Julie Keinath
teaching portfolio
Putting the Pieces Together
One of the hobbies I have recently grown to enjoy is doing jigsaw puzzles. When I first dump the pieces out of the box, the chaos can be overwhelming. Gradually, though, the rectangular frame begins to take shape. Then, the inner pieces find friends and homes, interlocked with each other. There are always holes that are hard to fill, which require many pieces to be tried before the right one is found. Finally, after hours or days of detailed puzzling, the big picture emerges and I can enjoy the beautiful result that I have created.
Teaching can be like doing a jigsaw puzzle. When you approach a new grade or curriculum or technology, all of the options can be overwhelming. It takes time and determination to sort through the ideas and techniques to find what works best for your teaching style and your students. Each teaching idea is a puzzle piece that needs to find its home in your daily life in the classroom.
I have been introduced to myriads of these puzzle piece ideas in my time in the MAED program at Michigan State University. The field of teaching literacy is very complex. The puzzle pieces are numerous, but I have enjoyed exploring them and fitting them into my teaching practices.
Dr. Laura Apol’s class, TE849 Methods and Materials for Teaching Children’s and Adolescent Literature, provided me with the puzzle piece of quality literature. Teachers and students expend a lot of energy reading and dissecting texts in the classroom. It should be a natural conclusion that these texts should be worth spending this much energy on. I didn't realize this clearly, however, until our final discussion in this course. We read Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Tea with Milk by Allen Say, both of which are picture books. Nevertheless, my small group created dozens of discussion board posts about each of these books, exploring textual, social, and moral aspects of their stories. Dr. Apol could not have picked just any random picture book and created this level of dialogue. If I want my students to explore literature, to dive into deeper meanings and symbolism, then I need to provide them with texts that allow them to do so. The stories and books that I give my students should have meat, not just fluff. They should lend themselves well to discussion because of the subject matter or writing style. This realization has caused me to reconsider the novel that I read with my fourth graders every year, which is How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell. My students enjoy reading this book, but there are many novels available with more to explore and discuss. While I have not yet chosen a different novel, I have deepened my teaching to include the themes portrayed by the interactions of the characters, rather than staying at the surface level of the plot.
When discussing what I learned in TE849, I would be extremely remiss if I did not mention our unit on multicultural literature. This was not a unit I had been particularly looking forward to. I teach in a predominantly white town, so I did not see how multicultural literature was all that relevant to my students. It did not take me long to realize how mistaken of a view that was. It is precisely because of our lack of diversity that my students need to be exposed to quality literature in this area. Stereotypes of other cultures already abound, and the last thing they need is to see those stereotypes confirmed in the books that they read. Through our study of Native American literature in TE849, I discovered how controversial portrayals of different cultures can be, especially if the book is written by an “outsider” of that culture. I have found websites and other resources to help me determine if books are depicting a culture accurately and respectfully. In the past, I have done The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks as a read-aloud. My fourth graders have enjoyed this story of plastic figures coming to life. However, through TE849, I now see how the character of Little Bear is stereotypical and possibly even offensive to Native Americans. I have dropped this book from my read-aloud list in favor of The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich. I have also made, and continue to make, a conscientious effort to expand the multicultural literature section of my classroom library.
TE846, Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners, provided me with so many puzzle pieces that I hardly know where to begin. Not all of the puzzle pieces fit nicely with my classroom puzzle as I had completed it thus far, resulting in some long overdue rearranging. This course provided me with hundreds of techniques and strategies for teaching reading and writing to both struggling students and those at grade-level. Every student learns differently. We can’t teach every student the same way and expect the same results, just as a Band-Aid won’t fix every type of injury, from a scratch to a broken arm. In TE846, I was introduced to the CARES approach to modifications. There are many different levels of modifications that I can make for a student. Something as simple as changing where they sit in the room may help them succeed, or they may require a more substantial modification, such as shortening the assignment or providing them with an aide to help them. In order to make every student successful, I should examine what they need in order to be so, and tweak their environment and requirements accordingly.
Learning to read is very complicated, just like doing a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle. While a jigsaw puzzle simply takes time and perseverance, learning to read requires instruction, modeling, and practice. In my semester-long case study project for TE846, I discovered puzzle pieces that I previously had not had room for in my classroom jigsaw puzzle. While I would not call my case study a failure, I would not call it a success, either. I worked with two struggling readers on how to answer comprehension questions about a nonfiction text. In short, I found that one hour was not enough time to teach this skill. Reading comprehension skills need to be taught, modeled, practiced, retaught, and reviewed. There are a few naturally blessed students who can do all of this on their own, but the majority of students will need instruction in this area. It is not that I had not been teaching reading skills, but I had not been teaching them as clearly or as repeatedly as I should. I have made efforts to resolve this problem since I completed TE846. I know this is an area in which I need to improve even more. In my goal of being the best teacher I can be, the area of reading takes priority. These are puzzle pieces that are still finding their final places in my jigsaw puzzle.
I have an equal amount of work to do in the teaching of writing in my classroom. TE848, Writing Assessment and Instruction, provided me with many valuable puzzle pieces to help out in this area. First and foremost, it introduced me to the concept of genre pedagogy. In my Writing Workshop lessons in the past, I have spent a lot of time teaching the various steps of the writing process. This was the basis of my writing instruction. In genre pedagogy, the writing process is simply a tool, and the focus of instruction is on the selected genre. I experimented with using genre pedagogy in my course project of a devotion writing unit. My students first examined many, many examples of devotions. We then determined the characteristics of devotions and wrote one as a class before they were released to write devotions of their own. I firmly believe that the success of this unit, which culminated in the “publication” of their devotion book, can be attributed to the teaching style of genre pedagogy. Immersing ourselves in the genre of devotions led my students to be comfortable in writing and revising them. I was very impressed by the success of genre pedagogy, and I know that this puzzle piece has found its place in my classroom puzzle and will be used many times in the future.
TE848 also encouraged me to make the transition to Google Docs. My students had been using OpenOffice, which was sufficient but hardly ideal. Reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks led me to make the jump to Google Docs. With Google Docs, students can share their work with me and each other, allowing many different readers to make comments on their writing. It naturally provides an authentic audience, and it can be accessed both at home and at school. Even when I can’t confer face-to-face with every student every day, every student will be able to see my comments and make revisions as necessary. The use of Google Docs in my classroom has greatly increased the confidence my students have in making revisions in their writing and in sharing their writing with their classmates and the world.
The puzzle pieces I have discussed thus far have been related to teaching techniques and classroom content. While these are essential to the complete puzzle, there have still been certain holes that I have struggled to fill unsuccessfully until CEP883, Psychology of Classroom Discipline. Techniques and content can only take you so far if you don’t have control of your students and your classroom. Classroom management has been a hole in my puzzle since my first day of teaching, seven years ago. CEP883 finally gave me the puzzle pieces I needed to fill it. One of the puzzle pieces I have put into place this school year is communicating clear expectations for student behavior and work. I used the format described in the CHAMPs program by Randy Sprick. I taught students my expectations at the beginning of the school year, and we have reviewed them periodically since. Students feel more secure, knowing what I expect from them, and I feel less frustrated because I have ensured that my students know and follow my expectations. CEP883 also taught me that misbehavior happens for a reason and showed why those reasons are so important to consider. A student may be misbehaving during Math work time because he does not understand how to solve the Math problems. Punishing the misbehavior will not stop it in the future, nor will it encourage the student to try harder on their assignment. When the underlying cause of needing to reteach the Math concept is addressed, the misbehavior will likely stop and the student will be more successful in the classroom. This is related to the formula “motivation = expectation x value x climate,” described in Comprehensive Classroom Management by Vern Jones and Louise Jones. This is the concept that students will be motivated to do their best in behavior or academics when they expect to do well, when they see the value in the task, and when their surroundings are supportive of their basic needs. This formula enlightened me as to several student behaviors in the past. It is also one which I can apply daily in my classroom. Students expect to do well in a task when they have been taught sufficiently how to do the task. This is the pertinent factor in the above example – the student was not motivated to complete his Math assignment because he did not know how to do it and therefore, did not expect to do well. Students also need to see the value in the task they are being asked to complete. Students will not try their best if they do not see the relevance or the worth of the task. It is the teacher’s job to communicate the purpose of each assignment, so that students can see the value in completing it well. Students will also not try their best if they are preoccupied about their safety or their hunger. The classroom environment needs to be safe, calm, and conducive to learning. When I apply these three factors to any task, I can see the positive effects on my students’ behavior and effort. This has been an essential puzzle piece in increasing my students’ motivation in my classroom.
All of the puzzle pieces I have gained through the past three years have changed my classroom jigsaw puzzle immensely. Looking back, I see how far I've come. Stepping back, I see the big picture, the picture that these puzzle pieces have created. I see myself as a more confident and successful teacher. I see my students becoming more successful every day. These puzzle pieces have created a big picture that I am very pleased with. However, I know, as an educator, that my classroom jigsaw puzzle will never be complete. I will never stop learning new techniques, new technology, and new content to add to it. Puzzle pieces will be added, removed, and rearranged to accommodate changes in the field of literacy and education. The puzzle pieces I have gained through earning my Master’s degree at MSU are just the beginning. I am a lifelong learner and a lifelong teacher – and a lifelong creator of my classroom jigsaw puzzle.