4/1

            This week’s readings have gotten me thinking a lot about my critical inquiry unit. The opinions of the authors are very strong, and make me question every possible idea I have. There seems to be no room for error. The message seems to scream that if you’re not doing it this way, and not getting your students to change the world, you’re a horrible teacher and a big hindrance to their enlightenment. This enlightenment might I add is incredibly hazy. I’m not sure what I should be bringing my class toward. Yes, I know that the unit should spark a desire for change in my students, but I don’t think it’s that easy. I feel like my role as a teacher in this unit seems very small, but in reality, in my experience the teacher’s role has to be much bigger. I can’t imagine that my students will explore and discover in the manner that Souto-Manning’s very incredible and unbelievable first graders did. I would like them to, but in practice, I think the teacher will have to be more involved, especially if this is the first time this is being done.

            I am also confused about what I want this inquiry to focus on. I am very insecure about my knowledge of the students’ communities in addition to my knowledge of their needs. When I think about the classrooms I visit, I can think of very broad topics that I can focus on, like social inequalities, but I think that is way too broad. I can focus on inequalities they face as Latino and Black residents of Austin, but is that too obvious? I feel like my topic should be bigger. Anybody can walk into that classroom and suggest that topic, but I think I should be able to go a bit deeper as a person who “knows” them. Well, at least the articles make me feel that way.

            The reality is, I don’t know them that well as an intern/observer that sees them once or twice a week. As a result, my understanding of the classroom and what I believe is best for them will reflect that. Therefore, I don’t think I could be completely sure about what these students need as much as I would be in my own classroom. I also think it would be impossible to plan a unit like this before having met your students, or really had a chance to get to know them and their communities.

            All in all, I appreciated the readings and learned a lot from them, but I have to admit that they make the task appear extremely daunting and delicate. I feel like it would be helpful to see this in practice. Otherwise, my plans will be based on more of what I imagine in relation to the readings, and that just makes me feel very uncertain about my ideas altogether.

3/25

Reading Kinloch’s Harlem on our Minds was very powerful for me and I really enjoyed it. It got me thinking about this whole idea of “community”, and how I, since moving to Texas do not feel apart of one. When Khaleeq defined community I realized what it was that I was truly missing. On page 47 he defines it as; “culture, a mini village, home, social area, language, a place to be free from racism. A place to be free from racism and feeling different outside of the confines of my apartment is something I do not have anymore. In Miami, “blackness” was everywhere. I remember how shocked I was in my senior in high school when my economics teacher revealed that Blacks only made up about 12 percent of the population. We were all in disbelief. How could that be when everyone around us was Black? The only White people we knew were teachers and characters on t.v. Those spaces, in our reality were the only ones they occupied, but obviously that is far from the truth. I guess the point I’m trying to make is how protective Black communities can be for Black people. I feel so much more comfortable on 79^th and 27^th walking to the Flea Market alongside prostitutes, pimps, and drug dealers than I do in a room full of white people. There, I’m safe from that horrible feeling of otherness. From the stares, their obvious uneasiness, from having to perform and act “civilized” by their definitions, or trying to make them feel like I was worthy of being in their presence. This idea helped me to understand what gentrification must feel like and how unsettling it must feel to be taken away from that “safe” space.

            It all just made me realize how important my community at home is to me, and how important my students’ communities will be to them, whether they realize or not.

 There was a lot of talk about gentrification being a race or class issue and although I think it is both depending on who you’re asking. I think for whites it’s easy to label it as an issue related to class because they don’t have to consider their race as much as Blacks do. For me, it would be an issue of race first, and issue of power, because as of result of history and racism in our country I have no control over what happens. Mainly because I am poor but because my race has a lot to do with why I am poor.

Overall, I think the ideas in this text have great implications for teaching. I think the whole idea would be very engaging for students because what could be more relevant than their own communities?

3/18

            Working on this unit plan was quite challenging, a lot more challenging than the first. My biggest issue is that I was doing it on a text that I hadn’t really read and didn’t have in my possession every time I was thinking and making decisions about where I wanted the unit to go.

            I chose to use A Raisin in the Sun and although I’ve have watched the film, read some excerpts, and very familiar with the context and themes of the play, at times I really needed to be able to flip through the pages of the book as my ideas and thoughts were always changing. I wonder if everyone else has read their unit texts entirely, or if that’s something that needs to be done before embarking on the plan.

 When I did have access to the text I was still developing my ideas, and it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to structure the unit, and being completely confident in my decision to use this play.

            I still had Ms. Derbyshire’s 5^th period class in mind for this unit, they’re the class I have seen the most, and I found it easier to construct this unit around them and their personalities then to create an image of a possible classroom in my head. I had watched them work on this play at the beginning of this semester and I was already thinking about ways that I could do it differently, so naturally, that was the first text that came to mind, so I stuck with it.

            I got this idea of “Learning by Doing”; from an English professor at UF (Sid Homan) where he had us act out scenes from the Shakespeare plays we worked on, and I had a lot of fun with it. This says a lot because I have grown to be very timid and introverted and I am not a huge fan of Shakespeare. This method helped me most with comprehension and that is something I found that the students struggled with when they read they play, so I hoped acting would help them with that as well. I also thought that it would be fun for them, and I think that this group would be a lot more open and comfortable with acting than most 10^th graders, so I think acting is a great way to make use of their energy.

3/4

         This week Smagorinsky offered some ideas that can be used for the upcoming unit plan. However, I don’t think it was a great help because I really would have wished that they were a lot more “unconventional” than he suggested.  Most of those activities are ideas that we’ve heard and talked before, and I’m sure there are other ways to engage and excite students about text beyond the activities we always turn to.  I guess its our job to figure it out.

            The Christenbury reading was also a little redundant and reminiscent of last semester. The writing she discusses is exactly what we’re doing in Dr. Bomer’s class. I am really surprised at how challenging that has been for me. I think it’s because I am forced to do all of the thinking and creating instead of having a rubric or topics laid out for me. I think this is great news for teachers and students. This style of teaching writing is challenging and rigorous and forces students to think about they’re writing way more than they ever have. I am very excited to do this in my own classroom because the end product is so refreshing. It’s like creating a piece of art, it is!

 One thing I did not like about Christenbury is how she dedicated a whole section to Shakespeare; I thought that was something we were moving away from. It made me think about the texts I’m thinking about for my classroom. Am I choosing them because they are great for the students or because they’re my personal favorites? I think it’s important that the text is both, not one or the other.  One thing I did really like is her mentioning drama as a way to learn and interact with literature.  I think this is funny, but the one class I took on Shakespeare during undergrad was called “Doing it”, and I loved it. The whole course was made of partners acting out all of the scenes in the selected plays and that is definitely something I’d like to do in the classroom because it allowed to connect with pieces of literature that I had previously despised.

As far as fieldwork goes, I noticed that my CT is a lot more direct and firm with her students, which I think is working in her favor. I don’t know if she notices but the students are responding well to it and that makes me very happy.