In Praise of a Teacher

by Nikki Giovanni

The reason Miss Delaney was my favorite teacher, not just my
favorite English teacher, is that she would let me read any book I
wanted and would allow me to report on it. I had the pleasure of
reading The Scapegoat as well as We the Living as well as Silver
Spoon (which was about a whole bunch of rich folk who were
unhappy), and Defender of the Damned, which was about
Clarence Darrow, which led me into Native Son because the real
case was defended by Darrow though in Native Son he got the
chair despite the fact that Darrow never lost a client to the chair
including Leopold and Loeb who killed Bobby Frank. Native Son
led me to Eight Men and all the rest of Richard Wright but I
preferred Langston Hughes at that time and Gwendolyn Brooks
and I did reports on both of them. I always loved English because
whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories
that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a
history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we
think we are; English is much more a story of who we really are.
It was, after all, Miss Delaney who introduced the class to My
candle burns at both ends; /It will not last the night; /But, ah, my
foes, and, oh, my friends— /It gives a lovely light. And I thought
YES. Poetry is the main line. English is the train.

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Yesterday I asked three of my students to sit down and candidly speak about their experiences with blogging and other routines of our class. Here is what they had to say:

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Teens’ Top Ten is a list created by kids ages 12 to 18, who nominate and then vote on their favorite books of the previous year. More than 8,000 kids voted this year on the following.

The Teens’ Top Ten 2010:
1. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
2. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
3. Heist Society by Ally Carter
4. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
5. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
6. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
7. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
8. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
9. Fire by Kristin Cashore
10. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

found here

If you are looking for a new book for our Monthly Book Club, be sure to check these titles out. Also comment below with your thoughts if you have read any of these books! Happy Reading!

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Please utilize the link below to help you choose your topic for Greek Mythology LAP #2 major project. You can use this link by simply clicking on it.

http://drop.io/ramilap2

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September 2010

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Welcome to the 2010-11 school year! I hope you had a relaxing and fun summer. This year will be filled with exciting challenges and opportunities to excel in English. I understand that teaching your child is a privilege and a tremendous responsibility and I will do my best to ensure that my classroom is place where he/she can feel confident about approaching new tasks. In the ninth grade English class, we will mainly focus on literature in the variety of its form ranging from poems, short stories, plays and novels. Ninth grade is an excellent time to start building solid writing skills that are necessary for any college-bound student.

This year will be especially important for me and my students, as I will be pursing the National Board Certification – the highest certification that one can achieve as a teacher in the United States. It will no doubt push me and help me to grow as an educator. As part of this process, I will be recording my lessons and I am asking you to sign the permission letter attached to this letter.

I love teaching and my students. I also respect their families and their experiences outside of my classroom. My students come to me with knowledge of their own and I will respect this fact and strive to learn from them as they will learn from me this year. I respect your hard-work and effort to prepare your child for high school experience. I consider you an equal partner in my work and hope that we can work together to provide the best opportunities for future.

In order for the classroom setting to be a congenial environment where learning is the primary focus, I am going to have certain expectations for all of my students. I will expect all of my students to:

• To come prepared to class (i.e. have notebooks, folders and textbooks with them.)
• Respect other persons and their property
• Be willing to share opinions in classroom discussions and even more importantly, be willing to listen and respect other students’ opinions and ideas
• Be willing to learn something new everyday

I will do my best to provide the best learning environment for your son or daughter. I also want to welcome your feedback and concerns regarding your child’s performance in my class. I hope that we can build a partnership to best support our students’ success. Please feel free to contact me at ——- or via email at ——-  at any time. Periodically, I will be in touch with you regarding your son or daughter’s performance as well through phone calls, notes, letters, and emails. You can also follow our work on our class blog at: http://mrami.edublogs.org/.  Lastly, you may be wondering how you can get involved in our classroom community or support work, here are few ideas:

• Complete the attached Parent survey to help me learn about your son/daughter
• Volunteer in our class by presenting on a topic of your choice, chaperoning class field trips
• Sign the permission slip for video taping in the classroom

Thank you for all that you will do this year and I am looking forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

M. Rami

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“The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, but It Bends Toward Justice”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am so glad that we have the opportunity to read and examine Linda Christensen’s Teaching for Joy and Justice throughout our summer institute. While reading this book, I have come across many ideas that I hope to implement in my classroom next year. The value of her work comes not only from practical ideas to model writing but more importantly from the reaffirming of the fact that our students come to us with a rich heritage and if we value their voice in the classroom, we can build a true classroom community.

One of the first writing ideas that I’d like to try with my students would be the model poem For My People. I am lucky to work at a school where we have a racial and socio-economic diversity within our classrooms. I believe that I can get to know my students well at the beginning of the school year by using this as a model to encourage writing poems in the classroom. It will also let me in on the student’s perspective of how they view their racial/ethnic identity. As an Indian, I want to share my “For My People” poem with them to help them learn about my ethnic heritage. I am hoping that my students will eventually come to see our classroom as a safe place to discussion things like identity, labels, stereotypes and social justice. Having students reflect on what they value about their own identity may be the first step towards that goal. I can see a possible challenge with this assignment where my Caucasian students may struggle to find distinct traits or factors that they can write about. I will have to think of a way for them to trace their heritage further back to seek out a place where their identity is rooted.

Second idea that I would like to try is changing the way I implement essay writing in my classroom. Often, I have been frustrated with the quality of essays my students produce but I have slowly come to realize that I have not done enough to prepare them to write. I want to try the ideas of having Cornell note structure in place from the very beginning of the year so that my students can collect evidence on a text as they read it. I also like creating character silhouettes to prepare students to deeply examine characters and motives.

Lastly, I have found this text to help me formulate and process ideas on how to bring social justice issues and related discussion into my classroom. Up until now, as a class, we have only stumbled upon these issues, as I grow as an educator, I want to improve as a facilitator of classroom dialogue, instead of leading Socratic seminars, I want my students to interact and challenge one and another.

I am looking forward to hearing from others about what they plan to implement from this text and what changes they hope to see in their classrooms.

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Summer Writing Idea: Answer Our 40 Questions – The Learning Network Blog – NYTimes.com.

Students, if you are looking for a writing challenge for the summer, this link has 40 questions that are challenging and thought-provoking.  Take a look! Post your piece if you actually end up responding to one of them! Take care! – MR

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For My People

For my people
who invented the zero
and the Bollywood hero
The ones who build temples and masques side by side
The ones who won freedom and democracy through non-violence

For my people
who come in all variations of brown pigment
The brave, the ingenious and the I’d-do-anything-for-my-kids people
The ones who toil on the farms and
The ones who tinker at software firms

For my people
All those who speak at least two or three languages
The ones who are both modern and ancient at once
For the two million that are away from home,
Be proud and be strong, for my people

Author’s comments: I tried to mimic one of the poems that were discussed in Teaching for Joy and Justice. I would really like to have my students also experiment with this topic and genre. I may share this poem with my students as a way to show that I am also willing to take risks and reveal myself in our learning community.

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