McSwain-R-430-F12-AP-Review-1


 * Preface:**

My Action Portfolio is housed completely on the course wiki. This is because I find it easier to organize and neater than if it were in hard copy format.


 * My strongest work: “Envisioning English” – Milner, Milner, Mitchell **
 * (Class 3 prep – 8/30/12 #4) **

The center of my interest in becoming a teacher is definitely adolescent students. I want to be a positive addition and influence to my student's lives. I recognize that not everyone grew up the way I did, with loving parents involved in their lives. I recognize that I will be much more than just a teacher. I'm a role model, a counselor, a friend, and an advocate. I think as long I continue to be passionate about my students as individuals, the stress, difficult parents, standardized testing, and mediocre pay will be bearable. Like everything in life, it's the individual relationships with others that are most important. (1-1)

Traditional practices are rooted in the beliefs that a teacher's first responsibility is to "transfer knowledge to students" and learning can be measured by testing. Traditionally, the focus of the classroom is on the teacher as opposed to the students. Alternative methods place the focus on the student constructing meaning for themselves by making personal connections to the material. The traditional practices are extremely outdated and not effective for //real// learning to take place. Students may memorize facts, but not much more. Through using alternative approaches, I can not only keep my students engaged and excited about learning, but also let them take control of their learning, which is important at their age. Giving students responsibility and choices when it comes to their learning is important at their age.

The main idea that I took away from this chapter is that I never want to be that "traditional" teacher. I recognize that I do not have all of the answers, and I'm very aware that I will learn from my students, just as they will learn from me. Also, rather than putting most of the emphasis on creating a final product and then assigning a grade, I want my students to see the value of the process it took to create that final product. I think that is something that is often overlooked in the classroom.


 * The most challenging: ELA Standards **
 * (Class 2 prep – 8/23/12 #4) **

The NCTE/IRA Standards are very succinct and straight to the point. I think all of the twelve standards are necessary, but I'm surprised that there are so few. Although there are so few, important topics are addressed. For example, culture, diversity, technology, and ELL students are all mentioned. These standards also seem quite vague. They not only leave a lot of the interpretation open to the reader, but also give no indication of how these standards should be met in the classroom by the teacher. This gives us more freedom, but also a bit less direction, which can be intimidating for novice teachers.

The Common Core Standards for ELA make up for the briefness of the NCTE/IRA Standards. I much preferred reading the Common Core Standards. They are more detailed and broken down into grade level. Since they are age specific, the Common Core provides certain goals for students and teachers to have accomplished by the end of each grade. This includes things they should understand, as well as be able to do.

Like I mentioned above, I definitely think the Common Core Standards are more useful, if only because they are structured by grade level. Both sets of standards leave a lot of room for teachers to be creative and unique in their pedagogy. These are only the standards - the teacher determines how these standards and goals will be met. However, while reading over the two sets, I felt that the NCTE/IRA Standards reached higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy (they actually use the words "analyze" and "evaluate") while the Common Core seems to focus more on understanding and applying.


 * I would like focused feedback on: Teaching Grammar in Context **
 * (Class 5 prep – 9/13/12 #3) **

Teaching grammar is a little concerning to me (in a healthy way) not only because I realize that it is not one of my strong points, but also because my past experiences with grammar in the classroom have been boring and dry. Coming up with creative and engaging grammar lessons will definitely require some brainstorming on my part. I remember in 7th and 9th grade, I had teachers who focused on diagramming and correcting errors in sentences. It's impossible to keep my students engaged when they are simply copying sentences down and going through the motions of correcting them.

When reading Peterson's article, "Teaching Grammar in Context," one of the main ideas that jumped out to me was the fact that students produce higher quality work when they are personally involved and invested in their writing. Student choice keeps them active in the writing process. Something else that I want to remember when I begin teaching is that best way to improve student writing is to let them write. This is why I believe informal writing, such as journals and freewrites are so important in the classroom. I definitely want to have my students keep journals. Not only will this get them writing, but also give me more insight to their writing style, concerns, and personal life. Something I hope to use is the online tool Penzu. I used it it Dr. Pope's class last spring and think it's a great alternative to lugging thirty composition books home every weekend to respond to students.

The idea of teaching grammar in the context of writing seems so obvious to me. Instead of focusing an entire unit on grammar skills that students will not remember or use in the future, I can get them writing and teach the basics and important aspects through examples. I think the list of suggestions that Weaver gives is the bare minimum, but definitely the most important aspects of grammar.