Happy Meal Commercial

First of all, I saw the commercial for McDonald's that we analyzed in class the other day, and I couldn't help but notice the film shots we talked about! :) Has anyone else seen it and done the same thing?!
Today we are editing our commercials and I am pretty anxious to see how they come out! I think it is such a great activity to do for youngsters and I hope that I am in a school that is financially able to provide cameras to do that.

Literacy Moves on Chapter 6-10

Chapter 6 talks about the Beanie Baby fad that spread across the nation. I think anyone can recall the day they collected every beanie baby they could, and made sure to eat a happy meal every day just so they could get each beanie baby of the happy meal toy set. I was one of those people! Looking at this, I can see why it would be in a teacher's best interest to bring fads like this into the classroom for children to reflect critically and discuss in terms of literacy. This reminds me of our happy meal toy invitation in class. Who would have thought there could be so much literacy involved in a happy meal toy!?

Our Literacy Invitation

I am pretty excited to be able to create a literacy invitation for the classroom. Our group is focusing on learning more about pollution from oil drilling, and we are doing various literacy activities surrounding this topic. I think it is a great way for students to learn more about a topic relevant to their own life, and do literacy activities surrounding it. One example of an invitation we are doing is a poem in reaction to a still image of an animal covered in oil. Something like this will provoke emotions and feelings from a student, and in end the end create a beautifully written poem!

Literacy through film making

To be honest, at first I was really confused on how the film making workshop would advocate literacy in the classroom, but was very surprised to see how much literacy is involved! From writing a scrip, reading about film shots, and conversation among group members to create the film, literacy is involved through out it all! I must say I really did enjoy it and thought it was a fun and creative way to use literacy in a classroom. I know elementary students would thoroughly enjoy this type of workshop.

Some remarks on readings in Literacy Moves On

To begin this book, the introduction states how there is now a vast range of text available to young readers. That is such a true statement!! Literacy is so much different from when our parents were in school. There are so many outlets for children to explore and I find that to be really neat. As stated through out these chapters, it is important for teachers to understand how text and modes work, as well as to encourage students to use multimodal representation to communicate their ideas. I think it is important to explore different modes of text because it allows students to become more engaged with literacy. It could help students from becoming bored and create a more well-rounded education for the student.

My Genres

Today I have been working on my 5 genre pieces for my MGR paper! It is actually really fun and I can see why allowing students to explore different genres when working on a paper is an affective tool in the classroom. It's allowing for a creative outlet(even though I might not be the most creative person-ha=)). So far I have made a diary entry as well as an advertisement. I am not sure what I will do on my other 3. What are you guys doing for yours? :)

"Seedfolks"

I didn't really know what to expect when opening SeedFolks, but I found it to be an enjoyable book. I thought it was really interesting to see how all the different people's stories tied together. The garden was a common ground for this once segregated community. It brought people of different races and religions together and built a community, where people could feel comfortable and welcomed. I think it is a great book to read that shows the importance of a community.

My thoughts on using different genres

I really enjoyed Monday's class activities. I thought it was very interesting and informing. It gave me some great ideas for the genres of my research paper on English Language Learners. I think allowing children to write research papers in this way, allows for a creative outlet, and in the end I believe it makes a more well-rounded paper. Allowing this creative outlet makes writing a paper more interesting for a students.

My Topic Idea

For my research paper, I am exploring the topic of "English Language Learners". What difficulties do they encounter in the classroom, especially in reading and writing? I haven't quite nailed everything I want to research for this topic, so any thoughts or ideas would be helpful! Let me know!

Remarks to Chapter 10 Readings

To begin, Crafting Writers is such a helpful resource, especially for a person like me who isn't as confident with the subject of reading and writing. In chapter 10, I really enjoyed learning about teaching a conference with a student because it is something I wouldn't even know how to begin going about. The way she sets it up is genius and I feel like it is a very beneficial teaching tool. I think her quote of
"If you're too busy noticing the gap between what students are doing and where they are "supposed" to be, it will be harder to see the strengths."I think this is a true statement. For a child to be successful and confident in their ability to write, they must believe that they do have some sort of strengths to work off of, and it will be my job as a teacher to tell them their strengths. The way she sets up a writing conference is a positive way to support a child's writing. Letting them know what she really liked boosts their confidence, and let's them know to continue doing that strength in their writing. Her examples of teaching conferences will help me in my future classrooms.

Remarks on KWRL Charts

I really enjoyed the activity we did at the end of class on Monday regarding the KWRL chart. As a future teacher this is something I'll need to consider as I start my career. There are things I will already know coming into my career, but also so many things I will wonder about and will need resources for these questions. As a new teacher, there will be so much for me to learn, and I think a lot of it will come with experience. Education classes through the university are just a preparation for what is to come. I think they are great resources to get a good understanding of what good teaching consists of, but I do think experience will be the key to becoming a great teacher. There are many things I wonder about. Things such as: How will I teach topics that I myself am not too confident about? How will I deal with parenting conflicts? How will I grade a student on things that don't have clear cut answers? These are just a few of the many things I will not know the answer to at first. I have many resources I can turn to though, such as fellow co-workers, my professors, and books. I think teaching is one of the most challenging careers out there, but in the end, one of the most rewarding as well.

My thoughts on Specific Craft

I found many good points in chapters 4 and 5 of Crafting Writers. One technique she pointed out was "zooming in" on a writing. This type of revision is where students look only at a specific part of their entry and revise or expand the entry on another piece of paper. I have always found it hard to revise an entire paper. It can be somewhat overwhelming. This technique allows you to just focus on a small portion of a paper and expand on it, creating a better written paper in the end. I think it is a great revision tool, and it is a technique I will want my future students to use in their writing. There are many ways to make writing come alive to a reader. Just using adjectives to make the reader see or hear what you are writing makes a piece of writing seem more real to the reader. There are many good writing crafts in these chapters that I will bring into my future classroom.

My thoughts on the article "Developing Spelling Strategies"

I was surprised to find that I enjoyed reading this article. I have never thought so in-depth on the process of spelling words for children. Spelling words has just become an instinct for me now and this article shined a new light on the spelling process. The strategies she proposed are all very important. One strategy, the human resource strategy, is one I've seen numerous times when I've observed a classroom. Many students will just ask me or the teacher how to spell a word, and I never knew how to go about it. I would tell the child to try to sound out the word to the best of their ability and then try to find the word in the dictionary. Many students would have wanted me just give them the correct spelling, but it is important for the students to gain this ability on their own rather than depend on another person. I liked her point on peers helping each other is better than asking an adult. This allows for collaboration among students, which I think is important in the classroom setting, but it also allows for each student to get stronger in their spelling. I agree with the article in that I think it is important for the classroom to have many resources for spelling, such as posters, dictionaries, books, and many more. Students need to learn to turn to these resources when they have trouble spelling. Overall, I felt that this article had many good points on spelling and has made me realize what to expect as a future teacher on this subject.

Coffee Shop Literacy Dig

My team and I observed people at a local Starbucks in town. I noticed a lot of talk among workers about drinks. Considering they are taking orders from customers, it is understandable why they would be talking about the drinks. Many people had lap tops out and books out, which made me assume they were thinking about their school work and what they needed to complete. There were many tables as well as comfortable seats all over the shop. It was set up with so many seats because coffee shops are known as a place to have meetings, do school work, and meet up with family and friends for an afternoon snack.

I think that they are talking about the drinks, because I personally work at a coffee shop so I know that in order for the store to operate, the workers must communicate which drink is being ordered to each other. I know that people are thinking about their school work, because me and my friends go to coffee shops to work on homework. There are many things that I have done and read to support my interpretation. I know from experience, because I work at a coffee shop and talk to the customers and many of them let me know what they are doing there. I have also read many articles in newspapers and magazines about what people like about being in a coffee shop.

Blogging in the classroom.

I think that using blogs in the classroom are a great learning tool for students. It allows them to express their thoughts and feelings on certain topics in a new, exciting way. It promotes collaboration among students as well, where students can comment and respond to their peer's blogs. This allows students to see different viewpoints of other student's. Overall, I think blogs are an excellent tool to us in any classroom setting.