#matrixprojects

This semester’s practicum has taught me lessons that I could not discover through research alone. Anything from what students are learning today in the English classroom to behavior management of high school students. I was very fortunate to have a practicum placement where I had experience with everything in between. I was also fortunate to have a host teacher that was very accommodating and forgiving because this semester was by far the busiest I have ever been. It was the culmination of medical issues and taking three classes that makes me extremely grateful for the way my host teacher treated me in her classroom. From day one of meeting my host teacher, I knew that I would come away from this practicum placement with a better understanding of what it means to be a teacher in high school.

Meeting my host teacher was one of the most nerve racking things that I would experience in my entire practicum. Your host teacher is the one that sets the tone for your subsequent days in the classroom. When I walked into her classroom, my host teacher was very nice and excited to have me in her class. We talked about what my role is in the classroom and the lesson I was thinking of doing with the ninth graders. She understood my roles and cautioned me about her ninth grade students, which turned out to be very valid. This was the first lesson that I learned about being a teacher in high school: ninth graders are the worse class of students to get. I say this because most of them are immature and do not have the ability to think about the future. They are constantly disruptive and disrespectful, which makes all the lessons that you prepare go out the window if you cannot control your classroom. My host teacher was really frustrated with her ninth graders because of the disrespect that she was shown. I realized that she probably did not throw down the gauntlet in the very beginning of the year when it comes to the students’ behavior. I learned that she did not have a solid behavior management plan from what I observed, which could be due to the fact that administration has a school wide management plan and she has to follow it. However, I think that if she had a set of rules for her classroom and enforced them adequately, she would have a better chance of controlling her students’ behavior.

When it comes to the eleventh graders, they are much easier to deal with expect the selected few that decide that disrupting the class by breaking the rules is a more advantageous  use of their time, but what classroom does not have the troublemakers. So, I changed my mind on doing my lesson with the ninth graders and chose the eleventh graders instead. They taught me that, unlike my previous high school practicum with 10th grade honors and 12th grade IB students, I would have to be aware of students with different levels of capability. The eleventh graders were more than capable of completing the lesson I set for them, but some of them needed extra help that I did not think to provide. For example, I did not show them what I was looking for when they had to annotate a poem in their group by providing them an example. I also did not give a list of literary devices and their definitions for those that did not fully understand what they were. So learned that I have to take into account what level my students are at and to provide examples of instructions to make my expectations clear.

I also learned from the students that they are not as interested in literature or poetry as I am, which pains me a little but is understandable. There are things that I do not like, but have to do them anyway. It is my job as a teacher to find a common ground and doing an interest survey would be a great way of finding out more about my students. I talked with a couple of the students in my practicum placement and found that I can connect with them more on a maturity level. Not saying that I am high school mature, but I am closer to their age and understand what they are going through at their ages. That is the main reason I want to teach high school in the first place and talking with my practicum students made me realize that even more.

Throughout this semester, I learned what it really means to become a high school English teacher through researching about what I can learn from practicing teachers, looking within myself about my teacher identity, and finding out what Language Arts students are really thinking about put everything into perspective for me. The best way that I can put everything together is separating all I learned into two areas: practicum and the Matrix choice assignments. Those two categories not only help me to make sense of the past semester, but also to provide others the opportunity to see into what I have experienced.

I am going to talk about my Matrix choice assignments first because I think that it connects well to the practicum experiences I had. Researching about what practicing teachers are doing or feeling in the classroom, exposing my teacher identity, and learning about what Language Arts students really feel about school or their English class gave me an insight into what I might expect from my practicum. To learn from current practicing teachers, I chose to look at teacher blogs. There were several blogs that I found useful in understanding what the average teacher is going through day after day. Also I learned about what lengths teachers go through to connect with their students by multiple means. One teacher talked about organizing journals, binders, and notebooks for her students, so that they can be more organized in school and for their future skills in college or the workplace. Another teacher, who was in a Title One school, talked about connecting with his students by talking to them about concerns they had in and outside the classroom. These tips helped me to understand the dedication that it takes for me to connect with my students if I want to be an engaging and impactful teacher in their lives.

My second matrix choice was about how I viewed myself as a teacher and what sort of journey I took to realize that this is the path I wanted to take. I started early on talking about how I would lose myself in novels or books to escape bullying in middle school and high school. I moved on through high school for two years before I realized that I had a talent for writing fiction. In my junior year, I signed up for Creative Writing class and my teacher was the best at getting students to write what was in their heart. He made me realize that I was a good writer and I wanted to emulate him. I found out that I wanted to be a teacher and I wanted to take some of the encouragement he gave me to my future students. In my senior year, I signed up for a teaching course and had an internship at an elementary school, which is where I found out that I cannot handle the little people. As I entered my college years, I realized that my passion was going to be writing and teaching students how to write creatively. I entered the Post-Bacc program, researched about bullying (became an advocated for anti-bullying), and now I am close to the end of my education journey and so close to my goal (my own classroom).

Finally, the last matrix choice was to find out about Language Arts students through blogs. I believe that blogging for teenagers is a great way to get their story out into the world and build their creative writing skills, which is why I chose this particular way of learning about these students. I learned that there are a range of students that either like or dislike school or English class as well. Some find it boring because their interests are not taken into account or they find it too difficult; whether it is the material, texts, and/or the grammar. If students are not interested in the class, they are going to not try or not be as engaged as you want them to be. Students need that stimulation for them to excel in the classroom. I think that finding some way to showcase interests in reading material besides the required is something that can improve students’ attitude toward English class. I find that giving them a survey on interests can be a useful first step into achieving that goal.

Matrix 3: Students Blog Their Thoughts and Interests; Utilize Them

          I remember when I was in high school or in fact middle school that I would have various interests away from my school subjects, but I stuck with English as my favorite because I love to read novels, talk about them, and write about them. I also love writing poetry and prose which is a major part of English class. However, I still remember that my peers did not feel the same way about school.  Some liked different subjects than me and/or hated school all together. Also there are other things about school that I hated that others liked. For example, I hated that we were forced to change our class period format. We went from a traditional seven periods every day to a block schedule as well as waking up at the crack of dawn to get to school on time.

           Many of these issues are still on students’ minds, among many other things, today. I actually had difficulty in finding student blogs in general. Not many students blog about their feelings today, which I think is due to more avenues to express their feelings. Facebook, snapchat, twitter are several of the current avenues with which to express issues in their lives. Teenagers are full of opinions because they express themselves so freely. I did find three blogs that talked about school, interests, and other aspects of their lives. All of them are written by girls ranging from high school to middle school age and come from different backgrounds.

           Some of the issues that were previously discussed are also mentioned in a student blog called it’s grace. This blog is written by a girl named Grace, who is fourteen years old and in middle school. She writes about her interests in the future, school, and other activities, such as poetry. Of her three posts about school her most interesting post is about issues in school. She makes two points that are issues for her about school: school times and uniforms. She makes a clear point with evidence from livescience.com that the brain is not ready for learning at 7 in the morning. She creates a solution to the problem by saying that exercise should be in the morning to jump start the brain. I agree with her that high school students should not be subject to learning at such an early hour. High school students are more prone to learning at a later time, let’s say 10am instead, and staying in school until 4pm. So for a simpler explanation, elementary school children should go to school at 7am and the high school students should go to school at 9am. Another issue that Grace points out is uniforms in school. The fact that she was bringing up the issue in the first place means she has school uniforms at her school. She points out that the school uniforms she wears does not allow for students to express themselves and how the rules are more directed to females than males because school admin want a distraction free learning zone for male education. This blog was more about the education system and less about interests in subjects. http://gracekoury.edublogs.org/

           The next blog Wendy’s blog!!!!!!!, is written by a middle school aged girl named Wendy, who is actually from the same area as the previous blog. This blog was written for an English class as well as a digital storytelling assignment. She writes five posts about interests in her life as well as about school. However, her school experience is different from Grace. In one post she explains that she does not like school at all, but does not go into details about why. She mainly talks about her favorite television show; Once Upon A Time, and her upcoming Christmas holiday.

           Finally, the most comprehensive blog, Simply Aubree is about the life of a teenage girl in ninth grade. In three blog posts she talks about English assignments involving Romeo and Juliet, poetry with extend metaphor, country style music and recipes, as well as hunting. She posts her school work such as her English essay on Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet as well as her Civics poster about a Third Party in politics. She is artistic, loves to read, and creates beautiful poetry. She also started this blog as an assignment for a class, but she continuously updates it with her interests and thoughts. Her Friar Lawrence essay is well written and very mature for an eighth grader.

           Going through these blogs helps me to understand more about students that take English/ Language Arts courses in school. I will run into a diverse range of students with different interests as these girls have shown. Learning about what students are interested in is beneficial for teachers, especially for English teachers.  English teachers have the power to capture a student’s interest through a novel or an activity by incorporating their own interests into that novel or activity. Teachers need to be an advocate for their students to the best of their ability and to show them that we have to build or structure lessons that gear toward common interests, such as music, writing, educational issues, and creativity.

 References

Blogs

http://gracekoury.edublogs.org/

http://simplyaubree.edublogs.org/

http://wendyrm.edublogs.org/

The four teacher blogs that I researched were about Secondary English teachers and their lives in the classroom, especially techniques that help students learn content as well as making learning fun. I actually found these four blogs from a teacher blog stating the best Secondary English teachers’ blogs. Teaching Sam & Scout is a blog about a teacher who is also a mother. The blogger posts various tips and techniques about motherhood and teaching in the Secondary English classroom. I used her favorite Teacher Blogs list as a point of research and the results were very fruitful. She even posted a cute video about teachers writing a letter to their future selves. She states that the video was from another blog (SoulPancake & Edutopia), which I did not use for the other all research into Teacher’s blogs because it was not a singular teacher. However, the video is very inspiring to those of us that are going to be first year teachers and I included it in this post.

The first teacher blog that I ran into was Eat.Write.Teach., which is about an Indianan English teacher in high school who is also the high school’s theater director, Stephanie Richardson. She also spends time writing fiction including blogging about teaching ideas and tips for new teachers as well as veteran teachers. She often gives tips to new teachers about filling a teacher bag and how to incorporate technology, such as a classroom website, into her students’ learning. She often makes her own planners from templates and Smash Books, which are given to the students for organizing what they are learning in the classroom and it also encourages them to read more. To make her Smash books communal, she presents them in a Prezi format so that it is easy to follow.

http://www.eatwriteteach.com/

The second teacher blog that really go my attention was The Nerdy Teacher by Nicholas Provenzano. Mr. Provenzano has received a couple of rewards in 2013 for his innovative ways to connect technology into the Secondary English classroom and has attended a TEDtalk about incorporating technology with learning reading and writing skills. He received ISTE Teacher of Year, MACUL Teacher of the Year, and is a member of the Teacher Advisory Board in Michigan. He is also a certified TEDEd and Google Education Innovator. He offers sessions on Project Based Learning, Digital tools and other technology classroom incorporation consulting. In this blog, he provides teachers an insight into technology and how that can empower students to learn in the English classroom.

http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/

The third teacher blog that I found was Walking to School by Mary Tedrow. Ms. Tedrow blogs about ideas that new teachers should have when entering the education system in the United States. She often posts about motivation and leadership. Her latest post is about literacy and how it is empathetic. Her blog has been in the top 100, 30, and 25 rankings for a number of years. She often brings up political subjects such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Common Core. I find her posts informational and inspiring for a student teacher going into the education field.

http://walkingtoschool.blogspot.com/

Finally, this last blog is Love, Teach, who does not reveal himself on his blog. He calls himself Teach and writes about his life in a Title 1 school in an inner city. He does not say where, but the stories are surprisingly inspiring and hilarious. He talks about his students, in the form of pseudonyms, and often talks about his struggles with administration as well as new teacher challenges. He chronicles his years of being a new teacher, which brings insight into what we might go through when walking into our first classrooms. He often gives new teachers advice on how to show compassion and understanding when it comes to students. His blog is delightful and can inspire anyone to be a teacher.

http://www.loveteachblog.com/

Looking at these blogs made me realize that there are many things that can go wrong in the world of educating students, but there is someone out there that can help. Other teachers can be reached through blogs such as the ones I listed above. Students are a mix bag and there is no one of them that is alike. Teachers need Intel from “boots on the ground” (sorry for the military reference, but it is a war out there!). Advice is just a click away and sometimes getting a fresh pair of eyes that has been in the same situation is a good thing.

References

http://www.samandscout.com/favorite-blosg-for-secondary-teachers/