Pytash: Final Reflection

Overall, this class was a real eye-opener. I learned a lot about taking the boring "classic" texts and making them more interesting. Last semester, I was really excited about teaching high school students literature because I was thinking that I could just teach them young adult literature and open their eyes to reading and make readers out of all of them. When this semester started, I remembered that almost all high schools require the reading of classic texts. I also remembered that I hate classic texts. I've never been a fan of them, and I find them really hard to get engaged in.

This class showed me how I can make these books more than just reading and taking tests or writing papers on them. One of my favorite things that I learned from this class is how to effectively lead a class discussion. Dr. Pytash said a lot how we can't just write in our lesson plans, "have a discussion" but instead we need to really focus on how we're going to form that discussion, how we'll keep it going it there are slow parts, and ways to keep the students on topic.

Then there was the Firestone experience. A lot of people loved this, but I didn't. To be completely honest, when we were asked what we learned from the experience I couldn't think of anything other than, "I learned that I don't want to teach high schoolers." While high school teachers have a lot of opportunities to get creative, I think my place is in an elementary school. I will be taking all of the lessons I learned from this class and apply it to my elementary teaching career in some way, but I'm glad I finally found what I'm passionate about.

Pytash: Jago: Ch. 7

When reading this chapter I was slightly appalled that Jago supported standardized testing. Most teachers, if not the majority of teachers, that I know do not agree with these tests because they have to teach to them. It surprised me especially because Jago has focused on classic texts and my experience with the OGTs is that the classics aren't really a concern for these tests.

I thought it was important how Jago told us to connect things with the students' lives. When she related Julius Ceasar to the elections, I thought it was cool that students could relate to something so classical. This has always been my problem with the classic texts: I can't relate and I find reading them pointless. After reading this chapter, I realized that most of these books can be related to our students' lives if we try hard enough and really look outside of the box.

Overall, I liked this book. It was easy to read and understand. Jago did well with her appendixes too, I liked how planned out they were and how easy they were to use.