Teacher Moment

Last night as I was reading a book about creating quality lessons, I had a teacher moment. I envisioned myself teaching a literature lesson. We were having a whole class discussion about a book and I was trying to pull examples of themes, found in the book, from my students. I imagined asking one of my students to recall what a theme is and share it with the class. Then I would elaborate on that definition and ask for students to share their thoughts about what themes may be present in the book, as I create a brainstorm model on the board with their answers. I imagined a student responding with a portion of the plot and me replying with appropriate feed back: “that is an excellent observation Jimmy, however rather than a theme, you shared a portion of the plot.” Then I would differentiate the definition of a theme and a plot and suggest we use Jimmy’s plot observation as a platform for building on to find the theme. I would use a visual model of the building blocks of a story, say a pyramid.

I would then use Jimmy’s example (a small fragment of the whole) to find the individual elements involved in that portion of the plot, then as a group, determine what we think the theme to that segment of the story could be. Once I felt the students understood, we would then start brainstorming other themes present in the novel. At the end of the instruction portion, I would encourage any questions and ask students to write the models from the board in their writer’s notebook, as reference for their assignment.
The assignment would be to use the themes present in the story to find a angle in which the story is relatable on a personal level and write about it in their journals. What I would be expecting is identification of the chosen theme, and explanation of why that theme was chosen, 2-3 valid comparisons between the story and the personal experience as it relates to the chosen theme and a conclusion which states at least one valuable insight that the student can grow from that was discovered while analyzing the similarities.
This of course was just an imaginary account of how I might approach a lesson on literary analyses of theme and teach children how they can find deeper meaning within works of literature. This is an example of why it would be great to work with 4th- 8th grade because of the possibilities for more complex lessons and assignments.
Since I haven’t gotten into any methods courses yet and have nothing to go on except some basics on educational theory, I often feel as if my path is blocked by a giant question mark. I have a good general understanding of administrative structure, educational policy, educational style/approaches, theories on teaching diverse learners, inclusion, classroom management, room set up and the general responsibilities of teachers. But vary rarely do I get any sense of what executing any of this is actually like, how does it all come together into a meaningful experience for students? What will I say when I am standing at the front of the room with all those eyeballs focused on me? I really try to put myself in as many imaginary situations as I can but when there is missing knowledge and no understanding of curricular requirements, those teacher moments don’t feel complete. I have so far to go yet, but at least it’s a vision that I can hold and build on, something to bring me closer to closing the gap between theory and practice.