Final Reflection of Children's Literature

This semester has been a good one for me.  It began a little confusing and chaotic, straightened out and became manageable, but ended a little too soon.  I was required to use technology more than I have ever had to before.  I was required to perform poetry in front of middle school students.  I was required to lead literature circles at a middle school with students I had never met.  I was required to collaborate with fellow UNM students.  And I was asked to read 100 children’s books.  It was an exhausting, challenging, learning, growing semester.

At first I was really nervous about having to build and maintain a website.  I knew deep down under the surface that it would be good for me and that I would benefit from the experience, but I was scared and nervous.  But like most things technological, once you learn a few basics, it really isn’t so bad.  It is exciting to have the website, to have a place to publish my thoughts and actions, to communicate with fellow students, the professor, and the students that I teach.  Having my own site has caused me to pay closer attention to other sites, what they have to offer and how they are organized.  I have not had the time to play and work with the site to make it all that I want it to be, I am hoping that between semesters I will have time to change it and work with it. 

There are some things that I wish I had done differently with the website, small things, but I think important.  One thing is that I would place my entries in most current to least current order, so that readers don’t have to scroll down to the very bottom to read the latest entry.  When I began the site I had read a few blogs and I felt it was awkward to have to scroll down to the beginning to catch up on the conversation and so I put mine the other way around.  I see now that the most current comments should be on top.  Another change I would make is that I would add more pictures and a way for people to add comments.  The template I chose didn’t allow for pictures and the comments, it wasn’t until the end of the semester, after having communicated with fellow students that I learned how to add them.  I need time to play with it. I need to remember this when I begin teaching and have a website.

The poetry performance experience was pretty fun.  I really have to stretch out of my comfort zone to perform in front of people that I do not know.  When my children were young I worked in the Cub Scouts and of course you have to play, act, do skits and be silly; it is how you connect with children.  I knew most of those children however, and so it was easy for me to trust them and be silly.  It is different when I don’t know the audience, and am a little uncertain about my fellow actors.  I become very self conscious and have to force myself to almost physically step out of my body and perform. 

As I watched the faces of those in the audience they were having fun and making connections; play is a very valuable tool.  My father always said that 30 minutes of play with your children, was worth a couple of weeks of cooperation.  So playing with students not only strengthens their understanding and love of literature it also builds community, and helps in classroom management.  Also, I think that we UNM students felt closer to each other after having gone through the experience.

Working with Literature circles is where I did my greatest learning this semester.  My parents raised us on discussion.  We discussed books that we read, music we listened too, movies we saw, experiences we were having and other things that they felt were important for us to understand.  When I homeschooled my children that is the way I taught.  We would read books and make connections through discussion.  We would learn principles of science and math and then discuss how they fit into our world. We went to concerts, museums, and lectures and then had discussions about what was good, what was boring, what was fascinating and what we wanted to learn more about. That is the main reason I want to teach is so that I can have those same kinds of discussions and learning experiences with my students. 

Having discussions with my family and my children was pretty easy though because we were used to it, we were comfortable in our relationships with each other. I was so looking forward to having those same kinds of discussions with the Tibbett’s students. However, I realized pretty quick that it was going to take some work to get to place I wanted to be.  These students didn’t know how to have conversations about literature, the relationships among the students needed work, and of course they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them.  I was so concerned about getting to the discussion part, that I didn’t take enough time up front to build the relationships, I did eventually, but when I do this again I will spend time on building relationships up front.  I have since found some ideas about how to get to know each other and build the community.  I then struggled to know how to help them learn to have discussions, how to teach them to ask questions, to make connections and speak up about their ideas.  One day when I was reading an article for another class, I came across the idea of Socratic Seminars.  I became fascinated about this idea and spent several weeks researching it and even wrote a paper on it for yet another class.

The Socratic Seminar is based on the philosophy of Socrates that through questioning and discussion, truth may be found out.  The method of conducting a Socratic seminar is similar to Literature Circles, in that you choose a text, and then through dialogue about the text you come to understand it, and yourself, better; it promotes higher order thinking.  The idea is, that there are no right or wrong answers, you are only “wrong” if you cannot support your belief with the text, or, it is only “right” if it is supported with text and logical thought.  By guiding students, through dialogue, so that they may prove their interpretations and ideas, they become better readers and thinkers.  I felt that the students in my literature circle didn’t know how to make personal connections to the text, and that they were looking to please me, and give me the answer they thought I wanted them to give rather than talking to each other and finding their own “right” answers.  I didn’t know what to do for them until I researched Seminars.  Through my research I found examples of questions to ask to spur thought and discussion, I began to understand better the purpose for dialogue in terms of education and citizenship, and of course I have more questions to ask and research to do.

By the end of the literature circles I finally felt like I got the idea and had some tools to work with and the last two meetings were great.  I wish we had more time. 

I also realized, after a couple of discussions with Frances, that I need to research Literature Circles as much as I did Socratic Seminars.  The more information I have the more tools I have available to me.

Collaborating with K. and T. was tricky sometimes.  We weren’t always on the same page and we don’t think alike in our teaching. Most of the time we simply worked individually with our own groups, it was the times that we needed to meet all of us together that it was difficult because of our differences.  I am more serious and purpose driven; K. and T. are more willing to just go with the flow.  I generally don’t mind going with the flow, except the activities weren’t always as effective as they could have been, had we planned a little better.  We weren’t prepared enough, we didn’t communicate well. Because I am so serious, people tend to misjudge my actions and feelings and in this case I didn’t put forth the time and effort to clear up those misunderstandings as well as I should have, it was just easier to keep going, doing my own thing because it wasn’t a long term project.  I need to be better.

 I did enjoy working with both ladies, I learned a great deal from both of them. K taught me how important it is to relax, laugh and smile more, and she was very supportive in my ideas.  T was also very supportive and contributed some good insight and ideas to help me.  I appreciate them, and am glad to have gotten to know them better.

Finally, the booklist.  I really did enjoy being able to read books of my choice, something rather than just textbooks!  Generally, I have to save “fun” reading for between semesters and during breaks, so this was a nice treat.  I am also grateful to have been required to read different genres.  There are some that I would not have chosen to read on my own, namely the graphic novels.  I still am not real interested in them, but I did have a moment when I was substituting, that a student was reading a graphic novel and I was able to connect with him for just a moment, and I realized that if for no other reason than to be able to connect with students, I should venture out and read a variety of books.  I have certainly been paying closer attention to what students are choosing to read, asking them about the books, and I have also been noticing children that don’t read, or try to avoid it. 

Suggestions:

I felt like I wasted some time in getting started with the Literature circles because it took so long for me to realize what the goal was, what the reason for it was and so forth, so I would have liked to have a little more understanding before we began. Now, having said that, I do realize that sometimes just jumping in is the best way to learn, because you have too.  But I still felt a little too unprepared.

I felt a little disjointed all semester because I was never sure where the walls were.  I realize that as we progress through our education that we must take on more responsibility for our learning, but sometimes there was too much disorganization; like presenting genres and literary terms, what exactly the poetry presentation would look like, and then because we seemed to be so off schedule with presentations, are all due dates negotiable or are they still solid?

I am glad to have participated in the midyear evaluation of the professor.  It was nice to be able to voice my concerns, listen to other’s concerns and have some dialogue to really think about whether they were valid concerns or not.  When I take classes I not only pay attention to the content of the class but I watch the instructor very closely too, to evaluate what kind of teacher I would like to be.  That midyear checkup helped me sort out some things.  I appreciate that you are very strong and strict in the aspects of teaching that you feel strongly about, such as “I’m sorry” during the poetry presentation, and that you required us to hold literature circles during Thanksgiving week because we have an obligation to the students, and that you provide a way for us to get the information we need to be successful during class, such as talking to you, and using the class website. I also enjoy and admire your energy and excitement about learning.

As far as my grade… I would like to receive and A.  I only read 80 some books, not the 100, and I am late in posting this final, and I could have done better on my author and illustrator postings. However, I have progressed and learned a great deal.  I have learned far more than I have reported here (though it is so long you may not believe that), and I feel that I have gained enough insight and understanding to be a good literature teacher.  I feel that this semester has not been wasted and that I have learned and grown.