Final Reflection

Over the past couple of years as a new teacher, I have attended a multitude of professional development sessions for Teach for America and for the district, as well as taken classes in the Education and Social Change program, and the majority of these experiences have left me with little useful, concrete knowledge to implement in my classroom. However, this class did not fall into this category. For the first time as a Spanish teacher, I was able to use the strategies and information that I learned.

            First, learning how to backwards plan a unit was very helpful. Teach for America had thrown around the term “backwards planning” before, but they had never actually walked us through the steps of how to do it. Having the literature and classroom discussion to guide us helped me to design a unit plan that I was actually able to use in my classroom with the novel that I was about to teach in my Spanish for Spanish speakers class.

            In particular, the Smagorinsky reading on the different types of final assessments helped me to think outside of the box in my unit planning. Rather than just give my students a final exam on the content of novel, I had them prepare for an analytic essay that was focused on the picaresque genre. Throughout our reading of the novel Lazarillo de Tormes, my students practiced finding and explaining quotes that illustrated the characteristics of the picaresque genre so that by the time they got to the final assessment, they were able to discuss at least three characteristics of this genre and use textual evidence to support their claim. In this way, students were less focused on remembering every detail of the novel’s events and more focused on understanding the cultural and historical importance of the novel in 16^th century Spain and the precedence it set as the first novel of this genre. Taking this “big picture” approach to my unit plan helped me to accomplish one of my goals as a Spanish teacher, which was to teach Spanish as a means of understanding the cultural context of the language.

            In addition to helping me restructure my planning process to help me reach my instructional goals, this class helped me to make my lessons more student-centered and therefore more engaging. Because I had to carefully design lesson plans as part of my unit plan, I took the time to think of more student-centered activities to include in them. For example, I started off the unit by having students do a jigsaw and be the experts on one characteristic of the picaresque novel that they would have to explain to the class. Rather than spoon-feeding notes to the students, I had them work in groups to do their own research using the study materials in the back of the book. Therefore, coming up with the notes on the genre characteristics was a student-led process. Also, many of my writing prompts throughout the reading of the novel involved student choice. Students would often get a topic to write about but they would be able to choose which scene or character to focus on. Making my class more student-centered as a result of the readings and discussions we had in this class made my overall experience as a teacher more enjoyable. I did more work in the planning process but was more of a facilitator in the classroom, which was a much more interesting role because I got to hear my students’ thoughts more and learn about them as people.

            Finally, I feel that I learned more in this class than in other classes in the program because of its structure. A lot of the classes we have taken thus far have been very general in their content because we have students who teach various grade levels and subjects. Being in small groups based on our content and grade level helped us to hone in on the challenges that we face in our content at the high school level and build more content-specific knowledge. In this setting, I feel like I was able to learn from the professor and my colleagues about new strategies that were applicable to my classroom. In addition, the more intimate setting allowed for us to share more of our own ideas and teaching style with our classmates. For example, when each of us presented an article or video about an issue in education, I found myself thinking about factors that affect my students that I had never examined in depth before. In addition, when we did our lesson presentations, I was able to pick up ideas from other people that I hadn’t used previously and that work well in a language classroom, like Whitney’s use of a popular song to introduce a theme. Finally, I liked that our professor had experience working in an ETO school because our discussions felt more relevant to the setting in which we work. When an idea was brought up that would be challenging to implement in the rigid structure of our schools, we discussed how we could modify it to attempt to make it work. In this way, we were constantly considering the realities of the environment in which we teach rather than focusing on idealistic hypotheticals.

Final Course Reflection- The Unit Planning Process

Theresa Thomas
Unit plan reflection

Upon reflecting on my growth as a teacher, it is clear that TAL 541 has been a significant factor. This semester has been very informative. I have been able to use a multitude of the strategies and best practices learned in my daily instruction. Not only is my planning more purposeful, my lessons are more student centered, and my students are more engaged. Creating a unit plan and receiving literature to support me in doing so, as well as the immediate feedback was what really helped me grow.
Early in the semester we began the task of backwards planning a unit. While this is a concept I am familiar with through my affiliation with TFA, this course helped me understand how to effectively backwards plan. Teaching in a failing school for the past three  years has stifled my creativity as a teacher. My teacher training program through Teach For America consisted of backwards planning from the statewide assessment, the FCAT. We were taught to be standards based. Everything we did aligned to the standards, so I spent a lot of time teaching kids the benchmarks in isolation. For the most part, I used very simple FCAT like passages that were not very rigorous or interesting. My students were very disengaged, and when I did try to implement rigorous passages and spark creative thinking, I was not sure how to scaffold my students to that point. There was a lot of trial and error, with no real feedback. This changed after reading Peter Smagorinsky's Teaching English Through Principled Practice. Through Smagorinsky's book I was able to learn about backwards planning a theme for the year, as well as for each unit. I learned the culminating assessment can be a wide variety of activities as opposed to a multiple choice test with a few short answer responses. I chose a portfolio assessment for my unit on "Black Boy". This would allow my students the freedom to choose the work they were most proud of at the end of the unit and be able to display it. This also pushed me to be creative in choosing my activities each week. I wanted to give my students a plethora of assignments to choose from. Professor Perez was also instrumental in providing feedback and suggestions that helped shape my vision.
After creating the culminating assessment I began lesson planning. I used Warner and Lovell's book, Teaching Writing Grades 7-12, and Smagorinsky's Teaching English Through Principled Practice to find student centered activities to incorporate in to my lessons. One strategy that worked well for my students was the response logs, also known as double journal entries.These entries were used as a response to the novel my students were reading. At the end of each selection of text, students could choose how they wanted to respond to the text. They always had to write a summary, but the second part could be an analysis of mood, tone, or the students could create questions that would be shared in class. Upon completing the response logs, students would share their response with their group members, generating student led discussions around the text. This is just one of the strategies I incorporated. I really enjoyed learning new ways to unit plan and engage my students.
Another thing that was extremely beneficial was the group lesson plan incorporating elements of Systemic Functional Linguistics. This was used to help students improve their comprehension of text as well as their writing. In learning about Systemic Functional Linguistics, it became extremely clear why my students are struggling to comprehend grade level text. The text is very complex, meaning the sentences are lengthier, embedding multiple clauses, and descriptions, making it harder for students to comprehend. The sentences no longer just contain an easily identifiable subject and predicate in which students are use to. I never really knew how to aid students in comprehending the text until we learned more about SFL. Previously, I was providing a lot of background knowledge and leading children to my understanding of the text. SFL is a tool to aid students in breaking down the text in to meaningful chunks of information. Additionally, analyzing the breakdown in text and the language features of each genre can help transform their writing, by giving them tools to add more details. While we just scratched the surface with SFL, I hope to learn more over the summer so I can begin implementing it with fidelity next year.

Final Course Reflection

            When I first walked into this class on a Monday evening in January, I was both nervous and excited.  It was the first day of the first course I was taking for my Master’s Degree and I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was looking forward to meeting fellow teachers and engaging in academic discourse.  To be honest, on that first day I didn’t really expect to learn very much in this class because unlike my cohorts who were in their first or second year of teaching, I had already been in the secondary English classroom for a decade.  I spent my first three years teaching in the public school system and was in my seventh year of teaching at one of the most prestigious private schools in the county.  Don’t get me wrong, I did not and do not think that I am a seasoned veteran that has nothing left to learn (I did enroll in graduate school to learn and improve as a teacher), but I thought this course would cover very basic secondary English teaching techniques that I would have learned and/or used somewhere along the way.  I was wrong.

            One of the first readings for this course was on backwards planning.  This concept did make a lot of sense to me as I read, but I had not encountered it prior to the reading.  Although the culminating activity (or at least one of them) for my prep school students is typically an analytical essay, I don’t usually know exactly what the prompt will be when I begin teaching a unit. Many times I choose an essay topic based off of a class discussion on the literary work.  I often tailor the essay prompt to each class period.  However, when I implemented the backwards planning strategy in crafting my unit plan for this course, I realized that it really affected my lessons in a positive way.  Every step of my lesson was created with the specific prompt that I had already selected in mind.  I did actually use the lessons that I created for my unit plan in my classroom this semester, although the final analytical essay has not been given yet because it will be a part of the final exam.  I do feel that implementing the backwards planning strategy has already had a positive impact on my teaching and has helped my students to produce better work.

            Another strategy that was new and extremely helpful was Nerd Libs.  While I have used a sentence frame in the past to teach my students how to craft a thesis statement, the Nerd Libs reading provided multiple frames for students to use in analyzing or writing about many different types of texts.  It also explained the reasoning behind the strategy and provided examples for each of the different frames.  I did include this tool in my unit plan in a basic way, but I plan on introducing it earlier in the school year next year and incorporating several different Nerd Libs throughout the school year in order to help strengthen my student’s analytical writing skills.

            One last thing that I learned was to incorporate an overarching theme in my class.  Because I teach secondary English at a college prep school, I do not teach from textbook.  I design the courses I teach based off of the literary selections the school provides, similar to a college literature course.  I do try to associate the works in some way, but reading about an overarching theme made me realize that I could do a better job of connecting the literary selections for my students.  This semester, I did just that with the four independent reading selections for my sophomore American Literature course.  They were Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Richard Wright’s Native Son, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.  I realized that the protagonists in all of these works wrestles with both isolation and alienation so I decided to change my focus on each of these novels.  I taught a compare/contrast lesson on alienation and isolation and then had students identify characters in The Great Gatsby that experience alienation and isolation.  In Native Son, my students looked for examples of the protagonist, Bigger Thomas, feeling alienated or isolated and examined how these feelings directly impacted his actions.  Now my students have begun reading The Catcher in the Rye and they will do the same with Holden Caulfield.  In a couple of weeks when we begin Death of a Salesman, I think recognizing these feelings in Willy Loman (despite his concerted effort to hide them) will help my students sympathize with this character more than they have in the past.  I feel like identifying an overarching theme for these works have not only enhanced my teaching, but also helped my students delve deeper into the characters and relate to them in a more authentic way.

            I really did enjoy this class and I know that I’m walking away from it with strategies that I will use in my classroom for years to come.  I have already seen my students benefit from them and I know that with a little refinement they will be even more effective next year.  I also really enjoyed being in a small class with other teachers who face different challenges than I do.  It made me remember my early days of teaching, taught me to be grateful for what I have, and gave me the opportunity to both teach and learn from my peers.

           

Lesson Feedback

Whitney - I really liked that you ask your students for their opinion on what they believe the song is actually saying about beauty and success and then asked them why they felt that way.  I think that many times as teachers we are focused on getting through the curriculum and making sure our students learn facts and concepts, and we forget to ask our students what they think about current events and topics in their world and more importantly, why they think that way.

Jacalyn - I loved the way your lesson promoted critical thinking through the types of questions you asked and incorporated the idea of honor versus money as a motivating factor to produce art.  I will definitely be bringing this idea into my class the next time we discuss art as a part of a literary movement.

Raul - The American dream aspect of your lesson is what speaks to me the most, especially because I think that so many of the youth generation don't understand this concept or that the dream is something that one must strive for or how unique our country is because of it.  Examining the American dream concept as presented in Gatsby by asking students to relate to it in their own lives and examine that concept in modern society is crucial in my opinion.

Theresa - I really liked the QAR presentation that you gave.  I had never heard of QAR before and it was really helpful to see the four different types of questions laid out in an easy-to-understand format.  The question stems that you provided were also a valuable resource to me as a teacher.   I may even use this information to teach a lesson or two for The Illustrated Man in the upcoming weeks.

Response to Elizabeth Birr Moje's "Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change"

As I read through the article, I found myself nodding in agreement with a lot of what Moje had written.  I also found myself sympathizing with content area teachers who feel as though literary strategies "place an unfair burden of teaching reading on them when they should be teaching content" (98).  As I continued reading about how educators, researchers, and teacher educators need to re-conceptualize how they think of disciplinary learning and literacy instruction, I couldn't help but think (once again) about the Flipped Learning seminar I attended last November.  Although content area literacy was not specifically addressed, the idea of re-imagining secondary education was a central focus.  

Moje cites three key challenges in rethinking disciplinary learning and literacy instruction:  student knowledge, beliefs, and practices; teacher knowledge, belief, and practices; and school structures and subject matter dominance.  She asserts that students "bring ideas about what counts as learning to their disciplinary classrooms and teachers make decisions about classroom practices in interaction with students and in the context of the secondary school as an institution" (98).  Teachers also bring their own ideas about the appropriate practices within their disciplines.  Additionally, the very division of secondary school learning into subject areas and the organization and structure of the physical space of the classroom implies that knowledge is different in different disciplines.  This ultimately creates more of a disconnect within the mind of students; they don't see how the disciplines are interconnected.

So back to that Flipped Learning seminar that I mentioned earlier.  There was was school model that was presented that was quite revolutionary.  Although secondary students did have different subject areas to work through, their schedule was flexible and very student-centered.  Classes were not provided at set times with a group of students and a teacher at the front of the room, rather content was made available through different stations and students chose what they would work on at a given time on any given day (very similar to the Montessori method).  Teachers would roam around the different stations, offering guidance, answering questions on content, helping students to manage their time, etc...  The structure of the school itself also broke the secondary education mold.  The layout was a large room with individual desktop computer stations in one area, there was another area with comfortable seating for individual or group work, there was another station with table for group meetings or work, and yet another area with private study rooms.  Of course, there were several electrical outlets at all of the stations so that students could plug in their laptops or tablets as needed.  There was even another station that was a gym equipped with treadmills and elliptical machines that would allow students to exercise while reading a book (or read from a tablet).  In this kind of an environment, it is easy to see how "the knowledge, belief, and practices" (98) of teachers and students is completely turned on its head and re-imagining how the content areas teach literacy is facilitated by the physical learning space.

I believe Moje is right when she asserts that not only does literacy need to be taught in the content areas, but we also need to work to transform how we approach secondary education.  Our world is changing, our students are changing, and formal education needs to change along with them.

Moje: Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change

In Moje’s (2008) article, she calls for disciplinary literacy strategies to be used at the secondary level. I agree with this approach to some extent. I think that students should learn how to think like scientists, historians, mathematicians, etc. so that they understand how to think critically from different perspectives. However, I fear that in some ways this approach only deepens the bias that school systems have towards producing scholars. As Ken Robinson describes in his Ted Talk, “How Schools Kill Creativity”, the whole purpose of the public education system seems to be to produce university professors, and a lot of talented and creative people are steered away from pursuing their interests because their abilities do not align with what is valued by public education. The reality is that the majority of the students that study these subjects will not become academic experts in these various disciplines. They will have jobs in which they have to draw from different skills across a variety of disciplines. I think that more than anything, the barriers of specific disciplines need to be broken down so that students understand that work and life is often not divided into school subjects.

Along these lines, I wholeheartedly agree with Moje’s suggestion that subject area teachers should not “ignore the powerful ways that young people already use to negotiate multiple discourse communities and literacies in their lives” (103). As technology transforms the way that students are engaging in discourse with one another, teachers should focus on how students can apply their knowledge of nontraditional literacies like social media to the classroom. Having students use their technological skills appropriately in a more professional setting will help them to gain valuable skills for the workplace, as many companies use social media in powerful ways to communicate messages. For example, writing a tweet about theme in a Language Arts class could help students with the skill of narrowing down information to include only the most important and relevant words to get a message across clearly. This is exactly what companies would do to send a message about a new promotion to their customers. Overall, students should be practicing culturally relevant literacies and understanding the connections between the various disciplines and how all of them are applicable to the skills they may need in the job market. 

Fisher & Frey

For this blog entry I will be discussing  "Implementing a School-wide Literacy Framework: Improving Achievement in an Urban Elementary School" by Douglass Fisher and Nancy Frey. It was enlightening to read about the Rosa Parks Elementary School and how they transformed their school by implementing a school wide literacy approach. The Principal allowed the teachers to abandon the scripted literacy curriculum to create a plan that would work for their school. They wanted to implement a plan that everyone believed in and everyone followed. Initially, they drafted their core beliefs about literacy. They believed learning is social, conversations are critical for learning, reading writing, and oral language instruction must be integrated, learners require a gradual increase in responsibility. They then proceeded to develop an instructional framework that supported their core beliefs about literacy. Once this was established they needed a school wide plan to on-board teachers effectively. They created focused professional developments, learning communities, and peer coaching to ensure their teachers were adequately prepared to implement the framework created. This carefully constructed method worked for Rosa Parks Elementary School. Their plan was most beneficial because they created consistency across grades that kids become familiar with. 

What I learned most from reading this was change needs to be implemented from within. In our current school system, the ETO has tried to implement some of the practices discussed in this article, such as an instructional framework, professional developments, learning communities, peer coaches, but we are not seeing the same results as Rosa Parks Elementary. I believe we are not seeing the same results because change comes from within a school. The first thing Rosa Parks Elementary school did was sit down and clarified their core beliefs about literacy. Their beliefs did not come from an external group of people imposing  beliefs on the school. After clarifying their core beliefs and what worked best for children, they were able to create an instructional framework that worked for their school. Because everything came from in-house conversations, they were able to take ownership over it, they created their own professional developments, and their professional learning communities were geared towards their needs, and what their school needed to propel their literacy plan forward. In our district it is very hard for us as teachers to implement the ETO's plan with fidelity when we do not share their beliefs, and what they think is best for children does not always work for our students. In order for us to see the same results Rosa Parks Elementary school is seeing we need to create a plan that works for our teachers and our students. We need to come together as a school and define our core beliefs about literacy and what works best for our students. From there we can create an instructional framework we believe in. I believe when teachers have autonomy they can create great things that they are more likely implement with fidelity. Additionally, teachers will constantly work on improving the plan to fit the needs of their school. 

Final Post for April 28 Class; Fisher & Frey article

          For this week's final post, I chose to read and discuss Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey's article entitled, "Implementing a Schoolwide Literacy Framework; Improving Achievement in an Urban Elementary School." Because the assigned reading for the class this semester has primarily focused on teaching at the high school level, I thought it would be interesting to delve into something somewhat different, i.e. an article regarding urban elementary schools. I was surprised, however, while I was reading the article, to discover that much of the teaching and learning techniques being implemented at the secondary level are not completely foreign at the elementary level, and that just because the students may not be engaged in as advance learning, the teachers and administrators still value student success in the classroom as extremely significant. I also found it interesting that the authors noted how despite the fact that innovations are everywhere, few are actually being implemented consistently across grades and teachers, and that we do not need more prescriptive, scripted curriculum or instruction, but instead, that we need more precision in our teaching. This stood out to me as a key point because all semester long we have read articles about various innovative theories, and it is difficult for me to comprehend the reasons behind the lack of connection between an idea and its actuality. For this reason, Fisher and Frey's article was extremely fascinating for me to read.

          It was truly incredible to learn more about how Rosa Parks Community School developed a literacy framework that was implemented school-wide and provided teachers with an opportunity to focus their teaching, rather than script it, and that this resulted in students who read, write, and think at impressive levels. I thought that the committee's four core beliefs about literacy--learning is social, conversations are critical for learning, reading, writing, and oral instruction must be integrated, and learners require gradual release in responsibility--were not only accurate, but also informative to a new teacher such as myself. I especially found the section on how learners require a gradual increase in responsibility to be illustrative of some of the teaching principles I picked up during the course of the semester. The teachers in our Secondary English sub-group would regularly reference the notion of "gradual release" for their students, a term I had really never heard before joint this class. As time went on, however, I began to understand this concept more and more, including why it is important in the first place and how to accomplish this task effectively. By the time we were writing our final lesson plan as a group, I was comfortable with the ways in which we could incorporate this process into our lesson and presentation. 

Fecho Ch. 10-12

In Chapter 10, Fecho discusses the power of a question. When I first found out that I was going to be teaching English at Central, I thought insightful questions would be at the heart of my lessons. I was disappointed to find out, however, that as Fecho points out, many schools “have perverted the concept of the essential question” (88). Every common planning that I was in, I cringed at the questions that were considered essential questions and “higher order thinking” questions. Because the pacing guides are aligned to multiple-choice exams like the FCAT, I think the whole curriculum actually discouraged students from posing their own thought-provoking questions or coming up with unconventional answers that couldn’t be found in letters A, B, C, or D. This year, because I do not have a pacing guide to follow, I have incorporated some of my own questions into my lessons and have found that students have a lot of trouble thinking outside of the box and considering situations from various angles. They seem to have never really been asked to do this, and to me, this is a sign of an education that has failed them because they have not learned how to think on their own, at least in an academic setting.

Fecho’s discussion of our dialogical selves in the next chapter made me think that I have not done enough to encourage students’ to bring their many contexts into the classroom. Fecho explains, “When the wobble in our lives becomes too great to be withstood, it needs to be understood” (101).  I know that my students are experiencing a lot of wobble in their lives, and I feel as though the general approach towards this knowledge throughout the school has been to, “teach in spite of the wobble”.  I agree that students should receive the same quality education as their wealthier peers, but I also think that we should incorporate some of our students’ struggles into the curriculum. As Fecho shows with his discussion of his student Isaac, reading and writing can be an outlet for students who are struggling with their identity. I think in an age in which informational texts and textual evidence are being pushed so heavily, teachers are discouraged from having students bring personal experience into their writing. Textual evidence and personal experience are not mutually exclusive, however, and I think the two can complement each other well in writing, because they can lead to a deeper understanding of a text that is linked to the many contexts with which a person interacts.

In Chapter 12, Fecho laments the fact that teachers are essentially being removed from the classroom, much like workers have become estranged from the process of work in many industrial workplaces and offices. He explains, “By advocating instruction focused on discrete and narrow skills and stressing factual recall over meaning making, schools present a concept of learning that restricts students in their use of imagination, creativity, and insight” (105). This statement very much aligns with my experience as an accountability teacher at Central. I was constantly reminded by reading coaches and the ETO to teach the benchmark and not the literature, and it seemed very counterintuitive. First of all, I never knew what a benchmark was in high school, and I don’t think I needed to. I’m sure my teachers were teaching to the Massachusetts state standards, but students did not have to be aware of this to learn. Instead, my teachers taught good literature. Because of the high quality of this literature, we discussed everything that would be covered by benchmarks in depth throughout the year. Secondly, teachers and students alike were much more engaged when discussion of literature was at the heart of the class rather than multiple meaning words. I remember a dynamic English class when my teacher drew her own representation of East Egg and West Egg on the board to explain the symbolism of both places. The literature that we read encompassed all of the elements of the “state standards” and we were simply studying them all together in the context of a well-written novel. Because teachers are supposed to take such a formulaic approach to their lessons, it stifles their passion and creativity, and I think that students’ lack of capacity to think outside of the box and ask questions is a reflection of the robotic nature of teaching in many schools.

CORE CLASS: Fecho ch. 10-12

Teaching for the Students:  Habits of Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom (2011) 

by Bob Fecho

 

A lack of intellectual curiosity is one of the most common complaints uttered by faculty about students at my school.  I am certainly one who is baffled by my students lack of questioning.  I want them to question the world around them, what they read or watch or listen to, what I teach them and why I am trying to teach them that particular thing.  It seems, however, that their attitude is  "tell me what I need to know so I can pass the test, get a good grade in your class, and go to college."  It's frustrating.  It's soul crushing.  It's every day.  However, while reading chapter ten of Fecho's book the following quote struck me:  "It takes effort and practice to shift from a telling classroom to a questioning one" (page 92).  It's not like I didn't know this, but what he made me realize is that in order to shift my students into a mode of questioning, I need to learn to shift my questions into ones that help them create a relationship with what they are reading.  This, of course, is easier said than done, but I felt like this chapter laid the foundation on which I can begin building this shift and hopefully inspire a room of intellectually curious students.

In an earlier chapter, Fecho discussed the idea of continually changing contexts of a classroom.  Students file into one's class for a particular period and what has just happened to them outside of class has an impact on how material will be received and processed.  Each class period, therefore, may cover the same material but the changing context affects interpretation, processing and understanding of it.  In this chapter, the focus is on the continually changing context of the individual.  "...an individual's identity continually undergoes centripetal and centrifugal tension, that it is subject to both unifying and individualizing forces simultaneously" (page 95).  Of course, this holds true not only for students but also for teachers.  Fecho stressed the importance of teachers providing space for the exploration of the continually shifting contexts that their students are negotiating and notes that "...if we who educate can grasp that all of us are entered into a complex mesh of dialogical transactions with our selves and our many contexts, then we can also grasp that we teach for so much more than competency on a test" (page 101).  I just really loved that; the reminder that we are not just teaching our students our subject, but we are teaching them how to connect with and come into themselves.  It's one of the things I love most about teaching.

In the final chapter of the book, Fecho uses a yoga analogy to illustrate that teaching is a constant struggle towards perfection, but advises that we must find joy in that struggle.  After nearly a decade of teaching, I decided to finally attend graduate school.  Part of the reason was because I realize that an advanced degree would afford me more flexibility in my career options down the road, part of the reason was because I always envisioned myself earning a graduate degree, but the main reason was because I recognized that I am still growing as a teacher.  I still have a lot to learn.  I still have many areas in which I need to improve in order to be the best teacher that I can be for my students, in order to have the best chance at making a positive difference in this world.  And although there have been days, especially lately, when this struggle towards perfection feels overwhelming, I still somehow find the joy.

Post for April 7 class; Fecho chapters 10-12

          In chapter ten of Fecho's book, I especially enjoyed his discussion regarding how questions can often frighten students. Fecho points out how a follow-up question, in particular, is read by many students as an indication that what they said was wrong, incomplete, or incomprehensible, and that as a result, he has learned to follow-up questions with phrases like that's an interesting point or I've never heard of it that way. This point specifically stood out to me because I often find that my Criminal Procedure students similarly view such questions as a rap on the knuckles or a means to expose their ignorance, rather than an invitation to explain and explore their ideas. Because the legal issues sprinkled throughout a typical law school exam cannot be analyzed with merely one or two sentences, I find it important that I continue to push the students with follow up questions in class so that they learn to do this on their own once exam day arrives.

          In chapter eleven, I thought Fecho's discussion of the individual's cultural identity was not only significant to me in my capacity as an educator, but also to my role as a friend, significant other, daughter, etc. In short, Fecho states that who we are becoming depends on where we are, how we have constructed ourselves to date, and to what extent we remain in dialogue with our contexts and diverse identities. This resonated as a key point for me because I feel as though this description of cultural identity applies to me in both my professional and personal life. I am trying more and more to be conscious about where I am as both a woman and an educator, how I have constructed myself in these roles in the past, and how often I take time for a little self-reflection both in and out of the classroom.

          Finally,  in chapter twelve, Fecho describes how pacing schedules, scripted lessons, commercial literacy programs, and incessant testing imposed from outside the classroom leave teachers little room to contemplate how best to teach. Furthermore, Fecho opines that the focus in too many schools is on raising test scores rather than on nurturing the ability of students to become critical readers, writers, thinkers, inquirers, and problem solvers. This stood out as a key point for me because throughout this semester, I have learned a great deal about the public school system in Florida, and specifically Miami-Dade, from the perspective of my classmates. While I am the odd-ball-out law student, the other teachers in my small class group are all high school teachers in the Miami-Dade area. Almost every class session my classmates would point out some way in which state standards would consistently cramp their style as educators. Having attended a private high school myself, I had no idea how many extra "stresses" public school teachers must address on a daily basis. I have such profound respect for these men and women!

Fecho, Chapter 7-9

           In chapter 7, Fecho describes teaching writing early in his career, and explains how helpless he felt. He would assign essays and ask students to respond to literature in writing. The essays were not what he expected, they contained minimal words or thoughts were convoluted. He initially faulted them and focused on their short comings. He then realized if he wanted his students to take greater interest in their writing, he had to take greater interest in their writing. He had to shift the locus of control. This resonated with me due to my current situation. I share his earlier sentiments and am often frustrated with the lack of writing instruction my students have received up to this point. I also struggle with how to get them invested in their writing.

            After shifting his locus of control, Fecho began conferencing with the students about their writing one on one and giving them individualized feedback. Conferencing with them individually was much more effective than general comments to the entire class. He noticed they began responding to writing in new ways. The students began writing more and invested more in their writing because they knew he would conference with them. Additionally, he was able to provide specific corrective feedback that would help them improve their writing.

           Fecho states, "By my taking a visible interest in their work, students themselves showed greater interest as well. They began to care about what they wrote and to see it as a means for making sense of their lives." I am eager to try this as my students are crafting autobiographies.This approach will give students more time in class to write and it will give me more time to provide them feedback, and motivate them to write more. 

            In Chapter 8, Fecho discusses shifting contexts and includes a quote from Bakhtin (1981) "... all meaning is made in context and context never remains static." The meaning my students extract from each lesson is dependent upon the time of day the lesson is delivered as well as a multitude of variables impacting the student at that moment. Each class period during the day is extremely different from one another. Similarly, each class period is different from day to day. A variety of factors impact the students' mood, attention span, ability to complete a task ect. ect. This is evident every single day I walk into the school, however, what was not as evident was how this impacts each lesson. Too often my lesson are created with an exemplar response in mind. My exemplar response is just that, my response based on the meaning I created within my context. Too often I try to guide students to understand my correct response and how I got there. As teacher we need to understand students make meaning of text based on their context and the meaning they derive from the text and what they extract may be different based on their personalities, moods, and experiences. We need to embrace this. Fecho emphasizes that shift in context causes a shift in learning, teachers should not fear this shifting context, rather embrace it as an opportunity to build upon the students knowledge. If we do not allow students to create and share the meaning they have created from the text then we are stifling their growth as independent and critical thinkers. As we are trying to be more student centered this is a perfect tactic to keep in mind.

            Chapter 9 perfectly expands upon chapter 8, students will generate meaning from the text based on their culture and experiences related to their culture.As I read through Fecho's experiences with culture helping to create meaning from the text, or lack of cultural awareness impeding someone's comprehension of the text, I think of my students' experiences. My students lack a cultural understanding beyond what they are exposed to daily. Even their cultural exposure through television shows is diminishing due to reality tv's inaccurate depiction of reality. Their lack of cultural awareness impedes their understanding of some of the text's we read. As teachers we need to utilize these moments as teaching moments and the opportunity to expose them to a various aspects of different cultures. We need to help students create meaning and make connections as they are reading. This will help develop their schema's and background knowledge, which too often impedes their comprehension on culturally biased, high stakes assessments. 

Post for March 31 class; Fecho chapters 7-9

          Fecho begins the first chapter of this week's reading by identifying and defining the "locus of control." He describes how the term come out of a social psychology and refers to the physical and psychological space over which we can exert influence. Fecho goes on to comment that all of us can do more to alter our lives than we can do to alter the lives of others, particularly in direct ways. I found this concept to be a key point in chapter 7, and I agree with Fecho that I too can often make the mistake of assuming that those around me need to change in order for the situation to improve. This particularly stuck out to me because I believe that no only do I tend to build frustration around the inaction of others  within my personal life, but also within my role as an educator. Here, Fecho made me think primarily about the struggle I often encounter with getting students to participate during class sessions. I tend to think they are the problem, they just don't care, hopefully that the enthusiasm will just come to them. Now, after reading Fecho's chapter, I will work harder to remind myself that I have a fair range of control over much that occurs in my life, and in my classroom, and that more often than not the change I am looking for needs to start with myself--not the students.
          Fecho's chapter 8 on "shifting contexts" was especially relevant to my current, specific role as an educator. Fecho discusses the idea that a class returning from lunch is never the same class as it was before the lunch period because the context of the class had shifted in the intervening time and thus things became different. For my criminal procedure students, I hold two weekly, one-hour sessions that cover anything from exam issue spotting and legal writing to criminal procedure substance specific questions and techniques for effective oral argument. The two sessions cover the same material, with some flexibility based on the nature of student questions, so the students are free to attend either time slot. The Monday sessions always end up being slightly different from the Wednesday session, but not just because the group of students is a different one, but because the context of the session has changed.  The day of the week is a later one and the situation of the day on Monday was vastly different than the day on Wednesday. This key point of Fecho's chapter rand very true to me, and I will consider how to alter the sessions to address this shift in context.
        In Fecho's final chapter of this week's reading, Fecho tells the story of a graduate student who caused him to see Paulo Freire's writing in a whole new light. When pondering why a particular section of the writing stood out more for one student than it did for him, despite having so many opportunities to embrace it, Fecho states that he thinks part of the reason lies in out cultural stances. Also, Fecho highlights that this student's cultural stance allowed her to bring those passages into play, and in doing so, she reopened a dialogue that for him had become too closed-ended. I found this to be a key point of the chapter because recently I fell like my students have been doing this to me everyday. I am on my third year working with the same professor as a teaching assistant, holding the two weekly sessions for the criinal procedure students I mentioned above. This year in particular, the students have been interpreting the hypothetical problems in unique ways, ways in which previous classes, nor myself, have really ever done. This has really caused me to see the "same old texts" in a whole new light, similar to the experience Fecho describes. I have thoroughly enjoyed this, and it has really helped me to consider and positively expand on how I present the hypothetical material to the students. 

Fecho Ch. 7-9

In Chapter 7, Fecho argues that “as teachers we need to call our practice into question and seek ways to invite and sustain dialogue with our students” (65). I was torn as I read about his argument and experiences as a teacher in this chapter. On the one hand, I think that teachers should always be adjusting their instructional strategies to meet the needs of their students. On the other hand, students are going to be on their own to learn and master material after high school, so I wonder how much hand-holding I should do. I agree that an interactive, dialogical classroom is more stimulating for most students and when done consistently, would increase learning gains. In my experience, though, succeeding in college requires independent learning, and the classes are mostly lectures. I think that high school classes should at least be a mix of working as a whole group and in small groups to work through material and having students work through material on their own, even if it is a struggle. I have found that many of my 17 and 18-year-old students do not take responsibility for their own learning. I try to make my lessons engaging and give feedback during class, but I don’t know what changes I could make for my students to become more responsible for their work. This is something that troubles me everyday when I think about their futures, and I think that maybe I need to be more open with them about this concern.

Fecho discusses the idea that context, and therefore meaning, is always shifting in classrooms in Chapter 8. To account for this reality, Fecho describes how he started using flip-chart paper to generate ideas about texts for his classes. He would post each piece of paper around the room, and when a new class came in, he would make sure the work from the previous classes was covered. However, after the class had come up with their own ideas, he would unveil the ideas of other classes. I really like this idea because it gives students the opportunity to discuss and evaluate the ideas of their peers. In addition, seeing other ideas that they may not have thought of may lead them to generate even more ideas. Even the visual of a room filled with ideas will provide them with more stimulation to think from different perspectives. In this way, Fecho is embracing the idea of shifting contexts and is using it to deepen his students’ thinking. Also, I think students often get the sense that a task is too much work or too difficult to complete in a class period, and showing them that another class has already completed the work and has done it well will motivate them to achieve as well.

Fecho’s personal anecdote that he uses to help explain his discussion of small-C culture in Chapter 9 reminded me of some of the struggles of my students in learning a new language. He recalls that he could not read the phrase “Jerry, how you talk!” in a story in first grade because the structure of the phrase was foreign to him. He was from a working class background, and this was how people from the upper-middle class spoke. My students speak African American Vernacular English, and I have encountered some gaps in my instruction of Spanish as a result of our different linguistic backgrounds. Some of the differences are in vocabulary, and I have noticed that this is very culturally-tied. For example, I am currently doing a unit on directions and how to get around a city. One of the vocabulary words is “el metro” and students keep telling me that it is the bus, because in Miami, especially in their neighborhoods, they have only ever experienced taking the Metro bus. So during an activity in which students were asked to read a map of the metro in Mexico City and write down how to get to certain stops, I realized that they not only had trouble with the vocabulary, they had trouble reading the map. This was a struggle that I did not foresee because until I came to Miami, I had always used the metro to get around in the cities in which I had lived. In addition, when grading tests, I have also found problems with students’ translations that I initially attribute to their lack of understanding of the Spanish vocabulary but then realize that most students are making the same mistake, so this must be a difference in the English that they speak. For example, I was grading a quiz on shopping, and several of my students translated the past tense of “buy” as “brought”. So they were writing that they “brought a new shirt”. After consulting with the students to clarify the meaning, I realized that they say “I brought” to mean “I bought” in their dialect. This shows how the students’ cultural and linguistic background affects their interpretation of the material that they are learning, and I agree with Fecho that it is something that should be considered much more heavily by teachers.

CORE CLASS: Fecho ch. 7-9

Teaching for the Students:  Habits of Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom (2011) 

by Bob Fecho

 

Every Spring semester I teach my students how to write an argumentative research paper and every Spring semester I struggle with the process and with how best to work with my students to ensure that their writing improves.  I spend approximately 10 hours of my time outside of class reviewing, revising, and approving thesis statements.  I spend another 20 or so hours of my weeknights and weekends reviewing, making comments, and approving note and source cards.  I spend yet another 20 or more hours of my time reviewing and making comments on outlines that in almost every instance have to be revised for a second review and approval.  That's over 60 hours of work before the first draft of their paper is even written.  They draft and revise and peer edit and revise again before submitting their final work.  And although I know that most of my students look at my comments and try to improve, I don't see enough evidence of improvement for my liking, especially not given the amount of time I spend reviewing and commenting on their work.  Every year I feel like there has to be a better way to connect with them about their writing, but I am always at a loss at how to do this.  In chapter 7, Fecho makes an interesting point about taking a visible interest in student's work via conferences.  Certainly, this is not the first time I have heard of having writing conferences with students, but this is the first time that I encountered such a compelling argument.  Although my students know that I spend anywhere from five to ten minutes with each step of their research paper process, although my students know that I care about them, although my students read my comments and try to apply them to their work, those comments are just not the same as a dialogue.  A dialogue offers the opportunity for a mutual connection and commitment to making the work better together.  My comments instruct them on what needs revision, but students don't have a chance to ask why that revision needs to occur or how it makes their work stronger.  I think this is a crucial missing piece to my research paper process, however, the question remains as to how to schedule the time to have meaningful writing conferences with all of my students given the amount of curriculum that must be covered in the Spring semester.  This is definitely something that I am going to consider while planning for next year. 

In chapter 8, Fecho introduces the idea of taking advantage of the shifting contexts of each class period.  He suggests that although each period should have the opportunity to generate their own responses to the text, exposing students to the perspectives generated in other periods provides a wider context in which to consider the work.  Although I have done this on occasion by mentioning an interesting point or question raised by an earlier class period to a later one, I like the idea of opening up more than one point and also allowing the first class of the day to benefit from what later classes have pondered.  Fecho mentions the use of a wiki for this purpose.  The LMS that my school has adopted this year will allow me to experiment with taking advantage of the different contexts of each class period.

The environment in which I teach has a quite homogenized culture, but there are still some significant differences among my students.  Some students have been born and raised in Miami and barely speak Spanish, while others spend their summers with extended family in their country of birth and are quite fluent.  Some students come from very wealthy families, others come from families who struggle or work extra jobs to send them to the school, and many others receive a partial or full scholarship.  I have Mexican, Venezuelan, Argentinian, Ecuadorian, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian, African-American, Asian and Caucasian students.  I have students who are Catholic, atheist, agnostic, or Jewish.  Although I was born and raised in South Florida to Cuban-born parents, my cultural experiences differ quite a bit from many of my students.  As Fecho mentions in chapter 9, I know that I can't expect to know all about all of the nuances of their cultures.  I like to think, however, that there is space in my classroom for dialogue among the cultures.  I like to think that although there are sometimes startling differences between some of the cultures sitting in my classroom, every student feels comfortable engaging in dialogue that demonstrates their cultural contribution to my class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post for March 17 Class; Fecho Chapters 4-6

          In chapter four, Fecho points out the fact that teachers worry tension stimulated by discussions of topics such as sexism, or tension surrounding a dialogue on an unpopular school policy, will cause them to lose control of their classes. Fecho further states that rather than sparking generative dialogue, teachers fear that calling a tension to the surface will ignite a verbal conflagration that will burn out of control. This idea resonated as a key point for me based on a past teaching experience in which I was able to provide a framework for a controversial discussion regarding the legalization of marijuana. While teaching a lesson on Fourth Amendment jurisprudence at Coral Gables Senior High last year, I realized that our class discussion concerning randomized drug testing and automobile searches was prompting the students to ask numerous questions about drugs themselves--specifically marijuana. In that moment, in my capacity as an educator, I felt uncomfortable addressing the topic of drugs with high school aged students and I assumed it would be better to just try and keep the class focused on other Fourth Amendment issues. Yet, after I left class that day, I realized I had let the tension in the room build exponentially solely because I did not want to address the students questions and concerns about marijuana. With this in mind, I decided to work within the tension and address the students' need to voice their questions and concerns. The next week, I taught an entire lesson on the constitutionality of the legalization of marijuana. The students obviously had issues they wanted to talk about, but I felt as though by addressing the uncomfortableness as a group, instead of just ignoring it, we were able to use the tension to our benefit.

          In chapter five, Fecho begins by pointing out that for many reasons, teachers are frequently afraid to use the difficulty, and that as an initial idea, education in general tends to create an expectation of perfection. Although Fecho's chapter moves toward a discussion related to allowing ourselves to engage the lives of students in a learning process that connects substantively to their experiences, this idea of education as perfection is one that resonated as a key point to me. I remember a day last semester that I was presenting a lesson on Election Law to my teaching class and a fellow teacher asked me about a facet of Election Law that I had no idea how to answer. I was uneasy being among other teachers and having no idea how to answer this question...I was the teacher, presenting a lesson...I felt as though I needed to know everything about the topic and be able to answer every question I was asked. I thought that I, as the educator, needed to represent perfection. I spoke with my Professor about this dilemma after my lesson presentation and she had some wonderful advice to offer. She told me that it was okay, even for a teacher, to not know everything about the topic she was teaching, and that I had not failed as a teacher because of this. She suggested that next time I commend the student for asking such a challenging, thoughtful question, and follow up by saying that I would do some research and come back to the class armed with the answer. Fecho's point here made me recall this experience.

          Finally, in chapter six, Fecho clarifies that when asking her students to participate in the "wobble," she is not asking them to necessarily change their minds or believe as Fecho believes. He is simply asking them to trust the process: to consider the possibilities, ask questions, gather data, and then decide what their stance is. With my law students, it is amazing to me how often they have already decided what their stance is on a particular issue without having considered wobbling in any capacity. Whether it be a gay marriage, affirmative action, or legalization of marijuana debate, too frequently are students willing to wobble. I think this is primarily due to the fact that most law students have an inflated idea of their own intelligence, so that whatever they think is "obviously" the right way to think. I find it challenging to convince my students to wobble, even though so much of a law school exam involves being able to see "both sides" of the case. I will definitely take Fecho's advice here to heart and try to incorporate his ideas more thoroughly in my classroom discussions.

Fecho, Chapter 1-3

In Chapter 1 of Bob Fecho’s Teaching For The Students, Fecho writes, “We test seemingly endlessly these days in order to find out what students know, to affix them with labels that remain with them throughout their schooling” (page 12). As a teacher who is well aware of the endless testing of our students, it was comforting to hear someone else acknowledge the problem of over-testing. More important than recognizing this however, was Fecho’s apparent understanding of the implications of this testing, including the placement of unnecessary labels on to our students. These labels are placed on to our students, which typically result in labeling that is often damaging for our students. Fecho’s absolutely correct illustration of what happens to our students is telling. Regardless of the test that our students are given (FCAT, Interim, FAIR, etc.), they are instantly “grouped,” which seems to mean categorized by score. Once this happens at my school, students seem to have a value placed on them. If they have scored too low, they are not typically cared about as much as kids who “seem” (based on test scores) possible of passing the FCAT or kids expected to pass. Students who score lower typically have more behavior problems in class and our school administration seems to have less patience when dealing with them. “Bubble” kids or students who generally score higher are often given the benefit of the doubt in a questionable situation and are often provided with more opportunity for exciting activities or incentives. Currently, the “bubble” 9^th and 10^th graders in reading were offered a field trip to Busch Gardens if they attend all four Saturday school sessions offered prior to the FCAT. I have also been told directly to focus on the kids who have a higher chance of passing than on kids who don’t. This is obviously an enormous problem.

            In Chapter 2 Fecho describes, “I needed to shift my teaching in ways that were more critical and that addressed issues of power and equity” inside his classroom (page 20). This sentiment was important to me, as I have frequently felt stifled by the curriculum I am expected to follow. As a result of this, I have been forced to limit the amount of instruction I consider more important than what is expected of me. In addition to this, I have never been afforded the opportunity in my pre-written curriculum to discuss power and equity. On the limited occasions we have discussed anything related to these topics, I chose to risk deviating from what I was expected to teach for the benefit of my students. This does not happen frequently and I often feel guilty for denying my students what I know they need. I found Fecho’s understanding of the necessity to alter ways in which we teach to be refreshing, as so frequently I am told otherwise. Teacher creativity in the classroom and in the means and topics of discussion are not typically at the mercy of the instructor. Fecho recognizes the need for a shift in education to address these problems. It was only when he changed his ways of teaching that he saw a positive change in his classroom and the ways in which he and his students interacted.

            Fecho further writes about his experience teaching in Chapter 3. He describes how his own students had difficulty expressing themselves with regards to their identities. This is a problem I have seen with my students, though I would acknowledge this as a small part of the bigger issue of our students’ difficulties in expressing themselves about anything. I have had students visibly upset, angry and crying and have witnessed their true inability to adequately describe how they were feeling. Our students lack knowledge of vocabulary, which seems criminal. Upon doing an inventory at the beginning of the year, my students on average knew 6^th grade vocabulary. Lacking the ability to effectively communicate their thoughts/feelings/ideas has translated into feelings of frustration. This coupled with the incredibly important need to be able to define their identities, Fecho writes about how he felt an obligation to provide his students with the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, many of our students will not gain the knowledge of vocabulary they should know, but providing them with more words and phrases to use in their language is essential for their ability to successfully communicate with others, both in and outside the classroom.

Fecho Ch.4-6

            In Chapter 4, Fecho discusses the role that tension plays in the learning process, claiming that it is “the boa constrictor in the room that most educators do not want to acknowledge” (38).  On the whole, I feel that my school’s environment does not recognize and work through tension, and this attitude is evident in the classroom. I was taught that if a student uses a word like “faggot”, I should pause the lesson and turn this occurrence into a “teachable moment”. We discussed how to handle this type of situation in our training for TFA, but I mostly felt like I was being told to follow a script that encouraged my students to be politically correct, but didn’t address the reasons behind their beliefs or biases. In a classroom that is truly dialogical, I wouldn’t be giving a lecture, but my students would be engaging in a discussion about why they use or do not use that word. In addition, any acknowledgement of tension that may arise from what is said in the classroom or what happens at school is discouraged by the administration at my school. There should be no deviation from the standard curriculum. I agree with Fecho’s suggestion to recognize and work through tension in the classroom, and I think that this should ideally begin with administration recognizing and working through the tension that exists throughout the school and involves administrators, teachers, and students. In this way, teachers will be more likely to discuss tension within their classrooms without a fear of someone catching them “taking a detour” from the scheduled lesson plan.

            Fecho points out in Chapter 5 that “far too many books on education are written as if teaching is not a messy, complex process” (45) and further explains that this translates school districts that “saddle themselves with the concept of best practice” (46). In my experience as a teacher so far, everything that we are told to do has been called “data-driven” and “research-based”. In my frustration with the information that was being fed to me during my first year of teaching, I came across an article that relates to Fecho’s discussion in this chapter and has stuck with me. It is entitled “What would big data think of Einstein?” and warns us about our current obsession with following practices that are based on data from research. Many of the education practices are what the article calls “backward-looking”. In other words, they only analyze what happened in the past and fail to imagine what could happen in the future. If teachers were given more autonomy with their practices, then they could try out new ones and perhaps stumble upon something that works well for them. Big data is not the same as big ideas, and as Fecho states, teaching is a messy, fluid, and complex process that requires big ideas to be improved.

            In Chapter 6, Fecho explains the importance of wobble. When wobble occurs, something is changing, and we must respond to it. Fecho states that “wobble grabs the person’s attention and compels some level of reflection on the contexts that created that belief system’ (54). In my experience, it has been hard to get wobble to occur in my classroom. I naively thought that my students would be interested in how I learned Spanish and my experiences living in a foreign country, where many of my moments of wobble occurred. However, many of them seem to dismiss what they have not been exposed to, as is human nature. I think that exposure to different ways of life is essential for creating Fecho’s concept of wobble, and I am in search of new and creative ways to give my students this type of exposure despite the fact that our resources are limited.

CORE CLASS: Fecho Ch. 4-6 Response

Teaching for the Students:  Habits of Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom (2011) 

by Bob Fecho

 

Chapter four strives to make teachers understand that tension is a part of the learning process.  Furthermore, a dialogical classroom seeks to use this tension to its advantage by allowing students "...opportunities for insight into language, rhetoric, argumentation, and active listening" (p. 41).  Although I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of a dialogical classroom and have actively tried to create such a classroom in my years of teaching, I feel very insecure about my abilities in providing an appropriate framework.  It is very difficult not to use my power as a teacher to "set students straight" or comment on an offensive word or stance.  How do I guide these tension-filled discussions while not interfering in such a way that my students will shut down?  As I did in the previous chapters, I long for guidance from the author on how to effectively navigate the tense waters that develop in a classroom.  Because the author hasn't provided any specific on framing classroom dialogue thus far, it is difficult for me to see how students will gain insight into rhetoric, for example. 

Chapter five states "...you can't be worried that all will not go as planned.  Frequently such is the case.  What matters is what you do once some complexity arises in the classroom.  From my stance, ignoring or minimizing the issue is rarely the most appropriate direction to take" (50). Again, I wholeheartedly agree with Fecho's statement above, but I am left wondering how to respond or re-direct a discussion when a complexity arises.  I feel that knowing how to do this is crucial in establishing a dialogical classroom.

In chapter six, Fecho brings up a key point on classroom safety when exploring tension and complex ideas that may feel unsafe or risky to participants.  He asserts that "...rather than keeping students safe from such discomfort, the dialogical teacher trusts the process to make it safe to experience such uncertainty" (56-57).  This point really struck a chord in me and made me wobble a bit myself.  I have always prided myself in making my classroom a safe environment for my students, a place where they can be themselves and expect to both give and receive respect from me and their peers.  I reiterate this idea to them throughout the school year.  I explain to them that through the course of the year they become my children whom I love.  Consequently, I view them as brothers.  Any hurtful words or actions they hurl against their brother hurts me as if they were saying or doing that directly to me.  Over the years this has worked very well in terms of providing a bully-free classroom.  Many students also feel comfortable confiding in me about issues they are going through in their academic and/or personal life and often seek my advice.  However, I now wonder if this "safe from" environment that I have worked so hard to create is actually stifling class discussions.  I find it difficult to get my students to participate in discussion, even if it's merely to present an opinion on a generic, relevant topic.  I know that I am cautious during discussions and I know that they are, too.  Perhaps I need to work on creating a "safe to" classroom instead.

Fecho Ch. 1-3 Key Points

In the first chapter of Teaching for the Students, Bob Fecho laments that our education system often views students one-dimensionally and treats them according to their perceived ability based on test scores. In the chapter he states, “If we perceive Marisol to be a good student, then she is most always viewed in terms of the strengths she brings to learning. However, if we perceive her as a struggling student, then the focus becomes what she is incapable of doing (12)” This quote really resonated with me because of how students are viewed at Miami Central. Recently, a selection of students in the 9th and 10th grade were labeled the “Hot 30” meaning that their interim scores in reading project that they are the most likely to pass the FCAT in the spring. These students have been given extra attention by interventionists, are being sent to reading camps, and even got specially designed t-shirts to pump them up before the FCAT. This type of blatant categorization makes the group of selected students assume that they are better than their peers and causes the students who were not selected to assume that they will fail the test no matter how hard they work. In my brief experience as a teacher at Central, I have found that this type of labeling students as a “good student” or a “bad student” severely affects students’ performance and attitude towards learning. For example, I have noticed that students who have always been labeled as “gifted” assume that every time they raise their hand they will have the “right” answer. This makes them less likely to consider other students’ perspectives who are not in the same “gifted” category as they are. In addition, students who are made to believe that they are “low” do not want to contribute their opinions in class. This is unfortunate because it creates a learning environment in which students are not willing to make themselves uncomfortable in order to grow intellectually. Sometimes those students who are labeled as “gifted” have just learned to follow the patterns of the curriculum and regurgitate information on tests. On the other hand, some of the students who have been labeled as “low” think unconventionally and may have a unique perspective to share in class. Ultimately, this simplistic view of students that Fecho criticizes discourages the dialogue that is necessary for students to think critically.

In chapter two of this book, Fecho calls into question the current tendency of teachers to merely transmit information to students. He describes the transformation of his classroom into an environment in which students were, “producing and acting upon our own ideas- not consuming those of others (22)”. Especially in underperforming schools, there seems to be an emphasis on catching students up and making sure that they are being fed the same information as students in high-performing schools. While it is important to teach the canon so that students are not lost when they find themselves competing against students at higher performing schools, there is often a lack of acknowledgement of these students’ unique experiences that would help them to interpret content from new perspectives. For example, the meaning that students from low-income communities generate from The Great Gatsby may be entirely different from the meaning that students from wealthier communities create because there is a great contrast in their cultures and life experiences. However, both groups of students can make meaningful connections to the themes in the book and can produce and act upon their own ideas in the process of reading and interpreting the novel.

In the third chapter, Fecho explains that he views writing as interconnected, meaning that what he writes today is a reflection of what he has written in the past and what he will write in the future. This view on writing made me think of the value of having students do a portfolio as a form of assessment. Traditionally, each writing piece in school is seen as a separate entity, and we often don’t look to a writing piece from our past to help us with a writing piece that is due in the future. This is because writing pieces are often seen as assessments of our understanding rather than something from which we can also generate meaning. I think that having students make a portfolio of their writing and reflecting on the pieces that they include in it provides an opportunity for students to view their writing as a more fluid process from which they can draw conclusions about themselves and the commonalities of the varied texts that they have read throughout the year.

CORE CLASS: Fecho Ch. 1-3 Response

Teaching for the Students:  Habits of Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom (2011) 

by Bob Fecho

In the first chapter of the aforementioned title, Fecho states, "Every learner and his or her teacher should have an honest sense of the range of the student's abilities" (12).  Although he made a few key points in the first chapter of the book, this point really resonated with me.  As a high school English teacher for almost a decade, I can honestly say that it is not necessarily the work that my students do in class that shows me what the range of their abilities are, it is the personal connection I make with them throughout the year.  Sometimes the opportunity to connect with my students is facilitated by an assignment, but if I take an honest look at my classroom, those opportunities are rare.  Despite my efforts to be creative (and more recently, student-centered) the reality is that I teach in an environment where learning and assessing follow a mostly traditional model.  I have experimented with a blended flipped classroom model this year and moved away from the traditional lecture-read text-discuss-assess model, but no matter how creative I am, my students are still assessed traditionally.  Quizzes and tests focus on their deficiencies:  how many facts they remembered correctly or how well they were able to structure an analytical argument on a text based on our class discussions.  Admittedly, I don't have the power to eliminate traditional methods of assessment in my classroom, but after pondering this key point I am beginning to think that perhaps I could place less importance on them somehow, perhaps I could afford more rich opportunities for assessment that would allow my students to develop proficiency by using their hidden strengths, rather than punishing them for their deficiencies.

In Fecho's second chapter, he examines what he deems as the three key elements of the dialogical classroom:  inquiry, critique, and dialogue.  When discussing dialogue, he states that "As a teacher, I need to be open to response that counters, challenges, or even offends my own" (24).  Personally, although I try my best to do this, I find it one of the most challenging aspects of teaching.  Fecho provides an example of a student who made a misogynistic comment during a discussion of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  He mentions not using his authority to "banish such talk and thus banish dialogue(24)" and instead "humbly acknowledging the student response through a more dialogical response(25)", but he doesn't provide any specifics about how he accomplished this in this particular instance.  He makes an excellent point that banishment would "drive ideas underground where they wouldn't be turned over, examined, and perhaps reconsidered (24)" and I wholeheartedly agree with him, but I am left wondering exactly how to avoid doing just that.  I feel that this point is crucial in trying to develop and manage a successful dialogical classroom, but after reading this chapter I feel unprepared to handle a situation such as the one above in the manner in which he prescribes.  It is my hope that perhaps he will address this issue in more detail in later chapters.

On page 32, Fecho asserts, "Unless learners are engaged in the process, assessment is largely monological and, significantly for this chapter interactional.  It is mostly something done to the disempowered."  To me, this point related to the first key point I discussed.  In order to build a truly transactional classroom, traditional assessment must be reexamined and redesigned. Moreover, students should be empowered in this process of reworking assessments so that rather than being one-sided and punitive, the assessment of knowledge can be a dialogue that offers "supportive feedback, raises intriguing questions, and sets realistic goals while engaging teachers and learners simultaneously" (33).  Without changing the way we assess our students, we can't truly transform our classrooms into a generative environment.