Who Am I?

     Who am I? Well, I am Lace Konkler and I'm 23 years old aspiring teacher! I was born and raised in Bozeman, MT until I moved to Denver for 8 years with my mother when I was 14 years old. I graduated High School as Salutitorian of my class from Jefferson Senior High (Edgewater, CO) and attended Metro State College of Denver for 3 years before transferring to Montana State University in 2011. After gaining residence in 2012, I began attending classes and traveling the world. Second to my Education I love photography and traveling. I have been to China, Mexico, Italy, and Great Britain.

     Someday soon I hope to be teaching students in High School who are aching to learn new information everyday, just waiting for a challenge that will make them enjoy school.

     We all go through those phases as childen where we change what we want to be in the future about a hundred and one times, so like any other child I did this too. Little did I know that the profession I one day chose in 4th grade would be something I was pursuing for a life long goal! I do not remember exactly what brought me to desire teaching at such a young age, probably how much fun I had with a teacher in that year, but I came home one day and told my parents "I want to be a teacher!"
Of course that was never set in stone truly, and the idea passed after fifth grade when there was a teacher that did not work well with me and discouraged me completely. I believe it was this point in time when I realized that my hearing situation would not be ideal for being a teacher to students.

     Where I was from- Manhattan, Montana, I was the only student in the entire school with a hearing loss. I wore this ugly FM transmitter around my neck everyday with wires that plugged into the back of my hearing aids and a special microphone for teachers to wear in order for me to hear them. Teaching, while something I thought would be amazing to do because at that age I loved helping others, I realized it was not ideal and just not possible. How could someone in my situation teach someone who could hear? Needless to say, that dream phased itself out as I tried to figure out what I could do with my life as a 'deaf' person.

     When I moved to Denver, Colorado and experienced being around other deaf students and a deaf teacher for the first time, I realized that it was possible to be a teacher to deaf students. After four years of High school and experience a wide variety of teachers, the dream to teach was still there, and now here I am with one year left until graduation.

     The only difference: I am a cochlear implant recipient planning to teach hearing students.

     The purpose of this is to allow you to get to know me a little more as an aspiring teacher. To learn my philosphies on how I want to teach students reading and writing literature. How I plan to teach them and what my goals are.

     As questions arise from others on my philosphies I will post new blogs and site where I am learning what I am believing to be useful.

Feel free to ask me any questions.
Lace

As a parent, I value my childs education, including how they are assessed. Can you tell me more on how you plan to assess students?

     If there is anything I know as a teacher before evening becoming one, it's "do not use a red pen!"

     There is an article, "Beyond the Red Pen: Clarifying Our Role inthe Response Process", that pointed out that students see the red in a degrading way. When I grade students work I do not ever plan on using a red pen; maybe blue, green, purple, or even black but anything but red. I have considered several of the following things that I plan to use in my classroom in order to provide a fair opportunity for all students when grading comes into discussion.
     Within the article are several great ideas for creating dialogue that I had heard about prior to the reading, but never considered including them in my classroom. One of the biggest thing in establishing our role in the Response process, beyond simply grading the work and handing it back to students, is creating a line of communication with each of our students. As the authors discuss it is about, creat[ing] more opportuniies to dialogue with them about their writing. As a result, I hoped my comments woud empower my students to find their voice in writing and validate what they have to say." There is mention of several ideas, some of which I have seen in practice and work effectively and they include: post-commenting conference ad "talk back". A talk back is simply when teachers will write their comments on the students work, but students write responses to the questions/comments on their own paper regarding "what did the teacher like? What was not liked? and What questions do you have?" Using a talk back seems to be an essential tool in the classroom-especially because we are constantly mentioning how there is so little time in the classroom that we simply cannot meet with each student every time there is a paper.
     After reading the article on "Beyond the Red Pen" and a discussion in class, something I thought to be extremely beneficial not only in my classroom but anyone's classroom is a discussion with students after handing back their first paper of the semester and discussing what each of the correcting symbols represents and how to remove them from the paper. I do not wish to be one of those teachers who "mistakenly thought [my students] understood such things as circing words and above them writing "w.c." for word choice..." And I believe that by beginning the year with a discussion about what each symbol means after their first papers are handed back is the perfect opportunity to teach about the symbol meanings. A second idea would be creating a short 1/2 page sheet with the symbols and their meanings that students can tape into their class notebook/journal or any binder they bring to class. At least then they will always have a copy on hand!

     For large scale projects, I will always provide a rubric for students to use as a guideline and tool for them to decide what grade they would like to achieve and include the required work for each section. I understand from experience that rubrics will not always designate the grade a student will receive. In this case, I will encourage all students to come and talk to me and discuss why they believe they deserved a different grade. Everything is open for discussion, but they must be able to prove to me that they earned that grade and show me how. I feel that rubrics for larger projects will provide stability and guidelines for students versus a simple hand out with guidelines of what I want. There is no room for clarification and grade guidelines in such a hand out. Students benefit best from knowing EXACTLY what they need to do for whatever they desire as an outcome. I want to make this as possible for students as I can as their teacher.
     In the article "On the Uses of Rubrics: Reframing the Great Rubric Debate" the law of distal diminshment mentions how "any educational tool becomes less instructionally useful-and more potentially damaging to educational integrity-the further from the classroom it originates." I have had several of my professors this semester explain the same thing, how when you take say a rubric and use create it for one thing but use it in another classroom for something completely different the rubric becomes less affective than simply creating a new one from scratch. Each subject line in the Rubric is no longer designed for such a specificed assignment, therefor how can it truly be a judging tool for something it was not intended for? It can be done, but not well and that is exactly what our auhors want us to see. Creating a rubric with the class for their overall assignments all year would allow students to think what makes a good paper, not "what does the teacher want on my paper today?" Once created, students will also know their grading criteria all year long for all assignments that require a rubric for points.

     I have decided to adopt the idea from "Write Beside Them", where instead of marking every single mistake that students make on their papers, marking ONLY six at a time. After I mark six, the other mistakes will be left for another editing. The key idea from this is that students can only learn from their mistakes that they focus on correcting and if we mark up their paper with fifty nine mistakes, we can guarantee they will not be learning the correct way to write and developing their writing in the process. Instead, they are only going to correct the mistakes thinking and hoping that will improve their grade by so many points. Having students focus on six mistakes at a time allows for them to learn the correct grammar rules and implement them in the current and future writings they complete for class. During the second draft, another six mistakes will be marked on their paper. If the same common errors from the first drafting mark up are still present, then a one-on-one teacher conference or small group (filled with other students also making the same mistakes) conference will be formed for 10 to 15 minutes during a class writing workshop or during the regular journals time to sit down and discuss with students why they are still making the same errors and hopefully reintroduce the correct grammatical rule.

     Assessing students fairly and equally is essentially the second priority to teaching your child. While I want them to succeed in their grades, I want them to succeed in what they are learning, comprehending, and remembering the material to use outside of the classroom in their daily lives.  

Shakespeare was not something I enjoyed in school, how do you intend to teach Shakespeare in the classroom that will interest students?

     I can't even begin to express the concerns I had with teaching this subject prior to several different workshops that were attended over the semester. I knew as a teacher I would need to face my fears of teaching your children Shakespeare and somehow, one way or another using the material to teach them and engage them in the reading to develop understanding on the text. Prior to these workshops, the thought was placed on a back burning and I assumed "I'll just cross that bridge when the time comes."

    However between a Teaching Shakespeare workshop on campus at Montana State University and a small Workshop at the Globe Theater with a professional actor in London, Great Britain I have found several different activities that will not only engage students, but allow them to learn the material at the same time in smaller sections.

     Introducing students to the text of Shakespeare does not need to be dreaded. On the first day of the unit where Shakespeare will be read, students will do a fun activity where they will read around and do close readings of a very brief section of the play that I provide after cropping it to the important parts. This section of the play is maybe only three to four pages long. Throughout two days students will be working with this close section in multiple read arounds with different methods for each read around. There will be a period when students must only listen to those that are reading, no reading at the same time, a time when they will read and listen, and a time where they will actually enact the scene in their interpretations as well. Through every reading students will gather the information and provide details (who, what, when, where, and why) but they must provide evidence that supports their reading from the text.

     Another fun activity that I would love to have students participate in is a "hook" activity. Again students would be reading a short part of the play, two or three pages, of only dialogue. Students would first do a warm up of releasing stress- as actors tend to do, The destress includes gathering in a circle around the classroom and shaking out the stress while making funny noises that also release stress from vocals. This should get students up, comfortable, and laughing with their peers at which point they will break off into groups of two people. Each group will read through the scene provided just once as a character to create the dialogue. After the first round, a new concept is introduced where students will be allowed to move one step (right, left, forward, back, etc.) to make the scene come to life slowly. The purpose is for students to see how different steps can change the meaning of the text without any background knowledge of the entire play or scene. Then, students will continue with the step and then one character will avoid eye contact the entire time while the other character does whatever possible to continue eye contact. The roles of avoiding eye contact are reversed and acted out before class comes back to the circle to discuss how they made their decisions to move a certain way or how creating/avoiding eye contact changes the meaning and their interpretations. While in the circle students are introduced to the final "hooks" that are connected to the first one step movement. There's hook, block, or deflect. Finally students will do their last reading of the scene using the hooks and then coming back to discss the activity. From my experience, I can see students really engaging and really enjoying the ability to put actions and their own interpretations into small scenes and using close reading (without complete knowledge of doing so) to support their reasons for why they chose such movements.

    We cannot do activities like this everyday in class, thee would be no time to actually read and do other assignments, but trying to do these once or twice during the entire reading of the play really seems to be a key importance at this point in time as an aspiring teacher. Simply reading the text with no engagement will not benefit students and allow them to become interested and understand the text. Providing activities like these, even for other texts not simply Shakespeare, allows them to get up, move around, and have fun with their classmates while still learning the required material-if not more!

    I will not lie, I can only hope to reach your child when it comes to Shakespeare, I still have fears, but through experience we will learn what students will or will not enjoy and even hopefully create our own activities as a class together that can be used in future years.

   

My child does not like creative writing, how will you address this?

    Creative writing can be quite the struggle for students, especially younger ones. While the imagination can wonder aimlessly, it can be a challenge to take those thoughts that formulate in our mind and write them on paper for someone else to read. Even then, sometimes it is just not easy to create a story without having a common ground or something to write about.

 

    "So, What's the Story?" is actually written and directed towards teaching students how to write narrativesin order to "understand ourselves, others, and the World" but I find after reading and even engaging in several of the listed  activities, that these could also be used to help students form ideas to write creative stories (even creative narratives) for class while expanding their horizon and participating in class.

How you see it: Students will write a description of a place (classroom, jail cell, car crash, etc.) from the perspective of five different characters. The book suggest having students write the two following perspectives perspectives: 1-someone who knows the place well, 2-someone visiting for the first time and then creating three other perspectives for the characters. “This is practice for how characters filter places” and show students how changing the perspectives can change the character throughout the story.

 

     The following are some of the activities that I am considering to use with your child in my classroom to engage them in creative writing.

 

WAGS: A set of questions that are useful to help students create characters.

• W--world of the character: Where does this character spend a lot of time? How does the world affect the character and how does the character affect that world?

 

• A--action of the character: What does the character during a regular day (routine actions)? What does the character do in pursuit of the goal shown in this story (exceptional actions)?

• G--goal of the character: What does the character want? What does the character need (this is often different from the character’s goals)?

• S--stakes of the goal to the character: What bad thing does the character think will happen if the goal is not reached? What makes the goal worth pursuing and grappling with obstacles and confrontations put in the way of attaining that goal?
   

     Character relations: Give students a list of character types such as; hero, love interest, queen, rebel, and so on. They talk about how these various character possibilities can relate with each other and then write a story with characters fulfilling these roles and interacting with each other. This helps them see the potential as writers for characters to relate endless ways.

 

     From picture books to writing: Providing students with photo books that have no dialogue or words. Even comic strips would work! As students view the pictures they can create the dialogue or description  Give students a picture book with no words. Let them write the story of the characters based on what they see in the pictures.This helps foster the character development and shows they can write based on many ideas. While this idea comes from "So, What's the Story?" it sparks ideas from "The Joy of Reading and Writibg: Suoerman and Me" where the author Alexie Sherman describes teaching himself to read through the use of comic strips. He could not read what the text said but when he saw the super hero knocking a wall down he would say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Not only was he creating the text and character development but also sparking an interest in his reading abilities.

 

     Quick moments of the characters characters experiences: An activity that you can have students do after creating their characters to help them develop experiences that the character may encounter in a narrative story. Have students write 3 different times with the same character. Each time should be for about three minutes or say 100 words. During the first write students should explain how the character would deal with being lost in an unfamiliar place with as many descriptions as possible. In the second write, students should address how the character would deal with receiving any type of bad news (includes shocking or weird) from someone they have never met. In the third write students should address how the character would take uncharacteristic (not normal) actions, behaving in a completely different way, or behave badly toward another character without directing negative comments at that character. 
 

     I think it is really important for students to see how much they really have to say about something, they just do not realize until they find the right words to express what they are thinking. Too often, there might be ideas we would like to write about, explore, and express but are to afraid of what our audience may think. It is so important and essential that students in the classroom, especially my own classroom, understand that what is discussed and read between classmates is private and personal-not to leave the room out of respect for others. I have this desire to create a close knit writing group for students, a community in which they can trust and get to know one another. There will also be implentation of small writing groups, groups of 2 or 3 students, who work together all semester to help with the editing, revision, and creative process. Through experience, the use of writing groups is so highly effective that I would recommend it to anyone, not simply students and teacher but anyone who does writing. The support that one recieves from their peers can be just enough to get the final or even beginning push that is needed to spark ideas and find motivation. Along with the benefit of support, it will help students to get more feedback on their writing than simply waiting for me to read and respond to each of their papers. It just cannot happen, and in order to develop their writing styles they need as much practice as possible.

    

How will you integrate Young Adult Literature into the classroom? Why?

     Young adult literature (YAL) is such a touchy subject between adminstration and parents, even students, but none the less it must be talked about. In Teaching Literature to Adolescents the idea of combining YAL with canon texts is considered as "pairing". First let me explain to you briefly what is defined as a canon text.

     A canon text is simply the classical books that simply is an arguement. It "purports to name the most significantliterary works within a national literature and/or hitorical period." Text such as: Shakespeare, The Great Gastby, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, 1984, and so many others are currently required texts to read in the high school curriculum.

     I like to think about students reading YAL in connection with Canon text in order to better understand and make connections with what they are reading for the classroom. In Teaching Literature to Adolescents the idea of "pairing" canon and YAL text is actually mentioned by Richard Beach, Deborah Appleman, Susan Hynds, and Jeffrey Wilhelm, for creating that bridge for students to understand a more difficult text. I could not agree with this more and actually like to think of it as a backwards bridge of scaffolding. Generally we do easier lessons and activities for students to build their way to the harder material (scaffolding), but reading a harder text like Shakespeare could be followed by a YAL book that has the same concept that is being taught (i.e. Taming of the shrew by Shakespeare to teach on roles in Society paired with The Giver to teach students what happens if there were no roles in society) can be a great way for the mind to break away from the harder text and understand the purpose. Sometimes it is easier to learn the harder material first and then the easier material makes the understandings come to surface.

     Not only does pairing of the text allow for students to make connections but it allows them to read something more in their age range that will hopefully interest their reading minds, but also encourages students to read other texts outside of the classroom that are not just for homework. In another question I discussed briefly the idea of readicide and how avoiding it is essential in the classrooms as much as possible. Promoting YAL pairing in the classroom could also be a key to preventing readicide. Not only are we pairing a more relatable text in modern day language with a "not so relatable and hard to understanding language," we are allowing students to read these easier books in the classroom, as a class, and to discuss the material in a way that helps them to understand the connections they are distinguishing. By pairing text we are also establishing a classroom standard with the common core, that defines students being able to make connections, comparisons and contrast between different versions of a text (movie versus literature, or literature versus adaptation, etc.) because at some point in time students will need these skills outside of the classroom

     A second idea for promotion YAL is during the first five minutes of every class or a few times a week, holding an SSR moment. SSR is defined as Substained Silent Reading, in which students are encouraged to read anything they would like (that is not class reading or school work) for a period of time. During this time students are only reading that material. The idea is to encourage students to become interested in books during their five minutes that they will want to continue reading outside of the classroom, for fun/entertainment/pleasure. This will be implemented in my classroom either every day, or every other day in order to also allow students to creatively write several times a week for the same brief time period.

     A really important and key idea for me as an aspiring teacher is being open minded to students input and even their responses. I cannot recall how many different times I was down graded and almost failed a class because I responded to the text in a way that was not what the teacher wanted. While I was reading the material and understood it, my process of interpretation was not correct. For this reason I shied away from reading for pleasure outside of the class myself, I became a readicide victim. I do not wish to instil this idea in my own students to the point that they will dislike reading. I want each student to feel comfortable expressing their ideas and thoughts to me and their classmates without fear of being penalized or "wrong". And this will be one of the first things each student hears in my classroom when SSR and class discussions begin.

How will you avoid Readicide in your classroom?

     One of the things we are learning this semester is how  write a unit plan, lesson plan, rubrics, and assessments. This is vitally important information to know as a teacher, it could be something that will make or break us as a teacher (besides our actual teaching). I have been so wrapped up as a student now and WHY I wanted to be a teacher, that I never even thought about how to create a lesson plan. Prior to this semester I honestly never put one thought towards it. But over the course of this semester I have learned greatly just how difficult it can be to create one and make sure everything fit together smoothly.

     I noticed the other evening how trying to create a class calendar can be quite the challenge! My mind told me, "oh this will be easy! Just drop down what I plan to do briefly that day, right?" WRONG! I mean, right in a sense but wrong in the concept idea. You do write what you plan to teach, but making sure it all flows together well is a completely different challenge. Earlier this semester we read a book called, "Readicide" by Kelly Gallagher, which discusses how students are being forced to read so much over such a short amount of time, and through various disruptive methods that it causes them to stop enjoying reading for fun...outside of the classroom. I was engrossed in this book. I cannot even describe how often I felt like this as student, and still do in college (thats a different matter though) . How often do we tell students to read in class without disruptions but then we disrupt them oursleves? How often do we send them home forcing them to read large quantities of pages and do some activity with it? Think about it. My answer is too often!
 

     Not only are students being asked to read too much, the texts are can be rather difficult, and often times teachers are teaching to the test with their reading. What I mean by this is that teachers are not focused on teaching the material soley to the students. Instead, they are focused on teaching students how to infer, read between the lines, do anything that the standardized tests will weigh a student on to show how well teachers are doing. It is a crazy thought...the elephant in the room as Gallagher calls it. Seems like a backwards plan, teaching to the test and the results still not bringing in what teachers want to see. What if we taught students the material without worrying about the test? I have this impending feeling that the results would actually increase tremendously. When we focus on teaching one thing just a little too much, so much more knowledge is overlooked and left in the dust. We read about avoiding Readicide in the classroom, what to do about it, and how to change the course of reading but we constantly hear how it is still happening point blank to students in the classroom.

      So much of what I want to do in my classroom, I think can be used to help students in more than one way. Finding material to read that is authentic not only can avoide Readicide but also interest students in other material to read, including young adult literature (YAL). If we think back to when we were in high school at the material we read, how interested were we? Did we read anything for class that we actually have the thrill to say, "oh yeah! I read that! I liked it." or "Yeah, I remember relating to that book"? There might be a few instances, not very many on my own end, but I want to change this. I want students to be able to connect to what they are reading, understand it, use it! I'm still working on this entire theory, but for now I know teaching to the test must be avoided.

     I created this philosphy that students should have less reading homework in particular. Maybe more writing or quick responses to something else, or even their final project if there is one. Reading in the classroom together to allow more time for comprehension and questions is important to me not only as a student but also as a teacher. So when I began designing my calendar, I thought to myself, "how do I do this?" It was difficult! It IS difficult. I still do not feel that my goal was even achieved because there is a week in my unit plan that students simply will have to read a secondary text at home, fifty pages a night for 5 nights. I look at my calendar and feel theres no other way to do this. They have to do it at some point and I need to utilize my short 50 minute class periods with them to do activities and discussion that will teach them information aside from the text. How do I do that? By having them read at home, no matter how much I dislike having to do this. I am sure there will be times again at which I need to do this for other units and while I may not like it, I know my students will not either, but we will need to work with one another to keep this to the minimum.     

    

     It'll be something I learn from experience on how much is too much or too little.

Until another day-

 

Questions from Readers

     I would like to know why you chose this field and what past experiences have helped you create your approach and philosophy in regards to teaching. What kind of kids do you hope to encounter and change their lives with your approach. Every teacher you had affected you in some way positive or negative.

What are some of those experiences and how did they help you mold your dreams of becoming a teacher?
-JL

      I chose this field because I have memories of high school that are quite conflicting to myself. I loved school, I was a bookworm to every extent possible. But there came a point in time when I felt so unchallenged by my own teachers, including Advanced Placement classes.

     Every teacher has helped shape who I want or do not want to be as a teacher. Three in particular from my high school experience are what I use as a reminder daily to motivate me to be the best that I can be for students. My AP Senior English teacher I can honestly say saw me for maybe 4 weeks total during the entire semester because he was too easy on our class. When the first day of class after summer break happened and I was the only student to complete the reading of the Scarlett Letter and do the writing assignment, it was obvious the course would be easy. We had 3 months to complete this, yet one student did it. His response was to give us another week to do it. How many turned it in after that, I'm not sure. The class was simply unfocused, to easy, and he let them all off the hook for everything, including not utilizing class time for a 10 page research paper. After working diligently on the assignment to turn in the required material due at phase check points, by the half way mark he changed the entire lesson. Either finish the assignment with what work you have or you could just do this easier assignment because too many students were not doing the work. I was pretty crushed...I knew as a teacher I could not be like this. This is the point where I knew being a high school teacher that provided students with a challenge is what I needed to do.

     And then there's the teacher that I had the least. I believe I had maybe two classes with him, yet saw him everyday during study hall time in the Deaf Education department. He was completely deaf and teaching students, both hearing and deaf. When I first met him during freshman year I was not exactly the easiest student to have. It was my first year being around so many other students with a 'disability' like myself, with others who couldn't hear. It was a new concept, I grew up in a world of hearing as the girl who couldn't hear. So when I saw him as a teacher who could not hear but taught I was amazed! I never realized that it was possible to do something so significant while being the odd ball out. My parents always told me I could do anything I wanted, and while I believed them, it was hard to imagine being a teacher that to students when I could not hear what they would be saying to me. Too much complication in my opinion. But at least through him, I knew it was possible. He inspired me to continue going after my dream no matter what challenges there were. And I have.
    
     I guess one of the best ways to say this is I went into wanting to teach thinking I could only teach other deaf students because by the time I would be a teacher I would be completely deaf myself. That was the plan, graduate and then go for a Masters (which at the time was required in order to teach Deaf Education). Although eventually I would like to do this, my passion was not for Deaf Education, It was simply teaching in the world I knew-the hearing world. Now though, this is possible because of the operation that I underwent in 2010 to recieve the Cochlear Implant. Now more than ever I look back and remember why I wanted to be a teacher and I remember these teachers who helped inspire me.

    As as I mentioned in my first blog that I always knew I wanted to be a teacher at a young age, it just took me until senior year to realize that not only do I love teaching and changing peoples lives, but I want to challenge students. I want them feel like they can do anything, no matter how difficult it is. As long as they try they are doing it- whether they fail on the first time or second is not the questions. Its about attempting to try, learning through experience, and changing their thinking process. Life gives you lemons so we make lemonaides. I feel so strongly towards teaching, even on the hardest days, that this is simply my calling. I'm not, nor have I ever been a social butterfly and yet I love teaching people and helping them learn something new. That face they make when they have a realization after trying for so long to learn something, that is what it is about to me. The pay means nothing. I have never even looked at what the average teacher makes, nor have I asked anyone because I've learned that when you love doing something you do it for the passion and the happiness it brings you. Seeing students learning is what makes me happy.
 

With your Cochlear implants, do you think that in an actual school environment you'll struggle or is it something that you've thought of and will over come like you have everything else? Or will you go about teaching students hard of hearing instead to give them hope and show them what they can accomplish if they try?
-AB

With my implants I do plan to teach in a normal (hearing) school environment and I am sure there will be times that I will struggle but that is something all teachers will face at some point or another. While I do have fears on how successfull I can be as a teacher to hearing students when I am obviously not as "hearing" as they are, I am confident that however it works out, it's the way it is supposed to be. So in a sense-Yes, I will overcome it just as I have everything else. I also feel that the cochlear implant is what will allow me to be a teacher to hearing students, not just deaf students.
But! I also want to use my story for students (not just hard-of-hearing) to see how they can do ANYTHING they set their minds to, not matter what their situation is. Dream big, and make it happen.