Marien

I am working right now in the Maya West Writing Project. This is a really nice experience for teachers who want to teach writing in their classrooms.

     I believe, as a teacher, that knowing if our students are learning is what teachers should care about the most.  One way teachers have to know if their students are learnng is using assessment. Assessment refers to the variety of ways teachers have to collect information on a student’s learning process.  Assessment has two manifestations: formative and summative. Formative assessment helps identify the student’s strenghths and weaknesses to give remedial action. Summative assessment tells us how much a student has learned at the end of the course. Formative and summative assessment are both very important in the learning process. These two kinds of assessment have a lot of manifestations. Quizzes an exams are some of the most common, but they are not the only ones. Writing teachers should be specialy interested or willing to use formative writing. Because teaching writing is a process, teachers should know how their students are developing their writing skills and help them in that process.  The best way to assess student’s writing is to give them writing assignments. Quizzes and exams may help, but teachers should provide them with the opportunity to experiment with writing. The value of assessment depends mostly on its validity and reliability. Validity refers to the quality of assessment that requires assessing what it is claimed to assess, and assessing what has been taught. Reliability, on the other hand, means that the assessment task measures consistently.

     Teachers should be careful on what they ask their students to do. The purpose of assessment is to collect information and to use that information to help students. Therefore teachers should evaluate what they are about to assess and how. Bad assessment could be very frustrating for students and worthless for teachers.

Grammar is defined in the dictionary as the rules for speaking or writing a particular language, or an analysis of the rules of a particular aspect of language.  Another definition we may find is the system of rules by which words are formed and put together to make sentences (Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P) 2007 Microsoft Corporation). If we look carefully to those definitions we may find some similarities in what they claim. In both of them the word “rule” appears to be the center of the argument. It implies that we must follow some guidelines in order to write or speak a language. Nevertheless, the first definition is more ample than the second one because it argues that we can analyze those rules and analyzing implies that we have to define or explain those rules. What I want to point out is that this way of defining grammar is unnatural. I believe this unnatural form of defining grammar has to do probably with the etymology of the word; this is the historical aspect of the word. This is what I found: “The word “grammar,” derives from Greek γραμματική τέχνη (grammatike techne), which means “art of letters,” from γράμμα (gramma), “letter,” and that from γράφειν (graphein), “to draw, to write””(Wikipedia, 2008). If we look carefully at this definition we may see or infer that grammar has nothing to do with the spoken form of a language. It only mentions the written part. Moreover, this definition of grammar does not mention anything about a language. It only describes grammar as an art or an activity. But humans adapt and we are always negotiating meanings or looking for explanations, and this may be one of the reasons why someone adopted the word grammar to define one aspect of the language which needed to be explained. In a sense it was necessary to adopt a standard because people use language to communicate and not only communicate with their peers or in their small communities, they need to communicate with people all over the world. Therefore you must have some patterns or basic rules established in a certain language in order to be understood by speakers or writters of the same language that belong to other cultures or world communities.

Nowadays the definition that linguists give to grammar makes more sense to me because it is more humanist and open. For the linguists, grammar is a rule system that generates all and only the good strings of a language. This definition refers only to what native speakers of a language know when they use language. This definition does not apply to non native speakers of a language. Since native speakers are always negotiating meaning, they can come up with words that have clarity to them. They can not create inferior or bad words. In this respect the generativists claim that all languages have the same basic grammatical structure and that only native speakers of a language or languages have total competence with that basic grammar structure.  If we give thought to this theory, then it is clear why all native speakers can not produce unintelligible words.

I believe in this theory because as a teacher I know that children are faster and better learners of a language than adults, and the younger they are the better they learn a language. On the contrary when we try to teach an older learner, an adult for example, you encounter many problems in trying to teach them how to communicate in a new language.  

Considering the ultimate sources of grammar as they are explained by Leder 2008 I will have to say that the descriptive grammar is more plausible to me. This model of grammar claims a genetic source of grammar. “Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past) by a group of people in a speech community” (Wikipedia, 2008).  This means that this kind of grammar is used because it does not have bias or preconceived ideas. The descriptivist uses the idea of UG as I first mentioned and that is why they believe in language changes between native speakers. I believe in this source of grammar for many reasons. First I know that acquiring a language is natural and it can not be taught, so then why do we have to tell speakers the perfect way of speaking? Who knows what is perfect?  Why is it perfect? The second reason is that this kind of grammar deals with what we know with facts. Last but not least, is the fact that the descriptive grammar for me seems to be balanced. It is balanced because it also claims that we need standardization, but only when we want to communicate with other interlocutors outside of our communities. 

My position as a descriptivist will allow me to use different teaching methods with natives and non native speakers. To defend my position, I can allow the native speaker to talk the non standard langauge but on the other I must say that I will not allow the non native speakers.  The language to be used in the classroom with native speakers will be the dialect they know and they are familiar with. Nevertheless, when it comes to writing or communicating orally with others outside of our community we will need some standardization, but only with the purpose of wanting to be understood and not because the language may get corrupted. This reminds me of an English teacher who had students in her classroom who spoke Ebonics, and she said: “We never had, nor do we now have, any intention of teaching the home language to students. They come to us speaking the language” (Embracing Ebonics and Teaching Standard English, Volume 12, No. 1- Fall 1997). I infer from her comment that she believes in descriptive grammar. Her case is not the same as mine as an English teacher because I may have to teach non native speakers here in Puerto Rico. If I were to teach non native speakers I were to teach the language with more standardization in the written and spoken aspects because non native speakers are not able to create all the changes that are consistent with UG. We all know that in Puerto Rico the exposure to English language is big due to the advancement in technology and means of communications such as television, internet, and radio giving them more and more exposure to English. Nevertheless, we can classify them as non-natives, partial natives or full natives. This phenomenon complicates things to us because we will have to determine who is a native speaker, who is not, and who is in between. This has to be done because we need to know if we are going to allow non Standard English in the classroom or if we have to only use Standard English. In my practice I would survey my students on the first day of class to get to know them well as persons and as speakers of a language or languages. This will help me know their interests, their way of learning and what they know about the language we are going to use in class.

6030 Writing Activity Demonstration

Writing Activity

I did this activity when I was teaching First grade. This is a writing activity for the Spanish class. Even though this activity is for the Spanish class, it could be done for the English class. However, teachers should be aware that this activity is for first language learners. Teachers would have to adapt the activity for second language learners in terms of what they expect students to write.

For this writing activity we use literature as part of the writing prompt. I read a story with my students and then using that story as point of departure they worked on their writing pieces. Most of the time I used literature when I want to give my students writing prompts. I believe that literature is about human experiences, and how we relate to those experiences. I also use literature because students need to have models when they are asked to write. Teachers should not assume anything about what students know about writing, especially elementary teachers. Young children need space to experiment with writing, they need freedom to express themselves, but they need models as well. We should and most provide guidance in order for them to improve on their skills. Although writing is not a natural form, it is about human experiences as well as literature is. Literature then provides a good model for them when they have to write. Moreover, literature provides them modeling on form as well.  As a writing teacher, it is important to focus on content, but it is important to focus on process as well. Literature gives students the opportunity to work with both, process and content. We want students to come up with ideas of their own, to speak their minds when writing, but through the use of literature we help to remove the stress of having to come up with only ideas of their own.  

Connection of my writing activity with current research

Literature gives students the opportunity to learn from human experiences and to have modeling on writing. However, it is not enough for students to read a piece of literature in order for them to have something to write about. Students must have a connection; literature must be engaging to them. Literature has to be related to students’ reality. Therefore, I believe in Freire’s theory about dialogue. He believed that dialogue was an encounter between men, mediated by the world, in order to name the world.  That encounter with the world could be achieved with literature if teachers find out who their students are. What are their interests? What are their concerns? What are they likes and dislikes? What is their reality? What are their aspirations?  Those kinds of questions teachers should answer first in order for them to provide students with relevant or meaningful learning experiences with literature. With the appropriate instructional materials, a teacher should prompt students to write. When teachers assign a writing activity the instructions must be very clear. Teachers must not assume anything about what the students should know about the specific task they have to achieve. Moreover, teachers should provide students with several opportunities to practice writing. Those opportunities should be accompanied with good instructional materials. Morrow (1990) found in a study that adding books and writing materials resulted in more writing behaviors in their classrooms (David Coker 2007). In another study, students with access to writing materials were found to write longer descriptions in first through third grades (Cooker 2006). In my first grade classroom students had a play area with books for them to read. They had writing materials as well as the opportunity to write almost in each class. They were faced with some writing activity almost after each lesson we studied. Our books and I as a writing teacher were models for them to follow when they had to write.  One of the most important things that students need to understand is that they use writing to communicate ideas. Communication is a process in which both the writer and the reader must understand each other. The writer is responsible of making the reader understand the ideas being communicated in the writing piece. Young children also need to understand the importance of the mechanical process of writing. They should know that writing is different than speaking because of the way in which we have to organize the ideas. It is evident that teaching writing is not easy but it could be done. It takes time and well prepared and committed teachers. The younger the students start to work with writing, the better they will learn to become effective writers.

Learning outcomes for this activity

For this activity the teacher wants the students to practice and experiment with some writing tasks and other skills. The students will demonstrate artistic creativity by using arts and crafts to design their party costumes. They will have to prove that they can apply what they have learned in class and in this particular lesson as well. They will have to use their imagination to recreate the scenario they have in mind. Students will have to write coherently in order for the reader to understand their piece of writing. They will have to use description in order for the reader to engage with what is happening in the short piece of the story they will produce. They will demonstrate some basic writing skills they have learned about grammar.

Writing prompt and Instructions

The teacher is going to read aloud a story with the students. The story is about a birthday party. After reading the story the students will be asked to create their gowns for their own birthday party. The teacher will ask the boys to design ties and the girls to design  purses, as their party gowns.  They will create the decoration for the party as well. Students will work in groups to create the artifacts they need for the party and their gowns. The teacher will provide students with paper, construction paper, crayons, scissors, glitter, and cardboard, to do their party gowns and decoration.

The students will create a paragraph of four to five sentences describing how they prepared their birthday party.

Their gowns and party decorations, as well as their writing pieces, will be shared with the group. Students will be asked to read aloud in front of the group their writing pieces.

The teacher will provide “washback” on the students’ pieces of writing. The teacher will give students the opportunity to improve their writing pieces before displaying it in the classroom.

What were your first experiences with computers? Take yourself back to the place where you first remember writing with a computer. Where was it? Who were you with? What were the circumstances?

My first experience with computers was at the age of sixteen. I was in high school and I used them in the computer class. I don’t remember learning anything really important except for the fact that I was learning the features of a computer. I didn’t have a  good teacher at my computer class. In this class I used to play computer games, such as TETRIS and Solitaire.

Where do you use computers? Home? School? Other places? Describe the places and feelings about working there.

I use computers at home, at the University, and at my parents’ house. Right now the place where I use them the most is at my parents’ house because there is where I can have access to the Internet. I like to work at my parents’ house because I have the opportunity to spend some time with them. I prefer to work there too because there I don’t have so many distractions as the ones I have at my own house. The only thing that bothers me is that I have to do it during the day and I don’t like this that much because I  prefer to work late at night.

Where are your Internet connections? Describe the kind of access you have to computers and the Internet. Is it 24 hrs? Home? School? Both? A friend’s house? Explain.

As I said before , I get my Internet connections mostly at my parent’s house. I too get connected at the University when I am in class. I have a computer at home but I don’t have Internet connection at home. I recently moved up and where I live there is  Internet connection I can use. Where I used to live I had the chance to connect to the Internet because I was my parents’ neighboor and they have wireles connection. It was really good for me because there I used to have 24 hrs access to the Internet. Now I don’t have Internet because I haven’t had the time nor the money to get an Internet connection of my own. I hope I can have it soon because I feel like having a handicap as a student.

What do you think is your role in helping students to learn about technology and writng?

I haven’t had the opportunity to use technology with my students.  Therefore I don’t know how to help students to learn about technology and writing. I know, sadly, that most of the teachers in Puerto Rico doesn’t have the opportunity to have computers in their classroom to work with their students. You only get the chance to have computers in your classroom if you are a computer teacher. Nevertheless, I am very interested in learning how to help students to learn about technology and writing because you never know if you’ll ever get the chance to do that.

     This presentation about peer response seemed very interesting to me. I believe that peer response groups are very good if we follow the guidelines that this article gives us. However, if we don’t have enough time to do it properly we should avoid using it. The consequences of a bad experience with peer response could be very frustrating for our students as writers. In our English classrooms in Puerto Rico we are not going to have a class designed to teach writing to our students. This doesn’t mean that we can’t teach writing, but instead it means that we have to plan to do so properly. Properly means, devoting enough time to one specific task. We can teach them how to write poems, short stories, essays, for example; but we can’t teach them using all the resources that are available. Instead what we can do is try to teach them how to work with one or two of them, giving them all the tools they need. One of the tools they have is peer response.  Peer response is a great help when you want to know what others think about your writing. You have your audience right next to you to tell you valuable insights about your writing. I believe that this is one of the most important things about peer response.

In Lydsay’s presentation she asked us two important questions. I am going to answer the one that is more important to me.

Are you willing to try peer response in your classroom? My answer is yes. I will use it but I’m going to read and learn more about it. I have to admit that I didn’t know much about it until now. I want this to be helpful to my students. I want to help them to enjoy writing. I want them to feel what is like to experience writing as something real, and not only just words without meaning.

To one of my peers with all respect:

ERROR: a deviation from right or truth; a mistake; blunder.

     Responding to students writing is not an easy task.  Moreover, it is a very important task. Teachers don’t have enough time to respond to students writing as much as they need to.  However, Sommers argue that it is not about how much or how often we respond to our students writing, but how we do so is what is important. In the article one of the findings and the main concern was the way in which teachers respond to students writing. She said that most of the time teachers comments are like “rubber stamped” comments that we can take out from one piece of writing and put it into another without any significant change.  It is important to understand that what teachers are doing when responding is not helping the students at all. They are just responding because they have to, as if it is a requisite. Teachers are not giving a lot of thought to what they comment. They are most of the time focusing on grammar and on style, but not on the content.  In order for us, as teachers, to teach our students how to write, we have to learn first how to respond to students writing.

In Yazmin’s presentation she gave us two questions for us to answer as students and as teachers. I believe that this was a very good exercise because it makes us reflect on how our students feel when we respond to their writing. It also makes us think about how we can truly help them to write.  Here I am going to share with you my answers to those questions.

1. What do you want your professor’s comments to show you about your writing?

    I want my professor’s comments to show if the content of what I write is good or not. I want them to show if I am on the right track in terms of what I want to communicate. I want them to correct grammatical errors, of course. I am not perfect and grammar is important because a grammatical error may change the meaning or the coherence . However, what I really don’t like is when the professor wants to change the style. This is not good because it is as if the professor were speaking his or her mind using my writing.

2. How much time do you spend responding to students writing? *What is our pedagogical purpose to respond to students writing? (In terms of our L2 context).

When I asked my students to write I didn’t spend much time responding to their writing because of the amount of work I gave them. Since my students were First graders, I didn’t ask them to write much. My experience as a teacher has never been as an English teacher, but I believe that the purpose to respond to students writing in an ESL context is very important. It is important because it should help them to communicate effectively in their second language.

David Bartholomae

(Reaction)

            “Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion-invent the university, that is, or a branch of it, like history or anthropology or economics or English”(Bartholomae).  This is the beginning of Bartholomae’s article and the beginning of students’ lives as writers. This article is really important for me because it helps us understand how difficult is to teach a student how to write. They do this by giving some examples of university students’ essays and an analysis of those essays.  This article confronted me with my own reality as an academic writer. It made me reflect about the things I need to keep improving if I want to be a writing teacher. This article too is good because it give students some guidelines to follow in order to become academic writers. An academic writer is one who knows how to appropriate a specialized discourse to communicate his or her ideas to any kind of audience. He or she has to be a specialist on what he or she is going to write about. Whereas this is complicated or not for me as a graduate student, I have to keep in mind that this is what I want my students to do when they have to write. By consequence, writing is not the act of using words and putting them together using the correct syntax or using the correct grammar, but it is much more than that. Writing is: studying first the information you want to write about, have a great understanding of the meaning of that information, and then knowing how to communicate effectively that information. This implicates that one can not call himself a writer if I he is not a literate person. I use the term literate to describe an avid reader, a person who likes to cultivate her intellect to be able to have great knowledge. I make reference to reading because in the article the connection between reading and writing is shown. What we read will determine in some way how we are going to write. Once we are exposed to some kind of readings, our writing will be affected by these readings. “A writer does not write but is, himself, written by the languages available to him” (this is Bartholomae’s famous paradox). I believe this paradox is what best shows the connection between reading and writing. It also shows that good writing is not only the act of invention of discovery, but the act of learning a style, “the academic style”.   

“Your writing is not you” someone told me once. When I heard that phrase I was confused. I did not know what to think at that precise moment. I was feeling down because of how my paper was evaluated. I was ashamed to see how many errors my paper had. Moreover, I was surprised to know that my paper had those errors, but at the same time I was relieved to hear it. I thought “great I’m not stupid, is just that I have to improve my grammar”. But the truth is that deep inside I did not believe that at all.  I know I did not believe it because two days after that happened I wrote a poem about it. It was something like this:

My writing is not me

someone said,

but for me it is.

You should pay attention to grammar,

 say mama.

I will pay attention to it mama,

but still, I believe my writing is me.

This should be no drama,

you have to write, revise and pay attention to grammar.

To write this poem I felt inspired,

but I don’t know if I did pay attention to grammar.

What I know is, that even without grammar,

my writing is like my soul.

Don’t you think mama?

This was written before I have read about process and post process. Even in that moment of my life I was able to recognize how personal writing is. Writing is not only a mechanical process; writing is an internal and very personal process. It is a process in which we use all our senses to describe the world around us.  Now that I know what writing is from a theoretical perspective I can understand how wrong the phrase I previously mentioned was. I know that the person who said it did not really believe in those words, but he had to help the students deal with a frustrating evaluation.

          As a teacher I already know that my students’ writing is a big part of who they are. Writing is not an asocial process in which they follow some steps in order to produce a good piece of writing. Writing in any context, L1 or L2 is a complicated process in which students are dealing with a lot of issues. They have to deal with their literacy and how it influences the way they write. Society plays a big role as well in how they write because of the topics they are interested in when they have to write. Society and the students’ literacy are only two examples of concepts involved in student’s writing.  In his article, Atkinson favors “post-process” in writing because it expands and broadens the domain of L2 writing. Nevertheless, he is not against process writing because he values the importance that pre-writing, drafting, feedback and revising give L2 students. They are important because they help students to organize their thoughts, they help students polish their writing skills and it gives them some necessary feedback when they are dealing with a second language. I personally agree with Atkinson’s position in regard to “process” and “post – process”. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I am very interested in what Ryuko Kubota proposes when teaching L2 students. Kubota highlights the important connections that need to be made between L2 writing and issues of race, class, and gender. I like it because this could be more interesting for students, more engaging; it will be a whole different way of teaching. This kind of teaching is like the one Freire proposes in his “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”. He believes that education should be a liberating act. Teaching with a purpose and within a social context is a way of liberating because you are reflecting upon your reality. When you reflect upon reality you have the chance to change some things. In essence what the “post – process” teachers are doing is liberating students. I believe then that my position is “post – process” because of the holistic way in which it deals with education, specifically writing. However, I still value process writing in the same way Atkinson does. It is a point of departure in the process of writing and a way of organizing students’ thoughts.

     I am a teacher not only because I have a bachelor’s degree in Education but also because it is one of my biggest passions in life. For me, education is the cooperation between two important components of a never ending process: the students and the teacher. Those components must work together to achieve mutual goals in this process: the students and the teacher. Those components must work together to achieve mutual goals in this process. The teacher becomes a guide who helps her students discover knowledge, love, and liberty. Moreover, in the process students learn from each other and the world around them, they discover love when they realize that their knowledge is useful not only for them but for helping othrs as well, and they discover liberty when they see that knowledge will give them the power to fight for their rights, for their country, their dignity, and the dignity of their compatriots. In this sense, education is revolutionary because we use human qualities to transform our experiences and our knowledge into something productive, something that is useful to us. According to these beliefs, I have performed my role as a teacher.

     My beliefs as a teacher were nurtured from the time I was a little girl. As a child, I love pretending to be a teacher. I remember spending entire evenings playing with my sister and my dolls in a classroom that I prepared in my father’s library. This dream was encouraged by my aunt who was my babysitter when my parents were working. My parents were also happy with my strong desire to be a teacher. I was raised in a home where both of my parents were lawyers and highly educated. They became lawyers for different reasons, not only for economic ones, because they came from very poor families, but also for social and political ones. They saw their profession as a tool for fighting against social injustices among marginalized classes and political injustices in their country. This kind of professional formation led them to raise their children in a very particular way. They taught me to fight against prejudice, vanity, idleness, and to use education not only for personal purposes but for social purposes, as a way of contributing to community. To instill their own beliefs in me, they took me to different places to see and learn from people of different cultures. They also made me do community service, such as working in a home for abused or orphan children. Sometimes, they refused to buy me things that they considered luxuries because they did not want me to be superficial or materialistic. The way I was raised was beneficial because I was taught to be a critical thinker. At the same time, it was difficult because I was somewhat different from most of my classmates. When it came time for me  to choose what I would like to become as a professional, I chose a carrier in which I could help children. I completed my bachelor’s degree in Education and this was how I started my formal career as an educator.

     My first experience as a classroom teacher was during my internship in an elementary public school. This was located in what was considered to be a high risk community because of high rates of criminality and the social and economic problems of students in this school. The population of this school was a very interesting one for me to work with. I had always wanted to work helping those who needed me the most and these children were in real need. They needed guidance, self assurance, advice, love, and, most of all a high quality education. I worked in this school as a kindergarten teacher with the guidance of a mentor teacher. My task was to teach Spanish class but using an integrative model in which one teaches a variety of subjects in just one class. This is, with different kind of stories in Spanish, I had to prepare lessons in which students could also learn about math, science, social studies and even English. This was a difficult experience for me because I had to work with a lot of new strategies. It required multitasking and, as an intern, this created a great deal of stress but, at the same time, it was enriching because I saw the improvements the children achieved with that kind of learning experience. They were never bored because we were exploring so many things at the same time and all their senses were employed to this end. We used to dance, sing, enact dramas, paint, draw, and read all in the same lesson. It was a very enriching experience for them as students and for me as a new teacher. With this teacher experience, I also learned that these children often came to school without all of the appropiate conditions for being successful in school. Sometimes they did not have the school materials they needed to do their work, other times, they were not well fed or they were neglected or abused in some way at home. In our classroom we acted as a team. That is, we shared everything and no one had an advantage over anyone else in terms of resources. We taught them to share even their food. I believe that this experience was emotionally rewarding for me because I felt like I was doing something important and I was contributing to changing my students’ lives at least in their educational environment.

     When I finished my bachelor’s degree I started working in a private catholic school and I was assigned to be a social studies and Spanish teacher. It was a really different experience because of the age of the students and the content of the courses that I had to teach. It was difficult because I had to study a lot in order to prepare myself to teach those classes and the population was very different to the one I was accostumed to work with. Yet, what I gained from this experience was not in vain. For example, I had to learn how to achieve group control in very different ways and that made me become more patient. Soon after that experience, I was assigned to be a first grade teacher. Working with this population, I discovered that teaching this grade level was going to be my passion as a teacher. I loved this experience because I also had the opportunity to be my own children’s teacher. Spanish, math, science, social studies, and religion were the subjects I had to teach, but my more important subject was my students. They were not only my students, but my patients, my daughters and sons, and my friends. They were my students because I guided them, my patients because sometimes I had to heal them physically and emotionally, my daughters and sons beacause I had to give them individual love and attention, and my friends because they cared about me, they were interested in how I felt. They learned from me and I learned a lot from them. We were constantly discovering things together as a group. I was very interested in learning about them, what their interests were, what their abilities were, how they preferred to learn and what they needed to achieve in order to deal with real life situations. They learned how to be compassionate, how to use their minds to be critical, and how to use their bodies to learn. We  used the religion class to apply our knowledge to real life situations and to teach them to be compassionate and ethical. Spanish and math classes were used to teach them how to acquire knowledge by using their bodies to work with music, technology, and literature. Social studies class helped them to become critical by reflecting upon the world around them, about family, and personal situations, and their communities. It was a very challenging situation most of the time. I believe that what made me successful in my work was that I did care about my students; I made them feel important, valued and respected. Students need to feel all of this in order to be confident and this is reflected in their academic success.

     Now I want to become an English teacher and I want to be more prepared in terms of the knowledge that I want to have in this subject. Being an English teacher however, does not mean that I have to transform myself into another kind of teacher because what I strive for as a teacher is a very personal way of living. My beliefs are my treasure and I know I will continue learning as a professional in the new career that I have chosen. Nevertheless, what I am as a person in a classroom can not essentially be changed. I am going to focus my MAEE studies in children’s literature because I would like to continue working with children and because I want them to learn and express themselves in the broad variety of ways exemplified in literature. Literature is about human experience and since we have to teach students to deal with real life situations, what can be more useful that this? In Puerto Rico , the teaching of English has been neglected, and one way for me to contribute to changing this situation is by teaching my students how they can use English in real life. English can help them to communicate with others, to have better economic and cultural opportunities, and also find enjoyment in the beauty of a second language, that enables them to express their feelings and solve their problems.