Cory Neil

TWS Setting and Context

EDUC 450
October 5, 2014
School Community:
Thompson Valley High School is located on the western side of Loveland, CO and is one of 5
public high schools serving the Thompson Valley School District. According to the district website, it is
the 16th largest school district in the state, encompassing an area of 362 square miles including the cities
of Loveland, Berthoud and the southern part of Fort Collins as well as parts of Larimer, Weld and
Boulder counties.
The mission of Thompson Valley High School is laid out clearly through their Belief Statement:
Students will build skills to: achieve academic and career goals; contribute to society; achieve an
understanding of cultural diversity; achieve self-pride and confidence; and achieve learning as a lifelong
experience. At TVHS, these are more than mere words and lofty ideals they are guiding principles that
are actively put into practice and are clearly evident to any observer. The students enjoy an environment
that is as focused on personal interests and development as it is with academic success and excellence. In
addition to a fully comprehensive course offering, the school offers the options for participation in an
International Bachelorette program as well as twenty-four AP courses with a student participation rate of
roughly 38% (usnews.com). The school offers a range of focused courses in areas of the arts, humanities,
world languages, mathematics, and sciences to allow students to truly customize their education to fit
their own interests and goals for the future. In addition to the wealth of academics offered, the school
also offers co-curricular opportunities to cater to the interests of any student. Students are able to
participate in 24 possible sports year-round 10 in the fall, 6 in the winter, and 8 in the spring.
Thompson Valley is a 4A school in all sports offered (which only exclude ice and field hockey) except for
womens lacrosse which is currently 5A, and is ranked overall as the #3 4A school in Colorado. The
school takes great pride in its student-athletes and holds them to high academic standards in order to
maintain participatory status. In addition to athletics, students have the option to participate in a dizzying
array of clubs and organizations such as National Honor Society, anime Japanese graphic novels, Harry
Potter Club, salsa, games, and long boarding to list a few (TVHS website); and if a club or organization
does not exist, a student need only find one other student and a faculty sponsor to create it. The school
also houses its own aquatic facilities and theatre (which are both also community facilities for the city of
Loveland) as well as a comprehensive machine shop, various computer labs, in order to enhance the
students academic as well as athletic and organizational needs and success. Additionally, the school
offers struggling students a number of resources to aid them in achieving and maintaining high standards
of academic performance. For example, this year they began a new program for student advising,

designed to keep students abreast of their performance and on track with their education. The students
meet weekly with the same teacher throughout their academic career to go over their grades, discuss
avenues for improvement, and to seek assistance from content area teachers in subjects they are
experiencing difficulty with.
Based on input from faculty and administration at the school as well as from what I have been
able to observe first-hand, students at the school seem largely respectful and accepting of their fellow
classmates and instances of elevated conflict and bullying/teasing are rare. School, as well as personal
pride and mutual respect are principles that are interwoven into the students total educational experience
something that is instantly evident when observing students passing in the halls, gathering for lunch,
attending school functions and in the individual classrooms themselves. Students are encouraged to be
positively active in the community outside of the school as well, and the school sanctions many
community service initiatives throughout the year such as canned food drives, adopt a family,
Thanksgiving dinners, and two blood drives. The overall climate of the school feels and appears safe and
conducive of learning with a real focus on creating a community amongst the students and staff. The
school also welcomes parent involvement, offering several opportunities for participation such as:
building accountability committee, parent volunteer programs, school-to-career programs with parental
involvement, scholarship search, as well as three booster clubs. Despite these opportunities, and
according to information from my match-up teacher, Christy Goldberg, parent involvement at the school
seems a little low with between 10-15 parents (out of 90 students) attending parent-teacher conferences
for her regular English 11 classes, and only about 50% attendance for her AP classes. Most of her parent
contact, she admits, originates from herself and largely pertains to positive topics such as major
improvements in student work.
Demographically speaking, the student make up is fairly representative of the community as a
whole with 87% white, 11.27% Hispanic, 1-2% Asian and African American, and 1-2% being Native
American/Alaskan Native and Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; about 30% of the student body is eligible for
free or reduced lunch. The total enrolment for the 2014-2015 school year is just over 1,300 students
(approximately 54% male, 46% female) resulting in a student-teacher ratio of 23.5 to 1.

Topic and Rationale:

American Connections (or Integrated English 11& Modern America) is an interdisciplinary
course pairing the study of literature and other pivotal texts to the social, economic, and political forces of
Americas history which have served to dramatically shape the current climate of American culture. This
courses collaboration with the Modern America history class allows students to familiarize themselves
with literature and literary movements that came out of and helped to shape and define the events in

Americas history from the late 19th century through WWII (including an examination of our foundational
documents in this context) giving them a unique perspective by which to examine and consider our
current history. The ultimate goals of the course are to have students gain a critical understanding of the
important role that literature has played in the history of our country during the time periods we will be
studying and to be able to relate current events to those of our past by gaining an understanding of the
nature of cause and effect relationships through the close examination of historical events and literature.
Studying the narratives, poetry, and other forms of literature from these times will hopefully add a very
human side to these events; events that can often be hard to contextualize and relate to for the modern
student.
The units of this course follow and are broken up according to major events, conflicts, and
movements of American history rather than by the literary movements themselves. This makes the class
itself more relatable to students by structuring what we read around a more or less linear sequence of
cause and effect relationships providing significant background to the texts and contextualizing them in
such a manner as to allow students to see and understand the development and progression of different
literary movements and their distinguishable qualities and characteristics. The class covers five main
units, which are broken up by the following general themes:

American Dream/ Foundational Documents

Turn of the Century/ Progressives

WWI

20's and 30's

WWII

Upon joining the class this semester, they had already completed their study of the first unit and were
in the midst of the first half of the second Turn of the century.
Despite the unique nature of the class curriculum, instructionally the class will be fairly traditional in
its literary analysis and critique. Students will come from Ms. Robinsons history class and at the
beginning of each new unit we will discuss what they are studying in history, both to provide a sense of
coherence with the two classes but also to inventory students background knowledge on each new unit.
Spending a class period on this with every unit is worth the time considering that depending on where
students interests and concerns are could affect what the class chooses that theyd like to read or focus
on. This in itself provides a form of differentiation through student choice, where class texts are tailored
to the students rather than being generally about the time were studying. Students will complete
relatively standard assignments over the course of the year, including but not limited to critical and
reflective writings of various size and scope as well as creative projects designed to allow for the

assessment of students critical understanding of the works we study in relation to the events surrounding
them and to their current lives and contemporary society as a whole.
This class design is therefore meant to create a way of thinking in students that a class not paired as
closely with American History could not one where they are able to see the ways historical and current
events change what people are writing, while also being able to see how the things people chose to write
about, and how they wrote about them, has too changed the world. Teaching English in this way will
help students that are on the ladder half of their high school career to finally piece together how all the
books they had to read in school are all tied to a specific time and work not only to shape that time, but to
inform our perspective of it and contribute to their own individual presents and futures. In a way, this
class is meant to teach a new social awareness of all the literature that has already happened, and that is
happening around us every day of our lives.

Students and Classroom:

Our classroom is a group of eleventh graders that are all between sixteen and seventeen years of
age. There are nineteen male students and twelve female students in the class. In regards to racial/ethnic
make-up of the class, the breakdown is as follows: 24 White, 6 Hispanic/Latino, and 1 Asian. This class
includes four students that have had an IEP created for them, two students with 504s on file, and two
English Language Learners, both of whom are Fluent English Proficient. Christy Goldberg commented
on one student with an IEP, saying that accommodating to his IEP was as simple as restating instructions
at times, or leaving the instructions written on the board throughout an activity so that he can return to
them as needed. Other students modifications are of equal degree including things such as preferential
seating towards the front of the class, extra time for quizzes and tests, and breaking down assignments
(particularly readings) into smaller pieces to avoid the student being overwhelmed. Overall, the student
population of the class covers a broad spectrum in terms of ability and proficiency levels ranging from
students who seriously struggle with the course material to students who opted out of the AP class due to
an already heavily loaded schedule of AP courses in other subjects. Student interests and motivations
likewise vary drastically and genuinely run the gambit of interests for 16-17 year olds sports, music, and
after-school jobs being the most prevalent.
Although a majority of the students in the class are willing to participate during in-class activities,
their grades do not show a similar positive majority. Class wide there are three students with As, six
students with Bs, seven students with Cs, three students with Ds, and twelve students with Fs. The
bulk of the issues with student grades appear to stem from a lack of completed homework which may not
be solely due to their academic abilities, but rather to a home environment or out of school schedule that
is not conducive of them being able to complete their assignments.

Since being in the classroom, students have shown an interest in women rights at the turn of the
century. This has coat tailed into heated discussions about civil rights, especially after the recent events
in Jefferson County. The students are aware of what is going on around them but often are hesitant to
make public their opinion on said events. The classroom community is warm because Goldberg keeps the
class vibe light hearted. However there are also many small sections where students have almost divided
the classroom into three different permanent groups. In this way its hard to get students to collaborate
with anyone than those they sit directly next to. Students know that daily they will be asked to complete a
warm up grammar activity but other than that every class looks different depending on what Goldberg
wants to do.
Physically, the classroom can at times hinder learning because it faces some students at the front
of the class, some directly to the side of the room, and the side facing row pushes one group of students
into the farthest corner of the class, where a good amount of side conversations and distractions stem
from. Mrs. Goldbergs desk is a kind of off-limits area to students and they seem to respect that. The
room is fairly sparsely decorated with a few examples of student work on the back wall, and a few posters
relaying educationally-inspirational sayings. In the back corner of the room, opposite the teachers desk
is the sole book shelf which holds textbooks and other reference materials (such as dictionaries) as well as
a surprisingly small selection of fiction that serves as the class library. Lastly, the Smart Board in the
front of the room supplements a lot of Mrs. Goldbergs activities not only by getting students up and
moving to come write on it, but also by providing a visual representative and recorder of her spoken
instruction. Students seem to enjoy the opportunity to come to the front of the class and interact with the
board, but participation appears to be limited to a small portion of the class with some students
consistently contributing while others consistently refrain.
Overall, the class seems to be an enjoyable and comfortable experience for all the students. There
appears to be a well-established sense of community and the students are respectful of each other and the
teacher. They know what is expected of them in regards to behavior and rarely ever deviate (and never
for long) from conducting themselves according to the expectations that have been established.
Additionally, since the class is taught in conjunction with the Modern America history course during the
period directly before, the students spend a large amount of time together which I anticipate greatly adds
to the sense of community and inclusion that is evident in the classroom.

Classroom Diagram:

Topic and Rationale:

English 11 at Thompson Valley looks different from the average English class, due to the fact that the
English curriculum for this course is paired with eleventh grade American History. This courses
collaboration with American History allows students to familiarize themselves with literature and literary
movements that come out of the events in Americas history that they already have learned about from
World History courses in years previous, or through their American social indoctrination.

Studying current events is a practice often associated with social studies classes. By narrowing the
historical scope that we ask students to consider, to only Americas history, students are given a
manageable sample set with which to compare, write, and think critically about events that have taken
place in their lifetime. For instance, except for students coming from another country, we can assume
students will know and likely have an opinion on the September 11th attacks. However, something many
students have likely not done is compared their own feelings about global conflict to those of individuals
from different parts of American history up to World War II. Studying the narratives, poetry, and other
forms of literature from these times will hopefully add a very human side to these events; events that can
often be hard to contextualize and relate to for the modern student.

The units of this course follow, and are broken up according to major events, conflicts, and movements of
American history rather than by the literary movements themselves. This makes the class itself more
relatable to students by structuring what we learning in terms that both students and teacher are familiar
with, rather than having the teacher be the class content master and the student having to constantly
contextualize material. The class covers five main units, which are broken up by the following, according
to Christy Goldberg:

American Dream/ Foundational Documents

Turn of the Century/ Progressives

WWI

20's and 30's

WWII

Unlike the unique nature of the class curriculum, instructionally the class will be fairly traditional in its
literary analysis and critique. Students will come from Ms. Robinsons history class and at the beginning
of each new unit we will discuss what they are studying in history, both to provide a sense of coherence

with the two classes but also to inventory students background knowledge on each new unit. Spending a
class period on this with every unit is worth the time considering that depending on where students
interests and concerns are could affect what the class chooses that theyd like to read or focus on. This in
itself provides a form of differentiation through student choice, where class texts are tailored to the
students rather than being generally about the time were studying.
This class design is therefore meant to create a way of thinking in students that a class not paired as
closely with American History could. One where they are able to see the ways historical and current
events change what people are writing, while also being able to see how the things people chose to write
about, and how they wrote about them, has too changed the world. Teaching English in this way will help
students that are on the ladder half of their high school career to finally piece together that all those books
they had to read in school and all the music they listen to is all tied to a specific time and work to shape
that time. In a way, this class is meant to teach a new social awareness of all the literature that has
already happened, and that is happening around us every day of our lives.