Lyn

Something Smart and Practical 10 May 2011

Apologies for such a late posting! I've been juggling way too many things lately, and this final reflection ended up being completely forgotten.

This final topic of discussion not only made me reconsider what I'm used to versus what I'd be open to having my students do, but it also pushed me to give interdisciplinary studies more respect than before (not that I had never seen value in the combining and integration of different fields of study for the sake of learning; I guess the traditionalist side of my thinking didn't see the larger picture of giving students a variety of seemingly unorthodox tools to obtain a sense of deeper understanding of effective writing). I remain struck by how "smart and practical" this perspective of teaching is, and certainly agree with the necessity of building on skills most needed in the workforce. If I were tasked with teaching ENGL 101 next semester, I would slyly incorporate writing tasks that would draw on the ability to communicate effectively from different viewpoints of the postsecondary academic world. Just because my classroom might be filled with students majoring in the sciences or other fields in which they assume they will have no use for the skills picked up in their required English courses, I would use such mediums as these Wikispaces to encourage "classy" and polished written discussion and otherwise practice writing specifically for a professional audience.

Reflecting on Discussion: Or, Hitting Walls and Getting Around Them 1 April 2011

I am very glad that I've had Spring Break to unwind and forget a little about how awful my first day of "teaching" was (or at least, how I perceived it to be). Watching the videos a day after my seemingly disastrous lesson really didn't help either, as I couldn't bring myself to fully appreciate Langer and the other educators' discourse on class discussion. Now that I'm fixating less on what I felt I did wrong and am more optimistic about my final two days of instruction, I am interested in seeing how

Unit Plan Calendar 13 March 2011




 * Reflecting on Engagement**
 * 26 February 2011**

This past week has been incredibly beneficial in giving me a clearer sense of how to carry out my upcoming unit. For a couple of class sessions (specifically, within group discussion), I'd felt very out of place, wondering if the topic memorandum I had written reflected ideas more elementary than and deviating from what I intended. If there's one aspect of planning that I'm always frustrated by, it's finding a way to articulate all the details and goals I'm mentally orchestrating. I feel I never do any of my academic projects justice in simply discussing them, and given my occasionally-recurring perfectionist tendencies, I am thankful that I've been given a written platform to throw some of my thoughts "on the table." That said, I am both pleased with and concerned about the progress I've made thus far on the Twelfth Night unit, particularly in regard to how I'm currently envisioning each lesson's execution.

Firstly, I want to underscore how happy I am with Wilhelm's //Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension//, and that I've ordered myself a copy this morning. While I haven't perused through all of it, his approaches are invaluable, especially as I've given greater thought to being able to find and justify purpose within the (so far, mostly argument-based) activities I develop. Similarly, I'm currently fueled with optimism by the unexpected promise of my frontloading activity--formed out of a completely spontaneous brainstorming moment. Ever since deciding on a particular drama to help teach, I had wrestled with and consequently attempted to procrastinate on finding an appropriate starting point for my unit. I have to admit that incredibly juvenile fears came into play: What if the students don't like me? What if my activities turn out to be absolutely terrible? What if I come across to my mentor professor as being horribly incompetent? Such worries only served to hinder my productivity, so I forced myself to stop caring in the self-conscious department. I can only do my best; there's no point in creating additional stress for myself.

My //Twelfth Night// unit will start very shortly before Spring Break, although immediately after a major group performance assignment that the class has already begun to contemplate and prepare for. I realize I didn't make this very clear in my lesson plan, but I am going to use my mentor prof's schedule to my advantage by directly connecting the students' very recent scene performances to my frontloading activity. In short, I plan to have my students view and take notes on a movie clip from Trevor Nunn's 1996 film rendition of //Twelfth Night//, and then for homework, formulate a clear and concise (max 2 pages) argument defending or attacking Nunn's interpretation of a particular scene from the first act of the play. By having them explore other's envisionments as well as their own, while using the text to support their claims, I feel that this activity gives students "a creative and unique way to present these otherwise typically bland disagree-or-defend writing exercises, while providing a platform to express why they hold onto the textually-based and theatrically-imaginative interpretations that they do" (My frontloading lesson and plan, Feb 24).

As always, keeping the end in mind has been integral in each of my planning processes. I'm still holding onto the idea of having students screenwrite a scene of their choice, and am much happier with how my frontloading activity relates to this goal. Consider the many avenues I have in developing lessons that engage students with text, task, and essential questions, I finally feel as though I'm connecting the seemingly broad imaginative x's and y's from Jim's class last semester and making them applicable to the situation at hand. In doing so, I feel less apprehensive and more prepared. Perhaps I'm finally understanding what he means by conscious competence.


 * Annotated Unit Plan Portfolio: Unit Topic Memo**
 * 12 February 2011**

Twelfth Night Unit - ENGL 346 "Shakespeare's Comedies and Romances"

Resources: My mentor professor chose //The Norton Shakespeare - Comedies// to guide the class this semester, as this collection contains all except one of the plays she plans to teach for the course. She seems to spend approximately two and half to three weeks per play, so I foresee relying heavily on this particular text--along with its included notes and criticisms--to help me in my planning and ensuring thorough coverage of the material before I am allowed to lead discussion and various in-class activities. I will likely consult prior course notes from ENGL 481 and look over how I designed my first activity progression in Jim Fredricksen's 301 class as I better organize my thoughts.

Standards: In comparison to the extensive unit plan packets reviewed in class, I feel as though I have very little to work off of, given the University's skeletonized course description for ENGL 346. Here is the said description as provided on the class syllabus: "This course introduces students, English majors and non-majors, to Shakespeare's comedies and romances. We will look at several of Shakespeare's best-loved and most influential plays through a variety of lenses, including historical context, in-class performance, and diverse writing assignments. We will look closely at each individual play and trace recurring themes and characters through different works. The purposes of this course are to increase your familiarity with and knowledge of Shakespeare's plays, to develop your abilities to read critically and interpret dramatic works in words and performance, and to heighten your capacity to understand and appreciate these vibrant literary works." For the purposes of this portfolio, I would like to hone in on "tracing recurring themes and characters" and "developing abilities to read critically and interpret dramatic works in words and performance," though I am more than open to changing these a bit in the near future.

Essential questions: To what extent is love blind? Are we ever completely truthful to ourselves and those we love (will reword; I want this question to apply to the theme of mistaken identity, but I can't seem to get it to work the way I want)?

Culminating project: The more my mentor professor has the class enact parts of the play in front of the room and grapple with different "director's perspectives," the more I'd like to see them each screenwrite a snapshot moment from the play that highlights one of the major themes from Twelfth Night (around 1.5 to 2 pages typed double space), and then with a small group, perform a brief dialogue (I will provide each with a different scene) that includes exaggerated moments of asides to comically assist the audience in understanding what is going through each character's mind. I am still trying to find a video clip from the tv show "Whose Line is it Anyway" to better illustrate what I'd like to see them execute for the dialogue performance. Going back to the first part of the assignment (screenwriting a snapshot moment), I am most interested in seeing how closely the students have examined the text and created a new viewpoint (albeit still true to the play) for something already so familiar. As with all plans, I foresee my ideas evolving quite a bit, although I really hope that these two activities work well with one another and are faithful to the course standards.


 * Reflecting on Learning**
 * 30 January 2011**

I feel as though the readings and presentations of this past week, compounded with my many daily interactions with old friends and new colleagues, have provided me with a formerly-untapped perspective on learning and understanding. My academic world is far greater than simply showing up to class, fulfilling the routine obligations of completing readings and writing assignments, and otherwise working to obtain "brownie points" through appropriate commentary made to the professor. Instead, what I've almost always had and didn't truly appreciate is the open forum and haven which classrooms--along with other less-obvious learning environments--are able to create, and the ways they allow us to learn the art of fostering personal and work relationships with those around us.

In contemplating my most recent experiences of finding and benefiting from welcoming learning environments, two different groups of people pop into my mind: my former housemates at Yale Court, and my classmates and instructors in ENGL 301 and 481. I am most thankful that my first semester here at Boise State allowed me to experience these different yet equally valuable support bases both at home and in my work. For in having such a wonderful balance between the two, I flourished socially, academically, and most importantly, in my appreciation for the intangibly powerful role teachers play for their students and to each other. In his final article for the University of Portland magazine, my beloved freshman year "Introduction to Literature" professor, Dr. Louis Masson, likens our desired line of work to "being an actor on a stage," "conducting an orchestra" and "receiving a gift from a colleague." I welcome the challenge of the first two, and thankfully now know the joys of being privy to the last. From those quirky housemates and insightful colleagues whose presences have solidified my outlook on the teaching profession, I have gleaned more than they will know.

Past experience would have otherwise dictated that I should move on and view every new semester as a new slate, leaving behind acquaintances made unless I conveniently see them again in other classes, or elsewhere in life. Since my time at the University of Portland (when I knew that I would be transferring at the end of my first semester there), I had been more afraid of creating such potentially valuable ties to other people knowing that I would someday physically sever these relationships by simply moving away. But I now know that to do so would be self-injurious. What then, if I continued to live and learn in this fashion, would have I taken away from my undergraduate studies besides simply having been a good student in the most basic and mechanical form? I would never have learned to truly appreciate and value the backgrounds and life experiences of my fellow student, and yet I would be among the first, as a graduate student with a teaching assistantship, to begin applying narrow-minded and insensitively-practiced sets of pedagogical techniques on one.

Time has slowly but surely propelled me toward partial completion of the most economically-challenging portion of my education, but without the invaluable relationships that last semester has blessed me with, I cannot surely say that my degree would have the same value at the end of the coming finish line that it does now.