I have to admit, I enjoyed yesterday's class the most so far. It was nice to get a glimpse of the essence of each of your lives. It was interesting to hear "Where You Come From". I was amazed to hear how great first drafts can be. When you feel satisified with your poem, please share it with the significant people in your life. Don't forget, you can include it in your class portfolio. (I would love to make a class book of them too, so that each of us could have copies.)
What do you think about all the brain research and how it relates to learning? Do you think the whole faculty would benefit from hearing the brain research?
P.S. Sorry the survey was a pain.
Please post your comments under this thread for our October 9 class and assigned reading.
8 comments:
I read Fast Food Nation a few years ago, so I realize the interest that book would holds for students. When discussing it in class a few years ago, students indicated that it spoke to their distrust and their fears about a world in which they felt they had very little control. Aside from this book,some of the statements in Subjects Matter that had the most impact on me from chapter one were the ones dealing with the drop-out rate. "Our high school drop-out rate, nationally about 11%, has dire personal and social consequences...." It was also very distressing that it is actually between 50 and 60 percent in Chicago. It further stated that in our nation's larger cities there is a concentration of around are 3.9 million drop-outs between the ages of 16 and 24. I completely agreed with another statement toward the end of the first chapter that students are reading the wrong things, and that they don't understand what they read. I get very frustrated with some of the parameters teachers must stay within due to lack of funding for projects, etc. In the second chapter, I think the most useful information was the thinking strategies listed on page 24. I will also be aware of and utilize the knowledge about the stages of reading on page 30. I am happy that we already frequently employ the thinking strategies in analysis of literature, but I need to make sure that this occurs in all reading in my class.
As in Jenny's class, Paula has read to my English IV CWP class. They really enjoyed the different approach to King Arthur, and I found it a unique way to encourage visualization.
This past week I started reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I bought it two years ago on the advice of a friend that the book is some of the best suspense written, but this is about my fifth attempt at reading it. Every other time, I’ve not been able to continue past the first couple pages. Collins’s verbose style and unfamiliar, British-1850s language overwhelms me, and I give up. But I’m 73 pages into this 700-page mammoth and happy to report that I’m into the story and can’t stop.
Since I entered education—from the moment in college that I enrolled in the English/education program—this is the perspective I’ve taken of my role as a teacher: to inspire my students to, on their own, pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice or Heart of Darkness or The Prince of Tides and, by golly, keep pushing through until their cups runneth over with the joy of reading and persevering. Daniels and Zemelman would call this the “idealism and dream” that brings and keeps us teachers, particularly secondary teachers, in this profession. Yes, it is more than okay for us to nurture and keep alive these hopes for our individual content areas, but, we must “start where we are.” And as D&Z prove through Chapters 1 and 2, many students struggle at the most basic levels of reading—not to mention with whatever we wanted them to do with the reading. For too long, I’ve considered my picking up The Woman in White, for example, as the end goal of teaching. But, I’m learning now as a teacher that inspiring a student to one day (not necessarily in high school) do this is actually the decoration on the icing on the cake.
D&Z confirm what I’ve come recently to realize—that I was, as a high school student, a successful learner yet I teach in a large measure students who struggle in school. This sets up an automatic oppositional situation. And other factors have an impact, too: attitude, family and home life, behavior, etc. What I then have as a teacher, in my situation, is a class of fidgety, distracted, talkative, unmotivated group of students—the exact opposite of how I was as a student. What do I do?
In Chapter 2 D&Z encourage teachers to draw from their own reading experience: connecting, visualizing, needing background support, etc. When I truthfully remember my education, not all my experiences were blooming roses. For example, it’s a miracle I passed any math course, but I tend to forget those because I teach English. But even in my field, I had one English course in college particularly that was extremely difficult: joyless, abstract, irrelevant. I think back now: what did I need to be successful in that class? what could my professor have done to help me? what could I have done better help myself? Like D&Z’s reading exercises in these chapters and like my persevering through The Woman in White, when I struggle in reading/learning is when I realize what my students encounter everyday, perhaps in every class, and that is when I best know how to help them.
THIS IS BCDIVA'S POST FROM Wednesday, October 18, 2006
I agree that the survey was a bummer but there you go. It did not kill me so I gonna just put it in the done pile.... I encouraged my class to write their " Where I come from..... It was very different some were proud, some did not want to read them, some wanted me to read theirs. But it truly gave a starting point for them to think about the impact of their past and what would they want it to say in the future. We are going to do a " When I GET THERE...........
So peace out!!!BC DIVA
posted by BCDIVA @ 10:40 AM 5
THIS IS BCDIVA'S POST!!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Teacher as Professional , We need to be proud of our choice. The very way that we respond when someone ask " what do you do"? I'm a teacher/ or I am a PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOR. We prepare every child for their career but rarely do we "TOOT" the horn for education. The message we send is that this is a fallback position. It is just the opposite it is a LEAN Forward!!
Get busy changing your attitude about what your choice is. To be learner, scholar, mentor, communicator, leader, political activist, researcher and role model. If you are not excited about teaching, the students know it. You certainly are not making a difference your just making a mockery of something that is very noble and priceless. We need to embrace the passion of education and all the hardwork ,yes (even teaching "pookey"and don't forget "pookett"). We need to be living the Professional Life. So that we can look back on our legacy and say I made a difference. That's something to be Proud OF!!!!! A life you can hanging your diploma on!!!!!
Sincerely, Lynn BC DIVA
I think it's important for a text to act as a mirror for students. (Anyone for that matter). Literature is the human art form, it's what we see around us, what we're influenced by. However, if a reader does not see some part of themselves in what they read (or something so different from themselves that they become intrigued) no connection, or true meaning will be acquired.
Therefore, in class, I am constantly trying to make the material relevant.
The Best Practice High School is a small public high school located in Chicago. Student’s textbooks are supplemented with newspapers, magazines, websites, and nonfiction books. The education experience becomes a learning experience. The learning experience is the result of teachers knowing the best sources for reading of their students. Subject Matters looks to do the same for teachers and show the importance of how material is read.
In high school my toughest subjects were science and history. I remember my teachers introducing us to our textbooks at the beginning of the year. I was told to look at the headings of each section. Even though the heading was written as a statement, I was to flip it into a question. Then I was to read the material and see if after reading, I could answer the question. I needed to pay close attention to words in bold type. They were important and would be seen again usually on a quiz or test. If I still had problems with the material, I was told to write down notes and info that would help me remember the material. Sometimes I had to read the material out loud. I had to hear it as well as read it. My strategies for reading the material involved questioning, evaluating, analyzing and recalling, among others.
These helped me be able to read the material and retain the information long enough to do well on the test.
How Smart Readers Think
The thinking strategies of effective readers listed on page 24 seem to be right on the money to me. The question is asked, “do these feel real to you?” They feel real to me I guess because I don’t usually struggle with reading. But then again, I have been reading a lot of young adult literature that really should present a problem for. When I read the tricky passage about cricket, I knew right away that I was reading about something that I knew absolutely nothing about. I figured that is was about a sport either real or a made up one. I could tell that one team was creaming the other. I could answer all of the questions correctly, but my understanding of the passage was still not very good.. I suppose that is why the excitement about reading comprehension software (Accelerated Reader and Reading Counts) has lost its fizzle. These software packages really only determine if the reader can recall and remember information. They don’t teach students or help students to analyze, connect, infer, evaluate or visualize. But, they can help to determine where a student gets lost in the text, or if a student simply didn’t read the text.
I was wondering as I read the MS2 Phage Coat passage if the authors were really going to give me strategies for understanding such in-depth scientific research. If they had made me understand it, I would have gone back to school to major in something like biochemistry which would give me a better paying job!
If we show our students how to go through the before stages of reading: activating prior knowledge, setting a purpose for the reading and making predictions our students will make greater strides in reading comprehension. If we show them what to do during reading: visualize hypothesize, and alter predictions, our students will make strides in reading enjoyment. If we help students to evaluate, discuss, recall, and apply, our students will want to read more.
I suppose I can’t become a reading specialist by learning strategies, but I can become a reading transmediator to help students gain a deeper understanding of what they read.
Post a Comment