Writing with Weetzie

 Respond to the article (but more broadly to the question of how YA literature might support writing instruction) on your blog. It's fine to use the bullet point method that we used before. I would love to see you use the article as a springboard for your own thinking/ideas about YA and writing.

• Students could write their own capturing first line of a novel
• Give creative choices in writing prompts about novels
• Mentor texts as a way of exposing writers to a variety of forms
• Speak as a mentor text for writing in vignettes (Monroe,2005, p.50)
• Students could write from different points of view using a mentor text 
• Young adult literature speaks to students about issues they care about (Monroe, 2005, p. 54)
• Analyzing the author's message to the audience can help students understand how to write for specific audiences in their own writing
• Mentor texts with a first person narrator can inspire voice in our students
• First person narrator mentor texts: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

References

Monroe, M. L. (2005). Writing with Weetzie: Using Young Adult Literature in the Composition Classroom. Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 21(2)

Week 6

This is a bulletin board idea that I could use in my future classroom. I used the list prompts given for this week to create a twitter feed. I would like to have my students names on the board as usernames for twitter and have them contribute to board as a hashtag.

Reading Ladder week 5

Realistic fiction to unexpected perspectives 10^th grade

                                                 One Half From the Eastby Nadia Hashimi

I have chosen this novel as the top of the ladder, because this novel requires students to read from a completely new perspective. This novel follows a character from Afghanistan.

                                               

                                                All American Boysby Jason Reynolds

                                                This novel is narrated by 2 different perspectives of a politically and racially charged event. This novel could be considered realistic fiction and unexpected perspectives because one narrator is black and the other narrator is white. 

                                    

                                               Prisoner B-3087 Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz’s novel Prisoner B-3087 would be a novel that could give students a perspective of a student their age growing up as a Jewish person in the 1930’s. My students would be able to get a better understanding of this time in history and what it meant for children their age

                                    Speak by Laurie Halsey

                                    Speak is a realistic fiction novel about a young adult that was sexually assaulted the Summer before school starts. This novel would challenge my students to discuss real issues such as mental health, bullying, and sexual assault. 

                                    

                                                Far From the Treeby Robin Benway

Far from the tree is a realistic fiction novel that follows 3 young adults that were given away by their birth mother. This is an easy read that appeals to a female and male audience. This novel could fit into both categories so I chose this as a baseline for the ladder.

YA LIT WEEK 4

After reading this week’s practitioner readings written by Jennifer Buehler I found the following points to be helpful as I move further into teaching. 

1. Understanding the importance of young adult novels as a way of “drawing students out into the larger world” (Buehler,2016,p. 2)

2. Understanding that reading can build a community for our students. The author of this weeks readings, Jennifer Buehler states, “I read to find myself in books, take on the perspectives of others, explore new topics, appreciate beautiful language, develop critical perspectives on the world around me, and connect with fellow readers” (Buehler,2016,p.3). 

3. Understanding that school reading can and has been restrictive in the past, but by offering choice, providing the materials, and encouraging exploration teachers can break through that pattern. 

4.  Understanding that relevance is important in engaging our students to read. Stocking our classroom libraries with novels that are relatable, take risks, and blur genres will light a reading fire in our students (Buehler,2016,p.27). 

5. Understanding that reading still needs to be taught even in the secondary education field. Students need to be exposed to diverse perspectives in young adult literature in order to think critically about the themes being discussed.

References

Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching reading with YA literature: Complex texts, complex lives. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Young Adult Lit Week 3

The tools that Penny Kittle provides for teachers of reading in these two chapters are tools that I could see myself using in the classroom. Kittle places an emphasis on the importance of knowing your students in order to “meet them where they are and choose books that will motivate them to read” (Kittle, 2013,p. 32). This is an idea that has become prevalent in my own thinking while reading the young adult novels thus far. At times it has been difficult to pair a specific book with an ideal student and after reading these chapters I understand why. Like Kittle stated in chapter 3 the relationship with every student is a magic formula that can only be achieved by interacting with a student in the classroom. 

            In understanding the students in your classroom Kittle points out the ways that a teacher can improve fluency in reading. She mentions that she has students pick a book of their choice and read for 10 minutes a day. The students record how many pages that they have read in that time span in their logs. I am interested to see how I could incorporate this into my classroom on a daily basis. Kittle states, “Grades, stickers, star charts, and prizes are all unnecessary rewards in the process of creating readers” (Kittle, 2013,p. 31). As a future teacher I am grappling with this method, because I do feel that rewards can be helpful in some cases. This is something I will have to test out for myself 

            Every student is diverse in one way or another, but as Kittle highlights the way that we teach them reading has become a repetitive pattern of the same classic novels. In my classroom I hope to use books that are canonical in order to engage my students with new perspectives. This week I read a novel that could easily be paired or replaced with the canonical classic To Kill the Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The novel I Kill the Mockingbirdby Paul Acampora is a quirky middle school novel that could easily be used in a unit to engage students. 

Kittle, P. (2013). Book love: Developing depth, stamina, and passion in adolescent readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Mini Lesson Response

1.   What surprised you about your mini-lesson and what happened as your plans were enacted with your students?

I was surprised about the level of excitement the students had from our mini lesson. When creating the lesson our group wanted to make it as relevant as we could for them. The students were so engaged in this assignment and they actually had the opportunity to work together. Our students usually work on their assignments individually or on the computer, and for our assignment they had to collaborate with their classmates.

2.   What is the piece of feedback you gave to a student (or to the class) amidst this minilesson that has stayed with you - or which you believe will be most impactful?

The piece of feedback that stood out to me the most is that in order to argue a point you must base your reasoning behind facts and not emotion. The students were getting very involved into the topics, and they started to fight with one another.

3.   Is there anything you'd want to re-do?  Why?

I would like to re-do the way that we delivered our instructions for the assignment. I think we could have been a little more detailed, because I could tell most of our classroom disruption was caused by that. The students were a little confused by what we expected of them and they got off topic.

4.   What did you learn about yourself as a teacher (keeping in mind that this was a small activity with unusual constraints)?

From this assignment I learned that I am a great collaborator with my co-teachers. We operated very smoothly together, and for the most part it went pretty smoothly. I have also learned that I need to work on speaking louder. I tend to speak quietly and the students could brush me up easier because of that. I also learned that I need to be careful about the ways that I ask questions and be aware of the students response before I ask it.

Week 11 Challenges

    Task 1 Revise a past piece:  Hello, it’s me letter from week 7

Original: Hello Ms. Michaels, it’s me.

I am writing this letter to you, because you were influential in my life. You were hands down the best teacher that I had in high school. I was very lucky to be able to experience a teaching class in high school and to have you as a teacher. You encouraged me and believed in me as a future teacher even before I began my journey in college. I will never forget the day that I received my college acceptance letters you hung them up in your classroom wall. You are the kind of teacher that I hope to be, a teacher that invests in their students.

Edited Version: 

Hello Ms. Michaels, it's me.

Do you remember me? Maybe not, and that's okay. I am a past student of yours that is following in the same footsteps as you. I am writing this letter to you because you were influential in my life, and you deserve to know why. You were able to create a classroom that I was truly excited to come to almost everyday. I say almost, because I was a moody teenager and sometimes I was so not feeling school. You created a classroom that was structured yet open to change, and you demonstrated adaptability on many occasions. You challenged us all the while making the classroom a low risk place to be challenged. You encouraged me and believed in me as a future teacher well before I began my journey in college. You invested in your students, and demonstrated this by hanging up college acceptance letters on your classroom wall. As the years fly by just as you said they would I am reminded of the qualities that you had, and I hope to carry them into my own teaching. 

Sincerely,

MeKay

Task Two: 

write about the influence that Kittle, Anderson, Gallagher, Crovitz, Rief, Bomer, Kirby or Murray (or all) are having on your thinking about the teaching of writing.  What are your biggest takeaways - and whose work do you think you'll return to? 

          From this week's readings I have taken away a better understanding of how to teach the mechanics of writing in a practical and effective way. Up to this point the idea of teaching grammar was a bit overwhelming to say the least, and while the readings have not completely taken that feeling away it has alleviated some fear of the unknown. I struggle with grammar quite a lot in my own writing, but as a future teacher this is an aspect that I will have to utilize in the classroom. Anderson,Crovitz, and Devereaux highlight the fact that grammar and the mechanics of writing cannot be taught as a stand alone lesson, as it has been proven to be ineffective. These authors also appealed to me in a way that Kittle did not, because they are more relevant to the classroom settings that we will most likely experience in a public school. 

           One way that Anderson was different from Kittle was that he explicitly calls out the fact that as teachers we have 150 students and only 50 minutes to teach them as much as possible. The way that he copes with this is by teaching "pseudo concepts as a way of developing a concept" (Anderson, 2005, p. 4). He intertwines grammar as a way of highlighting the craft of a mentor text. This stood out to me, because it elevated the importance of mentor texts in a way that I had not thought of before. Anderson states, "I know kids need to hear the flow of language, its patterns its cadence its surprises its syntax, and students who have limited experience with English need this even more" (Anderson, 2005, p. 2). Simply by reading and analyzing mentor texts students can understand the power of punctuation, and that their can be purpose in either following or breaking grammar rules. I also really appreciated the examples that he included in these chapters in the ways that he uses mentor texts in the classroom to teach grammar. 

           Another take away that came from the readings of this week is that thematic teaching can be helpful in planning ways to intertwine grammar within a curriculum. Crovitz and Devereaux emphasize that thematic teaching is a way of making grammar and mechanics relevant to the students. He includes ways of doing this all the while acknowledging that teachers stray away from this idea of teaching, because sometimes it means your students will react in a way that you do not plan for them to. I think that this method of teaching could be useful in my own classroom simply because it allows flexibility while still covering a wide range of content. He outlines lessons that he uses, and I found them to be very helpful in understanding the grammar that can be associated with themes. For example, he outlined a unit on authority and addressed that passive and active voices can be taught throughout that unit (Crovitz,Devereaux,2017, P. 30). This is a very practical way of teaching that I could see myself utilizing in the classroom while still being able to adapt to the students needs. 

            Even though the standards and content required of me as a teacher of writing is intimidating the readings from this week have encouraged me to think about the ways that teaching can be fluid. Prior to this class I really did think that grammar was going to be taught as an isolated lesson, because honestly that is how my teachers have taught me in the past. That is most likely the reason that I have had a mental block with it throughout my own experience. The overall tone of these chapter along with the examples of how to put these methods into place in the classroom has given me a sense of clarity, and I definitely would return to both of these articles in the future. 

References

Anderson, J. (2005). Mechanically Inclined: Building grammar, usage, and style into writers workshop. Portland,    ME: Stenhouse.

Crovitz, D., & Devereaux, M. D. (2017). Grammar to get things done: A practical guide for teachers anchored in real-world usage. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.