Roles of a Teacher

I know that teaching is a tough profession that requires patience and passion, but when I first read this section, it was overwhelming to think about how I am going to assume all of these roles for my students. But, after close reading, I realized that many of these roles tie into one another. For example, facilitator and instructor parallel nicely with one another: while the facilitator “provides opportunities for students to use language”, the instructor role explains that the teacher must “activate and build background knowledge.” In order to provide these opportunities for students, the teacher must ensure that students have the background knowledge to understand what they are reading/writing.
Another example of these teacher roles going together is the coordinator and the communicator. A teacher must be a communicator in order to be a coordinator and work with other professionals and librarians to make sure students are receiving the best education available to them.
Another point in these roles is that sometimes you have a teacher has to assume one role in order for other roles to be possible. For example, a teacher will have to be a manager and record students’ progress in order for that teacher to be an evaluator and closely examine that students’ work.
These roles are essential for students to learn language arts, and the teacher must learn how to balance and find places to use these roles in the classroom.

Kids Say the Darndest Things...

Well, this blog has absolutely no parallels with EDU-300, but I thought I would post it because it made my day.
The other day, I was observing in a second grade classroom for THE-244, and a little girl comes up to me, with big eyes full of excitement, then asks me, "Do you have a locker??!!" The teacher informed me that students had been asking questions about middle school that day, and that this particular student was amazed at the fact that one day she would have a locker...
I thought it was the cutest thing!

Effect to Affect

In order to positively influence students, you must first get to know them and get to know their level of writing. Teachers have to be effected by a student, either positively when a student turns in great work, or negatively, when a student turns in not-so-great work. When a teacher is positively effected by a student's great work, then the teacher affects that student by encouraging that student to keep up the great work. When a teacher is negatively effected by a student's not so great work, then the teacher affects that student by trying different approaches to improve that student's work. The same goes for a teaching community; teachers learn from one another's mistakes and each other's great lesson plans.

Wonderful Writing

Well, I believe that reading is a personal experience, and a transactional experience between the reader and the author. My favorite books are books that I can relate to and connect with because they are about similar situations that I have been in. Writing that is worth reading is anything the reader can relate to. I also think that anything that is different or out of the ordinary is worth reading, because it allows the reader to escape from what can be a hectic everyday life.

Past Learning Experiences

Well, I have to admit that I have no clue how I learned language and how to read. I remember read circles in the first grade, my mother and father reading to me when I was younger, and many vocabulary lists throughout elementary school, but I can't recall how I was taught how to read. I have always loved books and literature, so I'm sad that I can't remember how it was that I came to know how to read them.

My fourth grade teacher used to have three bookshelves in her classroom, granted, her classroom was in a weird corner, so this resulted in her having one of the bigger classrooms in the school, so I lucked out having her as a teacher. Fourth grade is when I started picking up books one after the other, and I believe it was because books were readily available to me in her classroom. Since I have seen how this experience has positively impacted my learning experience, I want to have bookshelves in my classroom so that students can check out books on their own time. From fourth grade to eleventh grade, I read very often and loved it. During my junior year in high school, I found myself not liking literature and not enjoying reading- especially during my English class. My eleventh grade English teacher was not helpful to students and, sadly, didn't encourage students to exceed to all of their potential. Due to this experience, I've realized that I DO NOT want to be a teacher like her at all. (I know this is a "haterade" on this teacher, and I do apologize...) I want my classroom to be a positive learning environment in which students are not afraid to ask questions and learn all they can to succeed to the best of their abilities (even though this is cliche, this is my goal.) Even if I only change one student's view of English, I will be happy, even though, I would like to change many many students' view of English...