Where do we go now?

"...what counts as authentic work in an English classroom depends in part on what kind of space you take the classroom to be and how you see its relationship to the rest of the world."
~Whitney, In Search

"Our generation of English teachers, as others before us, must reevaluate what we do, how we do it, and why it is all still necessary. In a world where we are told the book is a dying relic and that the word is giving way to the image some of our pressing questions include: Why do we insist on teaching the novels, poems, and plays of people who are long since perished; works of fiction and drama written by people who may have held problematic and politically incorrect worldviews that implicitly demeaned the students who are now asked to read and cherish them?"
~Morell, (Re) Inventing the Future of English

"In other words, our students need to be ready for college and/or career, as so many standards movements would have them be, but they also need to be ready to participate in communities well beyond those."
~Bomer, p. 8

"English language arts, as a discipline and as a class in secondary schools, should be a home to students' curiosity above all these forms of participation as well as some we haven't even thought of yet."
~Bomer, p.9

A common theme I have found among these readings is said perfectly by a line from one of my favorite movies, "Where do we go now?" I feel that this quote sums up my feelings about English perfectly, and it very appropriate way to wrap up my final blog of this semester. Everything I have learned in this course has been very unexpected; the kind of topics we have talked about, and the way we have approached them, were nothing like I thought they would be. I imagined learning more about teaching students to read, specifically mental development and process of reading.

By no means, though, am I complaining. I have learned a great deal, rethinking the very definition of literature. All I know now is how much I don't know (which I believe is the purpose of education?). I think in context, adolescent literacy to me is less about the development of students as readers and more more about the perceptions students have towards reading by the time they are adolescents. In addition to that, I think is important for teachers to understand the ways in which students interact with and are influenced by literacy.

I have found many answers to the kind of questions I asked in the beginning of the semester about myself as a reader. But all I have learned culminates into such questions like, "What is worth teaching anymore?" Do our students need to have that core knowledge as Hirsch suggests to be able to have a sense of belonging? Is that why we continue to push a canon of certain books onto our students?

As the future changes, what is going to be relevant to our students? Will knowing about the books of celebrated authors be worth the reading of pulp fiction? Will pulp fiction be so looked down on in the future? And what are we supposed to do for our students in a world of changing digital literacy, where books are becoming less popular? If we try so hard to get students to read books written 100 or 200 years ago, how much will it truly benefit our students? And how are we supposed to benefit our students most? I haven't even begun to think about socioeconomic issues related to adolescent literacy...

Where do we go now? I think the most important thing from here is knowing the myriad options I have before me and a greater awareness of the complexity of issues at hand.

Also, this trailer is relevant to recent religious tensions. Enjoy. I need to see this movie again soon.

Dear blog world,

The readings this week focus on developing students.

I would have to say that, as someone who considers himself to be a better writer than a reader, I am very excited to get involved in this unit.

But we face a problem... just how do we teach students how to write?


The readings this week talked about the ways in which we teach students how to write. Though the one question I have after these readings is this: is teaching high-schoolers the same as teaching younger students? I noticed the readings seemed heavily focused on teaching elementary. What do we do about high schoolers? How do we develop their own writing further? Do I model it after what I learned?



I am currently in a high school class of freshman teaching them the skills necessary to create expository essays. Though I can create lessons that are good, not every student is engaged with the lesson. What does this mean for me? How can I make them more engaging?

"When teachers give students a simple way to write something, not only are they not true to the product, they aren’t true to the process either." Ray, Exploring Inquiry

This is a very interesting statement that I think can be applied to any level of teaching. I definitely agree that there isn't any particular way in which we should teach students to write. In my own experiences as a youngster, I was presented with many different options to construct thoughts and ideas, but I do not recall being forced into any particular style. These sentence constructions seemed simple enough, but there was great complexity in choosing which ones we would use, where. We had to learn how to vary our style, our sentences, and our words. My teaching will reflect this.

Ray's "Study Driven" article also talks about the need for students to see teachers as writers and writer models. How we chose to do so will be crucial for our students. I hope to show students that writing is a process. Maybe I can teach students how to write by modeling my own writing for them, present them with my writing, and ask them to help me edit it. We all know how much they [the students] love fixing our [the teacher's] mistakes.