The Crucible

The cruciable- play

The play is about the Salem witch trials. It takes place in Salem in 1692. One of the main characters, Rev. Parris catches a group of girls, including his niece Abigale and his daughter dancing in the woods. They were practicing witchcraft. Abigale drank chickens blood in attempt to kill Elizabeth proctor because she had an affair with her husband John Proctor. The word quickly spreads that there is witch craft happening in the town, and they demand that Rev. Parris help  them figure out what is going on. Rev. Parris does not want to acknowledge that anything is going on because his daughter, Betty was also practicing witchcraft, and he did not want to damage his reputation. The group of girls are terrified that they got caught, so they start accusing other girls of being witches.  Everyone that they accuse gets arrested and many of them get executed. Anyone who is accused of being a witch  is brought in front of Abigale and her friends who were caught practicing witchcraft, if the girls fell to the ground like spirits were attacking them, the person would be sentenced to death. Elizabeth is terrified that Abigale is going to tell the court that she is a witch so Elizabeth would be executed, and she could then marry John. Just as suspected, even though John tries to fight it, Elizabeth is arrested and carried off in chains. John decides that he will have to go in front of the court and admit to adultery. He knows he would be discrased by the town, but still it would discredit Abigale. In the court 91 names of people are presented and each get arrested. John shows up with marry warren, one of the girls who got caught dancing in the forest practicing witchcraft to say Abigale and the other girls are lying. Abigale denies the claims. One of the judges ask Marry Warren to pretend like a spirit is attacking her like she did previously with the other girls, but without the other girls doing it with her she cant. All of the sudden Abigale and her friends start acting like Mary’s spirit is attacking them. John finally has enough and admits to the court that he had an affair with Abagail. However, after his wife dismisses the claims to protect him, the judge rules him not guilty and Abigale continues to act like she is being attacked. Eventually Emily breaks down and says that John works for Satin and Abigale is right. John is then arrested. Then cut to months later where john and 11 others are to be hanged. Abigale steals all of Rev. Parris’s money and runs away. A lot of people turn against the trials and don’t believe in them anymore. John eventually is convinced to confess in order to save his own life. He admits that he works for Satin. However, John refuses to sign a confession that would be nailed to the door of the church because he doesn’t want to disgrace his name or his family’s name. Because of this John is executed. After this government by the church is essentially broken.

1.      Please explain why you chose this text. What was your rationale? For whom is this text appropriate? Please consider age, ability, and any other factor you find important. Why is it appropriate for this group of students?

I choose this text because the Salem witch trials have always been an interesting topic to be. We studied it in History class in middle school and it has always been an interesting period of history for me.  Since we studied the Salem Witch Trials in middle school, I think this age group would be perfect to read this play in. The language isn’t too complex or the story isn’t too hard to follow either.

2.      Please include some teaching ideas. How do you envision this text being used in a secondary classroom? Provide at least 3 specific ideas for what is possible with this text.

First, we could read the play as a class. When we are done reading it, I could split students into groups and have them act out whole, or different scenes from the play, editing a little of course.

Second,  I could have tem read the play and create their own salem witch trial story or play in groups, when they have finished, have a presentation day for what they created.

Third, Read the play as a class and create a visual project in groups like a poster describing the main points of the story, a comic book on poster board depicting character development, plot, themes, etc. Then have a presentation day where the students present their project with their groupmates.

3.      Please consider some obstacles to using this text. What are the potential issues that may arise from using this text? Predict an administrator’s response to the use of this text. Predict parents’ responses. Predict students’ responses.

I see a few potential problems with presenting this text to my class: One- language. There isn’t too much bad language in this play, but the word “whore” is used, and that may create a problem with students or parents. The other problem I see is the nature of the text. The play is based around lieing to get people hung. This may become an issue with parents or students who are uncomfortable with the subject matter of the play.

Readicide

I really enjoyed reading this book. I didn't know too much of what to expect, but I have read one other of Kelly Gallagher's books a couple of quarters ago, and I loved it. This book, no surprise to me, turned out to be no different. The title is a perfect essence for this book because I lost my love of reading during my secondary education. It seemed as though we were just reading to keep busy. There was no specific lesson tied to any of our readings, but it seemed like it was just buys work, for the most part. The most outrageous thing about my reading that I was required to do in high school, they were massive novels that we had to pack with stick notes, underlines, highlights, or whatever else you could possibly find to do to ruin the book. We had to mark the books because we were required to take quizzes as soon as we got to a certain point. If you failed the test, you could take it again but only receive half of the points. I believe this is what killed my reading in high school. It killed my love of reading because I was not reading for enjoyment, I was reading because I was pressured to pass the tests and so I had to read. Most of Gallagher's tips, and what he talked about in general, was very interesting to be because I went through the same experiences a high school student. I hope that my students never have to go through that. I will do everything that I can to make my students love reading, and not make them read to only pass a test, but have them read because they  want to and it connects to a lesson or unit of lessons.

I read it, but I don't get it

I really enjoyed the book "I read it,but I don't get it" The book dealt with so many situations about students and their struggles to read that I applied in my own classroom.However, I did find that a lot of the information was kind of common sense if a practicing teacher has been in the classroom longest than one full day, I do believe that students have built into them, from years of schooling, basic fundamental reading skills, and those need to be taught to fit the grade level that the students are in. This is one of the many things in the book that I knew, but in the past I have failed to teach. The best part of the book for me were the tips on how to re teach these fundamental tips for the students. No matter what class a student is in, math, science, history, English...they will have o read and re read problems or texts. If a teacher uses the tips provided in this book on how to re -teach them, the teacher is not only helping them in English, but they are also helping them in virtually every subject in school and preparing them for life outside as school and in the real world. I think it is very important to teach students hoe to critically read texts, not just read it and not comprehend what is going on in the text. I plan to teach this in my classroom every chance I get and at every grade level that I teach at With these tips, I feel that I am now ready to do this.  It will benefit myself as a teacher and the student in every class, every grade level, and, most importantly, when they enter the real world when their education career is over. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. If teachers take it seriously, it offers some very, very helpful tips for every teacher at every grade level. I would highly suggest that all future teachers are required to read this book before they are allowed to enter into their own classrooms..

Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education

This was a very interesting and important article for me. It made me realize that as a teacher, I do not have to teach specifically to a test without making it my own and allowing the students to learn their own way in the process. I really found it interesting when the article talked about students learning more when they were able to connect the writing in their own lives. Particularly now, I feel the social justice unit ideas were very good ideas. It lets young students to see what race really is and realize everyone should be treated equally. I liked these units because it allows students to come to these conclusions on their own without being influenced by friends, parents, or anyone else who may be in their lives. They get to come up with ideas and opinions on certain issues by themselves. I believe that as a teacher this is a vital lesson in any English class.Allowing students to have their own opinions allows them to state ideas in class and write what they really want to write about. Allowing students to do this at at young age, allows students to form opinions on their own and stick to those opinions. Having a free thinking, free expression classroom without anyone being shunned or looked down upon is very, very important to me especially where we are right now as a society where so many students seem to be scared to share their opinions because they are scared of what others may think about them. I plan to make sure this point comes across in my classroom. Every student of every race should feel safe in the classroom, and part of having a safe environment is allowing every student to share their opinions and not be afraid of doing so.

Philosophy of Education-Pedagogy of the Oppressed

This piece was about how building relationships between students and teachers is something every teacher should do. I agree with this. If the teacher and the student have a good relationship with one another, it allows the teacher to learn the student's learning style. Having a good relationship with your students also allows the student to feel safe and comfortable enough with the teacher to ask for help if they need it. However, it appears that many teachers care about the power that they hold over their students. These teachers are described as "oppressed" teachers. I have seen this during my time observing different classes. I have seen teachers who you can tell genuinely care about their students. The classroom environment seems so much better with the teachers who care about their students. The students that I seen were on task and many finished their work early. Unfortunately, I have observed classes where the teachers seem to only care about power and only making sure the students get their work done. Much like with the caring teacher's classroom, the students completed their work in class, but the positive atmosphere of what I think a classroom should be simply was not there. If a teacher has a good relationship with their students, it also allows a free-thinking classroom, which, in my opinion is absolutely necessary. I believe a teacher should learn from their students just as the students learn from the teacher.  I really enjoyed this reading. However, I also feel that most of what was in the assigned reading should come natural to a good teacher. However, this reading did remind me to form and keep good relationships with my students. I feel this should be the case with all teachers. This reading for sure reminded me of that. I will take what I read in this reading with me into my classroom in the future I feel all teachers should have to read this. It serves as a great reminded. It reminded me just how important having a good student-teacher relationship is.