Room at the Top

As the time gap continues to expand between high school and college I become more aware of the fact that literature too many adolescents is nothing more than a waste of time, making the art of teaching English all the more challenging. During my high school days book reports were more of a break than a dilemma as reading and writing always came as second nature, but now I realize my love for literature is rare amongst teens, especially boys, and as I enter into the profession I need to ask myself, how am I going to make English appealing to as many students as possible?
Most importantly the literature and activities in the classroom must hold the attention of the students, which means the texts need to in some way be relatable. Simply reading typical high school books and writing five page reports on each will not due, but instead reading books that offer teens helpful insights into their own lives and formulating creative response opportunities will create an atmosphere of learning that is not forced but instead sought after.
Far too often teachers create a routine that becomes the death of any students love for reading, for example boring lectures during the reading and boring assignments afterwards. I’m not saying that I can’t have a routine, but rather make it flexible and different for every book; I need to use different activities so students enjoy coming to class each and everyday. Examples that we have used in class for example are great for this, such as the found poem, and use of different text that the author wrote to further the learning experience. Both these and many others bring variety into the classroom, and in my opinion will help information become more memorable in student’s minds when compared to lectures. Basically what needs to happen during the reading of text are activities that will help students best connect to the book. Active learning is essential, I feel as many others do that it is the best way to learn; I intend on basing much of my class on student interaction and input. Let the students voice their opinion, not only with me but with each other, I know some teachers fear the idea of group work but as long the students are able to stay on task their diverse opinions make for the best discussions and the best learning experiences, and again the key to keeping them on task in interesting books and interesting activities.
Post-reading activities again can be diverse, such as art work if the circumstance is appropriate, and of course essays or papers. Most importantly in this case is I cannot be closed to different forms of responses as long as the students are dedicated to them, in other words as long as the different activity isn’t a solution to slack. Essays of course will be dominant in the response area, and these again cannot just target the basics, I need to allow for creative writing, maybe a written interview with the author, a fictional one of course, or something such as the addition of a scene or letter a character may have written, something to show the student really understood the book.
After looking on Jenny’s blog I too became interested in Nancie Atwell because of her ideas for a writing workshop, and researched other areas that might provide information about effective workshops:
http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/hswriting/workshops/workshop1/
http://www.learner.org/resources/series194.html
The first website is the better of the two as it offers steps for creating an effective workshop for high school English teachers and then offers sample workshops for teachers to experiment with. The second is more of a workshop for the teacher as it basically offers advice for teaching writing and literature. After researching into these websites and evaluating my high school experience I am confident that as long as I am committed to providing and allowing variety

As a whole I found Grand Valley professors and miscellaneous staff members are advancing rapidly in the technology world as they are in search of an advanced and organized library as well as classroom strategies that prove to be the most effective for their students. While each booth presented different solutions to advance Grand Valley in the technology world there seemed to be a similarity amongst all of the presenters. Each professional voiced the fact that their objective was to simply make learning and researching easier for their students, as well as make learning interactive between both professor and student and student to student.
First is Sean Lancaster, professor of Ed 205 and recipient of the Pew Teaching with Technology award. As a former student of Sean’s I can easily understand how his strategies and ideas were recognized as his desire to stray from blackboard and into other online resources were quite effective. Sean’s primary online tool is his website that is used in place of blackboard and allows students the ability to take Ed 205 from their computer in their home. On the website I noticed three key groups in which students could access any information they needed to succeed in the class. The first was general info where the syllabus was available, as well as the class list in case a student needed to contact another student. Other information was available as well, but the most important information is found in the second and third groups. In the second group key links were available for any help from other online sources, as well as a list if key dates in which projects were due on. The students could easily access information to each project as well by simply clicking on the name and there a step-by-step process was available to walk each student through the project. In the third column the weekly lessons are listed. Here the students could click on the current week and information becomes available in which Sean has a detailed list for each student to follow in order to complete the necessary tasks for each week. This included a: project or lab, readings, and classroom discussions. Each week the student was to participate in at least four discussions where Sean would post a question or to topic and the students would respond to him and to each other. Finally at the end of each week Sean would send out an evaluation to remain updated in his own effectiveness and learn what he should continue to do and what he should fix. Overall Sean’s online learning experience challenges students in a way that prepares them for the never ending advance in technology education.
Secondly is Shelley Schurman who is a professor in social work. Shelley has targeted the downfalls of journals which are necessary in the teaching strategy of social work education and has replaced traditional handwritten journals with e-journals, or electronic journals. Some dilemmas Shelley has encountered when dealing with hand-written journals are: unclear handwriting, time management, and the absence of the journal needs to be collected and graded by the instructor. E-journals fix these problems by allowing student-faculty contact, which means students who are shy in class are more reluctant to voice their opinion when typing it on a computer. Also the online journals allow for active learning, prompt feedback, time on task, high expectations, respect for diverse talents and ways of learning, and reciprocity and cooperation amongst students. Most importantly is the fact that students can interact with each other in a most effective way as again they feel conferrable to open up and truly say what is on their mind due to the fact that they don’t have to do it in person.
Next is the interactive power point, a new device that seemingly has caught the eye of many professors. What I like most is the mission statement that Easy Graphicscore, the creator of Turning Point, has placed on the front page of their brochure. It says, “Turning: Attendance into involvement, participation into assessment, and potential into success.” The tool instantly becomes all the more appealing as professors are told that their classrooms can be a haven for all three of those earlier statements as Turning point requires students to actively participate in each session. The hand held device is used by each student as a type of remote. The professor presents a PowerPoint presentation that obtains questions, surveys, opinion polls and complex problems. After each one of these questions or problems the class voices their opinion via remote and instant results are displayed on the screen. The requirement to participate forces the students to follow along and listen in class, and while a few problems might occur, such as cost, large university classes can now have a way to include each student.
Finally is ebrary, an online resource for books that allow students to research and read without having to leave their home or dorm. Ebrary can be accessed through the GVSU library page online from any computer as long as the user has a username and password, and once you arrive your research begins. First you need to indicate the fact that you are searching for an e-book, following that you type in the category in which you are searching for i.e. (war, business). A list is formulated that includes all the books in your category search, and remember due to the fact that you requested that they all be e-books the list of books can all be read online. Once you select your book of choice the table of contents is pulled up. Here you can read through the book, select a chapter, or advance even further in your search. The program allows the reader to again type in a category or key word, and the program sorts through the book and pulls all sections out that include your desired topic and the chapters and page numbers they are on. Because of the fact that the user is allowed to pinpoint their desired information research time is drastically reduced and students don’t need to bother with endless searching and page flipping.
While there were numerous booths that I haven’t commented on all seemed to have an interesting and helpful idea that will improve student learning and involvement. Now it is up to other professors and students to put these ideas into action and improve their own classroom experience.

What Literature should adolescents read?

Without a doubt I feel that adolescents need to be indulged in literature that not only deals with issues they struggle with, but issues that are often viewed as controversial. Today many YA novels are challenged and many are banned because of inappropriate material, but what the naïve people who challenge these books need to realize is that the inappropriate material in the novel is found everyday in the hallways, it is simply unavoidable. The best way for teens to deal with issues such as drugs, sex, and partying is to be educated about them, and besides the obvious resources such as parents, literature is a key source that puts characters in realistic situations in which the reader can identify with. For example my YA group just finished The Outsiders, a book that deals with gangs, murder, and drugs and alcohol. While exposure to these issues may seem detrimental to our youth, they are bound to deal with them someday, so in order for teens to make the right decision when need be they with have the proper information to make the right decision because of an experience that a character they read about might have had.
On the website www.ala.org a list of the most frequently challenged books is given, and after looking into a few of these books the reasons were very similar to the three I listed earlier along with the addition of profanity and the issue of death or murder. For example the book that topped the chart was “The Chocolate War” and the reasoning was because of sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoints, and violence. The problem that I find here is that I dealt with every one of these issues by the 9th grade, and the problem was I had never had to deal with anything like that before so I was totally clueless when confronted by different people and the issues they brought with them. If I simply had been exposed to books such as “The Chocolate War” then I would have made better decisions when confronted by these people, but because so many books that dealt with these issues were banned I knew so little.
Another book that was mentioned was “Go Ask Alice,” which is very similar to another book that I have read entitled “Jay’s Journal.” Both stories involve teens who spiral into a pit of drugs, promiscuous sex, and in Jay’s case Satan worship. Now these books are definitely risky and contain material that teens shouldn’t be dealing with, but once again we need to be realistic. There is no sense in fighting a cause that will always be around, but instead we should try and work with the students and show the aftermath of their decisions with these books before it is too late. Sure the books both are dark and deep, rather disturbing really, but in every town across America there are students experiencing the same problems that Alice and Jay experienced, we need to find ways to reach them. Throwing them the typical 8th and 9th grade books is worthless, the students will fail to connect to any character, lose interest considering they ever had interest, and eventually stop reading altogether. We need to keep literature that is interesting and helpful to students in their hands; I can not state enough that we simply need to be realistic.