Poetry Lesson Week 6

Wrapping up poetry (with a bow):
E and F's lessons were a lovely way to wrap up the unit/semester. I think the circumstances they had to deal with were realistic, and something we will all encounter before break when we teach. I thought that they both handled our giddy and at times out of control behavior, as well as conducted lessons in which they weren't they center of attention nicely. Their mannerisms really got me thinking about how I would react in a situation in which my students' minds were elsewhere, and possibly under the influence of excitement and/or sugar. I thought that they handled the situation well - i.e. didn't start screaming or give up or design a lesson centered around simple busy work. I think they only thing a teacher can do before the break is embrace it - even it's negative connotations. Pre-break is not a time to cram students' heads full of new material, but it's not really blow-off time either. I think that wrapping up a unit at this time doesn't have to be meaningless or monotonous - I think it can be crafted for engagement. Kids will be giddy, talkative, so let's embrace that. I think F and E did just that. We wanted to talk, so they let us talk - but they channeled it in the direction they wanted to go. We did activities that were interactive, but weren't simply holiday crossword puzzles (an activity I loathed near the holidays). I think we really need to start thinking bigger than Christmas anyway in this heterogeneous and multicultural world. This lead me to another question dealing with my placement at Eastern, I saw banners and bulletin boards dressed in multicultural holiday garb - I wonder if they will celebrate them in the classes? Or, will candy canes and Rudolph still be the norm?

Poetry Lesson Week 5

Student Lead Classes:

Both M and J's lessons today were focused on pieces of poem's to illustrate their theme of the day. Interestingly enough, neither lead a discussion on a single poem, but instead resorted to student created pieces. I enjoyed M's lesson in particular because I felt like it set the tone for future classes to come. It's a wonderful idea to work on community like that before you expect your class to open up to one another, share their ideas and opinions, and work with each other - especially when it comes to their own writing. I can remember my own experience in high school when I was forced to share a poem I created with my peers, it was like putting my innards on display, a truly horrifying experience. I think these type of lessons also let students see what they're really capable of creating. I think students are too often intimidated when it comes to creating something of their own, particularly poetry. Society has placed poetry on this pedestal, and creating it almost seems unattainable and absolutely discouraging. I liked the use of these activities, that didn't reveal students too much, to illustrate the creativity and mastery of language and image within each of us. I would love to see this taking place in a high school class - I bet teachers would be amazed of what's within their students!

Poetry Lesson Week 4

Riddle Me This
M and J's poetry discussions brought up interesting approaches to the same old song and dance. I loved J's use of riddles for his lesson, it's something I've never even considered. I think that the skills he was going for were met in a fun way, and it also illustrated a great way to get the students warmed up to poetry and close reading. M's approach to leading discussion was a refreshing idea, though a little odd to me at first. I've never really had such an experience before, but I think it turned out well. I wonder what high school students would feel like if we were to sit amongst them for discussion - what message would it send across? I can see myself doing such a thing, but wonder what it says about the authority I hold. It just got me thinking about how different we'll all structure classes, as we all have our own personalities and styles - it's nice to see them coming through in our teaching. J's lesson brought up my inner turmoil over close reading and analysis. These are skills that I think are important to teach, but I always question how far to take them. Sometimes I think it's just as important to appreciate a piece of writing, rather than tear it apart for some elusive meaning. Is there a line? Can it be crossed and then doubled back over again? Does analysis, literary criticism and interpretation take precedence over personal responses to a great piece of writing?

Poetry Lesson Week 2

S, R, and C's lessons brought up some interesting points through their strikingly different choices in poems. R and C chose to look at silly poems, aimed at middle schoolers. While I think that this was age appropriate, I wonder if these same poems can be used in high school as warm-ups to get the students into the poetry frame of mind, instead of just jumping right into a Whitman poem at 7:30 am. I thought R handled the unexpected well - something I don't feel like we're getting enough practice with while teaching our peers. S did a great job leading discussion on her Hughes poems, though I do question how much students in high school will have to say about poems from the get-go. I think she had a reserve of questions to spark discussion, but I think a little history might have to be ventured into as well to fully appreciate such poems. These lessons, S's and C's in particular, made me question the use of poet/author biographies while teaching. This was brought up to me in my own lesson, is the poet's life/background crucial to the poem? What would it mean if we didn't consider the author's perspective or probable explanation of the poem and solely went off of the words? What are the +/- to having such knowledge before looking at the poem? Does their meaning take precedent over out own? What if the two don't align? It's an issue I'm still torn between.

Poetry Lesson Week 1

The Old West vs. the Westside
L's and E's lessons went well, I enjoyed both avenues they ventured down. I particularly enjoyed L's lesson because of her humility (admitting of her past experiences with poetry, as well as her unfamiliarity with the genre), it served as a humble reminder. Sometimes I think the knowledge we think we should walk out of school with can be overwhelming - we're expected to know every little component of the subject of English. Her use of pre-constructed dittos, something we've been avoiding like the plague, helped me to realize that we can utilize resources. It seems like an obvious idea, but one that I think we've sometimes forget in our quest for creative lessons and assignments. E's exploration into a Native poem was an interesting choice of narrative, that she covered well, one I've never been exposed to in school. I think that it's important to study other cultures in our classes, but I think it's something that can't be done half-hazardly. Too often I think multicultural literature gets thrown in for "flavor" in overwhelmingly white curriculum (as has been my experience)- how do we approach such literature? To clarify, how do we select which cultures to incorporate into the curriculum? How do we deal with the possibility of our multicultural students being viewed as the token representative of their culture? These may be easy to answers questions, but are still areas of gray to me.

Bukowski on Poetry

I think this lesson went fairly well,though not necessarily according to plan...
What I think I could have improved on:

• My directions for the Tea Party activity - I could have modeled how I wanted students to utilize the notecards (I think there was miscommunication, as you guys started to order yourself with your cards)
• I think I should have played Bukowski reading the poem instead of having a student read it - what would this imply? Did it really matter since I didn't follow up with the discussion questions I thought I would?
• I always have rough beginnings easing into the role of teacher in front of you guys, I think I would behave different in front of high school students because I wouldn't feel as awkward
• I don't think I ought to "censor" myself, but I think that some things I say need more explanation for a high school audience - "taboo male fantasy", "misogynist", "poet laureate of skid row", etc.
• I wish I would have done something with the classroom physically to fit with the discussion that was taking place between students verbally; although our class has no problem debating with one another, it may be more difficult for high school students to respond to faces/voices they can't see

What I thought went well:

• the discussion! I had no idea the class was going to get so into the poem. I'm glad I didn't drop it in favor of an actual beat poem
• I was surprised at how well I actually followed the discussion taking place, I didn't know I had it in me to take in so many points of view at once
• I discovered just how comfortable I am with conflicting and heated view points
  
• Getting the students up and active with poetry, instead of sitting in their desks for traditional discussion

I think this lesson would translate well into a classroom, but I think it would take much more guidance and action on my part to get it going. I'm not sure how students would react to the content of the poem, or if such a passionate discussion would take place at all. It's hard to say. I think that a discussion would have to be prompted via images or comments by myself to either push people's buttons or serve as a devil's advocate to elicit a response. I feel like the lesson didn't actually teach anything about Beat poetry, but I also planned for it to serve as only an introduction, so all is not loss. I think much more would be made of my aims through the homework, the DVD, and the ensuing discussion. I noticed just how sarcastic I was after this lesson - I question whether or not this can have negative repercussions in my classroom...

Cycle 2 Lessons

Although our lessons differed from one another, we all shared common queries and issues about group teaching. Most notable to me were how to improvise when sharing the limelight (because nothing ever goes according to plan); how to incorporate our individual perspectives without dominating others; and how to ignite authentic and meaningful conversation, which includes how far we let our students stray from the topic at hand, and how to pass the torch onto our students to discuss with one another instead of just with us. Each of the groups had an "alpha" member who dominated the majority of the lesson. Even though this is a problem, it seems natural for one person to take charge of things in these types of situations. I'm not sure if it can be avoided unless the lesson is completely scripted, so much so that when we can breathe is written into our plan. This, however, isn't a burning issue, because I don't foresee ever having to share the stage with four other teachers during a lesson (or so I hope). While I didn't see too many instances of an individual completely obliterating a fellow group member's said piece, contrasting view points did surface from time to time. In particular, in each group's lesson there was an individual who was very descriptive and a contrasting person who was less explicit. Any other differences in opinion, I believe we all held back due to the nature of the lesson - we have to know when to step up and make our presence known, as well as when to step back and let someone else have the spotlight. I think we all know this, which illustrates our respect for our colleagues and our ability to slip in and out of leadership roles - both crucial within a professional sphere. I think that all of the groups raised interesting points for discussion that involved everyone in the "class". I believe that the issues that were raised were both meaningful to the students and relevant to the lesson, but I'm not sure if they were all authentic. Though, in our defense, I'm not sure if I understand the whole issue of authentic discussion yet. Each time I think I get it, I start to doubt whether or not I really have it down. There were specific instances of a ping-pong back and forth between teacher and student, but there were also periods of students going off of points fellow students had made - either elaborating on them or countering them (especially in group three's lesson). Something that I notice consistently in our class is our straying from a prompted point of discussion - we're all pretty opinionated! This doesn't seem to concern me, however, for I feel that we always stick to the backbone of the discussion, only deviating slightly. I think this is good preparation for all of us because I'm sure our classrooms won't run smoothly all that time (or ever...). We're getting ample practice on how to guide discussions back to the topic, how to relate individual experiences to our lesson, and how to connect disparate points to convey a unified meaning, or how to let these points feed a structured debate. We're learning to ease up on the scripted and how to improvise without losing focus.

I think we're starting to get the hang of this.

More On Mini Lessons

September 26:

Gerunds, Wordiness, Greetings and Closings, and the Active and Passive Voice:

Each lesson had a particular thing I focused on that I found worthy of note; aside from the usefulness of each of these topics (I've never even heard of gerunds!). I enjoyed C's incorporation on pop culture media and their application of their lesson to real-life situations, i.e writing formal and informal letters. This is a great example to help students see writing outside of the classroom - that it's actually useful to learn such skills. E's lesson was beneficial to their students and had a direct link with their own writing, so it was both informative and practical. What better grammar practice is their than examining your own writing? S's lesson grabbed attention with the use of powerpoint and was related to real life by illustrating the preferred writing of academia. M's lesson was a bit confusing to me (I really felt like a high school student learning unknown material) but they were supportive of our blunders and continued to guide us through practice. Each used student oriented practice instead of just pointing at samples and engaged us with an open dialogue, which was nice. Even if things didn't run smoothly, they would just interject to put us back on track to make deductions of our own instead of just correcting us and moving on. I'd be interested to see how they incorporate these lessons within a larger unit, or if they would recall them later to access students' progress.

Mini Lessons

September 19:

Prefixes and Suffixes, Homophones, Registers and Genres:

I thought E had a great idea about letting us form our own opinions on the difference between register and genre. We struggled through it, but E kept to their guns and let us figure things out for ourselves with their guidance. I liked R's strategy for remembering the difference between effect and affect, I've never been exposed to that before. I think that R's lesson was an important one, but it seemed to unfold at too accelerated a pace. Granted, it was due to our understanding of such differences already as English majors, I guarantee it would not be over so quickly in a high school class. The incorporation of an activity with such a lesson would have enhanced the content. Although, there isn't much time for such things. I think a difficulty with having to teach sort of boring topics is to make them fun and engaging, but in a meaningful and purposeful way. I liked that much of these lessons was student lead, in the sense that E,R and E sort of took a step back and let the students figure out things on their own and then called us back to monitor and reaffirm (or correct) what we came up with. I think it would be easy for students to question the purpose of these lessons, as they seem sort of disconnected from life and a bit dry, but E, E and R set up the context of these topics and related them to real-world scenarios. To be effective, I think these lessons should be recalled upon down the road when dealing with texts or students' own work - i.e making them recognize how frequently they come into contact with these topics.

Mini Lessons, In Short

September 12:

A reflection upon my own sentence fragment mini lesson:
My presentation didn't go as smoothly as I had envisioned it, which can only be useful in preparing me with classroom realities I will soon be facing. I think my own problem stemmed from my lack of confidence in the topic I presented; I know what a sentence fragment looks like and I can fix it thanks to my internal sense of grammar, but conveying what I knew turned out to be somewhat trying. When I asked for a "student" volunteer to correct the fragment on the board, he corrected it differently than I would have, which threw me for a loop. I didn't respond immediately, or in a manner I would have liked to. This falter in my confidence affected the rest of my lesson and the way in which I carried myself. I became nervous, started jumping around my plan, and abandoned some parts of it completely.
Not executing my lesson as I planned it wasn't the problem, but instead my loss of authority when I doubted my own content knowledge. I kept thinking that if students witnessed a slip in my self-assurance that the lesson wouldn't be taken seriously. The last thing I want is to fall on my face in front of a class because of a lapse in self-confidence; I'd rather a downfall come from taking a risk in trying something new that didn't turn out.
I still believe that the content of my lesson was worthy, despite the rough execution. I think that I tried to tackle too much in too little time. I attempted to define fragments, teach rules for correction, perform guided practice in identification and correction, discuss the socio-political implications of usage, complete an activity, and relate the material to my students in ten minutes - quite ambitious. I learned from this experience that I don't always have to define social implications and openly discuss them in every lesson I present. I could easily tie such issues in with the writing process after the students got back their first paper - we could discuss writing style and its effects then instead. I don't think the layout of my plan was engaging enough. I liked the idea I had in creating a rules sheet for my students to refer to, but I don't think just reading through the examples was beneficial.
To teach this lesson many revisions would have to be made. I think the most important though is integrating practice with the rules of identification and correction - not to separate the two into distant spheres. I think it would be better to have students identify fragments within a paragraph first (some of these sentences are not like the others...) and then discuss what a fragment is and how to correct it. Structuring the lesson this way would allow me to note how much my students already know about sentence structure and if they can note that a fragment is a fragment without me telling them so. Other than these few critiques I think I just need to get used to and comfortable in the teacher role. I think the majority of my problems stemmed from me treating this presentation as just slipping on the guise of a teacher instead of owning the role. I think this can be corrected with more experience in front of the class.

A response to the lessons of my peers (Satire, Grammar Usage/Style and accompanying politics, Formal English):
M,F, and J all seemed at ease in front of a classroom - especially F and J, they owned the role of teacher. They each got their students engaged with their lesson, but with very different tactics, which I found of particular interest. M relied on guided discussion and a partner activity to get us involved with the material, F used humor and the relation of the topic to real life situations we could take note of, and J used humor and a literal application of his topic for us to witness the means and ends of. F and J's lessons seemed to establish a firm base upon which to build at the beginning of a unit, I think their students would be interested to see what would follow - a sort of leave them on the edge of their seats tactic. They all fit their lessons within the time limit, but M seemed a bit rushed. Although, M was covering the most content. Each of their lessons were not only well-planned, but thoughtful and thought provoking. They dealt with real social issues, and were built around usage and exposure as a path to understanding and learning - not just lecture, or reading about such topics. I can infer where these lessons would take place, but remain unsure what would follow in F, M and J's unit. M stated explicitly where and when this lesson would take place, and the others were an opening to a specific text, but what would happen next? I would be interested to see what lessons would follow the ones I observed. I don't question out of a lack of confidence in their abilities and talents, it is solely a matter of curiosity.