I believe in a constructivist approach to teaching, where students themselves are the catalysts for their own learning and understanding. Giving students choice and autonomy in the types of texts they read and writing they complete is part of this. I think also that in this age, a focus on interdisciplinary reading skills, media literacy, and research literacy need to be at the forefront of the classroom. There is endless information coming at us from our phones and computers all the time. It’s easy to accept things at surface value. Teaching with a Traditionalist mindset just doesn’t work anymore. Students don’t care to memorize quotes or write analysis papers on the significance of symbols, they want to feel like what they’re doing is important and worth their time. It is only a disservice by us as teachers, if we do not consider and honor student’s funds of knowledge and respective identities in the types of materials and lessons we offer them.

        In my own teaching practice, student needs and identities will be the center focus. I hope that I can choose literature that is representative, and design lessons and assignments that reflect students' lives and learning. Like Paris and Alim in their article “Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy”, I want to encourage students to view themselves as more than just students, as community members, family members, and human beings. As writers, readers, and audience members, I hope to teach them to view themselves as critical thinkers, consumers, activists, and artists.

        Organizing the sequence of class materials is a vital part of classroom success. In my experience, complexity and difficulty of materials typically grows over the course of the year. Successful teachers scaffold, build, and transition from one unit to the next, to keep students growing and engaged. Also, unfortunately, standardized testing deadlines do exist and some materials may need to be covered before the date of the test to make sure students are prepared. In my opinion, when organizing unit plans around essay conventions, genres, and traditionalist practices, students may miss the importance of the class or become disengaged. They, or at least I as a student, like to know how these practices are applicable to their real lives. Basing unit plans and sequencing the year around larger ideas such as art, social justice, science, race, class, gender, etc., makes every day matter, and every lesson valuable. Teaching language arts conventions within the larger topics or ideas can help students feel like reading and writing are skills applicable to their lives outside the classroom.

        I want to develop a learning environment where students feel like the text is a tool for understanding their own lives, and the lives of others. I think that having students read stories in different modes is vital for them in learning how to write their own stories. I hope to create classroom expectations that will allow students to feel open in sharing their opinions and thoughts. I also want to give students the chance to connect this text to their own lives, maybe by having them write their own creative pieces. One’s identity is always being reflected upon in secondary school, and students will greatly benefit from being able to use the texts we bring to them in the English classroom, as a means of reflection and self-identification.