Amanda's Blog

"Readicide" Kelly Gallagher's "Readicide" was like a breath of fresh air. She answered so many questions I've had about teaching and the stresses it has created even though I haven't even started student teaching. One of my favorite aspect of the book was her take on standardized testing. I remember in class in our small groups we talked about the WASL and other state tests that our teachers would take weeks to prep us for just to prove ourselves to the state. I also remember in high school when teachers would complain about having to stray from their original plans and focus on what they had to teach us so that we would pass these tests. There has to be some other way to test students without taking time out of the teacher's schedule and making teacher's feel like they need to revolve their lessons around a test. Another part I related to was when Gallagher explained that students aren't reading for fun anymore. I can't even remember...

"I Read It, But I Don't Get It" I was pleasantly surprised by Tovani's "I Read It, But I Don't Get It". We are taught not to judge a book by a cover but unfortunately I did not listen to the old cliche. The outside looked old and boring and the title didn't interest me at all. Man was I wrong! This book was so insightful and reminded me of myself in high school. I didn't realize that there were so many different types of "fake-reading". I think I related most to the "resistive reader". I loved reading but was never really interested in what we had to read for class. I could comprehend what we were reading in class but never enjoyed it. As a teacher you should know what the students are interested in and try to apply that information into a lesson. And even though teachers are often required to teach certain texts they should find activities to engage the students in the lesson. This text will help me immensely while teach...

"Why Teaching About Social Justice Matters" To be honest I wasn't quite sure what the question 'why teaching social justice in the classroom is important' and my brain immediately went to my high school current world problems class. This teacher taught what legitimately "social justice" was and the different types of issues happening around the world, but never taught us how to change them. On the other hand, I had a civics teacher who was all about having their students change the world or at least a part of it. He reminded me a lot of the teacher in this article. I love how he doesn't focus on just racial stereotypes and injustices but talks about when his students wrote a paper on stereotypes they focused on " micro-aggressions they dealt with on a daily basis, and lowered or unfair expectations put upon them". He challenged his students to think deeper and look at the bigger picture, which is the world we are living in. He also ask...

"Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English" One of my favorite aspects of this article was the paragraphs following the subheading "Teaching Hip-Hop Music and Culture". I think this is very important because not every lesson plan and activity is interesting to students and will help them learn what common cores state standard the teacher is trying to teach. In the example from the article the students were really invested in hip-hop and rap so the teacher morphed her lesson to something involving the things the students liked. Hip-hop has a a lot of poetry aspects so she compared hip-hop song they enjoyed to different poetry techniques. This is so helpful as a teacher and student. As a student you are much more invested because it is something you are interested in. And for the teacher, the students are more eager to come to class and they see something they are interested in in a different light. You can use this is tactic in every su...

"Paulo Freire: Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed" The first thing that stuck out to me in this article was the concept that teachers talk to much in the classroom. And while I do recall learning many things from what my teachers have said aloud there is the flip side that students should use their own voice and questioning to learn. If teachers don't allow the students to speak at all they may never be truly invested in the topic. As we learned a couple weeks ago discussion plays a huge role in the classroom. Students response and discussion is imperative to ensure your students are actually learning. I have experienced teachers with very monotone and uninteresting voices that makes going to class seem like the last thing I want to do. If those teachers gave the opportunity for others to speak it would bring more focus and differentiation to the classroom. Another ideal Freire brings to light is that teachers are teaching memorization not actual learning. And ...

"Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?" Something I enjoyed about this article was the importance of assessment in the classroom and the response a teacher should use in different scenarios. One part I found particularly interesting was "Responding to Response Journals, Blogs, or Online Chat". This reminded me of how we use this blog in our class or how canvas has discussion boards. majority of my classes that had discussion boards would require that the student commented on two or more post from other classmates. Sometimes this would feel forced, so I enjoy not having to do that for this class and rather we discuss our blog post to other students in class and receive feedback then. As a teacher, if I were to use a blog or discussion board in my class, I would try to pull specific questions or statements from the students blogs to discuss in class so that they didn't feel like they were posting for nothing....

"California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template" Something I enjoyed about this template was the prereading, reading, and post reading strategies that was laid out. I remember in high school when we would hypothesize about what might happen in the text based on the title or the cover of the book. I also enjoy the part about making connections to the text from the students own life. This will help them remember the text better and create a connection with the characters and story. During the reading portion, students can look back at they predictions and see if they came true. It was always fun to see how other students believed the text would pan out. I had also never heard about "the believing game" that students will do with the text, which is believing everything the author is writing as opposed to "reading against the grain" or "playing the doubting game". Both of these strategies help with compre...