I’m not a very good student this week. I have to be honest that the readings didn’t interest me. Why? Because I hope to never have to teach reading. I know the class is all about teaching students how to read literature. As a teacher I have become very good at adapting most of what I learn to work in my classroom with what I teach, and that is what I have done so far in this course. I actually enjoy adapting lesson plans. Last week I took the 3 column note taking method and taught my students to take notes about photography using this strategy (don’t worry I learned other things too). This week though I had trouble getting myself excited about Linkon.
So as I dove into the reading I had to remind myself that my students do, or course, have to read for my class. Through out the reading there were places that Linkon identified a teacher doing something without the students’ knowledge of the process the teacher innately followed. For example Linkon discusses a teacher doing research to find multiple readings of a text or a teacher analyzing a text and then presenting his or her findings. Linkon expresses the importance of letting the students see our process. The article says, “The processes of thinking are often invisible to both the students and the teacher” (256). I find this so true in my own classroom. It can be hard for teachers to teach the process when for most of us the process comes very easily. I often have trouble translating my thinking process to my students when it comes to certain things. As Linkon suggests I think it is a wonderful idea to have the teacher teach students the process.
After reading this article I have begun thinking about demonstrating and modeling more to my students, and still including lots of hands on activities where they can apply their knowledge. Tomorrow my students will learn about interviewing and I plan on involving a new lesson where I conduct an interview in front of them and then I will let them practice interviewing me before I set them loose on their own.