portfolio // principle 1 | reflection 2

“Candidates possess the necessary content knowledge to support and enhance student development and learning.”

// interpret
This principle deals with my area of content expertise—that is, what knowledge I have that qualifies me to be a teacher of English rather than mathematics, science, or history.  Furthermore, the principle stresses the connection between this knowledge and the enhancement of student learning.  In other words, my duty as a competent English teacher is not to simply convey the content knowledge I have, but to present it in such a way that students might be engaged by and interested in the study of English—if not to the same degree as myself, then at least some degree more than when they entered my classroom.

// select
To show my use of content knowledge to enhance student learning, I have included materials used in studying a short one-act play by David Ives titled “Sure Thing.”  Specifically, the artifacts are as follows:

·         An assignment handout titled “Do Your Own ‘Sure Thing,’” which outlines a small, in-class project based on the original play.  [P1.R2.A1]
·         My own model of the assignment, dramatizing an encounter between Willy Loman (of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman) and Jay Gatsby (of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby).  [P1.R1.A2]

// describe
I studied this short play with my standard level English III students in my final week of student teaching, just before they began a longer unit on Arthur Miller’s classic play The Crucible.  Ives’ much shorter dramatic work thus served as a light, simple reintroduction to the dramatic form and its conventions before students began grappling with much more serious content.

We first staged an informal reading of the play as a class, with pairs of students taking turns acting in front of the class.  During the reading, I would occasionally stop the action to ask students various questions related to the play’s characters and devices, specifically the bell that makes it so unique.  After finishing the reading, I handed out and explained the related assignment.  Students then had the remainder of class to begin work on their projects.

The following day, before allowing the students to return to their own plays, I presented my own model of the assignment.  After acting out my play in front of the class (with the help of my mentor teacher), I explained my thought process while writing—why I chose the characters I did, how I portrayed them and made sure they were sufficiently developed—and then asked for any student questions.  Students finished their in-class work on the plays that day and presented their finished projects over the rest of the week.

// analyze
My model of the “Sure Thing” project supports this principle because it shows, quite simply, that I am able to do what I ask of my students.  If I were unsure about how to write a short play inspired by Ives’ work—or analyze poetry, or identify symbols, or discuss characterization—I would have no grounds to ask my students to do such things.  The teacher should be a knowledgeable participant in the activities of the class; in writing and presenting my model of the assignment, I fulfilled this role.

More significantly, this display of my own content knowledge enhanced students’ understanding of the project and, subsequently, their own work.  By providing students with my own model, I explained the project and my expectations of their work in a way that the assignment handout could not.  Rather than telling the students what I wanted, I showed them.  Through my use of content knowledge—that is, my understanding of Ives’ play and my ability to mimic its style in creative writing—I helped students reach a fuller understanding of the assignment and ultimately produce more sophisticated work than they otherwise might have.

// appraise
Overall, I feel the “Sure Thing” mini-unit was successful as a reintroduction to reading and understanding drama.  Reading the play reacquainted students with the format and conventions of playwriting, and it also gave me the opportunity to teach some basic theatre terminology they would later need for a project related to The Crucible.

Based on the quality of student work I received, I would also say that my model of the project clarified students’ understanding of the style and quality of work I expected.  Their plays were not only creative and entertaining, but often insightful and humorous.  The vast majority of students clearly grasped the purpose of the bell in Ives’ play (namely to repeat and revise past events) and were able to appropriately mimic its use in their own writing.  Some students may have only needed Ives’ original work as a reference in order to achieve what they did; for others, though, my model offered yet another informative example on which to base their understanding.  Had I not developed and used this model, my students’ work may not have been as strong as it was.

// transform
My only transformation of my “Sure Thing” model has to do with its implementation in class.  After performing my play for the class, I was somewhat brief in explaining my own writing process and reviewing my expectations for the assignment.  In the future, I believe the model could be more beneficial for students if they had the opportunity to engage in more extensive dialogue regarding the model, perhaps through a more formal class discussion or question-and-answer session.