Learning Letter

This was probably one of my favorite classes I've taken because it made me think like a teacher. Other classes I've taken make me think about what I will have to think about once I become a teacher, but this class made me feel like I was already a teacher. I got to talk about books I've read that I thought would be great for my future students to relate to. I got to create a unit plan based on a play written by Shakespeare and that might have been my favorite part of the class. It was fun to think about what would be fun for students to do during the unit but what would also be a good way to get them to think. My favorite part of my unit plan was the final project. I figured students would have fun with making their own scripts based off the scenes we talked about during discussions. They would get to have fun with it because of how much sarcasm Shakespeare put into his plays. So, students could add in sarcasm based on language that they use every day with friends and family. If they are extroverted enough, maybe they'd even ham it up during the performance portion of the final project, and that would be awesome. I want my students to have fun in my class because when you are having fun while learning, you actually enjoy school. I know I'm not even a teacher yet, but I think this course helped me become a better one by the different discussions we had and the projects we had to complete. One of my favorite articles we read was Discussion as a Way of Teaching. I love discussions and the different tips and discussion strategies that are talked about in the article were amazing and I hope my future students will enjoy them as much as I like to envision that they will. I still don't feel like I'm ready to be a teacher, but I'm getting closer! I'm excited to get more practice in on lesson plans. I need to become better at explaining how students will or can do things during the sequenced instruction and adding more to lesson connections. Hopefully I can become better with research, too, I wasn't completely confident with my research, but it was fun looking up different activities and ways to teach Shakespeare. I enjoyed this class so much!

Night

I loved this book. It was the first one I read specifically because it is the author's memory from his time in the camps in Germany. I have been kind of obsessed with everything WWII since eighth grade when I learned about the Holocaust. It was completely awful, but I have a random fascination with it which sometimes makes me feel bad because of how sad, awful and wrong it all was. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched documentaries and movies about WWII and the Holocaust. This book was very well written and I thought it was an amazing insight on what the camps were actually like. I didn't know they gave the Jews coffee, soup and bread. To be honest, I had no idea what it was like besides what I had seen in movies like Schindler's List where Nazi's would look out their windows and randomly shoot people in the yard as they were walking through the camps. Wiesel describes how he and his father would trade rations of bread for things like a good bunk or tools. They would be counted every day, they worked every day, they made them run from place to place and if they were going to slow, they would be shot. It was terrifying to read about how they got so hungry that when they were being transferred in cattle cars, the Nazi soldiers threw a piece of bread into the car and men were literally killing each other over it and the Nazi's were using that as entertainment. It was disgusting and I still can't believe something so terrible ever happened. It must have been extremely difficult to relive all that Wiesel went through, but I'm sure so many people, like myself, appreciate it because there is no way we could ever imagine what it must have been like. It's a good reminder of why the history should never repeat itself. I think I would definitely want to teach this book at some point to high-schoolers. I would be interested to know their thoughts and feelings on a book that is the story of someone who went through something as terrible as the Holocaust.

Into the Wild

Into the Wild was a very compelling story. It was confusing at times because it's the author looking into the death of Alex (Christopher) McCandless. Alex had a difficult life with his family once he found out that his father was once a bigamist. He sets out after graduating on a journey with very little possessions. He works odd jobs as he makes his way west to the wild. Eventually he makes it to Alaska where he hitches a ride out to the wild. The man he rides with advises against his plan, but Alex ensures the man that he will be fine. The man gives him his lunch and what cash he has on him. Krakauer writes about Alex's life, what drove him to wanting to live in the wild, and touches on his own life as well. I would definitely recommend this book to my future students.

The Round House

This book was very addicting to read. Books and movies like this have always captured my attention. My family calls them "who done it" movies and that always made me laugh. Although I did like this book, I don't know if I would ever incorporate it into a high school classroom because of all of the issues it deals with, especially rape. I myself don't even like hearing or talking about rape because it makes me very uncomfortable. I know people say that it is important to be uncomfortable because that is when you learn more; when you are put outside of your comfort zone and learn to handle that. And because I know I have a problem with it, I know parents would not approve of this book. Topics of rape, murder and many things done underage, I honestly don't know how a book like that would be allowed in a classroom less than college level. And what if there are kids who have actually been through situations involving rape? God forbid that would ever happen but I know it does. And I wouldn't want to make someone read about it because, odds are, they would relive their own experience and I don't want that to happen. I feel like this book is very controversial, but sometimes these topics do need to be talked about. While some would hate to relive their experience, others could possibly find it comforting to know that it happens a lot, as repulsive as it is. Having something to relate to is very helpful at times.

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

I actually read this book in Dr. Beth's class The Composition Process last winter. From what I can remember, the book is about how students are reading things without actually understanding what they are reading. I remember going through the motions and not understanding what I was reading because in elementary school, we were always being timed to see how fast we could read a paragraph but we never had to summarize what we read. They just wanted to see how fast we could read. Because of that, I always wanted to read as fast as I could and I never got good at retaining what I was reading unless it was something I was interested in. Even when I got older and had to write papers, most of the time I would start reading what was assigned, but then would just look up the text on Sparknotes and was able to write the paper from that. Sometimes it was even worse and I was able to take bits and pieces of what I was supposed to read and somehow come up with enough BS to write a paper and somehow got a good grade on it.

Hopefully this has changed. I don't know very much about what they are doing in elementary schools nowadays when it comes to reading and comprehension, but hopefully they are actually focusing more on the "comprehension" part so that by the time kids get to high school or even college, they can actually understand what they are reading and they don't just look up summaries or just skim what is assigned so that they are able to full contribute to whatever assignment that it is attached. For this book itself, there are some awesome tools in the back of it, so I'm planning on keeping this book for my own personal use in my classroom someday as something to refer back to.

Book Talk #2

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Summary: This book is actually three books in one. The stories are about a girl named Isabel (Belly), her older brother Steven and her mother who spend every summer with their mother's best friend, Susannah and her two sons, Jeremiah and Conrad at a beach house. For as long as she can remember, Belly has been in love with Conrad, the older of the two and Jeremiah has always been her best friend. Conrad is the bad boy. He's tall, has dark hair, and this summer he is constantly in his room when he isn't busy smoking or getting drunk. Another difference this summer is Jeremiah is acting awkward around Belly and she, stupidly, can't figure out why. Nothing really happens until Belly gets a boyfriend named Cam and tension builds in her relationships with both Conrad and Jeremiah. Secrets start to reveal themselves from all of the characters including Conrad and Jeremiah's mom, Susannah. Jeremiah and Belly eventually end up dating and have some highs and lows like any relationship does. But is Jeremiah who Belly ends up with at the end of the trilogy?

Rationale: I chose this book because it is a coming of age novel and I think it is a great book for teen girls to relate to. Belly is a girl who is dealing with secrets, a love triangle, and just figuring out her feelings in general. I think girls who are between, maybe 12-18 would relate best to this book. Belly herself is 16 in the first book. 12-18 is a general age for girls to start dating, figuring out what they aren't looking for in relationships, figuring out who they are as individuals. And even though figuring out these types of things go beyond the age of 18, I feel like the range of 12-18 is where that process starts. I feel like this book could be important for teen girls because of how relatable it is with what Belly goes through as a teen girl herself. Boys could read this book too, heck, even my 12-year-old brother wants to read it, but I think girls would better relate to it because it follows the story of a teenage girl and her summers that are filled with romance, heartbreak, confusion and everything that seems to come with being a girl. 

Teaching Ideas: I personally would not teach this in a classroom just because it seems more like a book someone would read for pleasure and not for a class. However, if I were to teach it, I would maybe do a lesson on themes and see what kinds of themes my students could see throughout the book. Themes like friendship, love and moving on are themes that could be talked about in this book. Or, perhaps a lesson on conflicts. Internal and external conflicts are both very apparent in this story and students could find specific quotes and explain how it is either internal or external. 

Challenges: A challenge that could arise with using this book is parents feeling like underage drinking and smoking are being promoted. There will be challenges with at least one parent I'm sure, but it is not that the book is promoting it. In fact, if they would actually read the book, it shows how much of a negative affect drinking and smoking have on the character that does it. If anything, this book should show the students the dangers of drinking and smoking and the affect it could have on your emotions. However, I would definitely try my best to have a meeting and talk with the parent(s) before they wanted to take it straight the administrators. I would like to have a chance to explain my perspective, listen in person to what the parent has to say and see if we could come up with some kind of compromise for their child. I really enjoyed this book, and I think most teen girls would, too. It really is a PG written story and it was very fun to read. It's always nice to be taken into someone else's world to escape your own. Even better if you can relate to something a character is going through. 

edTPA Guidelines and Good Choices

Not gonna lie. This was A LOT of information to take in and this is probably going to be a shorter post because of that. I don't really know what to say besides that I'm glad that this is one of our reading assignments because I had no idea what the edTPA entailed. I even said it wrong in class one day because I said the edTPA instead of saying the TPA lesson plans for the unit plan we are working on. I had no idea that the edTPA was an actual assessment, I always thought the TPA lesson plans and edTPA were the same thing. But, the TPA is just the formatting we are learning because it's the format used on the assessment we will take to show that we can create a formal lesson plan. All of the information from the "Making Good Choices" one was awesome because it tells you the good choices to make during the assessment. It also says there's a handbook we will be given? Didn't know the handbook was even a thing, but I'm eager to start reading it so I can be fully prepared to take the edTPA assessment! How and/or when do we even get the handbook for that? I read there's more than one and you need it for your content area, so do we get them in a future class? Is it something we can buy ourselves? Is it given to us only when we have paid to take the edTPA? So. Many. Questions...