Reflective Essay
Fifteen weeks ago when I entered “Teaching Reading and Literature with Young Adults,” I felt mildly content in my own skin as a future English teacher, but also knew that there is always room for growth and development, especially in the teaching field. However, as I have been heavily involved with this course, at its completion I have gained some comfort and can confidently say I have developed as an individual, a reader, and a future educator because of this course. At the very start of this class, I knew it was going to challenge me on a different level than ever before. I was up for the ride and as a result, the tasks, reflections, discussions, and enterprises I have completed during English 486 have paved a continuous pathway and have established stepping stones in my journey of becoming a successful educator in the field of English.
When I entered this course, it became apparent to me immediately that this course was going to challenge me more than just on an academic level; it was going to require me to really begin the discovery of who I already was and who I wanted to be as a future educator. Our first enterprise accentuated this notion as we had to really dig deep into our relationship with reading and learning in the process of creating the “Me Portfolio.” Having always been more comfortable on the “writing” side of English, this enterprise really forced me to sit down and, for lack of a better term, “figure out my issues with reading.” What I mean by this is that I had always loved the idea of reading and longed to be a obsessive reader, but due to my slow reading patterns, this “hindrance” caused me to become impatient with the act of reading. The “Me Portfolio” helped me to work out my struggles with reading and after recognizing my reading traits, I was able to take this awareness and view it more as an area for growth. By changing my perspective, I carried this with me throughout the course and because of it, have personally developed as a stronger and more excited reader! As this represents my current state as a reader and learner, it also defines and showcases my current state as a teacher of literacy. Throughout this course the notion was established that if we want our students to be lovers of reading, than we must be readers ourselves. Of course as a future educator I want my students to be readers, so really rekindling my love for reading was essential for not only me, but for all of my future students. Because of my personal recognition of myself as a reader and learner, this will transpire to my students’ growth to become confident learners and readers and will help me to analyze their reading patterns as I have analyzed my own. This will also help me to recognize and understand differences in student reading. As I immerse myself in literature and reading, this will make me a better teacher of literacy.
In addition to recognizing myself as a reader to better help my future students, although I have learned and created a surplus amount of understandings in the area of successful literacy teaching, I feel as though every single endeavor we completed all comes full circle to a holistic understanding of teaching literature. If I had to pinpoint one major understanding that has come from experiencing and completing the course enterprises and being involved in the discussions and lessons, it would be the fact that “successful literacy teaching requires an open mind and getting to know each student as an individual.” There are many contributing reasons, principles, and theories that have emerged from this course that explains and showcase this understanding. For one and tying to one of our course essential questions, this class has made me recognize the importance of tying different types of text into the English classroom and articulating proper exposure and practice in terms of successfully reading these diverse texts. These texts include graphic novels, film, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and picture books. Having the open mind to integrate different types of text into your classroom allows for a surplus amount of positive results in your classroom environment and for the growth of your students. This eclectic combination of texts acts as a means of creating a multitude of diverse resources that grasp all of your students’ interests, motivates all of your students, showcases that you are aware of their interests and what appeals to them, and allows you to teach in a way that exhibits connections that will create deeper and lasting student understanding. Also coinciding with this understanding and connecting to another essential question of the course is my developed principle and theory of the importance of student choice and say in the classroom. As guidelines are important for student success, so is the notion that students have a say and opinion about their learning, especially at an age where the world seems to be centered around their lives. It is also essential to indicate to students why they are learning what they are being taught to implement meaning and importance to their learning. Keeping an open mind of the life that will emerge from your classroom from both your students and your teaching and knowing each student on a personal level will showcase that you care about your teaching, but also about each student individually. This is necessary for many reasons, but mostly so that your students are comfortable in your room, trust you, and therefore will work hard for you. When your students are willing to do such that, this is when the best learning takes place, especially in the literacy classroom.
As previously mentioned, there were many enterprises, both large and small, that led me to this overall understanding of keeping an open mind and knowing your students as individuals. However, as this notion was percolating in my head from the time we started this course, this was solidified during our capstone project of the Reading Partner Profile. This project is central to the understanding established above and to all other understanding of teaching and learning reading and literature that propagated from this course. The Reading Partner Profile taught me so much and was such a useful means of practicing what we, as future English teachers, will all be doing with our future students. Not only did it require having an open mind as I worked with an individual with very different reading patterns and interests than me, but it also required getting to know an individual on a personal level so that you could better guide and foster their learning, our main objective as teachers. This project also accentuated the fact that in order to successfully help your students, your time, effort, and patience is required in order to properly accommodate and teach all of your students. This project has turned out to be one of the most essential “stepping stones” for my growth and development as a future educator, because it solidified my holistic literacy understanding and acts as the center point in which all other literacy understandings build.
The additional understandings that have emerged during my 15 weeks in this class coincide greatly with my grasping of the essential questions that were presented during the course’s first week. Exiting this course, I am now able to articulate answers to those essential questions in my own terms. There are multiple answers and new knowledge that have risen from these essential questions. For one, I now recognize reading as a life-long process, and that its process is more than just the exercise of reading words, but rather it generates emotion, expands perspectives, and creates an outlet for the reader to escape from their own shoes and slip into someone else’s. I have also learned that reading develops through practice and exposure to a multitude of texts, but also when we have the opportunity to discuss our reading with the others around us. This course also led me to the conclusion that there are many reasons as to why we read literature including to become stronger readers and to showcase the prevalence that literature has in our lives. I recognize that a main goal of mine in regards to teaching literature is to create an environment that will benefit my students and allow them to discover a happy medium of relating literature to other subjects and the students’ lives so that it deems important. This class has shaped my belief of the importance of creating a social, commutative, and safe environment for students to prosper in, but also so that they feel comfortable to share and learn in your presence and in the presence of their classmates. As future educators, we must understand our students deeply in terms of their individual strengths and weaknesses, so that we can create enterprises that support their growth, not stunt it. Additionally, I now recognize that in order to support and challenge struggling readers, a diverse collection of teaching methods, assessments, and connecting specifically to literature, expanding our classroom libraries with a surplus amount of different reading levels, genres, and texts allows for all students, no matter what reading-level, gender, or ethnicity, is needed for student growth.
In conclusion, this course has led to many important breakthroughs about myself as a reader and learner, but also has acted as a foundation for my growth and development in terms of how I will teach in the future. Many life-lessons as well as skills, methods, and components were accumulated during this course, and they will all help to guide my future endeavors as a teacher of English. English 486 has provided me the opportunity to recognize my strengths and weaknesses as an individual, especially in terms of having a strong drive and willingness to accommodate all my future students, but weak in the area of being too much of a perfectionist at times to accept the fact that a series of failures need often to occur for success to eventually predominate. This course has allowed me to rekindle my love for reading. I thank Dr. Shea for igniting my excitement to teach reading, and enabling me to accommodate the individuals that will be in my classroom by recommending all different types of text and genres. As Dr. Shea has hinted, we are on a pathless way on our journey to becoming English teachers. There is always room for growth and development, and I cannot wait to see how I will continue to do so while simultaneously adding onto the surplus amount of understanding and knowledge that I have already obtained. “Teaching Reading and Literature with Young Adults” was my most challenging course this semester, but has honestly made me stronger and more confident in my own skin, which in turn will help me as a future educator.
Fifteen weeks ago when I entered “Teaching Reading and Literature with Young Adults,” I felt mildly content in my own skin as a future English teacher, but also knew that there is always room for growth and development, especially in the teaching field. However, as I have been heavily involved with this course, at its completion I have gained some comfort and can confidently say I have developed as an individual, a reader, and a future educator because of this course. At the very start of this class, I knew it was going to challenge me on a different level than ever before. I was up for the ride and as a result, the tasks, reflections, discussions, and enterprises I have completed during English 486 have paved a continuous pathway and have established stepping stones in my journey of becoming a successful educator in the field of English.
When I entered this course, it became apparent to me immediately that this course was going to challenge me more than just on an academic level; it was going to require me to really begin the discovery of who I already was and who I wanted to be as a future educator. Our first enterprise accentuated this notion as we had to really dig deep into our relationship with reading and learning in the process of creating the “Me Portfolio.” Having always been more comfortable on the “writing” side of English, this enterprise really forced me to sit down and, for lack of a better term, “figure out my issues with reading.” What I mean by this is that I had always loved the idea of reading and longed to be a obsessive reader, but due to my slow reading patterns, this “hindrance” caused me to become impatient with the act of reading. The “Me Portfolio” helped me to work out my struggles with reading and after recognizing my reading traits, I was able to take this awareness and view it more as an area for growth. By changing my perspective, I carried this with me throughout the course and because of it, have personally developed as a stronger and more excited reader! As this represents my current state as a reader and learner, it also defines and showcases my current state as a teacher of literacy. Throughout this course the notion was established that if we want our students to be lovers of reading, than we must be readers ourselves. Of course as a future educator I want my students to be readers, so really rekindling my love for reading was essential for not only me, but for all of my future students. Because of my personal recognition of myself as a reader and learner, this will transpire to my students’ growth to become confident learners and readers and will help me to analyze their reading patterns as I have analyzed my own. This will also help me to recognize and understand differences in student reading. As I immerse myself in literature and reading, this will make me a better teacher of literacy.
In addition to recognizing myself as a reader to better help my future students, although I have learned and created a surplus amount of understandings in the area of successful literacy teaching, I feel as though every single endeavor we completed all comes full circle to a holistic understanding of teaching literature. If I had to pinpoint one major understanding that has come from experiencing and completing the course enterprises and being involved in the discussions and lessons, it would be the fact that “successful literacy teaching requires an open mind and getting to know each student as an individual.” There are many contributing reasons, principles, and theories that have emerged from this course that explains and showcase this understanding. For one and tying to one of our course essential questions, this class has made me recognize the importance of tying different types of text into the English classroom and articulating proper exposure and practice in terms of successfully reading these diverse texts. These texts include graphic novels, film, nonfiction, poetry, drama, and picture books. Having the open mind to integrate different types of text into your classroom allows for a surplus amount of positive results in your classroom environment and for the growth of your students. This eclectic combination of texts acts as a means of creating a multitude of diverse resources that grasp all of your students’ interests, motivates all of your students, showcases that you are aware of their interests and what appeals to them, and allows you to teach in a way that exhibits connections that will create deeper and lasting student understanding. Also coinciding with this understanding and connecting to another essential question of the course is my developed principle and theory of the importance of student choice and say in the classroom. As guidelines are important for student success, so is the notion that students have a say and opinion about their learning, especially at an age where the world seems to be centered around their lives. It is also essential to indicate to students why they are learning what they are being taught to implement meaning and importance to their learning. Keeping an open mind of the life that will emerge from your classroom from both your students and your teaching and knowing each student on a personal level will showcase that you care about your teaching, but also about each student individually. This is necessary for many reasons, but mostly so that your students are comfortable in your room, trust you, and therefore will work hard for you. When your students are willing to do such that, this is when the best learning takes place, especially in the literacy classroom.
As previously mentioned, there were many enterprises, both large and small, that led me to this overall understanding of keeping an open mind and knowing your students as individuals. However, as this notion was percolating in my head from the time we started this course, this was solidified during our capstone project of the Reading Partner Profile. This project is central to the understanding established above and to all other understanding of teaching and learning reading and literature that propagated from this course. The Reading Partner Profile taught me so much and was such a useful means of practicing what we, as future English teachers, will all be doing with our future students. Not only did it require having an open mind as I worked with an individual with very different reading patterns and interests than me, but it also required getting to know an individual on a personal level so that you could better guide and foster their learning, our main objective as teachers. This project also accentuated the fact that in order to successfully help your students, your time, effort, and patience is required in order to properly accommodate and teach all of your students. This project has turned out to be one of the most essential “stepping stones” for my growth and development as a future educator, because it solidified my holistic literacy understanding and acts as the center point in which all other literacy understandings build.
The additional understandings that have emerged during my 15 weeks in this class coincide greatly with my grasping of the essential questions that were presented during the course’s first week. Exiting this course, I am now able to articulate answers to those essential questions in my own terms. There are multiple answers and new knowledge that have risen from these essential questions. For one, I now recognize reading as a life-long process, and that its process is more than just the exercise of reading words, but rather it generates emotion, expands perspectives, and creates an outlet for the reader to escape from their own shoes and slip into someone else’s. I have also learned that reading develops through practice and exposure to a multitude of texts, but also when we have the opportunity to discuss our reading with the others around us. This course also led me to the conclusion that there are many reasons as to why we read literature including to become stronger readers and to showcase the prevalence that literature has in our lives. I recognize that a main goal of mine in regards to teaching literature is to create an environment that will benefit my students and allow them to discover a happy medium of relating literature to other subjects and the students’ lives so that it deems important. This class has shaped my belief of the importance of creating a social, commutative, and safe environment for students to prosper in, but also so that they feel comfortable to share and learn in your presence and in the presence of their classmates. As future educators, we must understand our students deeply in terms of their individual strengths and weaknesses, so that we can create enterprises that support their growth, not stunt it. Additionally, I now recognize that in order to support and challenge struggling readers, a diverse collection of teaching methods, assessments, and connecting specifically to literature, expanding our classroom libraries with a surplus amount of different reading levels, genres, and texts allows for all students, no matter what reading-level, gender, or ethnicity, is needed for student growth.
In conclusion, this course has led to many important breakthroughs about myself as a reader and learner, but also has acted as a foundation for my growth and development in terms of how I will teach in the future. Many life-lessons as well as skills, methods, and components were accumulated during this course, and they will all help to guide my future endeavors as a teacher of English. English 486 has provided me the opportunity to recognize my strengths and weaknesses as an individual, especially in terms of having a strong drive and willingness to accommodate all my future students, but weak in the area of being too much of a perfectionist at times to accept the fact that a series of failures need often to occur for success to eventually predominate. This course has allowed me to rekindle my love for reading. I thank Dr. Shea for igniting my excitement to teach reading, and enabling me to accommodate the individuals that will be in my classroom by recommending all different types of text and genres. As Dr. Shea has hinted, we are on a pathless way on our journey to becoming English teachers. There is always room for growth and development, and I cannot wait to see how I will continue to do so while simultaneously adding onto the surplus amount of understanding and knowledge that I have already obtained. “Teaching Reading and Literature with Young Adults” was my most challenging course this semester, but has honestly made me stronger and more confident in my own skin, which in turn will help me as a future educator.