This was a very enjoyable and informative course from beginning to end. It was nice having so few people in the class, most of which I had taken classes with prior to this one, making it a nice relaxing environment to learn about teaching English. This is one of the first classes that I took the time to read every book that we were assigned and didn't just skim over them or read parts of. each book and article had me genuinely interested and was ready and willing to discuss it in the class. I think that the blogs we had to post for the class was a new and interesting way to post assignments that were due. Most of my classes used canvas, but in this way I felt more obligated to get it completed and posted for some reason, and I can easily read what my other peers wrote to see what they had to say in their blogs. I will also be able to come back to this at any point down the road to review what I posted and refresh my memory. I was scepticle of the blogs at first, but was glad I did them by the end of the quarter.
I want to talk about the specifc readings that we did for the course. Starting off with the articles we read at the beginning of the quarter, those were a nice intro into how the class would be set up and helped me prepare for later big projects in the quarter as well. Reading about the standards we have to follow and ways to make discussion work in the classroom directly affected my mini lesson that I taught and how I planned out my unit plan. Going over the TPA guidelines is always helpful, I have gone over this with three different teachers now and it is important to see what different teachers expect from the TPA to get a general concencus on what to expect for the actual EdTPA. Not only did we read about teaching discussion and standards, we then discussed these in class and I was able to get insight from my peers and the teacher to see where everyone else stood on certain topics. I always tend to lean away from the standards and standards-based testing, but I learned some good aspects to them that have swayed my beliefs on the subject.
After reading the articles we then moved into reading books about teaching, the first being "I Read It, But I Don't Get It" and then "Readicide." I really enjoyed both of these books and am glad I took the time to actually read them instead of just skimming through them. I plan on using many aspects of each book in my teaching. the only downside was that discussion in the class kind of lacked when it came to talking about the books. I don't know if this wasy because not everyone read it or did not want to talk about it, but I feel like we didn't discuss the books as much as I wanted to. I also did not want to be the only one talking so I did not push the matter at all. We then moved into probably my favorite part of the quarter, which was the book talks. I was so excited to get the chance to pick any book I wanted to read that would work well with teaching to students and was even more excited that I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep." It was such a good book and I hope that I expressed how everyone should read it in my presentation. i feel like I did a poor job selling the book to the class, no one looked that interested, and I didn't do enough research into reception of the book, but I loved reading and talking about it anyway. And getting the chance to hear all of the other book talks abd learn strategies and ideas for teaching classics, to teaching books I had never heard of. It was such a good lesson and made me really excited to become an English teacher to expose students to as many books as possible.
We then moved into the last part of the quarter, which was the mini lessons. Same as the book talks, reading "Night" really made me want to teach it in the classroom. It was such a sad and rough but important book that I could not believe I hadn't read it yet, and I want to make sure all students get a chance to read it if they can. I was let down a little bit by the Graphic Cannon. The volumes are really great but I expected each story in the cannon to be presented in its entirety, and not only parts or pictures representing certain stories. It makes me worry having it in the classroom and students reading just those sections or comics and saying that they have read a book rather than actually reading it. I still love it and will find ways to use it in the classroom to supplement readings, but I may not leave it out for students to look through during their reading time. And, of course, you can't go wrong with Edgar Allen Poe. I am glad that I now own his whole collection and know how to teach some of his works. Not much else to say with him though, Poe is a no brainer when it comes to English. I was surprised that no one else decided to do Absolutel True Diary of a Part-Time Indian for thier mini lesson (and still kind of peeved no one brought their books to class). That book is really good and I loved re-reading it and teaching my lesson on it. I did my reflection for it already but I will just reiterate that I thought it went really well and it showed me that I still need to work on time management when it comes to lesson planning and knowing how long discussion and reading will actually take. I also already reflected on my Unit Plan, but I will say that it is the weakest of my work from this quarter. Meeting with Sean every week was extremely helpful, but I did not utilize it as much as I could have. I didn't put as much effort into it as I should have, even though I was still happy with what I came up with for the lesson and still want to use it when I teach if I can. I didn't print out all of my lessons and actually ran out of money for the EWU printers and couldn't print out anymore anyway. It is the only thing I wish I could do over in this entire course.
This course has taught me so many things about teaching and becoming a teacher. I need to work on my procrastination and time management both in and outside of the classroom. I need to remember al of the strategies that I learned and apply them to my teaching. I need to keep using TPAs for my class because they are really helpful in making the best class possible. But, most of all, it has just solidifed my belief that I am in the right profession. I love standing in front of a class of students and teaching to them. I love reading books to learn, and reading books to teach. English is a great passion of mine, and so is teaching, and this class helped me know that that is true. This quarter was great, and I plan to remember it when I go on to teach full time. Do androids dream of electric sheep? I am still not sure, but I know I dream of being an English teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment