To whomever is reading this-
As a few of you know, there are posts on here from the composition class this summer. Most of you, however, were not in that class. For those of you who weren't in that course with me this summer I wanted to provide an overview of what you might find when/if browsing through my former posts.
Most of my postings are reflections on the chapters we read and discussed in class. They're very similar to the posts Sean has assigned us this quarter. What I found interesting, what I found annoying, how I looked at things differently because of the text, etc... Some of the posts, however, come from free-writes that we did at the beginning of every class. I didn't post all of them, but a good majority of them are up here. Sometimes I complained (okay, a lot of the time had a negative aspect to the writing for me) and sometimes I wrote exactly what I was thinking and how it was impacting me. I didn't write a recap or intro for those, so some of them might seem random.
There are also a few assignment that we did in class. Whether it be an aspect to one of the mini-lessons a classmate taught or a draft of an essay, there's a lot of random stuff.
Now, before this summer, I didn't write much. I would occasionally journal or write letters that I'd never send people just to get my thoughts and emotions on paper and out of my head, but I didn't write for publication--ever. That changed this summer. Going through the composition course made me a bit more comfortable writing in a forum for others to see. It helped me gain confidence in my ability to explain my thoughts and random stories by discussing it with some amazing peers. This also helped me with my confidence in writing lesson plans and rubrics--ESPECIALLY rubrics.
I almost just made a different blog under my Blogger account for this course, but I wanted to show previous work and open the thought of writing for fun to the others in this class. Granted, I haven't gotten much writing done in the weeks since summer quarter ended, but it helped get me through a very stressful quarter and opened my mind up to the amount of creativity I didn't think I had.
Now onto the assignment part of this letter:
I would like to take the time to share a bit of my teaching experience thus far and explain where I hope it takes me. I'm currently placed in an 11th grade humanities class that focuses on select students who need more focus and guidance. The class is cap'd at 20 students to ensure that they get the direction that they need to help them succeed. I'm learning so much from this class; I'm getting a lot of good, as well as some bad feedback. I taught my first completely solo, unobserved lesson yesterday and got a taste of how students are when there's a sub. I've been working with them since the first day of school, but they treated me as though I had zero authority. The teacher I work with had meetings all day and she, the sub, and I all thought it would be fine if the sub went and prepared for the poetry class she had later in the day. We were very wrong. This experience showed me just how much I have yet to learn when dealing with difficult students. I was lucky in that I every time I've taught a lesson before, the teacher was able to back me up and validate my authority as that day's teacher. Yesterday's experience, though, showed me just how I am still very much a student in all of this, too. And having the class know this makes me feel vulnerable, but somehow validated. They see me as a student and didn't give me any respect until I pulled them all together from their group work and told them that I wasn't leaving a good report for the teacher to come back to. They've seen me as an assistant to the teacher these past few weeks and it wasn't until that moment that I stood my ground as an authority that they took me seriously and paid attention. The entire day was a hell-hole of a learning experience for me, not just the students.
Hopefully it's apparent, but I feel one of my weaknesses as a teacher candidate is classroom management. It's something that I can deal with in theory, but I feel like a total and complete bitch when putting it into practice. I want my students to respect me, yet feel comfortable around me. I'm trying to learn the proper balance of the two.
One thing I feel confidant about, however, is my planning and preparing for lessons. I like having things laid out before I get to the classroom and that usually helps things flow easily (at least, when the teacher's present if yesterday is an example of everyday teaching).
There are several things I'm hoping to get out of this class. Firstly, I want to build on the material I know how to teach. The graphic novel is the book I'm most looking forward to because I've never read one and I feel as though my students would really enjoy it. Secondly, I want to learn other techniques for handling situations like yesterday and how to best help my students understand the material.
Overall, I'm excited to learn new techniques and get more resources that will help reach my students on an academic level. Feel free to comment any questions you may have about me or my teaching and learning methods!
-DaVena
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