Creative Writing & Contemporary Literature (Grade 12)

As this was a new prep for my Cooperating Teacher, I helped to co-create much of this course's content and structure, and began to teach class periods beginning in the first week of the semester. My biggest takeaway from teaching this course was about creating classroom community and giving high quality feedback. We spent the first 1-2 weeks of class discussing the concepts of constructive criticism and the importance of having a comfortable classroom community, since writing can be a very personal activity. The class generated their own rules about what was and was not helpful, and debating how to be respectful while still being critical. Having a student-generated list of guidelines really helped the students engage and feel comfortable in the classroom, and encouraged them to give more honest feedback on each others' works. It also helped them to trust that the feedback they were getting from my cooperating teacher and myself was honest and helpful. They also were able to frequently work together in peer revision groups, collaborative story-writing teams, and other contexts. Eventually, our classroom became a really supportive, collaborative space where students felt comfortable asking for help, guidance, feedback from their teachers and one another. It was really rewarding and encouraging to see the way that the students trusted one another and their teachers, and is what I hope all of my future classes get to share in as well.

British Literature & Composition (Grade 11)

I think the biggest thing I learned while teaching this course was how to effectively lead discussions as well as how to fairly and respectfully moderate student debates. Because the first marking period was based around dystopian novels at a time that felt like it could be the start of a new and dramatic YA dystopian novel (election year, global pandemic, following BLM protests of summer 2020), there were many differing points of view in our classroom. I am a firm believer that one of the biggest skills a person should learn is how to engage respectfully in conversation with people of different views, so providing students with a space to disagree with one another over questions like "what does it mean to be happy? is having the 'ideal life' possible? when does advertisement become propaganda? are the consequences of fame more good or bad and why?" was really good practice for them. It also taught me how to play devils advocate well, how to make room for students who are less comfortable sharing to speak, and how to avoid letting the spark of creativity/discussion become a blazing inferno of tension and disagreement.

AP Literature & Composition (Grade 12)

I spent the most time observing this class because this was an AP course, so the syllabus was rigorous and highly structured: my cooperating teacher needed to be in control of the way classes were run so that our students would be prepared for the AP exam at the end of the year. I was, however, still able to participate by giving a lot of one on one support to students, co-teaching a couple of lessons, and providing feedback on writing assignments and practice tests. I found the time I spent observing this course really valuable as it helped me to see new was of challenging high achieving students and seeing the high-quality, very specific feedback my cooperating teacher gave on these assignments. At the end of my semester with them, I was given the opportunity to teach a unit on short fiction, which was great practice in always having more material prepared than I expected to need.