Praxis-Paper Proposal

I'd just like to post my praxis-paper proposal, in case anyone actually isn't too busy to read blogs this week and actually takes time to offer any suggestions they might have. :o)

Praxis-Paper Proposal

In another class, Language and Learning, we read a book called Reading, Writing, and Rising Up by Linda Christensen. The thing that has really been on mind about this book is the way in which Christensen teaches writing to her students so that it not only improves their writing skills, but that it brings the class together as a community. She writes of her high school students who did not want to write and were not comfortable with one another, and not only were they not comfortable, some of them already had histories with one another and flat out disliked each other. Some students were the targets of bullying by other students. But by getting the students to write personal stories and share them with the class, the students all came to empathize, and in many cases, sympathize with one another by learning of their shared experiences.

The reason this interests me so much is that my younger brother was the victim of an extremely bad case of bullying in middle school, and after reading Christensen’s book, I wondered if perhaps the students had been in a classroom like hers, where they were all encouraged to write deeply personal essays, if they may have realized my brother’s humanity as well as their own and that, just possibly, the bullying would have stopped. Somehow, kids find it so easy to dismiss others, even dehumanize others, but it becomes a much harder thing to do once you really get to know someone. When you get to know someone and understand how they feel, as well as what you share, it’s so much harder to write that person off. It’s harder to stop yourself from caring. If I were to become a teacher, this is something I would definitely want to foster in my students. There are few things more important than empathy.

I’d like to write my paper on this subject, but perhaps also including Ballenger’s idea of “Writing Badly”, and possibly another’s work in the realm of revision (where my students, much like we do in class, help each other to revise, instead of always looking to me, the teacher). I want to create a place where students feel comfortable to, first of all, actually start writing, and next share that writing with others. I want them to write about what THEY want to write about, and I want them to connect with one another. I want them to learn to care about others. I want them to learn from one another. Through this, their writing will improve, as well as their character.

Creating "Found-Poetry"

In another class, we did an activity where we wrote "found-poems". For those of you who have never heard of this, it is taking different words or phrases from another text and making a poem out of it. In some cases, people have actually taken entire blocks of text and then just written it as a poem, making it into lines and stanzas. I'm sure there are other ways of doing it, but the way we were told to complete the exercise was by blacking out all the words we were not using, and then making a poem out of the ones we kept, using the exact words, in the same order.

Here's the one I did in class that night (I believe I added the commas):

One icy thought, buried now
Still, thirteen years later
It reminded me of fragile glass

Before I'd actually written a "found-poem", I thought the idea sounded silly. Now that I have, I think they're pretty amazing. It demonstrates the power of words, and I love how people taking the exact same text as I did would all come up with very different poems. The example above may be somewhat abstract, but it still somehow works, and can be interpreted, if not definitively, then perhaps on a personal level to the reader.

In my American Poetry class, we each had to present a poem of our choosing. I chose, instead, to share this found-poem that I wrote, and then host something like a "poetry workshop". I printed out part of a mini-essay I wrote for my Non-fiction Writing class, which I took last fall. I gave everyone in the class a copy, and had everyone create their own poems. I also shared my own from the same text (once again, I added only the punctuation):

Memory.
The bridge, casting lines into feeling.
That particular moment when you know
What you didn't know when very small.

After I shared my poem, I was amazed by how many others in the class wanted to share theirs. So my ten-minute presentation turned into 25 minutes. It was really wonderful to listen to what everyone came up with. They were all unique, and many of them, quite beautiful.

So if you think you don't like/can't write poetry, I'd suggest giving this exercise a try. It's surprisingly fun, and the results can be amazing!

The Power of Reading

Since most of you aren't parents yet, I just want to do a READ TO YOUR CHILDREN OFTEN blog. I know you've heard it many, many times before, but I just want to share my own example of how this has worked to improve the vocabulary/communication levels of my children.

My daughter, Lily, recently turned four. She has always excelled in language skills (she was able to speak in complete sentences of up to six words, in perfect or nearly perfect syntax by the age of 21 months), so her vocabulary has always been above average. But I have also been reading to her, since she was literally a newborn. She was my first child and when she was first born, I didn't even go to school. Most of the time, it was just Lily and I, at home all day, while her dad was at work. I liked interacting and talking with her, but really, there's only so much you can say to a one-month-old. So I'd just open up a book and read. She got to hear a ton of words, and I didn't have to sit and think of what to say to her that wasn't just akin to, "Ohhhh, aren't you a CUTE baby?!"

As she's gotten older, I've heard her use rather large vocabulary words in her everyday speech. For example (and this was already several months ago now), she told me, "Mommy, owls stay awake during the day and sleep at night, so that means they're nocturnal." She has a book about creatures of the desert in which, in one segment, nocturnal creatures are discussed. Also, her favorite series, Fancy Nancy (seriously, remember this guys, they are GREAT books), has the main character, Nancy, always using "fancy" words and then she tells you what they mean. And it really works! Lily was really excited and happy, so she said, "Mommy, I'm just ecstatic to go to the play-place at the mall!" This was a word she learned directly from those books. I think this has also translated to the way she picks up words from conversation or movies. Just the other day she said, "Mommy, do you remember--Mommy, do you recall...?" I asked where she learned the word "recall" and she said, "Oh, it's from a Pooh movie. Tigger says..." and she proceeded to quote the movie. I'm not sure she would be quite so adept at learning new vocabulary from context if I didn't read to her so much.

My son, Danny, on the other hand, hasn't gotten quite the same attention as Lily. Admittedly, I didn't read as much to him when he was a baby, and I don't read as much as I used to do to either of them. With Lily, I was just with her. With Danny, I already had one child demanding attention, and then I returned to school full-time. So he's really gotten the short end of the stick, but I still really try to read to both children every, single day. Danny, now 21 months, still doesn't say much of anything, not even 2 word phrases yet. I noticed, however, that what gets him trying to say new words more than anything else is when we find a book he LOVES (specifically, at this age, RHYMING books), he wants to finish the sentences. I will pause and allow him to, loudly and excitedly, say the last word of the sentence. And, somehow, it seems his excitement at saying those words has carried over into regular speech, and he will finally try to say words when I ask him to. Before, he just didn't have interest.

I realize this was a super long post, telling you something you should already know. But I think it's something we often take for granted. I just wanted to share examples from my children's lives of the real power of reading.

Do I Have Enough TIME to be a Really GOOD Teacher?

So much of what I've been reading for my classes has focused on teaching students as the individuals they are. Let me first say that I completely agree. In two of the books I've read this semester, the teachers really took an active role in the lives on their students, even taking THEIR free time to call their students at home to "stay on them" about doing their homework, and then further taking their free time to help the students. So, as I said, I totally agree that students need to be taught on an INDIVIDUAL basis, but it seems like in order to do this, a teacher has to sacrifice all his/her free time to really be a good teacher. Especially when you have a family (which I and a few others in the class do, and I'm sure most, if not all, of the rest of you will too), who has time for that? And I don't mean to sound completely selfish and callous, but especially in Iowa which is one of the very lowest paying states for teachers, how can anyone AFFORD to put in that much time? I'm still trying to decide if this is the right career choice for me, and I think this is my biggest hang up. I'm afraid I don't have the necessary time to be a really good teacher. I would never want to sell any of my students short.