A new way to teach Writing and Reading

-->

As a requirement for one of my Graduate courses at FGCU and as a profession development activity, I am going to read a book about teaching Language Arts to middle schoolers. The book I have chosen is In the Middle: New Understanding About Writing, Reading, and Learning by Nancie Atwell who oddly enough is a resident of my home state, Maine. I chose this book primarily because I would like to restructure my classroom to be the best “type” of classroom where my students participate in collaborative and real life writing and reading: a place where they can truly discover a love for reading and writing. So much of the instruction I currently do as a first year teacher is direct instruction on how to write a 5 paragraph essay for a prompt and how to use textual evidence when responding to a text. Many times I feel like I, as a teacher am beating my head against a wall; some of my students are excelling in this but others are not finding any inspiration or enjoyment out of class, let alone producing good writing. If I am feeling this way, I wonder how they are feeling. I am hoping to get some ideas from this book to re-inspire my teaching techniques and reach my students in a new and exciting way when it comes to writing and reading. Just from the table of contents, I believe I have found a book to help me accomplish this.

Precious Writings

We have been working really hard in my 7th grade class with using descriptive words and being extremely detailed. I have a few students who have been having a great time with these activities and seem to thoroughly enjoy playing around with their words. This particular student sought me down before school just to turn this paper in. She was incredibly proud of her hard work. The topic was why it was important to over come your fears and her final body paragraph reads as follows:

You can get inspired in many wonderful ways. It makes you proud because you have accomplished your goal or method. It's like walking up the mountain without resting or stopping and turning back to the past. If feels beautiful in many ways. It is like waking up from an enchanted sleep, then you step outside, feel the wind blowing on your face, birds singing and the shiny, yellow sun rising.

Tangerine Poems and letters



I have just started a unit on Tangerine by Edward Bloor with my 7th grade English Classes. Within the unit we are also covering metaphors and similes. Yesterday my students had the following choices after a lesson in which they each got to experiences describing the taste, feel, smell, and sight of a tangerine.

a)      Create a Poem about the Tangerine using 2 metaphors, 2 similes, descriptive language, and imagery.

b)      Write a letter to an alien who has never seen, smelled or tasted a tangerine to explain what they are missing out on. Be sure to use 2 metaphors, 2 similes, descriptive language and imagery that the alien might understand.

c)      Create a venn diagram comparing and contrasting an onion and a tangerine. Be sure to use 2 metaphors, 2 similes, descriptive language and imagery.

While a lot of my students chose the oh-so-borring Venn diagram assignment. Some chose the more creative options. I wanted to take a minute and share with you some of their work.

Tangerine Poem

What joy you bring me

Like the morning of Christmas Eve

Oh, how sweet you be

You are delicious to me

Rotten or bruised

A good life you grew

Sweet and Round

And only a pound

You are like my honey for a bee

I see you in a market

And money in my pocket

I don’t want to eat meat

You are now inside of me

Letter to an Alien

Dear Cornocopia,

            You are missing out on so much down here on earth. Especially, the tangerines! The tangerine is as rich as 1,000,000,000 dollars. The sweetness and the sourness explode in your mouth. Once you begin to peel it, the room as odor of citrus. Also eating a tangerine is like being in heaven. It’s marvelous! TO me a tangerine is my life. It will become yours too when you bite into one. A tangerine is the life here on earth. Come visit from you world and visit earth. You won’t be disappointed.

Poem

A orange color fruit

Makes my tongue whistle like a flute

The fruit I’m describing is a tangerine

Tangerine is as orange as an orange

Bright yellow as the sun

A nice fellow

Tangerine is king Kong in my mouth

Tangerine is explosive like a bomb

Poem

A tangerine is an orange

Except it tastes better

You can taste the sweet

And write it in a letter

The sweetness is like candy

Tasting so sweet

When you eat the fruit you do to a paradise with tweets

A tangerine is a gumball

Filled with lots of flavor

If you give someone the fruit you may get a favor

The tangerine is as bright as the sun

I’d rather eat this than gum

Letter

The tangerine is very tasty alien. It is as big as your plant. Healthier than a apple. It is even better looking than you. It is like gold as a token from God. That is how the tangerine is you disgusting alien. The tangerine for me is like a block of diamond.

The disappointments of Wallwisher and the Greatness of Popplet

After reading the Web 2.0 section in Technology Applications for the Digital Classroom, I thought I would try creating a Wallwisher. Wallwisher is an online bulletin board where the creator and others can collaborate and share information.

I was very disappointed with this application as you could only change the back drop, but not the sticky notes, which do NOT look like sticky notes, like the Mac App has. I was also disappointed because the said "sticky notes" only allow for 160 characters! With further research into someone else's blog I discovered that Wallwisher is one of the first online bulletin boards = OLD! (for technology that is). I also discovered a newer online board that allows for a creative design, change of color, no character limitations, pictures, videos and more. This board is called Popplet.

While Popplet still does not have "sticky notes" like my Mac... It is more fun to use, better looking, and you can even draw pictures, connect thoughts to create webs, upload numerous pictures and you can share it easily for others to collaborate with you. I am much happier with my Popplet and have disregarded wallwisher.

And what a thought, I can embed it here for the world to see and add to...

Beginnings of my Google Reflection

I was very frustrated as I spend hours trying to embed my prezi onto my google site. I watched videos. I read articles. I was doing everything right, but I kept getting a warning and it would not load. I had kept coming across a gadget called iFrame. I finally gave it a try in a last ditch attempt and low and behold it worked! My content (Prezi) was embedded. I did have to resize the iFrame and get rid of the scroll bar, but my Prezi is functioning and I am happy. 


Since then I have tried to embed other things like my Shelfari, but the google sites html box does no good. I have continued to use iFrame and am very content! 


Furthermore, with this blog, also powered by Google, I can easily embed html without using an outside gadget. Oh the mysteries of technology. I am just glad everything is coming together and starting to look good. 
Check it out here: https://sites.google.com/site/sarakingteachmusic/

Check out my new Shelfari! What a neat site to organize and share all of the books you have read! I am very excited to share my book adventures and reviews with students and friends. Enjoy!

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Addressing Racism in the Classroom on Prezi