Thoughts on teaching

As I'm getting ready to student teach (filling out forms, contacting my cooperating teacher, etc) I'm thinking a lot about what and how I'll teach, and I'm also remembering a lot of what I did last year and how it applies. Or doesn't apply. Whatever.

Last year at my job, I spent a lot of time reading student essays and conferencing with the students about what they'd written and how they could make it better. I loved the opportunity for 1-on-1 feedback like that, and it's something I'd like to incorporate into my future classroom.

One funny thing, though, about teaching writing in Utah is that a lot of your students are Mormon and have only ever written Sacrament meeting talks.

For example, some of the papers I'd read went something like this:
Today I will be writing about the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States has three main sections: the Preamble, the Body, and the Bill of Rights.

The Preamble states that blah, blah, blah. (Nice paragraph here about the Preamble).

After the Preamble, the rest of the Constitution outlines how the government works and the various jobs of the various branches of government (explained nicely in a beefy paragraph here... sometimes).

The Constitution wasn't complete without the Bill of Rights, which were the first 10 amendments to the Constitution (blah blah blah).

In conclusion, I am thankful for the Constitution. The Founding Fathers were great men who worked hard to make this country what it is. I am grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy here in this wonderful land. I love America!

And then I would laugh really hard to myself as I prepared a swift critique of these Sacrament talk essays. I mean, it's great and appropriate to bear your testimony at the end of your church talk. And if your talk was about following the prophet, you could still testify of prayer and the scriptures. But in school, if you're writing a 5-paragraph expository essay, then by golly, your final paragraph shouldn't be a testimony of random, Social Studies-related facts. Hee hee.

I had a good analogy for what an introductory paragraph should be: it's like a movie trailer. You want it to be more than just a poster showing the Batman logo with Joker's makeup around it. But you also don't want it to be that 5-minute movie theatre trailer that covers all the funny and exciting part of the movie, leaving you wondering why you'd still pay money to see the whole thing.

But I struggled with explaining why you should rehash your main points in a conclusion.

Now fortunately (or unfortunately once you hear how absolutely dorky I am), I've found a good analogy for a complete 5-paragraph essay: An episode of Dancing with the Stars.

At the beginning, the annoying announcers come on and say, "Tonight we have the steamy Latin round, where each of our couples will be competing to give the spiciest samba or the most romantic rumba." This is followed by each couple walking down the glamor staircase. You hear their names, their partner's name, and you can see their costume and make a pretty good guess about the dance they'll be doing.

Then in the body of the actual show, you watch each dancer, one by one. They'll show a portion about the dancer's rehearsals that week, then they do their dance, the judges give their critiques, and then they head backstage for their scores. Samantha awkwardly interviews them about their scores, and the couple reminds you to phone in your vote. You see a glimpse of the next couple smiling and waving to the camera before we're off to a commercial break. This is the detailed part. This is where you get to know each contestant, you get to decide whether you like them or not, and whether you'd vote for them.

At the end of the show, the announcers come back on to let you know you can now vote. They show a 5-second clip of each contestant's dance, and below it is the number you'll call to vote for them. This reminds you of their dance, refreshing your memory of why you liked it or not, and motivates you to get up and vote for the winner of the Latin round.

Which is dorkier: my watching Dancing with the Stars, or my watching it enough to apply it to writing a 5-paragraph essay in school?

Um, no comment.