Chapter 2 begins with Marissa and Justine not knowing who Al (it's Qaeda, Al Qaeda). Gallagher's comment made me think of the conceptual unit I created last week. For those who don't know, I connected Swifts "A Modest Proposal" to the 2012 Presidential Election. My text set consisted of some, as Gallagher called, authentic reading. I also had students choosing and reading news articles each week. So after finishing chapter two I was left thinking about Gallagher's ideas in relation to my conceptual unit (selfish, I know).
First I know I want my students to know what's happening around them and therefore, always want to implement culturally current event readings to my classrooms. (I had a teacher that would start every single class with the question, "Does anyone have any interesting current events to share?" He would spend as much time as it took for all the students to share what they wanted to share before he started his actual lesson plan. Although this seems like it could take up valuable class time, it also encourages students keep up with what's going on in the world.) I tried to demonstrate this want through my conceptual unit, however after reading Gallagher's chapter I questioned whether or not my goals would work (I know his chapter was not focused solely on providing students with culturally current texts, but that's what stood out most to me). It was easy to create this unit with all texts consisting of newspaper and magazine articles, videos, twitter, blogs, etc because it wasn't real. I did not have to supply the articles or videos. I did have to make sure I had the texts available for my students. I think this is where I will struggle most; I will have tons of ideas but they won't be any good unless I put them into practice but that requires me standing up to the head of my department, the principal, or (gasp) the superintendent. It'll be tempting to take the easier route and work what I have to avoid possible confrontation with any of the previously mentioned positions, but then am I hurting my students? I'd say yes. Primarily because there are those (cough Bauerlein cough) arguing that the younger generation is the dumbest generation. When as student doesn't know about al Qaeda, it'd be easy to argue that they Marissa and Justine are definitely members of the dumbest generation club, but are they dumb or ignorant? I'd go with ignorant, and so I think it's our job as future teachers to make our students less ignorant, and make them aware of what's going on around them. So although I'd be a bit intimidated to approach those above me about texts, I think it's something worth getting over. Especially because in my unit I didn't consider allowing students to read these texts at home, and after reading this chapter I feel as though it'd be so much more beneficial if they did. This will just be another reason why I'll have to swallow my nerves and kind of fight for my students needs.
To wrap all my rambling thoughts up, I'll finish by stating that I found Gallagher's second chapter extremely useful, especially the week following creating my conceptual unit (Shannon, did you plan this?). It provided me with a lot to think about and consider when I enter the class room (which will be here way sooner than I think ahhhh).
Also for your entertainment:
I also liked the idea of the Article of the Week (AoW) that Gallagher mentions. At my high school, we did current events projects, but only in certain social science classes, never in English.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I agree about the kids in Gallagher's al Qaeda example. They don't seem dumb at all, especially if they were willing to question their teacher about something that was confusing them (even if, by that time, they should know what al Qaeda is). It takes courage to ask questions and that's why I used to avoid doing so unless I felt it absolutely necessary. If these kids were dumb, I'm pretty sure they would not have asked Mr. Gallagher their question, but that may just be a guess.
Bethany I really enjoyed the Lunch time scholars haha. Also, I love the way you want to teach about an important current event with your students. This way they can actually know some important facts about their country and next time "own it" in lunch time scholars!
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