Learning Letter

Literature Presentation

Blog Post #7

In this section of reading, I enjoyed the section on poetry; I forgot that cinquain poems existed since second grade which is interesting. I also still do not know what iambic pentameter is though it did mention it and I have absolutely no idea how to define it. How can one find iambic pentameter? I think its about the emphasis one puts on a syllable but that was one thing I really didn't understand from poetry. Also, the section on analyzing fiction is not helpful because the kind you do in middle school and early high school is entirely different than what you do in AP or in college; I genuinely had no idea how to correctly interpret fiction in any kind of helpful analysis until my junior year of college. Also I just read that a German guy wrote Siddhartha which I find frustrating; it only adds to the point that the canon is stupid because its determined by white men for white men honestly---how can this guy accurately depict that story?
In total opposition to this, there is also a section about the different periods of writing which is only something I have specifically encountered in college but also Dana said it was on the NES test and it was the one thing she didn't know so I am glad it is in here.
I also liked the section about the legends (otherwise known as American Folktale) which is something we spent nearly all of fourth grade reading on and had to write our own "tall tales".
Also there is a section about The Crucible which is one of my favorite things we ever read in school because it is honestly so silly but so insanely relevant both in politics, "cancel culture", and in relationships youth have growing up and the innate scheme of popularity and the claims people can make when they have power.

Yin and Yang in the English Classroom: Teaching with Popular Culture Texts

Blog Post #6

This NES chapter was really plain. While it did tell us about all different aspects of writing, I didn't feel like I had not been shared this information before. It also did not say anything about application. While this is the first class I've had in college to actually address being a future educator, I feel like these are just simple sections a teacher may copy and paste onto a sheet and hand to their student.

In fact, the section about complex versus compound sentences seems verbatim to what I learned in freshman year of high school (albeit slightly less confusing). We spent weeks writing papers and identifying "DC, DCIC" and other variations thereof (otherwise known as dependent clause, dependent clause independent clause).

Also, on page 97, I found it to be completely unhelpful when in 9.5, it says "A good piece of writing..." all the way to the end. Not only does it start off completely subjectively, it also says to explicitly not address the prompt directly. I find that bad advice. A student often needs to readdress the prompt in the thesis to make it clear; how can one do so without paraphrasing? At this point in our English careers we get much more vague prompts to fulfill, but middle school students are not comparing Confucianism and Hinduism in Ramayana; instead, they are writing papers on "Great Americans" or current cultural events--without restating the prompt, a teacher might lose complete track of what they are grading.

This entire book does not address grade level expectations. Though available on many common core websites and state education websites, how could I know to address misplaced and dangling phrases differently with 12 year olds compared to 18 year olds. There are such differences between these groups and I find the lack of organization difficult.

The Graphic Canon Vol. 3 Handout 10/27/19

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Blog Post #5

This week's blog post is about visual literacy; I think its funny that what information we are responding to has not been presented as visual literacy, but in the form of the text and a website with text. I found that the book's instruction on creation of visual literacy was interesting--while we have been talking about graphic novels, this book instructs on the different aspects of powerpoint making a student could do or the drawbacks and advantages of videos. The latter I found very frustrating; while it does make a point that videos are very passive activities as they include multiple senses, it only briefly notes that non-readers would have a high advantage for it. Also, I'm not sure they should have included it without having a way to make them more passive. While many teachers require notes during movies, students still find a way to do it minimally. For example, we often had assignments that just asked questions line for line from the movie and you had to do them, but instead of paying attention we either listen for the answers or copy from someone later or look it up. But if teachers make them out of order, as in, not in the chronological order of the movie, they become almost impossible because you spend the whole time looking through the questions trying to figure out what you've missed rather than paying attention. And if there are no notes required, well, that is something that can cause a massive problem depending on the group of kids. Whereas in my German class (which had four girls in it--one junior and three seniors) we would watch movies every other Friday in German and just have fun with it, an over packed classroom of forty kids in the dark getting up to god knows what could be detrimental to multiple people in many ways. What can we do to encourage video usage while encouraging active participation?

Blog Post #4

As I read the assigned pages for the book I was surprised on what they were about--briefly mentioning how students should listen and the rest is just about how to be an entertaining speaker and lead discussions effectively. While a book can give great advice, I feel that most of this is best learned with video or partaking in it--in front of peers or students. While no one wants to fail, I feel like practicing will be the best option.

It is funny how different ages can be presented some material in the same way and others differently. For example, at my summer camp, we always do the same stuff for kayaking/funyaking introductions. You tell them all the parts of the paddle and boat and then point and they shout it at you---it works for all ages and by the time they're tenured campers its very easy and they know what to expect. I literally did this with six year olds and seventeen year olds this summer and it's pretty effective.

However, even in my interactions between the juniors and seniors there were significant differences at presentation of information. I knew some lessons would just not work with juniors the way I did them with seniors. For example, one of them was "what is camp about?". By the time they get to seniors it is easier to reach deep down and figure out that answer as a more heartfelt one, but the juniors weren't there. While I did it as more of a group lesson with them compared to a teacher v. student with the seniors. I had to instruct a lot more with the juniors and the seniors I could encourage them to talk and get more in depth with everything.

Ultimately, experience and practice is the most effective manner of learning how to lead a classroom full of whatever kind of people you want to teach; while you can study pitch all you want, it is most important to actively do stuff and learn what works for you.

Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3--Brookfield's “Discussion as a Way of Teaching"


This post was interesting in all the different forms of discussion one may hold within a class, however I think it does not take into consideration the fact that in many discussion based classes people don't actually do the reading sometimes, or usually, or ever. While there are dedicated students that will always read the full text and do notes, there are students who have figured out how to get away doing no reading and still being successful in a class.

Due to this, I believe that the fun and successful discussion, while being about the main topic, should have its origins in something less specific than a book; in American Lit I, our teacher would always start a socio/political/economic discussion before and have it lead into the themes of the book as a way of connecting life happening now and the characters that were written about a few hundred years ago. 

For example, we talked about trans-rights and language surrounding LGBTQ+ people for "Mountain Charlie", a womxn who we determined was not on a hard edge of the gender spectrum, but lived somewhere in between. We were able to connect that while these ideas were not as common nor did the language exit for them, people were still on the spectrum of being transgender in every sense of the word. 

I also found "designated discussion" days in high school and middle school to be pointless and awkward as well; rather, I found it more beneficial to have consistent discussions throughout classes and semesters rather than a specific day to have a "socratic seminar"

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Blog Post #2

Blog Post #2--Lieb, M. (2019). Culture Distance and Cultural Dimensions in Diverse ELT Environments: A Quantitative Investigation. (under review) Handout provided in class

Reading the section on how the cultures differ, it briefly mentioned how Japanese culture is low context but American/Western culture is high context. I think that this is an important thing to mention as we have talked about it quite a lot in the last ESLG class that I took.

Our conversation revolved primarily around citing, as people who do live in low context cultures often value the group's goal rather than honoring the individual so a Japanese person would be more likely to plagiarize in our view of plagiarism. However, Americans value the individual and being recognized for being the best, rather than working cooperatively, and so the consequences of plagiarism, beginning in even elementary school, are immense. 

However, the low-context to high-context ideas also follow just in plain writing, whether or not it is a research paper. While I'm currently in a class where we spend an hour at least every class talking about structure, clarity, and focusing, in an effort to make our writing legible and clear to anyone who reads it, other cultures would have a vague thesis-y paragraph in which the reader must do the work to accomplish figuring out what the paper is attempting to argue. 

This is why an American teacher teaching English to a Japanese student would struggle with the connection of either culture--the values are far different. From birth, the US advocates for competition while Japanese culture advocates obedience and teamwork; a high school student would have a hard time accepting this entirely different motive of learning.

Blog Post #1

~~Hello Bloggie Babies!

Blog Post #1--What's your familiarity with graphic novels? Why/how might graphic novels be useful for the secondary English language arts classroom?

My only experience with graphic novels is the Twilight one (of which I do not believe they made the second half of, nor the rest of the books) as I own it. I found it frustrating because it did not include the dialogue and I was not a super fan of the anime-style drawing; I was, however, a super fan of Twilight, which is why I bought it. I have been interested in this one with pumpkins on it that I keep seeing at book stores and it has more Disney-style drawings and also is not based off of anything as far as I am aware of, so I've considered buying it or at least renting it from the library.

I also wonder if the illustrated Harry Potter books are in the graphic novel realm. The router is broken at my house so I've been re-reading the books and reading out of the illustrated copies I got for Christmas for the first time. They add more to the books, which is why I am pondering this, as not only do they have pictures related to the words, they also include these beautiful pictures of the animals and the movement is captured really well within them. 

I think graphic novels would be useful in the secondary English language arts classroom as it helps with interest--students will be more inclined to peruse the material as they have something to connect it with, especially those that struggle with comprehension of reading. They also seem less overwhelming and intimidating that regular books as there is usually a ton of colors and pictures.

I've also been taking the ESLG classes and we had to create books at the end of last quarter with pictures that went with our sentences for English-learning students to practice with, and I wonder if that might help someone jump into the realm of more novels, with being able to connect images and words they may not know.