Last Reflective Post

Three aspects of my lesson plan that would hopefully make Kittle proud would be: my plan to workshop our argumentative pieces, my letting my students write about something that has directly affected their lives, and lastly my modeling what an argumentative piece should look like before  assigning it to my students to write. Penny Kittle has so many times referred back to the pedagogical practic of modeling. In fact every genre she explores with her students she models for them. Modeling is extremely essential, even in the workforce employees are trained for weeks sometimes months and shadow other employees who do similar jobs. Modeling provides students with a strong starting place, a jump off point if you will. In my lesson plan my class and I read and annotated Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham". By discussing and pinpointing Dr. King's claims, his counter-arguments, his evidence, his reasoning's, his use of facts and creating emotional resonance students  are able to begin their piece with a "perfect" final product in mind.

       In my lesson the task of  creating an argumentative piece is to write about an injustice they have faced and create an argumentative essay or speech to be read that fights against why that injustice should no longer exist. For example students can respond to those who say "Kim Kardashian has invented cornrows". Students may use personal experiences of how cultural appropriation has negatively affected them, create a claim declaring that African Americans were the first to wear braids and white culture has stolen their hairstyle from them. The student may then use reasoning and evidence to back up their claim. This is but one example students can use. In line with modeling Martin Luther King's letter, by having the students write their own argumentative piece based on an injustice they have faced, I, like Kittle am letting my students know that writing does not stop at a objective summary or book report, but starts with them and their experiences. In her book Kittlle mentions a student who had recently lost her mother. Kittle says all the student wrote about was her mother and she let her. Sometimes (I know for me this is the case) writing brings healing. For students to have a voice and a say in the events in their lives that have caused them outrage may give them their voice back in the situation. After a hurtful break up at the age of 16 I wrote the rudest, nastiest poem I could think of, then went to the open mic I knew  my ex would be performing at with his new boo and performed my poem. The crowd was stunned. And after weeks of crying, I had gotten my voice back. I now felt powerful. By writing these argumentative pieces about injustice hopefully my students will get their voice back as well.

The most important task of a writing teacher is encourage students to bring their ideas, thoughts, pains, memories and  creativity to life as their words dance, entertain and heal others on a inviting and welcoming blank piece of paper.

I believe my greatest challenge as a writing teacher so far has been wanting to change the words of my students. What I mean is, often times as I read what my students write and understand what they are trying to say, it is hard for me to not say "ohh okay, I get what you're trying to say, write this instead". So far I have not had my own classroom and instead I have been helping teachers execute their lesson plans. Therefore the standards, assignments and requirements are not mine to create, rather I am simply enforcing the ones made for me. Luckily, I have been able to have conversations with many of my students about "academic language" and in the simplest terms I have explained academic language was just  "saying everything you want to say in a fancy way". In that way I feel as though or at least I hoped to instill in them there isn't one correct way to speak, just multiple ways to use language depending on the circumstance. Yet and still even with this acknowledgement the kids are one of two things: (1) soooo obsessed with getting a good grade and so they want me to simply make all their corrections for them because they figure me, as the teacher, is correct and them, as the student, is wrong or (2) they don't care about their grade at all yet I, knowing their grade, will do anything to stop them from failing. Both of these situations end up with me saying "okay, I get what you're trying to say, write this instead." And so this is my struggle.  I hope this struggle becomes less of an issue when I start to teach my own classroom and from the beginning of the class encourage free thinking. I type this solution as one sentence but as  I write it, I know it will not be an easy task. Grades have been such an integral part of student learning, it is hard for students to let the grade go and others who have been so frustrated with the system and find out that with a bit of summer school you'll be advanced to the next grade, have totally given up on grades. And it is my job to say " we come to school to better and further our thinking NOT to get grades"

My favorite activity for this year was the discussion of multiple languages. It opened up my perspective on use of language and gave me a platform to have the same discussion with my students.  I also really really enjoyed the Who Am I as A Writer? assignment. I really do love myself and so given the opportunity to share me, with others always makes me happy. I can think about a couple of students I work with that share that same train of thought. But on a deeper level being asked to go down memory lane of myself as a writer brings up beautiful and scary memories. It brings up insecurities and accomplishments. Doing the project helped me realize how far my writing, my thinking and my beliefs have come.