Final thoughts.

This class helped me realize that I do not have to only stress classic novels within the schools, but that it is beneficial to use contemporary adolescent literature as well. A strategy that stuck out from this semester is the wait time after asking a question. The group teach showed me how awkward the silence can be while standing in front of the room, waiting for the students to figure out the answer. I also liked doing thinking activities in the beginning of class because it helped get your mind started and I feel as if I will incorporate this into my future teaching skills. The books that I think helped the most in this class were The Book Thief, Persepolis, and The Chocolate War. These novels can be tied into many other ones and have a lot to teach about. The books that I found were least effective were: Forever, and American Born Chinese. I think that Blume’s novel should be read outside of the class or as a silent reading. For American Born Chinese, well I just was not a fan of this graphic novel. I think all the sections should be kept within the class, however, I think that there are some novels that are a better fit for the subject. I think it would have been very helpful to read traditional texts alongside adolescent ones. If we were required to do so then we could have done projects where we create a lesson plan or a fun activity so we can have practice doing so.
A weakness that I still have to work on is how I state my questions. I still have the fear of standing in front of the room and not having anything to say (kinda like the reoccurring missing clothes dream…) I want to be able to excite my students but I really worry that I won’t be able to. I really don’t know how this class could have helped my concerns because I think it is something that I am just going to have to suck up. The group-teach was a good experience. Having to come up with activities and teach them to an actual tentative group was scary but exhilarating at the same time. However, I think it is hard to teach with a group of four people and would have enjoyed just working with one other person. I learned that I should speak up when I have to say something and to share my thoughts. I think this experience should be continued throughout future classes.

To me, the blogs were so-so. I would have rather of had a prompt or questions to answer within the blog instead of just discussing how we felt. However, writing about how we would incorporate the novel within our classrooms was valuable to me. I do not think I will make my students write a blog, but I will probably do journal enteries.

I wish more classical and traditional texts were used. Maybe a class that gave us pointers on how to teach Shakespeare, because lets’ face it, that’s scary. The different activities that we did and were pointed out to us was extremely helpful and probably one of the best features on this class.