Chapter 14: Planning the Lesson

Yea! I am so glad that this chapter begins by telling us all: “We want to fill that gap by articulating the intermediate steps that we and others take to transform theories about English teaching into practice” (388). I needed the reassurance that I will have at least one resource ready to help me, in addition to the wide, wide world of the internet, in planning my lessons for student teaching. I have an entire semester to plan for and I have never really had experience making practical plans that I will actually implement in a classroom with real live kids. I have decided to take this chapter and let it be a guide for the planning of my HAT project for this class, and the basis for my lesson planning for student teaching.
My experience will begin this semester with the teaching of Huckleberry Finn to Juniors and a bit of Humanities to Seniors. I will be substitute teaching during this time for the teacher I am observing, and I have been given to opportunity to design my own lessons and teach them however I would like. I will definitely implement the six-step lesson plan, though not a rigid version of this, because it will give me the security of knowing that I have thought out the process of the lesson, considered my goals for the day, and not left out anything important. I say that I will not follow this model in a rigid manner because I am always open to discussion with the students, and I will allow for teachable moments should they come up at any time during my teaching. This is really a unique opportunity because I have been given free reign to try some new, exciting things for students with whom I have already become quite familiar. One of my ideas, which is borrowed from Sara Kadjer, is to create a map of the journey of Huck Finn, having students design the map and plotting the route throughout the novel. This will serve as a great tool in teaching for me, and also as a resource for the students in preparation for their assessments on the novel.
My favorite model for instruction that is presented in this chapter is the “Individualization, Interaction, and Integration” method. This reminds us as teachers to leave much of the work up to students by allowing them to take time to grasp individual meanings from the lessons we provide. It also reminds us to encourage the communication of new ideas and thoughts on the subjects at hand so that the students can show us what they have learned, and how we may need to improve the subsequent lessons to address areas with which the students had trouble. The last thing about this model, which is my absolute favorite idea, reminds us as teachers to relate the material we are teaching to issues outside the classroom, which will help answer the inevitable question: “Why are we doing this? What does it have to do with my life? When will I ever use this again?”
The next section tells me that I should always prepare and outline for teaching, everyday. I believe that this is totally necessary for a smooth lesson, and to help remind me not to forget key ideas. My greatest model for this so far has been Pam Jett, Assistant Principal at Oldham County High School. She was my instructor over the summer for General Methods, and she had an outline prepared everyday, which helped her to stay organized, and to flow from one item to the next without fail. I thought that she was just really proficient at teaching, and was not working from an outline because she never let on to our class that she was reading from it, or even referring to it. It was there, nonetheless, and she told me later that she wouldn’t feel prepared without it. Also, if certain lessons work for me, I can always save them for the next school year, and tweak them as necessary for the new students.
I appreciated the warning from the book also; this was an honest moment in the life of a teacher. The book advises us to go to experienced teachers to ask them what works when it comes to time management and dealing with the sheer number of papers that float around everywhere in a teacher’s life. It also tells us to realize that as new teachers we will make mistakes, plenty of them, but to use them as teaching tools to help refine our best practices. I think this is real, practical advice, and I will keep this chapter handy for the upcoming assignments we will have in class.