Technology

Like most of us, I have a love/hate relationship with technology. This week I am leaning towards hate. My students submit everything on-line, with the exception of in-class writing assignments. I sat down to respond to student writing on Sunday afternoon, and low and behold my screen went blank. Luckily, my computer is not quite a year old- in fact we are getting a new hard drive on Monday just under the wire. the warranty expires on 12/13, so in that respect Im lucky. I email everything to myself and back most things up on an exteranl hard drive, but it was still inconvenient. Iwent upstairs to use my husband's computer, and that worked for two days, then it became infected with a virus and CRASH!. The laptop has a broken screen ( my son dropped it off of a balcony at the beach- I don't want to know details) , so we hooked up the screen to the upstairs computer to the laptop so Icould grade. It was extremely annoying, but I managed. Istarted thinking about all the students who don't have a computer at home, much less a back up plan, who don't have transportation or access to a library or other computers. After all, I could hop into my car , go to the library or to one of my two offices. As we become an increasingly technologically dependent society are we leaving students with limited financial resources futher behind? Sadly, Ithink this may be the case. Something to think about as we wrap up a rewarding and informative english/Education class.

Blogging

Well, Ihaven't been on here in a few weeks. Ihave a personal blog and I do a pretty good job of keeping it updated, but I tend to forget about this one for class. To be honest, Iprefer posting to a forum which is more private, and I get to see my classmates posts immediately. I have forgotten about this one especially in the push to wrap things up at the end of the semester. Fall semester always seems particularly stressful, not only am I dealing with freshpeople who have to meet deadlines in all their classes before Christmas for the first time, and they have a habit of going home for Thanksgiving and forgetting about school which adds to the stress when they return, you also have the addded stress of the holiday season. I try to wrap up the semester while cooking Thanksgiving dinner, getting decorations out for Christmas, and participating in the holiday festivities. Enough excuses. I am very pleased with my classes this semester,they are developing into a fine group of writers. I always say if I can teach them how to do a works cited page and spell definitely ( instead of defiantly) I consider my job well done ( just joking). This semester I have several students who plan to major in English and they are well on their way to developing into competent fiction writers. I have used several of the concepts and strategies from this class, one of which is the overarching concept for a unit more than Ihave done in the past and I do see a difference, so I plan to incorporate more strategies next semester. Enough for now. Im on my way to work to listen to presentations, something I do look forward to at the end of the semester!

Continuation of Unit Concepts

I like the idea of overarching concepts. It reminds of a book by Neil Postman I read years ago, I can't recall the name off hand, but he wrote about the vacination theory of education, you know once you took American lit, you were vacinated against it and never had to take it again. Unlike life we compartmentalize subjects in school, and thus do students a great disservice as far as guiding them to think of large concepts, and interconnectedness. When we can make connections between, say, science and history and then see the connection to literature we begin to open up to broader perspectives. Iwould like to see projets where students explored a theme ,say, identity and researched the idea across the spectrum of science, history, and literature to search for meaning. don't think it's going to happen, but isn't one of the goals of education to give students tools to make these kinds of connections and begin to expand their horizons and solve porblems, or is it just to pass multiple choice tests? Sorry, I got on my badwagon for a minute. I think the biggest education hoax around today is the emphasis on standarized testing. we are not educating people, we are training them to circle A,B, or C.
Units I would use are:
Identity: Coming to Know One's Self through Literature (2002) - Shawn Pate
Recognizing and Resolving Problems: Connecting Students to their World (2006)- Helene Halstead
Should I Take a Stand - Amanda Tyndall

Unit Concepts

To what extent should students choose what they learn about and choose the form in which they represent their learning?
I think that a good deal would depend on the age of the child. Obviously elementary school age children need to learn the basics, but as children mature and reach high school age, I believe they should have some control over their intake of knowledge.Students learn at different rates, and have different learning styles. One student may not be a ble to grasp a concept in Physics when presented in a lecture, but by building a skate board ramp and working out formulas for maximum dynamics, the concepts of time/ motion become clear. I am a visual learner, I need to see something in order to tryly understand it. If a student wants to produce a play about the civil war , who's to say they won't learn as much or more as if they read some dry historical text. When students get to college, and then the "real" world they are able to choose their interests and the method in which they want to learn more about those interests, likewise students should be given a certain amount of freedom to make their own choices. Of course with such a structured curriculum now, I think this could pose some problems, but I have seen it done by creative teachers and students.
to be continued!

Grammar lesson

forgot to post the link to one of the grammar lessons I used with my students.
http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons.lesson_view.asp?id=168

Grammar Lesson

Grammar Unit

i apologize for being somewhat behind. I went out of town this past weekend for parents weekend at NC State, and have been playing catch up ever since. I have 126 papers to respond to this week, and so far I've read 18. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

After reading over the units in Imaging Grammar, I chose three I liked.

Friendship, Identity, and Adolescent Conflict with Authority.

I chose these because I think they have a universal appeal that reaches from elemetary school , past college and into the workforce. Students don't always like class, but they might like going to school. There are days I don't always like my job, but I enjoy coming to work to socialize with colleagues and see friends.

I think students are always interested in the social aspects of language, and as a teacher if I can tie the social aspect into the Learning aspect i have their attention.

The concepts of frieinship can cut across all three of these units as well. What is friendship? How do we choose friends, why do we keep them, and what happens to friendships? Why do so many fade over time? In this construct we can discuss things like cliques, both in and out of the classroom, ostracism, meanness, and the concept of aceptance and belonging.

Identity- who are we? How do we define ourselves, and crossing over, do we define ourselves by the number and type of reinds we have, or do we define ourselves in a larger cultural context, family, ethnicity, etc.

Adolescent Conflict with Authority- adolescents naturally have conflict with authority and the burecratic set up of middle and high school only perpetuate the animosity between students and adminstration at times. Adolescents question authority as part of the growth process, in order to break away from parental influence.

Each unit laid out a plan to accomplish specific goals, why each unit was planned in a certain manner, and provided materials to help instructores fulfill the objectives of the unit. The units also provided information as to the relevance of the activities.

The Friendship Unit by Scott Morgan and Maria Sciara explores the reasons students form friendships and how they develop relationships at this point in their lives and genavbles themn to relate passages from literasture to their own lives.

The identity Unit by Shawn Pace encourage students to look at themselves and establish their own identity.

Adolescent conflict with Authorty talks abotu struggles students have with authority, how they fit into the larger world and how to navigate that tricky period between childhood andf adulthood.

some unique resources that interested me were a letter to the author about a letter a character wrote in a novel, and Dr. Phil ( which surprised me as I am not a fan)