Genre Reflection Publication

This is the hard copy of my Genre Reflection.  I originally chose to reflect via poetry but I felt that it didn't completely capture a genuine teaching experience.  just in case the pictures are too blurry, the story is provided below.  I hope that you enjoy reading my reflection!

Mr Slattery

What to do…

Everybody wants to be something-a real somebody, something that defines that somebody. Mr. Slattery grew up in a small town in Kansas and ever since he was a young runt he wanted to be remembered for making his mark on an entire generation.  He went to high school; he completed community college and received his Associates degree.  He did everything he could to set up his future.  In high school, he wanted to be a pharmacist, but there wasn’t enough human interaction for him. 

Mr. Slattery is extremely extroverted and this allowed him to excel in journalism.  He thought he finally reached his decision, “I’ll become a journalist!” Yet this still wasn’t the perfect match for him. If he were a journalist, he would primarily report the news, coming short of influencing an entire generation. Even writing opinion columns wouldn’t allow him the influencing factor that he so desired. 

Freshman year of College

Mr. Slattery was enjoying a steamy cup of coffee in the Conq Corral with a classmate (that was the café located on campus at his Community College) and an epiphany struck him.   It took him a while to come to this realization, 18 whole years, but he finally concluded that his skills in writing and reading were primarily due to his influential teachers and professors.  “If I were to become an English teacher, I could help students learn to appreciate the art of writing and reading.  I’m going to go see my advisor and see what our school has to offer for teacher preparation courses.” 

Many semesters later….

Mr. Slattery is now a super senior at the State University and has furthered his professional education, in pursuit to become a teacher of English/Language Arts.  Super is the correct word to describe his emotional state and exhausted would be the relative word to describe his mental state.  He is now a pre-student teacher and is gaining work experience through a program called Co-Op.  Between a full load of college courses, pre-student teaching, Co-Op and his job at the local grocery store, his most enjoyable experiences are located in the classroom or preparing activities and lesson plans for his conceptual unit that is coming up in a few weeks.  Mr. Slattery is establishing his identity and pedagogical practices one day at a time. 

He has the opportunity to teach a conceptual unit which will be his first time teaching consecutive lessons that correlate to one another.  Although Mr. Slattery considers this as an opportunity, it is a requirement for his education program.  This allows him to engage in the process of design and planning for a weeklong unit. He has been in his placement classroom for a couple of weeks now and he has students’ names, classroom procedures, and expectations all down.  It was now time to discuss the unit of study that he would choose for his conceptual unit.

“Well we are going to start our unit over Night by Elie Wiesel in the beginning of October, would you like to do that?” said his cooperating teacher.

“I’ve actually never read that book before, but I’ve heard that it is a powerful book over the Holocaust” said Mr. Slattery.

“Well we’re going to spend much more than a week with it since we only have one class copy.  We’re going to have to read it in class and discuss as we go.  You could plan activities that build on their background knowledge.  Most of them have had a unit over the Holocaust in the eighth grade, so they will have a lot to bring to the table about the Holocaust but I think it would be a great opportunity for you to build background knowledge, introduce themes and other elements that will be brought up throughout the book, and also some other texts, such as poems and other mediums that will make the engagement of this text much more meaningful for these students.  Here, take home a copy and read the preface through chapter two and let me know if you would like to teach this” said his cooperating teacher. 

Only in her fourth year of teaching, his cooperating teacher is a veteran in the art of designing overarching concepts, essential questions, and especially classroom practices such as classroom and time management. She was definitely a tough act to follow, but Mr. Slattery knew that he had a great mentor that he could discuss questions or design concerns with.

“Thanks, I’ll do that!” Mr. Slattery said and departed from her classroom and made his way to his Co-Op.  On his drive across town, Mr. Slattery pondered about the kind of activities he could bring to make for a meaningful experience.  He was definitely a fan of kinesthetic activities such as “Mix Pair Share.”  He was also a fan of the impact that non-print texts make when correlated to the text itself.  He was definitely going to use some of those.  On his drive across town, Mr. Slattery felt enlightened because of the flood of ideas that he could incorporate into his classroom.  This was making him anxious and excited to teach his first unit.

Show time

The last couple of weeks, Mr. Slattery was not only planning his lesson, but working on additional assignments and obligations as well.  Still, he found the appropriate time to plan and design a weeklong lesson that introduce and assess background knowledge, creating a discussion and establishing purpose for reading this text.  Mr. Slattery could feel the power of this book and he hoped that his students could feel it too.  Maybe the activities that he designed would help some of those reluctant readers feel that same power.  Hopefully the activities didn’t make those active readers more reluctant.  He hoped that he wouldn’t completely ruin their education for a week.  These were all the insecurities that passed through Mr. Slattery’s head but he assured himself; he would prevail.  He had spent countless hours developing a PowerPoint presentation, searching for videos that would pair with introductory design and various writing activities.  The preparation is done.  Now it is time to practice his acquired classroom practices and apply them to real life.  It is show time.

Mr. Slattery had everything in order for his introductory lesson and waited for the 8 o’clock bell to ring.  It finally rang and a voice came over the intercom: “Good morning City High School, please stand for the pledge.” 

As he was saying the pledge of allegiance aloud, his mind raced:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag,”

Almost time, ah crap I forgot to turn on the projector.

“Of the United States of America,”

Remember to keep your body position open to all students.

“And to the republic, for which it stands,”

Is everyone here today? Okay looks like we’re missing a few.

“One nation under god,”

Remember, this isn’t a history lesson,

“Indivisible, with liberty and justice,”

but the history is relevant

“For all.”

For a literary discussion.

What perplexed Mr. Slattery was this ability to be saying one thing and thinking about the next thing.  One advice from his professors was “Think fast, talk slowly,” was finally being put to the test. 

  l“Good morning class, I hope you all had a great weekend.  For bell work today we are going to discuss our ‘lit term of the week’ and watch a brief video clip that will help you understand what the term means.  Remember that if you bring an example of the lit term, write it on a sticky note and put it on the board, you will get an extra credit point.  This may not seem like a whole lot but say, you didn’t do so hot on a quiz or an essay, the combined extra credit points from every week could boost your total score for this class” said Mr. Slattery as he introduced the “lit term of the week” which was the word archetype. 

Following the bell work activity, Mr. Slattery then went over the day’s agenda and moved on to the next activity, which was an introduction to the book that will be read in class.  “Remember class, take notes today in your thinking notes, I will give you directions as how to label each section as we are proceeding throughout today’s lesson,” said Mr. Slattery.  As he was introducing this book, he found himself emotionally empowered to deliver the same intense mood that is presented in the book.  He read passages from the preface that added to the author’s purpose for writing this book.  Throughout the introduction, he also asked questions informally assessing the background knowledge of the class. He then started discussing the upcoming activity, which was a KWL chart over the Holocaust. 

As he was giving instructions, he realized that much of what he discussed during the book’s introduction could be used in the KWL chart.  He couldn’t decide whether this was a good or bad thing, because he wanted to know what the students knew without any instruction, but he also thought that the book introduction was a good warm up.  This was something that he didn’t consider in developing this lesson. 

Either way, the KWL lesson went without any quarrels. He could have maybe done a better job of time management but he didn’t want to stop the activity in the middle of a good discussion.  Mr. Slattery then directed the students to engage with their thinking notes as they watched an interview between the author of Night and Oprah.  As they watched they were instructed to think about their concepts of thinking notes such as “questions,” “predicting,” “connection,” and etc.

Throughout the lesson, Mr. Slattery kept wondering, if and when we were going to get to the poetry discussion.  It would have to be pushed back a day, which devastated him.  His cooperating teacher told him “That’s the beauty of being a teacher, if you don’t get through an entire lesson, we can always come back to it tomorrow.  It’s better to overplan, than underplan.”  Still, this was the beginning of his conceptual unit and he will have an opportunity to come back to this activity. And he did. 

This conceptual unit was an important learning experience for Mr. Slattery.  On Friday, Mr. Slattery discussed his performance with his cooperating teacher.  Mr. Slattery felt confident that he was going to become a great teacher with the help of great role models like his cooperating teacher and university professors.

Training

I was searching for so long.

What was a college freshman to do?

With no clue of occupation, how will I do it?

Now a senior, and singing my song,

I made a choice, a life long decision;

In the class I will remain, I must model composition

And teach my students about precision.

But am I prepared for their questions?

“When are we going to need this in life?”

“Why do I need dissect stories

with my minds knife?”

“We’re in the twenty-first century,

I don’t need this stuff.”

Don’t worry child, I know it’s tough

These are the questions and quarrels

That plague our youth.

How can we bridge the gap

between the useless and relevance

To bring revelation and practicality

for an educational experience?

You see, it starts with us,

Future educators that aspire,

and believe our students bring

practical background knowledge.

I began as a spectator, now incorporated

In to an active participant, the title of Mr.

New school, new rules, Freshman class

How can I help you? Bet you never thought,

I’d be learning from you.

Through my education to be an educator,

I’ve been to many schools, studied theory

But the only way to learn is to

Experience in inquiry.

Progress in quicksand

I see student’s speed in strife.

I see them calm in calamity

But this where we get it all wrong.

Time is our enemy but it is also our friend.

It’s almost three, but you just blew your chance.

Just give it time, young one,

even when you think you can’t.

I see student’s across the spectrum

And I see the same thing

I see student’s prevail and careless

Regardless of what you think,

I will show you what the meaning is.