When I returned to teach in a secondary ELA classroom after taking my four year sabbatical to pursue my PhD in English Education, I knew that I wanted my classroom to belong to my students. I wanted to be culturally responsive to their backgrounds and literacy needs. I needed to know who they were as writers, readers, researchers, and critical thinkers so that I could plan instruction, activities, and curriculum that would help them grow throughout the school year. As I brainstormed how to do this in literature and composition classes, I decided that I needed to find ways to give students agency over their learning. By making space for their voices, ideas, and reflections, I learned from them who I needed to be as their ELA teacher. I write about this in my blog article, “Embracing Student Voice and Agency in a Composition Classroom,” which was featured earlier this month on the peer reviewed blog Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care. I have followed this blog for years, cited authors for my own research, used ideas for my own ELA classroom, and continue to ask my preservice teachers to review this blog as they learn how to be literacy educators. It’s an honor to be a contributing author.
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One year ago, I brainstormed the creation of this blog with colleagues, I spent time working on my blog platform as my Composition students worked on their blogs, and I wrote the first blog post that introduced readers to my classroom. Soon after that post, I welcomed a student teacher into my classroom and my time was consumed with mentoring, teaching, professional writing, and well, life.
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AuthorI'm a teacher educator, secondary ELA teacher, reader, writer, scholar, mom, and wife. Come learn with me! Archives
July 2020
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