Building my Discussion according to Cooper

 I was so set on how I wanted to construct my discussion and was so excited, but then I read chapter 6 of Cooper. Don't get me wrong it's not that I am no longer excited, I just feel overwhelmed with more information to be included. Lesson planning takes more than coming up with an essential question, objectives, and a "fun activity." There are so many types of questions to look into that should be implemented in a discussion; for example, Cooper provides us with an "Inventory of Questions," which are questions that are:

- Exploratory

- Challenge

- Relational

-Diagnostic

-Action

-Cause-and-effect

-Extension

-Hypothetical

-Priority

-Summary 

 In my discussion I plan on FOCUSING on Cause-and-effect, Extension, and Hypothetical. I will definitely touch base on the others, but I really want to do more with those three because I plan on applying what I know about adolescents development with what I know about the decisions made by the characters in Romeo and Juliet. What I find fascinating with planning my lesson is how I can follow the guidelines or frameworks provided in different method books, or follow bloom's taxonomy, but that doesn't guarantee a successful discussion. What guarantees a successful discussion is having all students participate with meaningful information and, as a teacher, having a reaction to almost every student response. Cooper didn't fail to point out 12 responses to make along with multiple bullets within a few. Yes, this is extremely helpful, but I feel as a teacher you cannot only rely on that, many responses have to be more  relative to your personality and style as a teacher. The discussion should, for the lack of a better word, "flow" and seem natural not choppy. This can all be done using Cooper's suggestions I just feel like it can easily be taken as a "how-to" and not necessarily put any of the teacher's personality into it, and then it just seems so universal that it's not personal with the students. 

 Currently, I am in between two ideas for my discussion and am trying to coordinate doing both into one discussion. Until I can do that, I will continue to read Cooper and other method books and see what "clicks" because in reality it can look great on paper, but it has to feel right and click for not just the teacher, but the students. This is why teachers have such a hard job because we are required to be flexible and be quick on our feet. 

Characters Shaped by Social Worlds (Breaking Bad and Hunger Games spoiler alert!)

One section of the Beach reading for this week that was especially useful for me was in the fourth paragraph on page 124: "students are often taught to perceive characters as individual "real people" assumed to be "outside" of or at odds with society. Interpreting characters as operating within social worlds as systems helps students recognize how characters are shaped by those systems." I think this idea can open a lot of doors for students in how they interpret reading, movies they watch, etc. For example, Breaking Bad fans may find themselves denigrating Walt for the horrendous acts he has committed and not answered for over the last several seasons. But Mike pointed out in his lecture on Macbeth yesterday that his behaviors are not arbitrary, and may not be completely unwarranted. His transformation has been catalyzed, in part, through his social interactions, such as that with his former colleagues that exploited his talents as a chemist and then cut him out once they were rewarded for their work.

Focusing on the social worlds of various characters can help students think in broader and more complex terms about their behaviors. While Katniss may seem cold-hearted for denying Peeta after the first Hunger Games, she also had to do what was necessary to survive. Making it seem like she fell in love with him in the arena would bring her more supplies from sponsors, and ensure her survival.

When thinking about character motives in The Crucible, which the Middle Years Program I am observing at Washington High School is reading, we might consider how Reverend Hale is shaped by his social world. While his investigations into the apparent witchcraft occurring in Salem seems to be bringing more terror into innocent villagers' lives, his obscure talents are finding themselves to be somehow applicable. Considering this may present the possibility of empathizing with Hale, as many of us can understand the need to have our unique skills utilized in some form or another.

Understanding characters in literature as part of a whole may create new awareness for students as they read, and therefore make multiple and varied understandings possible.

Systems Analysis to Incorperate Chief Keef

I am (as many of you know by now) interpreting the material we are consuming in this class through a lens of applicability to urban education on Chicago's south and west sides. Though I agree with the position mentioned in class that such a lens requires more complex processing than simply throwing out a book like The Wednesday Wars in favor of a book about gangs (a decision which may oversimplify student experience and may or may not optimize student academic achievement, depending on context and process), I think student interest can be best channeled into academic achievement by dialogue with students about student interests (and determining reading content based on those interests). How this theory holds in practice will be tested shortly; for my lesson for ED432 I distributed student information sheets about the pop culture they consume and, after receiving overwhelming interest in Chief Keef and Lil Wayne, designed a reading about Lil Wayne's use of similes, metaphors and allusions in his rapping. Chief Keef has thus far been much more difficult to appropriate into academia. He seems uninterested in the word play that Lil Wayne (and many other lyrical performers across genres) engage in. This is understandable: he's still a teenager (many of his most famous songs were written when he was sixteen) and (at least to my current understanding of the two) has had less formal education than Lil Wayne (the latter was in a gifted program before dropping out to pursue a career in entertainment). All this left me with two tiered problem. One: despite the strong popularity of Lil Wayne in this class, Chief Keef was listed more often in student information sheets as their favorite singer/rapper, and his songs were more often listed as their favorite songs. Two: even if I can get through my one lesson for ED432 (or even a number more in the future) I'll eventually run out of Lil Wayne material, and Lil Wayne will eventually begin feeling monotonous to myself and the class. This is where the article comes in. It seems to me that Chief Keef could be an engaging tie in to inquiries regarding systems analysis touched on in the book.

All the Things… Ok, Just One

A few things that really spoke to me from this week's reading are centered around the idea of questioning. More specifically, the reading focuses on how students can frame questions and responses to readings around social issues.  So let me tell you my take on one of these "Aha!" things.

(Disclaimer: I don't mean to offend anyone, more specifically, I don't mean to offend Catholics. These are my humble thoughts and I mean no disrespect.)

Beach provides us with a little "outdated" example using the Crusades and the Roman Catholic Church.  I'll focus only on this one. It treads along the path of "how can people truly understand the teachings of the Bible if they're not allowed to question it."

As a former Catholic rebel, this example spoke to me and made me question assessment and how to frame lessons and responses around particular ideas.  Let me explain:

For most of my childhood, I attended church and did my rituals and all the things "good" Catholic children do in the "Becoming Catholic" series.  First, I was baptized, then came my first communion, then I was confirmed, and I'd make sure to go to confession before receiving the body of Christ.  I never questioned why I did it. I was simply instructed to do so, and I did.  Reflecting on my experience with the Church, I've come to view each event as a Benchmark assessment of my Catholic faith.  In order to move on to the next step, I had to do what was asked of me to move on to the next step. Shortly after getting married, I realized that for me, nothing seemed to match.  The more I questioned, however, the more I was seen as a rebel.  I questioned the relationship the Bible had with my particular church and its parishioners.  There seemed to be a disconnect. I wasn't questioning my faith because I wanted to be rebellious, I was questioning it because I wanted a deeper understanding.  I had gone through the required series and called myself a Catholic to find that I didn't understand any of it.  

In our schools, we have children who have gone through so many series of steps to get to where they are and are now learning information to move to the next step in this series. There doesn't seem to be any real learning or engagement going on.  Here, I'm reminded today of the benchmark tests, and our ED 330 conversations last night. I think that rather than questioning which is better, the formative or the summative, we really ought to ask: whom are we teaching, and for what?

If we are part of urban education , I think we should really examine what urban means, and who defines this? It really makes me feel uncomfortable (I'm obviously trying to be careful with my words) when majority (I should really look at the numbers) of schools in Chicago are categorized as "Urban." Yeah, sure, urban really means "in relation to a city or town," but that's not what majority of people think. 

I have found that (and this is my take on the issue) people often categorize urban schooling as "ghetto-schooling."  It's most often "those kids."  They're kind of displaced when it comes to the world of teaching and texts about teaching. All the things that we read about in our classes are beautiful, right? And then there's "those" kids. No, I haven't digressed from the point I want to make, just hold on.  

"Those kids" deserve better than just benchmark tests. In keeping with Beach and all the things he says, perhaps we ought to frame our students' responses to readings around social issues. Especially when it comes to "urban" kids.  The idea of questioning doesn't simply apply to our kids, but it also applies to us. I, for one, cannot wait to see the day when we move away from being a flock of sheep grazing (do sheep graze?) on Benchmark (or other) tests, and we actually stand up and say, "Hey! I am the teacher! The builder of minds, helper of future leaders! Let me show you what my kids can do."

Too much? Ok, here: 

Replying to Brenda's Backwards planning

In Brenda's post about Backwards planning post she posed a question that I think is in the heart of every student teacher going into their career. She wondered if these strategies and methods that the authors of our textbooks and perhaps even our own instructors were teaching us were truly feasible within a real classroom. Those of us that find themselves drawn to urban schools will be walking into some of the toughest classrooms in the world. With these classrooms in mind it is incredibly tempting to assume that nothing more than the transmission process is a feasible way of teaching.

But I think Brenda answers her own question for all of us when she mentions her skills in backwards planning. In speaking of her goal to win a race upon her military base she highlights the power of beginning with the end goal and planning her actions accordingly. By planning our lessons around what we hope our students to learn we focus less on making certain activities work and more on how and what our students are learning.

This focus allows teachers to take even summative assessments like tests and papers and make them formative in nature. With the focus on the end product of what you are trying to teach your students you can course correct them if they are struggling or raise those objectives to challenge students that are surpassing your objectives.

How does this apply to the question of how we can take seemingly optimistic activity and make it workable in a problem classroom? Because by focusing on the final product we can alter the above activities so that they make those goals.

When we have our students in mind we can make our lessons serve them best.

Juarez and Literacy

I failed to notice the invite for our last post before I had already written it, so I'll just make some comments about my observations for this week.

So far, my experiences at Juarez have been truly educational. The school has shown me that the common image floating around about the inner-city, largely low-income high school need not be a chaotic madhouse where learning doesn't happen because teachers are so burdened with classroom management. Instead, Juarez reminds me a lot of the high school that I went to in the 'burbs. The building looks even better than my school. Add on the brand new auditorium, the plethora of student clubs and activities, all the major athletic teams, AP classes, and an IB program, Juarez seems like a pretty good place to receive an education.

What I find most surprising are my mentor teacher's classes. She teaches three College and Career Readiness electives classes and two IB classes. All five are freshmen level. Neither of them are literature heavy, although it is a part of the class. For instance, during my first two full days of observations, the classes have gone over globalization, consumerism, watched the fabulous documentary "Park Avenue" (Watch it if you haven't seen it. It's on Netflix), and have begun research on a topic of their choosing. They will be moving into language and rhetoric as it appears in the media concerning immigration for the CCR classes and a language and power unit for the IB classes.

I love literature, and I can't wait to teach literature. But sometimes I forget how much bigger the concept of literacy really is and how much that entails. As English teachers, we are responsible for not merely teaching great novels and stories but also the dynamics and usages of language. The idea of literacy as a social act, as Beach argues, really comes through here. Students in my mentor's classes are learning how everything they do revolves around the access and restrictions to language. Who determines what correct literacy looks like? How do people use language? How is language a tool of manipulation and power?

These are just some of the questions inherent in the teaching of English, a daunting task to be sure but a privilege at the same time. Most of my future students will not like Steinbeck or Dickens as a result of my classes, but hopefully they will leave my class, and every other English class they have, equipped with better capabilities to decode and recognize, and thereby overcome, the inequities of literacy.

Cheers

Curious about Curie

So far, I can talk only reflect on one day at Curie Metro High School, though I will say it was quite an eventful one!

I have been to Bogan High School previously, which is about 20 blocks or so away from Curie. On my way to Bogan for two semesters worth of fieldwork, I would pass by Curie every day. Though it was wrong of me to do this, I was quick to just lump Curie as a “trouble” school alongside Bogan. Some of you have been there, so you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say Bogan was quite the eye-opener. The administration cared less and less about its students, and it reflected in the school environment. When I got placed at Curie, I anticipated that the situation would look similar. Boy, was I wrong. I walked into Curie, and found myself feeling as if I were in a completely different part of Chicago. Of all schools I have observed, I will say Curie is most like my own high school, Guerin College Prep in northwest suburbs—not even Foreman, a school just 10 minutes east down Belmont, compares to Guerin the way Curie does. I still have yet to pinpoint what it is exactly about Curie that sets it so drastically apart from neighboring schools. Could it be that most students are placed in majors (IB, MYP, AVID)? Could it be the administration’s attention to the student experience? What makes this school, one that could easily fall down the path of Bogan (an IB-integrated school as well, mind you) steer so clear of this track? I hope to answer these as the semester moves along.

While I’m sure the school has its problems, from first impression, it is immediately clear to me that it is not a school you’d imagine when considering the southwest side of Chicago.  In addition to this surprise, my mentor teacher, Tricia, is awesome! She is one of two heads of the English department, so I will have the opportunity to see the inner workings of such a large and invested department. It is also really great that Tricia and I seemingly share the same kinds of teaching philosophies. She teaches at an extremely diverse (in many ways) school, and I can already tell that she attends to that in even the slightest, most minute ways that really impact how students learn in her classroom. We’re talking about instructional delivery (Cooper), and that ties in quite well to the day I spent with Tricia. In her freshman class, she is working a lot on grammar in this unit, and I observed on one of the days she was lecturing—though I wouldn’t necessarily call it that. Though she lectured on the use of Cornell notes and annotating language, grammar, and syntax use, she disguised it in a way so that the students were interacting with the “lecture,” as opposed to simply sitting there and taking notes. Her use of worksheets, mini-projects, and even voice clips took what could have been a boring 50-minute lecture and elevated it into a multi-layered lesson. 

My observation is at John Marshall Metropolitan High School.  It’s a very steep learning curve for me (like most observations), and it has been informing the way I interpret our classroom activities and texts very much.  One thing I’ve been interested in during my observations is the structure of the fish bowl activity and its underlying reinforcements of white normative group speech.  I mean…it seems to me that white normative group speech generally involves a small number of people engaging in a discussion (sometimes even only one person giving a lecture).  That small group is watched by the large group.  We see this in political debates and talk shows, panels and conference presentations everyday.  The foundation of this structure seems to me to be a hegemonic conditioning: that the small group members (generally people of privilege) have more interesting, pertinent and/or entertaining things to say than the large group members.  I have sympathy of Bill Maher during his outburst against conspiracy theorist hecklers, but the outburst is a great example of how ingrained the structure is.  When a member of the crowd asserts their voice, the small-important group does not take to it kindly.

“This isn’t the Iowa Caucus!” Maher shouts into the audience.  “This isn’t a debate!  It’s a debate between us.”  Here he gestures to himself and the other members of his panel.  “You’re in the audience.  Audience comes from the Latin ‘to listen.’” 

It seems to me (and of course here I’m painting with dangerously broad stokes—but Chicago is a historically segregated city that has now reached staggering levels of contemporary de facto segregation, and as an aspiring white educator standing in front of an 100% African American classroom, I feel my students deserve such considerations about the implications of race and associated norms to optimize their education) the black normative group communication often involves more interaction.  Paul Gilroy mentions in The Black Atlantic audience reciprocity in African Diaspora (hip hop specifically).  We see this in churches across America.  Even Kings iconic “I Have A Dream,” speech was partially improvised, as King responded to the responsive audience.  (See link below.)

Mahalia Jackson, and King’s Improvisation

Here I find myself being critical of a technique when Sarah asked us to focus on positivity and learning.  I’ll end with a positive note.  I very much appreciate learning this tool, and I think it can be successfully used in classes with very different norms.  I only mean to say that, as it currently exists, it privileges white normative communication dynamics.  That fact doesn’t help us much, especially since the groupings that this very reflection relies on are founded on a false dichotomy of two highly overlapping (culturally, if—at least in Chicago—not always literally), interconnected phenotypical student groups—both with many outliers. 

My takeaway is that urban educators might be well advised to take a play from Peter Smagorinsky’s Teaching English by Design.  In Chapter 4, Smagorinsky suggests teahcers, “dedicate class time toward the end of the course to having students generate tasks and questions through which their engagement with the course can be evaluated” [Loc 1562].  He’s specifically addressing assessments, but I think the dynamic can be appropriately applied here, insofar as students can help determine how their participation grade will be evaluated regarding a pro-responsive outer circle versus a pro-reserved outer circle.

Fieldwork Observations

This semester I have been assigned to conduct my fieldwork at Back of the Yards College Prep High School (BOYCP). It is a brand new school located in the neighborhood for which it is named after. This August marks the grand opening for the school; they welcomed over 270 freshmen. They will be the school’s first graduating class in 2017. At full capacity the school can house 1,200 students. The majority of the current student population is Hispanic; there were only a handful of other minorities in the classrooms I observed. Also, I think it is important to note that the vast majority of the student population (96.8%) comes from low income households. This, however, was not apparent to me until I read the statistics online largely because the students wore uniforms. Overall the staff and the students seem very warm and welcoming.

My mentor teacher has been extremely helpful. As a pre-service teacher, I expressed to her my concerns about student teaching to which she offered words of wisdom, encouragement and advice. Much of her advice seemed to echo what I’ve learned in my methodology courses. I asked her many questions about lesson planning, which is one of my areas of concern. The main piece of advice she gave me was to be flexible and to not be afraid of “failure.” She told me that as a beginning teacher she often limited herself to what the anthology/ standard curriculum offered because she was afraid of taking risks in fear of an unsuccessful outcome. After a few years of teaching under her belt she felt confident enough to branch out and try new strategies. This reminded me of our fish bowl discussion on Smagorinsky. We discussed how teachers should take risks but reflect on their practices and adjust accordingly. She told me that at BOYCP the administration was lenient and gave the department a lot of leeway in structuring their units. In looking over her lesson plans it became obvious that she follows a constructivist theory because much of her lessons were centered on student inquiry. Right now the students are studying mythology. While observing, I noticed how my mentor teacher encouraged the students to interpret the myths and to make meaning of the text. She used both small group and whole group discussions, both of which are crucial student comprehension. Using a variety of small group and whole group discussion allows for the students to work with their peers and to share their ideas and interpretations thus allowing for the students to broaden their perspectives. In observing both discussion forms I found it interesting that some students were actively engaged in the smaller, more intimate groups and opted not to participate in the whole group discussion. This reminded me of something I read in chapter three of Smagorinsky’s Teaching English by Design. Smagorinsky gave several examples of alternatives to teacher-led-discussion and stressed the importance of both small and whole group discussion. This is because some students, like myself, feel more inclined to participate in smaller groups than in whole-group discussions.

During my free periods I met other instructors from the English department and was amazed to see the strong relationships that have already formed. It was great to see educators coming together to construct lessons; There is a great sense of community. I hope to have similar support systems when I am teaching! Overall I have had a great experience despite the fact that I’ve only observed for a few class periods. I look forward to the new experiences this semester will hold!!!

Just Get to the Activity

Smagorinsky's section, Extended Definition of Good Literature (56), connects in part with one of the classes my cooperating teacher let me teach this week. Smagorinsky explains that this assignment is a good way for students to reflect on what distinguishes good literature from bad, and think about how specifically they might make these distinctions. He suggests the possibility of "starting with the evaluation of things with which the students are familiar: the qualities that distinguish a good Mexican restaurant from a bad one, a good hip-hop artist from a bad one, a good hair salon from a bad one." (58) This struck me as a great lesson in frontloading, by beginning with concepts that are more closely aligned with student contexts before introducing the activity. I felt that in one of the classes I taught, such an idea would work well for a lesson on foreshadowing, instances of which students would point out in a Stephen King short story called The Man Who Loved Flowers. To frontload, I would have students briefly brainstorm recollections in which foreshadowing was used in things they read or movies they saw, then have them share. Although the students shared great examples from their own experience, and demonstrated that they knew the concept well, I wondered if the frontload portion was completely necessary.

Later, I reflected to my cooperating teacher, Steve, that it seemed as though the students knew what foreshadowing was without doing the frontloading activity. He explained that this may have been true, and that at times they are ready to just get to the activity sooner rather than later.

Although I have always considered frontloading to be a crucial component throughout my coursework in the program, I take this experience as a lesson that perhaps at times it is completely necessary, and other times not so much. Is it better to first gain an understanding of the skill level of the students before frontloading, or to frontload to some extent in any case for good measure? Teaching this class also made me more aware of how valuable each one of those 50 minutes are. Because time is often of the essence in teaching, perhaps frontloading is a tool to be used more selectively, especially if students are already adequately prepared to solve the task at hand.

How Big is this Iceberg, Anyway?

How Big is this Iceberg, Anyway?

When it comes to my own learning, I am a big picture gal. I love to read my theoretical texts and then see application of those ideas, while I am mentally trying to get my arms around both concepts and applications. This is where I am at today, after observing a professional learning committee (PLC) meeting and reading our chapters in “Teaching English by Design” by Peter Smagorinsky and “Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards” by Richard Beach, Amanda Thein, and Allen Webb. 

In the PLC meeting I observed, the team of teachers discussed a draft unit plan, which had been written utilizing a backward design framework. The plan had all of the bells and whistles we are learning about in ED330 and ENG481 – essential questions, Common Core standards, assessments, various texts, strategies to differentiate learning, et cetera. It is really quite exciting to see our class discussions in a true application. So what is there to grapple with???

For starters, when I read the Smagorinsky text, I feel like a little kid in a candy store without any money. There is this array of wonderful things to choose from, right in front of my eyes and nose, yet I cannot take anything just yet. Smagorinsky discusses great ideas about overarching curricular themes and utilizing portfolios as a means of assessment. Beach, et al, discuss quite thoroughly how to select and assign texts. I am led to wonder, however, how much of these penny candies will be left up to me to choose on my own, or will most of the choices be made in committee in a PLC?  How much of what we are learning in theory, which seems to be targeted to individual teachers in our texts rather than committees, truly reflects the way actual curricula are designed out there in the real world?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against PLCs, in fact, I was quite impressed with what I saw in the meeting. I think PLCs are a fabulous means to ensure curriculum is appropriate, teachers are on the same page, and to nurture teachers’ reflective practices. I hope to work in a school which utilizes the PLC model because I believe it can help me develop my potential as a teacher.

I am left to wonder then, will I walk into my first teaching position excited and armed with all of these cool ideas from Smagorinsky and Beach, only to be told, “Hold your horses, we’ve got a committee for that!” How much of the big picture have I seen and comprehended? Am I still looking at the tip of the iceberg, is there much more to be revealed as I jump into the water? Am I nit-picking the narrative viewpoint of the texts, when I could or should be focusing on something else? Should we be looking at curriculum design more from a collective viewpoint rather than an individual viewpoint, in order to simulate real world curriculum design? These are yet some of the big picture ideas I am grappling with now that I have read our chapters and attended the PLC meeting regarding unit curriculum design. I don’t want to put my arms around the tip of the iceberg, I want to see and understand that block of ice in its entirety. So how big is this iceberg, anyway?

TEAM ENGLEWOOD

I am observing Rich Farrell's English classes at Englewood Technical Prep Academy. When I walked into his class the first day, the students seemed curious and a few said hello to me. They were working on a bell ringer that had them identify the subjects and verbs of a sentence. As I looked up at the projector, I did a mental chuckle because I WAS LEARNING THE SAME THING IN MY GRAMMAR 200 COURSE THIS SEMESTER! It was funny to me because I thought of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, who like many other educators, stressed that learning should be a two way street between students and teachers. It was humbling to see the education and learning comes around full circle, and it made me think of how I will always be learning with my future students, even if I'm relearning something. 

After reading Peter Smagorinski's Teaching English By Design and Pamela Cooper's Communication For the Classroom Teacher, I can't help but feel that although the information is redundant and we have seen it across our methods courses at UIC, it is never-the-less extremely useful in terms of classroom implementation. Topics such as classroom environments and how to gage students' learning to adapt our teaching to their learning styles seem to be manifesting itself in the classroom I am observing. In terms of creating a comfortable and encouraging classroom environment, one thing I noticed is that there are posters of grammar tips and other various helpful information around the classroom. Also, student work is displayed around the room, and I think displaying a visual representation of their learning is important and gives the students a sense of community, belonging, and ownership in their classroom; that the product of their learning is proudly posted on the walls of their classroom.

As far as considering students' learning styles as Cooper suggests, I am noticing that Rich's style of teaching is directly influenced by the way his students seem to learn best. He notices that his students have a hard time working silently for the whole class period, so what he does to cater to this is a give and take method of sorts. He asks his students to work silently and diligently for 20 minutes of the class period, and in return, allows them to talk while continuing to work for the rest of the class period. I'm starting to understand that teaching is a lot about compromise in many respects to achieve an end goal successfully. I'm looking forward to seeing how other aspects of teaching that seem to reoccur in our readings take shape in an actual classroom. 

-Ramina Odicho

Have we gone too far with assesment?

For as long as I have been trying to become a teacher I have heard about the problem of standardization and testing.  Intended to make sure that every student that graduates with a repertoire of knowledge, it became a problematic set of standards that crushed critical thinking and creativity. But still teachers had limited power within their own classrooms to find new ways to instruct their students that fit the standards but still encouraged critical thinking.

Until I went to Shurz for the first time this week I thought that kind of classroom I would have when I got to teaching. But when I met Ms. Wrenn for the first time and she showed me what she would be teaching her students that day, I saw a new and slightly worrying level of assesment.

At Shurz the teachers operate under a benchmark system. Each teacher is required to teach a certain set of skills or concepts (skills based ELA) which is assessed through 5 quizes/exams for each benchmark. In order to have been said to have passed the bench mark a student must pass 3 out of the 5.

At first this didn't seem that different from the other schools that I had observed before but it was when Ms. Wrenn explained how they received grades that I began to worry. You see the only grades that the students receive is based on the results of the benchmark quizzes and the final exam taken at the end of the semester. Teachers are free to assign daily work, and papers and the like but their scores are not weighted and so are not worth any points to their final grade.

And so we see the logical conclusion to our perpetual insistence on standardized testing as the only true way of measuring student performance, students are taught that the only important information is what is going to be on the test, and that they only need to keep that knowledge long enough to regurgitate it on a page.

This is direct contradiction to what we have been talking about in class and what I have read in Smagorinski and Beach. Consistently we spoke about the power of differentiated assessment, and finding a way to test our students without testing them. Smagorinski shows how the constructivist way of teaching can be used to make learning a process in which the teacher and student interact while learning. Beach goes a more explicit route and insists to his readers that fulfilling the "common core" standards need not be two dimensional and inorganic.

With all of these alternatives to testing our students until they do well enough on the test that we can ignore them, it is hard to think that standardized testing is the best way to asses our students' knowledge. Let's see what else we can do eh?

Observations at Back of the Yards

I have found myself to be very fortunate when it comes to my ED 330 placement. I'm at Back of the Yards College Prep HS, and I love it so far. I am observing both high honors level and regular level freshmen English courses on Mondays and Fridays. We have only spent three days together so far, but I can tell that relationships are beginning to develop. My mentor teacher has welcomed me and has allowed me to be involved right from the get go. 

Back of the Yards is a brand new school this year, so they are still developing an identity. The school is filled with only freshmen, primarily coming from Latino backgrounds. In a way, these students are the guinea pigs for the school. I can totally relate to them - I was also a freshman entering a brand new high school. We got to pick the school mascot, colors, dance themes, etc. But it took a while for all of us to be comfortable in the environment, with our teachers and with fellow students. Although I went to a school in the suburbs, I see a lot of the same traits that I possessed in the students I'm working with.

Both the Regular and High Honors English classes are currently studying mythology, which surprised me. I never thought that would be a topic that I could teach. On my first day my mentor teacher was giving a pop quiz about the beginning of their unit. I was given their Mythology text book and read the story that they'd be reading for Friday; "The Creation of the Universe and Ife". On Friday during 3rd period I graded the pop quizzes while the teacher reviewed "Ife". I've noticed that Maja has found a way to balance the serious side of learning with the fun. The students respect her and genuinely are interested in what is being taught. Note: The average on the pop quizzes was an 18/20. I have to say that it was far from what I expected in terms of student engagement. Sure, the kids talk out of turn from time to time, but the learning has never been seriously disrupted. While they read the students were expected to make character charts, which included "powers" and "lands/areas ruled" for each mythical character. A group of boys asked if I wanted to join their group, to which I obliged. 

I've read with CPS students before, and to say it was a struggle would be an understatement. So it was a pleasant surprise while reading with these students and they breezed through the text and the assignment! I'm sorry, because my mind is running in circles right now - I'm just very excited about what is happening at this school. I think it's a great opportunity, and I'm feeling confident.

Observing a Veteran in the field - Schruz High School

This semester, I am observing at Schurz High School on the city’s northwest side. I have had the opportunity to work with a wonderful, veteran English teacher, who is a team lead in her department. As the semester goes on, and we as teaching students continue to learn solid teaching practices and techniques, we get the added benefit of seeing the application of these in the classroom. This has taught me quite a bit about the creation and  implementation of lessons and concepts, and how these teaching techniques and practices play out with actual students, instead of simply how they would work in theory.

My teacher gave me the lay of the land when I first entered the school and I quickly saw how great the school climate was. What I mean by that is when I walked down the hall, teachers and staff smiled at me, they said hello to my cooperating teacher, they asked how we were doing, THEY EVEN KNEW EACH OTHER’S NAMES! This may seem unimportant or not a big deal, but the attitude of a school staff towards one another says a lot about how close the teachers are with one another, and how supportive they might be of their fellow educators. I noticed the same from the students. They seemed like happy, (mostly) chill high school students who didn’t mind being in school. Again, may not seem like a big deal, that is until you’ve been to a school (or schools) that doesn’t have this sort of environment. I was encouraged by this fact as a beginning teacher because it made me feel more confident that I would be able to implement different ideas and concepts that would be met with less resistance or apathy.

The first day I was at Schurz, my co-op teacher implemented a lesson that incorporated many of the techniques and ideas we have been discussing in class. She talked to me about how she planned on pushing the kids to learn with this lesson, how she targeted their zones of proximal development and established what that zone was through constant assessment, both formal and informal. The lesson began with her giving out a benchmark test to her students, evaluating their progress towards mastering subject/predicate recognition. She has gotten her classes to know upon entering that there will be a handout, usually a bell ringer, which they are to take and begin as they come into class. This is definitely a technique that is valuable to a teacher and one we have talked about to establish that there is always something for the students to be doing in class.

She moved into a handout she passed out when the students had finished the exam, in which they would be examining the mood of an excerpt. She had the students practice on their own, and then asked for volunteers to come up and write one of their examples on the overhead, which most students seemed open to trying. She modeled what she was looking for first and the students seemed to “get it”. She then went on to have a discussion with the class about the importance of mood, and how different moods can dramatically affect the way a reader interprets a text. The students were sort of unsure of what exactly she meant be mood affecting interpretation, which she planned for, since the concept requires some critical analysis. To scaffold the concept she was teaching about mood, she incorporated two video clips (movie trailers) into her lesson that were of the same movie, Mary Poppins, and how the moods of each clip varied based on the way the trailer was presented. The students responded well to the clips and her strategy seemed to work the way she planned it.

 To have her students demonstrate their newly acquired (or enhanced, depending on the student) skill, she then played 15 second clips from 5 different songs, and had the students write descriptive verbs (from a sheet she gave them a while back) that they thought described the mood of each song. This was something that the students truly enjoyed and got every one of their attentions. She seemed pleased with their demonstration of knowledge and was able to informally evaluate the general understanding of the concept that the class had. Her lesson, while simple, engaged her students in a myriad of ways, had them reading, writing, talking, and listening with few incidents, and both formally and informally assessed her students. Upon reflection, I was quite impressed with not only her classroom management (something she believes is one of her strongest attributes as a teacher), but with the ease it seemed she was able to perform all of the things I just talked about.

Seeing a quality teacher in action, from the planning stage to the execution, was certainly beneficial for me. I was able to see how a veteran goes about creating a lesson with her students in mind and about scaffolding an entire lesson from beginning to end. Most of all, I was able to see how to incorporate multiple demands (assessment, strategy, time on task, etc.) of a class into a well-timed and thought out lesson. I cannot wait to get more involved with her students in the class and to try and execute my own lesson that I can only hope is as effective and well-received as hers.