Blog Post #7: Critical Pedagogy and Pop Culture

In this article, I love that Morrell addresses how to incorporate pop culture without losing academic perspectives. I also think that too often, teachers are quick to dismiss multicultural points of views from classical literature. As he explains, we don't have to have characters of color to exemplify diversity. Instead, we can also look at how characters interact with one another, look at social standing, examine which characters are the "others," and tie this back into pop culture. Teachers who are on strict curriculum may feel stuck with a lack of diversity in their classes, yet Morrell proves that it is more than possible, but essential to students learning. I think the concept of allowing students to relate to classical works in order to uplift them is also a great idea. I think a good, and quick, way to do this is to tell students that their writing is reminiscent of a famous writer, if they show any characteristics to one. This helps them feel less isolated from that "elite" group. If not complimenting their writing, I also love the idea of comparing rap to Shakespeare or some other literary figure. This brings down this elitist culture to something students can understand and relate to. Rather than holding class literature away from students as a goal for them to reach and understand, I would rather connect their lives to it.On page 10, Morrell mentions having a class that is connected to studying film, newspapers, magazines, and music in conjunction with traditional literature. This helps fill that disconnect, and bring the students to common ground with what could be viewed as the "elite" aspects of society. It only ties in the community connections that are required for the edTPA in a way that is engaging to students and relates directly to student interest. In the book I read for my composition process class, Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher, he uses the TV show "Pimp My Ride" to form a lesson plan on revision that keeps students engaged, and brings the outside world into the classroom. This type of teaching is what I would like to incorporate into my classrooms.
However, I think that my placement classroom is lacking slightly in that regard. We read a lot of news and magazine articles, but I would like to see more music and movies playing a role in the classroom. Once we get to the poetry unit, I would like to incorporate modern music with classical poetry. In my own experiences, I once had a teacher in middle school who had us write an essay connecting a poem from class to a song of our choosing. We found similar values and composition in each one, in order to draw a connection between modern life and traditional poetry. This allowed students to bring in their own knowledge, and use it as another piece of writing to analyze and examine. These types of activities help to close the ever expanding gap between the classes, and to help students feel that their experiences, interests, and feelings connect with literary pieces. Manipulating modern film, music, and books gives students a sense of agency in what they enjoy. It shows them that what they enjoy, even though it may not be considered "elite" by many, is still essential to their learning.

Blog Post #6: Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Freire takes a new stance on a teacher and student relationship. We have all been brought up to assume that the teacher knows best, and to never question authority, and that students should always be the learners. These ideas are exactly that of an "oppressed" group, as Freire puts it, and teachers are the "oppressors." At first, I was pretty shocked at hearing this; because most teachers are in the profession be being compassionate and caring, it is hard to believe that we would be the oppressors. However, it is the same sort of systematic oppression, even though it is more symbolic, as racism or homophobia. Teachers are not intentionally being the oppressors, but the sheer nature of how we think of teachers and teaching is oppressive. This ideology encourages students who learn one way or students who can easily "work the system," but allows students who need different methods of teaching to fall through the cracks. Someone in class today said that it seems like students are just waiting to be "injected" with knowledge, and are passive learners. Students seem to have no drive to learn and explore for themselves. This stems from the idea of the "banking" approach to teaching that so many students are unconsciously experiencing throughout their career as a student. It is clearly going to be difficult to unlearn the acceptance of this oppression that Freire is speaking of. With most teachers wanting specific answers to broad questions, students will have a hard time to navigate the system without oppression since they are so used to catering to it. The job of teachers should shift from just dumping information onto students, to allowing students a space that encourages critical thinking that will let them come to their own answers.

Blog Post #5: Assessing Students

Similar to what is described in the handout “Assessing and Evaluating Student Learning,” I learned to plan my lessons and unit “backwards” in my last education class. As this article points out, that helps students understand what they need to pay closer attention to; for example, if their unit assessment is a test on the book, they will need to pay closer attention to the details of the book. Likewise, if their final assessment is an essay, they will need to focus on more critical thinking and analyzing the text. I especially like the idea of having journal entries as a form of assessment. However, I would also like to include more formal forms of assessment within a unit. Giving students the freedom to write informally on a regular basis is important in fostering their willingness to write more formal essays, so I would like to incorporate both methods. With essays, students need more direction to show quantitative evidence in how they proved their point. In 7th grade, I would like to assign more essays, but have of assigning an essay is also teaching them how to write, so it seems like it takes twice as long. However I like that this text breaks down certain things to look for in essays, so that the grader (teacher) is not overwhelmed with grading every single thing within the essay. In addition to these two things, I would also like to incorporate ample discussion time in my classes. I think that it is just as important as writing, and also helps students prepare to write for their essay or journals. Having a consistent grading criteria would also be important for this method so that students know what to expect when they discuss. Giving this variety of options would also differentiate the unit.

One of the main things I struggled with last quarter in my placement was giving student feedback. Since my field supervisor pointed it out, I have been trying to improve upon it every day that I am in the classroom. It’s important for students to receive both positive and critical feedback so that they can improve whatever assignment they are working on. For myself, there is nothing more frustrating than getting a low or high grade with any explanation as to why I received that grade. If I did something well, I need that spelled out for me. If anything needs improvement, I need to know where I should improve and how it affects readers. With this in mind as a college student, I think I can successfully give constructive feedback to my students since I am in a similar position as they are. I also like the idea of responding to student’s blogs or online responses, because it keeps the connection between school and home.

Blog Post #4: Expository Reading and Writing

The way that this article is set up is extremely helpful. I love how with each step to creating an essay, the author includes the CCSS that go along with the task. I also appreciate the detail put into the reading section, because that is just as important as the writing itself. In order to write a good essay, students need to be able to think critically about the topic, and discuss the subject with the class. Before the students even read the article or text, the article encourages teachers to have them do a type of prewrite. I wholeheartedly agree with this.
For my classes, before we start reading a text, they first help me look over it with the. We look for the author and publication, decide how we know that it is a reliable source, scan for main topics, read descriptions to pictures, etc. This seems very similar to what the text is suggesting. I did not realize that just this alone hit Common Core standards. Next, when we read the text together, we underline words that are unfamiliar, or phrases that stick out to us. The kids also have annotation symbols that they used during any reading. The process that this article walks us through is very detailed and mainly for expository writing. However, I am going to implement some factors of it when my 7th grade classes start writing their argumentative essays. Their topic is going to be about whether or not teachers should carry guns, since it is a topic that is current and actively affecting them. Because of the sensitive nature of this topic, it is even more essential to have a discussion beforehand, as well as a prewrite. The students’ prewrite will help them get their conflicting and emotional thoughts about on paper about school shooting before we starting reading articles. This will help students start to form their assessment of the topic and how they will take their stance. We will be annotating articles that I give them for their research so that they can continue to refer back to them as they build their claim, as suggested in this article. It will also be required that they complete multiple drafts of their essays, and to do so I will give sufficient feedback and hopefully one-on-one conferencing with students. The article suggests doing teacher conferencing after they have revised their first draft, but due to time constraints that may have to be done on their first draft. While writing, students will prove that they are able to meet a variety of CCSS such as citing resources, analyzing data, forming an argument, and looking at opposing viewpoints. In order for students to fully develop their argument, everyone will read articles from both sides, and we will have a Socratic Seminar on the articles.

Blog Post #3:Team Teaching

In the “Team Teaching: Benefits and Challenges” article, I found some major key points that spoke to me. First off, I love the Commandment style layout that gives readers the basic run down of team teaching. I also like that it makes the gradual shift from focusing on how to work with your colleague, to incorporating your students into that work. In my classroom experience, my mentor teacher and me have vaguely modelled this method of teaching. One of us will be teaching, the other will be having one-on-one time with students who need help (which also helps us differentiate), and circling around the room. The listening teacher may also interject points, or have questions directed to them so that students have a fresh viewpoint on the subject at hand. In this article, the author explains that the stand-by teaching should be modeling an exemplary students. This means that you should be on your toes, paying attention, and ready to jump in at a second’s notice. One example of this took place last week; my mentor teacher was going over a PowerPoint presentation with the class, deciding she didn’t like it, and let me work with it. It happened in the middle of our first class, the kids were losing their attentiveness, and my mentor teach was second guessing the PowerPoint she made as she went through it. In the middle of it, she turns to me and says, “I’m honestly really not liking this PowerPoint, can you see what you can do with it?” So I then proceeded to take over instead of scrapping the original lesson. I’m not sure if this is a model example of what team teaching should look like, but I feel that it encapsulates the essence of team teaching from the article; that is, both parties are equal, and ready to help and collaborate with one anther during lessons. Of course, this example excluded the collaboration prior to teaching, but that is only because of our time constraints. One other comment I had was on the consistent grading standards. I often have a hard time grading in the same way that my mentor teacher does, and I’m always worried that I am either giving out freebie points, or being too harsh. That being said, I like the idea of looking over papers or assignments if one of the teachers think that it is not up to standards, and I would like to implement that. These articles summed up pretty nicely how team teaching should look, even though it will differ vastly class to class.

Blog Post #2

Overall, I enjoyed the brief and honestly gritty nature of this article. I appreciate that the author does not force readers to love Common Core, and does not hold it on a higher pedestal. Instead, the author displays the main issues that teachers have with Common Core, explains the issues, and then addresses how to resolve the issues. The fact that they also include the issue of teaching standards to impoverished students, and students of color, help make the standards seem more inviting and universal. I think it is essential to connect with students on their level, not ours as teachers. Kids are coming from vastly different home lives, and if their teachers fail to make their classes relatable and modern, then students will not succeed.

I like that the article puts more focus on the teachers rather than the standards; that is, the standards are simply a baseline, and how you get there is up to the teacher’s curriculum and style of teaching. I think that it is often for experienced teachers to dismiss the CCSS because of our country’s history of painful standardized testing, and standardized students. However, the CCSS is very clear in explaining that the standards are not automatically “standardized.” This shift happens when teachers fail to be creative in their lessons, and when the community fails to support teachers and students. This failure is apparent in many forms: child poverty, lack of school funding, lack of teacher/student resources, lack of multicultural learning, and standardizing lessons rather than “holding high standards.”

Additionally, I really enjoyed all of the vignettes through the article. I thought that they were great examples of real life problems that occur when teaching to standards. For example, Kyle’s story of being disappointed when finding a curriculum that only catered to “dead white guys” is something I am facing in my mentor teacher’s classroom. While all of the selected texts are great, my school has many Native American students, hardly any black students, and little to no Latino or Asian students. This means that the majority of students, who are white, have hardly any exposure to any multicultural texts or experiences. For the students that are not white, they are most likely aware of the fact that there is a lack of resources that exemplify their history, their interests, and people of their culture. I think it is essential for all students to learn about different cultures and backgrounds, and an English classroom is the perfect place to do so.

In my own classroom when I start teaching, I’d like to have an equal amount of literature from multicultural writers and artists that I do for white male writers. This includes female writers, LGBT writers, and writers of different races and cultures. It benefits not only students that fall into those categories, but also the students in the majority population. As the article states, students will be from non-dominant cultures by 2030. It is essential to show students that learning can come from all different backgrounds, styles, and methods, so that students and teachers are prepared to communicate and work with an increasing amount on non-white students. Tying directly into this, the government has systematically failed these students who experience the achievement gap. Like the article states, I believe that the government needs to pay closer attention to how countries with high performing teachers and students treat those individuals, rather than pushing American teachers to meet goals that are impossible to reach without a community wide change in the education system.

Blog Post #1

According to "Discussion in a Democratic Society," discussion is much more than just a conversation. It fosters a cooperative and safe learning environment, and encourages students to bring differing opinions to the discussion. Students will be able to come to conclusions that none of them could have accomplished on their own. Shown in the vignette, it also seems to be wise for the teacher facilitating the discussion to not have concrete opinions on the discussion. If they do, it is important to encourage the other side of the argument to be fruitful. Also in the vignette, I liked that the  Lipman claims that discussion is a form of dialogue that inevitably pushes “each argument
[to evoke] a counterargument that pushes itself beyond the other and
pushes the other beyond itself.” By keeping this method in mind, students should ideally be bouncing ideas off one another and either come up with a new agreeable solution, or come to a mutually disagreement in civil terms. Students are made to question popular beliefs or social norms and successfully navigate those expectations with their class. I also think it's important for the teacher to only facilitate; that is, the teacher should not share their opinion or argue with the students, but only be there as a facilitator. The four purposes of discussion that are shown on page 6 are also essential to keep in mind. While picking a discussion topic, it’s clear that all of these aspects must be easily achieved through the discussion. If the topic won’t foster these learning goals, then perhaps a more challenging topic would be appropriate. By encouraging students to familiarize themselves with multiple ides of an argument, they become more capable of empathy and understanding. These are two important aspects of a democracy. Allowing every student to voice their opinion without being verbally attacked is essential to introduce students to a democratic society. The skills they use in discussions can carry with the throughout life. One of my favorite discussion strategies are Socratic Seminars. They teach students to be prepared, engaged, and up-to-date with their community.