Friday, February 15, 2008

Chapter 5, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Yes, yes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, calm down it's not plagerism. I really enjoyed Chapter 5 because, well, not only was it more positive than the previous chapter, but of course it focused on LITERATURE (pretty much the coolest thing in the world). I especially enjoyed the section on Poetry because it mentioned that many teachers are scared of poetry (or at least scared that they can't interpret the poem exactly 100% correctly). As I am currently writing my I-search Paper on "teaching poetry to high school students," this discussion (143) got me to thinking: Do students hate/not get poetry because their teachers hate/don't get poetry? As teachers I'm sure we don't only want to teach our students about our specific favorite topics and writers, we of course should want to give them a much broader and far reaching perspective than that. Granted Christenbury later encourages us not to teach pieces we don't like, but she is talking about individual pieces, not entire genres (165).

The other thing in this chapter that I really enjoyed is the the discussion on "giving students choice regarding what they will do with literature" (163). I think this is just so important (and I guess Christenbury is almost equally as smart as me, because she agrees. Haha.) because I remember as a high school student hating the structure of the projects we used to do. One of the reasons I have always loved college as compared to high school is the freedom we have been allowed when it comes to projects, and sometimes even literature as a whole. The ideas listed such as word tests, home pages, and creation of a past seemed especially neat, fun, and useful to me, and they are ideas I would like to put into action at some point.

Well, that's all I have to say. I hope all of your have completed your assigned homework of watching Pay It Forward (I assigned that in my last blog, not Dr. Franklin, lol). Hmmm,...the assignment I will give you for next class, that of course is vital to shaping who you are as a teacher and a human being, is to read Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Enjoy.

3 comments:

Joshua said...

I have seen Pay it Forward quite a few times. It really is a great movie. Although, I have never heard of those books you mentioned. Am I missing all of the good things or something?

Tina and Aaron said...

I refuse to do your homeowrk, in fact, I dropped your course last week!

I agree with your poetry focus for your I-search. I had the same fear until I took a class with Dr. Jones(no longer at the University) and he introduced us to Billy Collins and Poetry 180. This will be used in my approach to teaching poetry.

Not everyone has the taste for poetry, but if you season it with something a little more palatable, like Collins, they just might be able to choke it down.

And now, your homework...

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/p180-list.html

Priscilla Wilson said...

I've really enjoyed the freedom in reading college offers as well. I think it's important to give students choice so they can critically think about their personal choices also.