Anna's ENGL493 Blog

My thoughts on The Round House I loved reading The Round House. I do understand how it is a young ADULT novel, because there are some topics that are controversial, such as rape, political issues, and racial issues. I personally would be hesitant teaching this book because of the graphicness of the novel. However, if I were to get the novel approved by administration, then I would be happy to teach the novel. The events that follow the rape are hard to read; they are also true facts. It is often a true thing that women (and some men) face when they are raped; they are afraid to tell anyone, including law enforcement, even if they know who the perpetrator is. There is often a depression that follows the rape, such as not wanted to get out of bed. I think that this book would make students aware that this happens in life, and that they need not be sheltered from this anymore. I think that parents would be on the fence about this book, but I think that it is important to educate stud...

My thoughts on....  I Read It, But I Don’t Get It When reading I Read It, But I Don’t Get It, the first section that caught my eye was the section on already learning things in elementary school. I personally have heard secondary teachers say this to me, as I was not the best reader in elementary school and this reflected on my abilities in middle and high school. I think that it is important that teachers not assume things about their students; for example, one of their students could be English Language Learners in high school, and they are just now learning to read. Of course, this wasn’t taught to them in elementary school, because school was learned in another language for them. Later in the section, it was talked about to assign books and readings that students will like. If they don’t like the reading, then they probably won’t read it or even take interest in the reading. How are students supposed to take interest in a reading if they don’t understand it? By assigning ...

City of Bones Summary: City of Bones is one of six books that make up the Mortal Instruments Series. City of Bones is the gate to a fascinating world of fantasy, following the path of a fifteen-year-old girl named Clary Fray. Her life starts out as fairly ordinary. She lives with her mother in New York and was pursuing getting into Art School. On her sixteenth birthday, however, everything changes. Clary goes to a nightclub with her best friend, Simon, and witnesses a “murder,” which understandably freaks her out. Clary sees two people with strange swords stabbing someone else, which resulted in the victim completely vanishing. She runs away and is later found by Simon who convinces Clary that what she saw was a hallucination or that maybe she was drugged. As Clary hopes that her life gets back to normal, she goes to a poetry reading with Simon the next day. There, Clary sees one of the murderers and insists that he talks to her in the alley. He agrees. Come to find out, the “mu...

My thoughts on... Making Good Choices (edTPA) I do not have a lot of background on the edTPA, or the TPA lesson plan format for that matter. I wish the introductory classes like EDUC 303/309 would have been more informational on this subject. I almost think there could be a class specifically on teaching future teachers about the edTPA. This document helped a lot with explaining the directions and what exactly is expected of students to complete the edTPA. I thought that it was interesting that we would not be scored on spelling/grammar specifically, but rather we would be scored on the professionalism and how clear the edTPA would be. I also thought it was interesting that there was a page limit, which I personally think may be challenging when I actually make my lesson plan. At first I was glad that there was a page limit because I didn’t think that it would be too difficult to shorten down a lesson plan. However, this is simply not the case. Knowing myself, I tend to go down a r...

My thoughts on… “Five Essential Components for Social Justice Education” In my independent research for social justice in the classroom, I came across an article talking about the social and political climate and how such a thing can relate to the educational field and the classroom itself. I liked this article because it caused me to immediately think of a civics classroom or a current world affairs classroom where a teacher, or me in the future perhaps, can impact students in their senior year with regards to the political and social climate of today and the future. The article also touches on how educators can teach social justice while also empowering education and its students. The article defines the five essential components to be: “tools for content mastery, tools for critical thinking, tools for action and social change, tools for personal reflection, and tools for awareness of multicultural group dynamics.” It is noted, however, that these five components are not the so...

My thoughts on... The International Journal of Learning I did have prior knowledge that the media affects different cultures differently. However, I did not have the knowledge that the media and advertisements affect these same people in such negative ways. It is unfortunate that the media influences and disempowers urban youth, thus effecting their performance not only in their every-day lives, but also in the classroom. I LOVE that the article stated that schools either need to, or schools have already started to teach students about the media and how to interpret different messages, good or bad. I vaguely remember learning about media in high school, but quite honestly, it is the lessons in ENGL 101 and 201 that impacted me more. (Which not every child has access to college) I do agree that the media needs to be understood. If commercials, billboards, posters, etc. are hard for adults to understand, then imagine how hard the media is for young people to understand. Young adult...

My thoughts on..... Pedagogy  The Pedagogy was extremely insightful and aligns with a lot of my own ideals about teaching. I’ve touched on this in a past discussion, but students are people too and teachers/administration need to treat students as such. Some people think that school is a place to go where the teacher is supposed to lecture and speak at his/her students all day while the students just sit and listen. Some think that students should not ask questions and simply understand the lesson right away. Some think that students are just things going through a factory of learning (an assembly line) and hoping to make it to the end of the line (graduation). I especially liked the quote “The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication.” Thinking is something that someone has to do for themselves; thinking c...