final blog post

After reflecting on my semester in TE 448, I realized just how much I enjoyed the class. The classroom environment was very warm and welcoming, and I was impressed by the amount of class interaction. It was easy to express my opinions in class because I felts as though the class as a whole was very encouraging and supportive of new ideas. I feel as though my knowledge about diverse literature peeked during this class. I organization of discussion by genre was effective in my opinion. I feel that each of the books we read for class and our questioning the text papers well represented the topic that we focused on at the time. In addition, it was helpful to explore other books that fit into the genre before class and during break.
The was that class was conducted was a good model for our future teaching. The structure and organization was beneficial to all students. There was a good balance of instruction, discussion, and exploration of thoughts. The combination of small group discussion and large group discussions allowed everyone to hear multiple ideas and viewpoints. The comments, ideas, and questions presented during discussion often took my thoughts in new directions which led to further thoughts and questioning. I appreciated how some people we candid, and open because I feel that other people probably had similar thoughts, but might have been apprehensive about voicing their opinion.
The questioning the text papers were a great was to think critically about the books we read. It was also great to share them with other group members and hear their papers. It was interesting to compare the ideas and questions presented in each. After sharing our papers with our groups, it was fun to come back as a whole group to continue the discussion. It seemed as though everyone was able to contribute something different to the converstaion.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed TE 448, and feel that I will take many of the practices from the class into my own future teaching. I was able to learn about many different genres that I have never explored before. Finally, I feel like I am leaving this class with a better understanding about how to effectively choose rich and accurate diverse literature for my personal growing library.