Best Practice Response...

*After reading Chapter 1 of the Daniels and Bizar text, my interpretation of "best practice" teaching is finding a way to combine a healthy balance of student driven participation and creative thought with traditional instructional teaching. Best Practice teaching encourages students to be creative with the learning process and become more experimental. It produces an enviroment in which students and the teacher work together in the learning process, as opposed to the teacher demanding certain things with no room for flexibility. Best Practice teaching does not however mean that there is no room for lecture or seat work based learning, it encourages teachers to find a balance between the differing types of teaching.

*What Best Practice Learning attempts to do is discourage classroom settings that are driven solely by the teacher standing at the front of the class lecturing continually while students are sitting unengaged. This type of classroom setting leads to student disinterest and boredom, which is ineffective when it comes to grasping key concepts. It also discourages "busy work" that rewards students based on how quietly they can sit in their seats and complete worksheets. It also frowns on pulling students out of the classroom for special programs, due to the fact that it singles out certain students who may be struggling and can be looked at like a form of punishment.

* Some ways that Best Practice learning could be incorporated in the English classroom would be in class poetry writing in reading in which students could be encouraged to get creative and write on any topic they feel passionate about, and then be encouraged to share with one another. This would be a way for students to learn mechanics and basics of poetry while still feeling like they are taking a hands on approach and giving them the freedom to make choices on their writing topics. Another example would be letting students group up and choose a book to read from a selection, that each group could present to the class. This way the students would be working together and once again be given some freedoms when choosing what to present on.

*According to Murray, being a writer means exploring your personal thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Murray emphasizes the importance of writing as a cathartic experience, as a means of escape from everyday life, and as a way to find yourself. Murray looked at being a writer as a talent that needs to be constantly exercised and expanded upon. Being a writer is a way to share and relate to the people around you.
* In Murray's introduction, he writes about how he uses writing as a way to defeat what he is most afraid of. He uses a quote by Donald Barthelme stating, "Write about what you're most afraid of" (pg. 5). I liked this passage by Murray because I think that writing is one of the most useful ways to combat anxiety and fears. It was interesting to me the way he described the way that writing keeps his "dark shadows" at bay. I thought that this passage was an interesting and valuable way to show how writing can be a form of catharsis for those who suffer with anxiety and depression.