Jennifer R Smith

Jennifer Smith 

Hello, my name is Jennifer Smith. I taught English Language Arts in Missouri for eleven years. For the last six years, I have been teaching seventh grade English Language Arts at a large school district in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I am one of four core teachers who are trained and certified in the integration of content with language acquisition for Multiple Language Learners. I take great pride in being given the opportunity to work with an amazing group of teachers, and especially the inspiring students, who every day make me smile.

 

Through my teaching of MLL’s, I have become very passionate about helping my students learn English. Because of this passion, I have recently made the decision to go back to school to get my masters In Curriculum & Instruction - ESL, and ELA. This will help me to become a better advocate for my students’ needs. My future goals are to graduate and pursue a career as a curriculum director for MLL students.

 

 

ISTE

Standards: Creative Communicator Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats, and digital media appropriate to their goals. Using the indicator 6.a. Students select appropriate platforms and tools to create, share and communicate their work effectively under the standard of Creative Communicator, students in a seventh grade sheltered English Language Arts class could address the Oklahoma English Language Arts Standard 7 Multimodal Literacy, 7.7.W.1 having students create, organize, and present information regarding a non-fiction topic for use in argumentative writing. Students could create PowerPoint, Prezi, Flipgrid, or even Dashboard Studio videos that express an argument they have researched. They could also utilize Canva to create graphs to show data as evidence for their research.

Oklahoma English Language Arts Standards require students in seventh grade to be able to communicate and develop arguments. Though this is considered a writing standard, the writing can be presented using various forms of digital media. Having students who are Multiple Language Learners who are in the process of learning English the use of digital media to convey their research will improve their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, while also learning how to form an argument.

While reading the first chapter of Make, Learn, Succeed, by Mark Gura, I was intrigued by the ideas of social studies teacher, Joel Heffner. I felt like his ideas of having his students create videos of themselves acting out moments in history were exactly what I was thinking when I wanted my students to present arguments on Flipgrid. MLL students find it exceedingly difficult to speak in English for fear that they will “mess up.” Having them work through their own processes and learning how to create and present an argument using a technology like Dashboard Studio will alleviate that fear, because they can edit and do “re-takes” until they feel comfortable with their final product.