Portfolio+Whitney+Savoy

=This class has come to the END! All the hard work and what I have learned will pay off in the future :)=

Essential Questions for our course:
How do we motivate our students? How do we show our students that reading is fun and enjoyable? What kinds of lessons and activities keep students involved in reading and learning?

Introduction to My Portfolio:
Teaching Reading to Young Adults is one of those classes that you, as a student, need to attend each class, read every assignment, do every activity; it is a lot of work however, this class was one of my favorites! You will never get bored and there is so much to learn and absorb doing the work is not all that bad. What I have taken from this class will not doubt help me become the best teacher I can be; I have learned so much. I have to admit I was never a real big reader and like most students, lost the enjoyment of reading in High School. The one huge theme that I have taken from this class is that we, future teachers, have to make reading fun for students by bringing in those picture books they used to love so much, graphic novels, having more interaction and involvment in texts will help students be more engaged in reading.

Progression/Growth: What did I learn?
The first day or so Dr.Shea told us to answer a few questions about ourselves and how we view ourselves as readers. We told him our likes and dislikes about reading, our favorite books/genre's etc. Coming into this class I was very nervous because like I mentioned before I was not a huge reader, I thought this class would be the most difficult class for me. However, as the class progressed, yes the work seemed very involved, but what I learned was worth it, I definitely grew as a reader. Filling this notecard out for Dr. Shea was benefical to him because he got to know us on a deeper level; teachers taking the time out to actually get to know their students will help by knowing the best ways that their students learn. This also builds trust between student and teacher.

The "Me Portfolio" was one of the major projects we had to do in class which helped me greatly to see what kind of reader I was. I can see this project being done in English classrooms, a fun and creative way for students to see what kind of reader they are, and also helps the teacher learn more about you and ways you learn best. Our Bridging English text, which proved to be very useful, in the beginning chapters talks about the many different learning styles such as Visual, Auditory and Tactile/Kindsthetic learners. We have learned in class that our classroom will be filled with very different students all from different backgrounds and all having different learning styles. Us as future teachers have to see that and know how accommodate every student.

Next, we started reading our first novel of the semester which was //Enriques// Journey, a very moving story about a young boys journey to the States to be with his mother, whom he hasn't seen in years. After reading we had a socratic seminar where we sat in two circles, students provided thought provoking questions, and was run by the students. I thought this seminar was interesting, fun and benefical to all students. It allowed for students to speak their mind, ideas/themes/concepts were all deeply explored because everyone had something new to say to add on, it organized, and showed what students learned and took from the text.

The B project was the next project that we started to tackle. Each student picked a topic/theme choose the minimum 5 books (classics, graphics novels, picture books, and YA books), thought of at least 3 activities that go with your theme, and had to make a glog that explained our banned book. This was a fun project where I learned how to pick books out that were interesting and appealed to students but also shared the same theme. Coming up with creative and engaging activities was hard but showed that using creative lessons help students stay actively involved in the unit. Again going back to the idea that teachers need to make lessons/activities fun to keep students motivated in reading. With this B Project we got to go to the local library! I loved going and learning and seeing all the different books that you can use in your classrooms; there a lot of YA books out there that are not taught in English classrooms because of the tight c urriculum. This B Project also taught me that you, as a teacher, can bring some outside books that relate to the theme of a unit that are more appealing to your students.

//The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian// was the next novel that we read which was my favorite out of all of them. The format of the book was fun and made it reading seem not really reading. It was in a diary form with pictures and the lanuage was not all that difficult. Students will connect to the characters and I feel will really like this book if taught in a classroom. The activity that we did with this book was a "freeze frame" activity where we got into groups picked out a scene and used ourselves to paint a picture of the scene to the rest of the class. This activity would be benefical to students because they can get up and really get into the text. In both //Bridging English// and //You Gotta Be the Book// text I have learned that bringing drama into the classroom is very benefical to the students because it helps the students get more involved, keeps their interest, and its a fun way to learn concepts/themes/characters.

The next small unit we learned was about graphic novels. The first graphic novel was //Persepolis// which I grew to like. Graphic novels helped me read the text as a normal book but with visuals of what the text was saying. I am a visual learner so grahic novels proved to help my understanding of the text better. Seeing the expressions on the characters faces, the settings, pictures made the text come alive. Graphic novels are becoming more popular in classrooms and I feel you can still learn the same from a graphic novel as you do with the regualr book, and graphic novels will appeal to your students as another form to reading a text.

The RPP- was our next big project which we met with a young reader, and learned/observed them as readers and came up with ways we can help them improve as readers. I learned that all readers no matter if they are reluctant or not teachers can help each student become a better reader. My partner was already a decent reader however I learned by talking to my mom and reading through our texts how to help my reader improve her reading skills. This smaller version of learning how to help students improve on thier reading will help us in the future when we get our students and we can look back on this project or texts.

Each student learns and thinks through a text differently what we learned about different Critcal lens will help students pic a lens that suits them and see what meaning they get from the text. These Critical lens I learned that you can look at a text in multple ways that can deepen our thought about the text, and help us bring out deeper meaning of the text. This being used in classrooms will help students see a text in a whole new way which is benefical to them since all students learn and view things differently; having them pick which lens they want will most likely motivate them to keep reading. We used these different lens with the last novel we read in class, //The Good Earth//. We got in small groups thought of questions that delt with our lens and had a whole classroom discussion answering these questions. After the discussion I assumed that everyone came out with a deeper meaning then what they had in the beginning.

All the novels we read could all be connected and used in an English classroom, this is where we wrapped up. We came to the decision that all the novels we could pull out the theme of Identity, and made our lesson plan revolve around that theme. The lesson plan is very hard to grasp especially if you have no experience with it but it was helpful to see how you can design a fun and creative lesson plan that is full of thought provoking questions, activities, and projects that students can really learn from.

Artifacts:
The activities that we done in class that supports my progression were- Me Portfolio-showed where I began as a reader The different novels and the activities we did with all of them The RPP- helped me see different ways to improve students reading skills B Project- putting together YA books, classics, picture books, graphics novels, and film that all surround a certain theme and make up activities that help teach and go along with your theme The Day book- looking through the entires, lessons, activities that we have done throughout class shows what I have learned and taken and my personal thoughts on topics that we touched.

4 Brief Daybook entries:
Sept 7th- is just of my first thoughts about starting my "Me Portfolio" and I put a poem that I thought described me (except the Jewish part) and would good to put in my portfolio. On My Application On my application I can put... This girl: a black, white, Christian, Jewish, young women: student, musician, singer, dancer, runner in the middle distance races. Is willing to help you if you take her as she is. This shows that I was starting to think about how I am as a reader, knowing yourself as a reader first helps you recognize how you can improve. Putting together the Me Portfolio was a creative way to learn more about myself as a reader instead of doing a traditional paper. Making lessons creative and fun help the students become more motivated to do the work.

October 3rd- We had to read Chapter 2 in You Gotta Be the Book and Chapter 7 in Bridging English and take notes on the chatpers and write a journal entry on our thoughts. The chapters were about how can teachers engage struggling readers. I picked this journal entry because I feel this is an important topic and I learned a lot by reading these two chapters. Some ways to engage struggling readers: Motivation from the teacher, group work, keeping a journal, building connections, reading books that share the readers same interest. This is one topic us as future teachers need to know because there is no doubt we will have struggling readers in out classrooms.

November 1- Was a response to the Good Earth. What are you learning about China? How can you relate to their culture? I did not read any background information on China before reading this book, I really did not know that much about China at all so reading this book I picked up a few things about their culture I didn't know. In my response: From what I read China's culture is very strict and everything revolves around your land; your land is everything to China's farmers. Wang Lung follows his culture's rules and his wife is basically his pocession. O'lan does what she is asked, cooks cleans and takes care of the children and when there needs more help in the fields she is right there next to him. I talked about the idea of separate spheres and related that to American culture where we have the idea of men being the ones that provide for the families and the wife is basically a stay at home mom. I picked this response out because it shows that I am showing connections to the text and drawing out conclusions and showing my comprehension while reading.

November 15- Reponse to The Cay. How is Philip changing? How is Timothy changing? Overall take of the book so far, and perdictions. I stated that Philip is changing by becoming more independant, and his understanding of the whole situation is becoming more clear to him. Timothy is changing by learning and understand Philip more and growing more sympathy for him. At this point of the text they are working together better, Philip is learning the island and becoming honest with each other, TRUST! My overall impression of the novel is that it is a very good middle school book about coming of age, dealings with race and feeling accepted, trust; a lot of themes that students at the middle school age are dealing with and definitely can connect with. I picked this entry because it shows what I am taking from the text so far and pulling out ways characters are changing and predicting on what is going to happen next.

Throughout this whole semester I grew a lot as a reader and as a future teacher, what I have learned in this class I will take with me and refer back to! I hope everyone has a great and safe Holiday!!!

Glog: []