Reflections of Senior English

I have decided to trim the fat and work with one of my cooperating teachers exclusively.  I haven’t talked to Bond or Nicholson about this decision or my other coop teacher for that matter, but Ms L, who I really want to work with exclusively, has given me her consent, and really that’s all that matters:)! 

I was able to help a student today in writing a poem modeled after the Langston Hughes poem “I Have Known Rivers”.  I was amazed at her creativity and the astuteness of her observations about her life and the world around her.  It made me think about the need as teachers to raise the expectations we have of all students, of the need to introduce our students to increasingly challenging literature and writing exercises that allow them to write and think about their experiences and their world from multiple perspectives. 

In my methods class last night, we were shown a video in which veteran teachers discussed emergence strategies, getting students to ask questions to reveal the deeper meanings in the literature they read.  The teachers in the video were really defending the value of literature studies as a way for us to see the world from multiple perspectives; literature can be a lens through which we see the world and ourselves, granting us the benefit of a deeper, richer, and fuller understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.  This rationale for the teaching of literature is one that I agree with wholeheartedly.  I want my students to understand that the skills and understanding that they can develop in themselves have worth beyond passing a class or graduating high school–they can lead to a broadening of thought and perspective that can take them anywhere they want to go in life.