MET project; Smagorinsky Chapter 6

The MET video I was responsible for tagging this week was much different than any of the other MET videos I have tagged thus far. Specifically, the teaching style I observed was very distinct, but not one that I am unfamiliar with or have never experienced as a student. The teacher in the video seemed more focused on harshly disciplining the students for minor disruptions and the like rather than actually teaching the day’s material. Although I understand that each classroom must function in its own nature based on the makeup of the class, I could not help but think that this disciplinary style of teaching only would make the students want to act out more. The teacher was less interested in hearing what the students had to say as she was in making sure they were saying it at the “appropriate volume level,” and at one point she took a female student outside to give her a pretty hard time about having to sign out of class early for a personal, family reason! I know that discipline is important in any classroom, but I did not agree with some of the ways in which this specific teacher went about it.

As for this week’s readings, I really enjoyed reading Smagorinsky’s Chapter 6 on Refining the Unit Focus. I think this is primarily due to the fact that so much of what we are learning in this class about teaching is new to me, so I sincerely appreciate all of the knowledge I can gain from all of our reading materials. I found Smagorinsky’s reminder that for any course the teacher should have a limited set of overarching concepts to be useful in preparing to compose my first lesson because, at this point in the course, I definitely need to limit my own confusion of the subject matter and to stay focused on the goals I want my students to work toward over the course of a unit. Smaorinsky’s distinction between “in-process texts and activities” and “culminating texts ad activities” was also helpful in thinking about how my first lesson draft should differ from the first draft of my culminating assessment, and also how I can incorporate in-process texts into my lessons. I believe this will contribute to my students’ ability to produce satisfying culminating texts and activities. Finally, I would really like to use Smagorinsky’s suggestion and discussion of student-generated discussions in one of the lessons I draft for this course. I see classroom discussion as one of the most vital aspects of learning, and a related kind of assignment would be to teach students how to generate heir own questions for whole-class discussions of literature.

Whitney Kouvaris