Dan Tabor's Professional Portfolio
Midterm Summary & Reflections
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1. Confidence and Independence
2. Skills and Strategies
3. Knowledge and Content
4. Use of Prior Knowledge
5. Critical Reflection

Confidence and Independence--Having spent time in the classroom and being responsible for 90+ students before I came into this class, I felt relatively confident in my abilities to design a specific series of lessons for my six student poetry group.  The planning involved has not been overly hard but has taken time and required careful thought on how best to implement the series of lessons for my students.
I've worked with many of the students in my group for a bit so I felt I had a nice head start, but found I had to renew those connections and re-earn their trust.  Moving forward I'm confident that I'll have given my group the tools that they need in order to create some successful reflective poetry, I'm a bit more concerned about their work ethic and am unsure if they will devote the time needed to create a nice final poetry item.
 
Skills and Strategies--So far I have concentrated on covering the underlying literary devices and tools that one draws upon for creating good writing in general and poetry specifically.  I began my time with the students by establishing trust through oral communication and sharing of favorite songs and poetry. For middle school students, I feel that trust and establishing genuine interest is perhaps the most critical component to focus on in order to ensure the best possibility of success.  I followed the initial session by reviewing similes and metaphors and their ability to make poetry more powerful.  I followed up with a fun thesaurus activity and sharing of how to use this resource to improve writing power.  I've had the students creating quick 5 minute poetry after giving them the scaffolded support to do so, which we then share orally with one another.  Looking forward, I'll begin shifting more time into creating poems through poetry circle roles, then culminating in more independent poem creation and workshop times.
 
Knowledge and Understanding--The most practical knowledge I have been gaining so far this semester has been the immersion of young adult literature.  Prior to this class I had read young adult books here and there, mostly for personal enjoyment.  As an avid reader my interests have typically been oriented toward material more adult in nature, so my exposure to young adult literature was very small.  By having us read such a large volume of young adult literature and to look at each book with a genre and teaching purpose in mind, it has really helped give me ideas for how to find and then incorporate many stories into an academic curriculum.
I also really appreciate the ABQ Slam poetry presentation to our Tibbetts students and us to kick off our practicum experience.  This was my first exposure to poetry presented in this way and I gained a great deal of respect for this poetry style in just this one presentation.  I suspect that the students did as well.
 
Use of prior and emerging experience--I've found that by coupling my small amount of teaching experience along with an emerging knowledge of  the young adult literature genre my confidence is expanding in how best to integrate literature into my classroom.  By learning the great books, stories, and poetry that is available to and popular with my students, the repertoire of information and tools available to me will go a long way towards becoming a more effective teacher in the future.
 
Reflection--Thus far I have enjoyed my time in this Children's Literature class.  I've learned many practical methods and tools which I'll be able to integrate into my practicum time with this group of students.  Beyond this semester I know that the familiarity I have been gaining with young adult literature and its genres, will serve me well in my own classroom once I graduate from UNM.  I appreciate the synthesis of knowledge that this approach toward young adult literature is creating for me.  Beyond the books and practicum time I have also appreciated the Poetry Slam artists and can see great value to schools who might decide to implement schoolwide slams into their Reading and Writing curriculum as a way to generate interest, excitement, and competence in these important academic areas.