Dr. Agriss,
I have learned so much in this quarter and in this Teaching Literature to Adolescents class.
Some of what I have learned came from the work I completed in this course, and some of what I have learned came from my exposure to the work and ideas of my classmates. With the book talk, the biggest take-away with my own effort came with understanding the need to inform parents and school administrators about course content and my rationale. Anthem, and Ayn Rand in general, is loaded, and some parents, like Trish mentioned, would want to be made aware of it and the rationale if their children are poised to study the novel or philosophy of objectivism. I am thankful that I was exposed to so many different and diverse novels that my future students could possibly read or be reading. As a teacher, it is important for me to be exposed to those books and ideas. With the mini-lesson, the biggest take-away with my own effort came with understanding the time-restrictions that lessons can have and that I need to lighten-up and be human with my classes. I believe that my mini-lesson was excellently designed as it started with lower-level learning targets that would cascade into higher-level thinking questions and targets, but because of the time restrictions the class was only exposed to the first part of the lesson, which almost exclusively contained lower-level questions and learning targets, and was not exposed to the end of the lesson, which included the higher-level questions and learning targets. I need to make sure that I manage my lessons and my time better, or I should consider incorporating higher-level questions and learning targets more evenly in my lessons. As an observer and commentator on my classmates' mini-lessons, I came away with many different ideas on lessons to teach novels that I probably will teach. For example, I know that I will be teaching Night in the spring, so it was valuable to observe my classmates' presentations about Night. Regarding the unit plans, the most valuable thing I learned was about how individual lessons combine to create a cohesive unit. The rationale for designing lesson plans changed because I realized that, to maximize student learning, the knowledge of previous lesson plans would have to be built upon rather than cast aside. This change is very important and something that I will keep with me as I become a teacher and have to design many unit plans. For my classmates' unit plans, it was particularly interesting to see the lessons that they developed and the processes undertaken with constructing their unit plans. It provided contrast with what I could do in my own unit plan and enlightened me.
Some of what I have learned came from the theories and concepts that we explored in our readings and discussions. Using discussion as the method for instruction, examining social justice, introducing students to the larger issues of life, and really examining what it means to differentiate instruction altered my thinking about what I would incorporate in my lessons. Discussing critical pedagogy brings an element of, for lack of a better word, morality about what I want my students to learn. Do I feed them hegemonic information, or do I open their minds to a different version about the nature of contemporary society? This dichotomy raises a serious question that I have to consider as I progress as a teacher and it is a dynamic I was wholly ignorant about prior to this class. I also think that the discussion aspect of this class worked extremely well as I was able to debate and forge my own opinions and ideas about critical pedagogy and other theoretical lenses from doing so. It inspires me to structure my future classes around discussion. In addition, reading novels like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and American Born Chinese was very pleasant and a benefit of this class. Those are two young adult literature selections that I probably would have never read had it not been for this class, and I am very happy that I read them as I enjoyed them very much. Plus, I Read It, But I Don't Get It is an important pedagogical book that will help me approach struggling readers and increase their learning. I am glad to have read that book, too.
My participation in this course has influenced my thinking about myself as a teacher. In addition to learning more about the mechanics and strategies of teaching, this class has helped provide me with rationale and an introduction to the philosophical underpinnings that great teachers have. I believe I participated in the discussions enough to where I hope that I increased my peers' learning as well as my own. There were some instances where I made a fool of myself, but I think that those moments were important as well because it increases and internalizes the learning that happens in me. Completing all of the work in this class was hard, but it was made easier by the compelling nature of the work and my own interests in it. I can actually envision myself a teacher now, which was something I couldn't have done at the start of this quarter, and this helps create personal incentives for investing in becoming a better teacher.
Thank you for teaching me this quarter, and I hope you have a joyous winter break,
Dominick
