Learning Letter

                The various pieces of this course have been successful in providing what I felt was a cohesive effort to impart what it is to be an English Language Arts teacher in our current educational climate. Most useful for this purpose, of course, was the construction of the three week unit plan, allowing us the opportunity to consider how we would go about introduce and teaching a text on a very real level. The unit plans allowed us to look at the actual process of educating students from every angle of instruction. We were able to think about classroom management, assessment, adherence to standards and how to get our students engaged in the material.

                The mini-lessons gave as a taste of the real classroom experience. While this, of course, did not include actual high school students, it gave us the opportunity to see how we would perform as teachers in a classroom setting, and not as students. It was kind of our first opportunity to look at a classroom as teachers and not as students ourselves and see how exactly it was that we would organize and manage a classroom of our own. Furthermore, this provided us the chance to arrange some kind of activity for students and see how that activity would function in a real classroom and then get immediate feedback from our peers concerning our success as teachers and the places that we needed to improve. This was valuable information.

                The book talks were an informative and effective means of introducing those of us (like myself) who were not very familiar with many young adult texts to a large selection and a diverse range of books. With the brief synopses provided, I was able to determine which text I found interesting and might consider teaching myself and which texts I felt were either uninteresting, or perhaps inappropriate for a high school classroom.

                From a theoretical standpoint, I think I probably found those texts most focused on actual classroom practices most informative and valuable (specifically the Tovani text and the article on assessment). These provided me with ideas and direction that I will be able to use in my classroom and to enhance my own abilities as an educator, allowing me to link the more abstract theory with these more practical applications. From what we have learned in this class about educational theory I look forward to finally taking course that will focus even more on these educational strategies and allow me to increase my understanding of my chosen profession. Finally, with this theory as a backbone of my classroom management and approach, I know that I will better be able to assist my students in gaining the knowledge and education they will need to be successful in college and in the working world, as well as in the moral and cultural worlds in which they reside.

                With the foundation that this class has provided for me, and the hard work and effort that has gone into trying to be successful in all its various aspects, I believe that I have been set on a firm and directed course toward what should hopefully be a promising and fulfilling career.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

                This piece, of course, is a classic and I don’t think that there is a high school student in the US who hasn’t had to read it at one point or another during their grade school education. Considering this, one is forced to look at the play in a way as to determine what it is about this particular text that so many school districts and educators find so important.

                I understand that as a work the language and structure of this classic piece is remarkable and any student would benefit from being introduced to writing such as this. I also understand that as the main characters are teenagers themselves and are struggling with something that virtually every teenager goes through (that of love and loss), this text is something that teenagers can relate to, and, as far as Shakespeare goes, it is fairly simply written. What I don’t really get, and have never really gotten about this work is that it has always struck me as a bit on the whiney side and full of over-reaction to what is a romance that spans the whole of 2 or 3 days.

                While I do realize that high school students (myself included) often over-react to everything in their lives, it seems that there are works by Shakespeare that I think students would benefit more from and that have just as good, if not better, language, structure and plot. I would personally prefer to use some of Shakespeare’s comedies in the high school classroom. These texts would introduce students to the same beauty of language and would allow them to experience the funny side of Shakespeare, a side that I think is often under-represented in the high school classroom.

In the Name of God by Paula Jolin

My response to this text has to be two-fold because, as a work of fiction itself I found it dull and I found the ending decidedly unbelievable and very rushed. However, my response to the subject matter and the tension and concern that I feel the book would have elicited were it better written are a different matter.

                I think if students are anything like myself they will find this book to be a very dry read and will struggle to finish it, just as I struggled to finish it (the only text this whole quarter that I had trouble finishing I might add). Now, I must admit that it is possible that I found this text difficult because I simply could not relate to Nadia because I found her character rather flat and uninteresting, and this could show some kind of lack of understanding of her perspective.

                The subject of the book, however, is one that I think most students would respond well to. I think they would find it interesting to try to understand the thought process of a potential religious radical and to see how they might be lead, based on their beliefs, to seek violent and suicidal means of making their opinions heard. I think this look into this kind of psyche would be very chilling and would elicit discussion that would really delve into issues that are facing our world today. With this in mind, I think we, as educators, would need to be prepared for the kind of emotional response that this kind of literature could engender in our students and help them control said feelings and concerns.

                All in all, I think that had this book been written in a different way it could have been effective in its efforts to help the reader understand the mindset of its main character, but the way that it is written seems ineffective and uninteresting to me.