able to create a unit in which I can use while student teaching in the winter semester. I spoke with my cooperating teacher and she said I would be able to teach my unit to her 8th grade English class – although usually, //The Westing Game// was taught during 5th and 6th grade. This is when I thought of the girls from my softball team. Even though these girls were reading books I had read at the beginning of high school, their concept and understanding of the novels were impeccable. I learned quickly the teachers at their school were creating intensive work with the materials they were given. This is what I wanted to do for my students; it doesn’t matter the level of book you are reading at which age, it is the understanding and stimulation you derive from the novel that mattered.

While creating my unit, I was forced to revert back to my high school softball days and mentally think how I can best teach my students with the resources I have. I understand there will be some schools where I will work in which I will not have the best of everything, like Ann Arbor School System had, but I can teach my students to the best of my ability. This is one of my key promises I have made to my students. With this being said, when creating my __//Mystery Genre – The Westing Game// Unit__, which is was created for a 7th grade classroom, I thought of my students and how to grasp their attention. My goal for each one of my units is to always try and make learning fun. When I was younger, I hated when my teacher would assign journal questions on a blank sheet of paper in which we would turn in for credit. Instead, I took time to create worksheets that were appealing – in its place of standard journal writings, I asked my students to thoughtfully write detective notes while reading our novel where students would note significant changes they noticed throughout the book. These detective notes and journals were due at the end of each week which gave me the ability to assess each student if they were grasping the concepts we were going over and if they needed more time, I would work with them individually. Another aspect of this unit I added was a lot of hands-on projects such as students were asked to create a sketch of Sunset Towers, create a brochure for WestingTown, and lastly create a Wanted Poster for who they thought killed Sam Westing. Although I put my main focus on vocabulary and discussion questions, each week I had a fun activity for students to work on in hopes of stimulating their learning process. My goal for this unit was to take the resources I had and making a unit where my students could benefit from in the years to come.

One of my favorite units I have worked on during ENGL 409 was a group T__hematic Study on Society and Solitude__. My group decided to use Laurie Halse Anderson’s most challenged/banned novel, //Speak// for this project. I firmly stand behind this book being taught in classrooms especially during 8th and 9th grade, as it deals with a lot of issues our students face every day such as peer pressure, the need to fit in, losing friends, rumors, gossip, depression, sexual harassment, domestic violence within relationships and fear during their adolescence. Students must know they are never alone through these struggles. Although this book is very dark, as it deals with a young girls struggle to find her voice after she is raped, every single one of the students in the classroom could be affected by what the main character Melinda faces in the novel. Being able to work and collaborate ideas with two other classmates within this project made me eager to start working with other teachers on assignments in the future. I only hope it will be as enjoyable and fun as it was working with Saad and Kelly.

During my fall semester of my junior year of college, I took my first class in the Literature, Language and Writing curriculum called __LITR 312: Literature of the Middle Ages__. I was extremely nervous, as this type of literature was not one of my favorites. I was right to be nervous, this class was extremely difficult. Throughout the semester, I would work for hours and hours my papers, yet they would always come back bloody with red ink stains all over and a large C+ stamped on the bottom. This is when I started to question if I was really ready to become an English teacher. Although I wanted to give up, I pushed myself to get better grades. When it came down to my final paper, I worked endlessly. I decided to write my paper on //Sir Gawain and the Green Knight//, the only story I had actually understood and liked in the class in hopes to receive a decent grade. I reread that story eight times, took extensive notes, and proofread my paper at least twenty times. When I was given my final paper back, I had received an A with a small note in red saying, “Finally, you see yourself as a writer. Well done.” This was an epiphany for me. Even though it sounds trivial, I needed this professor’s approval of my writing skills and to receive a good grade from her in order to prove to myself I could be an English teacher. Although I want my students to never feel as nervous or scared as I was when writing this paper, I want to work with my students enough so that they see themselves as writers.

Since I spent all of my educational years struggling with ADHD and have seen, first hand, how teachers tend to bypass students with learning disabilities. The goal for my __Teacher Research Project__ was to find out how to successfully teach and assess a student who has a learning disability. With the articles I read and interviewing Jacquelyn Spring, a special education teacher at Tappan Middle School, I have come find each student’s learning style is different and each student should be taught and assessed differently. Having to struggle with ADHD while learning is extremely hard and I have found that I will go out of my way to ensure my student’s learning process and achievement is successful.

I hope that as you have read this letter you have seen how enthusiastic and ready I am about becoming a teacher. A couple of weeks ago, I attended an __NCTE conference in Chicago, Illinois__. While attending this conference, I was surrounded by people who were equally excited to teach English as I am. Being surrounded by such positive people really inspired me to be the best teacher I can be. At the conference, I attended three lectures which sparked my determination even more. The first lecture I attended was how to incorporate LGBTQ into classroom readings. I learned that LGBTQ young adult books such as, “Annie on my Mind”, “Forbidden Love”, and “How Beautiful the Ordinary,” are good novels to have all students read alongside //Romeo and Juliet //. Incorporating LGBTQ books into my classroom is something I will take into deep consideration when creating my curriculum in the future. The second lecture I attended was Incorporating Holocaust Videos in the Classroom. This was one of my favorite lectures to go to. The lecturers have set up a website which has access for students to listen, read (printouts) and watch videos of thousands of Holocaust survivors from 1990-2010. This will be an excellent resource to use in my classroom. The last lecture I attended was Sarah Brown Wessling. This was a very interesting lecture because Sarah expressed that if you are going to each a standard; teach it well so your students benefit from it. This is my goal as a teacher; I never want one of my students to lose out on important information because I am in a rush to complete my standards. My goal is to give my students the best education they deserve. By attending these lectures, it has made me even more excited to start student teaching next semester.

As a teacher, it is important for me to create a safe and positive learning environment where my students feel as though they can express their thoughts and opinions freely. By having created units I have discussed above, completed projects and going to conferences where I am surrounded by influential people, I feel as though I am more than ready to start my journey as a teacher and I cannot wait to start student teaching in the winter semester. I hope to show my students that I am skilled, dedicated, passionate, creative, and committed to them every single day and only want to give them the best education they deserve.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Valerie Cullip