Week 12

I can't believe this is the last blog! This semester has flown by! I have really reeally enjoyed this class. I've learned so much. I'm sad that this class is coming to an end. This week we met with our writing partners and shared our rough drafts for our published writing. I decided to write a book of poems. I'm really enthused about it and I can't wait to share. Also this week we worked on our digital stories. Linda showed us an example of a few stories. One that I really liked was about a first year teacher. I can see how digital stories can be useful not only for my students to use but for me as well. My group and I decided to make a digital story about a day in the life of an education student. We had a lot of fun thinking of ideas and taking the pictures for our story. I think that it's going to be pretty funny and I hope the class thinks so too!

A preview from our digital story!

Week 11

I really enjoyed class today. My favorite part was the writing analysis. I really loved my kidwatching students' writing sample so I'm going to share:

On Saturday I woke my mom up. and Whele She wus getting awt uv Bed I wigalld my tooth awt. It did not hurt a but. My mom had a plow I was going to yos but I did not want the tooth fery to cume.

Um, ADORABLE! Reading my kidwatching student's journal is the type of thing that really excites me for my future as a teacher. I can not wait to be able to read cute compositions like this every day. I really enjoyed analyzing the writing samples and figuring out what I would do to help my student improve her writing.

My other favorite part of class was reading our photographs from the community. I brought in a photograph of the street corner by my house. I wanted to show how dark it is at night. I hate walking home in the dark from class. There is only one street light on the block. I find myself frequently looking behind me to make sure I'm not being followed. Simply looking at this picture inspired me to write a journal entry. I'm really getting some good ideas to help foster some good writing with my future students.

Week 10

MGRP week! This week we presented our MGRP projects! I thought everything went well. I really enjoyed listening to everyone's projects. I learned a lot about so many different things such as Kendra, Peyton Manning, Single-Parent families, being a vegetarian, Coco Chanel, etc. I learned a lot about my classmates today and how we all have so many different interests! Everyone seemed really passionate about his topic. The only problem was that I didn't get to see the projects that were being presented at the same time as mine.

Week 9

Last week during my field experience we were helping the kids write personal narratives. Each student was given small pieces of paper which started with a sentence "When I was 2 I...", "When I was 3 I..." and so on, and so on. It was my job to revise their finished sentences. I LOVED reading each and every one. Here is a memorable one...

"When I was 3 I like to put one end of my sock in my mouth and play tug-a-war with my granddad."

These kids never fail to make me laugh! I really enjoyed revising their sentences and helping them write their personal narratives. Also during the day, we had a code red drill. It was really hard to get a class of 1st graders to squeeze together in a small corner and have all of them be quiet. I could see how just a short drill like this could cause stress and tension among the classroom. To help them quiet down, my cooperating teacher read from a Ramona chapter book they have been reading together in their spare time.

Overall, I had a good day at my field experience. I am really learning more and more about the kids in the classroom through their writing. I wish I had more time to get to know them!

Week 8

I loved class this week! Even though I couldn't really relate any of the invitations to my topic, I enjoyed the different fun ideas to help foster good writing. I started out at the table with different objects. I chose to write a poem about a shell and it's different shapes and sizes. Then, I moved on to the table with pictures. I found myself writing more than I thought I could. I chose a beautiful picture of a valley with rolling hills, trees, and a sky with infinite colors. I imagined what it would sound like, feel like, and look like if I was there. I came out with a really good composition. Then I moved on to the found poem table where I made a poem about flowers blooming in the spring.

Also in class this week, we did a midterm evaluation of our notebooks. It was helpful to see which genres I chose to write the most. I would like to try writing more kids quotations. I always try to remember to put the ones I remember in my notebook but many times I forget. From my peer conferencing notes, I've noticed that I am a very informal writer. I never really think about type of genre I want to write about, I just write which sometimes makes my entries a little bland and repetitive. By the end of the semester I hope to mix it up a little more with more genres.

Week 7

In class today, we worked on our Multigenre research papers. After writing our drafts for homework, we were able to have a peer conference with another person. Jenn and I teamed up and read our papers to each other. We were both able to give each other good suggestions. Afterward, Linda gave us newspapers to look through and asked us to find some genres. WOW! I haven't even thought about all of the possible genres in a newspaper. Basically, no genre is left out! There were even some genres that I have never even thought about before. Doing this activity realllly helped me understand what kinds of genres we could use for our papers. This could be a really great activity that I could use in my classroom as a future teacher. After that, we were asked to pick a genre that talked about from the newspaper and create one with our partner. Abby and I worked together on this because our papers both were on sports. Naturally, we wrote a sports article together. After today, I am really excited about getting started on my multigenre paper and to make use of the resources we were provided. I really like www.prezi.com. It looked like a really cool tool to use for this type of project. Overall, after this class I'm starting to feel pretty confident in my multigenre research paper.

Week 6: Multigenre Research Paper

This week in class we focused on our Multigenre research paper. I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do at first, but yesterday's class really helped. I decided to do my multi-genre research paper on Steve Prefontaine, a famous athlete of the 1970's. He is someone I have known about and idolized as a high school athlete but I would like to learn more about his life. During class, we did an exercise with writing questions on post-it notes. We then divided the post-its into the categories "Need to Know", "Nice to Know", and "Essential." These really helped me with starting my rough draft paper since I already knew what I had to research. While researching Prefontaine, I was able to focus on coming up with genre ideas for my project.

Week 5: Unit of Study

During this weeks class, we discussed non-fiction books. I thought it was really cool to break up Cynthia Rylant's book Whales and read it in random order. After doing that, we took a look at non-fiction books which were placed on out tables in front of us. We were to come up with different characteristics of non-fiction books. At first, I mentioned the idea of non-fiction books not having a beginning, middle or end. Quickly someone in class corrected me and said that stories such as Ruby Bridges do have an order. Also, I learned that books such as The Magic School Bus are considered non-fiction.

My favorite part of class was presenting out Unit of Study to a small group. I did mine on poetry. I went to the library and found a book by Shel Silversteen called Where the Sidewalk Ends. I was so excited! I could remember this book as a favorite from elementary school. While I was writing my Unit of Study, I found my self distracted by the urge to read more from Shel's book. I found an all-time favorite poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out and I insisted on reading it to my roommates. They loved it! For my lesson, I printed out a poem for each person and had them highlight all of the strong verbs. The purpose was so they could see how the author tries to help the reader visualize the poem. For instance, an author wouldn't say, "She went to class." It would be better to say "She sprinted to class!" I found myself so excited about this lesson plan when I was presenting to my group that I was stumbling over my words and stuttering... So embarrassing, but fun nonetheless.

Week 4- First Conferences!

Today in class we had our first peer conferences with our journals. I have to admit that I was nervous! Jenn and I shared what we wrote in each entry and then talked about ideas we had for future entries. I feel like this will be a good way for me to get to know my conference buddy throughout the semester, but also to grow as a writer. I like that we get to share ideas we have for our journals because Jenn might come up with something I wouldn't have. I can't wait to see where this takes us throughout the semester!

Also in class, we presented our craft lessons to a small group. I brought in a book called The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens. The book starts off with a dog dropping his tennis ball down a mole hole. The moles marvel at the ball and have to decide what to do with it. The book is GREAT for teaching children about using colorful verbs to improve sentences which is what I presented as my craft lesson. I would highly recommend looking at this book. It was fun and can be educational when learning about writing.

Lastly, I would like to shed some light on a book Linda brought in for the class to read. It was perfect considering we were learning about teaching children punctuation. The book is called Eat, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. It has a brilliant and hilarious way of showing kids the job of punctuation and how commas can change the meaning of a sentence. It had me cracking up!

Week 3 First Week at University Elementary!

Today was our first day observing at University Elementary School. Lauren Austin and I have been placed into a first grade classroom together. As we walked in I was super nervous! After getting situated I started to feel more comfortable. The kids were definitely excited to have new guests in the room. One girl complimented me everytime she walked by smiling. "I like your hair." Ten minutes later... "Your shirt is really pretty." Five minutes later... "I like your shoes." She was too cute!! She definitely made me feel good about myself :). During class we got to observe them during spelling. They would clap, snap, and dribble an "invisable" basketball as they spelled each word together as a class. I thought that was a really easy and fun way for the kids to learn and practice their spelling words. We then watched them during literacy groups. During literacy groups, they read aloud what seemed like books for their specific reading level and the teacher kept a running record as they read. I can't believe that in two years I will be the teacher facilitating this kind of stuff. Overall, it was a really nice day at University Elementary School and I can't wait to get to know the kids as the semester progresses.

Semana Numero Dos!

Week two of class was a lot of fun! My favorite part was when we cut out pictures from magazines to put on our journals. I love how my journal is coming together and now has a personality :) I foresee the pictures I put on my journal being the inspiration for many future entries. I already have ideas! Finding pictures was a nice and relaxing way to wind down from the first week of classes and to just get to know my classmates whom I will be with all semester. I found that I had a lot of similarities with the girls sitting around me.

Another part of class I really enjoyed was learning about affective ways to teach spelling. Last year for my P251 field experience I was in a first grade classroom during their Writer's Workshop time. My cooperating teacher had me help the children in the editing phase where I was to revise spelling and other grammatical errors. There were many, many misspelled words. At that point in time, I had no clue how to effectively explain how to spell a word to a 7 year old... with the exception of helping them sound out the word. Figuring out whether a child is a visual or auditory learner will really be helpful to me as a future teacher to help troubleshoot where they are having a hard time.

First Class!

After finishing the first day of class, I was relieved to find that a near 3 hour class was not as bad as I thought. Time seems to pass much faster when learning about something I am passionate about.. learning effective ways to help children become enthused about reading and writing. Although I am not much of a reader... or writer, I have a feeling this class will bring out the inner reader and writer within me.

The only time I could remember keeping a journal was elementary school. After reading the Dear America books, I was so enthused about keeping a diary... which lasted for about a month or so. In class today, we read two short excerpts from "The House on Mango Street" and "Never in a Hurry", two stories about the origins and meaning of names. Afterward, we were asked to write in our journal about our own name. I was stumped! What is so interesting about my name? After a while, I had to remind myself that there is no right or wrong thing to write. In the end, I came up with a poem of which I was very proud. :)

I am about finished with the book "A Writer's Notebook", which is assigned for next class. I have found the book to be very inspiring. It has made me very excited to start my own journal. Throughout the book, I have realized that writing doesn't have to be so complex. Focusing on the simple aspects of life can be very interesting on paper.