Experimentation

Okay, so I have to be really honest with this blog entry and I don’t think that it is going to make Prof. Rozema very happy (Sorry!!).  I thought that the teaching conference was a waste of my time and money.  Told you Prof. Rozema was not going to be very happy.

The thing is, I was REALLY excited to go to the conference.  I was even okay with waking up really early on a Saturday that should have been spent working on end of term projects (like these two, huge, overwhelming pedagogy projects that I have to do).  However, I must have put my hopes too high because I was disappointed.

To begin, the Key note speaker Jacqueline Woodson, while she was relatively funny I failed to follow her speech.  It felt like a bunch of random comments intermixed with snippets from her books.  I did enjoy when she shared her writing with all of us–she really gets at the voice of her characters and presents them well.  Overall, I enjoyed her funny comments and her readings but I honestly can not tell you what the point of her speech was.

After the Keynote, I went to a breakout session that was meant to talk about literature circles.  The presenters wanted to give us a way to connect to both reluctant readers and to literature lovers.  A literature circle composed for reluctant readers is one that allows them to choose whatever book they want to read, whether it is a trashy romance novel, a comic book, or a classic.  When students are able to choose their own book, this makes them want to read it more.

For literature lovers a literature circle is a bit different.  Because they are already reading for fun, these students often need to meet at times outside of the confines of the classroom.  The presenter brought in three high school girls that are part of a lit circle that meets once a month to discuss books they are reading, and things that they are writing.  The girls said that since it was not part of a classroom setting they felt more comfortable because nothing was for a grade.  Plus, they know that everyone there reads and writes just as much as they do so they do not have to feel like the loser “book worm” like they do when they share in class.

So my problems with the session are:

I feel that I learned better ways of engaging reluctant readers during Eng 311 though the use of not only lit circles, but also, Symbolic Story Representations, dramas, games, etc.  This session only presented one idea–which I already knew about. I would suggest that the presenter read Wilhelm’s You Gotta BE the Book to enhance her ideas. 

I think that as far as the after school lit circle for literature lovers goes–it would be difficult.  Many teachers simply do not have the time to stay after school for a couple of hours to hang out with the students.  Regardless of this argument–I think that the people who love literature should not be separated into their own group.  Instead, they should be used to help the reluctant readers enter the story world by showing how they do it.

Overall, the session did not really teach me anything new, but it did demonstrate that lit circles do work.  I plan on using lit circles in my future classroom so it was nice to hear teachers claim that they worked, but it was even better to listen to the high school girls talk about what they enjoyed about lit circles.

The second session that I went to was meant to teach me how to interview well.  However, it was just a bunch of obvious recommendations such as: dress up, know your stuff, and be confident.  I felt rather ridiculous because we “role played” in groups for a little while pretending to be principals or interviewees.  I did enjoy one of the hand outs that they gave titled: “Common Interview Questions/Prompts.”  It seems rather handy for when I practice my interview with someone else, but the questions are rather obvious.  The one idea that I did gain was to visit the school website before interviewing to learn the school colors, mascot, purpose statement, etc. because soemtimes principals will ask these questions to see if the person they are interviewing really cares about the school itself.  I thought that it was a neat idea.

I feel bad that I did not get much out of this conference, but it is the honest truth.  I wish that I would have attended different breakout sessions, because some of them sounded really neat.  This one experience does not put me off to the whole conference thing, so I am sure that I will go to really meaningful conferences later in life, but for today, sorry but, I am still disappointed.  I hope the rest of you enjoyed your time and learned more than I did! 

Censorship was a more difficult topic than I first thought that it would be.  But here are my conclusions of the semester:

I feel that the true question behind censorship is “Why??”  Why are we banning this book? Why do we think it is unsuitable?  Why would we want to keep people away from it? If these questions can be answered sufficiently than censorship seems to be an okay thing.  But see, now I’m asking myself – who determines if the answers are sufficient?  Oh censorship, you tricky subject you! Okay, I guess that overall I think that censorship has leaked into too many areas of our lives and is mostly used with bad intent.  I feel that sometimes subject matter frightens people into claiming that books are “unsuitable.”  To which I would reply that these people need to examine the world around them and see that there are lots of different things that people are exposed to in everyday situations.  Sometimes, these things are confusing and hard to understand.  However, many people (myself included) find that exploring these issues in books helps them to understand the issue and how to deal with it.  Therefore, books dealing with “off color” words such as scrotum, or issues such as sexuality are often helpful. 

However, there are times when censorship is good.  I would not want to thrust ideas upon people if they are too immature to handle them.  It is one thing for students to go to a library, pick out a book, and read it on their own.  It is quite another to have a teacher in the front of the classroom force children to read things that they may not be ready to explore.  If teachers want to teach books that may be controversial they will want to be ready with arguments to back up why they are teaching a book (like the activity that we did in class for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.)

So, overall I feel that censorship has gone too far in that it affects everything from standardized tests, to novels in class, and even war.  However, if there were no rules at all then teachers/people would be able to get away with whatever they wanted and I think that in the end many students could be harmed by certain novels if they are not ready to deal with the issues presented. 

The final thing that I want to talk about is blogs.  I feel that blogs are a great addition to a literary classroom.  Teachers could ask students to post thoughts, feelings, etc. about the novels in class.  They can also post discussion boards where students can talk about issues in the book or answer questions.  It takes the literary discussion away from the classroom and in doing so gives everybody a place to express what they feel about a novel being studied.

The semester is finally over and now it is time to sum up all of the things that I have explored with this post!  Let me see here:          

To begin, I learned that there are many students that deal with depression.  Often, these students do not show clear-cut signs that they are depressed.  Teenagers do not want people to think that they are different, because this would make them an “outcast” at their schools or in their families.  So, instead of talking about it they bottle up their emotions which leads to even more hurt, anger, confusion, and depression. 

Next, I learned that writing has been known to help out many people that are in dire situations: cancer patients, people in jail, and other depressed people. After seeing how writing has helped others I have come to the conclusion that writing down thoughts/feelings is a great way to help teenagers that deal with depression. One of the first articles that we read by Elbow stated that writing is about telling the truth.  If students are encouraged to write about the struggles they face every day it may help them in dealing with the struggles.  I also think that the writing process has a lot to add to this equation.  The first step of the writing process is to “just get it down”/ “write and write a lot.”  I think these concepts are very therapeutic in that students are able to sit and write what they feel without having to “edit their emotions.”  They are given the ability to forget about mechanics, format, and grades and simply write just for the benefit of writing. 

I have explored the idea of a daily journal a lot in this post and I have come to the conclusion that it would be helpful for students.  I think that it not only can help them with their depression/anxiety, but will make them better writers overall.  Starting off each day of a writing class by giving students time to write shows them the importance of writing and the benefits that are reaped from it. 

 Finally, I want to talk about the use of blogs in a classroom.  I think that blogs have been an interesting addition to the “traditional English class.”  They take writing a step farther than simply objects that are produced for the classroom/teachers eyes only.  Using my topic, if students were to use their blogs to explore their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas then they too could be an interesting way to deal with depression.  It takes a lot of bravery to post something on the web for everyone to see, but I think that it would be very therapeutic for the student and also helpful to others that would come across it.  

 So overall, blogs are great, depression sucks, and writing has POWERFUL HEALING POTENTIAL!