Read the syllabus and write about your goals for the course. Write specifically about your thoughts about your preparation for placement in an urban setting and with literacy instruction. How do you want to use this course to help aid you in that preparation? What do you want to learn about teaching and language arts instruction? Responses to Thank You, Mr. Falker are most welcome!
I hope that this course will help to provide me with a more concrete understanding of what I need to include and how I need to think about Language Arts instruction. I believe it was Cindy who was talking the other day about "visualizing" our classrooms, and I have been somewhat frustrated to this point by my inability to picture the actual types of lessons and activities I should be using with my future students. We have learned the importance of differentiated instruction, teaching to diverse learning styles, creating engaging and meaningful lessons and so on...but have had little experience actually hearing/reading about or constructing these types of lessons. I'm hoping that through our course readings and hearing about Erin's (and other students') experiences, I'll be able to make more informed decisions about the way I will eventually set up my language arts instruction. More specifically, I'm looking forward to spending time discussing how to handle classrooms with wide ranges of ability, English language learners, and students with disabilities. I'd like to get a better idea too of how to teach emergent readers, especially since I don't have any memory of learning to read, read chapter books starting in kindergarten, and loved reading ever since...which is likely a very different experience than that of many of my future students.
With regard to Thank You Mr. Falker, I thought the book was extremely inspiring and embodied what most of us hope to experience in our teaching careers. I'm always concerned that I'll become too caught up in the curriculum/standards/testing/bureaucracy etc. since that's often what we hear about, rather than being able to really focus entirely on my students' needs...but stories such as that one really try to keep things in perspective. (And, hopefully, this semester and next year will prepare us to avoid those pitfalls...) I thought the book could also be a great tool to use in the classroom to sensitize students to others' struggles, and recognize their own potential if they are struggling academically. I loved it and plan to buy myself a copy :)
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