Final Reflection for my Course on Litearature and Media

Question: How do we reflect on our practices as critical educators of literature, language, and media?

Reflection: Over the course of the semester, we’ve been bombarded with mental stimuli from all directions, and we’ve been asked to reflect on the practices and genres we’ve been learning about as we’ve been learning, and to reflect on the feedback we’ve been receiving as we’ve been receiving it. In Lit and Media in particular, we’ve been learning briefly about tons of potential literacy practices and genres of media, and we’ve been reflecting on how we might teach them or use them in our own classrooms. However, the question of how we reflect on our practices is one that perhaps hasn’t been sufficiently addressed. Given the frequency with which we’re asked to reflect on our practices, the question of how best to do that merits some consideration.

Deborah Appleman (2010) described the process she went through when reflecting on her role as a reading teacher, so in that sense, she might serve as a model. When we read her text at the very beginning of the semester, I thought about what my role as an English teacher might be, and it made sense that teaching students to read—words, pictures, videos, or any number of texts—was most certainly a part of my role; Appleman made perfect sense. However, reflecting on my own practice proves more difficult.

In the “Classroom Connections” activities I completed for this class, I dealt with reflecting on my own practice as well. How had the strategies I implemented met the goals I had set out for them? Where did they fall short? Why did they fulfill the goals they were meant to, or fall short? I suppose these are good beginnings to reflections on my practice, but there’s a missing step, it seems, and it’s one I’ve danced around all semester, we’ve talked about in class to some extent, and I’m only now coming to any sort of an answer to: Why did I set the goals I set for the practice in the first place?

Dealing with this question, I think, is of critical importance, because how we set the goals of our classes is at the heart of our pedagogical identity. If I see my classroom as one in which I train students to be capable employees or prepared college students or master test takers, my instructional goals are going to be very different than if I see my classroom as a space for open inquiry and criticism of the social forces behind the texts we’re studying. My classroom, I hope, will fall into this latter category. But at what level should I stop reflecting?

In the other classes in this program, we read Peter Smagorinsky’s texts about unit planning—setting instructional goals, planning how best to assess those goals, determining learning goals for lessons that will prepare students for their assessment, and planning activities that will meet the learning goals of the lesson, so that students are sufficiently scaffolded to complete their unit assessment successfully. Much of our reflection in Lit and Media--our discussions of different genres or critical lenses, for example—has been on these levels. Some of the texts we’ve read have offered practical suggestions or sample lessons, while others have expounded upon the importance of various genres in the curriculum, the larger social issues the genres can speak to, etc.

When reflecting on our practice, then, should we be focusing on whether our learning goals were aligned with our assessments? Should we be focusing on ensuring that our goals for student learning match up with the pedagogies/ideologies we’ve established about the role of English Education in student lives, in our school communities, or in society at large? Or should we be reflecting on the validity of the pedagogy/ideology that guides our classroom, critically examining the assumptions we make every day about our students, our discipline, our world, and ourselves?

Like so many other questions we’ve raised this semester, I don’t claim to have a final answer to this question. As I’ve mentioned, the authors we’ve read this semester have dealt, really, with all of these levels of reflection, and I’m sure that each of them is important. But trying to balance all of them, reflect on all of them at any given time, at least at this stage in our teaching careers, can be totally overwhelming, at least for me. So is there a balance to be struck? I think that, most likely, this balance varies from educator to educator, from classroom to classroom, and from year to year and even day to day. But I also know that only once I started thinking about my role, my goals as an educator, I became more engaged and more motivated. Once I began reflecting on my own motives and reasons for the goals I’ve set as an educator and the role I see myself playing, I became excited again about the empowering possibilities of literacies, and that level of reflection motivated me when reflecting on my success or failure at managing behavior in a classroom or aligning formative assessments with learning goals had me totally bogged down.

And our inquiry discussions in class, at times, have addressed these questions. When we talk about the role of “dangerous” texts like Do The Right Thing, or of “dangerous” topics like violence, sexuality, race, or religion, we’ve been talking around how we see our role as educators, or the role of an English classroom, or the English teacher.

So, how do we reflect on our practices as critical educators of literature, language, and media? Again, I don’t think this class has brought me to a single conclusion, but it has highlighted the importance of reflection on a number of levels. Without “meta-reflection,” reflection on the ideology/ies behind the rationales, though, I think something is missing. It is at this level that I ought to begin, I think, to understand why I set the unit goals, or lesson-level learning goals that I set, or why I select the genres or texts that I select. This level of awareness will, if I can maintain it, make me a more responsible, and more accountable educator, and for this reason, this level of reflection is a necessary step in my reflection on my practice.

Professional Development and Colleague Collaboration

Today, I went to the first professional conference of my career/life, the 2011 PCTELA (Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts), and it was generally a pretty great experience. I got a great deal out of the experience, but I think what stood out the most was the sense of community I got to experience, and the ideas I got to engage with.

Community: Stumbling Upon the Wealth of Professional Resources

We read a lot of theory in our English Education program, which is super important, I think, in guiding every single decision we make in our classrooms (I way our, though I haven't, really, the right to, yet, since I'm still only at my placement once a week, but hopefully you'll tolerate it from me, since being at the PCTELA conference today made me feel like I really am part of a community of professionals, even this early in my career/professional development!). And, of course, in our placements--my placement, at least--theory sort of becomes invisible. I'm often unsure of whether or not there is a theory backing any given choice my MT makes. That's not to say that there isn't, but if there is, I'm not always aware of it.

Being at the conference was interesting because it, perhaps, bridged the gap in some ways. I learned a lot about the different resources available to me as an emerging professional. Who knew there were SO MANY websites out there that cater specifically to English teachers!? I think I knew there were resources out there, but it's nice to have guidance from more expert professionals, because it's often really hard to tell what's a good resource, what's a mediocre one, and what's just downright bad, especially at this stage in my career, while I'm still cementing my own educational theory and philosophy.

And what was really great for me was the exposure to adolescent lit authors. Because I never really had a phase in my life when I read adolescent lit. I picked up the Harry Potter books in high school, and I read a few "adolescent" texts, like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Giver, but I'm not much of an educated consumer of adolescent lit texts. So it was really helpful to hear from some people who are respected in the field, and get an idea of what good adolescent lit might look like. I'm already picking some up from my classes, where we've been reading some texts, geared at adolescents, that I've found just beautiful.

Ideas that Made me Stop and Think

In addition to just being blown away by the exponential growth in the pool of resources at my disposal, I also got to hear some really great educators/authors speak on some intellectually provocative topics.

Communities in our Classrooms

They got me thinking about a couple of things. One is how we can establish community in our classrooms. I think my program at Pitt was trying to address this when they asked us to create and enact a lesson in our classroom that promotes literacy community, though I wasn't really sure exactly what that was supposed to mean, and maybe I'm still not quite sure. But in any case, the idea is that in order for our students to do really compelling, inquiry-based, intellectually stimulating and personally relevant work, they have to feel safe in the classroom, trust the instructor and trust each other.

The question is, naturally, how do we get them to that point? And what Ms. Christensen said was basically that it doesn't happen over night. You don't walk into your first day with a group of 30 students, hand them an "I am a scholar" pledge and expect them to be on board with you and trust you implicitly. She suggested that you provide them with a space to share and engage with their personal experiences, but also not force them to go there if they're not ready. She gave me a lot of good ideas, and she also reminded me not to fret--my students at McKeesport don't seem to fully trust me yet, but I'm only there 1 day/week this semester, and I'm only student-teaching--because it takes time and work, and it'll come, if I try, and if I'm trustworthy enough. And I think I'm making progress already!

What's Appropriate in Young Adult Lit (and/or in the English Classroom)?

The other really relevant topic at hand was that of the "appropriate content" for young adult literature. We've (the other English Ed students and our profs) talked a lot in our classes at Pitt about what texts are suitable for us to incorporate in our curricula, and which are too "dangerous." I have to admit, some of these concerns came to my mind, too, when we read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and talked about whether or not we might teach the book in our placements, for example. I thought, "this might offend some students, some parents. It might be perceived as racially charged."

But recently, I've been questioning the notion of a dangerous text. There were times and places in the world when education actually was "dangerous," for various people. People have suffered really severe consequences for reading certain texts, for writing or speaking on a certain topic in a certain way. Bringing a book that brings up topics of racism into an English classroom, for example, is NOT dangerous in the same way.

We should be able to ask our students to critique the books we read as representations of the world(s) from which they come, and not as absolute truths. And, anyways, we don't read To Kill a Mockingbird or Oedipus or Romeo and Juliet as texts containing some absolute truth. Some parents would probably not be comfortable with their students reading about a teenage girl who meets a guy who kills her cousin and then plans to elope with him before killing herself, if it were written in a contemporary setting.

Anyways, the topic came up twice today, and just reinforced what I'm coming to believe. Maybe it's because of the age of my students, or maybe it's part of my developing philosophy of education, but I'm now sure that mature topics have a place in YA lit. Ms. Christensen talked about something Sherman Alexie said in his article "Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood." ( http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/06/09/why-the-best-kids-books-are-written-in-blood/ )

Our students have mature experiences. They are "young adults," and we call them that because they've had enough life experiences to qualify as approaching adulthood. A lot of them have experienced death and hardship and they're maturing sexually and emotionally--they're not only ready for these books, they need them.

Mr. Crutcher talked a lot about this, too. If we're going to validate YA experiences--in the way that we need to if we're to create a community of learners--we have to present them authentically. Otherwise, they'll know that we're sheltering them, they'll feel like they're "playing school." But if we present books to them that are written to them and for them, that describe things as they "really" are, then school stops being a game, and they can feel like they're really learning something, something tangible and real. It's fine to teach Shakespeare, but teach Alexie, too, and teach what the students are reading, and teach it in a way that students can access and can construct their own meaning through.

These are just sort of tentative thoughts; I can't speak definitively for young adults and say what they expect from books, or what they expect from English classes. But these are my suspicions.

In any case, whether I've formed lasting opinions, or I'm just working my way through my thoughts, it was really great to engage some provocative ideas, and it was really great to think and learn alongside some vet teachers from all different districts and grade levels. It was a really valuable experience, and I can't wait to go to more and more of these things as I become a vet teacher myself!