Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Text is Made of Sunshine and Lollipops!!!!!!!
For the most part I have to say that I agree with most of the class; I like these two textbooks. The information provided about the practical aspect of teaching is useful as a student freaked out about his future as a teacher. The unfortunate part of this is that I don't picture myself thumbing through a textbook when I feel lost as a teacher. I know in the back of my mind while I'm reading these books that teaching isn't something that can be learned in a textbook. I know that it is important to have some kind of resource available for ideas and inspiration but each class and each teacher is different and even if we use the ideas presented in these texts we're still going to have to format our lessons to our individual classes. So again I can admit that I like these textbooks but I'm not quite ready to set up a candlelit shrine in my closet with the hair of Christenbury and Gallagher topping off the detail of my Voodoo love statues.
Ok then...
So here goes a little reflection about by lesson at Central not too long ago. I never really did this, so take my hand, and let's see what happens...
My lesson at Central High School was with an English III class (mostly Juniors) on the Great Gatsby. The goal of the lesson was to introduce Gatsby and get started with the beginning of the text. The first thing I did was introduce the text itself, telling them what we would be reading, and why we would be reading it. I introduced it as a book about lying, getting ahead in life, being accepted, and social classes. The students grabbed onto the idea about social classes rather quickly, so I ran with that for a bit.
The next thing I did was give them a set of anticipatory questions to get them thinking about the text. I first gave them the questions to look at individually, and then we got into small groups and they discussed their opinions (agree or disagree, and why). Lastly, I let them discuss the quetions as a class and I facilitated the discussion. I felt like they really enjoyed this part of the lesson best, although I had a little trouble keeping them only going one at a time, at least that meant they all cared about the questions and wanted to discuss their opinions.
Then we did vocab. I am not a big fan of vocab, but teacher wanted me to incorporate it, so I did. I gave them a "I've know this/I've seen this/I've never seen this" vocab worksheet, and they went over it in small groups. I then gave them dictionaries to look over the ones that they couldn't come to a consensus about, and last we went over them in class and they said aloud what they found. This, to me, was the most boring part of the lesson. I do not know a better way to do vocab though.
The last thing we did was to get into the text. I read the first 10 pages of the text before the class was let out and the extremely annoying bell rang. Reading aloud to the class seemed like an issue to me because I was afraid they would act up while I was busy reading, but luckily they were very respectful and listened.
The class closed with a "write something you learned" writing assignment for the last couple of minutes, and then they left. By the way, I didn't tell them it was my last day (goodbyes are stupid), so apparently that surprised some of them.
All in all I felt like my transitions from one part of the class to the next was the main thing I need to work on. I was fairly confident (as I should be because I'm pretty great), and I was quite well prepared, but the passing out of papers, etc., made it difficult to not lose them in the process.
Ok then.
My lesson at Central High School was with an English III class (mostly Juniors) on the Great Gatsby. The goal of the lesson was to introduce Gatsby and get started with the beginning of the text. The first thing I did was introduce the text itself, telling them what we would be reading, and why we would be reading it. I introduced it as a book about lying, getting ahead in life, being accepted, and social classes. The students grabbed onto the idea about social classes rather quickly, so I ran with that for a bit.
The next thing I did was give them a set of anticipatory questions to get them thinking about the text. I first gave them the questions to look at individually, and then we got into small groups and they discussed their opinions (agree or disagree, and why). Lastly, I let them discuss the quetions as a class and I facilitated the discussion. I felt like they really enjoyed this part of the lesson best, although I had a little trouble keeping them only going one at a time, at least that meant they all cared about the questions and wanted to discuss their opinions.
Then we did vocab. I am not a big fan of vocab, but teacher wanted me to incorporate it, so I did. I gave them a "I've know this/I've seen this/I've never seen this" vocab worksheet, and they went over it in small groups. I then gave them dictionaries to look over the ones that they couldn't come to a consensus about, and last we went over them in class and they said aloud what they found. This, to me, was the most boring part of the lesson. I do not know a better way to do vocab though.
The last thing we did was to get into the text. I read the first 10 pages of the text before the class was let out and the extremely annoying bell rang. Reading aloud to the class seemed like an issue to me because I was afraid they would act up while I was busy reading, but luckily they were very respectful and listened.
The class closed with a "write something you learned" writing assignment for the last couple of minutes, and then they left. By the way, I didn't tell them it was my last day (goodbyes are stupid), so apparently that surprised some of them.
All in all I felt like my transitions from one part of the class to the next was the main thing I need to work on. I was fairly confident (as I should be because I'm pretty great), and I was quite well prepared, but the passing out of papers, etc., made it difficult to not lose them in the process.
Ok then.
Thoughts on the Reading
I found this chapter to be very helpful for me as a future teacher.
There are many examples of deeper reading questions to provoke the students' thinking. The concept of backward design also outlines where the teacher should be going with readings and questions for an anticipated ending understanding from the students.
I enjoyed the reading article about AIDS, and I grasped the importance of background information. Gallagher listed other topics/graphs that would help students and myself understand the epidemic better.
I also agreed with Gallagher when he stated what you test is what you get. Questions should evoke thought and opinions supported by text.
There are many examples of deeper reading questions to provoke the students' thinking. The concept of backward design also outlines where the teacher should be going with readings and questions for an anticipated ending understanding from the students.
I enjoyed the reading article about AIDS, and I grasped the importance of background information. Gallagher listed other topics/graphs that would help students and myself understand the epidemic better.
I also agreed with Gallagher when he stated what you test is what you get. Questions should evoke thought and opinions supported by text.
Field Experience Teaching
Friday I taught in class for about the third time. I had taught on Monday, and I taught the class before the one that Dr. Franklin observed. Overall, I think it went well, but there were some moments throughout the lesson where the students were a little overwhelming. I'll explain.
My lesson revolved around chapter 12 of Tuck Everlasting, and the main part of the lesson involved the students creating a crossword puzzle on the ReadWriteThink website. Using the websites Crossword Puzzle Generator (great tool), the students entered in some of their vocabulary words from the current and previous chapters as well as the clues/definitions that went with those words. Then, they switched computers with their table partners and completed their puzzle. To wrap the lesson up, the students responded to a question about the crossword puzzle activity on their class blog.
The time when I noticed the most problems was during the computer swapping process of the activity. Throughout the week, the students had been dividing up vocabulary words among their tables, and each person was responsible for a number of words; they were supposed to help each other fill in the words that they didn't complete, but for some of them it didn't happen. So, when it came time for them to do the other pair's crossword puzzle, some of them had no clue where to look if they got stuck on a word. So, they became frustrated and started roaming around the room. Other than that, the lesson seemed to go pretty well. All of the students enjoyed creating the puzzles, and they also seem to enjoy writing on the class blog.
My lesson revolved around chapter 12 of Tuck Everlasting, and the main part of the lesson involved the students creating a crossword puzzle on the ReadWriteThink website. Using the websites Crossword Puzzle Generator (great tool), the students entered in some of their vocabulary words from the current and previous chapters as well as the clues/definitions that went with those words. Then, they switched computers with their table partners and completed their puzzle. To wrap the lesson up, the students responded to a question about the crossword puzzle activity on their class blog.
The time when I noticed the most problems was during the computer swapping process of the activity. Throughout the week, the students had been dividing up vocabulary words among their tables, and each person was responsible for a number of words; they were supposed to help each other fill in the words that they didn't complete, but for some of them it didn't happen. So, when it came time for them to do the other pair's crossword puzzle, some of them had no clue where to look if they got stuck on a word. So, they became frustrated and started roaming around the room. Other than that, the lesson seemed to go pretty well. All of the students enjoyed creating the puzzles, and they also seem to enjoy writing on the class blog.
I thought I did this already...
Katie, you've only got two weeks left. Don't be losing it now. Just hold it together. And stop talking...er...typing to yourself.
Right.
Gallagher was great. Do you know the difference between a theme and a moral (as described by my practicum teacher, Alisa)? Morals are prescriptive and in the second-person. Themes are descriptive and universal. For example:
Moral of the chapter: Don't ever teach a book without knowing what you want the students to learn and guiding them in that direction.
Theme of the chapter: Sometimes people make mistakes, but they still learn from them.
I think my work is done here.
Right.
Gallagher was great. Do you know the difference between a theme and a moral (as described by my practicum teacher, Alisa)? Morals are prescriptive and in the second-person. Themes are descriptive and universal. For example:
Moral of the chapter: Don't ever teach a book without knowing what you want the students to learn and guiding them in that direction.
Theme of the chapter: Sometimes people make mistakes, but they still learn from them.
I think my work is done here.
TEN
Seriously...I love this text!!! It is probably one of the most useful texts I've been assigned to read while in school. I will definitely be using multiple ideas from this text as I explore the world of teaching!! I loved the beginning of this chapter. Gallagher's breakdown of what students learn on their own and what they through us, they're teachers is extremely important information for us to be aware of. I think that the breakdown of first draft reading, second draft reading and collaboration is an essential plan I want to implement in my class while we read and evaluate texts. Also, using Gallagher's idea of "Reflective Response to Text" is something I think that we can use to help students become aware of issues of our society as well as bring a text that might seem outdated to students and help them find themes in it that relate to their world!! All in all another great chapter...Thanks Gallagher!!!
Did they get it??
I really thought that the second part of this chapter was great! The discussion about the final exam questions and essays is important when thinking about assessing the sudents through a test. I really enjoyed the list of final essay questions because they seemed like opinion questions, but they were also relevant to the text. For example, students decide who changed the most or least or had the most or least important role in the text. THis is opinion and then they have to back their choices up with information from the text that shows that they understood the assignment. THis allows students a choice and they really like that. I think these types of questions are better than multiple choice or true/false questions because it really gets the students thinking and involved in the material. It allows them to use their higher-order thinking skills and make a connection from their lives to the book. He is absolutely correct that you don't want to WYTIWYG because that shallow assessment results in shallow thinking. As an artist, we dont want our works to be shallow. Therefore, as a teacher, we dont want our students' thinking to be shallow.
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