This semester has been quite an
interesting experience; apart from my student teaching, which solidified my
desire to become a high school English teacher, this course has signified the
importance of including varying modalities in the teaching process. I enjoyed
diving into the five projects that we did, including the two essays, the two
presentations, and the poetry writing assignment. In the beginning of the
semester, when I first looked at the syllabus, the creative writing project
scared me the most; it was not a task I was looking forward to, but in
retrospect, the two poetry pieces and the poetry analysis paper were the two
projects that I appreciated the most. The creative writing component allowed me
to break out of my comfort zone and create two poetry pieces of differing
styles; I prefer literary analysis to the creative process, but reversing my
usual writing task was refreshing, and a definite learning experience.
The collaborative group
presentations, both the mythology and the media literacy, were fun, interactive
projects with the extra twist of actually having to turn it into a lesson plan
for students. I think the teaching aspect was probably the most challenging
component of the presentations, for understanding and mastering content is only
the beginning stage of being a successful teacher. I think we constantly blur
the lines of being a good educator, with being an expert in our field; however,
this is not the case-especially in secondary education where the content has to
be made accessible to students of varying capabilities, prior knowledge, and
learning styles. I enjoyed the mythology presentation a bit more than the media
literacy project, purely because of the content, but it could have something to
do with slightly misunderstanding the expectations of the project; I thought we
had to create a lesson plan which included varying media literacies within and
present it in that format, whereas we actually had to show students how to use
a form of media communication. I’m glad that Dr. Wexler didn’t hold this
against us J
I found the world text analysis
paper to be the most challenging assignment of this semester; connecting the
film Slumdog Millionaire to the
provided sources was not a simple task, but one which required some serious
analysis and critical applications. Correlating the larger dialogue of
capitalism, utopia, globalization, and the American Dream with the social and
monetary struggles of the young characters from the film was quite intriguing.
I have watched the film several times before, and find it interesting that
American/English directors always choose to portray the poverty and slums of
India, which serves as a drastic contrast to the positive, vibrant, and
didactic approach of Bollywood. As an avid viewer of Indian cinema, I can
understand why young Jamal took the drastic action to get Amitabh Bachchan’s
autograph, which escalates Salim’s cruelty in selling it off. Crafting a thesis
statement for this essay took several hours of quality time with the texts and
the film, but it was a process that allowed me to view and understand the film
from several perspectives.
Apart from the student-centered
class discussions, and creative projects, I found the blog component of this
course a pleasantly original element, and one that contributed to the
interactive/collaborative model of this class. It was great to have all our
assignments in one place; the blog chronicled our work for the entire semester,
but also created a collaborative unit among our class-members. It was
fascinating to see the different approaches that everyone took with the same
projects and topics. I would love to use this model in my future class, and
understand why our Freshmen Composition professors choose to incorporate blogs
in Project Web; it may seem irrelevant or untraditional at first, but it
definitely broadens the outlook on composing and sharing work.
English 495 ESM was a fun and
interactive course; I found Dr. Wexler’s chosen texts and projects relevant to
us as students and future educators. I genuinely see myself utilizing the
resources gained during this course in my upcoming semesters.
Happy Graduation to those of you
who are graduating, and a very Happy Summer Break to everyone!
-Arpine J
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