Affective Dimensions of Reading

Growing up, reading was always a "big deal" in my house. Every night, my parents would read some sort of book, but my favorite was "Ferdinand", or my dad would sing Willie Nelson's "Mamma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys". To this day, that song and that book are my absolute favorite. I was taught to read at a young age. I love discovering new things through books. Reading has always been fun for me and I consider myself to be a good reader. I love reading the newspaper. I know the newspaper doesn't seem all that interesting, but I love it. Growing up in the South, you kinda "adopt" family. Well, we adopted Mamaw and Papaw Underwood. Papaw and Mamaw would babysit me when my parents were at work. I learned so many things from them, but one was to enjoy reading the newspaper. My Papaw would pour a cup of black coffee, pull me up onto his knee, and we would read the paper together. Papaw smelled of old cars, animal feed, musk, and coffee. We would spend an hour every morning reading the paper together. To this day, I can't read a newspaper without thinking of Papaw.

I learned to love Western books from my grandpas and dad. They read Western book like they are going out of stock. :) When I was in middle school, I got hooked! I absolutely love reading Western books! Gone With The Wind is also one of my favorite books. I also love a good mystery book.

I can only think of a few times were reading wasn't enjoyable. Most of the times I remember are reading text books. It is a challenge for me to read text books. It seemed that textbooks were long, long, long, and boring. Whenever I would have teachers assign reading out of textbooks, I struggled! I dreaded it and would put it off till the last minute or not even read it. I also felt that some teachers didn't even discuss the reading from the textbook, reading the book was merely busy work. However, even though textbook reading isn't as enjoyable as a good Western, I don't detest reading a textbook. I have found that the last two semesters, the textbooks are more enjoyable because they relate to what I want to do.

Based on my own experiences, I want to include literature from all genres and all forms. I want to give my students an opportunity to explore their interests and develop new interests. Choices are going to be a huge factor in my classroom. Students will be able to read all sorts of books, texts, comics, etc in my classroom. I also plan to incorporate the textbook into my classroom. I don't want it to become busy work or a punishment. This will allow my students to see how interesting the text can be versus just something that they "have" to do for English class. Also, I think as students see how much reading can influence and shape their lives, that will foster good perceptions of themselves as readers. The more they enjoy reading, the better their perceptions will be. I hope to create an environment where reading is enjoyable, valued, informative, and motivational. I love reading and I hope to share that with my students.

Affective Dimensions of Writing

A Home

When I first started school, I didn’t always consider myself to be a writer. I was good at writing and I never really “hated” it, but I never thought I expressed myself or ideas through writing. It wasn’t until last semester that I began to consider myself as a writer. Crazy right!!?? I am an English major and it took me that long to consider myself a writer… I had to take a creative non-fiction writing class. My professor created an open environment and the class felt like it was a big writing circle group. The professor created a safe environment by sharing his own work and had two people every Friday share a piece of writing they were working on for the class or writing for their own benefit. We would read each others’ work, at least twice a week, and would give each other helpful feedback. Our professor even joined our writing circles. We read his work, and he read ours. It was a non-judgmental environment that allowed creative juices to flow. After establishing this environment in the classroom, we were assigned to write a paper based on a shape or picture from our past or present that had some sort of significance to us. I hadn’t written anything like that before. I was nervous but excited. I rummaged my brain for a shape or picture that had some significance to me. I decided on my old house in Mississippi. Instead of just writing about my house, I wrote the essay in the actual shape of my house. As I continued the essay, I began to write about the two-bedroom apartment my family lived in when we first moved here, and then continued about the house we now live in. (I will post it on here so you know what in the world I am talking about). When I was done, I felt proud and very vulnerable. While writing that essay, I found out more about myself and the meaning that my old house held. I discovered that I could not only express my thoughts through my writing, but also discover myself through writing. This was very empowering. Now I know this story sounds like a cheesy English major experience, but that assignment changed how I write. Yes I still write for “the grade” or assignments, but until that assignment, I never really wrote for fun or just because I wanted to. But now, I enjoy journal writing, writing letters to my Mammaw in Mississippi, and writing quotes in my smash book. My smash book is helping me to get creative with quotes, journaling, and pictures. It is so fun and allows me to be creative, which is sometimes difficult for me. 

As a future teacher of English, I hope to help my students feel like writers and become writers before they reach their fourth year of college. I want to create assignments that are “fun” and “exciting” to my students. This will require me to get to know my students, attend their extra-curricular activities to support them, and to have creative assignments for them. One way I want to do this is to give my students options. Allow them to express themselves through writing, pictures, drawings, smash books, scrap books, etc. For example, I had a teacher in high school that had us do a paper assignment, but we could pick from the 20 topics she gave us. The topics were on things all of us were interested in and could relate to the book we were reading at the time. We also had to give a presentation about our paper. She allowed us to make a video, a power point, create a piece of artwork, create a music video, create a rap, etc. This got the “overachievers” and the “underachievers,” so to speak, to be actively involved in the process, content, and product. The teacher worked with us every step of the way. It was a consistent interaction between teacher and students. We had weekly and daily check-up lists. My teacher also made sure to give us constructive feedback. It was neat to see all of the creative products that everyone came up with. This was the similar experience with my creative non-fiction writing class. Everyone’s creativity was completely different, but that is what made the class so unique. I want to create that kind of atmosphere in my classroom.