Required June Blog 1

When I sat down and began to think about the curriculum that we would teach this summer for English I, I had several doubts about my ability to make such a huge decision considering I taught English III and IV this past year. The more I looked at the frameworks though and discussed content with other MTC English teachers, I decided that the most beneficial lessons for these students would be those that they could bring back and apply to their English II (state tested) classes next year wherever they are. I wanted these students to be able to re-use and re-apply strategies learned this summer in whatever English classroom they end up for the school year, regardless of the learning environment or teacher's competency. Thus, the main ideas that we focused on stressing for the first few lessons were a good grammar basis, good organizational processes and strategies (especially for essays), and general reading comprehension/test taking skills. I also thought that since the students would be in the same class, same seat, same teachers for 4 hours each day, it would be best to try and vary the lessons as much as possible to keep their attention span; therefore, our lessons generally teach four completely different concepts/ideas every day. We tried to cover at least one of the four themes: essay writing (students will compose their own informative essay by end of the week), grammar (students will apply rules of Subject-Verb agreement and commas vs. semi-colons in multiple sentences), reading comprehension (use of context clues and active reading), and literary (starting off with characters/characterization in one of my favorite short stories, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"). I imagined that, and for the most part found it to be true, that students had at the very least heard of some of the terms/strategies/concepts we discussed (bubble map, four square model, FANBOYS, etc.), but did not know exactly what they were or how to apply them. We made sure we were very explicit on when and how to use and apply these skills. The students will need to demonstrate competency in these areas in order to pass the state test and graduate in English II next year. I believe one of the students' favorite lessons (and one of my favorite to teach) was the inductive strategy (Unguided inquiry) where I had students explain to me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The first student told me to open the bag; I did so, but did it by ripping the bag open from the bottom, allowing most of the bread to fall on the floor, instead of untwisting the ties and opening it from the top. This continued, with students not being specific enough and my assuming things from their vague directions until we had thoroughly messed up the peanut butter and jelly making process. After this, I believe the students understood the importance of organizing your thoughts, being specific, and following the correct steps, which easily led into the lesson on prewriting.