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English TeachingInformation for Graduate Students Seeking Secondary School Teaching Certification in EnglishThis page is intended for those who have already earned a Bachelor's Degree and wish to earn a Teaching Certificate in English, and perhaps work toward a Masters degree. Contents:Questions about prior course work
Choosing a Masters ProgramOne of your first decisions should be what you want to accomplish with the course work that you take at Boise State. Because you are returning to university work after earning a Bachelor's degree, you may be able to apply the credits you will earn toward a Masters degree. You have three options:
When you apply for the Master of Arts in English degree, you will submit your transcript for analysis. The Director of Graduate Studies in English will list for you any education or English courses that you need to complete for teaching certification. The Director may also consult the Graduate Programs' Coordinator in the College of Education about any education courses you may have already taken. If you have already taken some of the courses listed in the requirements, you may replace those with English electives upon consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies. You will receive a copy of this analysis, which you should use for scheduling reference.
When you apply for the Curriculum and Instruction Master's program, you will submit your transcript to the College of Education Graduate Programs Coordinator for analysis. The Coordinator will list for you any education courses that you need to complete for teaching certification, send your transcript to the English department's Undergraduate Advising Coordinator, who lists any English courses you may need, and returns a copy of this analysis to the Education Coordinator, who provides a copy to you. Use this list for scheduling reference.
If English was not your B.A. degree, you may earn an additional English B.A. by completing a 30-credit program designed for you by the English department. If your undergraduate work was done at B.S.U., your gpa will continue to change with your new course work. If not, your gpa at B.S.U. remains separate from your previous transcripts.
Questions about Prior CourseworkQ: Will I have to make up courses in English content? A: The English faculty member who analyzes your transcript will look for courses that meet university and state requirements for teaching certification in English. If your undergraduate degree required almost all literature, we will ask that you take at least two writing courses beyond freshman composition, since about half of what you will teach in secondary school will be writing. Other areas we look for include two language or linguistics courses, both an American literature and a British literature course (not necessarily survey courses; Shakespeare will do for a British lit class, for example), as well as courses in teaching writing, literature for junior and senior high, and an English teaching methods course similar to our ENGL 381 or 580. Your knowledge of English in general, however, is trusted if your Bachelor's degree comes from an accredited college or university. If you have life experiences that you believe equate to some of the requirements that may not appear on your transcript, discuss this with the person who analyzes your transcript or include a memo with your application materials.
Q: I took an Adolescent Literature or Young Adult Literature course at another college. Will it count in place of ENGL 481 or 581 Literature for Junior and Senior High School? A: ENGL 481 and 581 includes some adolescent or young adult literature, but students also read and consider teaching literary classics and the range of literary genres, including fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction. Most young adult literature focuses only on novel or novella-length fiction. If your course syllabus included classics and various genres, and you have not only read a good sample of the literature but also addressed the teaching of literature, your credits are likely to be accepted as a substitution for ENGL 481 or ENGL 581. If not, your preparation to teach would probably be enhanced by taking 481 or 581. A class in Children's Literature, by the way, does not count toward this requirement.
Q: I took a news writing course and a screenwriting course, but neither were English courses. Will they count as advanced writing courses? A: Yes. If you studied writing and learned to write better in that course, and the course is above the freshman (100) level, the writing course will usually count.
Q: I majored in another subject as an undergraduate, but now I want to teach English as my major subject. Can I switch to English? A: Yes, but you will have to make up some English content courses to firm up your knowledge and skills in the discipline of English and also to meet state requirements. When your transcript is analyzed according to the procedures described above, your evaluator will consider what English courses they believe you may need to take and let you know as part of their analysis. If you feel they have not made a fair assessment or need more information, go talk to them. If they won't budge and you still think you are right, you can talk to the department chair.
Getting an AdvisorOnce you have been admitted to a program, you should request an academic advisor. If you are in the English Masters program, your advisor will come from the English Department faculty. If you are in the Education Masters program, your advisor will come from the Education College faculty. Advising information is also available on the internet. You are, of course, reading information on the English Department's advising web pages at: http://english.boisestate.edu. The College of Education can be found at: http://education.boisestate.edu.
English CoursesENGL 501 TEACHING WRITING. As of Fall 2003, this course is taught with ENGL 581 in a two-class time slot (usually Tuesday and Thursday early mornings). You will take both courses together so that the teaching of writing and the teaching of literature can be integrated and field trips to schools will be possible. (501 is often combined with its parallel undergraduate course, ENGL 301, but requires additional work.) ENGL 581 LITERATURE FOR JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL. You will read (or re-read) samples of the literature that is taught in secondary schools, including fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction, and learn some approaches and techniques for teaching literature in secondary school English. As of Fall 2003, this course is taught with ENGL 501 in a two-class time slot (usually Tuesday and Thursday early mornings). You will take both courses together so that the teaching of writing and the teaching of literature can be integrated and field trips to schools will be possible. (581 is often combined with its parallel undergraduate course, ENGL 481, but requires additional work.) ENGL 580 ENGLISH TEACHING is offered in both fall and spring semesters. It is the main "how to teach secondary school English" teaching methods course. In this course you will write a unit plan. Take this course at the same time you take ED-CIFS 561 (block II) and ED-CIFS 544 Content Literacy, after you have completed block I. (580 is often combined with its parallel undergraduate course, ENGL 381, but requires additional work.) ENGL 501, 581, and 580, are offered each fall and spring semester. ENGL 600 ASSESSMENT: ENGLISH COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION. The most common culminating activity for the M.A. in English, English Education degree is a final comprehensive examination. Just as for a thesis or project, you select an advisory committee of three faculty members (from English and/or Education, but at least one must be from English). First, you ask a faculty member to be your chair. When a chair has accepted, you enroll for ENGL 600 through the English department's Administrative Assistant (currently it's Katie Quick). Then you and the chair set up a meeting with your advisory committee, who talk with you about what you have studied and about your preparation to teach English. They will suggest areas for your review and further study, and they will construct and evaluate your four-hour essay examination that you take on these same areas. One candidate's test questions will be different from another's. The faculty members read and evaluate the exam and hold a final meeting, or "defense," in which the candidate will be asked to answer questions or to clarify or explain further some ideas from their exam. After deliberating, the committee informs the candidate of their evaluation. Obviously, it would be wise to save your texts and work from classes in order to have them for reference and review. The Graduate College publishes a schedule for exam deadlines. You and your committee are NOT bound to this deadline since you enroll in the exam as a course. You must simply take the exam and pass the defense before the end of the semester.
Education CoursesYou must be admitted into the Teacher Education Program in order to take many of the required education courses, which are arranged in "blocks." Do these things to get admitted:
Block I Block I is intended to be taken during your first or second semester. Take these courses at the same time:
For the teaching experience internships you will be assigned to a school and mentor teacher. Your job is to assist the teacher in teaching tasks that typically begin with routines like taking roll, giving quizzes, marking papers, and working with individual students or small groups as they do assignments. Gradually you will take on more and more of the teaching responsibilities until during student teaching you will take over the teaching completely for a designated number of weeks. For the block I internship, you will work in the school for a minimum of 50 hours, which is 3 to 4 hours per week. Some of your time spent at home preparing or marking papers may be counted toward the 50 (no more than 10 hours), but travel time does not count.
Block II Block II is intended to be taken during your second or third semester, the semester after Block I. If all is well, you will continue working with the same teacher and secondary school that you had for Block I. For Block II, take these courses at the same time:
Block III Block III is student teaching, and is intended to be taken during your third or fourth semester, after Block II. If all is well, you will continue working with the same teacher and secondary school that you had for Block II. For student teaching, you sign up for:
This is student teaching, a full-time commitment. Take no other courses this semester if possible.
You may see references to a Block IV, which means a second student teaching experience for students who do dual student teaching, like P. E. majors who earn K-12 certification and must student teach both in elementary and secondary school settings. Most English Teaching Majors do not do Block IV. Questions about education coursesQ: What does "Professional Year Teaching Experience" mean? A: Some College of Education materials refer to the "Professional Year." The "professional year" simply refers to the Block II semester together with Block III, which is the student teaching semester. The phrase is intended to convey the idea that in the final year of college, students should intensify their preparation to enter the teaching profession, particularly by intensifying their internship experiences. However, you might not necessarily take these blocks during a calendar year, especially if you student teach in the fall, and it is possible that Blocks II and III may not be consecutive if you take a semester between these blocks to complete other course work. In addition, for all practical purposes, in secondary teaching the professional experience begins with Block I, so it's really a professional year and a half if you do the blocks consecutively.
Q: How do I get placed in a school for my Block I teaching experience? A: The Director of Field Placements in the College of Education (E-222) will use your Application for Admission to Secondary Education Courses and Placements to locate a teaching placement for you. That form gives you an opportunity to list school districts of your preference. If you have a preference for a particular teacher or school, or if you have circumstances that constrain your placement (like transportation problems), make a note on the form or attach a memo to it when you turn it in. You may not get your placement preferences. BSU always has a lot of students to place, and it is a big, complicated job to locate teachers who would like to work with an intern, in a school whose principal and other teachers would like to have our interns. Be patient, and make the most out of wherever you land.
Q: Can I make my own placement? A: No. Never arrange your own student teaching placement. It's a very different situation if the university requests that you work in a particular school than if you do it yourself. Your teacher may not feel free to decline when you ask them yourself. The principal wants to hear from only one official person at Boise State regarding all internship placements in his or her school, and you are not that person. Also, Boise State may be making other requests for that school, and you have no way of knowing about those. So make your requests to the Field Placement Director.
Q: Can I be placed in the Professional Development School for English teaching? A: Some English Teaching students will be selected for block I placement in a school with a more intensive working partnership with BSU's English Education program. Currently that school is West Junior High in Boise. The teaching internships in this school are supervised by English Education faculty and offer a broader variety of teaching experiences than traditional placements. If you are interested, see Dr. Robbins or Dr. Wilhelm in the English Department.
Q: What if my cooperating teacher does not teach like I will? A: They probably won't. But that doesn't mean that you cannot learn a lot from them anyway, and learn what works for you as you work with that teacher's students. Remember, though, that the classroom is the teacher's and not yours (yet), so make sure that the teaching approaches you take in this classroom will fit in with what the teacher is doing, even if you might not do it this way yourself. Learn from it. Your time will come.
Q: Are there standards in teacher education that I must meet? A: Yes. Just as there are state achievement standards for secondary school students, there are standards for new teachers to meet. Some of these are broad, general principles that all teacher education students must meet, such as knowledge of adolescent development and understanding of pedagogical approaches like direct instruction or use of small groups. In addition, there are standards specific to English teaching; for example, you must show that you can integrate writing and reading instruction, and that you understand how language changes over time and is socially embedded. You will have opportunities to meet these standards in your course work and in your internships.
Q: What is a Teacher Work Sample? A: One of the things that the standards require is that you show that you can use your knowledge of English and of teaching so that your teaching actually results in student learning. During your block II and student teaching (block III) internships, you will plan instruction, teach it, collect the assessment results from your students and analyze them to see if they show what or how well your students have learned. Assessment results are as likely to show you that something needs to be re-taught as that something was achieved, but either way, you must demonstrate that you know how to assess student knowledge and performance, and that you know how to consider the results as a "reflective practitioner" who can see what to do next. So the "work sample" usually is a copy of your lesson plan, a short description of how the lesson went, samples of student work or assessment data, and your analysis (reflection) of the data (including your observations of the students).
Q: May I take both Block I and Block II during the same semester? A: Although the blocks alone require only 8 credits each, and conceivably a student could handle 16 credits in a semester, the block program assumes a graduated internship experience. If you think that your situation is an exception to the rule, you must convince the Placement Director to allow you to register for block II courses, since you will not have met those prerequisites.
Student TeachingDuring student teaching you will gradually take over all responsibilities for classroom instruction. As you become well established, your cooperating teacher leaves the room and for a few weeks you become the teacher, including preparation, teaching, and grading for all of the teacher's classes. You will document some results of your teaching and your reflections about your teaching in a portfolio of work samples. In the end, the cooperating teacher writes a letter of evaluation that becomes the centerpiece of your job application file. You apply to student teach by completing the application to the Professional Year (blocks II and III) and submitting it to the Office of College School Partnerships and Field Experiences, E-222. You must also register for student teaching credit. If you do not enroll for student teaching in the semester for which you have applied, you will have to reapply. Student teaching is a full-time commitment. If possible, take no other courses during your student teaching semester, and take a hiatus from any jobs you might have. Remember that your teaching career depends on getting an excellent letter of recommendation from your cooperating teacher. Student teaching is not the place to cut corners.
Student Teaching Placements The College of Education handles all aspects of student teaching, including placement (except for placement in the Professional Development School, which involves English Education faculty). It is likely that you will continue to work with your block II teacher if conditions allow that. If you need to change, see the Director of Field Placements. You may make specific placement requests, though there is no guarantee that your request can be granted. Placements are also based on availability of cooperating teachers and administrative decisions.
Questions and Answers Q: Should I do a single or dual option for student teaching? A: Probably single, not dual option. For purposes of certification or job application in secondary schools, the single option experience is sufficient even if you student teach in a high school and seek a junior high job or visa versa. Dual option student teachers work in two placements, for approximately eight weeks in each setting. Students who elect the dual option are usually those who desire teaching experience in two different school subjects and feel that they need teaching experience in both areas in order to be employable. (English in combination with a modern language might be an example.)
Q: Can I student teach during the summer? A: As a rule, no. The student population in summer school is very abnormal; usually it is just the lowest achieving students who need to make up failed credits, and the highest achieving students who want to make more room in their school year schedule for extra electives. Often the middle of the bell curve is missing, along with normal school culture of a school year. This kind of student teaching experience could compromise your readiness to begin teaching in a normal school situation, and also it might appear to be a disadvantage to an administrator examining your job application in comparison to someone who has student taught during the regular school year. Besides, in summer there aren't as many classes in which students could be placed. Another complication is that for students who need 16-week student teaching experiences, summer school is too short. However, secondary school summer school programs do exist, and they usually offer some English classes, so a few student teaching placements could be made. To be placed in summer school, students should have plenty of solid experience during the regular school year in their internship experiences, be strong teaching candidates who won't be compromised by the atypical summer circumstances, and be able to present a compelling reason why they cannot student teach during the regular school year. Requests to student teach during the summer should be made to the Director of Field Placements in the College of Education.
Q: Who supervises me during student teaching? A: The College of Education will assign a university supervisor to periodically observe and evaluate your teaching. (If you are placed in the Professional Development School, your university supervisor will be an English Education faculty member.) But your main supervisor is your mentor teacher.
Q: What are my requirements for student teaching? A: Student teaching requirements and procedures are described in a handbook available from the Director of Field Placements in the College of Education and online at: http://education.boisestate.edu/handbooks.htm/
Q: Can I take a university course while I am student teaching? A: Before student teaching, you should complete all of your course work so that you can concentrate your full energy and attention on successful student teaching performance. However, if necessary, you can be allowed to take an evening course during student teaching as long as the course is not fundamental to your teaching success (like ENGL 501, 580, and 581). Consider that your priority will be successful student teaching, which requires a great deal of time and energy. You must be willing to put your course work after this, and the quality of your course work may be at risk. If you must take a class, consult the instructor and work ahead if possible.
Q: How long does student teaching last? A: You will student teach for the whole semester, 16 weeks.
Q: Do I need to pass the Praxis II test? A: Yes. Beginning for student teachers in spring 2003, the State Board of Education requires all those who request a teaching certificate in English to take the Praxis II English subject matter test, #0041. It is a multiple-choice exam with questions about works of literature, writing and rhetoric, and language and linguistics. the passing score is 159 or better. If you do not pass the first time, you may re-take the exam but you will not have final approval to student teach until you have passed. For now, all you have to do is take the test. When the State gets enough test results, they will norm the test and determine a passing score. But for now, you only have to take the test, not pass the test. (However, other states like Oregon do require a passing score on the Praxis II, so if you are interested in teaching in another state, you would be wise to review for the exam. The test costs about $70. Register to take the test at the Testing Center, Education Building 6th floor, where they have the test dates posted. Take the test early during your block II semester.
Q: Can I withdraw from student teaching? A: Yes, if you decide to withdraw early enough. As a professional courtesy, six weeks' notice should be given to your mentor teacher and school prior to the beginning date of your student teaching assignment so that they know in plenty of time not to expect you. Other withdrawals follow university guidelines, but are strongly discouraged because of the commitments that student teaching implies. The Director of Field Placements also has the right to withdraw you from an internship setting if your professional performance is deemed a potential liability for yourself or others. Procedures for non-voluntary withdrawal allow you a chance to tell your side of the story.
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