Rigor

Being that my placement school was a special admissions middle school program within a high school, the students were often held to standards above their grade level. In ELA, students were writing, researching, and utilizing critical lenses to read an array of texts, both fictional and factual. Students were engaged in rigorous work in all of their classes and were expected to develop ownership and leadership of their learning. To support the high standards and rigorous work, my cooperating teacher and I incorporated elements of metacognition and critical reflection into our classes as a mode of absorbing and reasoning the skills learned in class. Metacognition is a powerful tool in the classroom for both teachers and students; when students are explicitly taught how to think about their learning and their purpose, they are more likely to absorb and comprehend their learnings. Educators, too, strengthen their lessons and methods when asking self-directed questions about class goals and materials (Tanner 2017). When we reflect on our work, experiences, and learning and understand the intention behind each, we may develop a more comprehensive understanding of materials.

As such, my cooperating teacher and I ensured that critical reflection was a fundamental piece of class. We consistently emphasized to students that the work we do in ELA is challenging, but purposeful and meaningful. Many of our class discussions were formatted to center around building empathy and learning how to learn from our own experiences and the experiences of others. Thus, critical reflection was a main tool of learning. We often thought through questions similar to those below: How did this reading make you feel or wonder about? Why are we reading these stories? What big ideas (themes) did you see in this text that we also identified in past texts? How have you grown or transformed after reading this story/ learning of these experiences? These were not supplementary questions, but rather guided questions from which students were encouraged to build their textual analyses. Students learned that their emotions, questions, and thoughts are powerful tools when learning through storytelling. Over time, students were more comfortable in asking themselves these reflection questions and articulating their answers either verbally or through writing. In this way, students learned how to use critical literacy skills and how to build their own understanding of literary skills and reading through reflection upon their learning.