My Responses

Class Five: Using Poetry- February 3, 2015

I absolutely loved the poetry activity I did in class a few weeks ago.  The use of poetry in other subject areas is a great idea that can allow students to be more engaged, and understand the subject matter more effectively.  It also allows the teacher some background information about how the students feel about the subject in question. For more background information, as a class, we were asked to come up with a poem about either "The Trouble with Math" or "The Love of Math".  Our poem needed to be nine lines long, have at least one colour, one emotion, and we could not use the word math.

Many individuals in our class wrote amazing poems about their struggle with math, and some people wrote about how they love math.  By assigning this task to students it allows them the freedom of creative expression and if the teacher collects the poems and reads them, they can understand the way their students are feeling about the subject.

I will now share with you my terrible poem about math (but I loved writing it!!!)

I really enjoyed this activity and it brought up my feelings about math that I was not even fully aware of.  I would definitely recommend some sort of poetry activity in any subject to break the ice and to get students talking about their feelings regarding what they are about to learn. 

Class Four: Using Poetry and Prose- January 26, 2015

Based on reading Shelley Peterson's work on writing across the curriculum, there are many incredible reasons why poetry and prose can be used across the curriculum in a variety of subjects.  Of course, it is assumed that poetry and prose will be used in English and Language Arts classes,  but there are many uses for poetry and prose in other subjects.  Writing stories or poems allows students to comprehend the information they receive in a new and more memorable way.  If a history, geography, or social studies teacher is teaching a lesson about World War I, students could be asked to write a reflection, story, or poem based on the facts they are receiving.  By writing their own narrative, students will be able to understand what they are learning and they will have an easier time storing it into memory and recalling it later rather than the classic "memorize and forget".

Writing a narrative poem or story in science and math can allow students to comprehend the subject matter more effectively as well.  Students could turn their math problems into stories, or write personal reflections about when they use math in their own lives.  By using narratives in a science class students could explore relationships between the elements on the periodic table.

With these few examples, it is evident that narrative could be used in numerous subjects in so many different ways.

As I have previously stated in other posts, my teachable is English.  There are endless opportunities to use narrative in this subject.  It would be hard not to use narrative!  A specific poem I focussed on today was the use of Robert Frost's poem called, "Nothing Gold Can Stay".  Students could use this poem to understand the novel "The Outsiders" in more depth.  By analysing, rewriting, or acting out this poem, students will understand the theme and meaning behind it in order to comprehend why it is such a major influence in S.E Hinton's novel "The Outsiders" and what it means when Ponyboy is told to "stay gold".

Narrative and writing (especially poetry and prose) are important tools to utilize in every subject across the curriculum in order to allow students to use their creativity to apply what they are learning through a different medium than what they are typically used to.

Class Three: Using Mentor Texts -January 19, 2015

In order to teach students specific lessons, teachers must provide students with examples and resources to scaffold their learning. Non-narrative texts are essential to help students understand what is expected of them when they are writing. I found a great blog called "For the Love of Teaching" that could be used to demonstrate many important aspects of writing to students. The 
link to the blog is here:

http://4theloveofteaching.blogspot.ca

If I were to ask students to create a blog as their major assignment for the course, I would use examples of other informational blogs to demonstrate to the students what I am expecting.  I would use "For The Love Of Teaching" to show students how I wish for them to write casually, professionally, and informally.  I would give them a lesson on being casual but professional when they are writing for a medium such as a blog.  This can teach them how to include their opinion along with other evidence in their blog.

Using a blog as an example can show students how to incorporate pictures into their work as well as links to other useful resources.

This resource could be used to teach students other writing techniques even if their assignment is not to create a blog.  Showing them a blog can introduce students to the differences between casual and professional writing, or writing for different mediums.  I could combine this example of a blog with an example from a newspaper or magazine and show students different writing techniques that they could use depending on who their audience is or what they are writing about/for.

Class Two: Response to Atwell January 12, 2015

Nancie Atwell's reflection made me excited and worried about teaching. I am extremely excited to be able to reach out and help students grow. I want to, one day, be able to influence students to believe in themselves, and I want to understand the different ways in which students learn. Atwell's reflection makes me a little bit nervous because I fear that I might enter a school where the students have incredible amounts of potential, but they do not have the proper resources to succeed. If students need certain accommodations I would hope that they will have access to them. Atwell's reflection begins with her horror of entering her classroom for the first time to see it basically falling apart. If a school does not have money to fix floor and light bulbs, they most likely will not have enough money to provide students with resources they need to succeed.  

In regard to Atwell's teaching strategies, I must disagree. Atwell writes that she was only concerned with conventions in the final drafts of essays. I believe that students need to be constantly reminded to check their spelling and make sure their grammar is correct. I do not believe that students need to be marked or assessed based on the mistakes in their lessons or rough copies, but they need to be reminded about proper writing conventions. If a teacher does not stress the writing conventions to their students, the students may not see the importance of having correct spelling and grammar in each aspect of their lives. Students need to be sure to have proper writing in each subject, and in the writing they are doing at home; practice makes perfect.

Seeing as my teachable subject is English, there are many opportunities I will have to incorporate writing into my lessons. The most important writing aspect I would like to incorporate into a daily routine is a creative writing journal. I want my students to have the opportunity to have ten minutes where they can work on a story, write about current events, or write about anything they wish. Students need to have access to opportunities of creative writing where they can let their imagination take control. This idea ties into what Peterson was proposing in the textbook. Each day can begin with the students' creative writing journal. The students will be able to start a daily writing routine that gets their minds working creatively.

The Power of Writing- January 12, 2015

Writing is an extremely important aspect of life that many individuals take for granted.  Writing is a way for an individual to express themselves; to express thoughts, emotions, feelings, and points of view.  To express oneself through writing, an individual has an opportunity to contribute to history.  To write a thought is to make it a permanent piece of information that exists and can be shared.  When an individual uses the skill of writing they are able to contribute to the thoughts and history of our world.  Writing contributes to the records that our society possesses of our time.

To write is to have power, whether it is creative power, social power, or academic power.  To write, record or express thoughts on paper gives individuals the power to express their thoughts to others and it is a way in which an individual can make their voice or opinion heard. Writing is important because it gives everyone the same opportunity to have a voice, or opinion about a specific thought or issue. Teaching writing  to the future generations is important, but it is crucial for young individuals to understand the power and opportunities they have in something as simple as writing.