Cognate Proposal:

Rational for cognate culminating activity and

connection of cognate course of study to the
activity.

Rational

Throughout the course of my masters program, I found many theorists to help shape my

philosophies on teaching. Vygotsky is one of the first to bind together how I want my pedagogy

to evolve. Vygotsky was a social theorist who believed socialism was how children learn best.

They observe and connect with the social environment in order to develop. With this I have

become fond of community and collaboration. In EDTE 540, we discussed Chomsky and his

linguistic theories. He reviewed whether language was innate or learned. I found how students

learn language and digest it to catch my interest and be the center of my writing starting with

children and then leading into young adults.

Conversation and communication are the very basics according to Bond and Wasik (2009).

They focus on conversation stations in their study, which helped them focus on creating

conversation and building communication skills throughout. It is evident that language is

important and crucial to developing literacy. Over the course of my education, my interest went

from child development to young adults and reading programs to help students better their

literacy. Short ant Burke often talked about the meaning of school and curriculum, which is
essential to building literacy. In my EDCT 585 course with Dr. Kornfeld, Short and Burke

highlighted how I felt about core curriculum and revealed to me the influence the government

and school districts have on curriculum building.

While reading Jane Addams, The Public School and the Immigrant Child, it brought to light a

lot of issues I wouldnt normally think about. When we have students, normally, it is a diverse

population, especially in California. We have immigrants that come from other areas in the world

and are not used to our culture and ways. Do we teach with them in mind? Do we make the

curriculum digestible or manipulate it to benefit immigrant students? Many of them may not

connect to American history and ways. Would it be beneficial to add in their history and ways or

is that considered stereotyping and offensive to them? How do us teachers adjust to please all

populations within our classroom. This became important to me and thinking about my target

population for when I teach eventually at college level.

For my EDCT 586 with Dr. Grady, some articles that we read stuck out to me. In the article,

The Sciences of Learning and the Art of Teaching, B.F. Skinner articulates his theory based on

behavior. His theory is on operant conditioning, which is behavior that is determined by into

either reinforcement or consequences, in hopes that the specific behavior wont be repeated. The

piece goes on to suggest, that the largest criticism in the classroom today is the infrequent use of

reinforcement. We must ask ourselves what behavior is being set up? What reinforcements are

following behind them? They help contribute to analyzing and finding ways to implement

reinforcement for those students who learn better this way.

The project I want to construct for my cognate ties in with the courses selected over the

semesters because every course taken has helped me focus on literacy, target population and

theory and research. My project will help me create a text-set and build lessons with it to teach as
part of my reading and writing program for first years. Having a text-set helps students use

diverse tools and resources to build upon a selected theme. The theme helps them zoom in on a

topic and find various ways to connect their experiences with the theme and display their

knowledge on it. This helps them take literature, applied experiences, and read and write. Their

process and outcome will be monitored and ultimately aid the students in literacy development.

Connecting reading and writing is beneficial to help them digest what they read and enable them

to use writing skills to relay the information learned.

I thoroughly believe this project will benefit my development as an educator and creating

curriculum to enrich students experiences in English/ Comprehension classes for first year

students. Not only will I grow and develop during this process, but I will also be learning from

students when I implement the curriculum. There is always room for improvement and with this

text-set I will be able to assess its progress and success and make any adjustments needed in

order to give myself and the students a better experience.

Cognate Proposal:
Goals for the activity

Goals
1. To create 3 text-sets rich in diverse
materials

2. To grow and develop personally

3. To grow and develop professionally

4. To learn the process of creating

curriculum

5. To successfully finish the product

6. To aid students literacy growth

7. To build curriculum that can be used by

other educators

8. To enable room for growth with the

text-set

9. To encourage students to work

together and create work they are proud
of