Blog Reflection

Blog Reflection 

       Sometimes, no matter how busy or hectic your life is, you have to sit down and make room for inner reflection. I gave myself several New Year's resolutions this year. Two of these included becoming a more active reader and a more active writer. I am happy to say that I have made progress with becoming an active reader. I am sad to say this not the case for becoming an active writer. This blog assignment made me realize how far I have to go when it comes to balancing my student life and work life. Working two jobs plus three master's degree classes isn't an easy task. However, if I had organized things and paced myself better, then my blog would have looked nicer and been seen by more of my peers. I didn't use the reminder buddy system and my blog suffered because of it. 

     There were parts of this assignment I really enjoyed. I enjoyed talking about my time as an exchange student in Kinmen, Taiwan. I also liked the Wordless Wednesday post. Is it cheating if I reveal where those images are from? I went up to the Florida Panhandle this weekend and visited some national parks. Those pictures are from Falling Waters State Park and Florida Caverns State Park. I truly enjoyed my weekend trip to these places. I kinda fell in love with that area, to be honest.

     I realize I must continue writing in some shape or form. There are some Internet forums I frequent and I do do some blog like posts on those. Writing as a habit will help me become a better writing teacher to my students.

What I've Read

What I've Read- Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher

     This book taught me how to look at writing and how I can present it to my future students. The first lesson it taught me was that as a teacher of writing, I need to be able to show my students why we should right. What purposes are there for writing? Why should we pick up the pen and start? The book also explains concepts very clearly. An example of this would be how the book describes logos. That is a concept I have previously gone over before when I took AP Language and Composition in high school, but I feel Jennifer Fletcher explained it more clearly when she says that logos has to due with "the text", rather than simply describing it as evidence. How is text used by an author for an effect?

        "Teaching Arguments" also includes many great activity examples that teachers could incorporate into their lessons. Below are two examples-

“Directions to Students: Write a three- to four-page essay in which you identify, explore, and analyze your participation in an argument. By argument is meant a verbal or written exchange with one or more other person(s) in which you disagreed about something. This should be a situation in which you and the other participant(s) considered the outcome important (not an argument where you had little at stake, such as an argument about ice cream flavors), and you were both emotionally engaged.

     I like this activity suggestion because it analyzes purposeful, real-life discussions and provides opportunities to examine them through writing. I would consider using this activity in my class. I believe my students would take interest in it.

“Translating for Outsiders
Directions to Students: Think of a subject that makes you feel like an expert, or insider. This might be your favorite sport, a style of music, a video game, anime, graphic novels, a hobby, a job, or “digitalk,” like texting. Then use special “insider language” to express each of the ideas in the following chart. Feel free to use slang, dialect, emoticons, abbreviations, or jargon to express your ideas. Then translate exactly what your insider language means for an outside audience in the final column.

What subject are you an “expert” on?”

      Every student has something they are good at or knowledgeable about. We as educators often talk about promoting the diverse strengths of our students. This activity is an excellent chance to do just that. They can write about what they are interested in and become "teachers" of their areas.

Fletcher, J. (2015). “Teaching Arguments.” Portland, ME. Stenhouse Publishers

   

Open Post- Substitute Teaching Experience

Open Post- Substitute Teaching Experience

     Greetings Everyone-

      For those who don't know, I have been a substitute teacher for Brevard County Schools since the beginning of this year. Recently, I subbed for a Remedial Reading class at a local high school. This kind of class is targeted towards students who did not pass the Reading section on the FSA assessment.

      The experience subbing this class was an eye-opening one to say the least. From what I was able to gather, the class solely consisted of using a program called Reading Plus. It's a computer program that "develops all three domains of reading–physical, cognitive, and emotional–by integrating them in one personalized online reading program" according to the Reading Plus website.

https://www.readingplus.com/

    It would be an understatement to say that the students in my class dislike Reading Plus. Common complaints about it ranged from the reading material being very dry and uninteresting to the assessments being above the level of the reading material given. Perhaps we as teachers should take some things our students say with a grain of salt. However, they are our students and listening to their input and needs is one of the most important aspects of our profession. The site below lists some of the flaws and criticisms of Reading Plus.

http://www.cavsconnect.com/opinion/2014/10/08/is-reading-plus-worth-it/

  I definitely plan on doing some more reasearch on Reading Plus and whether or not I will incorporate it into my classroom. Do you have any thoughts or input on this program?

Tech Creation- FlipBoard

Digital Creation- FlipBoard

For my digital creation, I made a Flipboard of my Annotated Bibliograpy sources (the extra assignment grad students had to do) about Steampunk Literature. I hope you enjoy it.

-Check out my Flipboard magazine, Steampunk Literature- http://flip.it/8_4EcW

Wordless Wednesday Mood

Wordless Wednesday Mood