Becca

__**The Situation**__ The amount of encounters, conversations, and corrections that a teacher makes during the school day are endless. Therefore, teachers often speak without thinking or fail to reflect before making a comment. Last week I taught the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" to my 3rd hour student assisting class. While I read to the class, a students turned around and stared talking to the student behind him. I shot him a few annoyed glances but he failed to pick up on my body language. Therefore, in response to his lack of concern with my glances I blurted out in front of the entire class "Donte please turn around and pay attention." Immediately Donte turned around in his seat and I could tell that he was embarrassed. Feeling horrible I continued reading the story and did not approach the issue again.

I think that this while scenario rooted from my nerves as a beginning teacher. Going into the lesson I was already nervous about teaching, and the last thing I wanted was to lose classroom control. I had several things going through my mind from the content I was teaching to the class' reaction to my teaching. Therefore without thinking and desperately wanting to maintain classroom control I called Donte out in front of the entire room. I think this ties back to my inexperience and underlining fears as a beginning teacher. I constantly question, are students going to respect me, am I going to keep their attention, or do they even care about what I have to say? Therefore, I believe I called Donte out without thinking because of these underlaying fears. In terms of the implications for my actions, I believe stress is a key contributer. Between my classes in the college of ed and my placement, so much information is coming my way and I am having a difficult time sorting it out. In short, my mind is overflowing and I am trying to execute all of these great ideas at the same time. As a result, my mind becomes chaotic and I fail to focus on simple things like reflect before I talk.
 * Why did it Happen? What did it Mean? What are the implications?**

If I were to go back a re-do this event I most certainly would not call Donte out in the middle of class. Instead, while reading, I could simply place my hand on his shoulder and communicate with him non-verbally. This takes care of the situation for the time being, and if the distraction continues I can simply pull him aside and talk to him one-on-one. There should be very few times that a teacher needs to call a students out in the middle of class, and I need to be aware of alternative ways to approach these in-class distractions.

[Becca, I respect how thoughtfully and seriously you attend to this one, in-class comment. You are also thoughtful about the pressures on you, and about your desire to succeed in teaching. Knowing as I do how little time you had to prepare to teach this lesson, and how anxious that must have made you, I really respect the openness with which you recognize and learn from your frustrated approach to Donte. I wondered all week whether your CT asked you to teach any more lesson, and whether you ever had a talk with her about how much time you would like in advance to prepare. Did you teach your lesson last Friday on The Necklace? I look forward to hearing about it in class. I also look forward to discussing how to build a sense of security that can carry us through stressful situations. -LE]

__**The Situation**__ I knew that from the second day in my placement that Brandon was a very concerned student. He set very high standards for himself and became very self critical when he failed to obtain these standards. I first witnessed this on the second day of class when Brandon forgot to get his syllabus signed. He walked into the classroom before school started and said "Mrs. DeRuiter, I forgot to get my syllabus signed. I know that it is my responsibility and there is really no excuse, but I don't want you to think that I am irresponsible because I'm not." Therefore, I was not surprised when Brandon approached us after class to question a grade. Today, when Mrs. DeRuiter and I handed back back the Ship Trap Maps, Brandon approached us, concerned about his grade. He had gotten and 89% on the project and was very upset. We confirmed the grade and explained to him why he received a B+ and he was almost in tears. He begged for the opportunity to fix the assignment and we explained to him that it was still early in the trimester and there will be extra credit opportunities. He left the class very distraught about the final outcome, only seeing that one grade and nothing else.

I think that this happened because there is a great deal of pressure on students to succeed. Whether this pressure comes from parents, schools, or society the pressure is there. Because of these pressures, kids often remain in competition with each other and hold a high level of stress. Therefore, I think that Brandon's behavior is a direct result of the pressure he feel to succeed. In terms of the implications for this, well ideally the emphasis needs to shift from grades to actual learning an exploration, but that is unrealistic. I honestly do not know what the implications for this issue are. If we teach students to work less competitively and not focus so much on the grade, are we hurting them? We live in competitive educational system the focuses on grades and test scores, and to change that is to change an entire societal norm. The truth is kids need get good grades and be competitive to succeed, so I am at a stalemate.
 * Why did this happen? What does it mean? What are the implications?**

[Hmmm, I see the dilemma. You are right, learning as a process and learning as a product are sometimes in tension if students stop taking risks because they are afraid to fail, or if they carry high levels of stress that might actually inhibit their creative, critical thinking and ability to remember what is taught by making personal connections to the material. Has your CT ever tried self-assessment? Perhaps in your unit, you could ask students to participate in goal-setting with you, creating a common rubric for assessing their writing, for example, by looking at a high quality sample for them to emulate. Students could then assess themselves according to the rubric and write an analysis. It might be good to REQUIRE that students identify a growth area for their own writing, and not use this against them. These are just some ideas, I hope we have a rich discussion about this in the future. -LE]

After transferring to Kentwood Public School one week after school already started, Tatyanna was already behind the other students. The day she arrived in class, I filled her in on everything that she missed the previous week and indicated the material that she needed to read on her own. As the weeks went on, Tatyanna fell further behind in class, not turning any of her work in and bombing all of the tests. In response to her lack of success in class, my CT and I decided to test her for her reading level. We sent her down to take an SRI test and her results indicated that she reads at 1st grade level. Currently we are brainstorming ideas about how to help her because she had not been identified as special education. The accommodation classes are currently full but if she stays in our class without additional help, I don't think she will make it.
 * __The Situation__**


 * Why did this happen? What are the implications?**
 * I think this happened because Tatyanna is a very quiet student who has moved around to several school. Therefore, because she is not a behavior problem in the classroom, it is possible that she got lost in the system. Because she transfered from school to school, not teachers really for a read on her abilities and her learning struggles were never addressed. I think that the implications for this event for this event would be to place her in a mentor or team taught class where she can get extra help. In addition, Tatyanna needs to be tested for special education do if she does have a learning disability she can receive special education services as well. **

[Becca, how excellent to see you intervening for Tatyanna, trying to identify and then provide the resources that she needs to succeed. I'm interested in hearing whether your school decided to support her with her current schedule or transfer her to another class. -LE]

__**The Situation**__ For the past three days I have taken over a small unit on //The Odyssey// in my placement. For the most part, students responded very well to the switch in teachers and teaching styles. Although most students adjusted well, I have one student that I feel like I battle with everyday. While he resisted Mrs. DeRuiter when she taught and asked him to do things, he remains much more defiant with me. In particular, today I started a project with students for part II of //The Odyssey//. I sectioned off the reading and asked kids to read the text individually and take notes, which they would then perform in a skit with group members. When I walked over to Marte's desk, he had written nothing. Therefore I asked him to to take notes on the material. In response to my request, he looked right at me and said "no". I was in complete shock and did not know how to respond. I am not sure if we are not holding high enough expectations for him or if he is just not feeling challenged with the class.

After giving this situation a great deal of thought, I think it happened because of the need for attention and higher expectations. Marte comes from a really rough family that don't seem to care about him or his education. Therefore, it is possible that he acts out to gain attention from his teachers. At the same time, because Marte remains a discipline problem, teachers often expect less from him. In a way, Marte's actions and the teachers' responses cause a chain reaction. Marte is not getting the attention at home, therefore he act out in class which leads to teachers holding him to lower standards for him. Therefore, because of these lower expectations and teachers "giving up" on him, Marte resorts back to his defense mechanism, defying authority and keeping people at an emotional distance. I might be way off with this claim but I think this is why it happened. As for the implications for his actions, I honestly am clueless. I've tried several things like having one-on-one conversations with him, ignoring him, and reminding him to get back to work. He has not responded well to any of this. Right now I am at a loss of ideas and I am open to any suggestions.
 * Why did this happen? What are the implications?**

Becca, It sounds like you have already tried several strategies to motivate Marte and to hook his interest in school. You ask for suggestions, and I don't have any surefire ones, but it does seem possible that talking one on one again to Marte, with the aim of having him set some modest goals for his own learning, might help a bit. What are Marte's goals in life? Where does he want to be in 5 years? Most students do their work bc they know they want to graduate and either get a job or go to college. If students don't have these goals, either teachers have to inspire them to imagine themselves as HS graduates, or help students set more immediate goals that will be satisfying. Perhaps even with small rewards. If Marte does his in class work, what might the rewards be? How can he learn to reward himself after setting and achieving small goals? Just a thought, -LE

__** The Situation **__ Throughout the trimester my CT has presented students with plot maps of the various readings. While the plot maps might work as a useful tool for teaching the elements of fiction, students fail to understand the purpose of these plot maps. Sadly, my CT only excepts one right answer for the plot map sections. Therefore, she teaches that they can only be one inciting action, one climax, one conclusion, and so on. The other day I worked in the hall with students who hadn't finished their plot maps for the Cyclops. The students voiced their frustration with the plot maps, and one student even stated, "I understand what the elements of fiction are, but I can never get the same answer as the teacher. I hate this class." After hearing the students' comment I felt like we failed them in a way. I wanted to tell him that literature is very subjective and as long as you can provide textual evidence for an answer it is right, but I just let it go.

I think this happened out of pure frustration. The student did not understand why his answers are wrong, an in reality it wasn't. As teachers we can not provide a clear reason why it is one answer over another because there are several possible answers. Therefore, the student's comment, "I hate this class," was based on his frustration. The students did not understand why his answers were wrong and could not figure out how to get to the "right" answer. I think that the implications for this situation are clear. The teacher needs to teach students that with literature there can be several different answers. The key to a right answer is backing it up with clear textual evidence. Therefore, there might be several inciting actions based on the student's' interpretation of the text. By teaching students how to answer questions based on textual evidence, they can think critically about the text and not worry about getting one specific answer. Perhaps through this they might enjoy the literature more and feel free to interpret without consequence.
 * Why did this happen? What are the implications?**

Becca, I've thought a lot about those plot maps since you described them, and remain convinced that I might fail them also because I tend to see questions from a variety of angles. Whereas I've found this skill of generating multiple perspectives useful in life, your students are not encouraged to practice it. I agree with you that it seems like the skill of making an interpretive claim and justifying it with textual evidence is the skill that should be taught here. It seems like your CT is trying to teach this skill, but believes that the text only supports one possible claim. In math, there may be only one "right answer" to the problem, but I respected teachers who gave partial credit for the thinking and the steps taken correctly along the way--even if a calculation error undermined the final result. It's also sad to me that literature isn't taught as the launch for rich discussion and debate in this class, but approached as a problem to be solved. -LE

__**The Situation**__ This week my CT and I started teaching //Romeo and Juliet// to out freshmen English students. Before starting Act I my CT went over reading requirements with the class. One of the expectations of students is that everyone must participate in the reading of the play. Previous to my CT presenting these requirements I explained to her that I made a promise to myself as a teacher that I would never call on a student to do a cold reading without anytime to prepare. Therefore I asked her if I could assign reading roles the night before so that those students who have a fear or reading out loud can prepare. She told be that I could not do this arguing that students will have to do impromptu reading throughout their lives. She then argued that we have established a safe enough classroom community for students to feel comfortable. I had several reactions to this (all or which I kept to myself of course). My first reaction was that I understood that students might be asked to preform a cold reading at some point in their life, but Shakespeare was not a good way to prepare them for this. My second reaction was, how have we built a classroom community that guarantees safety to your students. Ironically, that was one of the my biggest turnoffs to her classroom, the lack of community building. The first day we went over rules and expectations and that was it. I truly believe that our classroom is not a safe community in many ways, and it kills me to break the one promise I made to myself as a teacher.

I think this happened because Mrs. DeRuiter fully believes that she is helping the students. She thinks that this is the best way to prepare them for success. I also think that she thinks she built a safe classroom community with the amount of time she spent on community building. Therefore, I understand why she made the rule that students should do cold readings with Shakespeare. In terms of the implications for this, I think that we should re-visit and analyze what we are asking students to do and ask ourselves, is this really preparing students for the future. Chances are, no it's not. Therefore students should have time to prepare before reading so they don't feel as uncomfortable on stage. For my final paper on a lesson that I taught I am going to do Act IV of //Romeo and Juliet//. Specifically, I plan to analyze students' understanding of the language by administering and pre-test and a final test on a specified scene of Act IV. The pre-test will involve around four sentences that students will need to translate. They will translate these sentences before the class reads and then after. While we read, I will make sure to explain those sentences and talk through them with students. I also think I will wait until the next day to administer the post-test so that students don't simply cope the same exact answer that they wrote in the beginning of the hour. This is my biggest fear, that students will not take the test seriously and give me the same answers again the second time around. But other than that, I think this form of assessment measures student progress very well. Read aloud one section from //Romeo and Juliet// and write about what they think it means. Talk about it in groups, read it, and then write about what they think it means at the end. Example, What is Romeo feeling in the passage, why is he feeling this way?
 * Why did this happen? What are the implications?**
 * Pre-Test Plans **

__**Multiple Intelligences**__ As an English major, I've had to write several courses for my classes. While I learned to accommodate my intelligences to these papers, I still have intelligences that benefit and hinder me as a writer. The intelligences that benefit me as a writer are intrapersonal and existential. Once of my strongest intelligences is intrapersonal and this helps when it comes to peer editing and group discussion about a topic. The conversations help me expand my ideas as a writer and think about ideas in a different way. In addition existential intelligence helps me analyze material and create a compelling argument. I see beyond the text and and begin questioning and challenging. As for my weaknesses, I am not very musical which effects the flow and sound of my paper. Sometimes my writing lacks "music" or style and does not flow very well. I blame this on my weakness as a musical learner.

Becca,

Once again, it was a pleasure watching you teach on Friday. I am always fascinated by the challenges that a teaching situation presents. You had your share of challenges, several tied to your earlier post about being required to ask students to read without prior preparation. I must say that my convictions lie with yours. I think that if the students who read had practiced the night before, they would have benefitted by the study (reading and studying the text--isn't that our greatest dream?) and their classmates would have benefitted by hearing/seeing a performance that interpreted the text through vocal intonation and expression. I think everyone's comprehension would have been increased.

I was quite interested with your intelligences-self-assessment above. I can see how interpersonal (between persons) intelligence can help you if you are given the chance to peer-edit and discuss ideas with classmates. I even wondered whether interpersonal intelligence helps you to imagine your audience even if no audience is present. Imagining the audience well helps to address the audience well, crafting the argument in ways that they would understand/like. Interestingly, I think this is sometimes a weakness of my own writing work. I have interpersonal intelligence sometimes, but it can get trumped by my intrapersonal (within myself) and existential thinking and then I lose touch with my imagined reader. Interesting stuff!