This was a bittersweet class since it was the last class I had with Dr. Ruday. I had three prior English classes with Dr. Ruday and I have always enjoyed his insights of language arts, and the art of teaching English. In this class, I examined examples of student writing and analyzed the sample student’s writing ability and characteristics. This process allowed me to learn how to analyze student’s writing and how to choose books and activities to build a student’s language arts skills. I feel more prepared to teach English in my future classroom because of the skills I learned from Dr. Ruday’s class.
The final assignment for ENGL 483 was writing about my new beliefs of language arts education. I learned many theories in Dr. Ruday’s class which changed my previous opinions on teaching English and rhetoric. This paper demonstrates how I have become more open minded to new ideas regarding English education and how I have grown from my study of language art teaching theories. This class made me feel more confident in my ability due to feeling that I now saw a more complete picture of how students learn language arts.