Diction is really important when it comes to teaching. Word choice can make or break some students’ whole understanding of certain assignments or essential questions. Appropriate choices in wording can either allow students with certain disabilities to be able to understand an assignment better, but it can also do the opposite. The reading regarding the edTPA provided a great example of how this is done for struggling students. This example showed how to use words correctly, such as underlining, bolding, etc. What this example also shows is the applied use of Bloom’s Taxonomy’s rhetoric with words such as compare, explain, and describe. What this example also shows is how the edTPA may be able to assist the teacher in learning more simple vocabulary to help their students. The edTPA provides subject-specific vocab and may be able to help the teacher in helping the student succeed. This does not only pertain to students with disabilities as academically gifted students will also benefit from choosing specific vocabulary. Choosing specific wording also will help teachers aid students across grade levels. Students in the ninth grade are generally gonna have a smaller range of vocabulary than a twelfth grader would. This is important because a teacher may need, or want, to simplify the vocabulary used or not. I personally struggle with this specific issue so this reading was able to help me open my eyes and self-reflect on how to improve my choice of diction in my future classroom. 

One general theme that I’ve noticed throughout these more recent readings is that it focuses on how to use the ideas we’ve learned, instead of just defining them again. Last week the readings pertained to formative assessments and their effectiveness. What these readings pointed out is that anybody can do formative assessment, but the positives that come from formative assessments come from actually putting the data collected to appropriate use. Some of the readings this week also follow this theme. One of the readings is explaining how to appropriately use rubrics by using a “standards-based rubric.” The standards-based rubric allows for a teacher to judge on conceptual understanding instead of content knowledge. Another article was completely about how to implement, and use graphic organizers correctly.  

A major takeaway for me from these past two weeks is that any teacher can know the lingo regarding academia, such as formative assessment, but if a teacher does not know how to properly use the academic practice, they are essentially wasting their, and their students, time.