Sunday, September 21, 2014

Reflective Teaching: Day 21, Hobbies/Interests in the Classroom

Day 21--Do you have other hobbies/interests that you bring into your classroom teaching? Explain.

I have a few hobbies, but crocheting and making cards are not part of my content area. I do like singing, and I often incorporate it into my classroom as participation. The kids enjoy the random songs we burst into almost as much as they enjoy the extra points they can earn when they do.  I'm also a bit of a fangirl, so I enjoy using examples from my favorite shows and movies in my teaching.  The kids find it amusing, too, when I geek out about some of the same shows they like.

One of my interests is writing, and that I do indeed incorporate into my classroom teaching. I like it when the kids and I share our thoughts about writing. In my creative writing class I do the same prompts that they do and share them to show that it's a process. If I'm not afraid to share my rough drafts, they feel more comfortable in sharing theirs.

Another interest is reading, and I enjoy bringing that to the classroom.  So many of my students claim to not like reading (heartbreaking, I admit), but when we start talking about our literature, most of them begin to realize that the reason they didn't like it was that they hadn't taken the time to really understand it.  We talk about reading strategies and the tricks that good readers use to help them understand what they're reading.  We practice those strategies until they, too, see that maybe reading is not as bad as they thought.

2 comments:

  1. Amy, I LOVE that you do the same writing prompts as your students. The idea that they can see the process and the vulnerability in the process is great for them to learn early on!

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  2. Thanks Marilyn! I have posted some of those resulting poems and responses on this blog, and that makes me take even more care, too. They ask questions like, "Don't take this the wrong way, but does this just come to you or do you have to work at it?" Then I get to talk about the process even more. I try to show my process as much as possible because that way they can see that it all doesn't just spring from my head fully formed. While of course I'm sometimes inspired that way, we all have to be vulnerable when sharing our work.

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