Learning Letter

Throughout my completion of English 493, I completed weekly blog posts, two book talks, and a three-week literature unit plan on the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. Each assignment in the course was very clearly purposeful and essential. The most enjoyable assignments were the book talks. I enjoyed completing them because it was interesting and insightful to look at some of my favorite young adult novels through the lens of a teacher, rather than simply a reader. My first book talk was about the book A Long Way Gone: Memiors of a Boy Soldier by Ishamel Beah. This book talk was the most reflective of the two because I have read the book several times at different stages of my education. Reading and presenting the book to future teachers as something to potentially include in curriculum was rewarding. Sharing a book that I love and justifying its inclusion in the classroom felt like an important step toward turning my experience with literature into something useful for my students.

My three-week literature unit plan was the most challenging and rewarding project I have completed in any course at Eastern thus far. Before the assignment, I had not written a single lesson plan by myself. My experience with writing lesson plans was only in Foundations of Assessment where we worked in groups to write a lesson plan based on standards that had nothing to do with my major. The process of figuring out effective and engaging ways to accomplish the Common Core State Standards and incorporate the novel I chose was extremely eye-opening. I know that my completed unit plan has plenty of room for improvement, but accomplishing it at all was a huge stride towards my success as a teacher. I am anticipating showing my unit plan to my mentor teacher when I get my placement for further feedback.

The weekly blog posts for the course were a very interesting way to reflect on the theories and concepts that we explored in class. I thoroughly enjoyed the blog posts and having the course’s curriculum and calendar on a blog that was accessible at all times. I intend to use a blog in my future classroom to keep students and parents updated and engaged. I felt that the prompts for the blog posts were open-ended enough that I could really reflect on what I found most interesting from each reading. I also enjoyed the class discussions after each blog post because it was valuable to hear what my classmates found useful and interesting in the same article or reading.

My favorite reading from the course was The Education of Margot Sanchez because it was the only assigned literature that I could not see myself teaching in the future. It was interesting to hear my classmates agree and disagree with my opinion about the book. I also noticed that a few students had alternative texts to suggest instead of this one. I suggested Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero.

Overall, I think the course helped immensely in my transition from student to teacher. In every class before this one I felt like I was learning about becoming a teacher, but this course felt like actually practicing skills necessary for becoming a teacher. Regardless of how much I may have struggled with the course’s assignments, I feel that I am massively more prepared for my future career than I was ten weeks ago.