Final Reflection for Dr. Kist

* In Dr. Kist's class we learned many activities.  Some of the activities included Trading Places, which is good for shy kids and can replace a pop quiz. We did many community builders where we counted to twenty with no pattern.  We also did human graphic organizers which are a great way to break students into groups. More activities we learned to create groups include the 7 opinion statements and famous friends. I like these activities for picking groups because the groups are picked at random.  Teachers should pick groups to help certain students not feel left out, and these activities make random group picking fun for students. 

* One activity I really liked correlated to the book we read Big Brother. I liked the activity with groups picking out words to relate to the story.  Making it a contest allows students to think about the text more.  This is also a way to get students engaged who may not have read.  After picking ten words that students found to be the most important among their groups, they make a poem.  I really like this activity because it gets students thinking about the text, and also they are using a form of writing in a creative way.  I plan on using this activity when I teach in my classroom. 

* We also studied film this semester.  I liked seeing how films have many elements such as camera shots, angles, etc.  It is important to take a part film like we take a part novels.  Students learn from films just as they learn from novels and picking a part films allows students to think critically. It's important to see how each scene is developed.  Relating to film, I liked how we looked at how women are portrayed. Students always see how gender roles are looked at in novels, but actually seeing it in popular television shows and movies help students visualize gender roles.  I liked this activity and would like to try this with not just gender issues, but also race and social class. 

* I enjoyed the books that we read for this class.  There was a wide variety.  My favorite book we read is probably Little Brother  because I can see many male students liking this book.  One of my fears is that I won't have a lot of texts to recommend to my male students and this is a great novel for them.  If they like this novel hopefully they would be interested in the classic 1984. I am glad we got to read more graphic novels because they are my least favorite.  I like becoming more familiar with texts that I don't know a lot about quite yet. I really liked American Born Chinese and I feel students can relate to the characters.  Everyone struggles at some point with stereotypes and fitting in.  I didn't really get into Naruto because I spent so much time figuring out how to read it.  I have heard how popular this series is so I am glad I had the opportunity to read at least one to become more familiar with it.  

* I enjoyed the projects we worked on.  I loved looking back at my past and seeing how media influenced me.  I would love to do the multi genre project to allow students to see what influenced them.  Students can see that they have learned from many medias such as television, music, art, fashion, novels, etc.  Looking back at my project I surely have and I am glad I got to do this project.  I also loved the Wiki project.  This will become my best friend while I am student teaching looking back at all of the different ideas on how to teach a particular text.   I am excited to see what each classmate of mine has done and I am sure I will learn from the ideas.  I found out I will be teaching 10th grade English and Of Mice and Men, Mythology, and Julius Caesar are all texts I will be teaching.  The Wiki project will help me teach these texts to my students next year.

* One of the final projects we did in class was the Facebook project.  I think this is a great way to get students connected with each other and use the web.  I like how a social network is being used as a teaching device and students can contribute their ideas.  I think this project works well for students who may be apprehensive in class.  Students are able to contribute without speaking and this allows students' ideas to be shared over the web.  I feel that this project will become a national thing someday and I am glad I had the opportunity to try it.  I think if we had more time or had notice of what books/poems we were to read would have been helpful, but we are doing the best we can and I enjoyed it.