My Role as a Teacher-to-be

Now that we are bringing together everything we have learned so far for our group teach, it is beginning to feel more like the real thing (I'm guessing!). As part of Group 3, the Dystopia Group, we do not yet have specifics planned out but we have an outline of what we want to do with the class and we are all pretty excited! I can't give too much away, but I believe it will turn out well. As far as the group itself goes, I think it is neat that we are all at different phases in our teaching, and I, being the youngest, definitely could learn a lot from these girls. We balance each other out because we all have something different to contribute at each meeting. We assigned tasks at the last meeting, so tomorrow we will go over what we have and try to plan everything out to more detail. I picked this group because I really like pieces of the sci-fi and dystopia genres. I am glad I went with this because I ended up picking a group based on my interests, not on who I thought would be in the group. It has worked out really well because we are focused on our work while I ended up making some new friends in the process.

On the other hand, we have some teachers that are coming in Wednesday for us to listen to, ask questions and get advice from. I really liked the teacher panel that Shannon organized last Spring semester, where each teacher talked about their different classroom experiences and included a segment entitled "10 Things I Wish I Knew About Teaching 10 Years Ago." I especially liked when the one teacher talked about how, on the first day of school, he would bring powertools into his classroom (this was usually for ninth graders I think). He would pick out one of the burly boys in the class and give him a hammer to try to get a screw into a two by four. When the boy couldn't do it, he would find the smallest girl in the class and give her a powerdrill so she could complete the task with no trouble. The message from this exercise?: Teachers have to give students the right tools to succeed, but then it is up to the student to use those tools. There was also a teacher who talked about her move from the high school to the middle school, and how refreshing it was because she felt liek she had fallen in a rut. She said not to be afraid to branch out if you ever feel like this. One teacher I observed with at Greencastle told me after she got her degree, she worked in another field for about 16 years before going back to teaching! So that was another good piece of advice to think about. Even though I wasn't able to stay for the whole presentation, it was reassuring to hear from experienced teachers about real problems and solutions that they dealt with. I took a lot away from that, so I'm hoping to do the same this time. I would like to hear about everything from cool activities in the classroom to their student teaching experiences to their opinions on censorship since that was a really hot topic we talked about. My list of questions will include ones like these:

What is one cool activity that you use in your classroom?

Do you teach classes that are diverse, or a part of a more specific population?

Do you ever teach controversial or banned books? How about books you don't enjoy to read?

How much instruction time do you devote to grammar and other writing skills?

If you could give one piece of advice to a future teacher, what would it be?

Etcetera, etcetera. These are adopted from our classroom discussions, my reader profile project and just my own uncertainties and misgivings about my future as a teacher. But I must admit I think that sometimes no matter how much advice you get, eventually we're all just going to have to take the plunge and go on the journey, which is the only way I can describe how I think teaching will be! I realize that it is a process of trial and error, and that it will become easier once I get some experience under my belt. Is there anything you guys are unsure about when you think of yourself as a teacher? What questions do you have for our visitors?

From Collins to Bowman... What Is our Future Outlook?

After reading The Hunger Games, I just have to say that I am excited to have this book included in my group teach! When I started to read about the point system used for the Hunger Games players, it really showed how much the concept was made to seem like a sporting event we would see on ESPN, showing player stats, sponsors, and the whole nine yards. I also thought it was really interesting how, in relation to the title of the book and the themes of food, food-getting and hunting, people’s eating habits seemed to demonstrate their rank. One example is when Katniss and Peeta are first on the train with Effie Trinket, and she compliments the two on their table manners, saying how barbaric the last two were at the table. Katniss then purposefully eats with her hands, wiping her hands on the tablecloth. She does this just to irritate Effie, using it as a tool to her advantage. We also see three characters, Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch, dunking their food when they are eating. Peeta first dunks his rolls in hot chocolate, which Katniss imitates, and Haymitch dunks his pork in wine. I thought, that is a lot of dunking! But I also realized those three are of the proletariat class, while Cinna, Portia and Effie are “Capitolists.” Maybe I’m reading a little much into the symbolism, but it really helped me to think about the related themes I named off earlier. Can you guys think of any other times when food is used symbolically in the novel?

Probably the most shocking moment for me was when the wolf “muttations” appeared and then Katniss finds out they are the dead tributes. I was wondering if they really brought back the players’ bodies or if they simply harvested their DNA to make these creations, but either way it was a pretty disturbing scene. As I said before in my last blog, I’m a sucker for a love story and The Hunger Games definitely delivered in that aspect, because the whole time I was wondering if she would end up with Gale or Peeta (or neither!). But even at the end, that wasn’t really answered. The ending in its entirety urges the reader on to the sequel. As I went with Katniss, on her journey, it was like I really shared her belief that once the Games were over, it would be a happy ending. But in the back of my mind, I knew this not to be true.
Would I teach Hunger Games in the classroom? Yes. It is a little violent maybe, but it removes the cursing that can become a deterrent as it is in some books I would want to potentially teach. I also like the fact that it is part of a series, because if the students liked it enough it would be possible to read the next two books in the trio. However, that might take up a significant part of the school year as the book was a tad lengthy.

As for the article I read “Is Stupid Making Us Google?” by James Bowman, and it had me thinking about this trend of educational apathy we were talking about in the last class with the references it made to “The Dumbest Generation.” Among other dilemmas he discusses, Bowman poses the question, Is it our generation’s fault, or are our mentors to blame? I thought, Is the blame on the rise of technology? The whole time I can’t help but find it ironic that I am reading this article online. While going through the article, I also related it to two other ideas. The whole time I was reading Hunger Games, I kept thinking about how so many of my generation wouldn’t be able to survive in such a dire situation. We are so focused on man’s own culture and creations that we have fallen mostly out of touch with the Earth. I actually have a somewhat decent about of friends who are more skilled in hunting, trapping and other outdoors skills than I am, but somehow I feel that this is the minority. I feel that not only are we not being taught to read in an educational sense, but we are also not pushed to learn everyday, common sense practices. The article also took my mind to what type of society we live in, which is a monochronic society, meaning time-oriented and progressive. Americans are expected to be on time to class, work, appointments, or wherever we go. Consequently, we expect to move along with our day in a timely manner, and this depends on all things from the services we receive to the daily traffic flow. I for one feel the constraints of time every day, as I go to school five days a week and work three. As I have to make enough time to do my reading for school, making time for leisurely reading is the last thing on my mind. At one point Bowman references “Nicholas Carr [who says ]that what we are witnessing is not just an educational breakdown but a deformation of the very idea of intelligence” (Bowman) I would agree with something along those lines, maybe more like that the value of intelligence and an educated mind seems to be deteriorating.

Censorship in "Feed"... Censorship in the Real World

Feed is now one of my new favorite books. I don’t care that it is an adolescent novel! I think it speaks volumes about what our future could look like if we that live in the core (not those who live in the periphery) continue to live as we do now. In America at least, our consumerism and greed has overtaken our endeavors in life and our measurement of success. The capitalist economy has created an apathetic attitude towards anything lying outside of individual self benefit. I could go on and on but I loved this book because of the ideas expressed in it, and I always am a sucker for a love story. I also like sci-fi thrillers if they’re not too weird. It’s funny because I always try to make predictions for what the future will be like and what technology will bring us – one of the ideas I had before this book was that instead of iPods, we will have a chip in our head that whenever we think it will just play a song. And Feed definitely took that to a whole other level! I picked the Group 3 dystopia theme because I love books like this. I could definitely see myself teaching this in my classroom.


Webb’s chapter about Huck Finn definitely challenges any plans I had to teach that novel. It is one of my favorites and I would love to teach it, but I feel like I would be throwing myself into the middle of a hot debate by doing so. However, it presented a solid argument for why Huck Finn is racially inappropriate, and it made me see a side of it I’d never seen before. However, I still don’t see the novel as negative because while it is showing a depiction of Jim as a uneducated black man who is surrounded by the white people who betray him, I still look at the book in its historical context and I think that it is not condemning black people to this image but I think rather “exposes injustice” about attitudes toward the African population during the time period. I also wish to point out that throughout all this the book is about more than race: it is a coming of age story which shows what Southern culture was like in the early twentieth century.


The NCTE article, however, made a very good argument as well and took the other side. It makes bold statements like the one saying that teachers who only use bland, “safe” pieces of literature are “lying to their students about the nature and condition of mankind.” Besides showing how censorship has had harmful repercussions throughout history, it mentioned a lot of things I found generally interesting as a teacher. One instance is when the article mentions how John Knowles’ A Separate Peace is a good choice to teach because the book has received wide critical recognition, partly “because it is relatively short and will keep the attention of many slow readers, and partly because it has proved popular with many students of widely differing abilities.”


When I read about Carole Marlowe being fired for using a certain text even though it was approved for the classroom, I instantly thought of a documentary I watched where college professors were fired for including any suggestions of intelligent design in their lessons, theses, etc. Noll writes on the practice of experienced teachers guiding novice ones on what literature to use, “They have become keenly aware of their own precarious positions in the school and recognize that fighting for the right to teach certain literature could cost them their jobs” (60). I think it shows that we as teachers are only valued so far as we teach to the school and state standards, to what is PC; it is amazing that a teacher would be fired due to an ignorant comment made by an unnamed parent who had never even read the disputed book. I think there is a difference between when students oppose a book being taught and when parents step in whose views are threatened. The NCTE statement says that protests also derive from outside groups as well as instructors themselves. The point is that students need exposure to conflicting viewpoints and debatable topics in order to form their own opinions about the way they see the world. Keeping uncomfortable topics away from children only hinder them from realizing the truths about history, culture, society and so much more.

More on Literature Circles

Reading these chapters opened up to me the options a teacher has with LCs. If I do choose to use this method in my classroom (which is pretty likely) I would probably use them a couple of times a year intermittently, but not all the time. The roles seem like a good idea to start off with, because I do worry with this method that students will not vocalize as much as they'd be expected to, especially with those students that are not "readers." I would probably use the roles as journal prompts in order to eventually assimilate the students into free writing journal entries. The book talks about teachers who are too interruptive and try to control the discussions too much. Again, I think a little more teacher facilitation at the beginning of the process would be helpful, but out of place once the students got the hang of things. I also found a lot of the general tips for up-and-coming teachers really helpful. For instance, Daniels gave the listing of favorite Lit Circle books in Appendix C, the listing of peer reviewed journals and the methods for building one's classroom library in order to show us what we will be dealing with once we get in the classroom.

However, I found it interesting that in Nancy Steineke's section, she said that groups need to mix it up so that they don't fall into the same ruts. Somehow I don't think students would do this on their own, so there would probably need to be days when the teacher says, "Today, do this first..." or "Consider this in your discussions." I also wanted to point out Sharon Weiner's observation: "Too many of my kids were unwilling to trust their own responses - they far too often wanted to know what the 'official' interpretation of an event or character was or what I (the allegedly infallible teacher) thought the story 'meant'" (Daniels 172). I feel like I always was, and to a degree, still am that student. I always think back to the first time I read "Metaphors" by Sylvia Plath in my AP English class. When the teacher announced that it was about a pregnant woman, all the other students agreed that's what they thought it was about. But I didn't get that at all out of the poem, and it seems like I never seemed to get that "accepted" meaning everyone else understood. So in this way I can identify with the suggestion that students should not be told the accepted interpretations of a work, but instead discover what their experiences lead them to believe about it. Maybe once students are done hashing out their viewpoints they can be told, but they need to understand that it's not always about seeing what everyone else sees. In fact, a perspective that strays from the everyday is what is truly valuable in my eyes.

Literature Circles, Linguistics and Tracking, Oh My!

Starting with the Literature Circles readings, Daniels sheds new light on an age old concept: the book club. When he talks about using this concept to get students reading who normally wouldn't, for some reason it made me think of the movie Mean Girls where Kady is made to join the Mathletes because her grades are so bad. While the circles are a great idea to get students who are lethargic about literature motivated, you don't want to make it a punishment. How to do this? Expanding lit circles into your classroom gets everybody doing it. It may be a little scary as a teacher to allow so much free discussion based on reader response, but Daniels seems to have this practice down to a science so that it is done right. I also like how Daniels says that we need to keep these groups permanent, though members will be mixed up according to what book they choose.

After reading "Untracking Students" I started thinking about the pros and cons to tracking. Basically, I concluded, that tracking is beneficial because students' learning styles can be identified and they can be placed where they are getting the specific attention they need. Tracking is disadvantageous because it labels students and segregates them. Christensen notes that "the notion of great differences in student capacity is false" (171). Students "come with different sets of skills, but not necessarily different sets of intellectual capacities" (172). I used to think that all types of students were being put in the general education classes just to save money in school districts. Even so, this can be a great thing as longs as every student still has his or her individual learning needs met as fully as possible. Daniels offers LCs as a method of detracking because it creates a diverse, yet "heterogeneous" learning environment where these different personalities and "sets of skills" come together.

"When more attention is paid to the way something is written or said than to what is said, students' words and thoughts become devalued" (Christensen 101). This sentence really seemed to sum up the article for me and got me thinking about my place in the argument. Honestly, it is hard for someone like me who plans to teach the importance of grammar, syntax, etc. to read that maybe it is not so important, especially when I already can already feel these lessons slipping out of classrooms. In a txt msg world where proper English seems to have less meaning every day, I must say I don't think we need to put less importance on liguistics to put more emphasis on student voice. If we help students realize their opinions are important by demonstrating this on a daily basis, a grammar lesson is never out of place. I believe that since their opinions are valued, it is their right to be taught how to communicate them correctly.

Diversity in Literature

Switching gears into multiculturalism, I feel that literature can be a great conveyor of widespread cultural attitudes as well as revolutionary ideologies regarding diversity. Daniel Hade's article proved to be an interesting one. While at times I disagree with some of his ideas, these deterrents were certainly outweighed with valuable insight on how we perceive literature and the world around us. Although I don't think I could see "The Lion King," one of my childhood favorites, as a commentary on gender roles, Hade makes me think to look deeper for these meanings into the texts that don't always have a clear message or theme about such issues. "Reading is inherently social and is dominated by culture. And the meanings we hold about race, class and gender... mediate how we interpret text" (Hade 3). When introducing and discussing these meanings in the classroom, Hade advises a slightly guided teaching strategy. He struggles with a learning-based approach and one that is too leading, so I think finding that balance, no matter what you are teaching, is imporant. He also states if you are too forceful with these topics you run the risk of "denying my students' freedom to make their own meaning" (Hade 5).

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel utilized in this respect. While it is commonly used for good reasons, I think this text would be best supplemented by more raw pieces on discrimination. Prose pieces and poems are favorable options because they are not long and provide a contrast to the novel. The video really showed how powerful assimilation activities can be if they are done correctly. At first I was a little shocked to see something like this done with children so young, but I think the simulation was a complete success and it was done carefully and smartly. I have heard of such studies before as the one the teacher did correlating the children's academic performance with their position within the class, but in a modern sense it never hurts to be reminded how many students have private issues going on and are not able or willing to focus on their studies

Overall, from my readings I feel that I have learned to 1. look for multiculturalist views in texts where I wouldn't usually think to look 2. create opportunities to discuss these themes with your class.  With the second of these comes a question I would like to ask my fellow bloggers... How should you teach in a way to challenge your students and encourage them to look for multiculturalistic attitudes in their texts and everyday lives? Is it at all possible to change students' perspectives on learned cultural issues and beliefs? If so, how? I think one of the best ways is relating it to the students' lives and putting the concepts in a modern sense. We as English teachers will be teaching history when we teach literature because the latter is framed within the context of the time period. Texts we read today are viewed as classics mainly because they made a difference in their time, and when the students are given enough supplementary information to put the piece in that context, they might be able to predict the social consequences that were invoked.

Comics and Technology!

Before reading "The Conventions of Comics," I thought it would be neat to teach a graphic novel in my classroom but I didn't understand how much doing so would support the multiple intelligences and learning styles, and also introspective and analytical skills. Just as a large portion of human comminucation is nonverbal, there are many important messages that can be overlooked if one does not notice all the parts of the comic. American Born Chinese may not have the most visually stimulating or complex artwork, but it is a piece that many young adults can relate to and it teaches a good lesson: to embrace yourself and be proud of who you are. It goes without saying that students with ethnically rich backgrounds might appreciate a story like this, but I believe so would other students who maybe just feel like they do not fit in. I would probably teach this to a middle school LA class or maybe to a class where it is their first year of high school. The illustrated story is definitely a project I want to use with my students. It gives them a chance to express themselves, but even students that maybe don't have as much artistic skill can use a camera and still make an appealing work of art.

Coming from a high school that didn't have a lot of technological resources at its disposal, incorporating technology in my classroom is something I need to stay on top of. This is my first time blogging, for instance. But if there is one thing the younger generations are in tune with, it is technology and it seems like an opportune gateway to get students interested and uninhibited. I heard there's a SmartBoard class on campus and that would definitely be a good choice for any teacher, even ones (who aren't like me!) and haven't had the chance to use one in-depth. I observed a teacher at Greencastle-Antrim High School who let her students use the classroom laptops to do a similar project, which I believe were called photostories. They had to string together images that went along with a presentation they would give on background knowledge to the text. This teacher also used blogging as a tool, and I recall it really got some of the students to come out of their shells. After all, for some it is much less stressful to sit at home in your room and blog about your thoughts than saying it in front of all your peers on the spot. I want to take my students beyond Powerpoint to see what they can really do.

What Do Students Think of Reading?

Wilhelm's assessment of New Criticism, the intentional and affective fallacies, etc. really got me thinking on how much I value each side of teaching any text: the author, the teacher and the student. While the author of a piece had certain intentions when they wrote it, one can argue that text has no meaning until it is read because the reader's experience from the text is what gives it meaning. I have to say I somewhat agree. There is usually an accepted idea of authorial intentions from any given piece, and while I think this should be highly regarded, I also believe the student's initial reaction to the text is of great value. While the context in which a work was written is important to associate with it, sometimes maybe it is better to just let a student read something and hear their uninterrupted reaction within a modern context. Therefore, the student's reactions comes first and authorial intention second while the teacher is there to mediate and give his/her own interpretations when necessary (if that makes sense!).

When I first started reading the case studies of Joanne, Cora and Ron, I noticed it was a sharp contrast to having just read about the author's eighth grade remedial reading class in the introduction and some of the students in the first chapter. But as a teacher I will teach students who will be into everything I teach, who will resist everything I teach or just struggle time after time, and everyone in between. I thought it was really interesting how Cora said she only watches TV when she is sick and doesn't feel like thinking. It reminded me of how I am always preaching that TV is a passive activity and reading is an actively engaging one. When the three students write metaphors for their perceptions of reading, I thought this would be a cool activity to do on the first day of class. It could be a nice little add-on to the standard first day introductions and you can still get a feel for your students in relation to the class. You could even keep them until the end of the year and see if the students' opinions have changed at all. Wilhelm really makes it an agenda to make readers out of students, or at least to help them see the value in reading, and I think such an accomplishment would be priceless.

Literacy Profile

Growing up, I can always remember reading a bedtime story with my mom. Even when I was old enough to read on my own, for the longest time we would read to each other, whether it was Harry Potter or Redwall series. Throughout school, I read more of adolescent literature like Holes and Speak. I do not believe I was exposed to enough of the classics. I never really used to read for pleasure until recently, and I still probably don't read as much as the average English sec ed major. But when I do, I really enjoy reading nonfiction accounts. Right now I'm working on Shantaram and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I also like reading science fiction, like A Wrinkle in Time.

Although I don't get as much time to leisurely read as I would like, I recognize how important reading is both from an English perspective and out of it. Reading skills are important in any subject to get a solid education. Outside of the classroom, you need to be able to read in order to communicate whether it is in your career or any other everyday application. I also believe reading is important for the creative mind. When you're watching TV, you're passively taking in everything on the screen just like everyone else does. But when you're reading, you're actively constructing the story in your mind, painting a unique picture in your mind. I want to convince my students that reading is important for all these reasons, and that they can read about whatever they are interested in.