8/29 - Student Personalities and the Myers-Briggs

We started today's class with the following activity:

1 - Brainstorm adjectives that could be used to describe your personality.
(The more the better. Here is a list to work from and to inspire you: personality adjectives)

2 - Star the three adjectives which seem to best represent your personality (kind of the like the primary colors of your personality, which would the red, yellow, and blue adjectives be?).

3 - Find a partner and discuss the adjectives you chose with them (why you chose them, how those elements interact to make up your personality, stories that illustrate how you display those elements). Each partner will have two minutes to talk while the other just listens (a little silence and time to think is good).

After everyone had a chance to talk with their partner, we came back together and used a chart to help us determine more specifically what each person's personality expression was. To do this we used the four categories of the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator (see the categories here).

Next, we looked at what each person chose within each category. Our results were as follows:

Extraversion - 5 people / Introversion - 4 people
Sensing - 4 people / Intuition - 5 people
Thinking - 7 people / Feeling - 2 people
Judging - 4 people / Perceiving - 4 people (1 person right in the middle)

Everyone then looked at the four categories they had selected and read the corresponding personality type according to the Myers-Briggs type indicator description (type indicator descriptions available here)

Everyone then responded to the following prompt based on their results and the provided description:

Everyone then had time to write after which we discussed  peoples' perspectives.

Next, I handed out several papers for individuals' homework this weekend related to the Myers-Briggs test and some questions to help guide your reading and thinking with the article (see handouts below).

Note: We didn't do the test in class, we just looked at and thought about their categories and personality types. If you'd like to get a sense for what the test is like try out this free version of the Myers-Briggs.

Handouts:
SOAPS explanation
Reading: "Goodbye to the MBTI, the Fad that Won't Die"
Guided Response Questions (includes extensions questions for a possible 100)
      Extension Reading: "Measuring the MBTI... and Coming Up Short"


Homework:

Read the article "Goodbye to the MBTI, the Fad that Won't Die" and respond to the guided response questions (see handouts above).

Have a writers journal to use in English ready for Monday.

8/27-28 - Class Introduction

Our introductory class was spread across two days and was dedicated to introducing the course material and reviewing classroom policies and procedures. I also took some time to introduce myself to students and talk about my approach to English education.

We started class by having everyone watch the video below of Yngwie J. Malmsteen performing his piece "Icarus Dream Fanfare." 

Everyone responded to the following question in response to this video:

1 - What do you think of this piece of music? (Explain your response as best as you can).

I then talked about how this video represents the way in which we'll be approaching English through this class this year. The symphony representing the traditional/classic elements of an English education and the electric guitar representing new/radical materials that will be used to compliment the traditional/classic elements.

We then reviewed the course syllabus and went over other, more general classroom policies.

We then had a discussion about why we are all here at school and what various reasons contribute to even having schools in the first place. I then presented school from my own perspective as being like Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory. In this way, school is kind of like the Chocolate Factory in which students are coming in to learn how to take things over. In school, students learn everything they need to know to take the world over from the older generation (and hopefully do a better job of managing things).

Next, we looked at the poem "There Are too Many of Me" by Lucy Diggs Slowe. I read through the poem twice and then everyone responded to the following questions.

1 - What is this poem about? How do you know?

2 - What do you think of this message?

After responding to these questions, people discussed their responses with a partner and then we came together as a class and discussed everyone's responses as a class.

This discussion lead into my presentation of who I am as a teacher as we talk about the multiple selves that everyone manages in our everyday lives. I presented myself as a son, brother, uncle, husband, runner, traveler, gamer, and teacher. I then spoke about how my "teacher" self is the self that I always present at school just as everyone's "student" self is the self they are presenting in class. While this is the version of ourselves that we portray in this environment, versions of our other selves can add to and strengthen this professional self. This lead to everyone writing a letter to me about their other selves (prompt below) and how that relates to their student self.

Letters could be submitted at the end of class or finished and turned in later if need be.

(This writing is not assessed, it is just for me to get to know students).

Handouts:

Class Syllabus

"There Are too Many of Me" by Lucy Diggs Slowe

Homework:

For Monday - have a writing journal that you can use of this class (see Mr. Collins if this is difficult for you)