Megan Jessee

Multigenre Midterm

ITE 404D

Dr. Ellen Spitler

19 October 2014

Table of Contents by Section:

1. Top Ten List

What was MOST surprising about the writing process steps/scaffolding support and what was MOST surprising about the actual

composing of your author autobiography? What memories unexpectedly emerged as powerful in some way? How did the

writing process steps/scaffolding support the emergence of those memories?

What moments in the creation process of your self-portrait were unexpected and brought new understandings, insights and

perspectives of your own life?

2. Dialectic Journal

How did the writing of this autobiography, and the creation of this multimodal artifact further develop your understanding of

English/Language Arts instruction and content? [Review your Student Info Reflection to help you make these connections.]

3. How-To Directions

As you were presenting your autobiography and self-portrait, what surprising moments occurred in your thinking and

understanding of yourself?

4. Talking to Myself – A Dialogue

How could this type of work, the autobiography and the multimodal artifact be powerful in your own future classroom? How

could you utilize the project and the writing?

Be sure to carefully and thoughtfully connect your response/s to these prompts to the Task 1 and 2 planning/instruction

commentary questions listed on p. 1.

5. A Journal Article

More generally speaking [not specific to the author autobiography & self-portrait] what readings, engagements, class

discussions, instructional strategies hold significance for you at this halfway point? Why those? How are they supported by

theory?

Be sure to carefully and thoughtfully connect your response/s to these prompts to the Task 1 and 2 planning/instruction

commentary questions listed on p. 1.

6. Comic Strip

As you reflect over the first half of the semester, what do you see as strengths you have brought to the class and to

our discussions? What are areas where you would like to improve or in some way change your involvement?

7. Greeting Card

What are the strengths of this course? What suggestions do you have for us to consider during the second half of our time

together?

Section 1

Top Ten

List

Prompts:

What was MOST surprising about the writing process steps/scaffolding support and what was

MOST surprising about the actual composing of your author autobiography? What memories

unexpectedly emerged as powerful in some way? How did the writing process steps/scaffolding

support the emergence of those memories?

What moments in the creation process of your self-portrait were unexpected and brought new

understandings, insights and perspectives of your own life?

10. Everything Was Significant

Everything was significant down to the details, something I found fairly

interesting. In the one self-portrait, I included at least twelve authoring

experiences, hiding others within the different mediums themselves.

The memories that came forth through the initial explanation of the

assignment and the prewriting were plentiful, and through addressing

things that I had stored in a little box in my head labeled “PAST” I found

some closure through this assignment.

9. It Took Forever

The process took way longer than I expected, and I

ended up writing much more than I would have had I

written a traditional essay. Having been given the

license to take my own direction, I became engrossed

in the process of developing both the multigenre paper

as well as the self-portrait. Still, I was very surprised by

the amount of time I spent on this project.

#9: The Pre-Write Was Actually Helpful

Prewriting process and discussion of “authoring practices” primed my mind with many ideas for

directions in which to go, teased out many memories and got me reflecting on those in a teacher-

oriented kind of way. I chose my six authoring practices over other authoring practices of my life

because I felt that those were the six that will definitely shape what kind of teacher I will be in my

attitudes and approach to teaching as well as to students. I’ve never really liked prewriting, and I used to

view it as a waste of time, but I was surprised by how useful the prewrite for this project was.

8. Learning to Trust in the Process

The auto-bio/self-portrait project seemed ridiculous to me at the beginning

of the project. I didn’t really get into it until halfway through doing the self-

portrait, which I created before I wrote my autobiography. Learning to trust

in the process was really helpful to me. Many times I have found myself not

feeling motivated to do some work or assignment or activity because I

couldn’t see the point of it. Doing an arts and crafts project for a 400 level

college course seemed anything but useful to me until I was well into the

process of writing, yet now I can see how I could adapt this project for use in

my future classroom.

7: Redefining the Term “Authoring Practice” Was a Challenge

The idea that an authoring practice had to be a writing act was so

ingrained in me that I had lots of trouble changing my mind about

this. The six authoring practices I chose for my autobiography and

self-portrait were mainly those regarding a transaction between

myself and written words.

5. The Dialectic Journal Prewrite was strangely helpful for me in

deciding what mediums to use in the self-portrait and how to use

them.

4: It felt safe to take a risk.

I don’t go around telling people all about the sob story that was my

life before I was reborn at Windward Community College. Exploring

my darker issues seemed like a huge risk to take, especially in a

class such as this one. While I would never share my “Emo” days

with students in the classroom, I felt like it was appropriate to

share in this class because of the learnings that I gained from that

perio d of my life. For about five years I authored my life in a way

that was unhealthy, but was never the less powerful. The sharing

of one of the self-portraits before we begun on our own projects

made me feel as though I could share about this. As I stated in

class, when it comes to self-injury, he worst thing you can do is

nothing, so I felt that it was important to share this side of me with

the class because I wanted to advocate awareness. While I’m not

sure if I was successful in this, I’m glad that I did, and I’m thankful

that I was given the license to share something so personal with

others. This experience, though I doubted myself all the way

through the process and for some time after, has been hugely

beneficial for helping me find closure and silver linings to the dark

cloud that hung over my head for over a decade.

3. The visual self-portrait was much more

powerful for me than the written autobiography.

I think of myself as a writer. I am always putting

pen to paper for some thing or another, so at the

onset of the project, I was looking forward to the

writing much more than the arts and crafts. But

as I worked on the project, I found myself much

more engrossed in the visual artifact than I had

thought. I mean, when I finally finished it and

looked at the final project, I felt as though I had

truly represented myse lf on paper. As I noted

earlier, I incorporated many more authoring

aspects of my life into the artifact than the six I

chose to talk about, and because of that, I felt

like this artifact was a true representation of me

on paper. It was actually a little creepy for me.

2. I didn’t want to keep it.

Now this was me on paper, and yet I got rid of the thing as

quickly as I could. Why? Well frankly, the artifact was geared

towards my past. Eyes facing upwards, I’m looking towards the

future and all of the new directions I’d like to go, but I am also

turning my eyes away from the pain of my past. I didn’t want to

keep it, or look at it (although I do wish I had taken a picture of

it). It surp rised me how badly I wanted to get rid of it, maybe

because it made me uncomfortable, because it made me think,

and because it brought up memories that I had long buried. Having addressed these and having done

the project, I feel like it’s helped to get me past some of that pain (on multiple levels of the artifact), but

because it felt like a crutch, I needed to get rid of it.

1. I Would Adapt This Project for My Own Use

Once I became engrossed in the process, I began to

envision many adaptations for use in my own future

classroom. I’ve always hated doing arts and crafts

projects for school, and this project was no exception

to that rule. Yet once I learned to trust in the process,

and began to see its value, I began to think of many

different ways I could incorporate this project into my

own future classroom.

Section 2

Dialectic Journal

Prompt:

How did the writing of this autobiography, and the creation of this multimodal artifact further

develop your understanding of English/Language Arts instruction and content? [Review your

Student Info Reflection to help you make these connections:]

Notes Reflection

I dream of being able to teach resume writing, short story writing, and academic writing. I also dream of being able to teach a variety of literature, ranging from short stories, to poetry, to classic literature, to non-western and modern works. I believe that high school English classes should offer a buffet of literary and writing options. Multigenre reflection p. 7

Looking back, I think that an extremely important thing that students need to learn is how to be reflective learners. What I really learned from the self-portrait/multi genre autobiography as well as everything in 404 leading up to this point is that the content takes second place to the approach to teaching. While in my reflection I had been thinking about all of the stuff I wanted to teach, now I’m thinking more about How I want to teach this stuff. Instead of just thinking about all of the content I want to /have to cover, now I’m thinking about how to develop the best methods for getting students really engaged in the process, and how to incorporate collaboration into every lesson.

I don’t generally use any reading strategies. At most I make a very basic outline of what I’m reading, particularly when reading a text book. Multigenre reflection p. 9

Oh my, everything leading up to this point in time as well as the creation of my self-portrait have really changed my perception of how I use reading strategies. Because a part of my self-portrait regarded how I authored my life through reading, I really began to reflect on what that my own personal reading processes were. Because I had begun to think of myself as a rather naïve reader, when I read Buehl recently, I found myself realizing that I had all these unconscious processes going on in my head as I read that I hadn’t been aware of. Now that the unconscious has been made conscious, I see how it is important for students to be aware of their own processes as they read so they can become aware of them and work to improve on certain areas.

A teacher should Get to know her students better Challenge her students to think Beyond the box Multigenre reflection p. 11

This idea was really pounded into by head during the self-portrait/autobiography process. In order to be an effective teacher, I really need to take the time to get to know my students. If I know what makes them tick, get to know about their lives, and give them a chance to show me their method of representing their ideas, I’ll be better equipped to help them develop the skills and abilities that they will need to be successful in the classroom and beyond.

I think that a multigenre paper can be used to help students: Think beyond the box Get engaged in their learning Become more accountable students Reflect and take ownership of their work. Multigenre reflection p. 11

I feel now that English class shouldn’t just be about having students represent themselves and their ideas through writing. There should be many multimodal opportunities with which students can represent themselves. We are living in an increasingly image based society, and English Language Arts teachers need to take this fact into account. I think that giving students the opportunity to work with and beyond the print-based will help with getting kids engaged in the learning, and will help with getting themselves to take ownership of their learning. I think that in order for students to take ownership for their learning, they need to be given a choice of how they wish to represent their ideas, whether they are doing a multi genre/multi modal project, or adapting a reader-response strategy to fit their own individual needs, teachers need to respect this. So a student comes back with notes that don’t look like the work sheet you gave them to complete, and perhaps you as the teacher do not even understand their organizational method. As long as they know what’s going on and explain it to you, then that’s fine. As long as they know where to draw the line, and are able to conform to guidelines for summative assessments, I think students should have the creative license to find what works for them as the rest of us do in the world beyond high school.

Section 3

How-To Directions

Prompt:

As you were presenting your autobiography and self-portrait, what surprising moments

occurred in your thinking and understanding of yourself?

Step 1

Choose to go first, for the following reasons: the person who goes first is normally graded with the

benefit of the doubt. The bar has not been set by any other classmates; in going first, the hope is that

people will have forgotten your presentation by the time the last person presents; Last: you won’t have

to be anxiously awaiting and fretting over your presentation as other classmates go, and thus will be

able to be relaxed and engaged in what others are saying.

Step 2

Feel completely humiliated as you share your “artwork” with the rest of the class, knowing that yours is

probably the ugliest and least well done as everyone else’s. Be sure to beat yourself up profusely over

this.

Step 3

Be completely surprised at the positive response of your classmates. They actually like this? You will

wonder incredulously. Remain filled with self-doubt during the duration of the initial reveal.

Step 4

Begin to talk. Talk about the easiest things first, like the fact that you have been a naïve reader most of

your life. You will be very nervous, so make sure to make lots of little jokes and incorporate humor. You

want them to like and accept you.

Step 5

Talk about your writing, and begin to wonder why you haven’t just done it already. Wonder why it is so

hard to talk about yourself in front of your peers. Focus in on the teacher as a coping mechanism.

Realize that you need to avoid doing this during your first observed lesson. Try to keep track of time.

Step 6

As you get closer to the end of your presentation, second-guess yourself. Think about something you

could talk about instead of that little dark secret hidden behind your woolen hair. Fear over-sharing.

Worry that you will be seen as that person. Feel isolated, but do not, by any means, let this show.

Step 7

Reach the crossroads at which you will need to make a decision. Glance around the room and gauge the

people in the class. What will they think? Agonize for what feels like an hour but in reality takes only a

few seconds.

Step 8

Remember what you wrote in your short essay to Dr. Moniz just a few weeks ago. You had written it in

bold letters, and centered it on the page in a large gap between two paragraphs:

I believe in taking risks. I believe in leaps of faith.

Step 9

Take that leap.

Step 10

Choose not to share everything. Do not tell everyone that you were abused throughout your childhood.

Do not tell them that you were suicidal. Do not tell them what your ex-boyfriend did to you. Draw a line,

but focus on the present. Share your understanding. Share yourself. Become a spokesperson for

Mederma.

Step 11

Don’t look at others when you finish. Worry that you’ve shared too much. Wonder why you did in the

first place. Listen as others speak. Listen as Ross speaks. Realize that you aren’t the only one. Realize

that it’s okay.

Step 12

Get three letters from peers once everyone has shared. Wait a week and a half to read them. Realize

that you made the right choice. Realize much later that the most important way in which you author

your life is through your treatment of others. Realize that everything you’ve gone through has made you

into a better person than you thought you were.

Section 4

Talking to Myself

A Dialogue

Prompts:

How could this type of work, the autobiography and the multimodal artifact be powerful in your

own future classroom? How could you utilize the project and the writing?

Be sure to carefully and thoughtfully connect your response/s to these prompts to the Task 1

and 2 planning/instruction commentary questions listed on p. 1.

M.J. is me

J.R. is the cooler, smarter version of me.

MJ: So I have to answer this question about how this type of work, the autobiography and self-portrait

could be powerful in my own future classroom, and how could I utilize this project and the writing.

JR: Well what did you think about the project? I know you were on the fence about it before, but what

do you feel about it now?

MJ: Well I feel like it could be very powerful, but I’m concerned about students sharing too much, and

I’m concerned that it could take too much time away.

JR What about developing a unit around the self-portrait/autobiography? Have you thought about that?

MJ: Well how would I design a unit around this?

JR: Well, I’d recommend doing this project towards the beginning of the year, as a way to establish a

closer-knit classroom community. By giving students such an open ended project, you can be sure

that they will complete it in a way that works best for them. In this way you might be able to get a

better idea of how individual students in your class learn best through the modalities they choose to

represent the project.

MJ Good point. But how will I connect this project to a greater unit?

JR Well what is important to you as a teacher?

MJ Getting kids to think outside the box and beyond school. I really think that making personal

connections to text and English class skills are important. Having done this project myself, I feel like

a key takeaway from the whole process is showing students that everyone has their own story.

JR Then design the unit in a way that will develop a collaborative environment in the classroom for the

facilitation of discussion and debate of literature.

MJ but could I connect this to a specific piece of literature as a before reading mini-unit?

JR I don’t see why not. Any work of literature that you would teach following this project could be

incorporated into the unit by having students view the protagonist through the lenses of authoring

practices, or even looking at the author’s choices! There are many ways you can adapt this project

to help students gain a better understanding of a work. First, you would have students reflect on

their own authoring practices, which would tease out memories of students and get them thinking

about how they navigate through their own life. Then as they read say Catcher in the Rye or The

Great Gatsby to name a couple, have them actively reflecting on what they believe the authoring

practices of the main character are. As a summative assessment for whatever students read

following the project, have students create a self-portrait/autobiography of the main or some major

character, which would require them to argue what they believe the main authoring practices of

that character are and support these choices with textual evidence. As they do this, they will be

reflecting on their own self portrait, as well as the ideas leading up to it in developing one for the

character they choose to analyze.

MJ But how will I make sure that all types of students get the most out of his process? How will I address

the heterogeneity of skill, ability, and motivation level of all my students?

JR: The project itself is multi-modal, yes? A key factor in providing differentiation for students is to allow

them to choose the ways which will best work with how they as individuals learn. Some students

who struggle with writing might choose to develop some of their ideas through song, performance,

dance, or visuals.

MJ: But won’t that be downplaying the importance of writing? I need to spend as much time as I can

strengthening their reading and writing skills. I will only have them for a year!

JR: It might seem like you’re downplaying writing, but trust me, you aren’t. By placing this unit towards

the beginning of the year, in addition to creating a more inclusive and safe classroom environment,

you as the teacher will be able to see where students’ strengths are, and where they struggle.

Through this type of project you will really get to know your students as writers and as people. They

are going to tell you all about themselves, and then they are going to show you how they interpret a

major player in a piece of writing. You are going to learn a lot about how each of your students learn

and interpret through how they represent this main character, and through this, you will be able to

figure out what direction to take to best help your kids learn and grow as writers and people

throughout the rest of the year.

MJ: and by having the students connect what they themselves have done for their own self portrait

project, I am framing them to really analyze and connect to major characters, which is what, a text-

to-self connection (Buehl, 2014, p. 14)?

JR: Exactly. And once they’ve finished with their second self-portrait project, then they’ll be able to see

how others represented the same character, or another character, and be able to reflect on their

own learning process through this.

MJ: So this self-portrait and autobiography project really be used to make the text that follows more

meaningful and memorable, especially since they will be representing their learning through

multiple modalities, and sharing their learning with others.

JR. Yep! Good talk.

Section 5

News Article

More generally speaking [not specific to the author autobiography & self-portrait] what readings,

engagements, class discussions, instructional strategies hold significance for you at this halfway point?

Why those? How are they supported by theory?

Be sure to carefully and thoughtfully connect your response/s to these prompts to the Task 1 and 2

planning/instruction commentary questions listed on p. 1.

The J.R. Times

Volume 1, Issue 2 17 October 2014

Into the Construction Zone – The Modern learner

RESONATING WELL

Focusing on Ideas that Work

Education is about the art of diversity.

The cultural back-grounds, types of

learners, and ability levels of students

must be taken into account. Instructional

strategies in many classrooms often do

not meet the needs of such diversity, yet

there are many approaches to such

diversity that are often overlooked. These

strategies focus in on a number of key

ideas that are important to keep in mind.

Here are a few significant ideas to note:

Constructivism in the Classroom

Many classrooms are structured in the

antiquated scheme of transmission

learning (Smagorinsky, 2008, p. 7).

Learners, if you can call them that, are

passive in absorbing the information of

the all-knowing teacher. But this does not

engage students, and rarely leads to

meaningful learning. The constructivist

approach is a far more engaging model,

which draws on each student’s prior

knowledge, their codes for reading, their

attribuitions and cultural backgrounds

(Smagorinsky, 2008, pp. 8-9).

Bell to Bell Engagement

To maximize learning, students must be

engaged from bell to bell. What this

means is that everything the students do

works toward and reflects the standard

of the day. Keeping students engaged in

working towards the objective is critical

to improving student outcomes. Keeping

students engaged from bell to bell is not

the same thing as opening up a scripted

curriculum workbook or having students

follow a daily routine that may be

interesting but is nevertheless not

reflected in the daily objective.

Everything students do in class must help

them achieve a greater understanding

of some instructional goal. But how does

one do this? It’s easier said than done.

Vary Instructional Activities

No one said that work needs to feel like

work. Using a variety of student centered

learning engagements will keep students

on task without boring them to death. A

variety of learning strategies that can be

modified to fit any instructional agenda

are available to teachers to modify at

will. Strategies like Dialectic journals, fact

pyramids, reading logs, and concept

maps can get students engaged in and

reflective upon their learning processes.

The role of a teacher isn’t to teach – it’s

to give students the tools they need to

make their own meaning, and thereby

teach themselves. The most profiecient

learners are the ones who find their own

answers to the tough questions and use

strategies that fit the occasion. And this

doesn’t happen in a vaccum.

Collaborative Engagement

The student voice is disturbingly absent

in many modern classroom, yet the

evidence suggests that student voices

should fill the room at least fifty percent

of the time, up to seventy-five percent

of the time according to some.

Therefore the key is to use instructional

strategies that engage students in

strategies that are collaboratie in

nature. In life, meaning is made through

frequent interactions between

individuals – life happens in a group

setting. Classroom life should reflect this.

Section 7

Greeting Card

Prompt:

As you reflect over the first half of the semester, what do you see as strengths you have brought to the class and to our discussions? What are areas where you would like to improve or in some way change your involvement?

What are the strengths of this course? What suggestions do you have for us to consider during

the second half of our time together?

17 October 2014

Dear Dr. Spitler,

ITE 404 has been the most challenging and relevant class (though I know now that this is

not just some class) I’ve ever taken towards my degree. I think I am okay contributor in the

class; I should probably work on speaking less in class. I am learning to see the role of a

teacher as something much more than just an educator. Through the modeling of

instructional strategies and classroom management tactics, I am gaining a real sense of

how strategies may be incorporated in the classroom. I like that you expose us to many

different instructional strategies – it’s opening my eyes to all of the possibilities in the

classroom. I really liked how you created this safe and open community in the classroom,

and always reach out to ease our anxiety. I definitely think I need to work on lowering my

anxiety.

I would like to have more opportunities to work with different types of strategies, and

would love to have better resources for the ITE field practicum guide. My biggest gripe is

not with the class itself, but with this guide – the resources are simply not up to par and

aren’t explained in my opinion. I have been retyping the PDFs into a word document so

that I can fill them out electronically, and I would be happy to send them to you for your

own use (or as replacements for those on the website). I don’t feel like there is enough

information on the site to help me, and I would like to have some things from the site

explained or at least touched on in class.

Anyway, I’ve really grown a lot as a person and future educator during this first half of the

semester and am looking forward to growing much more in the weeks to come.

Sincerely,

Megan Jessee