Page by Page

This article currently sees education as banking system, students are given information to memorize and told to go from there. And I agree with this, classically most schools are looking at educating students as a way of forcing information into their heads without giving them the tools to expand and work on and with that information. The details of a The Odyssey, are not important in the grand scheme of life, but the skills that should be taught alongside the book are what is important in the world of education. I like to believe that in recent years, including those that I was in high school, education has become less about the “banking” model and more about helping students learn skills and think critically. Knowledge is an abstract concept, we all seem to know what it is but when asked to define it we struggle. Knowledge can be seen as the facts that are being taught to students in schools, but those have their own word “facts”. Knowledge can also be seen as the application o...

 This article presents the idea of assessing in more than one way in within ELA classrooms. During my high school English experience my teachers worked to make sure that there was a variety of assessment types throughout units. We would often have vocab quizzes, comprehension quizzes, journal entries, essays questions, discussions, and/or full essays on the pieces from the unit. This variety of testing on the stories that we read in class built on each other as well, we would have vocab tests before a unit introducing words that my teacher thought would be important throughout the unit. Comprehension quizzes would occur throughout the reading, normally when a novel was the key text, in order to make sure that all of the students are understanding and up to date on reading and understood the literary elements that were being study with the novel. Journal entries would also be held throughout the reading as well in order to increase comprehension and allow the students to recognize ...

This article talks about both reading and writing which I at first found surprising as the class is geared towards teaching adolescent readers. Reading and writing are two things that are often discussed together but it is still easy to forget about how the two work together in creating better comprehension. People often perceive reading and writing as two separate entities or as writing becoming something for people to read. But writing about reading is something that I, as an English Ed major, am constantly reflecting and thinking about how a text can be applied to my future classroom or ideas from a text adapted to a lesson or classroom. I still find myself forgetting how large of a tool writing about the reading can be in processing a piece for students. Letting students write about and express every random thought, connection, or question that comes to mind allows students to full process and realize what they were thinking about a piece. While reading a piece of literature ...

Sold by Patricia McCormick Summary: Twelve year old Lakshmi has grown up and lived in a small mountain village in Nepal with her goat, little brother, her mother, and her deadbeat step-dad. After the rain washes all of the rice away Lakshmi’s stepfather decides she will go and work in the city. A woman who calls herself Auntie Bimla who takes money from the stepfather and walks away from Lakshmi. Lakshmi travels through the country and across the border into India with Uncle Husband, who she met at the border. Uncle Husband then takes her to Happiness House where the reality of her situation sets in as Uncle Husband gives a woman named Mumtaz money and leaves. Lakshmi is taken to a room where a man tries to rape her, she escapes and Mumtaz corners her and tells Lakshmi that she has to work, as a prostitute, to pay off the debt Mumtaz has from paying to acquire Lakshmi. Lakshmi refuses and Mumtaz attempts to break her by beating her daily and starving her, when this doesn’t work...

Common Core standards have a lot of controversy around them meaning no one actually seems to have any idea what they are and how they operate within schools. Math common core is the most commonly known and discussed implementation of common core standards, leaving the English Language Arts (ELA) standards without a lot of discussion. After working with and trying and, most of the time, successfully using the Common Core state standards (CCSS) within my own lessons I see how unrestrictive they really are. The CCSS are simply guides to what the lesson or unit will be accomplishing in teaching students. How I choose to approach those skills and standards within lessons is up to me as the teacher, not the standards. CCSS are benchmarks that we as teachers work to get students to not how to get them there. The standards represent skills that students are learning through lessons and units create by the teachers. By implementing a standards-based approach to schools across the country...

The technique that I enjoyed and want to implement into my future classroom is “The Circle of Voices” on page six. In high school my English teacher use the Socratic seminars in which ten people would be in the circle with an empty chair for people to rotate in with, once someone filled the chair another person would have to rotate out. In contrast to the Socratic seminar method “The Circle of Voices” allows for every student to have a chance to speak and give their opinions and ideas that surround the topic that is being covered. I know that in high school I would always be anxious that my original thoughts and ponderings on a piece of writing wouldn’t be relevant at any point of the conversation and/or I would miss a chance to restart the conversation with my supposedly brilliant thoughts. Since “The Circle of Voice” discussion style gives every student a chance to talk the anxiety of not having a chance to talk can be eliminated as well as each student’s comments don’t have to corr...