Course Evaluation

Throughout this semester, I can honestly say that I have learned a lot about new resources and lesson plans that I will definitely use someday. I think the one downfall of the course was that we tried to incorporate texts, which is useless when technology is involved.  Technology is always changing so any book that we could read would be outdated by the time that it was printed.  Half of the resources weren't even still available.  What does "writing for non-print media" have to do with books at all?  Aside from this, we were always presenting and interacting, which has helped me in so many ways.  As far as teaching me to be a teacher, I would have to say that I have learned more in this class than any other that I have taken.  It has been a fun semester but I've also learned so much that is actually useful!

Censoring Novels

In one of my classes this week we discussed censoring novels.  We specifically talked about schools censoring Twain's Huckleberry Finn because of its racial references.  I think this book is usually taught in middle school so I can understand censoring it, but I don't feel that it's necessary.  More than likely, students have encountered these issues before middle school, so why isn't it okay to talk about it in a controlled setting?  If approached correctly, which includes teaching some history of the issue, I feel that it would be a good lesson for students to learn.  I heard that one school allowed their students to read the book but they were not allowed to read it out loud.  This is just avoiding the issue.  What are students going to learn from this?  However, I didn’t read it in school so I’m not sure how I would feel as a middle or high school student.