Welcome
Welcome to my electronic portfolio. This portfolio is an opportunity for me to share my passion for English and teaching, while also displaying the knowledge and the skills that I have developed over the last five years at Virginia Tech. My portfolio gives others a chance to learn about my personal philosophies on teaching, learning, literacy, and writing. Others also have the opportunity to view teaching artifacts that I have designed to meet both INTASC and NCTE standards, my thoughts on community involvement, and my resume. Finally, I have also devoted a section of my portfolio to my experiences in professional development. For your convenience, I have included a sample unit plan, a poetry writing sequence, and a video conveying the things I learned during my student teaching experience below. I hope that you will enjoy my electronic portfolio as it attempts to reveal a journey in teaching that has only just begun.
My Teaching Philosophy
I am guided by a three-word process in my teaching: visualize, reflect, engage.
Visualize
When my students are learning a new writing concept, or when they are reading a new text, I encourage them to ponder what the ideas presented look like. Often, I include free-writing journal entries, drawing exercises, or classroom discussion during this visualizing step. The initial visualizing activities promote connections between both students' lives and the English curriculum, as well as between students' background knowledge and the new material presented. For example, during a To Kill A Mockingbird unit, students wrote a journal entry describing a mentor that they were guided by as a child in order to understand the significance of the relationship between the novel's protagonist and her influential childhood mentor. In this way, my teaching encouraged students to examine their own unique experiences to explore another's point of view, a theme that resonates throughout the pages of To Kill A Mockingbird. When learners take a moment to visualize, they deepen their understanding and internalize new information.
Reflect
I believe that there is power in reflection for young learners. After I encourage students to visualize new ideas, I ask them to pause and reflect on the purpose of this new information and what it could mean for their future reading and writing. During a poetry writing sequence, my students and I participated in whole class discussions following each of the three writing activities. Our class pondered the following questions: What do found poems help us do as writers? What made writing a guided portrait poem easier than a found poem? In what ways have the first two poems prepared you all for writing a sonnet? Reflection during class provides students with time to make lasting connections between texts, writers, and concepts. I incorporate time for both quiet, individual-oriented reflection, as well as small-group and whole class reflection in my lessons to keep learners thinking about how the English curriculum connects to their lives and the real-world outside.
Engage
I view learning as an active process. While I do want my students to cognitively explore a new concept or idea, I also want my students to do something with what they have gained as a result of their learning. I believe in engaging students in meaningful assignments in which they actively manipulate new information to show their critical thinking, analytical, and organizational skills which demonstrate their growth as learners. I support my students and the unique journeys they each have made in the classroom through consistent feedback and one-on-one conferences. During a To Kill A Mockingbird unit, each of my students designed a scrapbook for either Jem or Scout Finch. This assignment gave students an opportunity to reveal the novel's larger themes, character relationships, symbols, and plot development through the eyes of a protagonist. Each scrapbook provided a different perspective presented through creative letters, obituaries, newspaper articles, postcards, and various item artifacts that students generated. I believe that engagement gives students the chance to extend their learning and, most importantly, it reminds each learner of the unique gifts they possess and what they are capable of accomplishing.
I would like to take a moment to thank my mother, the woman who has inspired me to follow my dreams and devote my life to serving others. Her spirit, courage, and passion for learning continue to influence my life. My hope is that I can be the charismatic teacher to my students that she has been to me.
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