This project has brought a lot of successes for the both of us. I think my greatest achievement is that I now view myself as a more creative person because I had to stretch my mind when creating ideas and looking for information during the process. It was very rewarding to feel like an actual teacher and create a tool that others will actively use for their own lessons. I discovered more about American literature as a whole and that brought me more confidence in the material that I will need to teach one day. I also feel that as a breakthrough, I was confident enough to share my ideas because often I am too shy to do so. As a teacher, you need to take the lead and sometimes that is very nerve-wracking for me to do. I am very proud of myself and my partner for what we have accomplished.

Although this was a very exciting and rewarding experience, I did come across a few challenges in this project. First, trying to collaborate and put our ideas into one tool was difficult. We took different approaches to the text and the age group we were working with. However, we did eventually come up with a solution to these issues. Each focusing on one intelligence and creating a podcast will allow us both to share all of our ideas while still staying focused on one central idea. Another problem we came across in the beginning of our project was creating ideas and finding relevant information to help us complete our goals. Personally, I was hesitant about the text we chose because I did not know if it was going to be something we could teach to elementary students. Also, in terms of the intelligences, we needed to think very creatively because we could not find information on how the texts specifically worked with the musical and naturalistic intelligence.  Overall, we have overcome all these obstacles and are ready to share our tool with our peers because we are confident in what we have created and the range we wanted to teach.          

I have learned so much more about the romantic and gothic periods over the course of creating this project. I have also learned so much more about the age group we are working with, which is fourth grade. It is important to think outside the box when creating lesson plans and activities for your students because there are not always obvious tools out there to support what you are trying to teach. Teaching is much more difficult and creative than I imagined but it made me love it so much more. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of our text, had a life that more people should read about because having the historical context made our research about “The Raven” so much more interesting. I did not have any major frustrations throughout the experience except for worries about due dates and formatting. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the process and would be willing to do something like this in the future again.