Mind Blowing Quote of the Week

There are weird similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. 

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were shot in the back of the head in the presence of their wives.

Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.

Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theatre. Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln, made by Ford.

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran And hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

Read more at http://www.omg-facts.com/top#8wRw3WSyOdWVXIWj.99 


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Mind Blown!!!!

Olivares' Final thoughts on Ladybugs

          As a future teacher, I am always on the lookout for fun activities to do with my students. This book brings up a lot of good points to take across as I deal with ELLs in my classroom. In fact that acronym, ELL, is new vocabulary for me. I like it a lot better than ESL which seems to carry some negative stereotypes when you hear it. Kids catch on too subtleties like that very easily. I think the biggest thing the book impressed upon me was reality of having to teach ELLs. I didn’t think too much about teaching students whose primary language wasn’t English until this book. Maybe I assumed, or hoped, that most of my kids would be speaking English already. Perhaps in the upper grade levels it would be less common, but if I stick around in elementary school I am likely to find many students who are initially struggling with a new language.

         

          But back to the book. Ladybugs and Swirling Galaxies gave me great ideas for showcasing my students work in the classroom. It also conveniently allows me to have a fairly blank room with the promise that it will be filled up later; a boon to just starting out teachers without a lot of stuff. The book, along with the guest speaker, reinforced the value of structure to the students. In a system that seems to be greatly favor student creativity, it is good to know that structure is important and that students will do better with it.  This is of course especially important when we consider the difficulty in trying to teach large class sizes where individual help will be hard to give. But the book also points out to when too much structure can be a negative. ELLs tended to like poetry because it was freer than regular writing.

    

          I am glad to have read both Nonfiction Matters and Ladybugs and Swirling Galaxies. It’s given me a better grasp on how important nonfiction reading and writing is and given me the confidence to teach it. I came in to this class thinking that I didn’t like reading nonfiction work. If you had asked me to name off some nonfiction that I liked it would have been either hard or a short list. These books have expanded my horizons. I can feel that my brain has grown from the experience and I am glad that I went through it. Above all I’d recommend these books to all elementary school teachers. They will give insight into how to deal with English Language Learners and nonfiction material, both of which are extremely important and both are topics that I was lacking in experience with.

What is a News Wall?

Chapter 9 had a little something on page 128 where it talked about meaningful print. One way the book mentions to make print meaningful was by having a news wall. Anyone have any idea what a news wall looks like.?

Olivares' Reflections on Chps 7-10

             The end of chapter ten in the personal reflections left me with a very moving idea. “Start now! Start with one student or a small group, and you will find that their energy to explore their world is spectacular!” (pg 148). I’ve said before how I find myself scared of how I will do in front of a full classroom of students. But this gives me a foothold into that world. Start experimenting with a small group of kids and when I finally become a teacher I will be ready. I have young nieces and nephews that I can experiment with, most of them will be elementary level, but one is middle school and the other in high school. I should be teaching the young members of my family the things I learn so that I will be ready when the time comes to be a teacher.

            Chapter seven made me question some thoughts I had on Bilingual languages in classrooms. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have both Spanish and English, or English and another primary language, being used at the same time. I figured that students who could switch between languages wouldn’t want to, and maybe some won’t want to, but I see now that it is a great boon to them if they can. Not only will they be learning conventions in one language, they will learn how to simultaneously use them in another language. Except when explicitly teaching English, I also see now that giving instructions in the child’s primary language would be a boon to them because they’d understand more. I’m not fluent in Spanish, but one day I will finish my learning.

            Chapter 8 was about showcasing the students work and it’s no surprise that they love to showcase their stuff. When I do something amazing I like to be acknowledged for it. I imagine all adults are the same way. Students who have their work showcased are filled with pride and accomplishment. That accomplishment brings such feelings of joy that they want to continue working, which is what we want as teachers. Showcasing student work is important for their self esteem and my students work will be all along the walls of my classroom.

            “Meaningful print.”  That is a fun concept. When I was in school memorizing vocabulary words, I often made stories with one of the vocab words needing to be in every sentence. That helped make the words meaningful to me and I learned more that way. That’s just one way to do it, but there are multiple ways to make print meaningful. The book outlines a few ideas for meaningful print by having content word walls, news walls, magazines, and others kids work. Content word walls can have pictures attached to them so they can have an image to associate with it. I’m interested in what a news wall is. I don’t remember if the book already covered it. Is it news with the vocab words in it so there is a real world connection? I’d be interested to know if that is what it really is.

Mind Blowing Quote of the Week

Along with being the only 1 of 5 mammal species to lay eggs, they are poisonous (the poison located on their ankles can incapacitate a human), they keep 50% of its fat stored in their tails, and they can see electric fields generate by muscle contractions of their prey.

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MIND BLOWN!!!!!!!!

Olivares' Thoughts on Ladybugs book PART 2

            Comprehension strategies like questioning schema making connections, sensory images, inferring, determining importance, and synthesis are all different strategies that I’ve dealt with in great detail during Peter Kittles’ English class. These are strategies that do work and I know because I have used them. By using these strategies it is possible to delve into deeper critical thinking and understanding. I already knew that read-alouds are important for kids from the fact that kids who are read to at home are better readers and generally like books more than kids that are not read to. For those kids who are not read to and especially ELL’s, it is important to have read-alouds in the classroom. It gives experience with the way that English is played with and used. You can be lectured about how adjectives and adverbs give flavor to a text, but to actually experience this in a vocal way is empowering.

            My group’s book, Nonfiction Matters, explained in great depth how to foster an interest and gather information for a nonfiction research paper. Chapter 5 reminds me a lot of our Wonderbook activity where we had them think of topics they were interested in, write down some stuff they already knew, asked questions about what they didn’t know, and looked up that information later. Writing and reading about something you are interested in is a lot easier than reading something that is boring. So it makes perfect sense that focusing on the kids’ interests is a much better way to get them to write rather than forcing everyone to write on the same topic, especially if that topic is confusing to them.

            Questioning has been a big part of my education in my class NSCI 321, Scientific Inquiry. The class is lead by the questions and experiments that we come up with. This is a class I definitely don’t have to study for because I am constantly and personally engaged in leading my own learning experience. I’ve seen personally that kids who are bored are more likely to act out and cause disturbances in class. So if this could be set up in an English class then the kids will be fully engaged and on task. They will be the leaders in their own knowledge and that knowledge will stick with them for much longer. I can guaranty that I will remember the knowledge I learned in my class for years to come.

            I’m always impressed with young students that use big words. I seem to always think “how do you know that word already?” It still surprises me even though I know how smart students can be excellent with new words, especially when they own those words. Such a weird concept, to own a word, but it’s a good way to think of vocabulary words. Students who don’t own their words may use them, but will use them incorrectly or put them in awkward places. Students who own the words they use know exactly what they mean when they say or write it. Helping students to own a word will make their writing that much richer and their ability to comprehend more complex text will increase.

Inspiration for when you're scared

Whenever I'm scared I just tell myself "fall flat on your face, cause if your at your lowest point you have nothin else to be afraid of."

Olivares' Reading Response to Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies

“Our fear has us hearing a million voices in our heads, ‘She needs to be held accountable. What message does this send to the rest of the class? She can do whatever she wants? Is she listening? Is this a power struggle? What should we do?”

    

        I would be worried to about what should be done with this little girl who isn’t listening and has been avoiding work all year long. But she was engaged and the teachers move to have her write about her work was just about the best result that could happen. I may not have thought of that at the time and may have forced her to come join the group, which would have turned the girl off more in the long run.

            This book isn’t giving me anything new, yet at the same time it is. The advice it gives advice that I have been hearing and it makes perfect, logical, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that sense. But what’s new and infinitely more valuable to me is how the teacher’s do it. It’s all nice to say theories to me, but if there is no scaffold, no model, then I feel lost on my own in a minefield. I’m like the beginning ELL students that need that structure to begin to get my writing feet moving. That was another thing that surprised me. We been talking about the Schaffer Method as a bad thing, but it is useful. For beginners or ELL’s just learning to write English it is an invaluable lifeboat. It’s not the end of course, but having models of how things work helps wonders with those who are clueless.

            How these teachers organize their classroom is one thing I am glad to have. Desks that are the kid’s size, comfortable rugs were a given, but there were some new ideas, like pens so that they don’t erase their thinking, or even writing while standing up. That was a brilliant idea that I loved and it makes me want to try it. I know I hate being confined to a desk for hours and so do kids.

            This book is a lot about ELL’s, but in a place as diverse as California that may be a boon. I’m guilty of thinking, as I was reading, of ELL’s as little Spanish kids in a classroom trying to write and read, but that’s not entirely accurate. It’s anyone who’s primary language wasn’t English. Actually, everyone in California used to be an ELL because we all had to learn to write English. It’s just that those speaking the language had a big advantage.

Olivares' Reflections on Teaching Nonfiction Matters

            The teaching itself went really well. It became evident early on that it was really text heavy and that could be improved upon on another attempt. The lesson was easy and fun. The “students” were getting into it, especially during the research portion although it was evident that some were not trying. Like previous class lessons, ours lended itself to a longer time frame. Because of our text heavy presentation we didn’t have as much time for the lesson unfortunately, but this lesson was something that the kids would work on and come back to throughout the year. And that was the point of the Wonderbooks. It was a way to generate interesting topics, which is something that even high school students have trouble deciding on. Being able to choose a topic that is interesting to the student provides them with more to write about and more incentive to write.

            With my little “give me 2” clap we were able to have more class management. I learned that skill from another student who was teaching a P.E. lesson and it suddenly pooped in my head when the time came to get everyone’s attention. The technique was losing some of its effectiveness later on, but this was a group that hadn’t been conditioned to respond to the clap yet. That and they are just pretending to be students.

            Overall, I would say that the lesson was a success. We were able to show the importance of Nonfiction writing and a valuable timeline for writing a research paper that could be adjusted to work for kids grades 3 to 8. I had originally chosen to be in this group because I felt uncertain on how well I could teach a topic that I was confident in. My forte in reading and writing is fiction so I felt that the Nonfiction book would benefit me better than the poetry one, which I was more interested in. The book did help me appreciate Nonfiction in a new light and I hope it will help the others to.

Reflection for Technology and Readicide Group 2

Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21^st Century Classroom

Molly O’Connor

Leanna Longoria

Saul Jimenez

            This was a fun project and I wished we had the time to actually finish it. Writing your own story and then coloring it and putting yourself in it would create a sense of joy and accomplishment in the students. The time crunch definitely made the lessons that day seem crunched, but they were longer than thirty minute assignments. Technology can change the ways we teach in such profound ways.  There is no telling what new technological marvel is going to sweep through my students, and I will have to find a way to utilize that tech.

            One thing that I took from this class was that grammar and spelling go down with auto correct features and that makes perfect sense and shows that technology is not a magically solution. Like everything it needs to be taken in moderation and the old pencil and paper ways should not be entirely forgotten. I have some classes where I still take paper notes and sometimes I prefer it. However, what is important is that we help students find a way to love writing and technology plays a big part in that world when so much writing is being done online.

Readicide Group 2

Joyce Merino   Juliet Polk

Bree Dodson   Mollie Zuehlk

Caleb Meyer    Matt Morley

            I’m sure Matt didn’t intend it, but his deep voice while reading all the statistics gave them an air of dread and foreboding. Like the fact that twenty seven percent of adults didn’t read a book in ’07. It provided a good mood that went well considering what the book was about. I also like the To-Kill-a-Reader Casserole and the Bibliophile Recipe. The first was a creative way to illustrate the authors ways that school kills reading and the second offered a solution, which is more important that just stating a problem exists.

            Their four part lesson was also a lot of fun. We got to draw, predict future, and address fears. An effective lesson for younger students. And just like the other activity today, it was not meant for thirty minutes. But the snippet we got was very well done. 

Mind Blowing Quote of the Week

The is a super drug called DNP that can make you shed weight faster than any drug currently known. The downside, it releases so much heat from your fat that you are literally cooked from the inside out. . .
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MIND BLOWN!!!!

Reflections for Note Slipped Under the Door and First Readicide Group

A Note Slipped Under the Door

Ben Okun        Williams Burns

Wesley Pautsch           Sarita Urbano

Teadra Vance

            

First things first. That was a fun assignment. Drawing pictures and then passing them along to other students was a great task. Doesn't require much prep and the children can actively engage with each other multiple times. My big critique for the lesson was maybe watch the language. I know Wesley caught himself when he started talking about his favorite piece of poetry. Watch out who you’re giving praise to because if you constantly give praise to a few good poetry students, but don't acknowledge other students poems then you can have hurt feelings and they may not see their poems as being good.

            Having a classroom that loves to write and loves to comment and critique each other’s work is a dream for my future classroom. This book shows how poetry can be used to achieve this result by having lessons that inspire students to be creative and unrestricted, but still make great work. And it’s not just the already established poets that inspire, but the student’s peers that inspire. I would definitely get this book in the future. When I have money, or find it cheap in a bookstore.

Readicide by Kelly Galagher

Amy Andracchio                    Megan Asel

Danielle Aylesworth               Kelsey Barger

Dana Cummings         Christian Danzero

Miranda Jones                         Kim Sharp

            As an avid reader who spent 2 hours in his bed reading a book this morning, I am not a victim of Readicide. But I have seen its effects in classrooms. I can remember being ecstatic when my brother actually liked the assigned reading in class because normally he wasn’t. Most people in my class cringed and hated assigned reading, and writing essays, and having to take standardized tests. I would hope that as a teacher, at any level, I could have a profound effect on how much my students read.  Even if I was a science teacher, I’d find a way to incorporate a love of reading.

            The group did a good job with their activity. They weren’t prepared when the class actually preferred the multiple choices over the one-pager, but it’s been beat into us so much that we have quietly accepted it. I for one loved the one-pager and found it to be a much better way to think about the story. The prompts, which I didn’t answer all of them and I wouldn’t enforce too much, let me write and organize my thoughts on the story. On my one-pager was the beginnings of an essay that I could have easily expanded upon. Like I pointed out in class, it could be combined with multiple choice tests in a way that can guide students into noticing the main points or remembering important characters and people. Like having a multiple choice test on one side, but a space for notes on the other.

(notes) A Note Slipped Under the Door and Readicide

Teachers:                 William Burns
                                Ben Okun
                                Wesley Pautsch
                               Sarita Urbano


Authors:                Nick Flynn
                                    teaches writing to young people and how people can teach in their own works.
                            Shirley

About the Book:              How do we read poetry


what we doing today             imagery


Thoeries:               Influence of poetry in the classroom. use of mentor poems. Whats a mentor poem???

                                     menotr peoms increase understanding by working with others, reviewing each others work.


expose kids to poems so that they have inspiration.


               Imagery :  vivd pic with descriptive language.          image not symbol!!

In Passing by Alberto Blanco

    Tradeing sketches? poem based off sketches. I like this.







READICIDE

    author:               Kelley Galagher
                                       5 books and 4 professional.
                              defines readicide as systematic killing of the love of reading by school


causes of readicide        no intersting material in class
                                       longer challenging novels replaced with test prep
                                             dont read enough in class. No SSR?!! bullshit i love SSR
                                                         hell yeah SSR improved test scores

how to prevent readicide                       talk to school and get monies for more books. Less test prep and                  
                                                               more books
                                                       Advocate more reading time
                                                      get donations. I have soooo many books that I'm not reading anymore..
                                                     granted not all of my books are kd appropriate, but some are
                                                   be available for students to talk to
                                               current events, current events, current events. Get them interested. I know
                                                                                                                                           I'm not
                                                  50/50 challenging novels and time to read on their own. Their own choice.

Flow                            what is this? When someone sso involved that they nothing else seems to matter.
                                    Yeah i'm guolty of this

One pager                  anwser short q's breif reflection on ideas about the text.

Mind Blowing Quote of the Week

The Terminator Movie

Studio executives wanted OJ Simpson to play the Terminator. Mel Gibson, Tom Selleck, and Michael Douglas were also considered. Originally the Terminator was supposed to look like an average man, someone who could blend in with the crowd. James Cameron thought OJ was "too nice" to be taken seriously as a killer cyborg.


MIND BLOWN

credits for this mind blowing quote go to cracked.com 30 Mind-Blowing (True) Facts About Famous Movie Scenes

Inspiration I had while reading Nonfiction Matters

Midnight on a frozen bridge. Under the phosphorescent street lights the the falling snow shone bright against the black backdrop of the night. It was like the world ended where one side of the bridge began and the other ended. The sound of rushing water churned continuously on, the only sign that this small world was still moving forward. That time hadn’t stopped still.

Literary Essay_ A Classroom of One's Own

A Classroom of One’s Own

           

            As scary as it sometimes seems, I will one day have a classroom of my own. I will have the eyes of dozens of children and students trained upon me and expecting ME to be the authority figure, to teach them something. It terrifies me, but that’s mostly because I haven’t done it yet. I haven’t had to teach an entire class how to write. Hell, I’ve never taught anyone how to write so how am I supposed to know how to start now. For me the prospect of teaching writing is like “learning a sport entirely with coaching and no actual play.” I know all the little tricks to writing, but I’ve never practiced imparting that wisdom to another person. By the way that particular quote comes from Nystrand, but I didn’t read that. I found it in a very inspirational little paper by Larson and Maier. Larson was observing the extraordinary classroom of Maryrita Maier, a teach r who believes that “all her students were fundamentally authors [who] contributed to an overall atmosphere of excitement, perhaps even a magical enthusiasm for writing.” This belief led Maier to create a classroom where writing wasn’t some assignment that you had to complete because the teacher told you to. It wasn’t so heavily structured that there was only one thing to write about or even one way to write about it. Her classroom was an experiment in giving students a voice in their writing by making it a cooperative and ever changing game between her students and each other.

            If I was choosing a model for how I’d like to build my classroom one day, it would be like Maier’s. I’d want my students to not groan when I tell them that they have a new writing assignment to do. I want them to be so excited about writing that my biggest problem would be to get them to stop writing. I want them to experience the joy of expressing themselves through the medium of writing and to enjoy it with each other.  One might think that I have already a wealth of knowledge for how to structure an English class through all the years of schooling that I have had. But I have never had a class like Maier’s. My English class’s never inspired me to pick up writing as a form of entertainment. In many ways my English classes actually turned me away from writing. It wasn’t until college that I have began to see writing as a valid and enjoyable way to express myself. Sadly, I am not alone in this view. Many of my fellow peers have their own accounts of horror stories about writing that make them shudder in a fear that is traditionally reserved for the boogey-man. I remember my first English class in community college. The gray colored walls that lacked any flyers or posters to liven up the mood. The dim lighting and the rows of disinterested students facing and trying not to make it apparent that they were sleeping while the elderly professor with receding white hair talked, and talked, and talked , and talked. About what I could no longer tell you. I do remember from the class one piece of literature that makes me scared even to this day. VIRGINIA WOOLF’S A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN. This book was boring, it made no sense, and what’s worse is I had to pretend that I knew what I was talking about while writing a huge essay about the stuff that I didn’t understand. A great big thank you to Spark Notes is needed for helping me get past that one. I couldn’t read or write about this piece of literature because it didn’t interest me and that’s a problem that I often hear about from my colleagues.

            Maier’s classroom had the students actively writing about things that they liked, that inspired them. They were encouraged to share their own personal lives and the teacher even shared hers in return. This is the big idea, the reason why I cannot draw fully upon my twelve plus years of schooling. The reason why my peers hated to write and read so much in school. It’s because we didn’t write about what was important to us. I remember hearing all the complaints and bitching about the newest assigned reading that we had to do. I oft over heard how much my peers would complain about having to start reading To Kill a Mocking Bird. I’d hear them ask what was the point of reading the Bean Trees? Why are we wasting time reading Of Mice and Men? What the hell is Shakespeare even saying? These are the same peers whose faces dropped like a horse whenever the topic of another essay came up. The peers who sat twiddling their thumbs and staring at blank pages because they hadn’t the foggiest idea how to start. I remember several English teachers who had methods that were similar to the Schaffer Method that we saw in class. The plain, simple organization that had

Topic Sentence

• ·        Main idea/ thesis

Body Paragraph 1

• ·          Topic sentence
• ·           Quote

Body Paragraph 2

• ·         Topic sentence
• ·         Quote

Body Paragraph 3

• ·         Topic sentence
• ·         Quote

Conclusion

• ·          Summarize what you just wrote in different words.

I found that I didn’t always have to stay with this method, and often I didn’t or I mixed it up a bit. But other students stuck to this because they didn’t know what to write about. They didn’t know how to structure and quite frankly I’d be surprised if they cared. And just like how teachers using the Schaffer method generally saw “rapid improvement in the writing of struggling students,” the students who followed the system were sure to pass the class. They struggled, but as ong as they followed the formula they would be fine.

            I don’t want my class to be like that. It turns people away from writing and reading and by the time they get to college, if they even get there at all, and take a GOOD English class that lets them rediscover that writing can be fun, it’s too late. I will never be as prolific a writer as I am a reader and it’s because I didn’t get into it as a child. I consider myself lucky that I picked up voracious reading as young as I did. Maybe it had something to do with being a loner, a shy kid, but I am glad I found a joy in reading. My niche was fantasy fiction writing. Stories of knights in armor battling monsters and demons. Of space battles that challenged how I thought about the universe. A lot of my morals, values, and outlooks that I hold dear come from the books that I continue to read.  And yet I could never pick up writing for myself. I wouldn’t consider myself a bad writer. In fact, sitting here in my chair pounding at the keyboard at night writing this essay I must say that I am proud of my skills. But I don’t write a lot for myself. I remember, on several occasions, sitting in my room and promising myself that every night I would write in my journal. I bought myself a nice bounded composition book and for a few nights I was diligent and wrote down a few pages. But something always happened and I skipped a night. Sometimes I had to stay up a little late and do that math homework that was due. Maybe my family had a party to go to and we didn’t get back until it was late and by then I just wanted to sleep. And so I’d skip a night. And another. And another. And another until it became clear that the journal I had promised myself that I would write sat on a shelf, never to be opened until I had to clean my room.

            When I began this essay I thought about all the times I didn’t write for myself. All the essays and paragraphs that I was assigned in school. All of the boring topics that I had to squeeze out onto a blank piece of paper. All of the headaches and hardships and late nights that writing has brought me over my education were the very first things that came to my mind when I decided to write. And while school still dominates most of my writing, I am starting to take it back now. The English classes that I have taken here at Chico have shown me that reading and writing consists of more than what I thought. It isn’t just something that we do because we are forced to in class. It’s a living, breathing medium that changes every time its read or a new thing is written. These classes have given me a breakthrough on what reading and writing truly encompass. It’s not just the classic and required books. It doesn’t have to be published and bound between the covers.  It can be texts that we send each other every day. The online memes that speak truth through comedy and sarcasm. The posters that regale us with how fun their events are. Real reading and writing is alive and it needs to be shared. I am going to have a classroom of my own one day. Maybe I will just be a science teacher in middle school, but even in science there is reading and writing. I need to be able to address the areas that my students are struggling with and inspire them to want to write and enjoy what they write. That is what I will try to accomplish when I get my classroom. I will probably fail the first time, but failure can be a good thing. After all, even Maier didn’t get it right the first time. And she might have been more terrified than me when she first began.

Olivares_RoughEssay_03/07/13

Estefan, this is who you write your L’s. Estefan, this is how you write a poem. Estefan, this is how you write a resume. Estefan, this is how a you write an annotated bibliography. Estefan, this is how we write in school. School is where I write. I am given an assignment and I do it. School tells me how to write and what to write about. If I had to make an estimate, about 90% of all the writing I have ever done was for school. There was little incentive for me to write. There still is. Its more fun to read, to escape to the world of another person. There is no effort on my part. I open up a book and a whole universe is there for me to explore. I didn’t have to make it up and I get to spend hours within the folds of the paper.
And glorious worlds there are. From Ellen Hopkins world of Crank and Impulse with their inverted language, constantly breaking writing conventions as a deeper more disturbed world is unveiled. Or the world of Brian Jacques world of Redwall with its brave and noble woodland creatures fighting to defend one another. And who can forget the food. It makes my mouth water even a taste of those wonderful morsels. Or the world of Michael Grant where children struggle to survive against increasingly powerful odds. A world where the rules are constantly changing and one mistake can change your life. Why should i write when their are thousands who will do it for me. What is the motivation when in my lifetime there is already enough literary works that would interest me that I couldn’t even finish them all.
So why do I write at all. School gives me the purpose of writing. School requires that I present my ideas out on paper, so I have to take the time and the mental power to produce pages of literature. Describe why light acts the way it does. Was Hamlet truly crazy and if so what is your proof? Summarize the plot of the Magic Treehouse books. Write what you think Genre Theory is. I think of myself as a good writer and given the time and motivation I have produced a multitude of words. I have filled a blank page with my own thoughts. But always at the behest of another. What I don’t do is write for myself.
One of the reasons for my lack of writing is because I can get my thoughts down fast enough. My pen can’t move as fast as my thoughts. Even the keyboard and computer with its advantages cannot compete with the speed that I can craft a story within my head. Writing, for me,  is like moving in slow motion. To craft the stories that I have requires me to slow down, to think about how people will view the piece. Does it make sense, do they know who is talking, Oh I had this really great idea but its so far ahead, know I have another story and its cooler. The ability to get my thoughts down takes considerably more time and energy because I am creating the universe. I am sculpting the pillars that will support a wondrous place for others to escape into. And creation is a long process. For someone like me with such a busy schedule, to leave aside time to build is a feat in itself.

Olivares_AnnotationWorkshop_02/28/13

1) The process for consuming the text for me is to read it and take notes as I go through on Google docs. The reason for this is because there is a lot of information and since I have to summarize it later, it is good to be jotting down notes, quotations, unusual words, and key phrases for later. This also helps me keep a map of where in the text something was said so that I can go back if needed. If this text was more in a story format, genre, I wouldn’t need to use this technique, but because of its nature, no matter the interesting information, I will get bored and drift off if not concentrating fully.

2) I briefly looked up on a slide show about how to annotate a piece. It gave me some useful and non useful information. Connecting the text to myself, the text, and the world was useful. Looking for the plot of a character’s actions wasn’t that helpful.

3) This text helped me because it connected with the text we read in class last time about genre theory. For example, the author of the text I read made reference to the fact that defining genres is difficult because they are dynamic, changing, and a social communication tool.

Olivares_Annotated Rough Draft_02/28/13

Joining the Club:

A Suggestion about Genre in Early Jewish Texts

            This journal seemed an odd choice, but religion fascinates me so I thought I’d give it a read. What’s interesting is that the author makes references to what we read about Genre Theory in class. That they were dynamic, changing, and rely on a social communication with the language. The author, Benjamin G. Wright 3^rd, wrote the paper with the goal of defining Wisdom and Apocryphal genres through the prototype theory. The prototype theory is a more abstract way of defining genres and is a big move from how wisdom genres were typically formed in the past by biblical scholars. An example is probably the best way to look at what prototype theory. Imagine yourself seeing a new animal for the first time. Most humans wouldn’t make a mental list of the parts that this creature has. They would make the connection based off of other animals that they have seen. If the said animal was say a bird, we’d classify it as a bird because it looks like animals we’ve already classify as birds. Most wouldn’t make a mental checklist of the parts that the animal has or doesn’t have. The prototype theory works in a similar fashion. It doesn’t describe a set of characteristics that make a genre a genre, but has examples that define the genre and radiates from that. By making the connections between texts you get an expanding genre that goes from the “best” examples to the “fringe” examples that begin to encroach on the territory of other genres. Biblical scholars in the past tended to create genres based on classification, definition, and on a list of features. But, according to Wright, this is limiting because it creates exclusionary categories that make it so either a piece fits in a genre or it doesn’t. It’s also limiting because it fails, in the authors opinion, to make connections between different texts which is the overall goal of his paper, to make connections of wisdom and apocalypse genres to the spectrum of Early Jewish Literature.

Olivares_ShafferAttempt_02/21/13

The Shaffer process is good for beginners, but it lacks the ability to fully challenge students to advance their writing. Limiting writing to a pre-constructed format is not good. Some students may want to write more than how much space can fit into the space of two sentences for their commentary. Or maybe they can get it done in one sentence, but have to then think of some trivial point to put into the paragraph to fill the quota. “Writing formulas are attractive, precisely because they render the ‘messy’ more manageable.” The appeal of the structured writing form makes it easier to grade because kids know what to expect and teachers can easily find a benchmark to consistently grade. And if it is the only system the students know they can be good at it, but they are limited and inefficient when it comes to other writing. Students should know and understand the Shaffer method because it does provide some valid information on structure and id terms, but it they should not limit themselves to just this form.

"The Truth will set you free, but first it's going to piss you off"

Wooly Ess
Concept Art Forum

funny little comic

Olivares_Formulaic Writing_2/18/13

            Whether or not you argue for using the Jane Shaffer method, one thing is clear and that is that the Shaffer method has limits and should not be stuck with just this method at your disposal. It is a valid method and it does teach important concepts structural concepts like paragraphs, intros, and conclusions, but it’s a beginner’s tool. “Teachers, while acknowledging that students must move beyond the Schaffer method if they are to continue improving, were nevertheless left wondering what to do next. Unfortunately, there is no next in the Schaffer approach.” The method if followed to the letter doesn’t give the students the room to be creative and that’s what should be taught after the Shaffer method; the ability to go beyond this simple structure and expand on important ideas and talk about your opinions. Shaffer s claims that “students resist writing commentary because it means they must say what they think, a task they are not used to and one they find difficult.” If this is difficult then the next step is to find ways for the students to practice writing their opinions. This could be done by giving the students more leeway in their topic selection so that they can write about something that deeply interests them. Writing essay types like persuasion and pro and con with an emphasis on the getting the writers ideas expressed. Or even having them speak out loud in small and large groups, or individually about their opinions so that they can get those out. Students need to know that their thoughts matter and finding ways to encourage that is giving the students a path to success; one that can be expanded on in new and different ways.

            I remember in high school having a method of writing essays that reminds me a lot of the Jane Shaffer method. I don’t believe any of my teachers taught it with that name, but there are similarities to the style and I remember using that style for a while. When I was just starting out and I felt stuck not knowing what to write I used this formulaic method of writing my papers. Luckily for me I didn't feel constrained by the style and I didn’t stay with it for all my writing. I attribute this to my voracious reading habits. But I understand that some students might feel very comfortable using this style and may stick with it because they are not confident that they can do it another way.

            I agree with James Collins that this method should be taught as just one of many strategies to choose from. The Shaffer strategy may get students the grade, but it lacks the ability to transform writing from a boring school subject to something that the students can get into and willingly use for the rest of their lives. We should be training these students in a way that gets them to want to write in their lives and not just for a grade.

Mind Blowing Quote of the Week

you know hippos. Those big, fat water land animals that swim in the river. Yeah those big  guys can run 19 mph <30 kph>. So unless you run at the Olympic level that's faster than you.



BOOM!!

Olivares_Larson/Maier Discussion quote_02/14/13

Poetry is what I was taught back in elementary school, and middle school, and high school, but it was never something that was truly mine. I didn't write poems on my own free will. I didn't even read many poems. And yet the poetic style and structure was pushed on me when I felt that I didn't even want to write a poem. It wasn't until this past Fall that my view on poetry changed drastically. Love That Dog was a book we read during my English 341 class that portrayed a fictional young boy that we could relate to. He didn't want to write poems because he thought he couldn't. And yet his teacher showed him that writing poems was more than just making words rhyme. It was more than having similes and metaphors, personification and hyberboles. In the same way Professor Kittle showed me the joy of reading and writing poetry. I got interested and wrote in different styles of poetry that were presented. Now I even have a favorite style of poetry, the Sestina. I even wrote a Sestina for my girlfriend this Valentine's day. Can't wait to give it to her this weekend

Olivares_Co-Authoring Classroom Texts_02/13/13

            What surprised me in this text was how much time the students spent on reading. The students started off taking two or three books home a night and ended the year taking ten or twelve books by the end of the year. The books were probably not long, but it's still hard to imagine a group of kids who like reading so much that they'd spend so much of their out of class time doing it. I have friends who read a lot and I know my mom and I can spend hours reading a book, but I consider us outliers amongst other people who feel they have better things to do besides reading. So when a teacher can get a whole class to pick up voracious reading I must say I am impressed.

            "Her belief that all her students were fundamentally authors contributed to an overall atmosphere of excitement, perhaps even a magical enthusiasm about writing." Young children have so much to tell us, even if we don't always have time to listen to them. To teach that they can enjoy telling us those things in written words has many advantages. One is that once they have written those words down they can go back over them and see how they have improved. They can also think about their thinking by going over what they wrote. Maier’s method for Co-Authoring was interesting, fun, and most importantly could be imitated by other instructors. I enjoyed how the students were able to chip in with the story and catching certain words, like working, to put on their list of –ing words. That kind of attentiveness lets you know that the students are paying attention and that they are able to understand past lessons.

            A really nifty rule that this text showed me that I could implement in my class was "read to three then me." It gets the students to show off their work and have it peer reviewed. I also think that it would help improve students grammar and spelling by comparing their own writing with each other and having the teacher help at the end, which is another rule that I enjoyed in the text. The teacher didn't correct for mistakes until after the students had finished their work. This gets the students in the habit of proofreading their work and also getting all of their ideas out so that they have plenty to write with. Sometimes as writers we get so caught up in what is the right word or how the scene should progress, but good writers rarely ever get it down right the first time. They have to go over their work and ask themselves if anything is missing, is there enough detail, does the story make sense, and other such questions. I agree with the premise that students should be this involved in being the author. Getting the students to see the joys of reading from the author’s view point is a wonderful teaching tool and gets them to practice important skills in a way that they can enjoy. I will definitely try to implement the ideas that this text has brought to me in my future classroom.

Olivares_BookchoiceHW_02/13/13

I chose the book Nonfiction Matters because I don't know how to teach nonfiction as fun. That is not a style of writing that I would typically look for in a book store. So to inspire a student through my own experiences with nonfiction would be difficult to say the least because I don't have much experience in the first place.

The books description says that it can show how students can read expository text, get engaged in research, and write nonfiction that is captivating and full of voice. When I thought about this and compared it to my reservations about teaching nonfiction I realized that there could be a lot of potential in teaching nonfiction to children at an early age. After all, the easiest way to get a student to write about something they enjoy and what can be more beneficial than writing about something in real life that relates to you. A younger student could write a story about their family that is engaging and interesting and full of detail. An older student can write about a role model or someone they admire deeply. When I think about the genre of nonfiction in this way I see that there is a lot more to it than I assumed at first. I would like to learn some of the strategies that this book has to offer so that when I have my classroom I can feel inspired to teach this genre of writing.

Blog Reading Assignment 2

The only way that this person says to be able to study and find a definition for literature is through ethnographies. I had to look this up, but its the scientific description of the customs and cultures and people. Its a term I learned in my anthropology class. It makes sense that to understand what literacy is in our modern world you have to understand what people use literacy for. Most students in school hate assigned reading, but tend to read many different things, some of them not considered traditional reading. and many students hate assigned writing. I myself am not happy having to write this blog at 10:21 at night. Yet students write a lot outside of the school settings for their own personal use. The way people use reading and writing is definitely what literature is about. Students now use reading and writing as communication tools across an electronic medium. This medium is entirely new and  the experience has begun to change the language of writing. Texting and emoticons have created new ways of expressing thoughts and ideas. Should this new revolution be treated as writing and be included as literature? 

"We are inheritors- if unwilling inheritors - of another nineteenth century perspective, one of distrust of mass society and culture, if not simply of the masses themselves." I have heard many people think that the reading patterns of the youth today is degrading as they see them moving away from traditional reading. But should we judge the youth so harshly. After all, most of these kids are reading, but not reading what we want them to. A study in my English class that we saw took high school kids and measured how much they read the assigned reading and how much they read outside of class. The students read maybe 0 to 3 of the assigned readings that year, but outside the classroom the reading they did was closer to 20 books and higher that year. The youth today wants to read, but they want to read what they want to read. That isn't so bad an idea. There could be some books that are a must read for students, but the most important thing that should be accomplished is creating a culture where reading is accepted and enjoyed. We should not be shoving the classics down the throats of students who will then learn to hate reading and think themselves poor readers because of it.

Mind Blowing Quote of the week

Picture this in your head. Your traveling down the freeway at 80 mph. Now imagine yourself reaching for that radio to change the station. That hand of yours. . . is traveling faster than 80 mph.



BOOM!

Curriculum as a means, not an end

As a great pirate once said, the Pirate Code is really more of guidelines.

So to are the curriculum guidelines that direct the learning experience. In Dewey they talk about the perfect classroom setting where the child states his experiences and his misconceptions are corrected. Where statements are made, inquiries arise, topics are discussed, and the child continually learns. This is the direction that schools are heading to now as opposed to a standardized test school. the standardized test were meant to measure a child's performance, which isn't a bad idea, but instead a culture of teaching to take a test instead of teaching to learn arose. I remember and still practice hints and tips for figuring out the answers to multiple choice problems that i don't know and understand. We need to get on the track towards having the children learn in a way that makes them yearn for more knowledge, not discourage them from seeking it.

"There are two challenges to overcome when writing. The first is worrying about what to write about when you start. The second is trying to stop writing after you've started."

The School and the Life of the Child

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15-D2dOFYW2HJKZX6sseP_5gzeBhq3i_nvMBgc5zgReg/edit?usp=sharing

“Think of the absurdity of having to teach language as a thing by itself” (page 49). This article talks about shifting the gravity of the education experience. That the life of the child should be what is most important in the education of the child. As to language this does seem absurd, yet I remember language being forced on me and others who didn’t want it. When I was younger and we had our reading levels assessed mine was higher than average, so I was forced to choose from a selection of books that didn’t really appeal to me. . .

Quote

"No one is paying as much attention to your failures as you are."

60 Feet to Concrete

The bar was freezing my fingertips. The air was eating away at me through my sweater. It was so dark and cold that I couldn’t see the water beneath me, but I heard it plain enough. Midnight on top of a lonely bridge I could hear everything. the running of the water, the falling of the snow, the rustle of the bush where a deer happened to be passing. It was so calm, so quiet, and I almost jumped when I heard a voice.

“Thats quite a long drop.”

My heart jumped into my chest, but my grip got tighter on the bars.

“Do-don’t come any closer! I swear I’ll jump if you do!”

I was frightened, but deep down I meant it, I think.

“Oh I’m not here to stop you. I’m just going to watch.”

Was this person joking. I twisted my head around to get a better look at whoever was talking. At first I thought he was just a floating head his skin was so pale white, but I could see the outlines of his bulky black jacket. His head and arms were covered with black beanie and gloves and his pants were faded black jeans. The contrast made his face light up like a lighthouse in the darkness.

“Sorry, don’t mind me,” he said while walking to lean on the railing of the bridge, “I’m like twenty feet from you. I couldn’t catch you if I tried.”

My mind woke up from the numbness of the situation.

“You get off watching girls die?” I asked jokingly.

“I think everyone does,at least secretly. I mean look at the Saw movies. Gorriest movie out there yet people flock to see people getting smashed, and cut into tiny little pieces. no I just think I am taking it one step forward by actually witnessing a death. although I wish it was daylight. You can barely see the river below in this light.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He wanted to see me die.

“Before you jump, could I ask you for something?” he said.

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“Your story.” he said with a serious face.

“My story?”
“Yes, I mean you don’t need it anymore. You’re about to end it.”

Who is this guy. I couldn’t begin to fathom what he was thinking.What was going on in that head of his. Yet I couldn’t help but respond.

“What would you want my story for?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe your story could help save some other little girls life. Or maybe I can get rich off it, sell it to some movie writer. Maybe I could avenge your death and kill those who wronged you. Maybe I’ll never use it. But if your story is with me I can find some use for it.”


. . .. . . . . . .

“Lets start with the now?” he said. Why pick jumping off a bridge? Daddy didn’t have a gun to shoot you with?”