Class Reflection

I really enjoyed looking through all of the resources, and I’m sure that at some point in my teaching career I will use something from all of these sites.  I learned through this course that you can adapt any lesson plan to fit what you are teaching, and make a lesson creative and interactive. I hope I will continue to find resources, if not then I think I would feel as though I have failed as a teacher.  I think I may possibly continue to use this blog, to publish lessons that are successful in my own classroom in the future, or to even talk between those in my cohort.

“Archeology Dig” Lesson for SS

“Archeology Dig” Lesson for Social Studies 6-8

http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sst/sst72.txt

I love this lesson because it is so versatile.  You could change the contents of the bags each year, and you could even actually PLANT the bags on school grounds somewhere and give the students clues that they had to follow to locate and uncover the bags themselves. That is one thing I would change, but it would depend on the time limit of the class.  If you had a short class period, say 50 minutes, you could have to students dig up the bags one day and then go through them the next.  If you had long class periods you could do both in the same day. I also like the suggestions of what to include in each type of bag, and I think depending on what country/continent you are teaching you could change these according to the type of people that inhabited that place.  There really is not much I would change about this lesson plan, I love it, I think it is very creative and “outside the box” compared to what I see everyday in my internship classroom.

“Jabberwocky” Grammar Lesson for ELA

“Jabberwocky” Grammar Lesson ELA for 6-8

http://www.col-ed.org/cur/lang/lang04.txt

 

I like this lesson plan because it allows the students to figure out where they are as grammatically correct writers in a easy and short way.  I also love this poem, which is actually written as part of “Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass” I think it is very interesting to middle school aged students.  I love having the students re-write the poem in standard dialect words, because most of the poem doesn’t really make sense so they will have to use their imagination to make up the rest.  What I would change about this lesson is the fact that at the end the teacher is supposed to grade the students on their rewritten version of the poem, I do not like that, I think I would give a completion/ participation grade, but how can you grade someone on their imagination?  You couldn’t grade on their labeling of the parts of speech either because this is just supposed to be a test of their knowledge starting out.  Other then that I love this lesson plan and I think it is very approachable by an ELA teacher in middle grades.

Developing Approaches to Vocabulary Article Response

I think this article was very useful, but some of the things in the article I’m still unsure about, as a future ELA middle grades teacher.  There are a lot of things I disagree with when it comes to the teaching of words.  I do not think students need to be drilled with roots, pre-fixes and etymology when they can barely write a sentence or a paragraph that is coherent and makes sense.  I am struggling with this fact in my internship right now.  While in the classroom students can spout out the definitions and roots of words they are studying in their vocabulary lessons, but when they write papers for me to read, it is like they forget all of that knowledge and they retreat back to their fourth grade writing habits, and this is in seventh grade.  So at some point you have to wonder is it even worth drilling the students with all of this if they are not going to use it?  Yes they may score higher on the SAT when they take it in high school, which we all know that scoring high on tests is all we are about in the USA, but are they learning anything past their vocabulary tests?

I’m just at odds with the whole system of teaching ELA in the middle grades right now after what I have seen in my internship, and I’m hoping that when I have my own classroom I will not fall into the “rut” of teaching students by testing their vocabulary knowledge.

I think these resource websites are very helpful because they show us that we can use our strategies to fit any content area and lesson plan.  It will be good for me, when I get my own classroom, to have sites like this to look at and get ideas for my own lessons and activities.

Multi-Genre Papers

I LOVE THIS! I had to create a multi-genre paper for Dr. Vogel’s class “Teaching Composition” and it was seriously the most fun I have had with an assignment my entire college career.  I know that if I enjoyed it that much that students in middle grades would love it.  Multi-genre papers give you the chance to do whatever you want and to write from any perspective and be creative.  Lots of times this is the only outlet artistic students get in the ELA classroom, therefore I think it is an activity that should be utilized at least two to three times a year.  This is also great if your school uses the portfolio method of grading, because your students have all of this work they can show at the end of the year, that covers almost every genre.

 

1.) How would you inspire students who do not feel as creative/artistic to go outside the box and create a multi-genre paper using pictures and art?

2.) How do you grade these type of projects? That is something that always gets me, I guess you would grade on completion and writing instead of artistic ability.

3.) What if you have an ELL student who doesn’t read or write well at all, in the class could you allow them to use more pictures then writing in a multi-genre project and it still be fair to the other students?

“I” Poems, Article Response and Questions

I love this idea, the “I” poem is something that I have always thought is a great strategy to get unwilling writers or unsure writers to break out of the mold and experiment with poetry and writing.  As a ELA major I find that these activities are easily adapted to any subject matter, when you think about writing “I” poems from the perspective of an object or place instead of a personal point of view.  When you think about it there are tons of songs that are actually “I’ poems, and this could be used as an instructional material to get students thinking.  One of my favorite “I” poems/songs is “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by Nickel Creek.  I love this activity for my classroom.

Questions:

1.) How could you break this down for writers who are just starting out with imaginative writing?  Even in the middle grades level I have found that students are stuck in a writing rut, that is unimaginative and almost contrite. So it may be very hard to get students to break out of the mold.

 

2.) Besides “I” poems are there any forms of writing similar to this in poetry, like “You” poems or something that would be written from second or third person? That may be an interesting twist to the activity.

 

3.)How could you center a writing unit solely on “I” poems and exploring the relationship between reader and writer? I think that may be interesting.

Instructional Strategies 1-4

Instructional Strategy 1

Title your post: Comprehension Strategy Posters

Your Name: Ashley Tipton

Name of Strategy: During reading activity for comprehension

Source (Where did this come from?): The Reading Lady

Link to the Strategy: http://www.readinglady.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=13

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented. This should be a summary of the strategy according to the original source: This strategy is supposed to be used in tandem with the books Mosaic of Thought and Strategies that Work, however because of the nature of the strategy this could be used with any text read independently in the classroom.  The poster is used to supplement and enhance the reading of those students who are visual learners by providing them with a reference to what they have read. These posters come in various versions, which are listed below.

• Asking Questions Poster
• Determining Poster
• Inferring Poster
• Making Connections Poster
• OWL Poster
• Repairing Comprehension Poster
• Synthesizing Poster
• Visualizing Poster

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity:

Competency Goal 5The learner will respond to various literary genres using interpretive and evaluative processes.

Explain why you think this strategy will work. How does the strategy help your students learn?

I think this strategy works for many different students because most are visual learners in some way, so producing this chart helps them express what they have read in their own way.  Also it allows the student to make the text understandable for themselves and no one else, when the students create something like this they can use the pictures they think are appropriate or draw it in a way they can remember, they aren’t using someone else’s thoughts on the subject/reading.

Instructional Strategy 2

Title your post: Book Talk’s

Your Name: Ashley Tipton

Name of Strategy: pre-reading, anticipatory set for piquing interest in a book.

Source (Where did this come from?): Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators à Nancy Keane’s Book Talks: Quick and Simple

Link to the Strategy: http://nancykeane.com/booktalks/

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented. This should be a summary of the strategy according to the original source: This strategy uses book talks, which are sort of like the “reading rainbow interviews” however, these are intended to get the students excited about reading a certain book.  A student or students who have read the book record the book talks and they touch on some of the main “enticements” the book has to offer, while possibly showing pictures from the book. The book talks can be made into podcasts available to all students on the team accessed at anytime before choosing a book to read.  This could also be used by the teacher to introduce a whole class read.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity:

Competency Goal 1The learner will use language to express individual perspectives drawn from personal or related experience. 1.01

• tells a story or establishes the significance of an event or events.
• uses remembered feelings and specific details.
• uses a range of appropriate strategies (e.g., dialogue, suspense, movement, gestures, expressions).

Explain why you think this strategy will work. How does the strategy help your students learn? I think this strategy works, especially in middle school, because a lot of the time students are unsure of what to read, or they have had a bad book/experience with a book that has turned them off to reading.  This strategy gets the students interested in the book/story and allows them to create their own videos about the book.  These could also be put onto podcasts where the students could watch any book that has been discussed before they start reading it.

Instructional Strategy 3

Title your post: Country Identification using Maps

Your Name: Ashley Tipton

Name of Strategy: post-reading of textbook & lesson (before assessment), study guide

Source (Where did this come from?): Free Rice

Link to the Strategy: http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=15427141734&s=Identify%20Countries%20on%20the%20Map

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented. This should be a summary of the strategy according to the original source: The strategy is an “online quiz” of sorts, which asks the participant to answer various questions about the chosen topic, in this case geography.  Each time the participant gets the question correct the site donates a certain amount of food to those in need. This would be used to help students learn the location of countries and to scaffold their understanding of the geography of the world, by quizzing them on all countries instead of the one they are learning about at the time.  This would be an activity required of each student during free-time in the classroom.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity: Social Studies Skills- k-12

The learner will acquire strategies to analyze, interpret, create, and use resources and materials.

3.01 Use map and globe reading skills.

Explain why you think this strategy will work. How does the strategy help your students learn? I think this strategy works in middle grades because it gives students a change to get away from the textbook and interact with technology while also helping them study for a test or for general knowledge skills.  Free rice also works because the motivation for students to get the questions right is high stakes, by helping feed a child in need of food.

Instructional Strategy 4

Title your post: Think-Pair-Share

Your Name: Ashley Tipton

Name of Strategy: After reading strategy

Source (Where did this come from?): Pennsylvania Department of Education

Link to the Strategy: http://www.pde.state.pa.us/reading_writing/cwp/view.asp?a=196&q=98024

Give a thorough description of the strategy and how it will be implemented. This should be a summary of the strategy according to the original source: Think pair share is a hugely popular concept in middle school because it allows the students to get out of their seats in interact with their peers in a creative way.  Think pair share is essentially the sharing of ideas about a topic, in this case a book or story.  The teacher gives a question or several questions the students are then to get together with a partner and share their thoughts about the question in relation to the piece of literature.  This activity could be done several times a day for one reading in one day or just once a day about a single reading.

Explain what part of the standard course of study is addressed by this activity:

1.02 Explore expressive materials that are read, heard, and/or viewed by:

• discussing print and non-print expressive works formally and informally
• drawing inferences and/or conclusions
• determining the main idea and/or significance of events
• making connections between works, self and related topics

Explain why you think this strategy will work. How does the strategy help your students learn? To me this strategy is something so valued in the middle grades program because it allows our students, who are full of energy, to get up and move around the classroom to interact with peers, but also learn at the same time.  So much we focus on group work in this program, but it doesn’t always have to be solely group work you can do simple thinks like this that are quick and fun and do not take a lot of planning and negotiating.  The other think that I think makes this strategy work is that it’s not planned like group work sometimes is, this is off the cuff and the students can pair of with whoever they want instead of the teacher assigning groups.

Materials 1-5 Social Studies 7th grade

Materials 1 for Social Studies 7^th grade

Your name: Ashley Tipton

Name of Site: National Geographic Xpeditions

Link to Resources: http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/aoi/history/ao-map.html

Source (Author–if available): ArtsEdge African Odyssey Interactive
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20566

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course): The enslavement and conquering of Africa by European settlers starting in 1400 and continuing into the early 1900’s.  6^th grade, Social Studies.

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used: This website could be used in tandem with other sites in a scavenger hunt for specific things such as when did this occur, why, what happened, etc.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic? I would use this site because it is easy to access, and it does not make you jump through tons of hoops to get to the topic you are looking for.  From the national geographic sight I search “African Enslavement” and this was the first thing to come up.  This site is very informative and does a great job of summarizing the events of the African history during this time period.  These two things would be reason enough for me to use them in my classroom, the fact that the students could get on the internet and find this information and have it read within 15 minutes is great!

Materials 2 for Social Studies 7^th grade

Name of Site: Teacher Tube

Link to Resources: http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=82143&title=Belgian_Congo

Source (Author–if available): “EducatorX”

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course): Belgium imperialism in the Congo of Africa

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used: This video would be used as an introductory “enticement” into this subject.  Because the video depicts images of the happenings in the Congo as well as the response to those things, it is very impacting in a short amount of time.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic?  I would use this because I am big on technology and using it anywhere I can, especially videos and music.  Because students are so easily distracted if the lesson is not up to their standards, I think they need videos and other technology to keep them interested and possibly pique their curiosity.

Materials 3 for 7^th grade Social Studies

Name of Site: Amazon

Link to Resources: http://www.amazon.com/King-Leopolds-Ghost-Heroism-Colonial/dp/0618001905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254348685&sr=8-1

Source (Author–if available): Adam Hochschild

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course): Belgium Imperialism and Conquering of the African Congo

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used: This book would be used as a reference point for any material I would teach in the class.  Because I have already read this book, I could easily locate the items I would need to use.  I feel as though this book represents this moment in history very clearly and concisely.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic?  I would use this book because it is very raw and gets to the point.  I would not actually require my students to read this book, but it is something I could read excerpts from and have them discuss with me.  I think students need to be exposed to the fact that the textbooks do not always have everything in history written down.  Sometimes you need to go outside the realms of textbook to learn important things.

Name of Site: Youtube

Link to Resources:

Source (Author–if available): BBC produced this video.

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course): To have students feel the emotional impact of what happened in the Congo through video.  “White King/ Black Death” does a great job of portraying the cruelties that took place.

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used:  This video would be shown to the class probably as a closing to the unit.  I think it does a good job of wrapping up loose ends that student might have about the whole concept or what took place in the Congo during this time.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic?  I think this video is gut wrenching in that the stories told here are really sad and they show a lot of images that deal with people who lost their lives just so the Belgium king could make more money.  That in itself is enough reason for me to use this with my students.  Videos like this really grab students attention because they realize that worse things are going on around them.

Materials 4 for 7^th grade Social Studies

Name of Site: World History Archives

Link to Resources: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/35/181.html

Source (Author–if available): Art McGee

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course):  Review of Hochschild’s “King Leopold” and presentation of the impression he left on today’s African society such as Sierra Leone.

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used: These materials would be used by me to back up anything said in class with quotations from other authors, so that Hochschild is not the only source I get my information from.  Although this author mentions Hochschild, he does not focus the entire article on his writings but rather on the facts of the matter.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic?  I think it is important for me to use this article to show that students as well as myself need to back up their research with several sources, not just one main source.  I think it also demonstrates another account of what was going on in the Congo, so we see it almost from a different perspective.

Materials 5 for 7^th grade Social Studies

Name of Site: New York Times on the Web

Link to Resources: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/30/daily/leopold-book-review.html

Source (Author–if available): MICHIKO KAKUTANI

Identify the teaching topic of the materials–be specific. Identify the population of the students (grade, course):  Comparison between “Heart of Darkness” and King Leopold’s real conquering of the Congo.  This article tells of the similarities and differences between the two, however, it is frightening how similar the accounts are.

Give a brief description of how the materials would be used: These materials would be used to show the point that not only was these cruelties going on, but they were being written about as fictitious.  The writing of “Heart of Darkness” in some ways took the heat away from the Congo and focused on the book, however some people wondered if there was truth to it, leading to investigations that eventually proved the book was very close to the real story.

Explain why you would use this material with your students. How will the material help your students learn the topic?  I would use this with my students, because they may possibly be reading “Heart of Darkness” in high school, and this would prepare them for the fact that most of the things written about in the book were going on.  Also even if students were not going to read the book, this article might help get them interested in to reading it or other materials related to this topic.  So this article sort of serves as a cliff hanger to see if they are interesting in learning more on their own.

Article Responses (Pirates and Students Needs)

1. Pirate lesson plan article- This article pretty much laid out the full lesson plan for a couple of days, if you are teaching 4th grade.  However, it also had some really great things that I think as middle grades teachers we could build from.  I love the “Piquing Curiosity” section and how she got the students interested right away with the music and all of the various materials.  I think this is something that is really important in teaching middle grades and most often it is the thing that is skipped over the most, because teachers need to get right into the lesson.  However, if you just jump into something and say “O.K. here is what we are doing and why so let’s get it done because we have to” then that doesn’t make the students want to learn, but the way she did it really engages them. The other thing that I really liked about this article and thought was important was that it talked about “scaffolding and modeling” during the lesson.  The teacher builds from the students prior knowledge using a K.W.L and the Double Entry Diaries and she also demonstrates or models what is to be done by reading aloud and discussing as well as showing on the board what she would do in his/her DED.

2. When I first started reading this article I was thinking 22 pages are they serious for one lesson?? But then as I read I realized it wasn’t just a lesson it was fully of great ideas and suggestions for how to make things work in any grade level and any content area.  This applications could not only work for social studies but for anything.  My favorite part and most important I think is the description about how to use class blogs like these to give your students publishing rights and ownership of their work.  I had never really thought about that, or thought that I could work in schools with such strict internet guidelines, but I guess if a blog such as this one were available to teachers it could be very easily done.  I would possibly like to even have an individual blog page for each thematic unit, that way I could make sure and put tons of student work on each page.  I absolutely loved the idea about the podcasts as well, this is something we as teachers in the 21st century really need to try to work with because our students love them and they are incredibly useful.

Overall, I think that these two “articles” are great and they could work for middle grades very easily.  They also have endless possibilities for modification and adaption in the classroom which is something I am always concerned about.

Search Findings- Ashley Tipton

I started my quest of searching the Internet for information in my content reading area with Google.  This is my natural, go to, search engine any time I need to know something quick and I do not want to sift through answers, however this time it let me down.  I first searched 8^th grade N.C.+ reading resources and got nothing!  The most pertinent thing I got was a link to the 8^th grade reading list.  The rest however, dealt with the EOG and how to pass it, sample questions and things you might find on the N.C. 8^th grade EOG.  So, since I was actually looking for readings that pertained to the learning of N.C. History these links were not helpful.  So I tried one more time with a different search on Google.  This time I searched for teaching 8th grade N.C. history+readings.  Still nothing relevant, this time I was bombarded with lesson plans, twitter4teachers, and an actual faculty list from one school.  Needless to say I was not happy with the search findings for Google.

So I moved on to Bing.  With it’s newly found popularity advertising that it gives you what you are searching for and not thousands of things to that might be related.  It failed!  I put in teaching N.C. history+8th grade+reading resources, some things related to 8^th grade came up, but everything else was trash!  So on to my new keyword phrase search on this search engine.  This time I tried to be more specific and I put in North Carolina History+resources.  The results from this however, were more random than the first; it brought up things like genealogy tree, NCMHS.com, alliance for healthy communities and on and on and on. So this search engine was useless!

Last but not least I moved to Ask.com, hoping for something at least vaguely relevant to my searches.  So for the first search I put in teaching N.C. history+resources, and I actually got some great results.  I wonder if I had put this in on Google if I would have gotten the same thing.  Hmmmm….let me see! YEP! I received the exact same results, and in the same order!  Amazing! Not! It’s not hard to believe that all search engines work relevantly well, if you only give them the specifics of what you are looking for.  Which is why it is important to know how to search the Internet, not simply which website to use to search.  All search engines work on the same premise that you feed them a question or a search and they bring up what is most popular or most relevant based on the words of your search.