English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 5, May 2010 “ EJ in Focus: Collaboration and Social Interactions in English Classrooms

 

This article focuses on the concept that our social interactions influence our writing and how we perceive certain ideas. Social interactions are the foundatio to learning and acquiring skills. The article relates social interaction and learning with interacting in game forums; players, regardless if they play alone or with someone else, need to communicate and exchange information in order to become

skilled at the game. While game forums will not be used in my classroom, this article reiterates the importance of group work in the classroom; group work forces students to collaborate and bring together different ideas and in the process of collaboration students are retaining information they did not know prior.

 

English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 5 May 2010 “Student Voices: What Positive Lessons Have You Learned From English Class about Working with Other People?

 

This articles focuses on the positive team building that arises from group work and having a positive view of oneself. Often, group work can be a cumbersome task and force students to work with others that they would not choose to work with outside of the class, but it is important to change this common mindset. The mindset for group work needs to be positive in order to achieve anything and group work can relate to real world experiences; group work is often similar to working at a job because there are employees that you may not mesh with, but need to collaborate with for the job. This article is a helpful tool to use in my

classroom because I often avoid group work, but I think it can be extremely beneficial and promote classroom comfort.

 

English Journal, Vol. 96, No. 4 March 2007 “Teaching with Passion, Learning by Choice”

 

This article discusses the concept that one school put into place: mini lessons. This school developed a list of topics and had their entire student body fill out a top three for mini lessons; once the students generated their lists, the faculty put together a list of class that will be offered and the periods available. The students then were put into an English class that was teaching the mini lesson that they wanted to learn about. I think this concept is an extremely bold move for a school and takes a lot of planning and organizing, but I love it. I think this concept can be scaled down to just my classroom. I can give the students a list of topics and have the students write down their top three and then incorporate mini lessons regarding the topic.

 

http://mediasmarts.ca/sites/mediasmarts/files/pdfs/lesson-plan/Lesson_Sex_Advertising.pdf

 

This lesson plan involves sexuality and the media. In society today media is one of the number one contributors to promoting sexuality and I think it is crucial to discuss this topic. This lesson plan helps students understand how media falsely portrays sexuality and how it is restricted to only the physical aspect of sexuality.

 

http://lessonplanspage.com/olafemininityandmasculinitygenderissuesclub1112-htm/

 

This lesson plan focuses on the issues that arise from gender roles and how society forces people to fit into restricted categories. I think this lesson plan will be helpful in getting students to understand and better define who they are outside of typical gender roles.

 

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/storage/advfy/documents/chapter1.pdf

 

 This lesson plan helps students form a sense of identity, become aware of their positive attributes, and identify potential strengthens. Students are at crucial age of development and can often be too critical of themselves, so I think this lesson helps promote positive self image and self awareness.