My pre-student teaching semester began this week. I reported to my Cooperating Teachers
classroom last week and we discussed expectations, the types of classes I will
be involved with this year, went over the syllabus/curriculum, and talked about
the WSU education program. The expectations
are on par with what I would expect from Highschool students. Being that the 4 classes I will eventually be
involved with are Senior AP and Honors classes I don’t expect any real behavior
problems. However, I do expect them to
be engaged and sometimes, even when students are on topic, the conversation can
get out of hand. That being said, I
expect the behavior issues that I have observed and dealt with as part of my
job over the last three years in middle school to be pleasantly absent during
pre-student teaching. The curriculum for
an AP and Honors classes is difficult even for College English students. The AP classes read Beowulf and Grendel over
the summer and were required to write an analytical essay about the texts. Some students exceeded my CT’s expectations
but most fell short. The page length requirement was at least three
pages and most students barely made three pages and they were poorly written. However, the essays are not final drafts, as
the students thought, but are rough drafts.
Beginning on Monday they have been given back their essays and an
example essay my CT uses to teach the students how to edit a paper. Tomorrow he is teaching them about
transitional phrases. Throughout a 75
minute class about half is dedicated to instruction and the other half to peer
editing, heavy individual editing and rewriting. Attention has been, or will be, given to
sentence structure, punctuation, diction, spelling, MLA formatting and
citation, introductions, titles, genre, contextual factors, and clearly defined
thesis statements. All of this
instruction is based on the AP essay requirements that the students will have
to adhere to when they take their AP exams.
What I have observed in the first few days of the semester makes me
think about my goals as a teaching candidate.
I have quite a bit of middle school language arts experience
and I am excited to get more experience in a Highschool English classroom. Middle school, in my opinion, is about
teaching students the foundation material that they will need as they move on
into Highschool. That being the case, I
have not had very much experience teaching novels or literature and it is my
biggest goal this semester to learn how to teach this upper level material. Furthermore, I know that as a college student
I can write A papers but teaching someone how to write the same A papers and to
think in an analytical way about literature is something that I need experience
with. I am also looking forward to
becoming familiar with Highschool curriculum and exploring any options available
in regard to teaching this curriculum.
Another goal I have this year is to have a little more fun teaching than
I have had in the past. I am going to
now have the opportunity to co-teach/teach authors and texts that I love. Hamlet is
the first text on the syllabus for next week, followed by Camus’ The Stranger, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Joyce’s Dubliners, and Orwell’s 1984.
The next school year is finally here and I hope to be a
sponge so I can soak up everything my CT and students have to teach me.
