Response to Daniels and Zemelman Chapters 1 & 2

      One of the more important aspects that I took away in Chapter 1 of Subjects Matter, is the fact that reading is something that should be engaging to students, but it can't be if it is not taught in a meaningful way. The juxtaposition of the two stories in the beginning of the chapter demonstrates two different strategies of reading. In the first story, the student's are challenged in an engaging way. Rather than having to sit in class and just read through a text book that they may or may not understand, the students were able to venture outside of the textbook and the classroom, using outside resources that helped them to carry their academics into their lives. The second story about Mr. Cosgrove's classroom was a completely different scenario. The students were expected to read the text and then were tested on it. Although this is a conventional way of teaching and learning, compared to the first story, there was very little engagement and the textbook left very little impact.
       In order to have engaging results, there should be interdisciplinary connections. Taking knowledge from other contents and applying it to the content in which you're teaching can help to create more enthusiasm, but to do this, it requires going beyond the standard text and beyond the classroom. It is also important that what the students are reading and learning can contribute to their independence as thinkers and learners. Although teachers are required to teach certain texts, it is also beneficial to allow the students some freedom to choose.
      The second chapter focuses on reading comprehension and reading strategies. The ability to read extends beyond phonetics, and once a student reaches the secondary level, they are expected to not only know how to read a text, but know how to read and analyze a text in order to come up with their own interpretations. In order to do this, teachers must help students to shape, develop and add to their already existing knowledge by teaching students these reading strategies, rather than just assigning the reading.

Wilhelm

      What struck me while reading Wilhelm's article was the fact that it is important for teachers to be able to recognize a theory of learning and be able to answer questions about their theory in order to put it into practice and apply it to teaching. According to the article, an important aspect of this theoretical application is for the teacher to be able to develop methods of articulating their theory to students in order to cultivate critical "readers, writers and thinkers." What I found the most relatable in the beginning of the article is Wilhelm's suggestions that teachers must be able to take a step back and analyze their theory and their methods. It is one thing to know what you want to teach, but it is important to also look at how you are going to teach it, and why in order to foster success of the students.
        Another important and interesting focus was on Vygotsky's idea of "scaffolding" and the importance of establishing teacher-student relationships through an understanding of cognitive development and the role teachers play with this development. According to Vygotsky, it is important to recognize that there are social and cultural aspects of one's cognitive development that are just as present as the biological aspects. For me, I tend to agree that learning is heavily based on these social and cultural aspects. Although environment can play a significant role on student learning, knowledge is something that is acquired through the interactions of students and their expert counterparts. Teachers must work alongside students in order to aid them in their development, but eventually must "release responsibility to the student." Through these interactions, students are able to become independent thinkers. I believe that I have experience this particular learning theory as a student and recognize certain methods in my education courses.

Literacy Profile

I don’t specifically remember the first time that I decided to pick up a pencil and draw something, but I do know it was around the year 1992 when I was two years old. Becoming artistically literate has been a life-long process. I was a very curious child and always had a desire to recreate the world around me in art form. My parents recognized very quickly that I had a talent for drawing and because of this, they encouraged me to pursue this talent. Because I was so young when I started to draw, there was nothing that motivated me but curiosity and enjoyment. I began develop my skills by drawing cartoon characters from the television shows and movies that I liked. I would sit and pause Sailor Moon at a moment that I liked and I would draw what was on the screen; however it has taken twenty-two years to establish the technical skills that I now have.

As I grew older, I developed an interest in naturalism. I knew that I was a good artist. Throughout elementary school, I was always regarded by my peers and teachers as the best artist in class, but I knew there was room to grow. I could recognize the difference between the real and the abstract and I wanted to learn how to create exactly what I saw. Luckily, I did not have to go very far to find a mentor. My father has always been artistically gifted. When I decided that I really wanted to develop as an artist, he took the time to teach me what he knew. We would spend a few hours a week practicing our drawing together. He would draw something and I would have to replicate it to the best of my abilities. Every so often, I would become interested in a new subject and my father would take me to the library and rent “How to Draw” books. As I continued to to use these tools to develop as an artist, I began to notice that I received recognition from my peers. This recognition motivated me to continue practicing. I became interested in not only drawing, but painting, sculpting and sewing.

In my preteen and teenage years, I discovered that there was another force that compelled me to continue to progress as an artist: competition. I was no longer the best artist, so I motivated myself to become just as good as the other artists around me. High school is where I became truly literate in the technical skill of drawing. It started with a photo of Audrey Hepburn. I wanted to draw an exact likeness. My first attempt wasn’t terrible. The drawing definitely had elements of the photo I was trying to replicate, but it was nowhere near exact. I took my drawing to my high school art teacher. She went over the aspects that were working. Her eyes looked exactly like Audrey’s, but the rest of her face needed work. My teacher went over proportions with me. I continued to practice by drawing pictures of her face. When something looked off, I would take the drawing to my father to get an opinion on what needed to be erased or added. By doing this, I began to train my eye to recognize when proportions were off. From the year 2006 to 2007, there was a noticeable improvement with my technical drawing skills.

As my technical skills improved, I began to also cultivate my creativity and harness my style and identity as an artist. I began to frequent art museums and closely examine pieces from various artistic eras. I started taking Art History classes, where we would learn how to analyze both style and content. I identified which famous artists were my influences. These included people like Anthony Quinn, Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock. This type of education has contributed to my creativity and my abilities.

Although I have an appreciation for most visual artistic mediums, when it comes to myself, I am still the most literate in drawing. This particular literacy has played a significant role in many aspects of my life. For me, this literacy has given me confidence and has compensated for other areas in which I am not so proficient. Drawing takes immense concentration and patience. Not only has this fine tuned my motor skills, but developing as an artist through drawing has taught me to approach situations from different angles. I am a creative thinker, and I recognize other creative thinkers. I believe that this aspect will greatly contribute to my future as a teacher. I understand that becoming literate in any domain takes time and discipline. In my case, it has taken a lifetime. I understand that there are conventional approaches to learning, but I understand that these are not the only approaches. Students might take different approaches to understanding and this is something that I can empathize with.

 

Obervation 2

    For our second observation, I observed a 10th grade history class. Although a major goal of the school seems to be to help students graduate, there are many other goals that were demonstrated in the classroom. The teacher seemed to be promoting self-reliance of the students. For the lesson, the students used laptops to research war technology throughout history, as well as current war technology. By allowing the students to independently research this topic, the teacher demonstrated the importance of self-reliance and accountability. Use of technology in the classroom also prepares the students for real world experience.

MICROTEACH II

Observation: Assessment

   The first classroom that I observed was a 10th grade English class. The students were finishing reading the novel, The Lord of the Flies. The student teacher read the last paragraph of the novel out loud with the students. After finishing the book, the teacher asked the class as whole some very basic questions, in order to assess their understanding. The questions would probably fall at the bottom of Bloom's Taxonomy and were about details of the story. There were no questions about the deeper thematic elements of the novel. There were some students who were engaged, but there were many who were not paying attention. After this, the students watched the movie version of the novel.  I think, at this point, it would have been beneficial to the students to provide a questionnaire about the film in order to keep the students engaged. I've seen that film and it is very boring. Aside from engaging the students, it would also allow the teachers to have concrete evidence of whether or not the students understood the novel, and to what extent.
    The second classroom that I observed  was an 11th grade English class. They were reading the short story, "The Devil and Tom Walker," by Washington Irving. This class was a bit more structured than the last, and the teachers provided concrete ways to assess their understanding of the story. The students were given a worksheet with questions about each section of the story. As the students worked on the assignment independently, one teacher went around the classroom to check in on each student. Between sections, the other student gathered the class back together and read passages. He then would throw out some basic questions about the story for any student to answer in order to make sure they were engaged and on the same page (ha!). I think this was a more successful form of assessment, because it allowed the teachers to evaluate each students analytical understanding of the text in addition to the basic plot details.

Microteach I