I. Cover Letter: Teaching Practice:
How has this experience informed that practice?
I have always taught with love for my students and for my subject matter. I have worked hard to remain current, remain enthused and remain motivated to do a good job. I would not want to go to any other professional who did not do so, from my physician to my hairdresser. Teachers are required to take continuing education, and some experiences are not great, some are OK, some are very good. Writing Project Summer Institute has been the best single educational experience that I have ever had since first grade. I love it, and cannot express in the pages that I can produce now, how profound an impact SI has had on my teaching. I know my weaknesses and my strengths pretty well, but I thought I was really pretty good. I cannot wait for my students to experience how I have grown, and to benefit from what I have learned.
Here are some ideas that are gifts for my students during the 2008 – 2009 school year from Summer Institute.
- My students will do Sacred Writing in German and share once per week. I cannot wait to see how much more German they will learn from personal writing and reading.
- From Julie’s Demo: Write the Environment, I plan to create experiences with Oktoberfest, Christmas, and Mardi Gras, and have them write about them. (Actually, I will have the students create the environments.)
- From Mel’s Demo, I will have students translate the story of the fox who drank the milk, and then have students do an active reading. I am thinking of other stories as well.
- From Dustee and Mary’s Demo, I will plan to set up tables with the various learning styles, and have students do the activities in German. Mary and Dustee gave me their cubes and signs! How kind. All I have to do is have students do the writing at their levels of German.
- From Eliot’s Demo, I will use the story writing strategy of the shared story. Students will love this. “This I Believe,” may work in German or not, but I will try and see.
- From Ford’s Demo, I have developed the idea of a monthly newsletter in German. I will, however, buy publishing software. I know my limitations! German 4 students will love being the editors, but I will ask all levels to contribute. Some of this will be in German, but much will be in English. This is still percolating, but I plan to feature student work, and also include such information as upcoming projects, German Club news, news about students and teachers. I did a newsletter to parents before, but I did it, and it was too much work and too boring. Parents liked it though. They really appreciate communication.
- From Amanda’s Demo, I have good ideas for determining better rubrics, so that students can self assess. It will cut down on some of my work, while giving students both ownership of their grades and the opportunity to improve work before I grade it.
- From Jennifer Stapleton’s Demo, I got good ideas for keeping work relevant to students’ lives. I forget this sometimes, and needed Jennifer’s demo.
Peggy and Amy suggested that the power point did not add to my Demo, but I told them that I knew that, but did it to learn how to create it and how to use it. I found that it served more than anything to help me stay focused. Peggy suggested that students love power point if I add music, pictures, etc. I will learn how to do that this year.
As helpful as the demonstrations have been; as helpful as everything about SI has been, what I needed most practically was the technology instruction. Do you know that you can highlight everything on the page at once with “ctrl A.? Thank you Ian! In addition to creating a Web Page, I now know hundreds of bits of knowledge that aren’t so important individually, but together, make work so much easier and more effective.
The heart of SI, though is the cumulative change in my brain. I am a writer. I wrote poetry, yes, poetry! Do I know the difference between my poems and those of a professional poet? Yes. But I am a writer, and I can now inspire my students to know that they too can write in German. If only Goethe had written German, there wouldn’t be much to read. This is a huge concept. Immense. I am empowered as a writer, as a teacher, as a human being. Watch out! Anything brand new is awkward, so I may be clumsy, but hear me roar!
