Taylor's Writing

V for Vendetta  Brief Summary:  The book takes place in a post-war England in 1997. A fascist regime has taken over and the government is controlling of its citizens. There is relatively no privacy as the government watches, listens to, and monitors everyone. The "undesirable" people have been eliminated in "resettlement camps." The government believes in strength through unity and no individual liberties. The book centers around two main characters along with an array of other government figures. V is an anarchist who is determined to take down the fascist regime in England and restore justice to the people. Evey is a sixteen-year-old orphan who is saved by V and later becomes his protege.  Themes: Law and Justice Anarchy Gender Surveillance and Censorship Hero vs. Villain (Good vs, Evil) Morality Discrimination Freedom and Happiness  Power of Ideas Terrorism  Why I Chose This Book:  The first reason of why I chose this book wa...

In our class, we have been learning about the main components of English language arts. They include speaking and listening, writing and grammar, literature, and visual literacy, but unlike the other categories, visual literacy does not have a section of its own under the Common Core State Standards. That is not to say that visual literacy does not appear at all in the CCSS, but it is not as strongly emphasized as the other categories. Visual literacy first appears under the anchor standards for college and career readiness for reading. It is categorized under the integration of knowledge and ideas section stating that students should be able to "i ntegrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words." While this is not directly related to graphic novels, it is relevant to visual literacy because it includes diverse media and visual representation. Similarly, other hints of visual literacy can be foun...

Speaking and listening may seem like easy skills that do not require much attention or practice, but they are quite important and we work on them daily. As young children, we are expected to be able to continue a conversation through multiple responses and describe things that are familiar to us. It seems simple enough, but what about the kids who don't speak up or engage in class? How are we supposed to assess their speaking and listening skills? One way this could be accomplished would be by having a conversation with them afterwards to see if they could articulate the main points of the conversation from class. As students get older though, the expectations for speaking and listening get more complex and require greater preparation. By third grade, students are expected to come to class having read the assigned materials in order to participate properly in class discussions. As students get to high school, they are expected to have read the assigned readings and draw on evidence...

In a high school or college level E.L.A course, discussion can be a great way to build upon different ideas and engage students in the lesson rather than having the teacher lecture the whole time. I liked that at the beginning of the article there was a list of why class discussions fail. Even though discussions seem like a smooth, simple process where students just speak freely, it can go south very fast and a successful discussion requires thoughtful planning. If there are no established ground rules for the discussion or the students are not adequately prepared, then the discussion is subject to failure. I think it is important to either have a list of the expected behaviors and ground rules provided for the class or to have the class create their own list of rules prior to the discussion starting. The ground rules should include things like not talking over other students, respecting other people's opinions, and not having one sole voice guide the discussion. The students may f...

While reading this article, I was intrigued by how seemingly simple social cues could be interpreted so drastically different by individuals as a result of differences in culture. For example, Japanese students viewed silence as positive because it was a form of saving face and avoiding confrontation. On the other hand, their native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) received the silence in a negative way because Western culture views silence in the classroom as boredom or disengagement with the lesson at hand. Examples such as this one make it clear why there are cultural distances between people from culturally different countries. In the current state we are in, it is more important than ever to understand these cultural distances so they can be addressed and solved in our diverse classrooms. I think that if we identify these differences and acknowledge them, we can be one step closer to having a culturally inclusive classroom and country. Even though it would be more comfortable t...