TravisFarnham

My name is Travis Farnham. Starting my junior year of high school my friends gave me the name Travisimo, meaning something along the lines of "very" Travis. I'm a summer baby, and don't like being indoors for extended periods of time. I want to teach English all around the world in order to help people communicate better with one another. After college I do plan on teaching English in high schools in order to prepare myself for teaching abroad. I speak Spanish and have traveled to Spain to work at an English Immersion program for Spanish speaking students. Outside of school I would have to say I am definitely a people person. I love to spend time with my friends when I'm not off trail running, lake swimming, or playing music with the family band. I dance all dances, but my three favorites are salsa, swing, and contra in no particular order. I love meeting people and finding new friends in unlikely places. As I grow older I can't help but think that we live in a small world with vast possibilities so I'd say it's about time that people start getting along.

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//Travis Farnham November 2, 2012//


Above I have attached a copy of the lesson plan I am currently working on to teach to my cooperating teacher's 11th grade American literature classes.

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//Travis Farnham August 30, 2011//
Can literacy be taught for love and wisdom? Why or why not?
 * QUESTION:**

In certain select and opportune places I believe that English is already taught for love, for wisdom, and for life. I have had teachers that have been able to evoke transactional responses in English classes. I have only had one teacher that was able to do so knowingly, and since then no other teacher has been as effective a teacher or more memorable than that English teacher because the class was able to transform not only the ways students see literature but the way they see and act in the world. I do believe that English has the power to get students excited about education in general because students should be alloted time to discuss with their peers, in ways that help them learn from one another instead of from the teacher. The more involved students are in the classroom, the more invigorating the classroom activities are, and the more interaction time that the students have with one another will help them grasp transactional responses that change their ways of thinking. I cannot wait to learn activities and come up with my own plans for evoking transactional responses from my students in English courses. Transactional responses increase students wisdom in ways that nontransactional, repetitive, responses cannot. Transactional responses seem to occur when students mix themselves in with the whole during a learning process. It is like the students become a part of something where they are one with the world and connected with individuals that they previously could not understand. It seems a very complicated process, but this introduction has made me excited about learning how to create transactional responses and becoming an overall more effect teacher fostering mutual educational benefits to all involved in the learning process.

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//Travis Farnham September 6, 2011//
What is English? Please share in your own words how the field of high school English has evolved over the years. What were the major conferences and/or leaders who have influenced the field. What is it today? Do you think we should change the title of our discipline to Personal Studies? Why or why not? What would you like to see the field of English become in the years ahead?
 * QUESTION:**

After reading the last few chapters of Wilhelm and Novak’s book I have come to realize that I am joining a profession at a pivotal and revolutionary time. English is changing. The book claims that “at the turn of the last century” English was once the crucible or central part of the American education system, but that this changed as the need for scientific and technological growth skyrocketed. The American government began to see English as less of a necessity, as less powerful at creating a democratic society, and instead more useful in nationalistic terms, and in terms of unifying a people under one language.

The first major English conference was the Dartmouth Seminar of 1966 that wanted to change the models of English that focused on “language skills” and “culture heritage” and instead focus on the phrase they coined, “language and personal growth” (Novak et al, 25). The teachers at this seminar no longer wanted English to focus and stir up national unity, but they wanted to foster personal unity, personal growth as an individual, which they hoped would pave the way for unique and individualistic members of a democratic society. The Dartmouth Seminar and the report on the seminar constructed by John Dixon showed a new focus of English that the disciplines leading teachers were very excited about, but it did have setbacks. At the time there was no clear way to measure personal growth, and many were skeptical as to whether students would actually blossom and grow through literacy.

The second major English conference was called the English Coalition Conference held at Wye Plantation in 1987. In my opinion the most successful outcome of the Wy Conference was the small group of teachers from the college section that ostracized themselves from the main group in order to create an agenda for English that was more wholistic focusing on joy and the power of being soft. These teachers were some of the few who drew on the Dartmouth Seminar. The others focused on the new term language arts and how these teachers would foster there students to become autonomous thinkers in a democratic society that would be sympathetic, appreciative, and acknowledge “the diversity of identities and points of view within democratic life” (Novak et al., 30).

The current leaders and teachers in the English Language Arts discipline are trying to change the name to “Personal Studies”. These teachers and leaders are focused on a transactional way to teaching that allows students to grow through experiences with others, the recreation of others ideas as their own, and a connection with the past, present, and future that will help them shape themselves intro moral adults, critical thinkers, and intelligent people who can optimize the democratic society that is already established. This new discipline of personal studies would be about the passing on of life and the growth of life through art that has scientifically been proven a necessary part of human survival. Personal Studies is about making students who can make meaning and love to do so one their own.

I don’t know exactly where I see the English field in a few years though I would like to see it changed to “Personal Studies” and I believe that it would be best for humanity and for our democratic society that “Personal Studies” finds its place at the centre of the educational system.

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//Travis Farnham September 12, 2011//
What is meant by the evocative dimension of a literary transaction? Explain what this is and give examples. Then, begin to imagine at least two ways that you could encourage the evocative dimension within your future English classes. Do you see any evidence within the field that the evocative dimensions are being encouraged within literary transactions and instruction? Please share.
 * QUESTION:**

After you have read and reflected up "The Reflective Dimension" of the literary transaction, please share how you would encourage the entire literary transactional approach (guiding students through the evocative, connective and reflective dimensions of the literary meaning-making process) for the book Posted! No Trespassing! that you were given in class. How could you begin to develop a unit that would help students connect their personal experiences to the text? How would you help them make connections with the author, the zoology professor at Dartmouth, Professor Griggs? Then, how would you help them use the wisdom they have accrued to transform their worlds? How will you help them "live more artfully and meaningfully in the real world?" Elaborate as fully as you desire. I'm eager to read what you have imagined! Also, don't forget to share ways that your cooperating teacher or other teachers are encouraging the reflective dimension in their literary studies.

The evocative dimension of literary transaction is a state in which students learn from literature by relating their own personal experiences to the text. The evocative dimension mostly closely refers to Jeffrey Wilhelm's saying of "being the book", and explains how students must develop an enthusiasm for literary texts and reading in order to immerse their selves or identities in literature. Only by becoming immersed in the literature and by relating their own experiences to what happens in the text can students achieve transactional learning, but they will be able to achieve it twofold by transforming with the work itself as well as with their peers. The book discusses the evocative dimension in terms of three stages that build students up to "being the book" and obtaining that transactional learning experience that is essential for the growth of autonomous individuals in a democratic society. These stages start with getting the students exciting about reading and literature by connecting literature with the experiences and lives of the students so that they become familiar with the literature, know how it relates to them, and understand its particular significance (such as whichever specific genre you are focusing on) before they actually have to engage with the works chosen by the schools and teachers.

Frontloading is the most effective method for getting students prepared and excited to read and study a particular genre or type of literature. Frontloading involves using texts and works from the students in order to prepare them, get preliminary discussions out of the way, and engage students with everyday texts that shape their identity so that they are already comfortable and familiar with a unit before it is fully underway. One of the teachers discussed in the text uses wikispaces in order to initiate front loading in the class room. I believe that this is an excellent idea because it can get students thinking about a unit and texts they believe could fit into the unit before it even really begins.

The evocative dimension should be gaining moment with English teachers around America because the English field has been stifled by information based curriculums. One of the most beneficial reasons that the evocative dimension is so effective is that it not only gets students excited about reading and English class, but it makes them more confident and eager to learn in general. The evocative dimension is made most effect by using engaging literary practices at the beginning of units and allowing students to bring in their own texts and works that they relate to, that still fit into the unit, and that everyone can learn from because of their current cultural importance. The evocative dimension needs a strong voice and possibly a more practical name that shows and explains to teachers the importance of getting students excited about literature because without that enthusiasm they will find it difficult to connect to the literature and will never be able to immerse themselves and "be the book".

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**Question:**
After you have read and reflected up "The Reflective Dimension" of the literary transaction, please share how you would encourage the entire literary transactional approach (guiding students through the evocative, connective and reflective dimensions of the literary meaning-making process) for the book Posted! No Trespassing! that you were given in class. How could you begin to develop a unit that would help students connect their personal experiences to the text? How would you help them make connections with the author, the zoology professor at Dartmouth, Professor Griggs? Then, how would you help them use the wisdom they have accrued to transform their worlds? How will you help them "live more artfully and meaningfully in the real world?" Elaborate as fully as you desire. I'm eager to read what you have imagined! Also, don't forget to share ways that your cooperating teacher or other teachers are encouraging the reflective dimension in their literary studies.

**Response:**
I can see you using Professor Griggs book in my own personal way as a material for frontloading a unit on land rights and ownership in an American Literature course. Griggs books possesses an interesting way of looking at the way a land is owned naturally by different subjects, and it also portrays land ownerships itself in different ways. This book evokes existential questions like what gives someone a right to the land? What constitutes ownership of a land? and how is land naturally distributed in ways that different and competing populations can coexist. In order to evoke students initial feelings and interest on this topic of ownership I would create a questionnaire that works to uncover each student's view on ownership, and I would have students interview one another using the provided questions. This activity helps to students to understand and discuss their own basic ideas of ownership and see how their ideas compare to their peers as they interview their partner and later discuss the questions together as a class.

I see this work as an introduction to pieces of American literature that discuss Native American rights to land, and how natural rights were disregarded for material and economic gain. This book offers a parallel theme through the narrators implications that he will someday have all of the animals removed from his land and that they will no be allowed to trespass. As a class we could you the title and phrase "No Trespassing!" as unifying metaphor for establishing claims to land and excluded people from land on abstract terms. Griggs book even touches on deeds and the ways that legal documents function to give and establish ownership of land. All of these different themes in Griggs short picture book can be connected and applied to themes and works of American literature. In order to enable to students to connect to the author Griggs we would analyze some piece of Thoreau's poetry and analyze students would conduct free writes analyzing how Thoreau's poetry affects Griggs' writing. As I would use this work as mostly for frontloading and connecting students past experiences to the ideas of ownership of land that are central to a unit on American literature.

There are many different ways, however, that a teacher could use this book to help students reach the reflective dimension where they are able to use their new knowledge and wisdom to change their own world. Students could write letters to state from the perspective of the narrator explaining what should be the final outcome of the land. Whether they are displeased that it is not their own even though the deed states so, whether a specific portion of the land should be put aside for the groups of trespassers that also have some claim to the land, or whether there should be no such thing as a deed at least for the narrator because the animals were already on the land using it and moving about it in cooperative and natural ways. The classes that I attended at Pickens High School seemed to be at a similar stage of frontloading that involved reading short stories and smaller pieces in order to evoke certain ideas with the students. I was disappointed, however, that the students were read to in class by the teacher and that they read nearly 3 short stories followed by a quiet time where students would answer comprehension questions posed by the text book. The teaching methods did not offer the opportunity for a transactional response in any way between the students and the text or between the students and their peers. The transactional response was limited between the teachers and the students and because they spent so little time discussing each work, and never created thoughts of their own these students were not able to gain much wisdom from the literature that they were working with. I was frustrated watching this class knowing that the students and teachers are restrained by an informational based curriculum that is only focused on the English end of course exam. The teachers and students all seemed preoccupied with this test and most of the work that they did in class was individual practice for the end of course text. There is so much that needs to change, so much more interaction is needed, and so many more engaging literary enterprises and ways of enacting that vital transactional response.

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**Question:**
In the chapter on Aesthetic Education, what were the qualities of the four teachers who were striving to teach for love and wisdom that you most admired and would like to embody? Please explain.

**Response:**
The teachers in the chapter on Aesthetic Education shared many common qualities and I know that I will revisit this chapter in order to look on these teachers as models throughout my teaching career. First and foremost all of these teachers exhibited a joy and passion for teaching that was clearly obvious to their students, themselves, and the teachers that they work with. These teachers use this excitement and passion as a way to get their students interested in class and helps them understand that their is value in the things that they will learn. One of the most important qualities that all four teachers exhibit is an openness in their practice of teaching. An openness that emphasizes that all of these teachers know that they still have much to learn from their colleagues as well as from their students. An openness that helps teachers understand that they will sometimes do something wrong or that their activity will not work, but they are aware and ready to make changes based upon feedback they get from their own students and the opinions and advice from other teachers. These teachers are able to stay current and seem to constantly be changing their practices and activities by remaining open to change and criticism because they know that it does not necessarily change their philosophy on teaching, but offers means of teaching their philosophy more effectively and provocatively.

I think that my favorite quality of all of these teachers was their similar styles of teaching. Each teachers seems always to use methods that engage all members of the class enabling them to interact with one another as well as with the text and the implied author of the text. The methods that these teachers use are able to optimize the three different dimensions of the transactional response with one method building on top of another so that the students' interactions with one another and with the text is gradual and never overly complicated at any one point. Each teachers has their own unique activities and practices, but they are all student centered and I would consider them all engaging literary enterprises.

These teachers, these "good enough" teachers, these implied teachers, these philosophy teachers are all advocates of inquiry and push their students to question how literature functions in different ways as well as what this means about society and the world. As a teacher candidate I too want to be an advocate of inquiry creating a unit with a philosophical purpose and a host of engaging literary enterprises that force students to think differently than they ever have before, that force students to question meaning and purpose, and gain a new understanding of their own lives and the world through their inquiries of literature. This unit will be as student centered as possible with as many chances to put myself (the teacher) outwardly on the outskirts of the activity while gaining the essence of the implied teacher as my students learn from one another and from the text through the activities I have structured and created.

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**Question:**
In the chapter on Aesthetic Democracy, the opening quote is this, "I've never been in a classroom that was a real community before. Is this your situation? Why or why not? What would it take for the "third space" to come into being, a space "in which the students took in one another's life"? Be as detailed as you can be at this point in your career. How do we help students move the third space from the inward to the outward world? Explain (if you dare).

**Response:**
Growing up in Charleston, SC I was blessed to attend a few good schools specifically my high school the Academic Magnet. Students have to uphold a certain GPA to apply for the school, all students have to write and essay explaining something along the lines as to why the Academic Magnet is the right school for them, and obtain letters of recommendations from their teachers. Not all teachers at this school were as good as the best, but the school was filled with good teachers that could create a third space where the students formed a community and often intimate relationships in the classroom. Authoritative teachers that worked with the class and nourished dialogue and communication in progressive and important way enabled us as students to transact with one another through the information and knowledge we were gaining in the class. This task is very difficult, but I believe that teachers are able to enact this community when they teach in an authoritative style, but are very sensitive of their students as individual. This enables the students to learn with and through each other because they will be engaged in discussion and work if the teacher makes their task and the of this acquisition of knowledge relevant to all students. Teachers at my high school were able to accomplish this type of interaction between us students by teaching us the material, presenting us with the material, allowing us to make it our own, forcing us to shape and rebuild it with our peers, producing knowledge through democracy.

We can work towards this third space by giving students projects that allow them to work with their friends towards a meaningful goal that requires them to put part of their identity into the project, by forcing them to work and discuss in random groups while in class and work together to present findings to the class, and by having teacher controlled student centered debates on the concepts being studied in class to teach students to use their voice and listen to the important and equal voices of their peers. I think that while it is important to allow students to establish a sense of self-identity, confidence, and independence through individual work this group work and stimulating student discussion is what enables students to see their peers as people, their teachers as people, and works towards moving this third space of democratic learning into the outward world where students expectations are now influenced by their sense of a community in a classroom.

=For progress on my unit, //This Land is Our Land//, look to Brandon Watt's and Georgeanna's wikispaces.=

= EdSec 324 = http://edsec324.wikispaces.com/TravisFarnham //Travis Farnham October 26, 2011//

The teachers in the chapter on what can English become use a wide variety of engaging literary enterprises to get the students to relate to and love the authors. The most universal aspect that I found used by all teachers is the use of democratic classroom. In that as the teachers guide the class as a unit the class is continually working with each other and together so that the students are able to build with and off of their peers in order to create meaning from their shared experiences in the classroom. Today while I was at Pickens High I was excited to see the teacher use a front loading activity to help students connect their own experiences and knowledge to the text that they were working with. The students shared the definitions the created on their own of love, friendship, courage, and happiness, but the teacher did not make them share their specific experience that coincided with their definition. I wish that teacher would have at least called on some of the students to share aloud or that he would have made it a partner activity where one partner shares the other's response to the class. However, the students were able to create connections between their own lives and the text and this is one step towards getting students to relate to and love authors. There is so much more that can be done, and I was a little disappointed when the students went on to answer questions out of their textbooks instead of engaging in more activities that help them transact with the author, novel, and their classmates.

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**Question:**
How could you use the //Dynamics of Writing// structured process approach to teach for love and wisdom? Please explain in rich detail. Also, explain how you might use this approach in your forthcoming unit? Begin to brainstorm. Finally, are you seeing bits and pieces of the structured process approach to writing within your field experience? Please explain.

**Response:**
Our new text, __The Dynamics of Writing Instruction__, starts by explaining different approaches to teaching writing in English class. Many of these approaches require a large amount of involvement from the students. This involvement ranges from students writing often in class, creating different genres and writing in different ways, going out becoming an involved member in their community, and creating writing and narrative on their own. Activities like these are useful in helping students develop their unique individual identities getting at the heart of teaching for love and for wisdom. The students are urged to interact with one another in class and to build off of their peers in a sense. Many of the teachers described in the first chapter attempt to teach to the students instead of teaching towards a test, and they search for gains in intrinsic knowledge and wisdom in the students. They used to teaching methods that are not traditional and that don't necessarily apply to the standards that have been set in place for so long, but they do so because they believe that these standards are failing students whereas methods that involve students in class and force them to create their own personal narratives are much more beneficial.

The unit that I am working on with my fellow teacher candidates, //This Land is Our Land//, will use teaching methods that involve the students on a day to day basis where they will have to write in class every day and share their work with the class as well. We want our students to understand that each of them has a unique voice, we want them to feel comfortable voicing their opinions and using their voice, above all we want them to learn and be able to function as autonomous citizens in a democratic society. One method in particular that we are planning to use in our unit is a mock trial case of the George Stinney execution. We want students to understand the rationale of courts towards people that they didn't consider as citizens or even human beings, and discuss how people could have thought like this, how it still occurs today, and how we can prevent it from happening again.

This week at Pickens HIgh School I am working with my mentoring teacher on having students peer review their autobiographical narrative rough drafts. Last class we started class by having students define a term in their own words. Their terms choices were friendship, courage, and love. After they defined the terms in their own words they also had to give an example of an experience in their life that exemplified their term. Then students watched a commencement speech by Steve Jobs, and after the speech they were given a prompt on writing an autobiographical narrative using the term they described and an experience in their life. The use of front loading and having students perform a warm up activity when they come into class was a great way to introduce the larger assignment that they students would get after they watched the speech. This reminded me so much of lessons in __Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom__ that gets students to draw on their own experiences and create a personal narrative. Before I knew it the students were writing, some were a bit resistant at first, but some wrote almost two pages and all but one or two at least wrote a paragraph. During the peer review we will have students evaluate one another's work giving specific responses as to what they think is good about the writing and what they think should be improved.

**Teaching Methods for Unit //This Land is Our Land//**
~Literary Circles ~Trial Court Case ~Class Spark Notes Page ~We developed this idea by thinking that we may want to cover some novels without having students read the entire novel. Instead we can have groups of students focus on specific sections and create their summary pages. Then as a class we develop the pages such as themes, history of the work, and implications to the audience. In this way students have to work with one another to make their own understanding of the novel. ~State of the Union ~Student Posed Discussion ~We got this method from our class. We like the idea of students coming up with two of their own questions, and then having the teacher choose the question on which the student has to lead a class discussion.

These are only some of the methods that we are planning on using in our unit and we are annotating them and putting them into the resource palate.

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//Reflection: A Framework for Teaching Writing//
In chapter 2 the author outlines practices that are characteristic of a structured process approach, the most effective approach in their opinion, to teach writing. These procedures and methods of structuring a curriculum and student activities should work in any classroom thought the level of the content being used and taught needs to be relative to the intellectual capabilities of the students. In other words students should still learn to use their voice as they develop writing and should always be taught to work in groups and learn from their peers, but depending on the setting whether I am teaching students from impoverished backgrounds, students who are just learning English, or students from more affluent backgrounds the texts that we use will vary based upon difficulty. Eventually I plan to teach students in foreign countries how to speak and write English, and while some of my methods might change the majority will stay the same with a slight decrease in difficulty depending on the level of the speakers.

The nature of writing is the transformation of voice into language and into meaning. Speaking is of a similar nature though it is more natural, but writing can be placed into many different categories and used in many different ways. Students will develop skills for becoming critical readers while they become unique writers learning to develop and speak out their voice. Writing should be used in class primarily for specific process and modes of writing, but their should always be an influence of creativity in every writing task that the students compose. They should always have some form of freedom that allows and forces them to use their own preexisting knowledge and experiences to come up with their own solution. This push or pathway that a teacher should guide students down urges them to want to learn more information, increase their knowledge, and expand their experiences.

Students should be confronted with a variety of writing experiences in the classroom so that they obtain the essential abilities of understanding their audience, writing to multiple audiences, conveying an idea in multiple ways, learning the different uses and processes of different forms of writing, and coming to a better understanding of the history of writing and how it is changing today. I want my students to write on a daily basis. We will almost always start of the class with some kind of activity that gets my students either comfortable writing or speaking and sharing their ideas with their peers. The quality of writing will always be stressed by not only looking at grammar, but also the structure of the work, and the relevance of the idea. The quality of the writing will be stressed through extensive peer review, peer communication, and class sharing/production.

As I have already discussed oral discourse is an essential part in developing one's voice as a writer. Students must become comfortable sharing their work, their ideas, and their voice with the class. Oral discourse has the ability to foster confidence as well as a community like environment in the class where students value one another's opinions and encourage the peers through active discussions. Students should be called upon to work in groups at various times in the classroom because this allows students to learn to work with one another, cooperate, and learn from the ideas and practices of their peers.

I think that fostering a community in the classroom is one of the most essential things that a teacher can do because students can learn so much from one another and are so heavily influenced by their peers. If we get all students invested in an equal level of equality and fellowship in the classroom then we have affected their life in a positive way socially. Students interaction with one another is one of the easiest and most effective ways to teach because a teacher does not need extravagant technologies to do so. I am not saying that these technologies are bad, however, I am very interested in using short films like the Civil Rights Roundtable in 1963 that captures many historically famous figures such as author James Baldwin of __Giovanni's Room__ in a vibrant discussion about the Civil Rights Movement and where it was leading. Students can learn from watching these videos and being called upon to recreate such an atmosphere in the class room engaging students to prepare with their peers, prepare their own personal statements, and practice their oral debate skills in a constructive way that aims at getting at specific topics accomplishing some sort of goal or solution.

Assessment plays an important role although not one so large as any of the topics we have already touched upon. Assessment is important because it gives students an understanding of how their writing (the flow of their argument, their grammar, and the relevance of the topic they have chosen) stacks up to their peers and the expectations of the teacher.