Group Work

I think that group work prepares students for real life. When they go into the workplace they will not get to choose the people that they work with. They will have to know how to collaborate and compromise. They will know how to overcome conflict. This can be taught through group projects.

Preparing Students to be Life-Long Learners

I think it is important to instill in students a love for reading and an ability to share their ideas and opinions in a competent manner. This can be done through debates, essays, discussions, book reports, and a variety of others ways. I will attempt to use all of these and more in my classroom to encourage my students to develop their critical thinking skills. Encouraging every student to love reading will be beneficial throughout their lifetime and enable them to be life long learners.

Making Connections

1) Making connections between Literature and real life is important. Literature holds a mirror up to reality and is intended to teach the reader some form of truth.

2) Making connections with other people through a shared love of books and poetry whether it is in the classroom or across the globe via blogging is important. Increasing literacy and sharing knowledge improves quality of life.

3) Making connections between English class and other subjects. Associative thinking is modern. It increases students creativity and it helps them see how everything fits together and how each subject that they study is important.

Writing Skills

Teaching my students how to make arguments and to support them is important. This is a skill that my students will need no matter what they go on to do after they leave my classroom. Writing eloquently allows them to make interesting and convincing arguments.

Making Learning Fun

Making learning fun is important because I want students to love literature. I want them to retain what we talk about in class so that they can pull it out of their brains and talk about it at their jobs or write about it in their future essays. Even if the knowledge is only useful to impress future employers at dinner parties, it's still worth it. As John Henry Newman said, "knowledge is it's own end." A liberal education creates a well rounded individual.

Blogging

Blogging gives students an international audience. Increasing my students' global awareness is important to me because our society across the globe is becoming more connected. Students who have an awareness of the "global village" will have an advantage over others who don't when it comes to finding jobs.