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.