Sam Hval - ENGL 493

Assessment is one of those topics that appears to be daunting to me at first, but the more I think about it, and the more I read about it, the more I feel comfortable with it. I don’t think it’s really as tricky as topic as some people like to make it out to be. The handout provided offered some really good in depth looks at the different ways teachers can assess their students’ knowledge and understanding. It took a very neutral stance, investigating the pros and cons of all kinds of approaches. There wasn’t any tactics of assessment that I found particularly abhorrent. They all work in their own ways. I just think in order to have good assessment there needs to be a common, solid ground to base the assessment on. That’s where the debate comes to. This leads to the article about standards based grading. I think standards based grading, on a philosophical level, is a sound way to approach assessment. The issue arises when we talk about what specifically the standards are, and wh...

There was nothing about this template that really stood out to me. A lot of the practices and ideas are things students will come in contact with through class curriculum either way (at least, that would be my hope). It's extensive and wordy but at least it's very thorough and direct with the approach here. A student looking for detailed information about concepts like "rhetoric", "drafting", and "pre-reading" will find this template useful. But as a teacher, many of these concepts have already been burned into my brain. My approach to lessons will come naturally to look similar to this template, as well as the instruction that I give my students. The section that did interest me the most (and that I would find most beneficial for students to know about) was "Annotating and Questioning the Text" on page 10. Specifically, I liked how it said: "In rereading, it is helpful if students read 'against the grain,' or 'play the...

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the fictionalized autobiography of author Robert M. Pirsig and his alter-ego narrator “Phaedrus” published in 1974. The book chronicles a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to Northern California taken by the author and his son, Chris. The trip is broken up by sections of philosophical discussions the author calls “Chautauquas”. The main topic the narrator discusses is what he deems the “Metaphysics of Quality”. This philosophical journey of discovering what Quality is, and how to define it, parallels the trials he and his son face along the road trip. All the while, Pirsig also flashes back to the past through a third-person narrative of Phaedrus, a college English professor whose path to discovering the true meaning of Quality and value eventually drives him insane. He is sent to an asylum and treated with electroconvulsive therapy which gives birth to a new personality: the narrator of the book. The book becomes a harrowing tale of the re...

My experience with Common Core begins with my high school education, where I was able to see firsthand the standards reforms happening in Washington State. At the time, the idea of Common Core State Standards was off-putting for a majority of my fellow students. We seemed to collectively agree that the standards appeared to be restricting our learning and creativity. But over time, as the standards have continued to be developed, and the implementation of those standards evolves, Common Core has become more palatable for me. The reading explains the goal of Common Core best when they quote, "standards provide a definition of what is possible, but standards are not curriculum documents". I think this sentiment is extremely important in understanding what the goal of Common Core standards are. Though my personal philosophy about education wouldn't include something like the state standards, they are a necessary and deeply integrated part of the public school system. Future...

I have had a fortunately diverse and stimulating experience with graphic novels over the years. While I'm not an avid consumer of them, I always try to read any that I find interesting when I get the chance. Most recently, I read a series of volumes called "Saga" by Brian K. Vaughn. It quickly became my new favorite graphic novel because of its literary power and consistent quality. This connects to my overall feeling that graphic novels should definitely be considered for classroom use. Sometimes, I feel like the resistance or apprehension toward graphic novels as a valid/useful form of literature comes from a lack of knowledge of them. Just as much literary effort is put into a graphic novel as a written novel. The scripts for each issue have to be written out. Every action, every word, and every development of the narrative is dictated by the writer(s) in the scripting process. The illustration serves as an extra layer to communicate those aspects. Just because the m...

    From the start, the most interesting aspect of the article was the idea that the most productive and insightful discussion occurs among a group when the "ground rules" have been set. This includes expectations of how to behave, what to talk about, and how to talk go about with the discussion. I think it's easy for us to assume that a discussion can just begin by gathering together and asking a question or something simple like that. But really we know as students ourselves that everyone wants to know what to talk about. Setting the ground rules and the expectations will also help quieter members of the group speak up and gain confidence and security in knowing they will be heard. The more prepared the discussion leader AND the members of the discussion are, the better and more productive the discussion will be. Everyone will be on the same page and in the same mindset.     One of the ideas for discussion activities that piqued my curiosity was the "rotating gro...