Describe something that you’ve learned as a result of your Kenan Fellowship that will change how you teach next year.

My teaching will be greatly impacted this year by what I’ve learned as a result of my Kenan Fellowship. I teach at a STEM school, but I never really thought that the principles of STEM were important to me as an English teacher.
Through my work with Dr. Fortne at NC State and Mark Meno at FRC-East I have definitely developed a deeper understanding of the Engineering Design principle, and I am so excited to incorporate this into my English class this year!

I intend to use the Engineering Design process to help my students plan for their papers, products, and speeches; the latter being my focus for my Kenan Fellowship. We have already used the first two phases of the process to write poetry at the beginning of this year. It is amazing to me how applicable this process is to my curriculum, and I intend to use it as often as I can with my students.

Our school is placing an emphasis this year in incorporating the design process in the classroom, and I feel like I already have a head start!
We are using the process broken up to help students with their planning. Here is a picture of the process I use in my classroom as I teach the students about each phase:

I think what I have learned from this process will not only affect my lessons, but also affect the manner in which I plan for lessons, as I myself have used the Engineering Design process to plan my Kenan lesson. Doing this has made everything I do more deliberate in the classroom, and that, I think will make the biggest impact on my teaching overall.