Our CinQUAIN in 411 on Anacondas

Cinquain Poem on Anacondas

Anaconda

Killer reptile

Squeezing slithering springing

Huge green scary spotted

Snake

 

Blog 4

What personal connections did you make this week to other teaching an learning experiences, particularly experiences tutoring or other interactions with youth?

Although this text focuses more on adolescents, I made many connections with what I read and the younger students that I have interacted with in the schools.  I realize that we are focusing on how to integrate literacy into other content areas outside of English. I have definitely noticed many of the activities that were mentioned in the book in the classrooms that I observe.  Think-Pair-Share I noticed in a math classroom in a middle school.  They were reviewing tests that they had taken and helping each other with the problems that they missed.  

Learning stations I saw in a few kindergarten classrooms.  The students were grouped homogeneously and had whole group with their teacher and teacher's assistant and a time frame where they would do whatever they chose to do.

Reciprocal Teaching I haven't actually observed face to face but I saw a video on what a teacher did with reciprocal teaching and I realize it takes much modeling, practice, and teaching for it to be effective.  But once it has become a craft, it is definitely an effective process.

Chapter 8 opened many doors for me in ways that writing can be integrated into content areas. I had wondered how far you could actually go with taking literacy into the content areas and this chapter gave a plethora of examples. I observed teaching students to ask themselves questions in a math classroom at a middle school as well.  The students have bell work to complete and have to go through and underline the main words, do something with the question and show their work, etc. with each problem. 

What questions come to mind as you think through ideas from our readings?

I did have issues with the jigsaw example in the book in chapter one.  When we did what was considered jigsaw in my Literacy I class last semester, we broke one chapter down and presented it to the class.  So in a sense, this was what the book spoke of but it seemed like more of a watered down version of it.  The book gave clear examples of it being to compare or contrast information and what we did was to just go over a chapter.  It gave a little confusion to me but I'm guessing we can take information and make it into our own as teachers do all the time.

Biopoem on Jimi Hendrix by Alexandria Moore

Jimi

Poor, motherless, music-lovin’, guitar playin’ artist

His Dad was his right hand man

Loved painting a picture with words with his friends Terry and Potato Chip

One with art, excited about music, and hopeful for the future

Fear of not succeeding, not expressing himself, and not getting an electric guitar

Became good enough to play with a local band, taught his guitar to scream, laugh and cry for millions with his music, became one of the best to mix blues and rock n’ roll

Desired to paint a picture with his words and to feel the thrill of playing an electric guitar

Seattle Resident, Harlem transplant

Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix sample music:

• Wild Thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCzGjLIU7s

Week 3: Content Area Literacy in the Elementary School

This class helps me to look at things in life in a more positive manner than I ever have before. Like savoring the air conditioning? I love it....but before would have discounted it as something that my landlord needed to come fix ASAP. (written in class on Wed)

What personal connections did you make this week to other teach and learning experiences?

I got the most beneficial information from the article by Barbara Moss, Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades.  The overarching lesson in this article for me was learning about the importance of content area literacy in the lower grades to prepare students for upper level informational texts.  There was also an abundance of information regarding technology.  

There were an extensive number of connections for me to the article and some of the thoughts Moss gave.  The very first thing that I agreed with Moss about was that “the interest in information trade book is at an all time high.” I observed at Thames Elementary last semester in a kindergarten classroom and we spent 2-3 weeks on informational texts.  It begins that early!!! I don’t remember informational texts until later in elementary school, around fifth grade. So this was a major shocker for me. When I read “students will be tested on tier ability to understand such (informational) texts” I understood why the informational trade books are being so highly requested in the earliest grades.  To my surprise, the kindergarten students absolutely loved informational texts and sometimes preferred them to narratives. Go figure. With this improvement, students are being taught and asked to critically think in the early years. I think this is amazing because it will prevent them from being intimidated of critical thinking later. I was never taught to critically think as a young student and it still affects me to this day.

And technology is booming. There are countless numbers of devices in every classroom that I have observed in.  The most we had in my classrooms as a child was a computer. Now they have Promethean boards, iPods, laptops, computers and so much more.  The article said, “Exclusive use of textbooks, however, can stifle student interest and the development of critical thinking skills.”  I totally agree.  But something that I have seen in observations is that teachers use technology as bribery and as a means of classroom management even sometimes.  Now maybe this was okay when technology was not a major part of students lives as much as it is now, but I think there may need to be other forms of “bribery” now because technology should be an automatic/integral part of education.

A couple things occurred to me while reading this article and probed some questions from within me.  The first is regarding the teaching for the test.  This has always bothered me because in my perspective, it is taking away from the creativity of the teacher and the student when this is done.  Many teachers are not able to fully be effective and go outside of the box because they are so afraid of not teaching to the test and losing their jobs.  I would think that if teachers were allowed to do more fun, hands-on, out of the box things outside of practicing test questions over and over, students would enjoy learning more, be more interactive, actually apply the knowledge given to them to memory to be kept for years versus learning things specifically for the test. So why did it take so long for things like literacy in the classroom to get the attention that it is receiving now? If we teach students in an effective, fun way, they will learn the information, know the information for the test and therefore, test scores will inadvertently rise.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t teach students how the test will look, the types of questions there will be and things of that nature. I’m just saying allow teachers to be fun so that students actually want to learn and they learn the information without feeling as though they are being drilled with this useless, meaningless information.

Also, in regards to domain knowledge, what do we do when students just do not like the subject area? Sometimes, it ay not be that the teacher is not giving the information properly or in a multiplicity of ways, it may just be that the student does not like the subject and is intimidated by it. So, they simply don’t apply themselves.  After we try a variety of ways to give the information and explain the importance of the content area to students, what do we do when they still fail?

As far as Design Thinking: Lesson for the Classroom, I don't know if it was because I read the other article first, but this article did not register to me as much.  I was confused as to whether the author was saying this process should be done with teachers to teach students better or a process to teach to students.