Words, words, words.

Before reading this, I wasn’t entirely sure that I would grasp all that Paulo Freire was saying. This stuff is dense, but it’s not impossible to understand; after reading, processing, and thinking it over I found that what Freire is saying hit me kind of hard. I don’t think that I think about our system of education and how it is impacting our students as much as I should; I think this may because I am a product of the “banking” concept of education. I mostly remember the act of collecting, memorizing, and repeating in many of my classes in middle school and high school; and although I had teachers who worked to engage us cognitively and get us to facilitate our critical thinking, I believe that I was faced with more teachers who acted only as knowledge depositors in my education, rather than as a partner in my education. As a teacher, I want to make a conscious effort to act as both the teacher and the student in my classroom. I do not want to be the teacher who holds all of the ...

The more I've thought about assessment, the more I’ve come to notice that it kind of scares me. I don’t think that it’s the act of taking an assessment, making an assessment, or administering an assessment that worries me though. I’m worried that I won’t know how to correctly assess and evaluate how my students are doing, or that I’ll give them an assessment expecting one thing and end up getting slapped in the face by the results (I suppose that could be good or bad depending on the situation and my expectations). I think that those worries, among others, all amount to the fear of failing my kids as their teacher, but I digress. I think that assessments can be tricky things to deal with as English teachers. In English, we want to be able to assess and evaluate our students’ comprehension of a text, how well they can formulate and articulate their own opinions of a text, how well they can look at a text critically and analyze it, etc. When it comes to literature, “correct answer”...

I absolutely love that this text gives an overview of the ways in which we can prepare our students for reading texts and writing about texts. Often I forget how in depth the processes of reading texts and writing about texts can be; I think this may be a result of coming to take these processes for granted after practicing them for so long. As a future teacher, it is incredibly important that I understand how to set my students up for successful reading and writing. In order to set my students up for successful reading and writing, I need to understand that reading and writing are not two separate activities but are more like partner activities. We need writing for reading and we need reading for writing. This text does an incredible job at setting us up with pre-reading, reading, post-reading, and writing activities/strategies that we can use to help our students to read and comprehend a text, as well as make connections and develop their own ideas about the text. I also love th...

When the Common Core State Standards were first implemented in Washington, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about them. I think that was because I didn’t really know anything about them or what these new standards meant for new students; at the time I think I may have even jumped on the “Common Core is dumb bleh” bandwagon because that’s all I was hearing about the Common Core. However, after reading through the standards, reading through the myths vs. the facts of the CCSS, and working with the standards in lesson planning I have come to realize how great of a tool the CCSS are for educators. I now understand that the CCSS give teachers a flexible guideline that allows them to create their own classroom curriculum and teach students in an effective way. I understand that there are limitations that come with using a standards-based approach in schools, like teaching to the test or overly specific standards, but I think that the Common Core State Standards are really working to overcom...

When I think of great discussion that I have had, or great discussions that I’d like to have, I always see them as conversations in which each participant is prepared and willing to share their ideas on the topic(s) at hand. I feel like great discussions usually leave me considering the topic further. Yesterday my 9th graders were discussing the value of human life, going over what that means and in what ways we can put a value to human life; because we were able to facilitate a good discussion (in most of the class periods), I was left to further consider the factors that influence how we perceive human value and whether we can really put a value to human life. I believe (or rather I’m hoping) that my students came away with the desire to further understand the idea of human value. As English teachers, it is so important that we understand how to facilitate great conversations among our students. I think that the three techniques on how to set discussion ground rules that Brookfi...