Back-to-Back Lessons

Lesson Plan

Student Work

The back-to-back lesson assignment tasked us with creating two twenty-minute lessons to be taught in the same week to a small group of our peers. This was designed so that we could modify our lessons after the first day in order to better prepare for the following day of teaching. The lessons will then be divided and expanded to form a piece of our large content-area units.

This assignment most closely aligns with Standard 7: Planning for Instruction. The lessons were all-encompassing; we applied instructional strategies we have learned, various types of assessment, our knowledge of our content area, and our pedagogical philosophy to construct lessons that would instruct students in order to meet the standards and ultimately the essential questions that we produced for our unit. Our content and our learners were at the center of our lessons. The lessons were intended to fit within the larger scope of our units, and therefore could be embedded directly into our content. Given that the lessons were back-to-back, we were able to modify our lessons for the second day with our students and their needs in mind, allowing us to draw on knowledge of our learners in order to best adapt. 

I learned through my two lessons that one must be willing to be flexible and make changes on the fly in order to best accommodate the learners. No lesson will go completely the way it was intended to go, and this must be kept in mind when one is designing them. Certain parts could be cut short, others extended, and as an educator, it is integral that one is willing to change their plans for their students. For instance, on my second day I had planned to have a cumulative exit slip that would have assessed the entirety of both days. However, about five minutes into the lesson, I decided to just use the writing activity of the day as an assessment, since I felt it would have been too much to have them write and then complete what was essentially a mini quiz. This also served as my biggest modification for Day II; I had originally not planned to collect their writing activity, but I collected it so that I could reference it as an assessment. 

Each of my assessments, the first an exit slip and the second a writing assignment, stemmed directly from each of my standards. The first two standards were the content for Day I, and they were to relate the Cold War to World War II and to explain (and later apply) the Truman Doctrine to the Cold War, both of which were the questions I asked the students. The Day II assessment was to justify the U.S.’s involvement in the Guatemalan Coup, and identify the interests involved, the first of which was directly answered by the writing prompt and the second utilized as evidence for their response. I think this was the aspect of the lessons that I was most prepared for by the instruction from Literacy and Curriculum. Both classes emphasize and model that clear content and literacy goals must be established and met by assessments, so it was easy for me to use them in my lessons. 

I think that the most notable thing I learned about the teaching strategies I used was that I need to incorporate more questions for my students during instruction. There were several instances where we had the opportunity to think deeper and more critically about pictures or events that we were discussing, and had I asked more questions to prod them further, the lesson would have been more thought-provoking. This will surely be one of my changes for my lessons as I revise them for my unit. I think it is an easy fix if I allow for more time for instruction, then draft a few deeper questions that I would want my students to answer, and then write these into my lesson plan. Although some questions cannot be planned for and will come naturally, I can still incorporate some into my plans to add more depth. 

I think that differentiation was the weakest part of my lesson. I provided paraphrases to a primary source, a modified exit slip, and written agendas for each lesson, but I feel that I should have perhaps done more to try and meet the needs of the individuals in my class. I did, however, learn that despite the changes I made to fit the accommodations matrix, the content was still the same for them. Students can learn the same standards in different ways, and it can be surprisingly easy to modify aspects of a lesson. 

I think that my most essential aspect as a teacher is my presence; I feel that I can command the attention of students with my own engagement with the content. I know that if I continue to practice this trait and expand on it, it will make what I am teaching much more interesting for my students. This demeanor is something I had previously not noticed, but now that I have, I want to always be wearing it while teaching for the sake of my students.

George

The event that I attended was the Author Talk, where Alex Gino came to discuss their experiences and how the book was generated from them. The discussion was very free flowing; Alex would respond to questions from the audience, which guided the talk. These ranged anywhere from asking why the book was not titled Melissa, to questions about Alex’s experience as non-binary, and most notably what we should do as educators to ensure that we are welcoming to all our students. The part that was most significant for me was when, while talking about the censorship of books, Alex said “It is not protection if you are protecting children from themselves.” This really resonated with me, because this phrase demonstrates that these characteristics are not brought about from external factors, but rather are integral to the children themselves. Many are quick to blame outside forces for thoughts or feelings that they deem to be deviant, but “protecting” through censorship only denies young people the right to be who they are. 

This event most closely aligned to the social justice and sustainability pillar of the Education department’s mission statement. Equity was the focus of the author talk; Alex emphasized that a teacher should not feel as though they must “prepare” for an incoming transgender student, but should instead already have a space that is welcoming and equitable for all students regardless of whether there is a transgender student or not. It is clear from Alex’s talk that as a nation and as a society, we are still struggling to be an accepting community, but that as educators we are in a unique position to lead this project. As they stated, as teachers we must “amplify” diverse voices to be conscious of and respond to their needs.   

As I stated above, one of my biggest takeaways is the need to let our students be who they are. It is not our right as educators to tell them what is off-limits in terms of their development, and by doing so, we force them to be someone who they are not. This is well demonstrated in George, where gender-specific parts in the play and rigid educators confine Melissa into a category that does not represent who she is. Also notable from the talk, and specifically about the book, was Alex’s thoughts on the parents that he created. When asked why they did not write about Melissa coming out to her mother, they stated that “The mom had some grieving to do,” because it would not be an easy transition to begin thinking about her child as a girl. For Alex, it would be too easy for Melissa and her mother to reconcile immediately, and they “did not want to take it easy on the adults” of the story, since it is largely due to their actions that Melissa has difficulty expressing who she really is. I found it really powerful that Alex avoided the common trope of having the story end with a huge reconciliation. Instead, they opted to indicate with the ending that this was only the beginning of Melissa’s transition. 

As a teacher, Alex provided so much in terms of practices that would generate equity in my classroom. One of the biggest themes of the talk was to always be learning more about those that are different than you. Literature is a great way to do this, and that is why Alex wrote George, not only so that transgender children will have representation but also to educate those who are not transgender. Alex stresses that although one cannot “show someone else’s visibility,” their perspective can at least be understood. This will be reflected when as a teacher, one gives every student the right to choose their own pronouns and not have it be chosen for them. This can easily be done by simply stating your own pronouns. Understanding can also be achieved by discussing gender at an early age; Alex believes that no child is too young to have that conversation, and we will ultimately create a more understanding world if everyone has exposure to equitable education. Finally, and directly related to our class content, is the need for diverse literature. We have emphasized throughout the entirety of our classes that choice is needed in order for adolescents to engage with a book, as well as representation. Texts should reflect diverse experiences, so as to reflect the students reading them and to encourage understanding of those that are different than us. If our texts meet these standards, we will not only have engaged readers but also an equitable reflection of our increasingly diverse student body.  

Pre-Reading Lesson

Lesson Plan 

The text that I was using for my mini lesson is “Kennedy’s Address to the American People,” a speech given in 1962 that was intended to update the American people about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given that it is a speech, it is difficult for a contemporary reader to understand it without the necessary historical context.  This is what my lesson revolves around. 

My lesson most closely aligned with the final pillar of the SMC Education Department mission statement, which reads “Our graduates are collaborative and knowledgeable instructional leaders.”  My lesson was not a lecture, but rather a collaboration between the prior knowledge and perspectives of my students and the historical context that I provided. It served more as a conversation between the learners and myself, with the intention of exchanging historical knowledge while also giving students an opportunity to predict the outcome of historical events before engaging with a text. I also attempted to model a shift in historical discussion; where previously students received only an Amero-centric viewpoint, I provided this as well as the perspective of Cuba and the Soviet Union. 

In general, I have learned that as a teacher, I am animated and can be surprisingly confident. I felt very comfortable in front of my students, and this was obvious in my video.  I was not stiff or anxious, and the movement of my hands and body reflected my enthusiasm for my topic. To begin my pre-reading lesson, I asked that my audience take note of the interactiveness of my lesson.  I was most worried that my lesson would feel like a lecture for my students, given that much of it revolved around giving context for the speech. I was surprised to learn at the end that my lesson was far more interactive than I imagined it would be; my students commented that I did well to pull them into a topic that they did not know much about. Although the powerpoint was our focus, it did not feel like a lecture, for myself or my students. Rather, it was a conversation, in that I would display pictures and maps, then ask my students to contribute their prior knowledge or predict the outcome of events. At the end, they seemed to agree that this format was both informative and engaging for them. 

The most important thing I learned about pre-reading was that the content must be brought to the learner.  So often, texts are unreachable for students and because of this, they will become lost in them and read without comprehending the content.  If the text is made accessible, readers will feel much more confident when they begin the text, especially if they know exactly what they will be looking for within it.  That was my goal with my own text: to first make the text accessible by providing the necessary background knowledge, and then to point students in the right direction by telling them what they should be looking for.  I definitely reached this goal, because my students were able to take the context that I provided and apply it by predicting what the text will say before they read it. We did this in the form of an informal conversation, where I asked each student to share their predictions about the contents of the speech using at least two pieces of evidence from our discussion. They had similar but varying answers, and used slightly different evidence to support it, representing their unique perspectives. My intent with this activity was to give them a much fuller picture than the one provided in the text alone, allowing them to generate meaning from it while reading it with a critical eye. 

I think that my next step is to firstly make all of my lessons interactive in a variety of ways.  It is so easy in history to fall into the habit of talking at your students, rather than actually have them do history. Therefore, in the future I’d like to incorporate diverse and engaging activities around the content. In terms of teaching generally, I think I would like to work on slowing down. When I watched the video, I felt as though I was flying through the lesson instead of taking time to highlight points made by my students. Our double mini lessons next week will be an excellent time to practice this.

1st Blog - Connections between Literacy and Curriculum

What is Literacy Project

My Curriculum Orientation Project

The first assignment was to describe what literacy is, what it looks like in the digital age, and how literacy would be used in our classrooms in the future.  The next assignment asked that we determined our educational philosophical orientation, identify two theorists associated with it, and how it would influence our practice. 

For my analysis of the SMC Education Department mission statement, I picked the section titled “reflective and contemplative.”  The first section of this pillar states that graduates must have a “solid theoretical base,” and this was the entire purpose of the curriculum orientation project.  Through reflection about our own beliefs as educators, we determined our philosophical foundation for our practices, and from there, we were pointed toward strong theoretical concepts that in turn will guide our instruction and leadership decisions for the future. Regarding the second half of this pillar, I think it most closely relates to our literacy assignment, where through reflection about the definition of literacy we were able to create a new one individually, as well as apply it to our future curriculum and assessment. This will make the use of literacy purposeful in our classroom environments, whether it be cultural, visual, or digital. 

I personally felt the most growth in discovering ways in which these two projects were related.  Like many of my peers, I found my definition of literacy changed drastically as we discovered the many ways in which literacy is needed in the classroom.  Something we were not explicitly taught was how these forms of literacy could be applied to our curriculum orientation, but I found that I discovered this myself.  As a humanist and progressivist, my focus is always on the individual student and their growth, and I believe that my thoughts on literacy reflect this. In my discussion of visual literacy, I gave students many opportunities to grow in their abilities to dissect images, scaffolding the entire activity to ease them into visual literacy.  Specifically the third question in each example would give them plenty of room to explore their own perspectives and ideas about our topics. I also feel that my thoughts around equity and literacy reflect my perspectives; in my class, our content will carry over into discussions about current events, in the world and in the lives of my students.  Through such discussions, we will confront very real problems, some of which are likely to be faced by my students. 

For the future, I want to branch out and explore other areas of literacy that would be particularly relevant for my classroom.  In terms of my curriculum orientation, I would like to look for specific instances of humanism/progressivism at my placement so that I can deepen my understanding of what it looks like in practice. 

Troublemakers Blog Post: Values in the Classroom

Most students know what to do to be considered ‘good’ in a class. Based on your hopes for your classroom decor, rules, procedures, and instructional practices, what do you think students will assume you thought was ‘good’? Do you want to continue to communicate those values? Why or why not? What else would you communicate?

I think that based on the way I imagine my classroom looking and sounding, it is my hope that my students will consider being vocal about their own thoughts to be 'good' in my class. Given that I will be a history teacher, I would like to run a class largely based on discussion and collaboration rather than the lecturing that usually occurs, and I hope that this will encourage students to be themselves and to be vocal by being given daily opportunities to speak their mind about the content we are learning. I absolutely would like to continue communicating this value, because I think that students who are able to speak their mind would be much more comfortable in my class than in one in which they have difficulty being heard, and therefore making the class much more productive and thought provoking overall. I think that a potential problem with this could be that one or several voices may drown out ones that are much more quiet, so I will have to put some infrastructure in place to remedy this.

I think that another value that I would like to communicate would be that the opinions of my students mattered. To me, this value seems harder to convey, especially given that I plan to teach in a high school class. I think that the best way to get this across would be to have some sort of system of negotiated curriculum in place, giving students choice about how we learn in my class. Additionally, I could simply take time to ask for input from my students about anything that arises, for instance asking for feedback from the students on the structure of an upcoming quiz and modifying it accordingly.  

I believe that encouraging these two values would transcend beyond the content we are learning, teaching them to speak up and to have an opinion about what's going on around them, two skills that are equally if not more important than the content itself.

Physical Space in the Classroom

Physical Space in the Classroom

Andrew Branon

Saint Michael’s College

When I think back to middle school, my mind most often goes straight to the classrooms that we occupied.  White walls, tiled floors, and brown desks in a row; uninviting, monotonous, and for many students, oppressive.  So much development occurs in middle school, so why are students forced to spend this precious time in an environment that for many of them feels like prison?  More importantly, it must be asked what can be done to design a classroom space that plays a part in the student’s success in the classroom, working with the teacher rather than against them to ensure that a student’s maximum potential is reached.  Through my research, I hope to first provide an overview grounded in psychology about why learning space is important to student success, and then present a few of the many approaches to designing a responsive and effective classroom.

“From the front door and school grounds to the classroom, the aesthetics of learning spaces impact brain function and influence how students feel when they're in school -- as well as how they feel about their school” (Persaud, 2014).

In her article titled “Why Learning Space Matters,” found on edutopia.com, Romona Persaud dives into some of the psychology and neuroscience research regarding aspects of an effective classroom, which serves as an excellent foundation to the sources that follow.  She begins by highlighting our preconceived notion of what school has always looked like; the average school in this country is over half a century old, and “as we evolve our teaching methods and technology, our physical learning spaces stagnate” (Persaud, 2014). What then, are some of the aspects of an effective classroom?  The first is that it must be open, with high ceilings. Persaud cites a study that finds an open environment to not only be attractive, but also to encourage exploration and attentiveness, while a tighter space led to more stress (Persaud, 2014). The next is comfort, provided by “ergonomic seating and other furnishings, ample daylight, lots of fresh air, and well-designed artificial lighting and acoustics." It has been found that students simply cannot learn if they are not comfortable, since their focus drifts to whatever is distracting them (Persaud, 2014). .  The next is suitable lighting, naturally since it keeps students awake. Poorly lit rooms will lead to students nodding off, while the more light, “the greater the students' school attendance, achievement, and overall health” (Persaud, 2014). Finally, visually stimulating images must be present, because they grab the attention of students. Our brains like to see new things, and although they grab our attention, they do not hold it, so displays in the classroom must be regularly updated (Persaud, 2014).

In his article titled “A Place for Learning: The Physical Environment of Classrooms” on edutopia.org, Mark Phillips explores one method of approaching classroom design by first stating an obvious, but often overlooked fact about education: “It's conventional wisdom that different types of instruction require different seating arrangements” (Phillips, 2014).  In other words, there is no one-size-fits-all for classroom setup. After explaining the downsides of a conventional classroom setup (namely how it makes the class uninteractive), he states his prefered seating as “Moveable chairs, with or without writing surfaces, provide maximum flexibility for any kind of teaching” (Phillips, 2014). Such chairs allow not only for every student to be facing the board when needed, but also allows them to congregate into groups by simply moving the chair.  These are to him the most flexible and beneficial seating option. Yet even moveable seating does not reach the maximum potential that a classroom can have. After expressing the importance of seating arrangement, Phillips states “It's also a no-brainer that classrooms should be inviting, environments that make students feel good to be there” (Phillips, 2014). The principle manner in which this can be ensured is by giving students actual choice in how their classroom is arranged. He writes “The physical structure of a classroom is a critical variable in affecting student morale and learning.  Students' involvement in [this] process of creating their environment can empower them, develop community and increase motivation” (Phillips, 2014). By giving students the opportunity to create their learning space, not only will it ensure that the needs of those students are met, but will also give them a sense of ownership over their learning by giving them the responsibility of determining what this learning will actually look like in the classroom.

“It's [a] no-brainer that classrooms should be inviting, environments that make students feel good to be there” (Phillips, 2014).

Tracy Evans takes this idea even further in her article titled “Design Thinking and the Deskless Classroom” by actually outlining the steps for student-led classroom design, calling for a space that looks radically different from a traditional classroom and allows students to own the room (Evans, 2016).  The first step is one for the teacher: they must distance themself from the process, giving them “ownership by trusting them” in this exploratory phase. Then, ideas must be brainstormed by the students, who are free to present any idea, and from these the best are chosen. Then, a prototype can be created, most likely in the form of a drawing made by the students Finally, the class is placed in the hands of the students, who arrange it according to the plan (Evans, 2016).  Although it may sound like chaos, and there surely are glimpses of it, Evans argues that such freedom will inevitably bring out the innovation and enthusiasm of the students: “Rethinking our space on a limited budget meant that students had to get really creative. They looked around the school for unused furniture, asked for donations, and wrote letters to admin asking for funds” (Evans, 2016). If such a plan is followed, suddenly the students will be at the center of their own learning, in that they have created a significant portion of it.  Having them take such a responsibility is sure to translate into everyday classroom behavior according to Evans, who writes that “In a space where more choice is available, students need to be held more accountable for their behavior and work outcome… Giving them the privilege of choosing where and how to work requires them to take responsibility. And they will” (Evans, 2016)). Students can easily feel disconnected from their learning environment due to its uninteractive and perhaps daunting nature, but a space designed by them will immediately connect them to their learning.  Evans concludes with a phrase that cannot describe any better the effect of a student-designed classroom: “Part of the reason for the space' success is that it's not mine. It's ours” (Evans, 2016).

“[Vygotsky’s] theory acknowledges that learners are transformed by their transactions with social and physical environments” (Lippman, 2013).

In Peter C. Lippman’s article for The Journal titled “Designing Collaborative Spaces for Schools,” he focuses not so much on a student-driven process in creating future classrooms but rather on the importance of collaboration.  In doing so, he seems to argue for a change in the actual architecture of a classroom, which to me represents an even more radical approach. He begins by calling on influential educational theorist Lev Vygotsky to make his argument, stating that the theory of zone of proximal development “says that learners can acquire knowledge more rapidly when working with others who are more expert in a given task. His theory acknowledges that learners are transformed by their transactions with social and physical environments” (Lippman, 2013).  This symbiotic relationship between social (the students and educators themselves) and physical (the spatial design of the room, the technology present) aspects of an environment are what drives his argument for a “differentiated and integrated” learning space. Lippman explains that there are four different types of spaces that are needed, all of which he calls for in the classroom and in adjacent areas: individual, 1 to 1, small groups, and large groupings (Lippman, 2013). He then provides an example of a space that would meet these needs.

First, imagine a school with a common area between instructional spaces, located under a grand stair. To maximize the use of this space, the floor can be lowered approximately 15 inches, defining it as a separate instructional setting that can be used either as a classroom or as a place where a variety of social groupings can gather. To provide access to this additional floor level, this space will need a ramp… [which] connects the different levels both visually and physically. It allows all learners to choose how they want to collaborate on tasks between the different floor levels. Using laptops, tablets, or smartphones, they can work on chairs around tables or on soft seating on the depressed lower level, on the two steps that connect the two levels, or around tables on soft seating on the upper level. With the ramp connecting the two levels, the setting is both differentiated and integrated because it doesn't separate those with physical disabilities from those without them. This collaborative space, symbolically, offers an environment that is inclusive for all. (Lippman, 2013)

Just as collaboration itself is flexible as students work through a project, the above example represents a space that is designed to be responsive to the students that occupy it.  Although this differs greatly from a classroom designed by the students themselves, it nonetheless can be equally as engaging by being both atypical and innovative in its design.

By no means have I exhausted the various approaches to creating an effective physical space for your students.  There are many unique approaches to this goal, but it is also clear that there are several basic factors that must be met in order to even begin designing such an environment.  Below I have provided a link to a video titled “Setting Up Your Classroom Environment,” a brief but helpful checklist to get started, which also shows some of these characteristics in action.  The table below it also gives ten steps to better arrange the classroom.

Setting Up Your Classroom Environment-Video

“We should consider; is the classroom welcoming, attractive, organized?”

Please share your own ideas about classroom design in the comments below!

References

Evans, T. (2016, July 28). Design Thinking and the Deskless Classroom. Retrieved April 8, 2019 from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/design-thinking-and-deskless-classroom-tracy-evans

Lippman, P. (2013, February 13). Designing Collaborative Spaces for Schools. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://thejournal.com/Articles/2013/02/13/Designing-Collaborative-Spaces-for-Schools.aspx?Page=1

Persaud, R. (2014, September 08). Why Learning Space Matters. Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-learning-space-matters-ramona-persaud

Phillips, M. (2014, May 20). A Place for Learning: The Physical Environment of Classrooms. Retrieved April 8, 2019 from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-physical-environment-of-classrooms-mark-phillips

Setting Up Your Classroom Environment. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8, 2019, from https://eleducation.org/resources/setting-up-your-classroom-environment

ELL Meeting with Colleagues

Having discussed our ELL students, my colleagues and I were largely in agreement about what was occurring in our coordinating teacher's classroom.  While there, we observe a small ELL class made up of around 5 students.  The scores that I list later are based entirely off of an observational standpoint.  Regarding my student, "E", we discussed mostly his outgoing nature as a student.  By far, he is the most vocal member of the class, which is notable in that every student speaks a different native language, making English necessary in the classroom for everyone, not just the teacher.  I believe that this diversity within the class has greatly helped E to become more comfortable with his English; he is a talkative student, one who is most comfortable when he is able to make side comments and crack jokes to his friends.  Perhaps it is because of this type of personality that his speaking is so good.  He seems to understand how English functions well,   making few errors that I have noted.  That being said, his vocabulary seems to be quite small, and he occasionally forgets the articles of a word ("I have question").  It is for this reason that I would score him as a 3 on the WIDA chart in the speaking category.  In regards to his listening, this should be his highest score of the four.  His comprehension is excellent; in class, he is by far the most likely to answer a question posed by the teacher, and to me this represents a solid understanding of what is being said.  He will also go out of his way to ask critical thinking questions, again showing that not only is he understanding the material, but also going beyond it and developing thoughts of his own about it.  It is for this reason that I score him as moving into level 4 on the WIDA chart.  Reading and writing (I will group them together because I believe them to have a similar score) seem to challenge him the most out of the four categories.  His writing is prone to a simple grammatical errors, many of which seemed to be shared by the class.  He is however capable of demonstrating his thoughts on paper.  Reading seems to be a bit uninteresting, or perhaps challenging for him.  He sometimes shortcuts words at first glance based on the first letter (one example being him saying "settlers" instead of "cattle"), and on one occasion reading only half of the book that he was assigned in class.  It is for these reasons that I score him as a 2 on both reading and writing.

Designing Questions

I think my biggest takeaway from these videos, regarding designing questions for the classroom and connecting instruction to the standards, is that both must be done with purpose in mind.  As Ms. Thomas stated in the first video, instruction must be designed with a goal in mind: What do the students need to gain from this activity or this instruction?  How am I as an educator going to guide them there?  Information and questions must be given based on the end result that we want our students to achieve.  This is demonstrated well by the scaffolding questions that Ms. Thomas describes: the first question is more about general knowledge, the second builds on the first and is more specific, and the final relates directly to the students by asking a critical thinking question.  The goal of this method of questioning is to take the information of a given text and expand it, teaching students not only to know and comprehend (displayed as the basic levels of knowledge in Bloom's Taxonomy), but also to apply and evaluate the information based on the world around them.

This also correlates with Chima Ikonne's statements in the following video, in which he essentially states that instruction must be designed to gradually remove the "training wheels" of our students, developing them to think critically but also independently.  This is reflected by the consensus among all the educators in the video that work assigned to the students must be tasks that force them to be hands-on.  This gives their work a purpose (just as our work must be purpose driven), a final goal that they strive to reach, and also allows them to work collaboratively with their peers with guidance from the educator should they need it.  However, in order for such projects to be successful, they must be assigned in order to meet the needs of that particular group of students.  In other words, the same project cannot be assigned to every class every year; one must learn to gauge each group of students and be willing to change their lesson plan in order to better help them succeed with the task given.

YA Entry #1

This is Where it Ends, by Marieke Nijkamp

This is a novel that I immediately wanted to read as soon as I saw it on the list of recommended books. It is a story that revolves around several high school students involved in a school shooting, presenting the incidents from each of their perspectives.  It seems as though several of these stories will also be interwoven, rather than stand-alone viewpoints.

I am by no means far in this book, but what immediately stands out is that this will not merely be a story about a horrifying event that occurs in a seemingly normal high school.  It is clear to me that each of these four characters with whom I am becoming acquainted will have their own stories, both about the events that are going to unfold, as well as vastly different lives and experiences.  For instance, one character named Autumn seems to be a senior in high school and she is actively struggling with following her dream.  She wants to be a dancer, but her dad (who seems to be abusive) does not approve of this path, in that somehow it connects to the death of her mother.  To me, as well as many adolescents, this could be an incredibly relatable problem.  Although I cannot relate to losing a loved one at that age, I definitely remember being told that my path would not make me successful.  I am certain that my students will also be struggling with this issue, and I hope Autumn presents the reader with her own way of dealing with this adversity, so that they may gain some tools to combat it.  I also hope to learn about other problems faced by adolescents that I myself have not experienced, for as Brianna Crowley writes, "Teachers can [grow] empathy outside of the classroom by reading books with characters who mirror our students' unique circumstances, challenges, and experiences", therefore preparing me to better understand what my students are going through.

My partner and I, when choosing this book, discussed what we saw in media regarding school shootings.  So often the news articles describing them offer us only a glimpse at the victims, and we find ourselves lost in all this bad news.  It is hard to keep track and properly pay respects to those who have died because of the frequency of their occurrence, so it will be beneficial to experience a much more personal take on these horrible events.

I think that this book would be an excellent tool for the classroom, in that my students (while developing their beliefs regarding this very present threat to our society) may be stirred to activism by the stories presented here.  Additionally, it will paint these atrocities in a very real manner, allowing us to better understand these events as they divide our nation.  They are not just new articles; there are human lives being lost, and this book will remind us of that.

To close, I think I chose this book for the same reasons listed above.  I often find myself numb to the appalling events that have occurred in our schools and continue to occur, simply because it seem to unfortunately have become a common occurrence.  I want to be shocked by this book, so that I can be informed of the consequences of these events as the division widens regarding how to best prevent them.

Part Three: Professional Responsibility

Standard 9: Professional Learning and Ethical Practice

Performance Criterion 9.1: Continuous Professional Learning.

Performance Criterion 9.2:  Legal and Ethical Manner.

Standard 10: Leadership and Collaboration

Performance Criterion 10.1: Collaborate to Ensure Learning.

Performance Criterion 10.2: Advance the Profession.

Part Two: Content Knowledge and Instructional Practice (cont.)

Standard 7: Planning for Instruction

Performance Criterion 7.1: Knowledge of Content Area.

Performance Criterion 7.2: Knowledge of Learners.

Standard 8: Instructional Strategies

Performance Criterion 8.1: Accessibility to the Discipline.

Performance Criterion 8.2: Applying Knowledge in Meaningful Ways.

Part Two: Content Knowledge and Instructional Practice

Standard 4: Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Performance Criterion 4.1: Communicate Central Concepts.

Performance Criterion 4.2: Common Misconceptions.

Standard 5: Application of Content for Transferable Skills

Performance Criterion 5.1: Perspectives from Varied Disciplines.

Performance Criterion 5.2: Cross Disciplinary Skills.

Standard 6: Assessment

Performance Criterion 6.1: Multiple Methods of Assessment.

Performance Criterion 6.2: Analyzes a Student’s Work.