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This the second collage from my identity project which represents my future as and educator. I decided to incorporate a picture of our block group because I have learned so much from each and everyone of them. There are so many things that I will remember and use with my future students that I have learned from these people and with these people. I included a lot of color and quotes on creativity and dreams. I feel strongly that I have a bright future ahead of me full of color, creativity and wonderful opportunities.

Here is part of my collage for my identity project. I decided to do a two page spread of my childhood which included a picture of myself, some of my favorite tv shows and movies, barbies, toys, etc.

This is an example of some sketch noting that I did. Personally, I did not like this method in note taking, so most of my notes were done by highlighting key points in the readings. I got more out of that method over sketch noting, but here is an example of me attempting to sketch note.

This is the final product of my cat that I made to add into the story "How To Be". We used model magic, various materials and watercolors in order to make our animals.

This is an activity we experimented with in class using newspaper clippings and modge podge.

My brainstorming for animal character that I would add to the book "How To Be". Also, towards the bottom of the page is my crayon rubbing from the arboretum activity.

As a class, we took a field trip to the Penn State Arboretum to look into the beauty of nature. I took a series of photos of nature, but decided to incorporate my favorite photo from the day. I loved this picture because, to me, the focus is not just on the flower but on the beautiful blue sky as well. We talked a lot about the placement of objects in photos, and I believe that this photos captures a lot of what we had discussed in class.

This is a picture of a box we created in class with just construction paper and stamps. We started with two plain pieces of paper and had a variety of stamps and colors to pick from. Along with the box activity with the stamps, we did an activity with stamping and then cutting the paper into smaller pieces and placing it back together. Mine did not turn out very well, so I decided just to incorporate this piece of art in my portfolio.

My Color Profile activity

Some small sketch-noting and my color poem on "The Color Orange"

My artistic name

brookecharlie

This piece was inspired by a heated discussion I had with a man who believes that teachers have an easy job. Please feel free to share it with others if you agree with the message.

"You can’t measure inspiration by a child’s test scores. You can’t measure inspiration by a child’s grades. You measure inspiration 25 years later when that hot-shot doctor, or lawyer, or entrepreneur thanks her fourth-grade teacher for having faith in her and encouraging her to pursue her dreams.”

brookecharlie

Standard Miscue Marks

(use for miscue analysis - analyze child’s reading from recording)

"As the children grow, the reading process is no different. What is different is the sophistication and effectiveness of the strategies they use."

Goodman- Primary Voices

LLED 400 Tumblr 4

Something that I learned from the Linda Crafton reading was that there is no such thing as asking too many questions, which is how children learn. With the unexpecting topic of killing the Iditarod dogs coming up in Crafton’s class, she was not afraid to shy away from discussing the matter. Instead, she used this as a learning opportunity for the children. The children thought about this issue, which clearly was a concern for them, through the processes of inquiry.

I made a text-to-self connection with this reading, along with many text-text connections as well. In a previous experience in Sweden, I used something similar to the silent reading that Crafton used with her students. I had my students skim through readings that I would assign to them prior to fully reading the whole passage, and have then write down words they did not understand in English. We then would have a class discussion about what each of the words meant before doing anything further with the reading. I used the strategy with pretty much all of my lessons with my 6th grade class and it seemed to really work for the class. Once the students got used to this strategy, defining the words then lead to more question. We would keep a list of these questions to see if after doing the reading they were answered. I guess I was using inquiry and I didn’t even know it! I found using inquiry in my classroom in Sweden to be very beneficial to both the students and myself. In future classrooms of mine, I would certainly use this teaching strategy if it suited my classroom and the behaviors of my students.

kyrahnagy

Tumblr Post 4: The Writing Workshop

From just reading the first three chapters of Fletcher and Portaliupi’s “Writing Workshop” and our discussions in class, I have become a big advocate of incorporating the Writing Workshops in classrooms. The amount of ESL students in the United States is continuing to grow; therefore teachers need to be capable of teaching these children. In the Samway article, Ms. Ramirez does an excellent job incorporating the writing workshop model with her ESL class in a way that all students’ needs are being met, which is the ultimate goal in any classroom.

The readings this week seemed to really be relevant to what is going on in my life with having an Brazilian exchange student at my house. His English skills as slim to none and a lot of the teachers in the school district are acting as if he is nuisance and a disruption to the rest of the class. Although this may be the case due to the fact the he is the only ESL student in the school, I could seem him really benefiting from the ideas of the writing workshop model and Ms. Ramirez’s classroom. Fletcher and Portalupi stress how a lot of the times writing curriculum focuses too much on the long-term goals, and that short-term goals are often forgotten. A child’s writing skills are not going to exceed over night, therefore it is key to focus on the short-term goals first. Ideas of short term goals from the “Writing Workshop” are: getting students to love writing time, establishing a safe environment so that kids can take risks in their writing, setting up a workable management system to handle the flow of papers, folders and so forth” (Fletcher and Portaliupi, p. 22). In Elton’s case, the exchange student, he is being told “you WILL read this book” when he has no idea what the book is, or what he is supposed to be getting out of it. Although he is older, his writing skills are that of a 2nd grader most likely. He would succeed much more and want to learn English if his teachers took into consideration what he enjoyed and what he knew. Ms. Ramirez also encouraged her students to write in their native language and in English. It happens way to often that ESL students are so encouraged to speak and write in English, that their native language is often forgotten. That language is part of them and helps make up who they are as an individual and that should be supported in the classroom. The English will come at its own time; it is not something that can be forced. Which leads into how the writing workshops allow children to work at their own pace. I love this factor because children are never in the same stages of learning, even if they are in the same grade. With Ms. Ramirez’s class, the writing workshops allowed her students to work at their own pace which lead to less discouragement towards the English language. These children were able to make their own choices on what to write about, which actually is the “crucial fuel that drives a healthy workshop” (Fletcher and Protaliupi, p. 23).

When I go home to visit my family, I have been noticing that I am spending a lot of time with Elton and getting to know him as a person and not just an “exchange student”. I strongly believe that all of these long tedious readings (just kidding Sherbs) are really playing a part in my curiosity towards this. Anyway, I do not see why some people would not see the positives of the writing workshops and how the not only are helpful to ESL students, but can be even more helpful to use for an entire classroom.

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