Warm Up Reflection

Warm Up Reflection:


As an English teacher, with only one year of real experience under my belt, I have more quickly been introduced to topics that I am unfamiliar with.  Yet, this year also provided me with insight into what type of teacher I want to be, what I am comfortable with, and what I hope to accomplish and foster inside my own classroom.  I am comfortable and thrive when teaching American Lit.  But, this year I taught Sophomores.  The literature that exists in the realm of Sophomore required reading lists is difficult, somewhat bland, and apparently uninteresting to Sophomores.  What I realized as the year went on is that I needed to find a way to capture the interests of the students.  I needed a way to allow them to make connections to texts that were written years before they were even born.

Interestingly, the quantitative article that I chose for the blog discussed student motivation to read.  The researchers stated that students placed heavy emphasis on the cover of the novel as well as how well the teacher introduced it to the class.  I learned this the hard way.  Half way through our first novel, Animal Farm by George Orwell, I looked up to see many dreary faces.  I realized that they were disinterested, unmotivated, and half of them hadn't even read.  They say the first year is trial by fire.  I missed the mark with that novel, but I continued to seek out new methods of capturing student's attention and desire to read.  I definitely did not have pre-reading activities perfected by the end of the year, but I can say that I was able to refine how I introduced novels.  I think that these misfires are what the first few years about.  As educators, it is important to continuously refine our skills.  That is what I hope to gain from this program.  I hope that I am able to develop skills that will allow me to continuously seek out articles or discover new resources that allow for change and evolution in my own classroom.  I hope to learn how to continue learning on my own and with a group of colleagues.