Teaching Philosophy

          Learning to read and write to ultimately become a literate, responsibly contributing member of society can be a daunting endeavor for a New York City adolescent in our world today. My role as a New York City English Language Arts educator is to facilitate the acquiring of the literacy skills necessary for my students’ to be able to communicate and express their ideas fluently and effectively. Another one of my many commitments is to ensure that my students can think critically in order to evaluate the world around them and have the capability to effect the change they deem necessary. I want my students to understand that their present lives and future are dependent on how well they can navigate and negotiate their path to success and that these skills are instrumental to accomplishing those goals.

          In order to become successful in our ever-advancing technological society a young citizen must be able master fluency in the dominant discourse, although they are constantly bombarded with the latest overnight You Tube sensation, which suggests that all it takes is a flashy display of sass and a seemingly witty catch phrase. An effective educator is not only aware of what we have to compete with but knows how to embrace the youth-culture trends and incorporate them into their pedagogical strategies.   I believe that knowledge is power, a point I make clear to them almost daily.  As educators we must make our students’ learning accessible and inclusive by keeping our teaching relevant and relatable. An educator must create an environment where learning is safe yet dynamic as well as rigorous yet relatable.

In accordance to my teaching philosophy, I believe that the most important elements to creating a safe and comfortable learning environment is by commanding mutual trust and respect from the students and maintaining student participation by motivating and encouraging the students to take charge of their own learning by making them always feel included and connected to the learning material and process. 

            In my experience both as a student and educator in the N.Y.C. public school system, students can sense the authenticity of the educational experience they are receiving. In other words they see where you are coming from and either appreciate the validity of the experience or not.  I believe that herein lays the motivation and encouragement necessary for students to successfully receive the education they deserve.  They are therefore more inclined to participate in the lesson at hand.

           After three years of teaching at The High School of Arts and Technology I came to reflect on my teaching; where I had been and where I will go. Reading and writing instruction is probably the main reason I became an educator. After many years of pursuing a career in the arts and sustaining that lifestyle, I reached a crossroad, which caused me to deeply ponder my life choices. I realized that if I was going to help make a difference in the world, it would be by helping those who grow up with cultural and economic disadvantages, just as myself.

           This experience is the driving force in my career choices today; it is what brought me to The High School of Art and Technology, and why I have been determined to become the most effective English Language Arts teacher I can become. It is in this pursuit that my philosophy is grounded. I hope to reach some deeper understanding of how I can most effectively facilitate academic success in my students.

           Through my teaching experience, so far, I have determined that literacy is the key to academic success. This acquisition requires that students make authentic connections with the prescribed curricula, in other words students must be motivated to engage with curricular texts across content areas. According to Braunger, J. and Lewis, J., “Engagement presumes motivation, interest, and purpose, even emotional involvement” (2005). I believe that every student has the potential to be academically successful regardless of socio- economic background, aptitude or ability. The key to this acquisition is the facilitation of meaning making; without this key component students will continue to struggle in this endeavor. Students must ultimately be interested in what they are reading to successfully absorb the intended content and respective skills. Academic curricula must be rigorous.  This is where academic discipline comes into play. Over the years I have also determined that effective teachers must not only engage students but balance interest with discipline and rigor. Students should be constantly reading and writing, as well as discussing their reading and writing. Teachers must make these expectations clear to the students. Students must know that the more consistently they work, the more successful they will be, both academically, and in their future. “Teachers need to provide as much reading and writing instruction as they can. Both should be taught daily” (Shanahan 1988, p 637). I therefore make certain that every student reads and writes on a daily basis in my class, and that reading, and writing is assessed and constructively given feed-back upon.

     In my three years as a full-time English Language Arts teacher I have come across many different theories and approaches to instruction, both in research analysis and in the pedagogical field. Many at times seem to contradict each other.  I have had the opportunity to evaluate some of these theories and pedagogical strategies through their application in my own teaching. One research-based theory I have implemented is thematic teaching for English Language Learners and older students, making what you do as a reader and writer visible to your struggling students, and making meaning of and during the reading process. My underlying belief is that reading, although a technical process actually comes from the heart. I believe that a reader must ultimately connect to the text in order to make meaning out of it. This will ultimately motivate the reading and keep the reader invested in the quest to connect and make meaning out of the world around them through language and text. Of course, the teacher’s role as facilitator is also of the utmost importance, as I strive to create an optimal learning environment and choose the instructional strategies that will best serve my students.

As far as academic performance, on average, 10% of my students perform at above grade level, a little less than 50% of them are perform at grade level, and the rest are performing at various points below grade level. I feel that a great percentage of these students could definitely perform better; a major issue for these students is behavior, lack of motivation or focus, and a weak commitment to completing assignments in a timely manner. 

            In my practice, I have found overwhelming evidence that struggling students, and students in generally respond, and thus perform better when content is approached from a thematic standpoint. Research by York and Follo (1993) suggested that children learn more from thematic integrated teaching than from traditional single subject curriculum. My ELA curriculum for the past five years has been based on a textbook series called Collections, published by the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.   The textbook is arranged into six collections, which can essentially be instructed as units. The units are correlated by theme, for example the Ninth Grade Collection, Unit 1 was called “Finding common Ground and included texts like Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country”, A. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and Eboo Patel’s “Making the Future Better Together”.  This allows for entry points for all students regardless of academic performance level. At the end of each unit the students completed a performance task, which entailed stringing together 3 of the many texts we read during the 7-week unit through a written response. For example the students wrote an analytical essay where they used textual evidence from 3 texts of their choice to show how each related to Kofi Anaan’s quote, “We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race”. The students were given a week to assemble and write the essay. I am satisfied to report that most of the students, about 85 %, scored 80 or above.

            Through my experience I can acknowledge that older students and English Language Learners improve literacy best through thematic learning, as opposed to phonetic instruction, therefore in order to make sure that my students are constantly engaged with the curricular texts I do my best to select the texts within these curricular units that my students can relate to. In addition because these units are arranged thematically, differentiation is made easier. However I have on occasion selected text that are not within the selections but are relevant thematically and are more culturally relatable to my students.

With all considered the most valuable decision I have made within my commitment to my students is to value the minds and hearts of my students. I truly believe that each and every one of them is uniquely intelligent and it is of the utmost importance that I convey this confidence in them, even when they fall short of my expectations. It is only when a student feels valued and considered that he or she will rise to the challenge that you set in front of them and ultimately succeed.  

Reflection

        Throughout my semesters in the adolescent literacy program thus far, my understanding of the definition of literacy has evolved. My knowledge about literacy instruction has become more specialized. More importantly I have acquired fundamental skills to implement the theories and strategies for more effective and differentiated literacy instruction. Over the recent two and a half years I have become more secure in my expertise for the improvement of the literacy skills of second language learners, language minority students and struggling readers. My understanding of what literacy is has evolved to include the idea that literacy is not just reading and writing.

Looking Backwards

        In EDLIT 730- Language Literacy and Culture, I learned that as educators who must assess students' literacy skills, we must consider that our students communicate and achieve so much more than what they put on paper. For example, students come to our classrooms daily with several types of literacy, such as functional, media and multicultural literacy. Therefore, as educators, we must always consider the strengths our students bring with them, instead of focusing on their weaknesses, in order to build on their literacy skills.

        In EDLIT 756- I learned how to administer several types of formative assessment, such as running records and spelling inventories. These have been proving useful, thus far as they help us determine benchmarks and goals for literacy instruction.

         In EDLIT 753 I learned strategies to teach writing. I learned that when teaching different types of writing we as literacy educators must always model what we do when writing. For example sharing a personal narrative we have written ourselves and walking students throughout the process of choosing what to write about can motivate students to begin writing their own.

         In EDLIT 755 I learned the importance of knowing when to teach phonemic awareness or phonics, as it is one of the fundamental components of achieving reading fluency. However, as research has shown, teaching phonological awareness and phonics to secondary students isn't as worthwhile because it undermines their motivation and teaching thematically is much more worthwhile. 

Looking Inward

        I have grown and changed as a learner by realizing that good teachers never stop learning. Educators must always be reflexive and keep a growth mindset about our teaching, as teaching should mirror how we ourselves learn. The minute we think we know everything about teaching literacy, is the minute we stop considering our students' best interest. A significant/influential experience that changed the way I think about myself as a learner was in my 10th grade ELA class in which we had a push in ESL teacher. Prior to this, I would have probably not considered using scaffolds such as sentence stems or explicit vocabulary instruction, as I felt that all high school student, should be beyond needing such scaffolds at the secondary level. Within those two semesters I learned how beneficial such scaffolds were for many of my students, not just my ELLs.

Looking Outward

My learning at Hunter has impacted my teaching and my students’ learning because most of the coursework was relevant to what was occurring at the time within my classrooms. For example, learning to conference with students about their reading and writing, as well as conducting running records and spelling inventories helped me to understand more clearly my students strengths and weaknesses. This allowed me to more effectively plan for instruction that benefitted their learning, it motivated my students to want to do better as well.

Looking Forward

My short-term goals at the moment are to learn to more effectively implement literature circles and other cooperative learning strategies in my classroom in order to teach my students how to lead their own academic discussions. I am focused on this particular type of literacy strategy because I feel that I have not fully mastered the implementation and facilitation of it successfully. I also feel that once accomplished this strategy will yield the most results as far as the students’ self-motivation and sufficiency in literacy.

My long-term goals are to gain more knowledge and experience in leading and collaborating with, colleagues in developing professionally to ultimately inspire and motivate more students in need of literacy improvement.