The Final Chapter

As I reflected on the classes I took this semester, I came to the realization that English 372 is the last undergraduate English literature course I will take. Actually, it’s the last English course in general I will have taken. This realization caused me to feel two things: excited yet scared. Excited in the sense that I’m that much closer to getting my English Language Arts teaching certificate and degree, but scared knowing I’m that much closer to stepping into the real world. Thankfully, though, this class has prepared me for teaching English to my future high school students due to my observations of how you, Dr. Campbell, taught us. 

There were a few different things I noticed about the course that I really liked. In the College of Education’s courses, we are told to have a few different forms of assessment. The purpose of having a variety of assignment types is to allow students with different strengths excel in one of the assignment types. This goes back to Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, which states that students learn in different ways. Gardner said that students are a combination of the following types of learners—linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence. Providing presentations, written exams, group presentations, online discussions, and in-class quizzes appeals to a few of these types of learners.

When presenting the information, you (Dr. Campbell), always made sure to use a visual. This visual was either using a Power Point presentation or writing on the board. The fact that there was stuff written down made it easy for me—and other students—to follow along in lecture. The mini-group presentations are also a good method to use when quickly assessing what the students understand about the reading, novel, and/or poem. This also reverses the teacher-student role in that the students become the teacher. In a high school classroom, it is important to reverse the teacher role in order to empower students and feel like they have a say in what happens in the class. 

Something that happened only once that I found extremely beneficial was visiting the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) in the library. I thought this field trip was nice because it got us outside of the classroom and made classroom content tangible. In the College of Education courses, we talk about how we can incorporate realia into the classroom. Realia is another word for “real” objects in the classroom. For example, for a poetry or creative writing unit, realia could consist of leaves, rocks, pencils, etc. A field trip that works really nicely with English classrooms is visiting a play, especially a Shakespeare play. In 371, we read The Tempest and that summer, I was doing a teaching practicum in which the teacher took her students to this play. Not only was the play very well done, but the students absolutely loved it. 

Finally, showing clips in class and having extra credit movies provides students with another way to connect with classroom content. It’s also a great way for the teacher to get to know his/her students outside of the classroom.