As I look back over my three years in the Humanities department, I can consider three very distinct teaching experiences.  Each was shaped in part by my teaching partner, as well as the students we served and the guidelines put in place by the Humanities director.

 

My first year was marked by a significant amount of freedom.  My teaching partner and I created a curriculum we were proud of, one that addressed what we viewed as students’ greatest needs in terms of both academic skills and the current world order.  We studied the Middle East in depth, spent a significant amount of time on China, and gave over two months to looking at Africa, both during the European colonization and in its current state.  We read some great titles that are not typically included at the freshman year, and made a point of requiring students to master world geography.  With regard to writing, students wrote a lot.  They journaled, did creative writing, crafted narratives and engaged in persuasive writing.  The writing process was emphasized, and students were asked to revise particular pieces based on feedback.  I also took advantage of the team teaching model to work with students individually by pulling kids out for individual meetings.  When the year ended, my partner and I were satisfied that we had done a good job preparing our students.

 

My second year in the Humanities was marked by the mandates of the Humanities director, who felt that our previous work with Africa, China and the Middle East was not ideal for freshmen.  As a consequence of the requirements put in place, a great deal of the content in our course changed.  Additionally, we faced the challenge of teaching Basic freshmen.  Working with these new limits was a bit frustrating.  We spent significant time simply teaching our Basic freshmen to meet the minimal expectations for classroom behavior, a necessary process, but one that took time away from writing instruction.  With the increased content for our Accelerated students, there was less writing.  One of the few positives that came from this year was the creation of rubrics for writing assignments that helped clarify expectations to the Accelerated students about the qualities of good writing in the various modes.

 

This past year began with the introduction of a new partner.  Teaching with Peter has been a good experience, and I look forward to developing our partnership in years to come.  Peter provides a good balance to our teaching team.  Peter is far more comfortable than I at lecturing (I tend to prefer the coaching model of teaching), he is very structured, and he is possesses the critical ability of being able to clarify my thought process to the students when I get excited and forge ahead too quickly.  Peter and I also share a love of planning and lesson design, a commitment to standards-based instruction, and a sense of fun.  I think we make a great team.

 

With a new partner, I was able to push for splitting the class twice a week in order to make time for a weekly writing workshop with a smaller group of students.  This made writing a more focused piece of the course curriculum, allowed for more direct instruction on writing skills, and ultimately resulted in improved student writing, as evidenced in their exam scores and course feedback.

 

Peter and I have committed to taking time this summer to revamp the Humanities course.  When I reviewed the course standards at the end of the year, I noted that very few were being formally assessed by the course’s required assessments.  I shared this with Peter, and then we began brainstorming ways to ensure that all standards were being assessed in summative assessments.  His assignment for the first half of the summer is to create guidelines for a final assessment that asks students to create an ideal civilization in an assigned geographical setting, a fun and creative assessment that was the brainchild of our D block conversations.  My own assignment is to complete guidelines for a year-long independent reading program that allows for student choice, utilizes some of the format of literature circles, and promotes a wider engagement with key course themes while encouraging increased reading, and the opportunity for practicing the skills and concepts the students develop during our whole-class reads.  I am VERY excited about this opportunity to enrich the current curriculum.

 

With regard to writing, I plan to continue with the workshop model in the coming year.  I also plan to follow my department chair’s request that all freshman teachers cover more modes of writing, moving beyond the descriptive and narrative writing that we have focused on in the past.  To this end I will start with shorter pieces in first semester and emphasize revision and the writing process.  I will also try to tie writing more directly to content.  I will continue with rubrics, and attempt to build students’ abilities to effectively set and achieve writing goals and assess their own work.  I hope to use Canvas to store writing guides for various modes, and have students more actively collect and curate their portfolio spaces during the course of the year.

 

Peter and I have both committed to continue to strive for a balance in learning activities to access different learning styles and promote student engagement and learning.  We also plan to work to find more time to meet for planning.  Additionally, we hope to use Canvas even more efficiently for organizing course content and student assignments.  I look forward to a successful 2017-2018 year in Humanities.