Reflections

Honestly when I first started this class I had a lot of questions. I wondered why I needed the class since I was not in an Elementary licensure program, nor do I plan to teach language arts. Over the course I started to see where particular ideas did line up with what I will be teaching, and I realized the significance of things in the mathematics class. I also was able to interview the language arts teacher and she made a point to mention the importance of writing between classes. She said that each team member works to incorporate writing, and the kids are much more interested in the process of writing when they see that it is important for all their classes and not just one. Through this class I have learned the importance of incorporating some form of writing into my mathematics class.

I also feel that in order to have stronger teams in school, and to have the ability to make stronger thematic units each teacher must know what the other classes are doing. Having taken this course I feel better prepared to keep up with the material that will be approached in the language arts class during future thematic units.

Through this course and my children's literature class I have become very aware of some great literature based resources that I hope to use in my future classroom. I was also showed very creative ways of introducing literature.

I am not sure how I will or if I will incorporate this, but I love mixbook.com. It is pretty much amazing, and I plan to continue to use that as a resource either in class or not.

I have enjoyed this course very much, and I have learned a lot about teaching language arts.

As a side note, blogging is not so bad after all. :)

Field Experience

My overall field experience was a good one. There were a few things that I saw that confused me, or I saw things I was a little skeptical of. Several times I found it to be interesting in the fact that I could go to the language arts classroom and say 'Hey we just talked about this in class.' I observed an 8th grade language arts class, so I did not get the opportunity to see structures such as: writer's workshop or reader's workshop that seem to be incorporated in younger age groups. Though I did not get the opportunity to see a writer's workshop, I was able to observe and see how writing and reading are incorporated into the language arts class for older students.

During my field experience I was able to see a thematic unit. The unit was awesome! It brought in the subjects of math, social studies, and language arts in the discussion of WWII. The students seemed to enjoy the unit, and I myself love thematic units. It was nice to see one unfold in an actual classroom.

Another thing I saw in the language arts class that I loved was the Shakespeare lesson. The literature came alive in the classroom! I loved that the students were given the opportunity to be creative and demonstrate their learning through other methods other than just a test.

I enjoyed the time I spent in the language arts classroom even though my concentration is mathematics. I will say this: the whole experience has made me consider getting trained and licensed to teach language arts.

Peer Conferencing

I really enjoyed the opportunity to have peers read my narrative story and give feedback. I also liked being able to help someone else in the process of developing their own story. However, I am not best person to call for editing purposes. I feel kind of bad for the person whose narrative I had to edit. With that said, I really liked the opportunity to get feedback from peers. I liked being able to get multiple perspectives instead of just one. However, a conflict I see, especially with editing, your help is only as strong as the helper. So as I said before I am not the best person to ask for editing advice, so some peers might get great editing advice while others get less than great editing advice depending on who they are paired with. I think the peer conferencing for content can be wonderful with younger students. I also think peer editing gives young students the opportunity to practice their grammar skills, but as far as the writer is concerned, seeking editing advice from the same young peers is probably not the best strategy.

I do not remember participating in peer conferencing during the Elementary years, but I do remember several times during the Middle and High School days. During Middle School it was great! Peer conferencing frequently meant free time. Sure you would read each others paper and give feedback, but then you also had plenty of time to chit chat about whatever. When the teacher would walk around you would pretend to be on task so that you had more time to finish “conferencing.” I think if I was to use this in Middle School I would provide the questions that were provided for us. I think the question will help keep students on task and force them to really care. During High School we were pretty good at staying on task for peer conferencing. Although I was in AG classes so I imagine some students would get off task. Providing questions for High School students would not be such a bad thing also. For the Elementary group I think I would focus more on content than grammar. I would encourage the students to look for things that could make their peers stories more interesting.

LA Instruction

I know I am not that old, but the high paced life I experience in College has a way of making me forget what I had for dinner last night, so with that said I will pick at my brain the best I can and give you the best examples from my experiences that I can remember.
WRITING WORKSHOPS:
I have a vague memory that took place in my eighth grade Language Arts class that may have been participation in a writing workshop. I remember sitting out in the hall way with a peer as we swapped papers to read each other’s drafts. The teacher walked around to each pair providing more feedback. She would remind us of things to look for, ask us about our partner writing, and prompt us with questions that would provide more useful feedback for our peers. The reason I remember this moment so well was because I had the tendency to use thesaurus too much in middle school. I am pretty sure that my papers made little to no sense because for every other word I used the thesaurus. My peers, however, ranted and raved about my “big words.” They thought it was cool. In some ways I think that writing workshops are wonderful. They force students to participate in each step of the writing process; they allow students to receive more feedback than what the teacher can provide. A student can have three different peers read his/her paper and receive three different set of comments in the time it takes the teacher to give feedback once to three different students. I like how writing workshops allow students to work with peers. I am firm believer that the educational journey should be joined. We learn best from others, and little to no interaction with others can hinder learning more than it can help. For these reasons I like the writing workshop. Writing workshops can present problems though. Undeveloped or poorly planned writing workshops could be disastrous. I can easily see too much time being spent in a writing workshop. I also feel that sometimes peer feedback is not always the best. As was in my case, my peers never told me my papers didn’t make sense. They thought I was smart because I used “big words,” so rarely did I receive useful feedback from peers on content.
READERS WORKSHOP:
I personally cannot recall a time in which I participated in a Readers workshop. I assume that I did, but I simply cannot remember. Some of the concerns that I had with the Writing workshop still exist for Readers workshop, poor planning. Poorly planned workshops reflect on the teacher, and could cost valuable instructional time in class. However, I think that a Readers workshop allows students to get more attention from the teacher during conference time. I think the time spent in conferencing and also in peer conferencing for the Writing workshop are wonderful tools for development. I also like that assessment is done through different techniques outside the box of testing. Testing so often stresses young students and they do not perform to the amount of knowledge they have gained.
THEMATIC UNITS:
I love Thematic Units! Let me repeat that: I love Thematic Units! I think that they are an awesome tool for connecting material across subjects. I think they keep students interested more than your typical lesson will. I sadly do not remember participating in school in a thematic unit. I have been exposed to them through working on a unit in one of my education classes. The team that I observe recently did a unit around WWII. Language arts, social studies, and mathematics were pulled in. I was not there the day the actual unit was presented but I had the opportunity to see the ground work. I was able to see some of the reading and work students were doing about WWII before the actual unit. Kids were excited about the learning, and the only thing that I can see as a negative about thematic units is poor planning. Poor planning results in a lot of “fluff” and “fluff” does not lead to significance educational experiences.
LITERATURE CIRCLES:
The only time that I have participated in literature circles was in my Children’s Literature class which wasn’t until College. Maybe I participated in a literature circle in Elementary School? I do not remember. My experience in college though was a wonderful one. I had the chance to read Ella Enchanted, fabulous book. I think Literature Circles are wonderful. They again support the interaction among peers, but they also require students to do a little work on their own. The roles that students have to participate in hold them accountable for doing their work. The only possible negatives that I see with Literature Circles are the chance of putting all the wrong kids together. Some students just cannot get along; putting them in a Literature Circle together may disrupt the experience for the rest of the students, or students would have a hard time staying on task. Also since Literature Circles are much more student controlled, students may find it difficult to be responsible for their learning if they are not interested in the text.

Assessment

From a student's perspective assessment can seem to be the judgment of skills and ability to perform. The "critical eye" watching every move you make. From a teacher's perspective assessment can be used as a tool to evaluate where students' cognitive development is at and then be able to take the steps to increase cognitive development. Assessment can be done through various different tactics, and particular tactics work better for different subjects. Test are one of the most popular tactics in schools to assess students, and most students hate test! Math offers a lot of freedom for different methods of assessment. I loved projects while in school. I liked putting the creativity, thought, and time into projects that were required. At the end of the assessment (project), I also had physical proof of my learning in my hands and something to be proud of. Where a test is over with and you don't have something you want to keep forever. Since I took so much pride in my project and felt they were much more enjoyable than test I will probably offer as many project possibilities in my class.

Is there a book you would like to use in your future classroom?

Yes! I would love to use the book “What’s your angle Pythagoras?” by Julie Ellis. I know this is considered a children’s book, but the math content is middle school level. I think it is a fascinating fictionalized story about how the Pythagorean Theorem was discovered. I think it would be a great tool to use when introducing the Pythagorean Theorem. Also I would like to be able to set up a math classroom where math is discovered and not preached. What I mean is I want my students to know that there is more than one way to the right answer. I often got in trouble in math for getting the right answer but using a different method. I think this book will provide an interesting gateway for students to get the main concepts of the theorem before every really getting the theorem. The students will get a demonstration of discovering the theorem, and begin to understand how the length of the hypotenuse depends on the height and length of the other two sides. I can then set the students up with a problem and ask them to guess what the length of the hypotenuse is by what they learned from the story. After the students have spent some time discussing and discovering, I can introduce the actual mathematical theorem.

What Makes Writing Worth Reading?

I think determining a set of characteristics that a piece of literature must have in order to make it valuable to read is difficult. Not everyone has the same taste or interests, and thus what I find valuable and worth my time you may not. I think there are particular categories in which we decide to read something or not. Educational - When I say educational I imply "decided learning." Just because your teacher tells you to read pgs blah - blah doesn't make it worth your time. You may read it, being the good student that you are, but frequently it isn't enjoyable. If you are like me, you will frequently google items that you have heard about to gain more knowledge - this is educational reading made valuable to the reader. Personal growth - I think it is worth it for people to read items that may help in self improvement. This is why diet books are bought, self help books etc. I think anything that will help you become a better person is worth reading and attractive. Pleasure - reading for fun! This type of reading is what I have seen a lot of growing up. My mom is one of those people that has a new chapter book every week. They don't add meaning or purpose to her life, but the books entertain her and add a little joy. I think anything that can add joy to your life is worth reading. These are a couple of the ways in which I think we choose books that are valuable to us.

I also think that people choose literature based on appearance. They say never judge a book by its cover, but we all do it. I personally have the tendency to pick up any book that has a girl dressed in one of those fancy gowns from the 1800s. They have a way of drawing me in. For starters, they draw on my historical interest (educational), and then the story line often present entertainment (pleasure).

I think these are only a few things we look for when looking for valuable writing to read.