Individual Teach: Self-Evaluation

Planning and Organization:
My book was a little different than the others seem to be; it wasn't so much a theory of writing or why we write as much as a book just chocked-full of ideas on what to write about and ideas of different kinds of writing for those who wish to write poetry. When i decided what i wanted to teach from this book, i had a hard time narrowing down which of Kowit's many activities to incorporate into my unit, but ultimately elected to teach the three writing prompts that i would most like to do in my own classroom- the object poems using metaphors and similes, the dream poems, and the in-praise poems. I selected these three prompts because I feel like they best represented Kowit's main suggestions of what to keep in mind while writing poetry: meter and device (the object poems), being comfortable with expirimentation (the dream poems), and putting a new spin on an old theme (the in-praise poems). I especially thought that the dream poems would be good to do in a classroom because the unit can actually extend to other areas of study such as surrealism in art and literature and the history of psychology.
I opted to organize the class in chronology with Kowit's text, which may have been a bad idea in hindsight because the activities seemed to get less serious and more fun as we moved along, which, when in a classroom, usually plays out to be more meaningful in reverse. It was a little difficult to fit everything in on time and in an ideal classroom, i would have lots of time to devote to each prompt and include more in-depth classroom exploration of the some of the themes. The hardest part about planning this unit was deciding how to structure a lesson around a book full of little tips and tid-bits of advice for the practicing poet. I wanted to connect Kowit's suggestions with the possibility of extending those suggestions into a reflective and insightful writing class. However, despite the somewhat reversed order of my unit, I feel that the writing activities were the right ones to do. Even though I probably didn't need to do all three, i'm still glad I had the gumption to attempt it!

Teaching Presence and Authority:
I felt pretty nervous at the front of the class in the beginning. It's strange, because I actually feel comfortable in my ability to conduct a classroom and I've always kindof been really good and at-ease with kids in the middle/high school age range. They do not intimidate me whatsoever and I'm not nervous at all to conduct a classroom full of them all day long. However, it's a different vibe you get when you're teaching your peers and you know you are being critiqued. That being said, my nerves did go away pretty quickly and I felt at ease explaining the book and explaining my reasoning behind the assingments. I definately talked too fast (lifelong affliction) and didn't always make myself clear with my instructions. Something I'll have to work on for sure! However, I do think i conducted myself with good presence and authority when I walked around the class to see how everyone was doing with their dream poems and then to see if people needed help with their in-praise poems. I remember sometimes being stuck with a problem or assignment and really appreciating when my teacher would come ask me how it was going...sometimes you just don't feel like reaching out and you need to be reached out too. I liked being able to extend that hand to my classmates as their teacher for the day. I tried to approach the topic in a way that did not make me seem like i'm the Poetry Teaching Guru, rather, I tried approaching the activities as some good ideas not only for us as practicing writers, but also for us as novice teachers who are going to be experimenting with lesson plans for that first year or two. However, I did have a main objective in mind for the discussions and the activities and I think I did a good job using my authority to move the class along when it needed to be moved along and to let the class engage with myself and each other when there was a good discussion going on.

Incorporation of Writing
Well, considering that my whole unit was planned around writing different kinds of poetry, I think I did a pretty good job incorporating writing. I used writing prompts that were directly from Kowit's text, although I "made them mine" a little bit too by having students bring in objects to write about with the object poems and research their dreams with the dream poems. I think that the book itself benefitted me quite a bit as a future teacher and I can only hope that the activities I chose to reflect the book were able to help my classmates as future teachers, too. The importance of teaching this specific writing unit to the class comes with the fact that as writing teachers, we will inevitably have to teach some poetry at some point in our careers and many of us are uneasy and unsure of how to do this...hopefully my indy teach gave my classmates some insight as to why this subject is sometimes hard to approach and possibly a few ways that we can incorporate it into an eclectic classroom full of writing enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. I think that my peers were able to engage as teacher-writers as well as teachers of writing. We all were able to practice our own poetry writing by doing the actual writing activities that were introduced in Kowit's book. We were also able to discuss the reservations about poetry held by teachers and students alike and were able to think critically about what kinds of activities may or may not work in a classroom. By asking the class about their own experiences with poetry in the classroom setting and discussing the issues that students may have with writing and sharing poetry, I was able to prepare my classmates to better think about and practice the art of writing. I think this was best exemplified by Sharon, when she said at the end of the unit that she valued being able to watch the reaction of her classmates to the lesson itself and be able to think critically about how teaching poetry may play out in her own classroom.

Meaningful Connection with Students:
I really wanted the class to have fun with this unit. To me, writing poetry is indeed challenging and frustrating, but most of all it is enjoyable and theraputic to be able to write creatively about a wide range of introspective (and sometimes silly) topics- I wanted my classmates to see that both the act of writing poetry itself as well as teaching poetry to others can be a fun challenge as a writer and as a writing teacher. I wanted to give my classmates writing assignments that valued both the difficult aspects of writing and teaching poetry, like the meter and devices, but that also valued the universality of poetry itself- it's ability to connect humanity by tapping into common shared experiences (like having bizarre dreams) and by cutting across gender/class/ethnicity/cultural/sexuality lines to connect all humanity as one entity (that is grossed out by foul things like leeches and chubby kids). I think that this did resonate with my classmates and I really think that everyone really enjoyed sharing their poetry with one other and laughing at each others wierd personal objects, dreams, phobias, and general personal tokens of humanity. All technicalities aside, this was really my main personal objective for the unit- after the in-praise poems, I feel confident in the successful attainment of that goal...the other stuff (like explaining my directions clearly!) will hopefully come with more practice.

Writing- Why we do it, what it's comfort is, and where it hides.

There are many reasons why we write-- professional reasons, for which writing is required, academic reasons, for which writing is a necessary step in research and development, and social reasons, for which writing is used to communicate with others. People also write for more personal reasons-- it is a creative and sometimes very theraputic way of expressing oneself ...among the other aformentioned reasons for writing, I also chose to write for the last reason. It helps me to clear my mind and organize my thoughts. It helps me to identify issues with which ive been struggling internally. To me, that is the "comfort in writing." I also love language in general and am a word freak; I like to find new ways to say things and exercise that part of my brain.
I think that writing can literally "hide" anywhere; we often tend to think that a person needs to have experienced something extreme in order to have something good to write about-- something extremely tragic, extremely ecstatic, extremely strange, extremely romantic. In class we read poems and stories that deal with heavy personal or social issues that are intimidating subjects for students to tackle in their own writing. While they should practice writing about these extremes, I also think that students should practice "finding" where else writing "hides"-- in common things, in everyday experiences, in simple pleasures and tiny grievances. Great poetry especially does not have to be so tragic as most students are lead to think it is. I would probably give my students Neruda's "Odes to Common Things" to show them examples of where in the world around them writing "hides."
I think that a person's life is a great reservoir of experience that can potentially contribute to writing. I know that I always use my own experiences to derive the meaning of poems or stories that I write. However, I don't think a person's general life experience necessarily dictates their writing ability, but the presense of certain things in ones life probably does. If there is a history of reading, good instruction, and more time for practicing writing in ones life, they will probably be a better writer than someone who didn't have those things. People who have speech or learning disabilities may have a harder time with some aspects of writing than people without those differences. Some people just seem to be natural writers, while others have to work at it a little harder. However, I think that if our students are all taught in classrooms that really focus on their longterm and self-directed success with writing, everyone can be a better writer than they were before.

For poems by Pablo Neruda, Check Out: http://www.poemhunter.com/pablo-neruda/

Two well-written sentences & "Best Practice"

I was never allowed to have a dog as a child; my parents didn't trust me to take care of one.

My all time favorite poet is Charles Bukowski, however, I consider myself very partial to Pablo Neruda and Jim Carroll as well.

As for "best practice," i'm really not entirely sure what is meant by this...if I take the two words separately and combine both of their respective meanings, it would lead me to believe that it means the highest level of training for something specific. In regards to a writing classroom, however, i'm not sure exactly where this concept would apply...I feel like it could apply to everything, which leads me to believe that my innitial assessment of the meaning of the phrase is probably wrong.

Group 1 Evaluation

One powerful revelationt that i had from this unit was that every bit tof descriptive writing is a specific part of a grammatical structure. I always thought of grammar as being punctuation, nouns/verbs/adjectives, direct object pronouns, etc...i actually never new about the "brushstrokes" of writing...the participles, absolutes, appositives, etc...those "image grammar" stylings are so essential when teaching creative writing, which in and of itself i believe to be essential to teaching professional writing. I really love the writing as painting metaphor; i always kindof had that idea as a writer and as an education student but i wasn't able to translate it into a teaching method as this group did with the help of Noden's text.
I thought that the unit itself was organized well; i like that it went through the book in order emphasizing the important points that the group had chosen for instruction. I also would have chosen to teach the same points from the text that the group chose. I thought that the structure of the unit was strong-- Sharon would start out with an intraductory concept and discussion, exemplified and elaborated on by Samantha and her activities, and then kindof concluded and unified with a meaningful, critical-analysis ending by Meredith.
One of the teaching methods that most stuck out to me in this unit was the way the teachers had the class tap into their prior knowledge and then expanded on that knowledge. The also showed the class rather than told the class about Noden's concepts and strategies. The activities were insightful and went along well with what the group was trying to convey; they didn't seem random or subordinate or like simple time-fillers...although i do wish that the timing was planned a little better on the second day so that we could have had more time to work on the activities rather than rush through them. Other than that, i think the teacher-leaders managed the classroom quite well; they gave the class lots of opportunities to contribute our own ideas to the discussion and gave us opportunities to share our assignments (even though these opportunities weren't always siezed by the class). Sometimes the instructions for activities or homework assignments were not explained quite clear enough but that was usually corrected with a second, more contrived explanation.
An important question that the group raised was the concept of in-context teaching as it relates to memorization. I like that we were asked to think about this question and brainstorm about it because we often forget things that we worked so hard on memorizing and remember things that seem random, obscure, or obsolete in hindsight. Why is that? I think it does have something to do with whether or not we learned the material in context...I think that all content from all subject areas can be taught in context in school, even in contexts related to eachother (like when teachers of science, english, and social studies, for example, will get together to do a combined unit on one topic.) When we learn things in context, it seems to have more relevance to our own lives, therefore, we seem to remember it more. I think that is important for writing teachers, especially when it comes time to teach grammar, which can at times seem completely boring and unrelatable to students.
As a teaching colleague i would congratulate Sharon, Samantha, and Meredith on their group teach. I think it went very well overall and I can tell they put forth a lot of effort in planning their lessons, discussions, and activities. The only negative thing that i would critique them on was that i think they sometimes seemed to forget to address us as a class of colleagues and were more in the mode of addressing us as students in a classroom. I think that focusing more on how Noden's mothods would or would not work in a classroom would have been beneficial, rather than implementing his methods "on" us as if we were students in a writing class. However, I don't think this was a big enough problem that it distracted the class from the presentation as a whole...there definately were times when I felt that they unified us all as teaching colleagues.
I will definately keep this book so that i can implement some of these methods, strategies, and activities into my own classroom.

On Variations of Imitation

I actually think that all of Noden's Variations on Imitation are something i would want to incorporate into the classroom in a unit based around Imitaion as a means of practice and skill development...it is difficult for me to select just one that I think would be better to use than the others, but if i had to i'd probably pick The Hamill Approach. I like that it takes the structure of an excerpt of good writing and lets students use it as somewhat of a skeleton for the actual body that they will be building with words, particularly descriptive words and the elemental "brushstrokes" such as participles and absolutes. I think that this would go over well in a classroom because it would supply students with a strong enough basis to work with, especially if it were a piece of writing that they themselves picked out or if it were an excerpt from a book that the class decided on together as being a good jumping-off point. This would also work well because as long as the excerpt is stripped to its bare essentials of conjunctions and blanks are left for nouns/adjectives/participles/etc, the door is left open for students to be creative and write about whatever they so desire.
I think this is a little more creative than the Franklin option, although I do think that option is a good way to get students to see how to use good image grammar and descriptive writing, and how that usage adds to an otherwise dry or unoriginal narrative.
I do think that the Pooh Perplex is another great variation on imitation that i would use in my classroom, however I think that for it to live up to its potential would would be better assigned as homework or as a project that could be revisited for revision later on to allow for more time to think it through and be original.
My only problem with the Van Gogh approach is that it may be hard for students to really be able to get into the mindset of someone like a corporate bureaucrat or news reporter because to be able to write in those personas would often require lots of arcane jargon that students may not posess. Because of this, they may chose to select personas that they are more familiar with which rely heavily on stereotypes in the media, such as rappers; a reliance that, when translated into writing, may offend some peers.

Teaching Grammar

I really feel that to successfully teach grammar in an effective and meaningful way in the secondary school, teachers of writing must be able to hold the interest of their students. This is very difficult to do with subject matter that is notoriously dry or has a reputation for being boring and useless...grammar included. That was certainly the case when i was learning grammar and is, unfortuantely, my only prior knowledge of teaching grammar. However, it is essential that students learn grammar so that they can be successful writers, even in the simplest forms, upon entering adulthood and the workforce.
That being said, i think that connecting grammar to the kinds of writing that learners enjoy is essential in being able to hold their interest. Grammar is often taught strictly in the academic-essay context-- as we have seen in Harry Noden's Image Grammar, it doesnt have to be. I think that his metaphor for grammar being the essential technique of writing the way brushstrokes and style are the techniques of painting is a good lead in...using examples from interesting and colorful pieces of creative writing rather than the stereotypical "May I go to the store today?" examples are a great step in the right direction of holding students' interest when teaching grammar. It also may be good to allow them to bring in lyrics, poems, passages, comics, or magazines that they like and go through it to find out what grammar works and what doesnt within the piece.

The presentation on Digital Storytelling yesterday got me thinking about more innovative ways to introduce writing techniques and ideas into the classroom. The assignment that Pen Campbell gave her students, in a lot of ways, reminded me of classic writing assignments givin in middle and high school classes to beginners of poetry and creative prose. It revolved around a personal memory or incident that required lots of deep thought and critical reflection prior to the actual writing...the imagery was important too, since this assignment actually required the imagery to be supported by a visual aide...I can see how students who are new to the process of writing imaginitively and with focus would get a lot of good practice out of this assignment. It puts writers' minds on the writing-track and gets them thinking in new ways that are personal and exciting to them. I can see this kind of assignment as being a good way to get reluctant learners interested in the writing process.

As for my Individual Teaching Presentation, I am really excited about my book because I love his ideas and suggestions for writing poetry. I have selected some activities that i think would go over well in a writing classroom, especially for reluctant learners...I have a good idea of what i want to teach and what activities i want to do, however, i am concernted about the time limit and being able to get it all in there!

"I Am" Poem

I am from the customary mosaic of avacado tiles
in the lobby of the YMCA downtown;
the smell of chlorine in the speckled wallpaper
and the clink of change dropping into the vending machine.
I am from early summer mornings spent on the broken plastic chairs;
watching the old men dissapeer into the locker rooms,
emerging with their speedos and swim caps and glorious wrinkled nipples.
I am from the whispers filling the room after Mary and Felix's mother
dropped them off in her slippers and bathrobe.

I am from the 40 minute bus ride to Silver Lake-
the smell of sunscreen and everyone's bagged lunch,
from the songs
about Shaving Cream and how Yo Momma Don't Wear No Socks.
I am from the window seat; city streets and bus-stops
succumbing to the corn fields and tall grasses of the
greenbelt.

I am from starting out slowly-
lonely.
Moseying the shady paths that connected the lake front
to the nature hut
and opened where kids played on rubber tires
that smoldered in the heat.
I am from sunlight
breaking shadows
through a canpoy resounding
with the screams of cicadas,
then silence.

I am from stuffed squirrels and the tiny teeth of Gar,
beehives and birch bark on display, and a tank filled
with black muk that once formed in the lake.
I am from the quiet circle
of wide eyes and open mouths,
insight and instruction.
Metamorphasis was real;
the mullberries fine to eat, and much safer
than dirty peaches and salami sandwhiches
left sitting in brown-paper-bags
in the sun.

I am from the rocks that hid the crayfish.
I am from Esmerelda's death in the art lodge
long, long, ago
and her ghost haunting the archery field
where the tight red feathers on the arrow
split the middle of my burning target-
for once.

I am from the beesting in my sister's eye
and I am from the molding picnic table where, in ritual,
she braided a noen plastic lanyard
over and over,
intricutely and in silence,
in the rain
behind tears.

After reading the select sections from Linda Christensen's Reading Writing, and Rising Up, i feel that i've been reacquainted with issues i've already thought about as an up and coming teacher. I've already staked (to myself) my own advocacy for untracking classrooms and in my career I hope to help eradicate the use of standard-english-only in language arts classrooms. I was most interested in the "reluctant learners" section and it's tips for the less enthusiastic students.

I thought that the "tea party" method discussed in this sectoin was an insightful trick, however, i'm skeptical as to how effective such groupwork ALWAYS is...To believe that all "reluctant learners" will benefit from group work seems presumptuous. I can remember from my own experience as a student that "reluctant learners" often seemed to find group work to be trite and redundant- sometimes it lead to an excuse to socialize and minimize work effort. To me, group work was notoriously a good way to cut corners. I myself was introverted and tended to work better alone. When it was a subject that i was reluctant about, group work was either a hit or miss...I either felt motivated by those in my group who understood what was going on and were willing to help me understand too, or I was even more withdrawn and uninterested if those enthusiastic peers were not there to draw motivation from. I do think that "reluctant learners" can sometimes be drawn in through more individual (but just as meaningful) assignments that can also allow for critical analysis without the distraction of groups.

I felt encouraged by the next strategy discussed in the section, which involved students writing poems about their lives and backgrounds as a way of "celebrating their voice." I do feel that "reluctant learners" are often reluctant because they don't feel any conncetion to the material that they are supposed to be learning from and about...I know that in certain subjects, such as math, i was always very reluctant because i felt in no way connected to the material and i didn't see how I could possibly use it to better myself in the future. I felt like the notion propelled by my teachers that it was "important" was a myth that i could easily see through, thus causing my reluctance in putting forth the frustrating effort to learn it. For students whose identities are often marginalized by society, they may feel the same way about learing The Scarlett Letter as i did about learning Geometry. If my math teachers had found ways to show me where math was found naturally in the real world, or had made an effort to show me just how useful it is in life, i would have probably appreciated it more. I think that by helping all students celebrate their own individual identities in such ways as writing and sharing poems, songs, or stories that emphasize our own place in the world, it may help marginalized and "reluctant" learners feel more appreciated and better understand the connection between themselves, the texts that they are forced to read, and humanity in general.

As a teacher, i feel that i'll probably try to rely equally on interesting group work that doesnt seem banal or superflouous (coming up with assignments that are worthwhile may require the help of my students) and on creative, inwardly-focused individual assignments as a way to help those "reluctant learners" of all kinds feel confident in their ability to come to the forefront of their education and it's direction.

Quotes of Interest

"By sharing our solitude we come both to respect it and to create a door allows us to leave and return to the essential loneliness from which so much writing comes." -Murray, 7

This quote depicts what it actually feels like to me to write. There is definately a mindstate that I must be in to do any kind of writing. The mindstate necessary for essay writing is more easily created through environmental factors; I can go to Ravenwood or spread my things out on the couch and with coffee in hand, really get down to business. For creative writing, the mindstate comes much more sporadically and through certain emotional provokation that is less easily created synthetically. Regardless of if people are around or not, however, I must feel alone inside my head to be able to write the way i want to. I must be able to tune everyone else out, be it people in the room or the resounding chatter from conversations past that seems to lurk in my brain. That is when i feel true solitude and cane actually hear myself think. I can focus genuinely on what i'm trying to say and can more accurately say it how i think it should be said. When that mindstate is present, it is imprinted in the writing. I can easily tell by re-reading something i just wrote if i was distracted or not when i wrote it. When I'm not distracted my writing is more genuine and the reader can pick up on what i'm evoking. This clarity, to me, is essential in creating the bond between myself and whomever chooses to read what i've written. The bond itself is why i read (particularly poetry) and why i write.

"Writers do not tell new stories, they tell old stories in their own individual way." -Murray, 13

This is, essentially, why i read poetry. Not to sound melodramatic, but when i understand a poem and can relate to it, the bond i feel between myself and the writer (or speaker) of the poem creates a certain feeling of newness to the banality of humanity. For instance, there is a poem by Charles Bukowski that is beautiful to me, and certainly relatable to by almost all who read it. It is about the simple pleasure one derives from noticing at an attractive human being. In the poem, the speaker muses of his admiration for a cleaning lady's butt as she bends over to mop behind his kitchen table. That act in and of itself is so common and so familiar to so many people that it hardly seems poetic, especially since the subject of the poem may be offended. But the way it is written, with such honesty and simplicity, makes the act of quietly admiring another person seem like a beautiful token symbolic of a bond that all of humanity shares, no matter who, where, or when the reader is. That sense of connection and commonality, and the ability to give poetic newness and beauty to what innitially seems trite or even vulger is what i strive to achieve when i write.

Anxieties/Concerns

As a future teacher of writing, I am mostly fostering sentiments of excitement and curiosity rather than those of concern (for the most part). I always enjoyed my writing classes, particularly creative writing classes- far more than any other classes I took. My writing classes seemed to be a place where I could feel confident in my academic abilities rather than frustrated (unlike certain math or science centered classrooms down the hall). For me, it was always a positive experience. However, I do remember having peers in my classes that were not experiencing the same thrills that I was in class. They didn't want to be there learning about poetry as much as I didn't want to be in geometry learning about SOH-CAH-TOA. My concern as a future teaching of writing is that I wont be able to reach those students who don't share the same excitement that I have about writing. I am concerned that despite my own eagerness and interest, the subject matter to those students will never seem to extend beyond boring grammatical lessons where they feel they learn nothing other than that they've been using commas in the wrong part of the sentence for the last 14 years. I want to be an exciting teacher who can open doors for students and make them successful writers who actually enjoy writing!
I do consider myself a writer. I've always written poetry and short stories in my free time or whenever the mood arises (I wasn't exactly picked first for kick-ball teams as a kid) and since coming to Western I feel that I've been able to hone my craft and extend my interest and skill to more technical areas of writing, which had always been my biggest writing struggle in high school.
One story I have about a good writing experience comes from last spring's semester here at Western. For some reason I felt more driven about my writing than I have in a while- I was not only writing a lot, but I was sharing my writing and submitting it places as well. I wrote an essay in December that got accepted to the English Symposium in April. I got to read it to a panel, which I will admit [although not having been my motivation for the submission,] happened to make me feel slightly cool. I also had a poem published in The Laureate, Western's Lit Magazine, which had been a personal goal of mine for a long time. That was much more exciting to me than the Symposium.