Julie Keinath
teaching portfolio
Julie Keinath's Literacy Showcase
I have always loved to read and write. As I began my Master's courses at MSU, I eagerly looked forward to the courses I would take as part of my Literacy Concentration. The four courses I took, described on the coursework page, helped me grow as a teacher in the many fields of literacy. Every day, I am using what I learned through these courses and projects to help my students love reading and writing as much as I do. These papers and projects below show the valuable lessons I have learned in the areas of reading comprehension, writing strategies, and the use of quality literature in my classroom.
This is my final paper from TE838 – Children’s Literature in Film. It explores how my perception of “fidelity to the original” changed throughout the semester. It also details applications in my classroom, such as revamping our class discussion of the movie based on Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
This lesson plan about answering comprehension questions based on a nonfiction text was created for TE846 – Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners. I chose this topic for my lesson plan because I had several students who struggled with this skill in my class. I implemented this lesson plan with two of those students.
This is the case study I wrote based on my implementation of the above lesson plan. It describes each step of the lesson plan, along with the results of the assessment. Through this case study, I learned how complicated the process of reading comprehension is and how explicitly it needs to be taught in the classroom.
This paper was written after our unit on multicultural literature for TE849 – Methods and Materials for Teaching Children’s and Adolescent Literature. During that unit, we focused on Native American literature, written both by “insiders” and “outsiders.” This unit was the most influential unit of the course for me. My view of multicultural literature transitioned from ignorance to curiosity to seeing it as essential for my students. In addition to now providing multicultural literature in my classroom, I have also added a unit about Native Americans in my Michigan History class. Students are given the opportunity to research six Native American tribes that live in Michigan and learn about their cultures.
This is my final paper from TE849. It describes the realization that I made through the course – that great literature should be enjoyed as such, even in the classroom. Texts can be used to practice reading skills, but that should not be their primary purpose. Literature is powerful, and it should be given the chance to be so for my students.
This is my unit plan and reflection created in TE848 – Writing Assessment and Instruction. It includes the daily lesson plans for my devotion writing unit, which was my first venture into genre pedagogy. My reflection describes what I learned from this writing unit, both from the class and individual students. These lessons can be expanded and applied to any writing unit that I teach to my students.
The devotions that my students created as part of this writing unit were originally published in two ways. I posted their devotions on our classroom website, and then publicized the link in both our school newsletter and church bulletin. I also created a devotion book, with one devotion from each student, for the students to take home and use with their families. The link on the left provides a copy of this book.