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"Literature Obtains Meaning from the Reader"

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"Literature Obtains Meaning from the Reader"

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A lot of these frameworks came from reading Naming What We Know for class, but the reason why these are my values is more rooted in the experiences I've had with writing myself. My first value, literature derives meaning from the reader, derives from the awesome discussions and debates I've had in school, especially in high school. I've realized that what will resonate with one reader may come across as a different meaning to another person. Similarly, what resonated with 15-year-olds old you may read completely differently 10 years later when you're in a totally different era of your life. This is what I find so cool about writing, and shows even more how important embracing discussion and differences in class is. Some of my favorite memories in middle and high school have been from dissecting a novel and hearing all of my peers' different takeaways. I love how writing promotes so much discussion, so that's definitely a very important value for me and something that I will be taking into my future classroom.

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"All Forms of Literature are Interconnected" 

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"All Forms of Literature are Interconnected" 

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Another one of my values expresses how multiple forms of writing are interconnected with one another. In other words, there are so many connections that can be made between two pieces of literature, no matter how far off or different they may seem. So many pieces of literature value and honor the same themes, similar characters, current or historical events, oppression, mental health topics, and so much more. The best writers get their ideas and inspiration from other writing, so it's no secret that authors have their own role models. In an even more general sense, pieces of writing are interconnected by what genre they resemble. For example, two fantasy books may exist in a dystopian world where the whole world has been flipped upside down. Use this as an opportunity to compare and contrast them with your students: how do they differ? Why? Which would you rather live in? Is there truly one world that's better than the other? There are so many questions you can discuss with your class that honor critical thinking and get your students really thinking.

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I know that if I were building my classroom off of these ideals, my students would be focused on learning through making connections and discussing with their peers, and would learn to embrace the concept of "failing". I always love the quote, "Rejection is just redirection", which is something I'd consider having posted in my classroom, because of how true and inspiring I think it is. Something that I find all these values have in common is the fact that they're all embracing the concept of critical thinking rather than memorization or drilling. All of these values ask for students to look into writing deeper with more of a critical eye. I want to build a classroom where discussion is more valued than getting all the answers right on a multiple-choice exam. I know that if I were to keep these values in mind from the first day of class to the end, my students would feel like they benefited a lot from my teaching and like they actually learned something.

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I got this one specifically from the article we read for class: "Writing Steps: A Recursive and Individual Experience". The idea behind this notion is that there is only one correct way to construct writing is completely false and oftentimes detrimental. In the article, it was stated that students were even asked questions on state standardized tests about the correct writing process, assuming that there was one straight-away way to do it. Referenced from the book Inside Out: Strategies for Teaching Writing, the authors talk about why this standard writing process is so limited: "The problem with stage descriptions of writing is that they model the growth of the written product, not the inner process of the person producing it" (253). They also said how the writing process can be a huge distraction for some students. When preparing their writing adhering to the rules, they may feel constrained to this certain step-by-step process and thus experience writer's block, preventing them from getting great ideas on paper. In my future classroom, I want to make sure I'm making room for activities that allow students to free-write without any instruction. This practice helps them to go along with their formulated ideas without overthinking or second-guessing how well their ideas fit the prompt or process. I always liked when teachers would start a time for 5 minutes and tell us to just write: either you're writing on paper, and you don't lift your pencil, or you're typing and you don't pause to think of what to type next. This is an exercise that allows students to exercise their imagination and embrace their freethinking. A lot of us remember having a hard time with this exercise; it made us uncomfortable not being told exactly what to do. To me, this is all the more reason why it's so important to implement. We need to get students out of their programmed comfort zones for them to grow as writers.

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"Through writing, writers come to develop and perform identities in relation to the interests, beliefs, and values of the communities they engage with, understanding the possibilities for selfhood available in those communities" (Naming What We Know, 51). At its core, writing is a way to orlay information. More inferentially, writing can orlay information about the writer. A person's identity includes aspects like their culture, ethnicity, gender, family, appearance, personality, interests, values, and so much more. Even if it's not an autobiography about the writer, their writing shares so much - why did they choose to write a fantasy novel? Why did they choose to write about racial oppression? Maybe they chose to write a funny story because they're someone who values and enjoys humor. Maybe they write about mental health issues because it's something that they feel a connection to, rather they specifically say that in the text or not.

For example, in novels, we see that a lot of authors share similar cultures or experiences with the characters they create. Making it a point to teach your students a bit about the author before they read a text is important because they can see just how much you can learn about someone's identity even from a fictional text.

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Something that I learned from Naming What We Know is that writing is not an innate or natural human process - by any means. The book uses the repeated phrase: "Writing is not normal". Writing is hard. People struggle because "writing is not just transcribing performed ideas but also developing new ones; thus a writer never becomes a perfect writer who already knows how to write anything and everything" (Addler-Kasner & Wardle, 59). Unlike other topics taught, writing continues far past formal schooling ends. I like to think of it as "Lifelong Learning". No matter your age, experience, or whether you consider yourself "good" at writing or not, you still have much to learn about the writing process; it's infinite. I especially connected to this value because I found it very present in my student-teaching experience last semester. In the Language Arts class I was placed in, I was in charge of leading the Personal Narrative writing unit. With any 5th grader, this unit was very challenging as it was a lot less structured than the material they were used to. Writing is subjective, which I found difficult to teach to young kids who like right vs wrong. Because of this, after each writing session, I'd have kids who'd come up to me saying that they were "done" as soon as 5 minutes into class. I had to think about what exactly to say to them to keep them working. I continuously said that writing is never perfect. Of course, we're not striving for perfection, but we can always improve it. Writing can be improved in the use of transitions, dialogue, word choice, visual imagery, characterization, emotion, etc. This reminded me a lot of my writing classes in high school where the teachers would repeat similar comments to keep us going.

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My take on this question revolves around how I structured and designed my project. First off, I wanted to make my background on here something that I like to see in my classroom, which is why I put a calming image like the ocean in the background. Let me explain. When I'm writing, I find that I do my best work when I am relaxed. When writing, everyone is looking for that feeling they get when they 'get going' with an idea. It's like you get in the mode of writing, and it feels like the ideas are just coming to you so easily. A high-stress, timed environment is not beneficial to students when writing. I am not going to be the teacher who puts a countdown preceding a loud alarm on the screen while the students write - I want to project something like this image on my screen and make them feel as comfortable as possible. I've seen some teachers have essential oil machines going in their classrooms; this is something I picture doing when the kids are writing!

As for my graphic organizer on Canva, I wanted to do something fun, because that describes me and my personality. Aside from my favorite color being pink, which I think is pretty obvious at this point, I also like fun fonts and symbols. I want to embrace students' personalities and interests and let them express themselves when it comes to their creativity, like I did with this project.

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Like I said a bit above, I want to formulate a lot of my teaching on the art of discussion. Socratic seminars, group shares, and debates are my favorite modes of learning. Though this sounds super scary to some students (including me), there is a right way to do it. Allowing students to prepare beforehand allows them to think through prompts at first and come into class prepared to share their best ideas, instead of being put on the spot and having raging anxiety. I also think how you present yourself as a teacher affects how anxious the students get around doing things like discussing. I'll teach my students that there doesn't need to be fear surrounded around public speaking - it doesn't have to be as big of a deal as you're making it. My hope is that my students will feel like we're a team, both me and them on the same level, so they shouldn't feel afraid to share anything that may be wrong.

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These values are related to me as a person and writer because I had experiences with all of them growing up in school. Although writing is something I've always enjoyed, I can't say that it's ever come easily for me. As a future educator, I recognize that good writing stems from a good environment. I want to be that teacher that shows students how writing is not limited. Writing at its core is meant to share information, connect with people, express feelings, and make people happy. Or sad. Or any other emotion you're intending them to feel. It connects people and makes them feel things they've never felt before by just reading words. I think it's pretty powerful that words can have that much power.