Context for Learning

Although many loose ends still remain in the process of completing the unit plan, such as what some of my pragmatic approaches might be in teaching the texts and frontloading and scaffolding the work students would produce, I feel like I made a breakthrough this week in thinking about how to consider the relational aspects of the material I would teach to the context for learning at my fieldwork school this semester.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the emails in which Ramina and Aaron shared their experiences having students complete questionnaires about themselves led me to create my own and have two periods of classes at my school complete, also. Not only did these help me with certain parts of the edTPA questions, but they also helped me consider ways that I could engage these students in the materials in the unit based on their interests and concerns. For example, many students wrote that they are concerned about and dislike the fighting that goes on in their school and neighborhoods. I imagine that using these concerns would be a key way to facilitate discussions on and writing responses to Anderson's Twisted and Romeo and Juliet. Both of these books would serve as resources in dissecting cultures of violence, and considering how certain societal perceptions might contribute to and create these cultures. I think Mercutio's views on men's role in society (to kick one another's ass, in part) would be interesting to look at within the particular context for learning I have been in this semester. I would love to see how classes would react to Mercutio's claims about violence and the male gender, and what sort of truth and ignorance there is to take from these claims.

Thinking more about the context for learning within the scope of the unit has helped me a lot with thinking about points of emphasis to consider in teaching some of the texts that would foster student engagement and understanding.