Teaching Strategies
As a Language Arts teacher, my learning goal is to make my students stronger readers and writers. Before we step into the strategies, I would like to place some emphasis on the classroom environment. As a teacher I want my students to be comfortable when they sit at their desk. My classroom is set up to promote sensory attention: scented candles, meditation music, soft lighting are but a couple of strategies I have in place to make my students at ease and at peace. Another is books. It’s one thing placing a book into the hands of students and asking them to read, and it’s another thing to have the students choose books and genres they like to read. What I have seen in the classroom is this: reading books is not dead. The majority of my students pick up books they like to read. As a Language Arts teacher, I think having a classroom library can only make the learning and teaching experience more productive.
As a teacher I work with both mono and bilingual students, with the vast majority of the latter speaking Spanish. I understand that having visible content strategies and language objectives posted on bulletin boards is a proven method in the classroom. These language objectives can be posted in both English and in Spanish. English Language students are offered the opportunity to have the same pathway to comprehending curriculum, even with some students not having acquired strong language comprehension in their second language. Incorporating a just approach on acquiring these language skills is fostered through the use, implementation, and assessment of these language skills. As students observe these strategies on a daily basis, the teacher must define and discuss these strategies for students to begin applying these same strategies into the lesson instruction and activities. With each new lesson, these content strategies will be modified and updated to include academic language pertaining to students’ mastery of Common Core state standards in Reading and Writing. As a teacher working with English Language learners, the introduction of academic language is key for students to comprehend content area knowledge. When implemented clearly, the use of language objectives helps promote the mastery of academic language, how these objectives are used, and ultimately how students meet and master standards related to the curriculum.
A goal of language objectives is having students know what the goal of the curriculum is. In essence one might look at this as working backwards. Know the destination you are going to, and apply understanding and guidance in circumnavigating the turns and twists on getting to your final goal. Utilizing clear and organized instruction helps keep our students focused and centered, and in doing so attaining student comprehension with learning objectives. We can be looked at as the light which shines on the path towards moving to understanding and mastery.
Through weekly formative assessments, students will be monitored on their understanding and comprehension of the learning objectives. Students will have the opportunity to read prior to understanding texts. Students will be able to set personal goals in what they plan and wish to comprehend and master. Students will make connections to previous knowledge to apply it towards their goals. They will be invited into settings in which questions may be asked as well as predictions and be given feedback through open discourse with their peers. Students struggling with the text will be offered the opportunity to re-read the text and again introduce their understanding and questions.
The nature found in magic and mythology of the Aztec gods appears, for example, in Tlaloc, god of rain, water, lightning, and Ehecatl, the god of air and winds. When introducing the Aztec gods, we began to discover how the earth and heavens are so powerfully represented. The Aztecs experienced "nature" in all its complexity not as a mere entity out there, but rather as deeply connected with superhuman powers and beings, manifesting themselves in countless aspects of the surrounding world and a sacred landscape.
Sit Spots/Journaling
Routine and repetition of journaling represents the perseverance of the act of struggle and finally clarity. Students will create a journal using various settings where fantasy is intertwined with reality. My students will be able to produce journal response/texts, sketches, doodling that demonstrate thought, imagination, and sensitivity while exploring and considering new perspectives and ideas arising from personal engagement with the creative process.
Using hands-on materials
The importance of standing alongside mother and grandmother in the kitchen to learn the art of homemade tortillas cannot be denied. Through this act of cultural practice and transmission we come to understand the wisdom of our own identity, a connection from the past to today. Tortillas are not just a means of nourishment, but also the act of connecting to rites and rituals of our parents, grandparents, and our ancestors. They bring joy to a family. They connect us to our gods. The use of corn husk, feathers, flower petals, cocoa beans, water, and earth in our students’ activities helps us make connections to nature. The use of these hands-on resources guides us down the path of self-discovery. It is critical that students participate in hands-on learning through observation, data collecting, analysis and experimentation.
Reflection
As a teacher that is the challenge I bestow on myself: a journey of self-discovery. J. Drew Lanham expresses this as, “to help others understand nature is to make it breathe like some giant: a revolving, evolving, celestial being with ecosystems acting as organs and the living things within those places--humans included--as cells vital to its survival. My hope is that somehow I might move others to find themselves magnified in nature, whomever and wherever they might be.”12 These themes of the past and the present, at once set apart but now combined into one in the genre of magical realism. I will present that our use of nature can be used as the glue which holds all three together. Offering students opportunities to reflect on the activities and the class discussion gives them opportunities to work in team building collaborations, while I promote the use of digital tools and resources and engage in inquiry-oriented methods of discourse. Students will be expected to take meticulous notes during the lecture portion of class with periodic informal assessments.
Perspective
From the student perspective, one will consider how fantasy is used as a metaphor externalizing imagined conflict and moral conflict. Students will create a journal using various settings where fantasy is intertwined with reality. Another vital strategy of this unit will be the opportunity afforded to students in considering multiple perspectives from texts.
Blended Learning
The unit will focus on the students working in small independent groups and being prepared to complete both informal and summative assessments. Students will participate in blended learning so as to utilize online resources and materials in an effort to promote online discourse with the traditional classroom method. Students will have a set of high expectations in place, to promote a challenge to succeed. They will investigate environmental and engineering challenges to spur creative design and solutions. The gradual release of responsibility to the students will occur as the teacher becomes facilitator while at the same time spurring discussion and critical thinking through the use of open-ended questions. Use events to hook students into engagement of problem solving.
Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas
The three sections of the unit, Latin American Mythology/History/Magical Realism can be incorporated into IB strategy and curriculum. The IB approaches to learning skills (ATL) are grounded in the belief that learning how to learn is fundamental to a student's life in and out of a school context. In broad terms, IB programs support learners in developing: Thinking skills, Communication skills. Research skills, Social skills and Self-management skills. A key concept is creativity because students will see how writers can make highly creative use of language. A related concept is genre and identifying setting to aid in describing a work of fiction where fantasy slips into everyday life. Writers use creativity to explore different genres and settings on social construction of reality.
Essential Questions
The following questions are considered when pertaining to the use of classroom strategies with the unit.
Factual: What is the value of exploring and reflecting on historical context when referring to fiction?
Line of Inquiry: In which different ways can creativity be expressed?
Conceptual: How is creativity utilized within the same perspective through fantasy and reality?
Factual: How is perspective viewed in multiple ways such as reality and magic?
Line of Inquiry: Can creativity affect the social construction of reality within various genres and settings?
Conceptual: Can the perspective from characters justify or challenge moral reasoning?
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