Reflective Commentary
How did you develop ideas?
I began developing ideas by thinking back on what my favorite texts to study back in high school and the ones I specifically remember thinking might be fun to teach some day. (The Grapes of Wrath places in my top 5 favorite books.) A lot of my favorite books happened to be by American authors so I decided that doing an 11th grade American Literature course would be a good choice. I figured this project would be a challenge no matter what context I chose, so I decided it might be a good idea to pick a course that I had a special interest in to make the whole process more enjoyable.
How did you make decisions as you planned?
I started by writing an exhaustive list of all the texts I would want to teach or thought I should teach. From here I had to make some tough decisions on texts to cut. At this point I looked at the list I had (still a large one!) and began to formulate ideas of ways to categorize them. Simultaneously I thought of major aspects of American literature as I see it and this is how I formed my unit topics. I placed the texts that were easy to place first (the ones whose topic connection was obvious) and then dug deeper to find connections for the more difficult works to place. Works that I could not place anywhere got cut as well as some works from units that had too much content. I would say that the making the choices of what to keep and what to cut were the hardest decisions I had to make when creating this yearlong plan. I feel that there is so much students can learn from every text, so it was hard to justify cutting them from my curriculum. It is for this reason that my yearlong plan is so text-heavy. I do believe, however, that this text load is still very manageable; it will just take more responsibility on the student’s end to do some reading independently at home.
How did you address questions-including lingering questions?
I worked through a lot of my questions either by asking Dr. Pam Coke or my fellow English education majors. Pam did an excellent job of explaining the assignment and clarifying anything we had questions about. The checklist was extremely helpful for avoiding confusion. I also answered a lot of my own questions by looking at the examples of yearlong plans from last year’s methods students. If I had a question on how to format something or how many examples to provide, I would see how previous students did it before I asked Pam or my peers.
How do you think this yearlong plan will play out in the classroom?
To be honest, I’m not really sure! Obviously I hope it works out well, but it’s just so hard to be sure when there are so many variables. I think the success of this yearlong plan is somewhat dependent on the group of students I have that year in class. For example, if my group of students is hard to motivate to do assigned reading outside class, then I will probably have to cut more texts and change around my lessons to reflect that, because we cannot get through all of this literature if we can only read during class time. I personally am not a fan of lots of in-class reading time because I think students can read on their own with proper guidance beforehand and that class time should be spend having the conversations you can’t have at home by yourself. I realize, however, that depending on the students I have, I may need to make some changes to my plans. I think, in theory, this yearlong plan would work great in the classroom, but in reality, each and every time I teach it, it will need to be altered to fit the specific needs of my students that one could hardly call it the same yearlong plan from year to year.
Anything else you want to share?
I think this assignment was very beneficial and has definitely providing me with a framework for planning that will be invaluable to me in the future as I enter my own classroom with a clean slate. This assignment has led me to think about so many things I would not have thought of before, and I think having access to my peers’ work will also be extremely valuable. Teaching is all about sharing and exchanging ideas, and this assignment has encouraged that as well. I have learned that planning can actually be a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to all the planning I will get to do throughout my career. This kind of stuff is the reason I wanted to become a teacher; inventing my own lessons and creating my own classroom has been my dream since day one.
I began developing ideas by thinking back on what my favorite texts to study back in high school and the ones I specifically remember thinking might be fun to teach some day. (The Grapes of Wrath places in my top 5 favorite books.) A lot of my favorite books happened to be by American authors so I decided that doing an 11th grade American Literature course would be a good choice. I figured this project would be a challenge no matter what context I chose, so I decided it might be a good idea to pick a course that I had a special interest in to make the whole process more enjoyable.
How did you make decisions as you planned?
I started by writing an exhaustive list of all the texts I would want to teach or thought I should teach. From here I had to make some tough decisions on texts to cut. At this point I looked at the list I had (still a large one!) and began to formulate ideas of ways to categorize them. Simultaneously I thought of major aspects of American literature as I see it and this is how I formed my unit topics. I placed the texts that were easy to place first (the ones whose topic connection was obvious) and then dug deeper to find connections for the more difficult works to place. Works that I could not place anywhere got cut as well as some works from units that had too much content. I would say that the making the choices of what to keep and what to cut were the hardest decisions I had to make when creating this yearlong plan. I feel that there is so much students can learn from every text, so it was hard to justify cutting them from my curriculum. It is for this reason that my yearlong plan is so text-heavy. I do believe, however, that this text load is still very manageable; it will just take more responsibility on the student’s end to do some reading independently at home.
How did you address questions-including lingering questions?
I worked through a lot of my questions either by asking Dr. Pam Coke or my fellow English education majors. Pam did an excellent job of explaining the assignment and clarifying anything we had questions about. The checklist was extremely helpful for avoiding confusion. I also answered a lot of my own questions by looking at the examples of yearlong plans from last year’s methods students. If I had a question on how to format something or how many examples to provide, I would see how previous students did it before I asked Pam or my peers.
How do you think this yearlong plan will play out in the classroom?
To be honest, I’m not really sure! Obviously I hope it works out well, but it’s just so hard to be sure when there are so many variables. I think the success of this yearlong plan is somewhat dependent on the group of students I have that year in class. For example, if my group of students is hard to motivate to do assigned reading outside class, then I will probably have to cut more texts and change around my lessons to reflect that, because we cannot get through all of this literature if we can only read during class time. I personally am not a fan of lots of in-class reading time because I think students can read on their own with proper guidance beforehand and that class time should be spend having the conversations you can’t have at home by yourself. I realize, however, that depending on the students I have, I may need to make some changes to my plans. I think, in theory, this yearlong plan would work great in the classroom, but in reality, each and every time I teach it, it will need to be altered to fit the specific needs of my students that one could hardly call it the same yearlong plan from year to year.
Anything else you want to share?
I think this assignment was very beneficial and has definitely providing me with a framework for planning that will be invaluable to me in the future as I enter my own classroom with a clean slate. This assignment has led me to think about so many things I would not have thought of before, and I think having access to my peers’ work will also be extremely valuable. Teaching is all about sharing and exchanging ideas, and this assignment has encouraged that as well. I have learned that planning can actually be a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to all the planning I will get to do throughout my career. This kind of stuff is the reason I wanted to become a teacher; inventing my own lessons and creating my own classroom has been my dream since day one.