Technology in the Classroom

Today, I was sick so my lesson was not as energetic as I would have liked it to be. I think that students really do have a better response when you integrate technology in the classroom. So far in my unit, I have shown many YouTube videos and played music, as well. I also use interactive power points. It seems like those were the lessons that the students liked best. My cooperating teacher told me that she never even thought to look on YouTube for material to use in her classroom. I've also had substitutes that were in the class comment on my use of technology and multi-media in the classroom. I feel like I have a little bit of an advantage because I am closer in age to my students and am exposed to the same types of media that they are.

I think one of my strengths as a teacher is my creativity. I like finding rap videos on YouTube and creating activities and games to enhance student learning. However, I do get frustrated when I have to use the technology in the classroom. Even though I find these awesome lesson ideas, I sometimes cannot figure out how to work the computer in my class. I'm not very good with compatibility and conversion either. For example, today I wanted to open a document from my jump drive, but it could not open. My teacher was the one who realized why; it was saved as a docx. and I was not able to bring up what I wanted to show the students. I also ran into problems when I tried showing a PowerPoint that I created on my personal computer (PowerPoint 2007). I was not able so show this presentation and I had to lecture instead, which was disappointing. One of the students made a comment to me about my lack of knowledge: "You are a college student! Shouldn't you know something about technology?" I have to admit, my face turned beat red and I was really embarrassed because he was right. We do get a course at Kent State in instructional technology; however, I feel like I've forgotten most of what I learned. I feel like that class should be taken later in the program or there should be another course required that is focused toward instructional technology. I recently searched online for seminars or courses that teachers can take to improve their knowledge of technology in the classroom. I found this great website that shows many different things teachers can do. It offers webinars, as well as courses in instructional technology.

Reading Comprehension

Today was the third day of my unit. I noticed that the students were having a lot of trouble with reading comprehension last Friday. I used one of Dr. Kist's activities from class today in my lesson and I think the students really enjoyed it. I did the "meet and greet" activity in which the students write their names on one side of a paper and then on the other I had them write: 1. Their predictions about what will happen to the narrator in the story; and 2. One question that they had about the reading so far. Then they introduced themselves and switched papers five times. I think this really helped the students make predictions and use critical thinking skills about the reading. They also seemed to have a lot of fun doing the activity. I was able to assess the students because I collected the papers with their predictions and questions. I saw many trends in the questions and we addressed them later on in the class.

I also did a summarizing activity in the beginning of class, which worked really well when I put students into groups. I selected significant passages from the text and gave each group a passage to paraphrase. Then, I had a member from each group read the passage and tell the class their paraphrase. I think this activity really helped students understand the more difficult passages from the text and it also served as a summary of the first part of the story.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow because my supervisor is coming to visit. I'm also going to show the you-tube rap video to summarize the story of "The Pit and the Pendulum."

Sick Cooperating Teacher

Today, my cooperating teacher did not come to school. In Dr. Kist's class, we were talking about having substitute teachers in our classrooms. I think there are some pros and some cons when the teacher has a sub in the room. So far, I have had a couple days of experience with this. I feel like the students respect me more when my cooperating teacher is absent. It's almost like I assume the role of the classroom teacher. Today, the students were told to continue working individually on their "Crucible" essays and then, on the reading skills packet. Many students in first and in second period asked me questions and were talking to me about their essays. I thought it was wonderful because I am starting my unit on Thursday and I feel like this was a perfect opportunity to create some presence in the classroom before then.

I feel like there is also is a negative aspect of my teacher's absence. Many of the students seem more "gutsy" when my teacher is absent. For example, one female student asked me if I have a boyfriend and another male student asked me out to dinner. I think that if my teacher would have been in the room, they wouldn't have asked me these questions. I have also noticed an issue with one particular student in first period. His name is Hunter, and my cooperating teach told me that a few weeks ago he stole her phone from her desk to try to get her number off of it. When she asked him why, he said because he wanted to text her. He also makes other comments like, "Mrs. Woz, if you weren't married, would you go out with me?" Today, I felt like Hunter was purposely losing things and acting like he was lost to get me to come over and help him. Every time I would walk away from him, he would be calling me over again to ask another question. I had this feeling that he was doing it for attention and not because he really needed help. I walked around to help other students and eventually the sub went to help Hunter. I think she noticed what he was doing and she came to my rescue! I'm just a little unsure about what to do in a situation like this. I feel bad giving too much attention to one student, but at the same time I want to help those who really need it. Hunter is one of the more needy students in the class, but sometimes it seems like is just pretending not to know what to do so that my cooperating teacher or myself will go to him and help him. Ever since the phone incident with my teacher, it seems like she has been ignoring him whenever he plays the, "I don't know what to do" game.

Writing

I really liked the activity that we did in class today with the puppets. I think that activity would be a great way to help students develop characters. I also like how the students can come up with a skit/story as a group. It reminds me of the collaborative poetry presentation that I did in my creative writing course. I think that when students have the opportunity to create something with their peers, it fosters learning because they can bounce ideas off of one another and brainstorm out loud. My cooperating teacher is currently teaching the students how to write an expository essay. She started this project off by putting the students in groups and having them answer a set of questions about The Crucible together.

This also brings me to a point that I read in the Burke text: Write with your students (6). When students write with each other, it helps ease them into the process. I also agree with Burke that it is important for teachers to write with their students. Modeling writing and brainstorming on an overhead can help students that learn visually to see the steps of organization. I also think it might be a good idea to share some personal writing with students. If they view you as a writer, rather than a teacher, they might feel more comfortable sharing their own writing.

Literal Repetition

I really enjoyed reading chapter 3 in Image Grammar because I think this chapter will be very helpful for teaching Edgar Allan Poe, which I will be doing during my unit. Poe uses so much repetition in his writing and I think this will be easily seen by the students in my class. I also think I could tie in rhythms of parallel structure into this portion of the unit. I think I might use the strategy on page 65 to help the students understand by creating and imitating parallel structures. I think it is very important for students to think of writing in terms of art. I also think students might relate to repetition and parallel structures better if I tie in music. There are many examples of this in song lyrics and perhaps students might enjoy finding some examples in their favorite songs.

I also found this really great YouTube video for Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum." This group called "flocabulary" has many videos for literature. The video has pictures and it summarizes the story in the form of a rap. I'm definitely going to show the students this video after we finish reading the story for many reasons. First of all, I love how it has images that correlate with the story. I think it will help students to see the images of torture, including the pendulum, to put the story into perspective and understand the setting of the story better. I also think it does a great job of summarizing the story and it might be great closure for the students. I also love that the summary is in the form of a rap because I think students will enjoy it. Flocabulary has other videos for different authors and works, so maybe some of you can find something that will work with your unit!

On Reading

"If there is no struggle there can be no progress." -Fredrick Douglass

This quote that I found in the appendix of In the Middle and it made me think about the students in my class at Normandy. I am supposed to teach my unit on short stories and today I found out that most of the students I will be teaching do not have the best reading skills. In fact, I learned that most of them refuse to read. According to my teacher, the students will not read for homework and in class they prefer to listen to the recording of the story rather than reading aloud. I feel like this is going to be very challenging for me when I teach the short stories unit because there are quite a few stories we need to get through that are mandatory for the school curriculum. How am I going to get through all of the material and teach the standards that I need to teach if we spend so much class time reading, or listening rather, to the stories? 8

Atwell comments on page 214, "Some students won't trust that there is such a thing as a good book; their experiences of literature are so limited they don't yet know what they like to read. And I know that for some, inexperience with books will mean a delay in fluency; their reading will be slow and awkward." I am afraid that this is what has happened to most of the students I will be teaching. I think that because they are not used to reading and haven't been expected to do it outside of class, they are afraid to try. I am hesitant to have them read aloud in class because I don't want anyone to feel embarrassed. If it is OK with my teacher, I think I will try to have them read something very small for homework and then possibly give them an informal assessment the next day to see who actually read.

Narratives

Today when I was in my school observing, I was able to see something that really got me thinking. We were working on narratives and my teacher decided to start the lesson by telling the class her own narrative. Her story was really emotional and powerful. I was actually really surprised that she shared the story of her rough childhood and alcoholic father, but I think I understand why she did. After the class was over, one of the students came up to my cooperating teacher and was crying. The story had really touched him because he said his parents are going through a divorce. My teacher asked him to come to her room during his lunch period to talk. Seeing this 16 year old boy cry in the classroom made me get teary myself.

This incident made me realize that I can prepare great lessons and use many awesome strategies, but I can't always anticipate what will happen with my students and how they will react. This incident really brought me back to my health and learning: strategies for teachers course that I took last year at Kent State. My instructor taught us about the different issues that students will have going on in their lives and how those personal issues can affect their performance in the classroom.

In chapter 11, Atwell discusses teaching narratives. She discusses how her students seemed to phase out narrative writing from their repertoires (372). She comments on how her students had trouble thinking about an experience to write that had meaning or why it was worth writing at all. Atwell shares a genre that she and her students found more fun and interesting: memoirs. She says, "Memoir is how writers look for the past and make sense of it" (372). I personally don't see much of a difference between a personal narrative and a memoir. Atwell says that memoirs allow writers to discover and tell their own truths (372).

Myers Article

While reading the Myers article, one of the quotes on page 76 really stuck out to me:

"Reading as a school exercise has almost always been thought of as reading aloud...The consequent attention to reading as an exercise in speaking... has been heavily at the expense of reading as the art of thought-getting..."(Huey [1908], 1968, 359).

I feel like reading as a school exercise should be a little bit of both. Students should be practicing speech while reading, as well as inferring meaning. Today's exercises in reading are definitely more geared towards reading comprehension, rather than diction and speech. Rather than memorization and repetition, today's teachers focus on meaning and interpretation.

I also found it very interesting to read that post Civil War teachers contributed to the sorting function in schools (69). I definitely think that sorting students by achievement contributed to the decline in school attendance of the lower class students. I was not surprised to read that the majority of children who remained in schools were white males from wealthy, professional families (69). I am so glad that schools today are more discreet about the socioeconomic status and achievement level of the students. At my school, my teacher is extremely careful to speak with the students who are on IEPs in private or letters or emails. My cooperating teacher told me that she uses discretion because she doesn't want the students on IEPs to feel embarrassed or apart from the rest of the class.

Mini lessons

I think mini lessons are a good idea to use in the classroom because they seem like a good way to begin class and keep focus. I've found in some of my observations that students get bored with lengthy lectures. I think short mini lessons are a great way to keep students' attention. I found it interesting that Nancie Atwell asks her students to conduct their own mini lessons to share their strategies and accomplishments with the group (152). I think it is important to highlight good writing and it is important to let students share their writing with the class. Most of the writing courses that I have taken at Kent State have been set up as writing workshops. I found the workshops very helpful in my development as a writer because not only was I getting feedback from the teacher, but also from my classmates. On that note, I think if I were to set up my class like a workshop, I would first give a mini lesson on constructive criticism!

I was just browsing for more things about Nancie Atwell and her teaching strategies, and I found this video. In this video, Atwell discusses the importance of poetry in the classroom. She has a book out called, Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons. She uses poetry to teach her students how to become better writers. Atwell also incorporates a poem in her mini lessons every day. I love this idea because it exposes students to many different styles and types of writing.

Atwell Chapters 1 & 2

I found it interesting that Atwell tells us the about the word "story" and how it can be traced to the Greek eidenai, which means "to know" (3). I am doing my unit on short stories, so I thought this would be something to share with my students, as well.
When reading about Atwell's student, Jeff, I immediately thought of differentiated instruction and how that type of instruction could have benefited Jeff. I gathered that Atwell was uncomfortable with the way that Jeff was going about his writing assignments. She seemed to want him to write during class like the other students, instead of drawing. I think that Atwell should have supported Jeff's learning because he was intrinsically motivated to write his stories based on his drawings. Jeff seemed to be more of a visual learner, and differentiated instruction helps support different learning styles and minds.

I like what Atwell says on page 15: "Freedom of choice does not undercut structure." I think being flexible is part of what makes a good teacher. In my observations at Normandy High School, I've seen my teacher push back due dates, make accommodations for certain classes, and ask for student input. Atwell says that working with students is important and they have ideas, too. I also think that when students have a say in what they are learning, how they will be graded, and rules of the classroom they will be more motivated to do the work.