Learning Letter

In my ENGL 493, Teaching Literature to Adolescents class, we completed a lot of important documents and ideas that we discussed as future teachers. More so, the book talks I really enjoyed and liked discussing certain books that I didn’t know or kinda knew about. The two books I choose to write about were “High Heat,” and “Slam!” which are great books for young adults that teach a good life moral lesson. But also, the unit plans were another piece of document that I completed in the course. This unit plan was tough and hard at times, but I pushed threw and finished in time, which it made me happy inside knowing I worked hard and completed this big unit plan. My unit plan that I created was Hamlet, as I had a timed-writing final for the end of the unit, but I had a discussion board points for the students and a library day, which allows my students to get an understanding on graphic novels. Also, I put so many other things that will show my future employers that I know how to make a TPA lesson plan. However, with some of the theories and concepts that we learnerd and explored through readings and discussions, I would have to say I really enjoyed “I Read it, But I Don’t get it,” as it gave many good ideas to help you as a reader, but to help your students out most importantly. Some of those ideas that I really enjoyed were Chapter Two: The Realities of Reading. The idea of the section called, “I’ll Do Anything but Read,” gives teachers ideas about some of the possibly students they could have in their classroom (14). That student could be somebody that doesn’t like to read, and is a “resistive reader,” who survive from listening to their teacher and fellow students (15). Henceforth, in Chapter Three: Purposes for Reading, gives the idea that every text we read has purpose and meaning behind the context. Most students determine what is important, “in the text, what is remembered, and what comprehension strategy a reader uses to enhance meaning,” these students who read difficult text often come up with these complaints such as, “I don’t care about the topic; I can’t relate to the topic; I daydream and my mind wanders; I can’t stay focused; I just say the words so I can be done; I get bored,” giving the idea that some of these students behave like this because they don’t have a reason for reading (24). Also, another concept or theory that we discussed would be the social justice in the classroom, which the article that I picked was called, “Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice,” which one of the ideas that I thought was important was “Grounded in the lives of our students,” giving the idea to teachers that everything starts from the respect for our children and students. Those respects contain their innate curiosity and the capacity they can learn at (1). However, it should be the curriculum that must be rooted into their students’ needs and experiences. That can range from the teachings of science, math, and English, or even social studies/history. But also, the idea to think “Critical,” is huge, because it allows you as the teacher to think about certain questions such as, “Who makes decisions and who is left out? Who benefits and who suffers? Why is a given practice fair or unfair? What are its origins? What alternatives can we imagines? What is required to create change?” (1). Lastly, I feel that I could’ve talked a little bit more in class, but I loved hearing my fellow students talk about ideas first, then bounce a couple of my ideas on top of theirs. However, at times I liked to start of and give a few ideas for them to listen at times, but overall, I really enjoyed having these discussions in class, as it allowed other students who didn’t like to talk that much. It allowed them to get more comfortable and helped them with their speaking anxiety. Yet, I believe these discussions will help me as a future teacher, as I watch our teacher Sean bring us back on topic or helped guided us to keep the conversation going and on task. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and the ideas that will stay with us forever, and that’s what I really like and enjoyed about this class as it helped us as future teachers to create ideas to think about.  

Night By Elie Wiesel

Personally, I feel that the story “Night,” was a good book that made you want to keep reading and reading. But technically I wouldn’t teach this book in my English class-room, because not only would this story be far fetched with some of the reading assignments that I would like to accomplish. But also, I would rather teach other books that have similar themes and ideas that has more of an impact on these themes and ideas. I would rather teach the book of “Anne Frank,” if I was going to teach about the holocaust and how inhumane the Jewish people faced during World War II, but I would also teach the book “Escape from Camp 14,” which is about North Korea and up to date political topics that would get my students more engaged within a discussion group. However, I would have this book on my selves for students to read if they were truly interested with the story. Yet, I’m not bashing this book or even questioning why we read this story, because it does give great experiences that happened to the main character during World War II, and what he experienced during his time in the holocaust from the amount of deaths that happened and his family dying as well. But I would feel that it would be farfetched to teach this curriculum within an English course, and I feel that I would get some backlash from the students’ parents. Henceforth, I would probably teach this book in my history class, as it would be easy to explain why I have their children reading this book. But also, it would allow me to paint a better picture with my students the effects of the holocaust and how it ruined and killed a lot of Jewish people and their family members who were killed for no reason. I feel that this was a great book, but it would be hard to teach in an English course rather than having it for one of my history courses that I plan to teach.

Edgar Allen Poe

The short story that I choice to read was, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allen Poe. Not only is it a great story but it gives a lot of imagination and suspense from the anticipation build up within the narrative character. I would totally have my students read this story as it gives such great examples of theme and imagination of the thumping and the scenes about the “vulture-eye.” Personally, I read this story in high-school or middle-school sometime, which the story freaked me out a little bit. Yet, I was really into the story and the themes behind it and often wondering why he finally broke-down and told the people about the crimes he committed against the old man and his “vultures-eye.” However, the reason why I choose this story to teach and talk about is because its one of my favorite Edgar Allen Poe writings, and I feel that if you love the text and present it to your students, they’ll feel that energy and excitement that you feel when your reading it out loud. Yet, the two poems that I find very interesting would be “The Raven,” and “Silence,” by Edgar Allen Poe, which both poems have read in class in high-school and I feel that they are appropriate to teach and dissect the context within the text. I feel that “The Raven,” will allow the students to see and understand the importance of long poems and the meaning or theme behind the poem’s context. I want my students to get an understanding of Narrative poems, and how they present themselves within the text. Yet, I want my students to get that the style Poe went for would be a musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere that I find very extravagant and a great poem that leaves you thinking a lot about. Then I feel with the poem, “Silence” I want my students to get an understanding that silence may at times associate with bad things such as dwelling and feeling lonely at times, but sometimes silence is the key to certain situations that allow you to get a better understanding on the situation at hand. Those situations could be a death in the family, but its best to sit back and reflect on the good times you had with them and remember that God is always with you as well. 

Book Talk #2 on High Heat

High Heat is a Young Adult novel by Carl Deuker published in 2003. The story opens with the first baseball game of the season for Shane Hunter’s high school team. Shane is the closer for his high-school team, which is the pitcher that is brought in at the end of the game to hold a lead for his team. Therefore, Shane attends a private school in Seattle. But one day at his game his parents were on the bleachers at Shane’s game the police come and arrest Shane’s father in front of everyone. From there the game ends and Shane’s coach, Mr. Levine, gives Shane a ride home to the exclusive gated community where his family lives. When they arrive to Shane’s house, they find police there with his mother, going through files and taking evidence away. Shane talks with his younger sister Marian, who is very upset and tries to figure out what happened to his father. When the police leave their mother takes them out to dinner and then has a long conversation with their lawyer. She explains that Shane’s Dad has been arrested for money laundering and may have been involved with drug dealers who needed to launder their money through a local business. However, Shane’s father gets released on bail and the story returns with Shane going back to school, but everyone begins to start talking about him, which leads to him getting into a fight with some teammates at his baseball practice. Yet, Coach Levine breaks up the fight and doesn’t punish Shane because of his current family situation. From there Shane tells his coach that his attitude will change, but as the story goes on, we see that Shane’s father begins to drink heavily, as he knows he’s going to be locked up. This begins to affect Shane’s pitching as he blows his next two saves from his father’s distractions and his teammates being typical high-school students that love gossip and making fun of people. Henceforth, the day that Shane gets a save and helps his team win the game, he realizes that it was the day when Shane’s father had to skip the game to meet with the police. Soon after realizing this it because really depressing for him as he wants his family’s support, but he wants to help his team win baseball games and he wants to pitch well too. Yet, another tragic event happens with Shane, as Shane gets a ride home from Coach Levine, they discover that Shane’s father has committed suicide by shooting himself. Shane learns that the family doesn’t have as much money as he thought, and his mother is forced to sell their large house and must pull both Marian and Shane out of private school. They move into a small, run-down apartment in a bad area of town and enroll in public school. There Shane begins to drink and smoke, and one day with a gang of bad kids he gets caught stealing. This is when he must do community service ordered by the judge to help fix up public baseball fields. However, one day the manager of one of the teams sees that Shane has a true love for the game and convinces him to start playing again for his team as the closer. Yet, Shane’s probation officer suggested that he do therapy instead, but Shane convinces him and his mother that it’s not necessary because he’s going to play baseball again. Shane believes that baseball will help him cope and become a better person by interacting with his new teammates and making new friends. This is when Shane finds his love for baseball again, but still deals with his anger issues and finds relief only when he is pitching. This changes when Shane sees a new family move into his old house. And soon realizes that their son, Reese, had begin to hangout with Shane’s old friends and got his spot on his old high-school baseball team. During, one of their games he finds himself pitching against his old team and the first batter he faces is the new kid Reese. There Shane gets very angry and decides to throw a fastball close to his head to brush him off the plate, but instead he ends up hitting Reese in the head and breaking his helmet and injuring him very badly. This affects Shane emotionally as he feels guilty for ruining Reese’s chance at playing baseball every again. Reese slowly recovers, but he’s not the same hitter that he was before. That when Shane decides to leave the team and stop pitching altogether. This is when he begins to visit with Reese and spend time with him, getting to know him and working through his guilt. He soon discovers that like him Reese’s life wasn’t perfect either. At first, they are angry to meet each other, but begin to practice together which Shane wants to help Reese get over his fear of hitting again. But its Reese who helps Shane out in the end as he convinces him to play baseball again and continue to be the dominate closer that he was. There Shane is able to release his guilt and anger and rediscovers his love for the game of baseball. Shane begins to start pitching well again and gets scouted to play baseball at the University of Portland.

Rationale: The reason why I choose this book for my book talk is that it’s a great story that has a lot of moral life lessons behind the text. Not only does it give great examples of situations that may be tough and difficult to handle at times, but the perseverance of the main character as he truly never gave up the love for the game, and somehow always came back and found his love and started dominating again. However, the text would best be appropriate for high-school from 9^th grade and up, or if a well matured 8^th grader wanted to read it.

Challenges: I believe that there wouldn’t be a lot of challenges behind presenting this text for my students to read, but I do believe some parents wouldn’t be too thrilled with their child reading about drinking and smoking and stealing during Shane’s dark days.

Teaching Ideas: Some teaching ideas that I would have my students discuss or write about would be the “Character and Values,” of each character and the meaning behind them; Also I would have my students discuss the “Culture and Diversity,” from the book and how it relates to our city or community as well; Lastly, I would have my students talk about the importance of “Friends and Friendship,” as some students understand the difficulty of not fitting in or having that many friends during high-school.  

Into the Wild

Personally, I really enjoyed the book “Into the Wild,” it gives the audience the idea that money isn’t necessarily that root of happiness as the main character Christopher Johnson gives up all his money to move into the wild. I read this book at a young age, and kind of understood the moral and meaning behind the story. At a young age, I was a little immature and didn’t understand why a man would give up all his money and move to the wild. But now at a more mature age and having a better understanding I feel that this book would be perfect to teach to my students, as it gives life lessons and a lot of morals within the text. The context that I would present to my students would be the themes, and the settings behind the text and how they relate to each other and the beauty behind the setting of the narrative. The setting part of the text, I would have my students gives descriptions of the bus and how they visualize the way Alaska looks and the beauty behind it. I would want my students to give possible themes and ideas behind certain text that I picked out and give their thoughts and opinion on the text to allow me to understand their way of thinking or thought process. However, the possible challenges that I could be facing would be from the parents, as the book discusses a lot of sexually thoughts and ideas that Christopher writes about his friends and gives his point of view whether the person was sexually active or not. But also, parents wouldn’t be to thrill with how the main character discusses him and his friends drinking, which could be a big influence on their children. Yet, with the school district and board, I feel that they would be understanding and allowing me to teach this book to my students, as my old middle school and teacher was allowed to teach us this book at a 7^th grade level, which was a great experience as we had a lot of great discussions inside the classroom.

The Round House

After, reading the book “The Round House,” by Louise Erdrich. I thought that it was a great book that was very suspenseful and kept you on the edge of your seat throughout each chapter of the book. However, the idea of teaching this book to my classroom would be very difficult and hard to teach the themes and the main plot to my students. But also, I feel it would be hard to get my principal and school district to back up this book as well. Not only due from the amount of cussing that goes on within this book such as Erdrich writes, “Oh fuck you, said Zack. Cappy laughed. Why don’t you let him stay on till he gets really big? They’ll call you Three Balls. Like Old Man Niswi, I said. He really had three. It’s true. My grandma knows, said Zach,” which most of their friendship interactions have a lot of cussing and talking about sexually reactions and encounters. However, another issue would be the strip tease that Sonja gives to both Joe and Mooshum for Mooshum’s birthday gift. The scene gets wild and almost leaves Mooshum having a heartache from Sonja getting naked and making his heart work-hard. Also, the graphic scene of Sonja showing Joe her cut-up boob that was messed up from her pimp or boss that she worked for at the strip club. Yet, another example of why I wouldn’t teach this book is because of the excess drinking from Mooshum, and the underage drinking that might influence other students in that type of behavior. Lastly, the main reason why I would have trouble teaching this book would be the rape that happens to Joe’s mother Geraldine. Not only does she give the description on what happened that night, as she was attacked and brutally raped and almost killed by getting burned alive. But the trauma and the depression that she goes through is almost hard to teach to my students, as I feel it would difficult to teach based on the graphic images and ideas that would affect students who had a family member that was brutally attacked, or something happened to them personally. This leads me to believe that I would recommend the book to read on their own, but to teach as a class I probably wouldn’t take on this book out of fear that their parents wouldn’t be happy and the school board as well.  

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

The book I Read It, But I Don’t Get It, was a very good piece of information that helps teachers and readers, such as your students and yourself. Therefore, some of the certain parts of the book I would like to discuss would be Chapter Two: The Realities of Reading. The idea of the section called, “I’ll Do Anything but Read,” gives teachers ideas about some of the possibly students they could have in their classroom (14). That student could be somebody that doesn’t like to read, and is a “resistive reader,” who survive from listening to their teacher and fellow students (15). Personally, I had a lot of friends that were “resistive readers,” and didn’t care to read that much, and would wait to hear ideas and the summary from other students or friends. However, it is up to us, as teachers to help guide them to understand the purpose of reading. Henceforth, in Chapter Three: Purposes for Reading, gives the idea that every text we read has purpose and meaning behind the context. Most students determine what is important, “in the text, what is remembered, and what comprehension strategy a reader uses to enhance meaning,” these students who read difficult text often come up with these complaints such as, “I don’t care about the topic; I can’t relate to the topic; I daydream and my mind wanders; I can’t stay focused; I just say the words so I can be done; I get bored,” giving the idea that some of these students behave like this because they don’t have a reason for reading (24). Yet, these students often believe that “They pronounce the words, finish the assignment, and rarely come away with a thorough understanding. It is a waste of time; they haven’t constructed meaning and can’t use the information,” but it’s up to the teachers to show the importance of reading and understanding the purpose of the text (24). Hence, the next idea that I thought was important and a good topic to discuss would be from Chapter Seven: What Do You Wonder, giving the reader the idea to always have questions and to wonder what is going on within the text. This thought comes from the idea that, “Questioning engages readers especially in relation to difficult or uninteresting material. If readers look for answers to their questions, they focus on the text and their mind is less inclined to wander,” as its our job to help guide and raise questions within our students to allow them to become better readers in the future (85).   

EWU’s TPA guidelines and edTPA Making Good Choices

Personally, I like how the guidelines are very well organized, and lets the teacher know what to put in each section of the document going from the “Length of Lesson, Academic and Content Standards (Common Core/National), Learning Objectives, Academic Language, Assessment, and Lesson Connection etc.” However, having the information that goes along with each section that Sean gave to us to help guide, and gives us a better understanding what to put in each section and the requirements that go along with each section. Yet, the ideas that was given from the document on the “edTPA Making Good Choices,” was helpful for future teachers to get ideas to help guide them on making a good lesson plan. Some of the ideas that were good to think about would be “Planning Ahead,” as it gives good ideas that talks about time management and working steadily and regularly as you must save time for revisions and edits that will allow you to represent your best thoughts (Pg.2). Yet, another important idea on helping teachers to make a good choice with their edTPA lesson plans would be Organizing as it talks about giving good organization on the context you must give with you lesson plan. Then it gives ideas on to “provide specific, concrete examples to support your assertions,” which you must support your examples and evidence of your teachings (Pg.5). Lastly, another good idea is the importance of “Understand the Rubrics,” and “Alignment of Rubrics and Commentary Prompts,” that gives teachers ideas on the importance of rubrics and the structures that it gives for their students. This structure allows students the idea what you as the teacher wants within their essay structure and the grammar requirements (Pg. 6). Henceforth, the Alignment Rubric was very important for teachers to look at, as it gives ideas on how to grade a student with a chart structure that gives a 1-5 point system with a total at the end for their grade. Therefore, the grade rubric gives teachers an idea and examples on how to create their grade rubric. 

Creating Classrooms for equity and social Justice

Social justice inside the classroom is very important topic and way to conduct yourself as a teacher inside the classroom. However, the definition of social justice can be defined as a justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. Yet, an article that I found to be helpful and full of wonderful examples ranging from different ideas and scenarios that a teacher may face during the classroom. The article is called, “Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice,” which one of the ideas that I thought was important was “Grounded in the lives of our students,” giving the idea to teachers that everything starts from the respect for our children and students. Those respects contain their innate curiosity and the capacity they can learn at (1). However, it should be the curriculum that must be rooted into their students needs and experiences. That can range from the teachings of science, math, and English, or even social studies/history. But also, the idea to think “Critical,” is huge, because it allows you as the teacher to think about certain questions such as, “Who makes decisions and who is left out? Who benefits and who suffers? Why is a given practice fair or unfair? What are its origins? What alternatives can we imagines? What is required to create change?” (1). These questions are very important to ask to yourself and to think about. Yet, the idea on “Multicultural, anti-racist, pro-justice,” is another important topic that the article talks about. I really enjoyed the thought they brought up about the myth about how textbooks often value the “Great White Men,” over other minorities. Which I don’t necessarily agree with because a lot of text talk about the brotherhood of American and becoming one as a nation. But the idea they bring up about Native Americans with history is very true, but that was the past and its never good for history to repeat itself. In which, social justice is important to have inside the classroom as it allows students to feel safe, and as a teachers it is our responsible to create a safe environment.

https://www.rethinkingschools.org/static/publication/roc1/Intro.pdf

Book Talk on Slam!

Slam! by Walter Dean Myers 

Summary: “Slam!” is a young adult novel by Walter Dean Myers. The story revolves around the seventeen-year-old Greg “Slam” Harris efforts on playing basketball, while maintaining his academics and his personal life. Therefore, Slam lives in Harlem, New York and goes to a prestigious magnet school in the South Bronx called Latimer. The school is mainly white students with a couple minorities. In which, the high-school has a failing basketball program, which Slam is seen as this black hope to help them succeed and win a State Title. However, the real reason why Slam is attending Latimer is because he is part of a policy that enables schools to become more diverse. From there the story jumps ahead over the course of several months, Slam helps lead the Latimer Panthers to victory, including one over his former school’s team called Carver. At his old high-school Carver, Slam has a lifelong friendship with his friend Ice. But their friendship disintegrates as Ice turns to drug dealing to get ahead in life to make money for his family. Also, Slam’s love life heats up when he begins seeing Mtisha, who goes to Carver. Their relationship begins to heat up, as Mtisha tutors Slam in math. At the same time, Slam’s grandmother gets sick and goes into the hospital, which causes Slam a lot of stress and pressure on his shoulders to make his Grandmother proud. His grandmother will recover eventually from her sickness. Yet, Slam’s other like his father, who is unemployed, turns to the bottle to coup with not bringing money into the family. However, the person who holds everything together in Slam’s life and family is his mother. She works a bunch of jobs to help support her family. Lastly, his friend Ducky and Nick help Slam realize that it’s better to work as a team, then playing a lone wolf type of game. From there, this helps Slam understand the true value of teamwork and helps Latimer beat Carver and his best friend Ice during the state title game. Yet, it is the team’s assistant coach named Goldstein that becomes a grandfatherly mentor to Slam, telling Slam that life is a game as well- it can be won, or it can be lost. The choice is ultimately up to Slam. In the end, Slam takes Goldstein’s advice and looks ahead to the future.

Rationale: The reason why I choose this text, is because I enjoyed reading this book during my 8^th grade year. That year we learned about Walter Dean Myers, as we read the book “Monster,” which I grew to like his writing styles and the setting of New York. Myer’s gave detail of New York that made you always feel like you’re next to the main character. However, the text would be appropriate for students 8^th grade and up. I believe that 8^th grader will be able to understand the morals of the story and certain themes that are hard to understand at certain text. The text in the book isn’t small print, but rather medium print with over 260 pages. This text could be challenging to understand for a 6^th grader or even an elementary student, from the use of slang and the idea of drug dealing. But also, most young students don’t like to read 200 book pages as they believe those type of books are too long or hard to understand in their mindset.

Teaching Ideas: In this book there are plenty of examples of similes and metaphors in the way that Slam talks about his life and the challenges he faces, but also the deep and abiding love of basketball that he has. For example, how he introduces himself to the reader and how he described his love of his favorite sport:
            “I’m six four, and I got the moves, the eye and the heart. You can take my game to the                              bank and wait around for the interest” (1).

This quote would be an example of an implied metaphor, as the speaker is comparing his skill and talent in basketball to a financial investment. Slam believes that he is secure and safe as a basketball player that you can do nothing more but wait for his success on the court.  

Another, teaching idea would be the setting of Slam! In which, all the settings come from Myers’s own upbringing in Harlem, New York. There is a lot of quotes that help illustrate the setting and the nature of Harlem from the family’s neighborhood that is alive with family-run businesses, like Bill’s bicycle shop and the Wedgies joint, but also the threats and dangers of drive-by shootings, which Myer’s includes in the story to show the dangers of walking in Harlem.  

Lastly, another teaching idea would be about the themes of the story, and the importance of teamwork. Although basketball is a team game, Slam is a bit of a lone wolf, playing for himself more than for others. Also, the coaches begin to think Slam is bit of a showboat, and someone who’s not prepared to give his all for the team. However, with all the other problems going on in Slam’s life, he somehow needs to reconcile his heightened sense of individuality, both as a young man and as an athlete, with the needs of basketball team. At first, it’s hard for Slam to do because his ego holds him back from developing good relationships with his teammates. It’s only until the end he realizes the importance of teamwork and working together to help one another out.  

Challenges: Some of the challenges would be the slang that is used during interactions, which comes off hard to understand the meaning behind the text. I feel that the students wouldn’t understand these slangs that correctly or even their parent could be upset with the idea that their child his reading slang, which they could copy those same sayings that comes off as illiterate. Another idea would be the drug dealing. Slam’s best friend Ice begins to start drug dealing to make money, which could cause some students to believe that its morally okay even though it’s not. In which, I believe that parents wouldn’t be too happy with their kids getting ideas about drug dealing, or even the administrators wouldn’t be to be thrilled with the idea of these students learning about drug dealing and spotting people doing drugs by their looks and demeanor. Also, I feel that students would be uncomfortable with the idea of dealing with race, as Slam is an African American and the example of race is often brought up in the book.

Popular Culture and Critical Media Pedagogy in Secondary Literacy Classrooms

The article “Popular Culture and Critical Media Pedagogy in Secondary Literacy Classrooms,” had some rather interesting ideas on the framework of teaching media and cultural studies to urban youth students that need much academics and literacy within their students. It’s leading to believe that a “person of 60 years of age, for example, has seen, read, or heard as many as 50 million advertisements,” which the idea that media culture is the most dominant culture in our society nowadays. The idea that it is almost, “true that the media play a central role in the construction of race, class, and gender in problematic ways,” which often leads to stereotypes (3). These media framework can often lead minorities, “feeling of alienation and inferiority while also justifying individual and institutional racism,” which gives these minorities a message of uncertainty (3). However, it is up to us, as teachers to help make these meaningful “connections between out-of-school literacy practices and academic literacy instruction aimed at academic achievement, economic empowerment, and social change,” which allows teachers to draw upon these connections to accomplish multiple aims at media. Yet, it is up to the teacher to help students to “critically interrogate the mass media,” that plays a central role in their identity development and worldviews (4). Yet, it our jobs as teachers to help our students to identify and recognize the “difference between reality and the media’s various representations of reality. Individuals wishing to remain informed need to learn to ‘read’ news media carefully; they must also triangulate traditional readings with counter-reading of media texts writing or using other images when and where they can, whether through a web page, a community newsletter, a brochure, an independent newspaper, a letter to the editor, a message sent out on a listserv, or the production and distribution of digital films,” there our students can understand and get the meaning behind the advertisement (4). Lastly, I believe this article is good for teachers, so they can get ideas on how to reach their students using media. This will allow teachers to connect and understand certain students’ views and thoughts on society that involves media outlets. Not only, will it allow teachers to connect with their students, but it allows teacher to give their point of views on certain advertisement or media outlets that influence our students nowadays.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The article “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” was quite interesting and gave teachers a lot of ideas to think about. The one idea that I thought was rather interesting was the teacher-student relationship, which gives teachers ideas on how to have a teacher-student relationship. One of the ideas was that these relationships, “involves a narrating subject and patient listening objects,” there the student would get to understand the content and empirical views of reality better from the views that the teacher gives to his students (1). However, the idea is that narrative education comes from students record of memorizing and repeating phrases. In belief that the idea of narration, “leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them into ‘containers,’ into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by teachers,” which it is our job as teachers to help fill our students with knowledge and ideas to help them succeed with schooling (1). From there the students will understand your approach and be more willing to permit themselves to be filled with knowledge, which will allow them to be better students in the long run. Yet, the idea of education becomes an act of “depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat,” there the teachers becomes like a bank (1). The idea of teachers being like banks are the concept of education, “in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. They do, it is true, have the opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers of the things they store. But in last analysis, it is the people themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system” (1). Lastly, another idea that I thought was important to think about is the idea of banking education is to, “minimize or annul the student’s creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who cares neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed,” there teachers get the idea that it is our job to better educate these students and to take some of these ideas to help our own teaching in the future (2). 

Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook

The article “Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook,” was an intriguing way of grading assignments with a lot of material and ideas to think about. The article has about seven sections that tells parents why teachers grade the way they do, and the ideas and thoughts that go behind this process. In the first section of the article, it allows parents to get an understanding why there is a standard-based grading and reporting system for teachers to use. The idea behind standards-based grading is that it allows a more accurate and consistence reports on student’s achievements for their families and students to understand their state and local standards on grading. Yet, with this grading standard it allows students to “make progress they feel motivated and more successful because enhancing perceived competence is motivating in and of itself. Students begin to think about grades and other assessments, which teachers use to provide informational feedback helpful to their success,” there parents get a better understanding that these grades create motivation for students and allows parents to check up on their child and see the progress they are making in school (2). However, in section two of the article the idea behind the purpose of grading was spot on and allows parents to get a good reasoning why these grades happen as, “the purpose of grading is to communicate, to all stakeholders, student achievement toward specific standards at a certain point in time to inspire future achievement and impact change” (3). From there the article then discusses the purpose of the report card is “to communicate separately: 1) Student achievement toward academic standards 2) Student progress related to attributes that promote secondary and post-secondary success,” which gives parents a better idea on why report cards are made. But also, another important piece of information that I thought was useful, and helpful with the parents would be the information on how parents can check their kids grades out online. This lets parents know how to check up on their child and see the types of grades they are getting in class. It gives a step by step process on how to check their grades by going on the Spokane Public Schools webpage and clicking on the parent’s toolbox. From there everything is smooth sailing, because now these parents will get to check up on their kids’ grades, when they didn’t know they had the option to check daily rather than waiting for a report card at the end of the quarter.         

California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

The article “Assignment Template Aligned to California’s Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy,” is a helpful template that would give support to the California teachers as a guide to help themselves out, and for other states to gather information on their core state standards. Therefore, some useful tips that I found out would be reading rhetorically, which means to “focus not only on what the text says but also on the purposes it serves, the intentions of the author, and the effects on the audience” (4). This idea allows the teacher to scaffold these practices to help their students maximize the fluency with language and develop readers, writers, and thinkers within them. Also, I found the prereading tips to be helpful as it gives teachers some good ideas to help their students understand the book more clearly before reading. Some of those ideas were to “make a connection between their own personal world and the world of the text,” and “activate or develop prior knowledge and experience related to the issues addressed in the text,” also “share their knowledge relevant to the text,” as well “consider their opinions or biases before reading,” and “set purposes for reading,” lastly “begin to formulate the issue their writing will address” (4). All these ideas will be helpful for future teachers to use, including myself. Also, another good idea that I thought was interesting would have to be annotating and questioning the text, which my prior high-school teachers and college teachers used this strategy. Not only is the strategy helpful for teachers, but the teachers can encourage their students to do the same. This allows the students to personally connect to the author’s point and it allows them to reflect on the evidence or examples within the text. Also, annotating will allow the students to often ask questions about the author’s ideas or assumptions or even the challenges that he inferences or concluded. Lastly, I enjoyed the tips about Postreading which allows your students to summarize certain text with groupmates working together creating paragraphs that give main points within the text. 

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Art Instruction in Grades 6-12

Personally, I found the article “The Common Core State Standards,” to be very helpful and full of rich information. As the article stated that the common core state standard for English is that they all have different approaches for curriculum and instruction, that includes different approaches on reading and writing skills. That knowledge goes with specific literary works, such as genres, or forms, which involve the reading and writing process or strategies. From there the ideas behind common core standard that set general goals for student learning, but don’t specify what or how curriculum that will be taught with the students. However, it is up to the teacher to be knowledgeable and professional engaged with your students, while the important matter is to improve student’s literacy. Yet, it is the teacher’s job to also collaborate with their colleagues and the school district to get an idea on the curriculum that will be taught to the students, as you can formulate your beliefs and own decisions with your curriculum. Yet, with the No Child Left Behind Act it gives future teachers the proper ideas that many high-school students will lack the abilities and skills to be a good college student, as it is our job to help change that idea for the better. Therefore, for English language arts the common core state standard believes that literacy practice will allow your students to meet or exceed the standard to build on their knowledge and draws ideas on the world we live in and connect these ideas with text, language practices, and critical issues. But also, an idea that I continue to think about teaching would be, “Creating these spaces requires that you go beyond simply devising a set of tasks or activities and, instead, envision ways to draw upon and exploit students’ knowledge, experiences, and passions in ways that help them commit to achieving shared goals,” which is a very good idea to think about when your teaching (Pg. 5).

Graphic Novels

Personally, I believe that graphic novels could be very helpful for students for many possible reasons. One reason would be that some students don’t really like to read that much, which is relatable to students at a young age. Most young students at an early age don’t like to read that much and would rather watch a movie instead. Yet, with those movies the graphic novels would be way funnier to read for students, as they’ll get more details and ideas that the movie couldn’t fully corroborate into the movie. Also, the graphics could catch the eyes of a young student, who would like to make graphic novels for a living. However, at a young age I preferred to read graphic novels for Dragon Ball Z, instead of watching the episodes that didn’t fully put in a lot of the information at times or funny saying that Goku would say in the novel. Even though the fight scenes in the TV show was amazing to watch, but the graphic novel allows the reader to make the show in his head, while he reads the graphics scenes and the show plays inside his head. Yet, if the student doesn’t necessarily have that type of thinking or has trouble reading text in books. Then graphic novels would be perfect for students, who have trouble reading and understanding the text and meaning behind the words. This would allow the students to get visuals and ideas behind the words to help build a story inside their brain. But also, graphic novels are great piece of visual arts that could help connect to the students who are visual learners rather than linguistic type of learners. But another reason that graphic novels are helpful for students with learning would be that there isn’t a lot of text in-front of them. Often students feel overwhelmed with the amount of text on a page and get discouraged with that amount of reading. In which, these students don’t do the reading and often get left behind and forced to retake the class or take a reading class that is lower than their peers.