Selected Reflections Sent to My Teaching Supervisor

Hey Dr. Brown,

Happy Saint Patty's! Hope you had a good week and weekend.
This past week in World Geography we finished up our unit on Human Environment
Interaction with a review and quiz that took place on Tuesday. The students did well
for the most part, but some struggled with the free response aspects to the quiz. I
feel that the wide range in ability found at the CP level makes it difficult to find a
sweet spot between what is rigorous enough so they learn valuable information and
what simple enough for them all to grasp and relay on an assessment. Constructing
this next unit on globalization is presenting similar issues as many of the concepts
that build the larger picture are complex, so in an attempt to simply them for much
of the class, I feel that I am glossing over important aspects central to
understanding the topic. Do you have any suggestions on how to address this
issue?
African American Experience looked at the "Philosophies and Opinions of Marcus
Garvey" as well as his life and accomplishments during this past week. They spent
time developing their own version of "Philosophies and Opinions" in a short project
that lasted a couple days. I love assignments like this that offer students
meaningful information and historical perspective while also giving them an
opportunity to express themselves intellectually and artistically. In addition, it gave
them time to reflect on and articulate what they value and why, which was an
interesting process to observe for many of the students.
I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday during second period. I plan to have the
class complete an activity that explores where the clothes they wear come from.
See you then,
Patrick Esposito

Hey Dr. Brown,

It was great seeing you on Tuesday and I hope the rest of your week went
well! Thanks for the feedback, it is always nice to have an outside
perspective offer guidance on areas upon which I can improve.
The rest of the week in geography went well. We looked into nuclear energy
production and some of the problems associated with waste disposal and
meltdowns. This seemed to pique the interest of many of the students in
class. I remember the younger version of myself also having a strange
fascination with the idea of disaster and catastrophe. It unintentionally
matched up perfectly with the five year anniversary of the meltdown at the
Fukushima plant in Japan which gave it more relevance. The students will
have their review tomorrow and test on Tuesday. We will move forward with
a unit that looks more into food production and distribution for the rest of the
week.
The week in African-American Experience finished out great with lessons on
critical reading about the Chicago race riots and the influence of AfricanAmericans on American music (they basically created all of it). Tracing the
lines between gospel, jazz, blues, rock, R and B, and hip-hop was a fun
opportunity and I think the students really enjoyed it. We spent time looking
and listening to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters which I was surprised to
find many of the students had never heard of.
I will be absent on Thursday to take the Praxis II in Gaffney, but I will return
on Friday to teach the geography classes. Have a great night and rest of the
week!
Thanks,
Patrick Esposito

Hey Dr Brown,
Hope your week has gone well!
This was probably the longest week I have had yet in terms of work and
obligations this semester. The geography class has been working on a group
project that focuses on music festivals as a center of culture and an example
of geography's five themes. This will be the last aspect of their unit on
cultural universals as I plan to use direct instruction this week to teach about
migration and citizenship. I think the current political climate as well as
world events makes it necessary for them to understand the situation with
immigration from Mexico and the movement of refugees into Europe. This
change of pace might be a challenge for them since we have been doing a
lot of project work, but I'm sure they can handle it.
The African American Experience class has been closely looking at black
codes, Jim Crow laws, and hiring out practices from prisons in the south.
While I was generally aware of these issues, it has been very interesting to
learn the details along with the rest of the class. Coach Thorne is very
passionate and knowledgeable on the subject which makes the class a
pleasure to wok with. The level of opposition that free blacks faced while
trying to join society here following reconstruction is absolutely disgusting.
Avoiding some form of hard labor, by legal force or through some form of
coerced contract, was nearly impossible.
Hope you have a great week!
all the best,
Patrick Esposito

Hey Dr. Brown,

Hope that your week has gone well and you are staying warm despite the
tremendous effort from our weather.
Coach Thorne gave me control of the third and fourth period World
Geography classes this week, which has been a great deal of fun. We have
continued our discussion of cultural universals, highlighting music this week
in light of the Grammy's. The students completed different aspects of a
presentation style project that focused on the regional origin of their own
music interests. This included creating a data set of their favorite artists'
regional origin, reading and answering questions about music's cultural
influence, graphing and representing information, and using artist's lyrics to
describe the culture from that artist's regional origin. I created much of this
set of lessons and am very happy with how it turned out. The students
seemed to enjoy the content and creative freedom, and I think that
they learned a great deal.
The African American Experience class took a look a the 13th, 14th, and 15th
amendments, racially charged political cartoons from the reconstruction era,
minstrel shows, as well as the challenges a free black citizen might have
faced following emancipation. An army recruiter visited the class this week
as well. It honestly made me slightly uncomfortable the way they target
specific demographics with specially designed propaganda to push them
towards service. I will being to take control of some of these classes in the
coming week or two.
I do not have any specific plan in place to shut the class down (as a whole or
for individual students) if behavioral issues become a problem. However, I
think this is probably a great idea. When designing a lesson I usually have
extra material that doesn't get utilized during instruction, such as an article
or resource. I should work to develop a short set of questions or tasks to
go along with an extra resource each week just in case I need to calm things
down. There is a desk with a high stool that sits close to the teacher's desk
in Coach Thorne's classroom. This is probably the best place to move
students who have a hard time controlling their talkative nature.
Thanks for the feedback! Hope you have a great week and I look forward to
meeting you.

Thanks,
Patrick Esposito

Hey Dr. Brown,

This week at Blythewood has just flown by. The students in the African American
Experience classes have been watching "Glory", a movie about the 54th
Massachusetts Infantry and their inspirational service during the Civil War. This
official black regiment, along with their colonel Robert Shaw, were devastated with
casualties during their courageous attempt to take Fort Wagner near Charleston.
However, their acts became legend and encouraged many more black men to
volunteer and fight for the Union. The students will be completing a writing
assignment about the movie that is formatted as a critical review.

The World Geography classes have been working on a collection of projects that
revolve around the geographical aspects of the Super Bowl. This includes analyzing
the home of both the competing teams, breaking down the actual event through the
lenses of geography's five themes, investigating reasons for the teams regional
support around the U.S., as well as connecting these ideas back to information
learned earlier in the course such as map skills and regional knowledge. The
students also took a test to help solidify their recently gained knowledge.

Coach Thorne purposefully removed himself from the classroom for a couple days
this week to let me build a report with the students alone. While I know most of
them from my previous placement here last semester, it was good to see how they
acted with me in complete control of the classroom. For the most part the students
behaved, payed attention, and did their work. At times I had to ask them to be
quiet, but they quickly obeyed and were seemingly accepting to my instruction.
The students here at Blythewood are generally polite and respectful, which is
really all one can ask for when dealing with teenagers, or adults for that matter. I
have yet to have a serious incident concerning class management, but I am working
to build up my skills so I can handle it more appropriately if and when it arises.

Hope you have had a great week and are preparing for a relaxing weekend! Maybe
we can get some sunshine after all this rain. Hope to see you soon!

All the best,