Blog Post #2 Designing Reading Instruction

 How will I design instruction that helps students develop habits that enhance their reading lives?

When I consider students' reading lives, I think of it in the long term. I want to positively impact their reading habits far into my students' old ages. The routines they begin now can last decades if they enjoy reading. Therefore the trick is to get them to like doing it. According to Penny Kittle, the best way to accomplish that is to let them choose what they’re reading. Sometimes having the class all read the same thing is helpful. For example, if I’m introducing the students to a new genre or writing style, I might have them all on the same book or passage. But once we’re all on the same page, I’d like to set them free to read whatever interests them individually.

At my middle school, the English class gets to visit the library every other week. Sometimes the students choose books I’m familiar with, but usually they pick out literature I’ve never even heard of - and that’s cool! I haven’t been a student in middle school for decades, so I wouldn’t expect the books that were popular in my time to remain so today. In fact, trends change so quickly, each generation of students is likely to have their own new favorites. What’s important is that each student is getting to read something that is uniquely them. One girl in the class asks me every time we visit the library, “What do you think I should read?” I can’t answer that question, but I can help her help herself. I always probe her memory for other books she liked, then we look up the author and find other things they’ve written. Maybe she’ll run out of that author’s catalog soon, so we can switch our search to things similar to those books by different authors. I want them to be able to visit a library outside of class and still be able to function independently.

Middle school is a time when kids are figuring out who they are. This self-exploration is going to involve listening to new types of music, watching genres of movies they weren’t interested in when they were kids, wearing new fashions (that may or may not be embarrassing for them in a year), and finding new books that reflect their changing lives. Students have to experiment with new art to figure out what is going to represent them. Therefore, they must have the chance to explore literature that isn’t just full of the lessons I think they need to learn.

Another strategy I intend to use is creating book clubs for the students. One joy of delving into a new art work is getting to discuss it with your friends. It would be a fun activity to divide the class into groups based on their favorite genres of literature. Then each group can decide on what book they want to read together. That way they can supplement their own understandings by bouncing ideas off each other and stay inspired to keep reading if only to keep up with the rest of the group. This is a practice that they can continue into adulthood if they hang out with an intellectual crowd.

Works Cited:

Kittle, Penny. Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers. Heinemann, 2013.

Blog Post #1 Teaching English Language Arts

 Yo!

Hello, all you wanderers out there in the cyber universe. I’ll be publishing perceptive posts periodically to let you know what the process of student teaching is all about. I’m currently a teaching intern in both an English and a social studies class. My students are sixth graders participating in the precursor to the International Baccalaureate program. This means that the students work hard to achieve rigid academic requirements. A large number of our students have college professors for parents, so I’m sure they have great intellectual role models and maybe even high pressure to succeed. The fact that I’m teaching a bunch of geniuses in the making means that my job is likely easier than my college peers as far as student interest and behavior go. Bwahaha! In this blog, I’ll be focusing on my experiences in the language arts class.

How Do Today’s ELA Classes Contrast with the Ones I Attended as a Student?

             To be honest, I barely remember most of the curriculum from when I was in middle school. It’s probably because when I was in sixth grade, the popular music was Coolio and TLC. Flannels still abounded. Star Wars was only three films. It was a while ago.

            However, there are some things that stand out as different now. The most obvious is technology. At our school, each student has been provided a tablet. If they need to find a definition, they don’t flip through the deliciously musty pages in Webster’s masterpiece; They hop on the internet to clickety-clack their way to understanding. This is a blessing and a curse because it also means that the temptations of Minecraft and Roblox are always lurking. There’s also a lot of moronic misinformation on the internet. But hopefully, if we can show them the most trustworthy online resources and model how to navigate them, the students will develop solid researching habits.

            Something we’re teaching the sixth graders now that I don’t recall being taught until my senior year is paragraph structure. Before secondary school, we learned to indent paragraphs. We learned to start a new paragraph once we changed the subject. But I vividly remember in twelfth grade when my teacher wanted us to begin each paragraph with its own mission statement and make each sentence following it be evidence supporting it. At the time, I didn’t like it. This wasn’t the laissez-faire style of writing instruction I was used to.  Now, the schools are leading kids on the path of deliberate structure from the start.

How Will I Apply Concepts I’m Learning in College to My Classroom?

            In his hit book Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms, author Randy Bomer highlights appreciating students’ existing literacies (20). This strategy will be a great tool for building relationships, and that is the best way to make our teaching effective. If students feel that we care about them, they will be more likely to care about the things we ask them to do. They will know that we’re trying to improve their lives, not just make them into drones. Plus, inquiring about students’ interests and habits in reading will give us useful insight into different means we can use to reach them.

            Another thing that Bomer exhorts is the pros and cons of different structures of class activities (10). I’ve already found this helpful in my class. I found that when I led whole-class discussions, some kids’ attentions kept drifting elsewhere if not dwindling down to a sleepy malaise. In the best teaching feedback I’ve received thus far, she told me that I should try placing the students into small groups or partners so that each student will remain engaged with the lesson. She and Bomer totally made sense. Whole-class talks can work sometimes, but I’ve got to mix it up.

Find me here next time for more adventures in teaching!

            Jake

Works Cited:

Bomer, Randy. Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms. Heinemann, 2011.