A New Vision

  I feel that primarily my conception of teaching ELA has become more specific in the past 3 months. At the beginning of this course I had a basic vision of how I would like to approach teaching ELA but I had a hard time imagining exactly how these ideas would concretely manifest themselves within the classroom. 


   Thanks to the experiences our class has had since September, I feel that I now have many tools with which I can concretize my initial vision. Such tools include: kwl charts, literacy centers, blogging, voice threads, lesson planning skills, writing activities using prompts, composition strategies for writing and representing, podcasting, talking circles, revision strategies, assessment rubrics and theory, prewriting strategies, approaches to unit planning and lastly but not leastly, having a greater familiarity with the IRP for ELA. 


   Interestingly, while these tools have a direct application in the teaching of ELA, we may also notice the many ways in which such skills and strategies will also prove useful in the teaching of other subjects. As such, I feel fortunate to now have this knowledge which I will be able to use in both my future ELA classroom and within my teaching in general.  I would also like to thank everyone for contributing so much to our class experience. 


Merry Christmas season to all, and to all a good night.     -Dawson