Page by Page

Readicide is something that even I, as a die-hard book lover and English major, experienced as a high school student. The constant chopping up of books and short stories and trying to break apart books to dissect each potential learning ability out of books was exhausting. Realizing and seeing how much standardized testing takes away from letting students enjoy reading is heartbreaking. I love reading and learning and experiencing new things from books that I would never get to experience otherwise. So much can be gained from books and teaching and pushing students away from a love of reading by overdoing books in class is terrifying. As a future teacher I have to find ways to encourage students to read and find even just a basic liking of reading. Gallagher presents ideas that would help alleviate readicide in the classroom itself but it would still happen in other classrooms and throughout other schools. Yes, I as one teacher can make a difference in the lives of my students by ...

Cris Tovani’s I Read it, But I Don’t Get it was a very interesting read for me. Reading and comprehension has always been a strong suit for me. I love reading and trying to figure out the meanings within the texts, or movies, or plays, or whatever type of entertainment I am consuming. But I also recognize that not everyone excels at these tasks and challenges the same way that I do, meaning that I will have students that struggle to comprehend and relate to texts in ways that I may never realize. Looking at the techniques that students have to be taught and how to help teach and reach these students was very helpful for me as a future educator. Before reading this text, I had no idea how to help and approach students who will be struggling with comprehension. By showing readers how she helps students Tovani gave me multiple ideas and approaches on how to help my future students in my classroom. As a good reader and teacher, it is my responsibility to model how to read and improve...

My first thought while reading more about the edTPA is “holy crap, how am I going to pass this?” But then I had to slow myself down and remember that I will have help and I’ve been writing edTPA lesson plans for the last couple of quarters. I have a decent grasp on writing the lesson plans at this point and will soon have the handbook for English so that I will know the ELA specifics for the edTPA. But this doesn’t mean that I’m still not nervous about working on and passing the edTPA. I know a few people that have gone and passed the edTPA and the most common comment I’ve heard is that while it is the hardest thing they’ve done they made it through it and got to become a teacher. I know that I too will eventually become a teacher and pass the edTPA as well. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to become a teacher. Before starting college I had no idea what it took to become a teacher and after discovering all that it does take I appreciate the teachers that I’ve had even mo...

Social justice is a complex issue that prevails not only in the real world but also the bubble that often becomes school and the classroom. The issues that pertain to social justice can and often will impact students within the classroom, or students will find their inspiration in hearing about the problems in the world and wanting to help-out. The classroom is not a bubble, the outside world impacts the classroom and the students that are entering the classroom. The issues can also impact me as a person which in turn will impact my teaching and in turn possibly my composure within the classroom and with my students. As a new teacher working to find a way to encourage students to look into social justice issues without throwing myself into those issues as well, will be a challenge. I find myself still looking for what I am passionate about, besides literature and teaching, which leaves me trying to find the social movements that are happening within the nation. But my role as an e...

One of the ideas that really stuck with my within in this reading is the acknowledgement of different forms of literature and how literacy can be applied to not just classic literature but also music, TV shows, movies, and magazine articles. Students are often written off as unable to read or comprehend texts but they will enter classes able to recite whole albums, quote movies and TV shows on the spot, and reading about clothes and celebrities obsessively. Students can read, but the ones who are not interested in classical literature or reading what is considered ‘literature’ are seen as students who do not like reading, but they do in their own ways. Literacy can be exhibited through vehicles other than classical literature. Literacy can be shown through the comparisons of classical literate to modern day vehicles of literacy. As a future educator I hope to remember that the students that seem like non-readers can and will have other types of vehicles for learning and hopefull...

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 ...