Whew!
Finally completed!…Thank You to everyone in my group who worked their tails off to get everything done. You can see all our hard work by visiting TaskStream, and clicking on the ‘English’ Tab, and then RE 4030. It will be a link at the bottem titled, ‘Multi-Text-Maniac Magee’.
Discussion Director Questions – Sections 2 and 3
- What evidence supports the fact that the crew on the Never Land think that Captain Pembridge is not a very good commander?
He drinks so much rum that he is not coherent enough to command the crew, and he does not know anything about nautical commands. Page 42
- Problem/Solution
What was Preston and Harbuckle’s predicament in Chapter 6? How did they solve this problem?
They were trying to throw the men overboard because they were ‘dead weight’. The problem wasn’t solved in this chapter.
- Cause/Effect
Why was Peter frightened by the green glowing eyes and a floating rat?
Cause: He was ambling around the ship in search for food. Page 56
- What characteristics would you infer from chapter 7 regarding the kind of personality that Peter has?
Inquisitive, Meddlesome, a good friend
- Do you agree that Molly should keep her secret about her abilities to talk to animals when Peter confronts her about it? Why or why not?
Answers will vary. Chapter 11.
Discussion Director Questions – Section 4
- Compare and Contrast
Compare and contrast Black Stache and Captain Scott. What are their similarities and differences?
Answers may vary. Page 95-144
- What are the characteristics of a good Captain? Do you think that Black Stache or Captain Scott is the better captain?
Various answers – Chapter 15
- What do you think about Molly’s story? Why do you think that Peter has so much trouble believing it?
Answers will be different – Chapter 20
- What is the theme in Chapter 27?
Black Stache is very observant. He can read into people’s mannerisms.
- What was Peter’s problem on p. 236? How do you predict that Peter will solve his problem? How would you solve Peter’s problem?
He was trying to find his friends. He will go down to the beach and try to save his friends.
I thought that this book was a great prequel to Peter-Pan. I have neer read the original play version of the story, but the Disney version and this version match up nicely. However, recently Disney has created a set of movies which depict the life and history of Tinkerbell, and because my little girl needs to watch movies like that, I have had the opportunity to see another perspective on how fairies are born. Bradley Raymond, and Jeffery Howard came up with the idea that fairies are born from a baby’s first laugh. I think that I like this idea better because it is more innocent than capturing a bird and altering its form.
I like Dave Berry, and Ridley Pearson’s idea of how Peter became immortal. The fact that the starstuff had to be handled by gold was also very interesting. I want to read the rest of the books to find out how ‘the lost boys’ became immortal as well, because they were in all the Peter Pan stories and they never aged either.
I thought that the character sketches that accompanied the book brought out the important parts of the chapters that it focused upon. My favorite character sketcher to complete was the one for Blackstache because I got to use my own ideas and words rather than relying upon the words that were set for us to use in the other sketches. I do see how this would be useful for a child trying to complete the exercises, and I think that easing them into the process would make them more accompanied to the idea so the wouldn’t feel overwhelmed when it came to the final sketch.
The overall concept of this article, of teaching children to learn how to comprehend what they are reading seems like it would be a very effective method it increasing students word understanding. I remember that when I was in school, I would get aggravated because my teacher would go through all the important titles, and go through the list of all the topics that were ‘important’. This might just be a personal observation, but I felt as though my teacher thought that I was not smart enough to know this information for myself.
It was not until recent years that I found all of this reinforced information to be helpful. To be a good student you have to know how the information that you are reading applies to your own life, and if there are sections which don’t make sence then through metacognition, it is essential that we go back and review those sections which were ‘skipped’ in our thinking process.
I never thought of myself as a very knowledgeable person in terms of word knowledge, and the understanding of word bases, but as I get older I think that the meanings of words are easier to accrue because of the knowledge that I have gained based upon the knowledge of base words, and their modifiers. According to the reading, students with knowledge in this area can develop a meaning for a new word based upon the knowledge that they already have. As I have learned, this is a useful tool to use as you read more complex texts.
Throughout my time in the Appalachain cohort, I have been told time and again to integrate subject matter so that you can efficiently use the time in the classroom. For a variety of assignments, I was given the task of integrating subjects, and other themes so that the students can get the most out of a lesson. In Dr. E. Frye’s article, “Integrating instructional-level social studies trade books for struggling readers in upper elementary grades” the reader is given research that shows how a low-level reader will not benefit from grade level instruction, out of a text book or trade book.
Dr. Frye’s article gives a wide variety of high quality interesting books that are suited to both grade level content, and yet focus on the readability level for the student. This will prove to be essential, because my students will have the opportunity to read material that is in their readability level. This will allow the students to build their reading levels, which will increase their knowledge, and hopefully provide them a chance to enjoy reading.
If a child enjoys reading, then they will read more, and if they are a low-level reader then perhaps their reading skills will increase. This will allow them the skills to perform better in other subjects as well. The extensive research behind children’s development in reading will help me make a stand if a Principal is requireing that her teachers use trade books. Because good quality literature makes such a difference and students can learn much more from their use, then this is the method that I will use for instruction purposes.
My mother chose the name Heather for me because she loved Ireland. The flower is a native of the mountains and mores of Ireland. The small lavender, bell shaped flowers are abundant through the months of July through October. I was born in July. I am not sure if that was a factor or not.
According to
howmanyofme.com
• There are 519,742 people in the U.S. with the first name Heather.
• Statistically it is the 104th most popular first name…It is a very common first name (like we didn’t already know that – Heather C.)
• There are 3,323 people in the U.S. with the last name Yarber.
• Statistically the 10186th most popular last name…Not so common last name!
Heather is a Lavender flower or a very light purple. This also happens to be my favorite color. According to, behindthename.com, heather is a pink or white flower that grows in rocky areas, but I just told you that they are purple…so I will show pictures!
Heather Growing on the Fields in Scotland
Close-up of the beautiful little flowers
When I was hiking with my husband near Table Rock Mountain, and the Chimneys, I saw another flower called Heather. It is actually called Mountain Golden Heather, and it is an endangered species. The Mountains of North Carolina are one of the few places that it lives, and unfortunately, it grows in places where people are likely to step on it. Here is a picture of it.
Mountain Golden Heather
Love That Dog
This book was very cute. I liked how when it started that you didn’t really know if it was a collection of poems, or if it was really story. When he told his teacher that he did not want the poems published is when I made the connection that the book was indeed a story. After I got past the “poems that looked like shapes” I was hooked, and I quickly finished the book. My favorite part was when Walter Dean Myers came to the school and read poetry to the kids.
When I was growing up, my father placed a large importance on, me and my sister, reading poetry and memorizing poetry. I can hear the rythmic lines of Sir Thomas Hood, and his poem “The Bridge of Sighs”. My father cried every time that he read that poem. I can also remember the first poem that I ever memorized, “Oh the tangled webs we weave, when we practice to decieve.” – Part of a much longer poem by Sir Walter Scott.
The longer poem is called Marmion, and here is a link to it through Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/marmn10ah.htm
You can find the part I memorized in stanza XVII, 330.
Brown Angel’s
This book has wonderful images, and pictures of young children that give the book a warm and happy overtone. My favorite poem is:
“Summer”
I like hot days, hot days
Sweat is what you got days
Bugs buzzin from cousin to cousin
Juices dripping
Running and ripping
Catch you the one you love days
Birds peeping
Old men sleeping
Lazy days, daisies lay
Beaming and Dreaming
Of hot days, hot days,
Sweat is what you got days
This poem reminds me when I was a kid and when I went to a family picinic it would be very hot. I still liked being there with my family. The poem itself feels like it is a juicy watermelon that has been sitting out on the hot sun.
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More
I thought that the poems in this book were short and fairly random, but genius all the same. The poems that I read included, cow, sun, coins, pig, lions, fireworks, hose, door, turtle, rags, cat bath, snow, potatoes, and book.
The poems that I can relate the most to was fireworks, and book.
The poem, fireworks relates to my life because my children’s first time to see fireworks was on July the 4th of the year before last. We went to the Red, White, and Bluegrass festival and after the performaces, the fireworks show began. Many of the words that were in the poem were used by my children to explain what they were seeing.
fireworks
First
A far thud,
Then the rocket
Climbs the air,
A dull red flare,
To hang, a moment,
Invisible, before
Its shut black shell cracks
And claps against the ears,
Breaks and billows into bloom,
Spilling down clear green sparks, gold spears,
Silent sliding silver waterfalls and stars.
Poems that evoke a plethora of imagry have always been some of my favorites to read.
Book was also a pleasure to read. I have to agree that every book that I have read is filled with a bountiful box of tricks. You find out so much from reading. In addition, my senses are always working overtime when I am reading an authors description of a particular scene.
Love That Poetry
Freeverse seems like an excellent way to get kids interesteed in poetry. Using the book, Love that Dog, I think that students could easily see how free verse can be used as a way to write poems, and even a story. This would be an excellent was to get kids interested in writting, rather than talking about cinqanes and end rhymes.
The other ideas that were shared also seem like children would enjoy them. If working with young kids a concrete poem would be effective because they can think of all the reasons they like it or why it is unique and then, as a class you can work together to make the poem.
Zawilinski, Lisa. (2009). HOT Blogging: A framework for blogging to practice higher order thinking. Accessed January 13, 2009 from: http://re4030.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/hotblogging.pdf
I thought that when Lisa Zawilinski mentioned that, “online communication has become an essential aspect of online reading comprehension” (652), and that these skills can be integrated into skills that students already need to be efficient in school, I was stunned. Ever since I was a student in elementary school, I could see how the internet, and the use of the computer could be used to increase students communication skills. In fact, as the article mentions, via Thomas Friedman, in his book “The world is Flat” that collaborative posting is a skill that will be necessary to our future global economy (654). I can see how not only blogging, but also putting up personal webpage’s for the class, can be a useful tool to increase student understanding, and build their skill base. This is important because when students go into the world they will have an understanding of how to use the tools that their peers are able to manipulate with ease. Looking at other blogs is also a useful way to increase the content on your page and a way to stimulate ideas for ones own classroom. I searched for Kindergarten blogs and found a variety of interesting things that you can do with young children. For instance, reading a book about snow and then making snowmen out of paper plates, and everyday items around the home like pasta and buttons. Blogging will be a tool that future teachers will utilize to push their classrooms into the 21st century.
As Dr. Frye showed us through her Teacher-Tube video, students are reaching out to teachers for a new way to learn. We have to learn how to teach them by using technological methods. Basically ~ !Make it Engaging!~
In Note…I wanted to mention that I watched a news report on WBTV which was talking about how students spend as much time watching TV, and getting on the computer, as they do sleeping each week. As parents and educators we might not approve of this behavior, but if this is what students find stimulating, How can we modify what we are doing to stimulate thier learning through the television or the computer? or other technologically stimulating activities…
Example: Who can text me the answer to this question (insert a question from any content area) first?
Buckner, Aimee. (2005). Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writers Notebook. New York. Penguin Group.
In “Notebook Know-How” by Aimee Buckner, I was interested it the way that she presented the various strategies that student’s can use to begin the writing process. Most of the time, it is very difficult for writers to begin the process of getting something down on the page. I liked how the author presented a variety of different strategies to use when you get stuck. I think that of all the methods that Buckner mentioned, my favorite would be thinking about a question. An example of this would be…In how I began writing this post. I asked myself, “Why did I like This Book?” and the response came as soon as I posed myself the inquiry. Another idea that I thought was interesting was, “Lifting a Line”, when I write I often jump from one idea to another. In formal writing, I have to outline, pre-write, and rewrite so that my final copy will come out clean and understandable. I think that after writing, and becoming more used to getting my ideas down on the page that my fluency as a writer will increase.
What have you seen in language arts/reading instruction?
This week the teacher reviewed various aspects of letterland and read books about Thanksgiving to the students.
What have you taught in your internship?
I was able to review an emotions lesson with the kids, and I read a Dr. Seuss book to the kids.
Comment on any interesting things that you have noticed about your school, the teachers, the students, or the curriculum.
One interesting aspect that I noticed about lunch time is that they have it arranged so that students came and left on a rather leisurely schedule.
