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.

Bob Fecho- Key points

After reading Bob Fecho's book, Teaching for the Students Habits if Heart, Mind, and Practice in the Engaged Classroom, several key points resonated with me. I will highlight the three key points I thought were most relevant to my classroom needs, and would help be better my practice.

Chapter 1
Fecho states " If we want to imagine and educational system that prepares current learners to exist in a future world that is evolving at the speed of imagination, we need one that is generative, that sees learning as meaning making and not as meaning inheriting."

We focused a lot on student centered activities during the first half of our term. This key point sums up our term quiet well. In order for our students to compete in a world rapidly evolving, they must be an active participant in their education and learn to generate their own meaning needed to make sense of concepts taught in school. In order to accomplish this, teachers must move past lectures and feeding students information. Students must find ways to process information and generate ideas about the topic once given information. If teachers are always developing meaning for students, and telling them how to go about processing information, students will become dependent upon teachers to make sense of all information given to them. We expect students to think critically during assessments, when they are not given much opportunity to think critically through out the lesson. I thought by just providing students with engaging activities, and giving them options throughout the lesson I was being student centered and helping them think critically. In actuality it involves more than this. Fecho provided and example that I will try and adapt with each unit in order to help my kids become critical thinkers and discover meaning for themselves.
 Instead of teaching students about the characteristics of a Haiku, the teacher gives the students several examples of Haiku's and asks the students to discover what they have in common. Once students discover they all share the same structure 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, and all discuss nature in some form then they must create their own Haiku. This involves the students in their learning and forces them to come up with characteristics of a Haiku, then allows them to use what they learned to write one. This can be adapted to many literature concepts. If students are involved in discovering something new they are more likely to retain the information.

Chapter 2
Chapter two promotes dialogue as the center of instruction. Fecho uses ideologies found in Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed to support his stance.

Fecho includes, "For Freire dialogue existed at the intersection of love, humility, and faith and its only there that a horizontal relationship of mutual trust can exist, only there that playing table can be leveled." Then he goes on to point out, " The political realities of classrooms limit the amount of transformation teachers can engineer within the limits of four by four blacks, scripted lessons, decontextualized high stakes testing and the like.

This point resonated with me because as educators, I believe most of us enter the teaching profession beaming with love, humility, and faith that leads to trust. We are ready to light fires in our students, and we envision a dialogue rich environment, where learning everyone is engaged in the learning process. Then reality sets in and we become burdened by the "political realities of classrooms" and we allow those  realities to limit our capabilities. This is evident every single day we enter our classroom, and it is even more evident when we are learning new practices and rule them out due to the political realities getting in our way. Too many times we shut out great ideas because they will not work in our classroom due to "things out of our control". We must fine a way to bring back the love, humility, and faith. We must share it with our students and create a classroom full of the three. Only then will we be able to create mutual trust, and from there we can spark dialogue that will truly engage our students in their learning.

Chapter 3
Fecho discusses a transnational stance for classrooms.
According to Roseblatt (1995), a transnational stance for a classroom means, "supply students with the knowledge, the mental habits, and the impetus that will enable (them) to solve (their) problems." Additionally, "Schools and colleges should not be places where "ready-made formulas and fixed attitudes are taught but should instead provide a suitable context within which learner develop the will to learn."

This last point sums is how I want to lead my classroom. I want my students to have the tools to solve the problems they are presented with. I want them to be independent critical thinkers. I do not want to just provide them with my theories and logic, I want them to develop their own, and consequently develop a love for learning.

Post for March 10 class

         I found this week's reading on Schleppegrell and Oliveira's "An integrated language and content approach for history teachers" to be very interesting and thought provoking. For a few weeks now, we have been discussing as a class the notion that integrating language and content has pedagogic value, as the use of meaningful language will motivate students and enable content learning along with language learning. Before reading this week's article, however, I understood this concept merely on the surface level, but was not quite sure how the idea would actually function in a classroom context or how teachers would incorporate the relevant techniques. I found that Schleppegrell and Oliveira did an excellent job answering and explaining all of the questions a teacher new to this concept may have through their discussion of language and content approach in the secondary history classroom.
         The authors state that systematic functional linguistics is a theory that does not separately address language and content, but instead sees language as the realization of meaning in context. Prior to this reading, I think I was primarily focusing on the concept of addressing language in the classroom prior to or after addressing context, but not the two as one process together. The author's statement here, however, helped me realize that the the theory of systematic functional linguistics does not keep language and context separate, but uses the study of language to more thoroughly understand context. My mental approach to any additional readings or discussions related to this topic will be much different from now on.
         Finally, I found Schleppegrell and Oliveira's discussion of history specific techniques to be extremely relevant and similar in nature to legal analysis. The authors point out that teachers have remarked on the insights they gain into their students' understanding when they ask them to unpack complex nominal elements by trying to specify precisely, and in more "everyday language," the information presented. I ask my students to do this all the time, particularly with rigid statutory language, the Constitution itself, or even hundreds of years old case law. I find myself frequently saying, "Now how would you explain that in your own words?" or "How would you describe that to someone if you were speaking with them at a cocktail party?" This forces the students to actually break down and unpack the language, giving them a greater understanding of the meanings embedded in the text, rather than just assuming that reading the actual words is enough. 
         I also enjoyed the authors' discussion of the benefits here for both struggling and proficient readers. It is very important for all of my students to participate in the class' discussion of legal writing and analysis, so the fact that systematic functional linguistics can greatly benefit both types of readers is definitely a plus!

Whitney Kouvaris

Schleppegrell and O'Halloran

Schleppegrell and O'Halloran discuss our students’ great need to develop academic language skills, as this is the language that classes are taught and assessed with. Upon acknowledging that students have varying levels of proficiency in academic language, Schleppegrell and O'Halloran also recognize that many students who are still developing proficiency in this language, are typically placed in “mainstream classrooms” geared towards subject-area learning instruction. As discussed in the article, L2 students who might be able to speak more fluently still need to develop their reading, writing and language skills. Many of my students are only able to speak academically on a very basic level, one that Schleppegrell and O’Halloran might describe as having limited or intermediate proficiency in Standard English. I do have a few students who surpass this label, however the majority of my students do not.

Schleppegrell and O'Halloran argue that language instruction at a secondary level should be supported by “teachers with deep understanding of the language challenges of their content areas.” Unfortunately, teachers (including myself) have an insufficient understanding of how to assist our students in developing their linguistic awareness. As you know, the qualifications one must achieve to teach in Florida are not complex. People do not need to be trained in how to assist students in developing language skills, among many other things. This is extremely problematic as teachers lack education and professional development in instruction regarding language acquisition and its components. Exemplified in the case study of the 11^th grade student in an English development class, Schleppegrell and O'Halloran highlight how explicit teaching of academic language positively benefited teenage students with an intermediate proficiency in academic English. My students do not have an English language development class solely meant for their growth in these facets. Their classes are aimed at providing them with more basic skills to attempt to ensure their best performances on the FCAT. I think my students would benefit greatly from having a class like this, as I would suggest that all students who struggle with proficiency in academic English. The caveat I have to this recommendation is that someone would need to ensure that teachers are highly trained in this subject. I so frequently see teachers and administrators who are unknowledgeable about the subject they teach or oversee, or in academic language needed to be used in the subject area, or are less educated in how to use academic language themselves. Obviously, this is highly problematic.

Schleppegrell and O'Halloran suggest micro and macro level curricular planning of course, but prior to doing this it seems more important for teachers to be able to recognize how language can be used to achieve specific goals within their class. The article discusses how teachers who are most effective in their subjects are able to integrate language into their instruction and have created a long-term plan for their students’ increase in development of academic language proficiency over time. Schleppegrell and O'Halloran call attention to how most “mainstream content” teachers do not view themselves as language teachers. This becomes highly problematic for several reasons, including that these teachers may not view this type of instruction as their responsibility, might not be knowledgeable of academic language themselves or might not feel qualified to instruct students regarding this matter. Despite these issues, it becomes apparent as at it must become our charge to teach language regardless of what our subject is, as Schleppegrell and O'Halloran write that we are “best positioned to support students’ academic language development” as a result of our academic subject.

Reaffirming that teacher education programs (which are not even required in Florida) rarely prepare teachers to engage in language instruction in their classroom, Schleppegrell and O'Halloran recognize the challenges teachers face with this task. Despite this, we must learn to weave language instruction into our curriculum to address the struggles our students face in language learning. If we fail to do this and continue to limit ourselves to vocabulary instruction or basic language features, we will be doing our students a great disservice. Though my school frequently states that it is the role of all teachers to incorporate reading instruction into each subject’s curriculum, this is not always done. Perhaps it is the responsibility of our school to also provide us with more professional development on how to best assist our students with this type of instruction.

Teaching Academic Language in L2 Secondary Settings - Schleppegrell and O'Hallaron

Schleppegrell and O'Halloran’s work focuses on settings in which students are learning English in English-speaking contexts, and I teach Spanish to both English and Spanish speakers, so while the context of my classroom is different from the context of their research, I still think that some of the information in this article is applicable to my students. First, in my Spanish for Spanish Speakers classes there are many students who speak more of an informal, colloquial Spanish and do not know how to switch registers to a more formal Spanish because they lack academic language. Therefore, it would be beneficial for me to learn how to talk more explicitly about the features of language with my students so that they could understand how language is used in different genres of Spanish literature. For example, students could analyze the way language is used to influence narrative perspective in a picaresque novel versus the way it is used in a short story that has elements of magical realism.

            In addition to the benefits of having metalinguistic discussions with my students, they struggle greatly with written Spanish, and it would help me to understand the type of feedback that I should be giving them so that they can improve their academic language. The article describes a Systemic Functional Linguistics-based professional development program in which Language Arts teachers were trained on how to give feedback that was focused on “developing their linguistic resources for improving quality in their writing”. If I address students’ writing deficiencies as more of a problem with academic language and less as a program with grammar, then I think that genre-specific feedback on academic language features would help them to understand how to improve their writing and use language that is more appropriate for each assignment.

            Finally, my students need help with their oral language skills as well. This article discusses a social studies curriculum in which students worked on oral presentations in groups. In this setting, students can continue the discussion that the teacher has had with them about the academic language features that are needed to speak and write about whatever genre is being studied. When they are preparing their oral presentations, they will have to include the academic language that has been explicitly taught. This would fit in nicely with what I am teaching now because the discussion is centered on the genre of the book we are reading. If students were to present examples of characteristics of the picaresque genre, they would have to discuss the academic language that they would need to include in their presentation in order to deliver an appropriate presentation.

CORE CLASS: Teaching Academic Language in L2 Secondary Settings - Schleppegrell and O'Hallaron

What are the top three reasons your students would benefit from what Schleppegrell and O'Halloran write about and why?

As you know, the student population that I currently serve is quite different from those described in this article.  Although I may have one or two L2 students each school year, typically these students have already received English language instruction before moving to the United States and are functioning at a proficient level in both their language arts and content area courses.  That being said, I find that academic language can still present a challenge for those students along with my non-ELL students; this is where systemic functional linguistics (SFL) may be of use in my teaching.

One way in which my students would benefit from lessons that are based on SFL is that I will be better prepared to analyze and respond to their academic writing on literature. When my students have difficulty evaluating a character, for example, I tend to address those difficulties as a grammar issue, rather than a lack of academic language issue.  Learning how to address this issue from an SFL standpoint may give me the tools that I need to provide feedback on how to use academic language in their analysis of literature, rather than using the informal language they are accustomed to using in their everyday lives.

In addition to learning how to provide my students written feedback regarding academic language,  I realize that I should probably be explicitly teaching academic language as well.  The article mentioned a case study reported by Spycher (2007) where academic language was explicitly taught to 11th-grade students in order to "identify language features that students were attempting to use in their expository writing, but found challenging."  Included in these language features was the modeling, explanation, and practice of how to deconstruct text.  I found this especially interesting because although deconstructing poetry and prose to discover the author's purpose and/or meaning is quite commonplace, I have never considered the value in having my students deconstruct a text to evaluate academic language.  I can clearly see how this practice would help my students learn how to recognize academic language and then use it in their own writing.

Another area in which my students need to sharpen their use of academic language is in their oral presentations.  The article suggested focusing on spoken academic language by providing tasks where students could first use their informal language to cull information and then develop an oral presentation using academic language.  This idea seems like an ideal culminating assessment for a unit that has emphasized academic language.  I would first have students deconstruct texts to recognize and evaluate academic language in writing.  A follow-up lesson would be writing an analysis of a piece of literature using some of the academic language evaluated in the previous lesson.  Lastly, an oral presentation on the subject matter would provide students with the opportunity to not only use academic language in writing, but also in speaking.  Of course, these three lessons present a very basic framework in macro-scaffolding, but with some more education on SFL and attention to micro-scaffolding, I believe I can improve my students' use of academic language in both their writing and speaking.