Small group unit analysis

Deciding what to do for my small group reading unit wasn’t too difficult. In my CT’s 9^th grade Pre-AP class the girls are working on lit circles. It’s working so well I decided I would take it on as my own small group up unit.  Lit circles are something I am fairly familiar with and I think it works well with students with different abilities and personalities. It surprised me how much work wen into it although I used the same outline as my teacher. I wanted to make it more my own while still using the books she used for the unit. It is about creating awareness of social injustices in Asia, something I feel very passionate about. I think becoming more familiar with other cultures fosters an understanding for others who may be different from you, whether they live on the other side of the world or just down the street. By having the girls focus for a six weeks on learning about a culture so starkly different from their own the students can find a desire to explore other cultures more whether through traveling, reading, and eating!

 I liked the books my CT chose and I did try to exchange some of them for others but none of them seemed really suitable. For example, I would love to include Thailand Cambodia Laos or Vietnam as one of the countries we studied but I was at a loss for any worthwhile books that were accessible for my students to read. I also adjusted the end of the unit assessment to be a group presentation and short essay. My CT is making this project more extensive by making it a research proposal in conjunction with the 9^th grade social studies teacher but I am preparing my unit in terms of being isolated in my class separately. I like the idea of the group presentation so that all of the students can learn about each other’s countries and the injustices that people face there or have faced in the past. By looking at current problems and problems that have been eradicated I think it can make the students feel empowered. They can see that it is possible for things like the maltreatment of women to improve like in the case of foot binding. This is why I decided to let the students choose to focus on a current social issue or one that was prevalent in the past. Studying ones that have been eradicated can give hope and direction in ways to fix the current ills in society.

I think my tweaks I made to this unit would work well in this classroom. They girls are ultra-motivated and they all seemed to enjoy their books, although some said, “It was good for a book I had to read!” The books were different levels with some being rather difficult and some on the easier side. It was a good variety for the different strengths of students in the class. All in all I think I made a good unit. I’ve given it some thought and I think it can also lead into a whole group text reading Half the Sky, which is what I am considering preparing for my whole group text unit for class. The only thing I’m worried about is students needing more time to make the presentation and write their essays. I think with this particular group, it is plenty of time and they do not need too too much scaffolding. If anything, they would only need another day or two but I think that giving them time in class to research and giving them the guidelines early it would be reasonable for them to have their presentations prepared in the timeline I’ve given. 

Lit circles, turn and talks and fish bowls, oh my

I got to witness first hand the 9^th graders I observe dominating a lit circle. MY CT asked me to join one group talking about the book God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Although I’ve never read the book I was confident I’d be able to help facilitate the conversation and assist if there were any pauses. Oh my word, was I wrong! The girls got going and didn’t stop. They had such insightful things to say. They made great connections to their lives and pop culture references, fairy tales­­­- you name it. It astounded me the depth to which they engaged in this rather difficult book (for anyone unfamiliar with God of Small Things. it reminds me of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book taking place in India rather than Latin America). I took a vested interest in writing down their great responses but I rarely spoke because they were doing such a phenomenal job on their own I thought I would only slow them down!

It was really interesting to see this lit circle and relate it to the one I did last semester with my Reading II class. They were both the same in theory, the same roles and everything, but the conversations were drastically different. This firmly reminds me that every class is different and an activity that can work for one class can bomb in the next class causing cricket chirping and painful silences. When I was teaching in Thailand I would teach a lesson that rocked! I felt so confident I didn’t tweak it whatsoever for my next class although I knew it was a bit rowdier than the one before it. This was always a mistake. ALWAYS. The kids would start squirming in their seats and I would think What? Your friends in third period LOVED this; you should too! That’s a bad attitude to have and frankly, a little lazy on my part. I feel like I finally realized that one lesson plan doesn’t apply to every class but I definitely learned it the hard way...

Reading Peter Smagorinsky’s chapter on alternatives to teacher-led discussions were full of activities I could see working in one class I’ve observed but not the other and vice versa. The kiddos in my class from last semester would do a fantastic job with the body biography. I can picture them working in groups and really showing their creative sides a project like that. However, I shudder to think about implementing a fishbowl in that class. Even in the class I am in now, though, I feel like a fishbowl would be tricky to maneuver because the same four or five girls would dominate the conversation. It’s an activity that wouldn’t work well on either level.

I look forward to the day when I have my own classroom and I can really try a lot of these activities in-depth and when I have more time available than just one mini lesson or one class period. I am teaching tomorrow and after my last time teaching I’ve decided that I want to do more of a turn and talk activity. I want to make sure every girl’s voice is heard not just four or five. By having smaller groups and turn and talks more people get to speak. I grew up in classrooms with teacher-led discussions and I think I learned some really great things in that setting, but I think that a lot of students benefit from different discussion structures in the classroom. By sharing their opinions, experiences, and values the students form a community, a community that is comfortable with sharing and expressing themselves through discussions as well as writing. 

Standards standards standards

Observing in two very different classrooms over the past five months there’s a similarity I’ve noticed. Neither of my CT’s let the TEKS rule their classroom.  They follow the standards that are enforced by the state of Texas and their school but they do so with ease. They’ve mastered incorporating the standards flawlessly. In line with what we’ve talked about last week, having a sound lesson plan and units for the year makes it relatively simple to cover all of the TEKS. Personally, I feel like this will be a challenge in my first year of teaching or so. I think that it comes with having experience and familiarity with the standards. I haven’t explicitly asked my teachers how they view the TEKS and how they make sure they are included in their classroom but I wonder how much of it naturally occurs to them after years of working in public schools and how much of it is a conscious decision they make when they create their units.

            If there was an anonymous look at the standards put in place by the NCTE, Common Core and the TEKS, like a blind taste test of leading cola products, I think it wouldn’t come as any surprise that the NCTE standards were written by actual English teachers. The NCTE standards leave space for flexibility one’s teaching practices. It doesn’t emphasize grammar whatsoever. It focuses on skills linked with creativity and literacy with the goal of personal fulfillment rather than measurable skills like test taking. There is a major disconnect between the standards of NCTE and the TEKS and Common Core. The TEKS exude more of a “teacher-proof” quality. Who wrote these standards? I attempted going on a little Google adventure to find the answer to this question to no avail. The website for the TEKS is as obfuscated as the TEKS themselves are explicit and overly detailed.  I am really curious as to the authorship of the Common Core and the TEKS. I think that knowing who wrote these standards is as important as knowing who wrote the novel you’re reading. It gives you an idea of their motivations and goals behind the standards.  I’m sure my lovely professor or fabulous TA could enlighten me?

When all else fails, there's always Hangman

Picture it: I entered my first class as an ESL teacher in Chiang Rai  after an entire week of instruction about how to teach. I confidently strolled in front of the kids and wrote my name on the board. Then I realized, “So, they’re all looking at me…what do I do with them for the next 49 minutes?!” My occasional savior when lessons would go awry, Hangman, saved me that day but it really made me re-evaluate my orientation. I realized that I didn’t receive very much instruction about how to teach. I mostly just learned how to say “thank you” “how much?” and “where is the bathroom?” in Thai. I was cocky and I didn’t plan for my class. I thought after twenty years in a classroom and countless episodes of Saved by the Bell under my belt I would be a natural teacher. I learned the hard way that teaching doesn’t come naturally and planning is vital to not only “making it through” a class but making it a meaningful, worthwhile experience for everyone in the room. As Dr. Bomer says the purpose of our curriculum should be “designed to transform all of us into new people, individuals in relation to one another, having participated in shared conversations with an eye toward becoming independent enough to move into new conversations and communities” (Bomer, 309).

I taught my first lesson last Tuesday and overall, I think it went really well. I planned ahead of time with my CT and I made a simple, thirty-minute lesson about feminist criticism. It included a great discussion with the girls that I lead by using a DAR format my CT explained to me. D stands for “Describing” so the girls described a scene in their book where they found stereotypes of women, or where a woman confronted and defied a stereotype. A stands for “Analysis.” I then asked the girls to apply feminist criticism to their books and what would they look for next time they read. The girls had such wonderful insight when I asked this question! Finally, the R stands for “Relate.” I asked the girls to recall a time in their lives where they saw stereotypes about women. They had great examples, including one girl’s own sister who was making a transformation into a teenager and how she perceived herself. The lesson was really thought provoking, not only for the students but for myself as well. I was really happy I made a thoughtful, constructed plan with my CT and Anni. It was hard to move on from the discussion because it was so engaging and I just love hear their perspectives, but alas, we had to go on to our worksheet that I created. I have yet to teach an entire class period because of restrictions in the classroom and testing etc. but I’m excited to have the chance to plan not only an entire class but an entire unit in class.

As I was reading this week’s chapters, though, I felt daunted at the idea of making an ENTIRE YEAR plan. One year, a school year, 10 months, almost 200 days. That’s a lot of plans. It is overwhelming to think about deciding the course of the year, how do I want to spend these days with my students, what attitude am I bringing to the year?

While I admit, I was worried about this prospect at first as I continued to read the insights the authors shared and realizing I have support in the form of my CT, my facilitator, my professors, and friends it won’t be as overwhelming as I thought. Smagorinsky really made me think about what kind of units I want to create and how they will fit into the overarching theme of the class. It’s important to tie every lesson together so that it is not just a random occurrence that has no baring with the lessons around it. I have never really had to lesson plan beyond the upcoming week. In AmeriCorps we had the same lesson we taught every day and the only variation was the skill of our students and when we started tutoring them. In Thailand I kind of had free reign to teach what I wanted (I didn’t even have the students’ textbook! My teacher said there wasn’t one to spare so I did anything I felt like that week), and that was fine, but as a professional educator in the US I know that won’t fly. I want there to be continuity in my lessons and a purpose past that week. Hangman won't cut it anymore.