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I think today my goal is to get through the day. With this class in general I'm excited to write a lot more creatively than I tend to do, I am just very overwhelmed with work here, in other classes, and in my placement. With the "My Name" essay I hope to stoke the creative flame in myself that I've felt waning in recent years. I think I'll know instinctively whether or not I've been able to do that. Today was pretty difficult to get my affective filter low enough to accept lots of the material because I was so overwhelmed by all the different topics covered. I feel like I am more accepting of learning when I get to spend some time with it. Today's process was, frankly, exhausting.

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I think I accomplished my goal for my "My Name" essay, because I wanted to write something honest and somewhat profound. I think most personal essays I write are pretty depressing and seem like the ramblings of someone that isn't mentally stable. I would say that is accurate! Stacy gave me some really good feedback and said she enjoyed the imagery I used, and how I connected it to my very tumultuous emotions. So in that sense, I feel like I succeeded.

For my saturation research paper, I really want to get inside the head of Fidel Castro. He had such a unique voice in his public facing speeches, but I think a lot of that is informed by his desire to project strength and "attitude" in the face of American interference and terrorist threats against his people. I would like to address his story in a more personal way, which I hope to understand better by reading his personal correspondence with close family and confidants. I hope to write something that breaks through his public persona, but find something close to his lived experience.

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I think I'm most confident with TPEs 3 and 4, considering I have a mixed background and a lot of experience reading and writing from multiple perspectives. I still need to develop TPE 6 because I would like to better understand how to teach collaboration to my students.

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I am looking ahead to the book club assignment for next week, as well as incorporating the really productive feedback I got from Mason into my final draft of the saturation paper. Besides that, I want to make sure that the lesson plan project incorporates more of the strategies for conveying ideas about English and writing that we learned about in this class.

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The cognitive strategies that I used in writing my saturation paper were mainly tapping into prior knowledge and visualizing, which were the most necessary tools in making sure details about the story adhered to the truth as much as possible. I already knew a lot about Castro's story, but I needed to look for gaps in my knowledge to investigate further and imbue my story with accurate detail. I needed to visualize in order to create scenes and details like what the hotel looked like in real life.

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I saw several people in dinosaur costumes! At my placement very few of the freshman students wore costumes, but one student was Rosie the Riveter and I was so excited that just one person dressed up that I complemented her! So few people wore costumes today that it didn't really affect our lessons at all!

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I want to give students open assignments, but prevent them from going too far off the beaten path until I see they've displayed a mastery of the skills. The best way to couple that freedom with appropriate scaffolding is via narrative. Using narrative in the world of Greek mythology is useful because students can do a lot of research into their subject via easily accessible funds of knowledge, then create a narrative that combines their experimental desires with an adherence to expected norms of mythological characters.

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No thoughts, head empty. But seriously, I am pushing to my limit to finish this quarter out strong. My biggest concern is walking away from this quarter with a set of tools i can use in my future teaching.

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So tired. I'm really excited to take over at my placement because the two times a week I'm already there are the best days of my week. I'm really excited to put all my focus toward their learning in that period of time, because it will be one of the few times I will be able to teach and interact with my students without the burden of homework. I'm really excited to dive deep into the Greek Mythology unit we'll be finishing up then, and I'm really excited to read their upcoming narrative and analytical essay assignments!

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Me wondering what I'm forgetting (everything)

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My favorite piece I wrote was definitely was the saturation research paper about Fidel Castro! It was so fun to delve deep into the mind of a person I admire. This research paper also taught me an important lesson about writing, which was that my students need so much scaffolding to write what I'm expecting them to write! Even though I'm a post grad, it was so hard to write without Marianne's guidance! I had a lot of trouble writing the book club letters because I had a really hard time combining my understanding of the various reading comprehension strategies with my writing style, which is generally pretty sardonic and depressing. Just today, I got a great idea about how to teach To Kill a Mockingbird from Robert P., who suggested having students complete an "Anticipation Guide" to have them contend with questions about themes in the story before they encounter them while reading. Honestly, everyone in this class taught me something about the kind of teacher I want to be because I want to work super closely with other teachers throughout my teaching career, and continue to learn new strategies from them no matter how much experience or success I have in teaching. Finally, I learned just how much scaffolding is required to teach a unit in an English class! I need so much more experience lesson planning. Thank you, Marianne for being an awesome teacher!

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Me wondering what I'm forgetting (everything)