Final Thoughts on SCED 4200

Well, I feel that I should preface this blog post with a confession: when my advisor told me last spring that I was going to have to take a class called “Reading, Writing and Technology” this semester, I was pretty irked about it. Already having had classes with titles such as “Ethnic Literacy,” “Teaching English,” “Teaching Writing” and “Technology for Teachers” on my transcript (not to mention the 17 courses with the letters E-N-G-L in their prefixes on there as well, which, I can attest, have forced a good amount of the “reading” and “writing” kinds of skills into my brain), my predictions for this course were that it was going to be very dull, that the information was going very redundant, and that attendance points would be my sole motivation for showing up.

Clearly, my attitude was less-than ideal.

While my pre-semester mind-set toward this course was pretty rotten, it only took a few classes for me to realize that the value of this class was going to extend way beyond being able to check it off of my required courses list. In the end, I not only had a much-needed change of heart toward SCED 4200, but even experienced a bit of a “restoration,” I guess, in terms of my motivations to and confidences in my ability to be a good teacher.

So, to state it concisely, my experience in SCED 4200 was awesome. And here is why:

1)      For the stuff I LEARNED.

While this class gave me greater understandings of what the big terms like “differentiation” and (thank goodness) “critical literacy” mean, the most valuable learning I feel like I took from this class had to do with the many, many tools/ideas/skills we were given in order to actually apply those terms one day. Here were a few of my favorites:

1-      The during-reading charts. I started using some of these in my own reading this semester.

2-      So many great texts I want to read/use one day in my classroom! From the awesome titles presented in our Book-Talk day to the many great websites we were introduced to (I especially liked the data visualization websites—way cool).

3-      Learning not just that differentiation should occur in the classroom, but lots of ways to do this. For instance, for helping ESL students, using lots of visuals with instruction (the Afrikaans lesson definitely illustrated the importance of that), having them engage in lots of oral language activities, and encouraging them to write down and then find out the meanings of three commonly-used words they don’t understand every day.

4-      Encouraging good writing in all 6-traits with activities like making Valentine’s Day cards for different audiences (voice), creating “personal dictionaries” of words they don’t know throughout the semester (word choice) and charting sentence lengths in a paper (sentence fluency).

5-      Teaching students how to evaluate internet source credibility through activities like the one in which we had to rank internet sources based on their credibility and then discuss why we did so with the class.

6-      How to encourage good class discussions by incorporating things like “uptake” (having students comment on the previous person’s statements), having student-generated questions fuel the discussion, and having “devil’s advocate” discussions (like we did with the Logan Dam debate).

7-      How to encourage good small-group discussions through activities like assigning students “strategy-specific roles” for reading, having mock interviews (I liked the “Oprah Winfrey interviewing an igneous rock” example) and creating/commenting on other people’s Facebook pages (which can be used for historical figures, like we did in class, or for characters in novels).

2)      For the stuff I ACQUIRED (Yes, these subheadings were totally stolen from Gee.)

          Along with the things that were explicitly taught in class, I think I learned just as much from the fact that the class structure, variety and individualization was such a great model for how a class should be.

1-      For instance, I loved that class always began with the opportunity to ask questions and that particular class’s objectives, and that clear Power Points were always used to guide us through the lesson. Along with its being well-organized, though, it was also appropriately relaxed. For instance, most everyone seemed to feel very comfortable sharing their opinions in our class discussions, and, I noticed, we seemed to be laughing quite a lot (although the fact that we had a lot of awesome personality in the class definitely contributed to that, too J).  

2-      I also liked the fact that class activities were not only frequent but varied. I don’t think there was ever a day where we weren’t asked to express our ideas in some way, yet the way in which we were asked to do so (i.e. in writing personal reflections, by acting out tide cycles, through structured small-group discussions) was never exactly the same. Also, I loved the fact that the class assignments were so varied. The blog posts, lesson plans, book-talk presentations, and self-selected project options offered, I felt, lots of great ways/options for us to demonstrate our knowledge as well as continue learning.

3-      Lastly, I thought that individualized instruction/attention was definitely modeled in this class. I’ve never had a teacher give my assignments such great feedback on my assignments, been so willing to work with students on issues like revision and even bring gluten-free cookies when one student in a class of 20 can’t eat normal food… Things like these, especially within the “individualized” category, made participating in class and doing assignments far more enjoyable and meaningful than just doing so for the grade. 

While I wasn’t so sure about a “Reading, Writing and Technology” class before the semester began, I’m so glad I got to take the course in this section this semester! I not only learned/acquired a ton, but enjoyed it, too. (Which enjoyment, I guess, probably had a lot to do with the fact that I learned/acquired a lot.) Thanks for an awesome semester!

Self-Selected Project: Discussing "It's Kind of a Funny Story" and Speak

For the self-selected project, Brian, Becca and I each read/watched two texts that we thought sounded interesting and relevant for using in our future classrooms. The texts we chose were the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and the movie "It's Kind of a Funny Story," which is based upon the same-titled book by Ned Vizzini. We chose these two texts because they both discussed many similar topics (depression, finding one’s identity, forming good relationships), were written with a young adult audience in mind, and yet could complement the other because Speak’s protagonist is a girl and “Story” is told from the perspective of a boy, and because each are (obviously) different kinds of texts.

In our group discussion, we first talked about the aspects of Speak that we most liked and disliked. All of us agreed that while much of the book was somewhat sensationalized (i.e. the part where the teacher drives the main character in his car to New York, and the fact that the cliques in the school were so rigidly separate), that the book, overall, had a very true-to-life feel that made connecting with the story and its characters very easy to do. While we all disagreed slightly about how funny the book was (I found myself laughing a lot as I read it), we did all agree that the book had a humor that was appealing not only to us, but that would engage most adolescents as well. Another more general aspect of the book that we enjoyed was that the book had a lot of literary value beyond just having an intriguing plot line. Symbolism, for instance, was everywhere in the book, from the issues with finding the school mascot to the chapter in which the main character talks about the Scarlet Letter. Most than anything, we felt that the book presented opportunities for discussion on a wide variety of topics that could be made relevant to almost any age group.

A few of the main characters in "It's Kind of  a Funny Story,"
 including Zach Galifianakis (guy with the ice cream cone) and
Emma Roberts (far right).

Overall, it seemed that the aspects of Speak that we liked and disliked were the same general things we discussed with “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” While much of the movie’s plot also seemed sensationalized, we felt that its discussion of a wide range of topics was funny, “real,” and relevant enough to make it a movie worth recommending. We all liked that, perhaps even more than Speak, the movie seemed to put a positive, hopeful look at dealing with depression that would be particularly good for teens to take in. On another note, the movie just had some great acting and cool scenes that made watching it particularly enjoyable.

After our general discussion about the texts, we then talked about some ways in which we might incorporate these texts into our future instruction. We all seemed to agree that while the film had lots of great material that could be pulled from it into a lesson, that showing the entire movie wouldn’t be something that we would do in a classroom setting (both because it contained a few possibly inappropriate scenes and because, well, we think that showing full-length movies in school should be done very rarely, if ever). We all felt that clips from the movie—even if the book it is based upon was not being read in class—could enrich many classroom discussions. 

A scene from the film based on  Speak.

As for Speak, I think we all felt like it would be a good book to consider for a teaching unit for younger high school students (or even middle school students). While we talked briefly about the fact that some parents or administrators might challenge teaching Speak for some of its content, we all thought that the book handled these “grittier” topics in a way that would not only make it appropriate for use in a classroom, but that would encourage important, applicable discussions for students. Even if the book weren’t talk in its entirety, we felt that, similar to “Story,” it contained lots of material that could be used to supplement a wide variety of class discussions.

As for the book club, I definitely enjoyed getting to choose and then discuss texts that I found to be interesting. While reading and talking about literature is something I do almost every day in my major, being able to do this with texts I really want to read in a more relaxed, unstructured setting is definitely not as typical. Reading for school, no matter how well it’s done, somehow seems to make us forget how enjoyable and fun reading really can/should be. Therefore, encouraging students to do a similar book club type activity would, I think, be one way to help students enjoy reading at least a bit more than just having them discuss books as a class.