Learning Letter

This class has been a great experience, and I’ve learned a lot though discussion, versus on my own, which I think is a good experience to gain from a class that can contribute to becoming a teacher. I think that teachers should teach and collaborate with both students and other teachers through discussion. Humans are a social species, which often learn though social, movement, and ultimately discussion. I liked the book talk aspect of the class, and I found it to be very helpful to acquire not only the books assigned to the class, but other books that my peers liked. I even got to add some books to my own fantasy collection. (I got to add more books to the pile that I have started) I liked the book about human trafficking, and the discussion that it started.

First off, I liked the book in general because it sounded interesting and I also think I would enjoy reading it for my own pleasure. Secondly, I think that students need to be aware of the evil in the world, so they can be prepared for it. As sad as that sounds, it is necessary. For example, school shootings are a very real threat to students today, so they are currently learning about them and how to prevent events like these from happening. So, if they are learning about horrible things such as this, then why can’t they learn about human trafficking. Sure, I would argue for this book to be read at a later age, preferably in high school. Perhaps juniors or seniors could read this sort of book. However, I would also argue that younger aged in high school could read this book because even they are learning about situations such as school shootings. Students need to know about what is happening around them, and what is essentially targeting them because they are children. Human trafficking does happen with adults, but children are the main target, so why not prepare students for the worst?

I thought that my book talks went well, considering that one of the books was about a historical event, and another was one of my personal favorite books. Presenting on The Things They Carried prepared me for the three-week lesson plan, as that novel was the primary book I would be focusing on. This novel also allowed me to incorporate both history and English in a way that makes sense and allowed the class to discuss possible options for a combined-subject class. I also was happy to see the conversation on future classrooms, and how they may be project based learning, and often times combined with more than one subject in one class. The second book talk on the City of Bones went well because I got to talk about my favorite genre, fantasy. I got to nerd-out in class and still get credit for it. I liked having a conversation on something that I personally liked and got to share it with the class. I know a lot of my peers were not interested, but those of us who liked fantasy had a good conversation. Also, I was excited to talk about possibly having a fantasy club, where there would be a lit circle, but for fantasy.