Module 1: Instructional Challenge

Ok, so I had to Google the reading passage about Christopher Columbus; although over the years I have been familiarized with the events of Columbus discovering America, oddly enough it was not on my mind when I read the passage. 

If I were reading this passage with students, we would first make a list of things that they could remember or have heard about Christopher Columbus, then we would discuss metaphor and how it is used in literature to create imagery, finally we would discuss vocabulary words and what they think some of the unfamiliar words mean, perhaps even by way of a “heard it, know it, use it” activity.

When the content you are responsible for teaching is completely unfamiliar and doesn’t conveniently fit within your students’ existing schemas, you must spend copious amounts of time preparing them for the readings, lectures, discussions, and activities.  Often the actual reading of text takes a backseat to the priority of introducing and explaining what it will be about.  I had a student last year who was terrified of the doctor’s office and would not set foot in the clinic or allow the nurse to come near her.  When she came to school with a scrape and I approached her with a band aid, she would not allow me to apply it.  Knowing this child has a love of stickers, I convinced her that it was just a “sticker for her boo-boo,” and she wore it the rest of the day.  Since she had band aids in an existing schema from the doctor’s office and the unpleasantness that happens there, I helped her to also place them into a new schema that was not as unpleasant for her.     

I believe that students should not be asked to be responsible for information that is completely inappropriate, therefore they should not spend much time on texts that will not fit anywhere within their existing schemas.  However, for the sake of meeting standards it is our responsibility to help them make connections and understand at least what the texts are about, and to also try to engage and motivate interest where perhaps there was none.