Course Goals

At the most general level, what I hope to learn most from this course are methods for literacy instruction that I can take with me and tailor to fit my future classrooms and students. Going through the TE program at MSU, particularly having taken TE 301 and 348, I feel like I have all this literacy and literature knowledge floating around in my head, but I don't know how to connect it in meaningful ways and translate it into classroom instruction. Like we talked about on Wednesday, we need to know ourselves as teachers and learners, so I hope I will get to know myself, my learning styles, and my teaching styles better over the course of the semester. I also hope that I can break out and get more comfortable with teaching and learning styles that are different from my own. I know we don't have to respond to the "urban setting" part of the prompt but I will because next year I will be in an urban setting. I will be teaching somewhere in Chicago, either through the MSU Chicago internship program or through Teach for America. I am hoping that this course will help me prepare to be an ubran educator, particularly in terms of literacy instruction. I'm really excited to hear about Erin's experiences teaching in Chicago -- hopefully I can learn a thing or two from her experiences. What I want most is to be the kind of teacher Mr. Falker was (cheesy, but true) -- patient, genuine, willing to work hard for the sake of his students. I want to be the kind of teacher that not only desires to change a student's life, but one that actually can, and I'm hoping that this course will help me to become that kind of teacher. I know it's not something that will happen as a direct result of only this course, but I hope that this course will provide me with some tools and resources to help my future students with literacy, as well as help me to become a resource myself for my future students.