Response to "Teaching As We Are Taught: The University's Role in The Education Of English Teachers"

One of the main things that stuck out to me when reading this article was how many college professors say that their class is extremely discussion based. This is something I know to be true, as I myself have sat through many class discussions on an article or section of a text. While sometimes I feel like I got a lot out of the discussion, there are other times that I believe the class could have made more progress by doing something else. The article also points out that the discussion is part of a typical English class system, that students will read something, discuss it and then eventually do some kind of writing about the reading and the discussion (Marshall and Smith). This order is engrained in almost every English class at the University level. While discussing reading and eventually writing about it can be great way to educate a class about the reading, it should not be looked at as the only way. This is especially important because this process that professors use, would likely not be effective on a group of teenagers, which is what the majority of English majors are studying to do. 

I do think that discussion is important in a classroom. It can be a great tool for learning, however, as previously stated, the way that many professors do it at the college level would not be suitable to teach high school students. This is hard to understand, we English students are being taught literature in a way that we realize would not be effective to our future students. Yet, professors continue to teach this way. While we soon-to-be teachers realize that teaching like our college professors would not work in a high school setting, we do see the learning opportunities that exists in some of the things they are teaching.

As previously pointed out, English professors use discussion as their go to for after the students read something. While a discussion that takes place all class period would more than likely not work for a high school class, a small and focused discussion more than likely would. In the article, multiple English professors give their perspectives on class discussions, some say that they come prepared with things to talk about from the reading, or as some call it, an “agenda”. While others tell their students to come up with questions while they are doing the reading and then these questions shape the class discussion. These are important elements of a class discussion, especially if one were to try to have a small discussion on a text with high school students. If one is to hold a class discussion in a high school English class, it would not only be important for the teacher to have an agenda of things to talk about but also have her students come with questions from the reading, this would prevent a lag in the discussion. 

In one of my other courses that I am currently taking, “Teaching Literature in the Secondary Schools”, my professor has a website. On his website he has a page where he has written his personal suggestions on how to have a productive and meaningful discussion in a classroom. There are all sorts of tips and tricks that he has written on this page that would help both new and old teachers to hold better discussions. The page talks about everything from topic to class management during a literature discussion. I find this resource to be extremely helpful, as it will show me even more so how to hold a meaningful discussion in my future classroom.

Response to Real-World Writing: Making Purpose and Audience Matter

Writing is something that has been taught in schools since the existence of schools. While the actual act of writing in schools has not changed, over time, the kind of writing that students are doing have become increasingly formulated. I had not thought much about this previously, formulation does stifle the creativity of a student but I had no idea the kind of impact it was really having on them. Recently I read an article by Grant Wiggins in which he talks about how the lack of creativity in schools is hurting students much more than it is helping them. The article begins with discussing an opening for a job that was posted, applicants were required to choose from a number of creative writing prompts to submit for a chance at the position. It sounds like something like this should be relatively easy to do, however, students in the school system today would have a hard time with being given this much creative expression.

Students in today's school system are instructed to learn a formula for writing a paper. However, this formula (One introduction paragraph, three supporting paragraphs and a concluding paragraph) only works on a few kinds of writing. This works well in schools though, because the main focus of writing in schools has become research papers. Typically these research paper's are based on something that the student does not care about and thus they are following the given formula for a paper and hoping to get an A. These paper are lifeless, they serve no true purpose and do not give the students experience in connecting to an actual audience.

 Wiggins, explains a study he did with friends in which he asked them what kinds of writing they had done in the past year. Examples like a blog entry, a eulogy, a proposal were mentioned, but no one said they had to write a research paper. This is because very few people write papers like this outside of school. Much of the writing people do in their adult lives requires more creativity, which is ironic considering how much creativity is being stifled in English classrooms today. I have seen how this system of teaching has effected children once they reach the college level. In teaching college level freshmen, I promote them to be creative in their writing and make each piece they write have a purpose. However this is difficult, most of them have grown to dislike writing as they had never been given the freedom to write about what they care about or simply use writing to express themselves. Its especially disheartening to witness this when I know most of them will need to do more writing like this if they wish to have the skills to be successful in both college and their future careers.