Three of my faves :)

1. The House that Built Me - Miranda Lambert

I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself

If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

2. No Such Thing - John Mayer

"Welcome to the real world", she said to me
Condescendingly
Take a seat
Take your life
Plot it out in black and white
Well I never lived the dreams of the prom kings
And the drama queens
I'd like to think the best of me
Is still hiding
Up my sleeve

They love to tell you
Stay inside the lines
That something's better
On the other side

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the
Top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
just a lie you've got to rise above

So the good boys and girls take the so called right track
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits
Maybe transfers
They read all the books but they can't find the answers
And all of our parents
They're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies

They love to tell you
Stay inside the lines
But something's better
On the other side

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the
Top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you got to rise above

I am invincible (x3)
As long as I'm alive

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the
Top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

I just can't wait til my 10 year reunion
I'm gonna bust down the double doors
And when I stand on these tables before you
You will know what all this time was for

3. Fearless - Taylor Swift

There's somethin' 'bout the way
The street looks when it's just rained
There’s a glow off the pavement
Walk me to the car
And you know I wanna ask you to dance right there
In the middle of the parking lot
Yeah

We're drivin' down the road
I wonder if you know
I'm tryin' so hard not to get caught up now
But you're just so cool
Run your hands through your hair
Absent mindedly makin' me want you

And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless
And I don't know why but with you I'd dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless

So baby drive slow
‘Til we run out of road in this one horse town
I wanna stay right here in this passenger’s seat
You put your eyes on me
In this moment now capture every memory

And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless
And I don't know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless

Well you stood there with me in the doorway
my hands shake
I'm not usually this way but
You pull me in & I’m a little more brave
It’s the first kiss, it's flawless, really somethin’, it’s fearless.

And I don't know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless
And I don't know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless

Final Reflection

Quite truthfully, this class has been my favorite this semester.  And no, I’m not saying this to get brownie points or anything.  I truly was excited to come to this class every Wednesday.  Why?  Because on some level, I knew that I would actually learn something.  Not only did I learn academic things (like critical articles and novels), but I learned how to apply each of those things to my classroom.  In my opinion, that’s the most important thing.

In terms of strategies, I learned quite a bit.  Until this class, I never really gave any thought to how to group my students.  I figured counting off down the rows would work sufficiently.  Over time though, everyone would end up being in the same group every time.  I know I wouldn’t that for my students.  I want them all to be able to communicate effectively with one another.  Grouping students based on what color is in the corner of a worksheet or picking a quote is a fun way to get groups formed.  Another strategy is literature circles.  I learned ways to amp up the participation within the circles.  By making it more student-oriented, they can be more interesting and enticing for students.  That leads me into the next important strategy: student choice.  Obviously you don’t want this 100% of the time, because then you (the teacher) can lose some credibility.  But by allowing students to decide what they want to read or what “role” they want to be in a literature circle, they can branch out and become a more active student.

Preparation in a classroom is key.  I feel like if you aren’t prepared, your students won’t feel prepared either.  Preparing a lesson is not easy.  It requires you to be on top of your game; you don’t want to teach a lesson that will have half your class sleeping, but at the same time, you want it to be informational.  It’s important that they get the meaning behind your lesson.  I always thought delivering a lesson would be easy.  It’s kind of like giving a presentation in class.  I thought that until I gave my group teach last week.  Having everyone act like someone else was frustrating.  Especially since they were all feeding off each other, it didn’t help.  Delivering that lesson was possibly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  I couldn’t get anyone’s attention… no one was listening to me… all 14 people were asking questions at the same time.  Ugh!  I hope my classroom will never be that bad (no offense, guys).  While it was extremely difficult, I learned a lot from it.  I realized what I need to do better in those situations.

Like I said before, I learned more from this class than anything else this semester (or perhaps the past 3 years).  I learned a great deal in my group teach.  I realized how quickly my frustration shows to the students.  During my lesson, I went over to one group.  Kelly held up a sign (since she had no voice) that said “I feel bad for you.”  Lauren asked me if I regret making them act as someone else.  At the time, I said yes.  I was so frustrated because I had no idea what to do.  I had students mocking me, ignoring me, arguing with me.  It reminded me of when my brother, sister, and I were really young.  This taught me, above all, that I really have to watch what emotions I show and how I show them.  If my students see me getting frustrated, they will likely feed off that.  I also learned how quick we have to be.  If you have a lesson planned for 20 minutes and you think it’ll take 40 minutes, you better make sure you adjust it.  If not, half of the lesson will be irrelevant without the second half. 

I think everyone’s definition of what it means to teach is going to be a bit different.  When I teach literature, I want it to have an impact on my students.  I want the pieces of affect them.  Maybe they will cry or laugh or throw it in anger.  I don’t care which one… I will gladly take any.  I want to make them aware of things that are relevant to their world.  I want them to reflect on the literature.  Especially when it comes to the “classics,” I want them to reflect and tell me how they relate this older piece of literature to themselves in today’s society. 

I know I still have a long way to go in my development as a teacher.  Teachers should be constantly reflecting and adjusting things that aren’t working for their classrooms.  As a teacher of English today, I am learning.  I am observing, taking notes, analyzing, critiquing.  I am taking the advice of others far wiser than I am and seeing how that will affect me and my teaching.  

Thou hast enhanced my love for Shakespeare

Shakespeare <3

That's all I gotta say.  Billy is probably one of my favorite people in the world.  I don't know why I have such an affinity for him.  I read Romeo and Juliet for the first time in 9th grade and fell in love.  In 10th grade, we read Much Ado About Nothing and I didn't like it.  The next year, we read Macbeth and I was back in love.  I think I was the only English major excited to take Shakespeare as an entire course.

Anyway, let's get to the point.  While I do looooove my Shakespeare, I don't always find it the easiest thing to understand.  I struggle, like the majority of the population, to figure out what the heck he means half the time.  (Is a "cousin" really a cousin, or just a friend??)  Reading the Manga version of Romeo and Juliet was interesting.  Manga/anime isn't really my thing, so I was a little hesitant.  Similar to when we read American Born Chinese, I found that I comprehended the story much better through pictures.  It still included Shakespearean dialogue, but with the pictures included, you can decipher what is going on, which is really helpful.

Since I'm talking about dialogue comprehension so much, I actually picked an article about that. I believe this is Chapter 2 of Teaching Shakespeare, "Teaching Shakespeare's Dramatic Dialogue."  The author, Sharon Beehler, actually does a great job at breaking down the process of understanding Shakespearean dialogue.  She mentions a small activity she gives to the students to assist them in the communication process.  She gives them a slip of paper with two instructions: 1. Arrange the following words into a logical sentence. (movie, I, you, the, to, go, to, want, with) 2. Determine where you would place the stress in the sentence.  Students often have trouble deciding where to place the stress.  It requires the student to delve into their own background to help them.

By having students practice dialogue through texts, you're helping them with dialogue in their own lives.  They will become "more alert to the importance of the same phenomena in their own lives" (17).  This essentially means that students will be able to identify subtexts in conversations and question assumptions through dialogue.  Beehler also mentions having the students write alternate scenes which can "help them develop new insights about the communication phenomena in the play" (21).  I think this is really brilliant and it can also gauge how well the students are doing comprehending the material. 

I think the reason I admire Shakespeare so much is because of my high school teachers.  They didn't just dump a play on us and expect us to understand what was going on.  We spent quite a bit of time in class (and after school) going over the material and breaking down each scene to make sure we comprehended it.  We read A Midsummer Night's Dream in 12th grade and we read it out loud in class, with each person assigned to a different character.  In my opinion, this helped me and the class a lot.  Text sounds different when you read it out loud versus reading it in your head. 

All in all, I hope my passion for Shakespeare carries through my teaching career.  I don't want my students moaning and groaning the day I announce we'll be reading Hamlet.  Obviously this is a HUGE wish, but a girl can dream, can't she? :)

I title this blog... "The Most Wonderf-" Oh, hold on I have a text message.

Ok, so let me get this straight, Mark Bauerlein: are you calling me stupid because I can send a text message faster than you?  That's what it is, isn't it?

After reading Bauerlein's video and review, I didn't really know how to feel.  I think it's a bit rash to call an entire generation "dumb."  One thing he said in the video was that he tells his students that they "are not busy," simply because they watch 2 hours and 41 minutes of television a week.  I'm gonna be completely honest: I think he's full of crap.  For the most part, the only television I watch is a half an hour of the Golden Girls before I go to bed.  And I can't even make it through a whole episode before I fall asleep.  Five days of that and you have 2 hours and 30 minutes of television.  One half hour of my day watching television is not enough to qualify me as stupid, in my opinion.  From the time I wake up until the time I watch the Golden Girls, I am constantly on the go.  Given the day, I am usually at work and back-to-back classes, accompanied by one or two meetings.  In the time outside of that, I am completing homework or extracurricular requirements.  I guess I need to sleep and eat, too.  Yes, I check my Facebook.  Big woop.  Haven't you ever heard of a brain break, Mark Bauerlein?

Ok, I've had my fun bashing him.  On a more serious note, yes, I agree with him to some extent.  I can't say I am fully committed to his argument just yet.  I notice much more now after reading Feed and watching his video that most teenagers find it difficult to hold a conversation if it isn't about the latest  break-up on Facebook or what happened on tv last night.  Let's remember something: we are teenagers.  Even though Bauerlein didn't have Facebook back in his day, I find it hard to believe that his generation spent 100% of their time scouring museums and reading the Encyclopedia all day.  He must remember that his generation didn't have access to all this technology, either.  So doing those things (going to museums, parks, etc) were the norm.  Now, we don't need to spend $25 on an aquarium ticket when we can look up videos or pictures of fish on the Internet. 

In terms of teaching, Bauerlein's philosophy/argument scares me.  I already know how my age group is today and was in high school.  If Bauerlein is accurate in his prophecy, then we have quite a job ahead of us.  I am already envisioning extensive problems with cell phones, iPods, portable game systems, etc.  Maybe I'm not giving my future students enough credit, but generally speaking, that's what I see.  Bauerlein obviously isn't giving the rest of us enough credit.  Furthermore, he blames "his colleagues" -- the teachers and educators, "mentors" of these students.  Does this include him?  Of course not.  Even though he is an educator, he very carefully leaves himself out of that equation.

As teachers, it is our responsibility to get our students thinking.  I know for myself, I want my students discovering new worlds through literature, developing critical thinking skills, relating past stories to present issues, etc.  We have to remember that the Internet is a learning tool, not a crutch.  We can utilize it when necessary, but shouldn't submit to its every command. 

WARNING: Explicit Content

My biggest question this week after going through the reading material is this: Who gets to decide if a book is censored or not?  Overbearing parents?  Frightened superintendents?  Cautious co-workers?  Who?

As I read Noll's article (Ripple Effect), I found myself getting slightly more and more frustrated.  When I'm teaching, I don't want to live in fear of literature, and I don't want my students to either.  By schools censoring books, that's exactly what we're doing.  I feel like administrators are afraid of these books because they do exactly what they should do: make students question and learn and think.  If they're going to frown upon learning, then maybe they should just close down their school?

I guess I'm just a little perturbed right now.  Obviously with any job, there are going to be restrictions.  However, in this case we aren't restricting ourselves as "workers"; we are restricting the students as learners and that completely defeats the purpose of our jobs.  I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school and I cannot tell you one student who reacted negatively just because we read that book in 9th grade.  So young, so vulnerable, how dare they learn about people from all walks of life?  That's just silly!  The more we restrict what kids can read, odds are that they'll find a way to read it anyway if they really want to.  And that's perfectly fine with me.  I want to them to branch out and discover new worlds through literature.

On another note, Feed.  I lost my driver's license over break and started reading this while waiting for an hour and a half at the DMV.  It took me a while to understand what was going on.  On the very first page, Titus begins telling the story and says, "Link Arwaker was like, 'I'm so null,' and Marty was all, 'I'm null too, unit,' but I mean we were all pretty null, because for the last like hour we'd been playing with three uninsulated wires that were coming out of the wall" (3).  I read over this sentence probably about 5 times.  I didn't understand why they were saying "like."  I obviously use this in conversation more than I should and it was completely strange seeing it like that in a novel.  Also, some of the words they use to describe things just made me laugh.  Especially "meg," which I'm assuming is for mega.  I actually think I let this slip out in conversation the other day.  Ut oh!  Seriously, though, pretty interesting novel.  Its conventions are atypical of a "novel," but I think that's what makes it work so well.

I have heard of Number the Stars before.  I didn't remember reading it in school, but the cover definitely hit part of my memory when I saw the book.  After reading about 20 pages, I realized that I had indeed read this while growing up.  Bits and parts came flooding back to me as I finished the book.  All things aside, what an excellent read!  I can see now why this book caters to adolescent readers.  The plot is focused around a 10-year-old girl and her family, so many young readers will relate (given they're around that age). 

I could see myself relating to Annemarie at that age.  She's old enough to remember how things were before the Nazis took over, but still young enough not to get the full complexities of a lot of the issues surrounding her life.  The part that still sticks out to me the most is when Kirsti shoves the soldier's hand away when he plays with her curls.  When my brother was younger, I often remember him saying or doing things that he just should not have in front of people.  I definitely understand Annemarie's frustrations with her younger sister and feeling like she always had to look after her.  When my parents divorced, my brother was three and I was six.  Six years old is really not that mature, but I took my brother under my wing while my mom worked to support us and my sister.  Even though I cared for my brother, there would be times when I just wanted to lock him in the basement until my mom got home from work.  Once time, he was playing with his toys in the living room where we also had this big fish tank.  The way it was structured, there was about two inches of space between the floor and the bottom of the tank.  Well, my brother got a toy stuck under the tank and decided to reach with his arm.  Yep.  Now he's stuck.  Since my mom wasn't home, I freaked out a little bit and worried for my brother.  Later, I was just annoyed with him.  This resonates quite similar to how Annemarie feels about Kirsti.

While a part of me connects to Annemarie's personality, I definitely felt more connected to the adults in this book.  As a very young adult of 20 years old, I don't know if I could ever do something as courageous as those people do.  It makes me feel kind of like a wimp, to be honest.  These people risked their lives in a great way to help their friends.  When the soldiers come to the Johansen's apartment while their hiding Ellen, I felt for Mrs. Johansen.  She kept telling the soldiers, "Please, not too loud. My daughters are trying to sleep."  She was trying so hard to get them to realize that this was just a normal household with little children in it.  As a future teacher, I can only imagine some situations I may potentially be in.  I'm sure my responses would be quite similar.  Who knows what kind of things will happen when I'm teaching, and I need to make sure I'm prepared for anything.

I think Number the Stars should be a staple in the classroom.  It presents pertinent issues appropriately for children.  It isn't too harsh, but it doesn't try to be invisible, either.  Plus, by having the main character as a young child, it makes it easier for students to connect with the story.  For example, you can ask your class "How would you feel if you were separated from your parents and you had absolutely no idea where they were or no way to communicate with them?"  Some may be like, woo hoooooo!!  But in the mindset of the story, many students may really consider and connect.

Coming Full Circle

I have participated in numerous literature circles throughout my academic career.  Have I ever called them literature circles?  No.  I think my teachers did that for a reason.  It would be like going to a book club.  And in middle school and high school, the last thing you wanted to do was be involved in a book club.  While I always adored reading and talking about new books, at that age, that is the last thing any teenager wants to talk about with you.  Even though I read what I was supposed to and participated in discussion, my efforts were lackluster, simply because I figured my peers wouldn't appreciate it.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school in AP English.  About halfway through the school year, my teacher told us to bring in one of our favorite books and be ready to talk about it.  My hand shot up immediately -- "Does this have to be something we read for a class?"  I realllllly didn't want to talk about The Great Gatsby or The Scarlet Letter anymore.  She informed the class that it could be any book we wanted.  I got nervous because I didn't know how I would choose just one (huge nerd).  When we got to class the next day, everyone was enthusiastic when talking about their books; we gave plot summaries, character analyses,  major themes and symbols to the class with pride.  I realized that day that once we, as a class, were given the opportunity to discuss what we wanted to, there was no pressure.  We were excited about reading again.

In the very first pages of Literature Circles, Daniels mentions a teacher from Washington Irving school in Chicago.  Madeleine Maraldi meets with her fellow teachers and asks them: "How can we teach better?  What do we need to focus on, to learn, get better at?"  I wrote "YES!" in the margin of the book after reading this quote.  I think we're so quick to point out all the flaws in students that we rarely take the time to look at our teaching methods to see if there's anything we can adjust.  Now, I know this isn't true for all teachers; a lot of teachers I've had in class or met through observations are very keen on their methods and know when they need to change something.  However, when a school has a collective problem with students, then it's time to take a step back and reconfigure.

More to come later...

I definitely want to incorporate literature circles in my classroom.  There are definite pros to this technique, but also some cons.  In my high school, our class periods were 42 minutes long.  By the time everyone's settled, homework is checked and instructions are given, you've lost about 15 minutes.  I don't think this would leave me enough time for an effective literature circle.  However, that doesn't mean the school I will be in will be that way either.  The option was brought up in class about having an after-school lit circle session.  I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea.  However, some kids can't get rides or have other obligations after school, too.  If they are dedicated to the extracurricular activity though, you can count on them showing up.

Student choice is a large factor in literature circles.  I am all for student choice.  For me as a student, I feel like that is what motivates me.  As a teacher, however, I will need to know when to limit their choices.  Yes, I want them to choose their own book.  But it is important for me to know my limits.  Do I want to let them choose any book or do I want to give them a specific number of options and allow them to choose from that?  Another option with student choice is allowing them to determine which "role" they would be in the group.  It gives them some flexibility and lets them gain some responsibility on their own terms.