Blog #6 - Twitter Chat

          As a future English teacher, connecting with practicing English teachers is a valuable asset to continue my professional development. For my development, I signed up for Twitter and have since contributed to two different chats based on education and English in the public systems. The particular Twitter chat I will focus on in this blog post is #engchat. The topic of this week’s chat was "students as connected learners."

     While participating in #engchat, there were three main conversations which dominated this weeks’ chat. The first thing I noticed as a prevalent topic was how much teachers affect students. The second "hot topic" to make an appearance is the amount of outside sources which affect the students. Finally, the last conversation to come onto the scene was what media mediums are available for students.

     While participating in #engchat, there were three things that I learned that today’s teachers are using in their classroom. Quite a bit of the teachers utilized blogging in a variety of ways. Some teachers were tweeting different ways student blogging is a great educational tool. Blogging in place of journals was just one way that teachers utilize blogging. Some of the teachers use other Google based products, such as hangouts, docs, etc, for many different classroom functions. I did not talk with them to figure out how they use the hangouts and docs, along with the other Google products, in their classroom, yet I am curious to find ways to implement Google into my classroom. The teachers also attempt to incorporate technology in profitable ways. They did this through the Google based products and the blogs in their classrooms.

     As I was reading the Tweets in #engchat, some of the teachers were Tweeting different websites, articles, and blogs which they thought would contribute and further the conversation for the rest of the hour. The first one I found to be interesting was Creativity Crisis. Work roles in the classroom was the second link I found to be an inspiration to my classroom. Finally, Connecting Creativity is the last link from the chat that stuck out to me during this week’s chat.
     In moderation, like everything in this world, Twitter chats do have value for educators. The reason I say moderation is that there is a line as to just the right amount of exposure in Twitter chats and going overboard in over exposure. I am enjoying using Twitter so far, I hope I am able to continue to enjoy my exploration of what it takes to teach by communicating with other teachers who are living and teaching in the public systems today.

Blog #5 - Textbooks

     In education, each subject area has specific textbooks which are, usually, used as the primary text of the class. These textbooks have been assaulted, especially in recent years, with mixed feelings. Some teachers view textbooks as a crutch while there are some teachers who find themselves with the exact opposite position by holding a strong dislike of textbooks and refuse to use them. In my opinion, textbooks are treasured assets. These books, in the realm of English, avail themselves readily to classroom use. Without such textbooks, the students in English classes will be required to be responsible for piles of small books and novels which they will only read a few pages to the whole work to carry around for the whole year. A textbook, primarily an anthology, reduces the amount of books and loose pages that the students have to juggle through for homework.

     In English classrooms, having more than one textbook has always been necessary for this content area. The method of using a variety of printed and online resources in the classroom has proven to be successful. Using a variety of works of literature from the textbook in the classroom, which teach the most valuable lessons, in conjunction with works outside of the textbook, will give students a taste for how the world has changed throughout history and how speeches, poems, and other written texts changed the course of history. Yet, the works chosen need to have the appropriate vocabulary for the students. If they are unable to understand the vocabulary found in the text how are they going to understand the meaning the text is attempting to convey.

     In the English classroom, one way to efficiently and effectively use a textbook would be to wisely choose the work, page number, and duration of use for each assignment. Give the students smaller chunks of pages to read. The students will be able to accurately study and create a larger understanding with a smaller amount of pages verses a large amount. For example, while reading a novel, such as To Kill A Mockingbird, having the students read one chapter at a time will hold the students interest longer than assigning two or more chapters. Also, the students will be able to comprehend what they have read due to the fact that they were not intimidated by the sheer amount of pages several chapters can accumulate.

     English classrooms are special, using a variety of different texts is required in each high-school classroom. Therefore, having just one textbook is difficult. One teachers', found here, English department has banished using textbooks. The entire department creates their own curriculum based on what they are required, and what they wish, to teach. This may be viewed as a unique way of using textbooks, but the English department uses novels and anthologies of poems and other works to teach their students.

Blog #4 - How Readers Think

          In the textbook Subjects Matter, Ch. 2 covers the different reading lessons/strategies teachers need to be implemented and become aware of how each student is affected by them. Of the five reading lessons given in the first part of the chapter, the one that stuck in my mind as the most effective is the last one: Reading is a staged and recursive process. In short, this strategy deals with breaking the critical reading process into three stages; in each stage there are several different check points which need to be met in order to complete the stage and are able to move on to the next stage. Yes, there will be some jumping around at times, but the students need to be able to understand the different stages of critical reading. This strategy is important for the English classroom due to the fact that half of the content is reading different works from different authors throughout time. Teaching the students how to properly use these different stages in their reading will allow them to not end up reading the text the same way that the authors of Subjects Matter made me feel with their random excerpts.

          English is different than the other content areas in that one half to three quarters of the content deals with reading; reading text written by other authors or reading your own writing. Expert readers in English have certain criteria and have to ask themselves questions that are not readily accessible to other content areas. The expectations in English deal with looking for are whether the text deals with politics, current events, or is simply a story just for the fun of reading a story. The questions these experts have to ask themselves are 'What is the author saying?' , and 'Why did the author describe the scene in the language they did?' , and 'What prompted the author to speak out about this issue?'

          As I was reading the last section of chapter two, I was wondering with Common Core taking a bow out of education, how would the Show Me Standards look like in the classroom? Would the CCSS and Show Me Standards look different or very similar? Are the suggestions and examples in the last section of the chapter close or would it be different?

Blog #3 - Strategies for Building Community

        In our textbook, Subject Matter, we were presented with several different strategies for building community in our classroom. Of these strategies, the top six that stand out I would defiantly ask any and every teacher who is currently teaching English in the high-school arena. The six questions that were created from the strategies are as follows.

1. Do you provide class time for book clubs? Are these book clubs geared more towards the works studied in class or the novels in you classroom library?
2. Do you have classroom responsibilities? If so, what are they and who do you usually gear them towards? If not, why do you chose not to have classroom responsibilities and what do you do instead?
3. Do you hold in-class conferences? If you do, how do you conduct each conference? If not, why do you chose not to and what do you do instead?
4. What and how do you use on the first day of class? How do you incorporate finding out the students interests and past experiences into each of your classes?
5. Do you have your students do any kind of project/presentation in your classes? Do you split up different topics and make each presenter a "master" of that topic for the year?
6. How do you share your passion of English in you classroom? Do you model how to critically read a text or how to make notes when doing research for a paper?

        I think the most important ways to build classroom community would involve every person who is in the classroom to learn about the others in the room; both students AND the teacher would work together to learn about everyone in the room. This would contribute to creating a community of learners. By learning about others, everyone learns how to gather the necessary information for a specific purpose. Having a firm foundation of where the students are coming into the class sets the tone for the whole year. To achieve this level of community, I as a teacher will have to model the expectations I have for the class. One way I will model learning about each of my students, I will fill out a facebook profile handout about myself. After, I show the students how to use the paper version of a facebook profile, I will have them partner up and fill out a profile of the other person. I will then have the students fill out one for themselves as a homework assignment. 

Blog #2 - Research on Reading Instruction

    One of most important things to take into consideration from IRA's position would be that "(a)dolescents deserve access to a wide variety of print and non-print materials." In this, we will be able to properly engage in them a love of reading. It might not be what we as teachers love to read, but the students will be learning from what they are absorbing, regardless of whether it is for pleasure or information purposes. This section of the article hints at utilizing the library extensively within every discipline for every assignment, regardless of topic. Any and every form of print and non-print, fiction and non-fiction sources are used. The second most important thing to take into consideration when it comes to adolescent literacy is that adolescents have "a culture of literacy in their schools with a systemic and comprehensive programmatic approach to increase literacy achievement for all." If we as teachers tell the students that they need to read more, yet we are not taking our own advice, what will the students think about their teachers? The IRA's article states that the principals are where it starts to have a school full of students who are passionate writers and readers.

     The major conclusion that I most agree with from Chapter 12 out Daniels and Zelman's textbook Subjects Matter is number 2. Having students read for both information and pleasure will help them establish a love for reading that will carry over to any and every subject in school allowing this love to carry over into their post-school life. On page 296 of Subjects Matter, the authors give a list from a 1999 study of motives students develop from reading for information and pleasure. These motives not only apply to school, but to life in general. Also, these lifestyles the students make during their school years will carry over into their adult life.

     Reading through the ten major conclusions from Chapter 12 of Subject Matter, I was unable to find one whole conclusion to disagree with. As I read more into how each conclusion was suggested to be carried out and the studies which had been performed to back up each conclusion, I was unable to find myself disapproving of any detail.

     The only questions I had about this week’s assignments was how the major conclusions from our textbook and the "what do adolescents deserve" from the article will come into reality in my classrooms.

Blog #1 - Core Purposes of Reading

      In Harvey "Smokey" Daniels and Steven Zemleman's textbook Subject Matter, they give several examples of what proper content-area reading does to students of a particular high school in Illinois. Being able to properly read and, more importantly, understand what is being read is a skill students of any classroom need to have tucked into their pocket. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many schools today. Therefore, teachers of this day and age need to be able to properly teach their students how to read critically in the content area.

      Daniels and Zemleman use these ten examples of what happened to a class of students who were properly taught how to read the text Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal/. 1) One activity stated is how two students, Michael and Antonio, used to bring the concern of where the meat, used in fast food restaurants, came from. They created fliers based on a selected section of their school reading on the issue. The two boys used these fliers as conversation starters with the patrons of the McDonald's the boys chose to start their "petition." This is some sort of literacy learning because what is written forces the reader to think about what they are reading and not let the words enter in one eye and go out the other. 2) Antonio shows some sort of literacy learning through his attempt of annotating one page of his copy of Fast Food Nation. Even if his attempt was not properly executed, he at least was able to use the information he learned from reading through the book with his class. 3) The four students who wrote a picture book they illustrated as well shows that they were able to take the information they learned in their classes and create a resource for younger ages about what goes on when it comes to making the Happy Meal from McDonald's. 4) Another student wrote to her representative based on the disturbing images she read in Fast Food Nation. This is a pro-active form of literacy learning. This student was able to take information and raise it as an area of concern for the government to look into. 5) Another thing Jaisy did to take a pro-active stance against ridding the world of such horrible situations was that she had a petition for people to sign in order to stop such violent acts from continuing. 6) Another activity would be in how the students took the food from their cafeteria and found where on the food pyramid each food item belonged to see how balanced their meals were. 7) Some of the students who read this book went out and did outside research of local fast-food places. 8) Other students kept food journals to help them see what type of food they were putting in their bodies. 9) As a continuation of their primary learning, some students searched the internet for more information about the food they were putting in their bodies from certain restaurants and from home-cooked meals. 10) Teachers had some students act out two different situations concerning foods and employees of fast-food restaurants.

       The students from the examples above were changed in a variety of ways. Some were not effected what so ever as to what happens to the animals used in the kitchens. The extreme opposite of these students, there were several students who could not handle eating any form of meat because of the violent forms of preparation it took to get them from point A to point B. Then there were the kids who found themselves in the middle of the issues extremes. They thought it was terrible the way the meat was prepared, but that did not stop them from eating any form of meat.

       I have never participated in any projects or units which made me react as much as the students in the textbook from the high school in Chicago. I was home-schooled my entire life, therefore I was the only student in my class, making any sort of "revolution" in my class a rather difficult thing to achieve. If I had to choose just one instance of literacy learning and any activities which accompanied it in my school experience, I would have to go back to my senior year of high school. My mom allows us, my siblings and I, to chose what type of literature course to do for the year. I chose to do a course in which by the end I was, supposedly, to have written an entire adventure novel consisting of nine-to-twelve chapters. Safe to say I have yet to finish the novel, but I learned how a novel is created and that writing of any kind takes hard work and determination. This is one reason I chose English as my content area. I wanted to continually learn how to properly construct the written word in order to captivate my audience the way I had been captivated by the novel which accompanied the course to show how to write an adventure novel.

       As a English teacher, I hope to open the eyes of my students to the wonders of the written word. I chose my subject area of English because I have always had a passion for literature and composition. By teaching I am able to share my passion of reading and writing with the young minds coming into my room to be able to shape their attitudes and thought processes about reading and writing. Hopefully my students will have the same type of hype about reading and writing as the students in the examples above had about the slaughtering of animals for fast-food places.