Learning Letter

I think the works we've read in this course provide me with both a wide variety of texts to use in the classroom as well as a large selection of educational resources. In particular, Katie Brown's website will prove useful in finding entertaining and interesting lesson ideas. Since engagement is a common theme in the texts we've read (such as Readicide and I Read It But I Don't Get It), the games and activities she gave us access to seem to be a great way to promote student engagement.
The assignments we've done have also given me a good idea of how to develop appropriate and solid lessons. The unit plan in particular was an exercise in trying to figure out how to connect concepts and learning objectives in singular lessons to an overarching unit with larger goals. The mini lesson also helped me learn how to develop a unit with a small amount of time, and how to teach without a lot of time. Often times teachers will have to use less time than they'd like to teach a concept, so working in such a small amount of time was a development of my teaching skills. The feedback process was also incredibly helpful in showing me what I need to work on and what I do very well, which made the developmental process much easier for me.
My participation in this course gave me a foundation of pedagogical theory that will help me develop my lesson-planning and instructional techniques. While I still have to work on the cultural aspect of education, I have greatly improved in my ability to create lessons and activities for my students that are engaging and culturally responsive. While I do still have a lot of work to do, I think I've come a long way in regards to my abilities in the classroom. I'd say that even in my cooperating classroom placement I've become much more well-rounded as a student teacher.

TPA Lesson Plan - American Born Chinese

1.      Teacher Candidate: Carlos Santos

2.      Subject: English Language Arts

3.      Lesson Title/ Central Focus: Pop Culture Symbolism in American Born Chinese

4.      Grade Level(s): 9th Grade

5.      Length of Lesson: 20 Minutes

6.      Academic and Content Standards (Common Core/National):

RL 9.2 . Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

7.      Learning  Objective(s):

Given the text American Born Chinese, students will be able to identify the meaning behind the symbols in the Symbolism Worksheet, and how they connect to a variety of themes. This connects to RL 9.2 by asking students to see how the development of a story progresses in a graphic novel with the use of images as well as words.

8.      Academic Language:

Students will need to understand the words symbol, symbolism, metaphor, and theme. This language will ensure students are able to analyze images and determine a deeper meaning behind them.

9.      Assessment:

For this lesson, I will be using a symbolism worksheet. This will require students to observe a variety of symbols, and write down at least 5 words describing what they think is the meaning of the symbol. This will ask students to think about how symbols can develop the theme of a story, connect ideas to characters, and progress the story. The assignment will be worth a total of 25 points, one for each word for each of the 5 symbols.

10.  Lesson Connections:

Educator Trent Lorcher, in his "Literature Lesson Plan: Teaching Symbolism", explains that "symbolism allows people to communicate beyond the limits of language", which is an important facet of literature. With this in mind, the lesson intends to connect pop culture imagery with images from the text to promote student understanding of how images can have meaning beyond their surface definitions. This will build off of student knowledge of the literary elements. As my students will already be aware of the elements of literature, this lesson will be building on their knowledge of symbolism. This lesson would be building off of several previous lessons analyzing American Born Chinese for a number of literary elements such as theme, plot, allusion, characterization, and conflict. Ultimately, all of these lessons and this one would lead into a summative assessment essay in which they would be analyzing the text with the elements of literature in mind.

11.  Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks to Support Student Learning:

Introduction

To introduce the lesson, I will provide the learning objective on the board, explain briefly what we will be doing and what the daily assignment is, and then probe for understanding. I will then have students write an "I CAN" statement on the back of their worksheet. 

Student Voice 

By having students write their "I CAN: statement on the back of their worksheet, I will be able to review their understanding of the lesson. Then I will also ask a student to read their "I CAN" statement aloud to model what one should look like. After that, I would provide a link on the board to allow students to do further investigating on symbolism in literature, and then have them write it down in their notebooks. To ensure there is full understanding of the relationship between the objective and the assessment, I will ask a student what they believe the purpose of the worksheet is.

Learning Tasks

Explicit instruction will occur as I work with the students to define symbolism and then search for the meaning behind a variety of symbols. This will reinforce critical thinking regarding the student's reading of texts. Ultimately, teaching the students about symbolism will allow them to read a text and determine meaning beyond what is written. To ensure the classroom functions properly, I will have students begin the lesson by quickly looking at the worksheet, flipping it over, and then writing the I CAN statement on the back. I will then have students work with me to define symbolism, and then they will be allowed to work in groups to complete the assignment. 

Learning Activities
Students will seat themselves, retrieve a writing utensil, and receive the worksheet. They will write an I can statement after observing the learning objective, and will engage in brief question answering regarding the day's lesson. They will then work on the worksheet in groups. After they have completed the worksheet, they will come back together and share their responses.

Instructional Strategies
Once I have introduced the worksheet, I will place another image on the projector to allow students to observe me model the assignment. I will use a combination of prearranged answers and student voice to complete an example for them. The time estimates are 5 minutes to introduce the lesson, provide the learning objective, write an I CAN statement, and ask for examples, followed by 3 minutes for modelling, 8 minutes to complete the worksheet, and then 4 minutes for feedback.My key questions will be "what is symbolism?", "what symbols can you think of in your life?", and "how might symbols connect to the theme of a story?"
For grouping, I intend to allow students to work with elbow partners only, to minimize disruption from moving.

Closure

Once students have shared some of their answers from their worksheet, I will have reread their I CAN statement, and below it, write a number between 1 and 5, 1 being I still don't think I can, 5 being I totally can.

12.  Differentiated Instruction:

To ensure equitable instruction, I will provide an additional resource for students still struggling with the concept. I will also provide access to a variety of learning modalities, including visual learning (pictures, images), read/write learning (writing assignment), and auditory learning (speaking opportunities).

13.  Resources and Materials:

I will need access to the text, a projector, copies of my assignment, a whiteboard, markers, and erasers. Students will need a writing utensil and the text.

Howard, M. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/symbolism-imagery-in-literature-definitions-examples.html#lesson

Lorcher, T. (n.d.). Teaching Symbolism: How to Get More out of Literature. Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.brighthubeducation.com/high-school-english-lessons/28791-teaching-symbolism/

14.  Management and Safety Issues:

To ensure safety, I will have students group with elbow partners to minimize movement around the classroom. I will also closely observe student interactions to prevent any conflicts to escalate. If certain students do not perform well together, I will allow them to work with different partners or individually, though this is unlikely.

15.  Parent and Community Connections:
To connect this lesson to the community, I made the decision to use pop culture symbols to encourage familiarity with the idea of symbols and to give students real world examples. To tie in parents, I will be asking students to talk to their parents about symbols that they might see at work, to show them how widespread they really are.

Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?

The first thing I enjoyed about this particular text is the case narrative it starts off with. As a student teacher, it's a lot easier for me to relate to another student teacher's experiences, as opposed to a veteran teacher. Because student teachers are in the same situation as I am, they can provide insight into the difficulties of developing assessment. I know that I have felt the way Heidi Murphy has felt because I have also seen how my cooperating teacher's assessment methods differ from what I've seen in the past. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's something I have to consider as I work alongside her. What's great about this connection is that it made me think about my upcoming lessons, and how I can develop assessments for my students to make sure they are getting out of literature what I would like to see them get.
For example, I am going to be working with students on the elements of literature, such as plot, conflict, resolution, etc. While I do need to help them understand the academic language of the content, I would also like to help them think critically of the short stories we will be reading, so I will have to be able to teach to standards involving critical thinking and also be able to reliably assess that critical thinking. I feel that the "correct answer" style of assessment isn't as effective as it could be due to its limitation on testing student cognitive abilities. Therefore, I feel developing assessments that involve students developing their own ideas or applying concepts in an assignment in their own words is far more effective due to the effort students will have to put in to complete the assignments with proficiency.
What's great about this text is that it also provides some interpretive strategies I can ask students to use in their assignments in order to test their cognitive skills in a variety of ways. I definitely plan on using these in the classroom, as they will be a great measuring tool for student proficiency.

2014 Washington State Teacher of the Year Katie Brown

Having looked into an op-ed by Katie Brown published in the Seattle Times newspaper, I was able to learn quite a bit about Katie's views on teaching and what sort of instructor she is. In particular, I found her statement that "where you grow up, what language you speak, how much money you have or what state you live in should not determine your opportunity to learn" resonates with me, since I would like to teach at a Title I school. Her philosophy in teaching Common Core State Standards makes me feel reassured that they can be used effectively and with a high level of cultural awareness. 

Her educational background is also interesting, part of her degree was cultural anthropology, which led her to work as a teacher for AmeriCorps in Alaska. Her teaching position led her to work with children of the Tlingit and Haida Native American tribes, which gave her a lot of experience in working with students from other cultures. Katie's involvement in her students' culture impresses me, and shows a level of dedication that goes above and beyond what I'd seen from a lot of teachers in my academic career. 

As a whole, I can see why she was voted 2014 Washington State Teacher of the Year. She makes use of effective teaching strategies that are both culturally aware and standards-based, and she's shown she does this quite well. Her ability to connect to her students and engage them in her lessons shows her mastery of the teaching profession in what are arguably some of the toughest teaching environments around.

Questions:
What led you to become interested in teaching ELL?
What are some techniques you use to connect with students who are from a different culture?
How do you establish community with the families of your students when their culture is very different from yours? How do you bring them together when your students' families come from different cultures as well?

Links:

http://www.whatcomtalk.com/2014/06/01/washington-state-teacher-of-the-year-katie-brown/

http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2023193286_katiebrownopedcommoncore22xml.html

Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

I feel like Readicide is almost a continuation of I Read It But I Don't Get It in a lot of ways, and I think both of these texts are something that teachers across the country should be reading in order to gain a better idea of the scope of this issue. I'll say, as a student teacher, I can see how students have progressed to the point of not being interested in reading, or even being hostile towards the idea of reading, and it's something my master teacher and I struggle with on a daily basis. This is because we are stuck in a difficult situation where the district is asking teachers to meet specific goals using provided texts and assignments, but the students aren't retaining very much because of the sheer volume of the information they have to digest, process, and be able to recall. I have no problem with testing; it's a great form of assessment, honestly. However, I feel like it's not a teacher's job to craft all of their lessons around improving test scores.

I also think there is still a responsibility on the teacher's part to teach complex texts to students despite this challenge and, if possible, even engage students to become interested in reading. However, for this to happen, teachers also have to start analyzing the way we approach texts, and begin to understand that frontloading student knowledge prior to reading and promoting intertextual analysis are key to student understanding, and we can't just teach texts within a vacuum and hope that students make the connections themselves.  Rather, we should be looking for ways to use texts as stepping stones to the skills we want students to develop as stated in the state standards. We should be taking each reading text as an opportunity to build on what students already know, establishing links to previous readings and assessments, so students can actively use what they have learned. Simply put, we have to eliminate this idea of passively reading and engage our students in the text, encourage questioning, lead them towards answers, and ultimately make lifelong readers.

EdTPA

After having had a chance to get a good look at the EdTPA format, i must admit that I'm still not too keen on going through it, but I do see its uses. I definitely feel as though it's a little too vague in its questioning in some areas, such as the section on lesson connections. I'm not really sure what qualifies as research that supports my lesson plan, for example. Perhaps this is something that will be cleared up as we go on, but ultimately I feel like this section is far too open to interpretation at first glance that it would be easy for someone like me to do it incorrectly the first time.

I will say, I do like the in-depth questioning regarding student voice and differentiated education. I think that's a valuable tool for teachers with students who are struggling to perform at grade-level or who may have some sort of learning difficulty. The inclusion of learning tasks as a section also will make me as a student teacher think carefully about my choices both in the learning activities I use as well as instructional techniques. Rather than having a vague lesson plan with goals and assignments, the EdTPA is asking what I will be doing to, so that my actions in the classroom are held accountable for.

There are a few things I feel like we might have difficulties addressing as well, such as parents and community. With some of our lessons, we may be teaching a selection that is only a small part of the whole unit, and may not require parent-teacher dialogue or community involvement (allowing for students whose parents we must remain in contact with regarding progress due to an IEP or 504, or due to disciplinary issues). Also, being a fairly new student teacher, I feel like I may not be well-equipped enough in my knowledge of the students in my class to answer questions like "How does the content build on what the students already know and are able to do?", which requires me to have a little more background on the students. I think by working with my master teacher I can sort out that challenge, but it still will prove challenging, I think.

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

I've always been someone who reading came naturally to, so in reading Cris Tovani's I Read It, But I Don't Get It, the author's personal experiences as a struggling reader as well as the experiences of her students made me realize how it is important to teach reading as an active skill, and to be aware of the difficulties some children may have with reading a text.

In particular, I'm now more aware of this idea that, as Tovani said it, ""[we] have a decision to make: teach the reading or the reader?", which may come up in our classrooms when our students are struggling with a text (Tovani 39). It's more important for us as teachers to teach students how to read with the purpose of gaining understanding, and maybe even for enjoyment, rather than just to be able to fill in answers on a test. I loved how, when faced with a class struggling with canto 34 of The Divine Comedy, Tovani made the decision to change her test from asking what happened in the text to where they got lost, when they realized that they were lost, and what caused them to become lost. This activity seemed to have a greater impact in helping students approach an intimidating text compared to having them take and fail a test.

I also love the use of "fix-up strategies" that Tovani laid out in chapter 5. By having her students form connections between the text and their previous knowledge, make predictions, talk about what they've read, ask questions, reflect, visualize, use print conventions, retell what they've read, reread, notice patterns, and adjust their reading speed, she is able to isolate and address readers' issues as they come up without having to hold their hand. Earlier, in chapter 4, she has a discussion with a student named Dan, who wants to know why he needs to know what he knows and what he doesn't know, and like Tovani, I came to the realization that my role as a teacher is not to find out what students do and don't know, because like she said, we as educators can't read minds. Rather, we have to provide our students with the tools to address issues they run into when they come to a text or problem that they don't know or understand.

I could go on, but to put it simply, there was a lot of useful tools and strategies for teaching reading in this text. and I feel like it's probably one of the best 'textbooks' about education that I've read. Rather than addressing the process of teaching (particularly literature) with broad, general statements, this text got into the nitty-gritty and nailed out a solid methodology for the teaching of reading. As I go further into my practicum, I think this will become more and more useful to me, so I'm glad we read it for this class.

Social Justice in the Classroom: Understanding the Implications of Interlocking Oppressions - Becky Ropers-Huilman

Despite this article being written by a teacher working with higher education students (many of whom were already educators, administrators, and the like), Beck Ropers-Huilman's "Social Justice in the Classroom: Understanding the Implications of Interlocking Oppressions" hit several of the struggles all teachers at all levels will struggle with in teaching social justice issues. In her article, she uses Martin Frye's definition of oppression as being "caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict, or prevent the thing's motion or mobility", and uses this to build the analogy for interlocking oppressions as being similar to a birdcage, in which those who are inside the birdcage are locked in by a "layering of disappointments, hurts, and barriers that impede the attainment of our ambitions" (Ropers-Huilman 91). On the outside of this birdcage are those who are restricted in their knowledge of what the inside of the birdcage is like, and cannot know intimately what life is like within that birdcage.

What this birdcage analogy ultimately means is, educators will always struggle to connect to students because of our fears and prejudices, which will effect our teaching methodology and thereby impact the teacher-student-subject relationship. While social justice is an important facet of the educational process, Ropers Huilman suggests that attempting to teach social justice directly can be disruptive and difficult. In order to understand how best to address social justice, Ropers-Huilman describes the set of five principles of social justice that she uses to develop a method of teaching these issues:

1. Balance the emotional and cognitive components of the learning process; 
2. Acknowledge and support the personal (the individual student's experience) while illuminating the systemic (the inter actions among social groups); 
3. Attend to social relations within the classroom; 
4. Utilize reflection and experience as tools for student-centered learning; 
5. Value awareness, personal growth, and change as outcomes of the learning process.

With these principles outlined, Ropers-Huilman describes how best to teach social justice by integrating a variety of texts providing a multifaceted view of the issue, rather than devoting a class period or multiple class periods specifically to the topic. In this implicit method of teaching social justice, the critical thinking processes encourages students to overcome their binary understanding of oppression of oppressor/oppressed. Instead, it asks students to questions ways in which they might not only by oppressed, but also how they might be the oppressor. Ultimately, this seems like a much more nuanced and effective method of teaching social justice issues to students, as it makes it seem less forced and contrived compared to trying to devote lessons explicitly to the topic.

Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

Reading the experiences of Duncan-Andrade and Morrell in North High was really difficult for me, because I've seen how a low-income, low-quality school can make students feel hopeless and angry. I can understand why the students had a hard time caring, because there was a lack of encouragement and socioeconomic and cultural connection between the teachers, their lessons, and the students. That's why I'm glad to see that there are instructors like Duncan-Andrade and Morrell work in classes like these. I honestly wish I had seen teachers like this in my middle school, because the effort these two put into connecting with the students instead of manufacturing a generic curriculum designed for white, middle class students.

I was a big fan of how Duncan-Andrade and Morrell made an effort to combine modern pop culture (hip hop music, the film A Time To Kill) and more classic literature (Romantic period poems, Native Son) to create relevance and establish connections for students where previously they may not have seen them. There is a common misconception in American society and in the educational system that there is only one way to educate, a system that Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley 'Tookie' Williams referred to as dyseducation: education which is focused on test metrics and meeting percentage goals based off of elite school performance, rather than focusing on providing an education that is relevant to students while still teaching students to read, understand, and produce in the Language of Wider Communication.

What made me feel reaffirmed in the use of critical pedagogy by Duncan-Andrade and Morrell is the change in their students, both in school performance and civic activity. The undertaking of Serious Voices for Urban Youth by their students to create a magazine that included articles, poems, and drawings that addressed issues that mattered to them is an example of how students who had previously been discarded by the educational system can work together to put in effort and create a product that shows a critical understanding of language. Most importantly, the students were able to create an outlet for their voices, ultimately allowing them to speak to future generations of students at North High School. Sadly, North High was left in poor condition even after they had graduated, and the high income school on the other side of town had completed a 5 million dollar stadium while North High was lacking textbooks in a large number of classes, showing the hypocrisy of the educational system in regards to funding and working towards the equal education of all students. However, many of the students in Duncan-Andrade and Morrell's class went on to perform well in college, matching with their high income peers, ultimately giving me hope that there is a possibility for change in the system to occur.

Critical Pedagogy: A Look with the Major Concepts

What I really enjoyed about this chapter was its frankness regarding a variety of pedagogical issues that are important to me, and addressing how critical pedagogy deals with these issues. The biggest issue McLaren addressed is that of hegemony, which is something that the US school system struggles with. Being of a 'subordinate' culture, I feel I am more aware of the issues that teaching to the 'dominant' culture presents. The clearest statement McClaren makes about this is when he says "the dialectical nature of critical theory enables the educational researcher to see the school not simply as an arena of indoctrination or socialization or a site of instruction, but also as a cultural terrain that promotes student empowerment and self-transformation," which, to me, is saying that it has become clear that education should not be seen as a means of producing 'productive members of society' as dictated by the dominant culture, but to develop students who are both productive and critical thinkers (McClaren 62). 

 What I also appreciate about this article is the fact that it addresses the issue of cultural oppression in schooling not through just an ethnic viewpoint, but also a gender and socioeconomic standpoint. The idea that schools can and have educated students in such a way as to abuse democracy by convincing them to vote against their own interests seems like something that needs to be addressed in the educational system as it arises.

Of course, this ties into another issue, that of standards, and how they are addressed in regards to those who are not of the dominant culture which they are most suited for. Students from 'subordinate cultures' tend to perform poorly in the American school system, and it's an issue we as educators will have to address on an individual student scale by remaining flexible and promoting a variety of cultures, creating a cultural terrain, like McClaren stated.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Upon reading this chapter, I found myself in a love/hate relationship with the author's voice. I definitely agree with the issue of nutritive teaching, since it doesn't promote the critical thinking that students should be doing, particularly on the secondary level. However, I dislike the politicized way in which Freire approaches the issue. It seemed to me that he was focused more on the Libertarian ideology that he promotes instead of on the issue of narrative pedagogy. Overall, I definitely agree with the finer points Freire makes, and it gives me a clear idea of why educators should avoid narrative pedagogy, but I feel like his use of hyperbole and heavy bias results in a weak argument.
One of the biggest points Freire makes that I agree with is that teachers should not assume absolute ignorance on the part of the students. This ignores all of the experiences, ideas, and opinions that the students have, resulting in a distinct lack of student voice in the classroom. I think this can set up teachers for failure, as students who are force-fed facts and data lack the ability to perform thoughtful inquiry that is needed to develop cognitive thinking.
However, I feel like Freire assumes that all teachers operate in this way. While this may have been true in the past, the development of inquiry-based teaching methods results in teachers who are prepared to learn as much as they are to teach. I found it frustrating that he groups all educators in the category of "banking teachers", implying that it is the individual teachers who are creating the automatons he refers to. I think that Freire assumes that all of the issues in education rest on the shoulders of educators, and while educators play a big role in development, I think he has this idea that teachers are lazy and are not trying to implement teaching methods that promote deep and critical thinking. I don't think this is true at all, and is more an issue with the way standards were developed previously. With common core state standards, I think the ability of teachers to use teaching methods that require students to come to their own conclusions is far more common than previously seen, and I feel Freire's idea of what education is like is rather outdated and simplistic.

A Response-Based Approach To Reading Literature

It seems to me that this article's primary focus is on the way in which instructors perform literature-based instruction, and the importance of a response-based approach. I feel like this article is a bit vague on this idea in the first few pages, making it a bit dry to start off with. However, the latter half of the article provides an excellent framework for teachers to build their instructional methods off of. Most importantly, Langer emphasizes the importance of a response-based approach to literature as a means of developing students' critical thinking skills and helping them learn how to ask questions as well as answer them.
What's great about the framework of optional teaching experiences that Langer establishes is that it's primarily focused on helping students make connections with the text, gain understanding of it, and to have students consider the implications of a text, without focusing on the objective statements that can be made about it. My favorite example Langer makes regarding these sorts of shallow, superficial forms of literary analysis is the multiple choice question "Huck Finn is a good boy. True or False," which is the sort of thoughtless, bland question that lacks any depth, and would not provoke much discussion.
It's clear to me that Langer's response-based approach to reading literature is a means of encouraging student growth rather than stagnating them with facts for the sake of facts. In our pedagogical methodology we need to be leading students to information by prompting them to ask themselves and their peers questions, not providing them with the answers in the hopes that rote memorization will promote learning. It's clear that by putting education in the hands of the students, with help from an educator, the classroom can be a place where each student develops the ability to interpret literary texts in more than one way, without being confined to one method provided by an educator.

Common Core State Standards App

Here's a fantastic app to view the common core state standards, there's an Android version as well as an iPhone version.

Word Count Tool

For those of you who want it, here's a link to the Word Count Chrome extension

The Common Core State Standards for ELA Instruction in Grades 6-12

The common core state standards, it seems, will result in a lot of changes in how teachers will instruct, but there are a number of concerns presented in the text that still worry me. Primarily, the issue of homogenization in education concerns me as both an educator and as a person of color. Due to the rigidity of standards-based teaching, and the often "teacher-proof" curricula that is developed for teachers, there is little opportunity for instructors to develop their instructional methods to allow for a variety of classroom contexts and cultural diversity. In the example the text provides, a new instructor runs into this issue, in which she wants to teach American literature with a strong multicultural emphasis, using authors such as Sherman Alexie, Rudolfo Anaya, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neal Hurston. However, she ends up teaching a "'dead white guy' curriculum," as she calls it.
This homogenization of instruction also results in a failure to acknowledge cultural diversity in assessment methods, which I am fully aware is a prominent issue, particularly in Title I schools. This notion is supported in the statement the author quoted from Stoniauolo, Hull, and Nelson, which notes that "traditional assessments of reading and writing[. . .] continue to reward those children who share the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the test-makers," which of course, are predominately white, moderate to high income educators. This means students who are low-income, English language learners, non-white, or some combination thereof are heavily biased against in standards-based assessment, and results in low academic performance and harms the self-esteem of these students. As someone who wants to work in a low-income school, this is a really important issue to me, because I want my students to feel like the assessments connect to them on an individual and cultural level.
Ultimately, while I have hope that the common core state standards will improve upon and deal with the issues of homogenization and a failure to acknowledge cultural diversity, I am hesitant. As a future instructor, I plan to teach to all of these standards, but I am hopeful that there will be enough room for me to work in literature and assessment that speaking to all of my students, regardless of socio-economic, cultural, educational, and ethnic background.

Discussion as a Way of Teaching

The approach to discussion that the author of this text has presented is interesting as a teaching student, primarily in its suggestion of democratic discussion. I feel like democratic discussion is a great way to approach students and to encourage discussion, and it would be particularly effective for new teachers, who may not have a fully-formed relationship with their students. It seems vital to the teaching profession to not only give students the knowledge they need to succeed, but to help them learn how to communicate and listen effectively among their peers.

I know that, when I was a high school student, I started off very shy and unwilling to present my ideas and opinions in the classroom, out of fear of rejection or even hostility. However, a number of teachers, by encouraging democratic discussion, enabled me to overcome my initial hesitation and to speak my opinions. This, in my opinion, is vital to ensuring the success of all our students, which is really what the teaching profession comes down to. We are there as teachers not to force-feed our students knowledge, but to help them come to the correct conclusions on their own, and to form their own thoughts and opinions to share with their peers. On a pedagogical level, this means having to make the discussion free and equal, so that every students' thoughts and ideas can be heard and so that their peers and discuss those ideas. Therefore, I think that the sign of an effective discussion is not whether the students are listening to the teacher, but if the students can carry on an appropriate classroom discussion with only the slightest suggestive questioning and commenting from the instructor.

It seems to me that the purpose of this reading isn't so much to suggest that this is the only means of effective discussion in the classroom, but to craft a clear list of common traits that good classroom discussion might have. It also helps to give us as teacher-students an idea of how we can encourage a more equilateral discussion among our students, and to ensure student voice is considered in classroom conversation.