Designing and Delivering My Own Writing Lesson! Reflections and Plans for the Future.

    This semester, we had to design both a full lesson and a mini-lesson that included a writing assignment, we had to teach it to our classmates, and then we had to give feedback to one of our classmates that were assigned to us. This assignment was very hefty and full of steps that had to be completed throughout many dates, which in the end culminated in my teaching demonstration on April 17th. I wanted my lesson to be something that students are familiarized with, and I wanted to focus on the students expressing their own thoughts and opinions on the article that I assigned to read. Hicks mentions in the third chapter of his text "Creating Confident Writers" that "The texts [you] teach from in mini-lessons should be beloved texts so that [you] know them well and [your] enthusiasm will carry over to [your] students… As the writing mentors in your classroom, we encourage you to seek texts that excite your imagination as a teacher-writer” (Chapter 3, page 28). With this in mind, I wanted my lesson to include a text that touched on a topic that I felt passionate and really interested about. After searching for a while for interesting articles that were appropriate to teach to my students, I ended up finding "The Price of a Show" by Michael Paulson. This article is about the pricing of Broadway tickers, and how in the past years they have increased dramatically. Paulson explores the reasons behind the pricing of these broadway tickets, and explains concepts like ticket scalpers, and dynamic pricing. I designed my lesson around this article, and there were multiple stages to the completion of this assignment. 

Preparing the Materials and Designing my Lesson

    The process of creating my lesson was the most challenging part of this assignment, because after finding the article, I didn't know what kind of assignment I wanted to give to my students. I thought of  making them answer questions about the article, or maybe to write a story from a time that they went to see a Broadway show, and how their experience was, but in the end I made the assignment for this lesson to be the students writing a short reflection on what they read in the article. They had to include not just their original ideas, but also a quotation from the article that the students found to be interesting. I like this idea for an assignment because it is similar to what I have to do in my literature courses. I write down reflections on what we had to read before each class, and the process of gathering my own thoughts and writing them down in a piece of paper is very calming, and it helps me explore and analyze the stories and the things that I read. I also included questions that helped guide the thinking of my students, just in case they didn't have any idea where to start their writing, the questions were: 1. How does this article explore the tension between the accessibility of art, and the financial interests of people? 2. If you were a Broadway producer, how would you balance making a profit and keeping tickets affordable?
    Overall I think that the activity went really well once I had the opportunity to give my lesson to my students. Many of them had original ideas, and they had reflections that were incredibly insightful and interesting. For example, one of my students commented, "Some people who would otherwise go to Broadway may simply be unable to afford it, especially considering the current economic conditions, and even more affluent people may just decide to attend a less expensive Broadway play. If enough people do both of these things, it will end up with this trend gradually dying out, because the amount of people paying these high prices won’t make profit for those in charge" This comment is really accurate to the situation that the article is bringing attention to, and it demonstrates a complete understanding on why people aren't able to afford going to see Broadway shows.

 Experience After Giving my Lesson

After I gave my lesson to my classmates, I had the task to read all the writing that my students produced. I think that this part of grading and assessing other people's writing is very new to me. Despite me having my rubric, determining the criteria for the grading was difficult. I didn't know what to make of the pieces of writing that my students had made, but thankfully I remembered Nancy Sommer's "Responding to Student Writing" where she mentions, "The purpose of responding is to promote students' authority and authorship, by giving them feedback about their strengths and limitations as writers." (1) This quote was really important in my process of grading, especially with my focal student, I tried to maintain my feedback very constructive, while at the same time reminding my student of the things that I think they did well in the response. Overall, I notice a pattern among the majority of the responses that my students submitted, which is a deficient incorporation of the interesting quote from the article. The majority of them didn't really do it, and the ones that did, instead of explaining why they found it interesting, they paraphrased the things that the author mentioned in the article. 

    For my focal student specifically, I gave her an A-. The reason why is because despite her including some very nice points and very interesting ideas, I think that similarly to my other students, the integration of the quotes was not very smooth, and the transition between content and quotation feels a bit abrupt. I think that she does have a very deep understanding of the content of the article, and her comments on the situation are very insightful, however, some parts of the paragraph felt a bit redundant. Due to all of this, I gave her 4/4 in her thesis and her textual evidence, because despite the transition being abrupt, the quotes that she picked were very relevant. In organization and in grammar I gave her a 3/4, because there is definitely some improvement to be made, but I believe that it doesn't disrupt with the experience of reading her text. Overall, I believe that whenever I have to make a future lesson I would choose an article that is a lot longer or that is about a topic that is a lot deeper. I really like having discussions and talking about texts given by the teacher, so I will try to find something that is more complex, so there is more variation on opinions and points of view in the responses.

Reflections on the Inequities in Education, and the Power of Teaching Empathy.

    In the beginning of this semester, we were asked to complete the Module 6 assignment. This assignment consists in taking notes on readings of our choice from a list of resources and websites that Professor Zucker gave us. Our notes needed to be related to the topics and ideas from the readings, and we needed to reflect on the implications of these ideas in teachers and learners. As I was reading and taking notes, I realized that there was a connecting thread among the readings that I was choosing to include in my Module 6 graphic organizer. We live in a society where there is so much inequality, and the school system that we have to navigate isn't made with the objective to provide an equal quality of education for all. As educators, we strive to achieve equity and to provide the best quality of education to every student, regardless if they don't count with the same opportunities as others. These texts that I included in my Module 6 organizer reflect the constant work that teachers put into providing their students with quality education, teaching empathy, and questioning the systems that exist in our day to day lives in schools. 

High Stakes Testing and Standardized Curricula

     The article that I want to include in this section is called "Finding a Balance: Navigating High-Stakes Testing and Standardized Curricula for Joyful Teaching and Learning." by Samantha Musa and Kevin Cataldo. This article mentions one concept that I find to be incredibly interesting which is joyful teaching. Musa and Cataldo refer to joyful learning as, "Joyful teaching and learning captures a variety of emotions, ideas and situations. It ranges from the excitement of inspiring students, seeing them grow as individuals and academics, and the incidental learning that can only exist within a school building." (1)  This concept is very important, especially because many of the systems that we have in place disrupt joyful teaching and learning. As a former ESL student, having to take standardized tests only served me as a source of anxiety throughout my high school years. The curriculum of many schools is not designed to serve every single student, like me many years ago, there are students that do not count with the same resources or abilities to get the best grade possible for a standardized test. Standardized testing isn't effective because every student's experience in school is not standardized. There are many factors that affect student's abilities to learn and complete a test, and measuring their capacities based on just one test doesn't capture the full range of intelligence of every student.

Book Bans in Prisons and Literacy 

    I found the article called "Book Banning in US Schools and Prisons as Modern-Day Slave Codes." to be the most interesting and the one that made me reflect a lot on the systems of power that we live under. This article mentions the history of banning books in the United States, and how literacy has been historically denied to oppressed groups of people in this country, specifically Black Americans, and how there is a tight relationship between the mass incarceration of black people, and modern-day slavery. One of the main points that Brianna Rae Johns, the author of the text brings up is that there is such thing as literacy oppression, and it is manifested in book bans in places such as prisons and schools, she says, "According to the Equal Justice Initiative, courts have granted jail officials the power to limit access to reading materials deemed a significant security risk in prisons. However, there are inconsistencies in laws across several states, resulting in the banning of books related to American history, civil rights, and human rights, particularly those authored by Black writers" (40). These tactics of banning books are used in order to erase the history of oppressed groups in this country is very telling of the racism that still exists in our society. Literacy is essential, reading and having critical thinking skills helps people know what their rights are, and know when there is an injustice happening in front of them. Giving everybody the same opportunities for education is absolutely important, and banning books and hiding parts of the history only because these books have perspectives that are different to what has always been believed by the majority of people in this country is not right in any way.

Teaching Empathy to students

    The article "Why We Must Teach Our Students Empathy" by Dr. Paul M. Rogers is the one that I feel like we all need to read, and the article that gives the solution to many of the issues that the other articles have brought up. Rogers includes a quote that I find to be really important for this idea, which is "If we want our students to reach their full potential—socially, emotionally, and academically—we must remember that social intelligence and empathy must be experienced from the inside out." Empathy is a foundational quality that needs to be inculcated in everybody since they are very young. Without empathy, it is not possible for communities to thrive, and by helping one another, everybody can move forward and achieve great things in life. Empathy helps us understand the situations that other people go through, and even if we are not the ones experiencing any negative things, we can still understand and sympathize with other people. We live in a society that values individualism and personal benefit over helping others, and the way that we as educators combat that is by teaching students that school isn't a competition, and that the best way for everybody to learn is by having a community where people can help each other. Fostering empathy in the classroom makes sensible people in the future, who are capable of understanding and willing to stand up for others when there are injustices happening around them. Teaching students that it is gratifying to help others, and that we shouldn't expect anything in return is very important, so we can help those that don't have the same resources and opportunities that we have, and we can fight for those that need to be defended. 

Reference List

 Johns, B. R. (2024). Book banning in US schools and prisons as modern-day slave codes. New Jersey English Journal, 13(2024), 40–44. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/nj-english-journal/vol13/iss2024/11/

Musa, S., & Cataldo, K. (2024). Finding a balance: Navigating high-stakes testing and standardized curricula for joyful teaching and learning. English Journal, 113(3), 37–42. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej2024113337

Rogers, P. M. (2023, December 12). Why we must teach our students empathy. National Writing Project. https://www.nwp.org/blog/why-we-must-teach-our-students-empathy

My Poem

Joel,
You’re the last thought that comes to me before going to sleep, fleeting like a shooting star. Your voice reminds me of a yellow oriole’s song, and it hurts my soul that your magnetic voice is not what wakes me up in the morning. I love you like the planets love the sun, with your hypnotic essence that makes my every thought orbit around the idea of seeing you again.
Yours until the stars fade, 
Alejandro.

 

. 

    

     

This is my attempt at an epistolary poem for my boyfriend. I wanted to channel my love for him, and the deep love that I feel not just for him but also for the world around me. Even if it is a cheesy it's very genuine. I know that regardless of anything I will treasure this poem because it is honest and it is my truest feelings. My process writing this piece was a little difficult, but I think it ended up being good. Many of the things I mention in the poem have a connection to a certain aspect of my life that I treasure, which makes it interesting to me. 

Poetry

     The two poems that I chose from Poetry 180 are Stanley Plumly's Birthday (poem 79) and Arlene Tribbia's Sure (poem 86). I was struck by both poems in different ways, but still touching themes of  memories and the passage of time. Birthday feels like reflecting about the passage of time. The imagery of the doors, the natural world and light gives the poem a dream-like quality to it. Almost as if the narrator is reliving the memories of their past life. Birthday is a poem that made me reflect in my own childhood and the moments that shaped them. On the other hand, Tribbia's Sure touches on very serious themes, but it feels like acknowledging the love a person feels for someone in a time when they are not the person that they used to be in the past. I think that this poem is very beautiful because it makes me empathize with the figure of the criminal. Just because someone has broken the law and is in prison now doesn't mean that they are not people, with lives and with people who still loves and thinks about them. 

    I chose these poems because they inspire me to think and to write about memories, and relationships. Both Birthday and Sure are poems that encourage me to pay attention to the small things that make a moment feel special. If I were to teach these poems in a class, I would ask the students to think about a moment in their lives that they hold dearly. What images come to their minds? How do you accept both the joy and the pain that memories can bring? 

Preparing My First Lesson!!

 The Process of Creating the Lesson

    The assignment that I prepared for last class consisted of the students reading this text about the genre of science fiction. The text talks about what science fiction is about, and it includes an example of Fahrenheit 451, a book by Ryan Bradbury about a future where books are not allowed and a firefighter whose job is to destroy books. The students in my group had to read this text and answer my question about whether they thought that science fiction was effective at making commentary on real world issues, and to find evidence from the text where they could find evidence that supported their opinion. Creating my Lesson Plan was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. This is because I had to find a text that I felt was appropriate for the class, and at the same time would be something that could help my hypothetical students develop as readers and writers.
I think that the most enjoyable part of my lesson was actually having the opportunity to teach it and be able to see how I faced this situation, because despite all my preparation I was still very nervous to show the students what I had done for my lesson. 

Reflections On the Other Lessons

    I enjoyed being part of my group and getting to participate in my classmates’ lessons! I think that they were really professional and I believe that the topics that they chose and the questions that they asked were very really interesting. The second lesson of our group was one that I particularly enjoyed, because it was about Tiktok, and the impact of social media in our lives. We were asked to read this article and to write about the relevance that TikTok has over current day topics and the importance of fact-checking the things that we read online. The task was pretty similar to the one that I had which was to find evidence in the text of the things I wrote about. I think that I found the reading really interesting, and my classmate was very clear with the instructions and acted like a real professional. I think that I want to become a teacher who is just as confident as my classmate seemed. I have the issue of not really seeing myself as an authority figure and as a real educator. Having assignments of this kind makes it just a matter of time until I gain the confidence to give a lesson and not be nervous about it. 

What I Think Should Always be in a Writing Workshop.

  

 The two strategies that I chose are the use of structured routines through workshops, and the sharing of writing in the classroom. As a teacher, having a set structure for the class where the students can fully immerse themselves in literature is very beneficial for everybody involved in the learning process. It makes the process of writing a lot more approachable for the students, and it helps the students become more interested and open to the idea of literature. On the other hand, sharing your own writing with other people as a student can also be something that helps the student think about their own writing in a reflective way, and to think critically of not just their own writing, but the writing of others. Strategies like having a set routine that's immersive and sharing the writing with the class certainly work separately, but using them together in a classroom setting makes them work even better. First because they help promote writing as an accessible tool that is not just useful in the classroom. And it also makes the classroom a safe space where people can explore their abilities with writing without worrying about their ideas being seen in a negative light. 

    The workshop method for teaching English literature is something that I commented on my last post, and today I want to talk about it again because I think that it is very possitive in so many ways. What is good about workshops is that they are very malleable, and they can adapt not just to the needs of the students but also the educator's needs. Things like independent reading or writing time are things that are proved to be helpful for students, and having these types of activities in a periodic way can help the students immerse themselves in literature and start to view writing and literature in a poisitive light. In "Creating Confident Writers" after Andy read the Koyczan poem to this students, the author comments something that I find really interesting, he says, "Andy models genuine appreciation for the words they just heard and invites srudents to snap along with him in a nice protocol of appreciation... they find themselves in an authentic community of learners who are invited and encuraged to celebrate words in many forms." (Hicks 7) I think that this example of Andy reading the poem and making them snap along with him is really nice, and it shows how incorporating reading with the class during the workshop is makes the whole classroom a lot more open and friendly to the idea of literature, and it helps the students see the classroom space as a lot more than just that. 

    I think that the only thing that always needs to be included in workshops aside from the writing part iteslf is the sharing of this writing with the class or with a small group of students. This strategy is incredibly beneficial for students, I would even say it is a crucial part of the workshop. This is because being exposed to other people's minds and ideas through their writing gives the classroom experience a different layer of understanding to the students. It helps them reflect not just on their own writing—because reading out loud can teach you a lot about how you write— but it also helps them reflect and be accepting of the ideas of other people, which is just as important as reflecting about their own writing. This sharing of ideas doesn't just have to be the student reading out loud what they wrote, it can also be the teacher asking questions that promotes the student thinking about their writing in a reflective and critical way. The author of the book mentions that, "reflective talk about writing can and should find space in our teaching; it can be scheduled arounf the writer during confnerring time, or with a whole group of writers during a mini-lesson instruction." (Hicks 11) What matters is that the student is sharing their writing and they're critically thinking and reflecting about their writing. 

Going Beyond Grammar.

 

Growing up, my writing classes were mostly about grammar and less about actually writing down my thoughts and my ideas. I was never incentivized to write and to express myself through writing. The majority of my classes consisted of the typical writing class where the teacher taught all of the students for a week or two a certain aspect of writing, and then after a certain amount of lessons I would get a test. I only started to see my teachers use the writer’s workshop approach in writing classes when I started high school here in the United States. I believe that writer workshops are what really got me interested in writing as a way of expressing myself and developing my ideas on certain topics. It is funny that only now reading the excerpt from the book “Welcome to Writer’s Workshop” I realize what exactly are the techniques that my teachers used in my high school writing classes that helped me develop my skills as a writer. 

Something that Steve Peha mentions in his book is that writing workshops differ from regular writing classes in the sense that there isn’t really a need for constant testing in a writing workshop. This particular aspect is relevant to me because I struggle greatly with testing, and this difference between both methods of teaching is one of the main reasons why my perception of writing changed during my time in high school. The inclusion of mini lessons and then letting the students apply their learning during the designated writing time during the class is beneficial not just for the student, but also the teacher. Peha mentions in his book, “in order to

learn something well, students have to use it for a while on their own without the fear of

being negatively criticized. That’s why we teach “mini” lessons, so students have the

majority of their class time available for applying what they’ve learned to their own work.” (3-4) As a teacher, I can use writing workshops not only to teach my students and to make them practice their writing, but also take advantage of this time and evaluate their learning of the things that have been taught during these mini lessons. And because i’m evaluating what they have written in class, I can be sure that it is 100% original material from the students.