Christensen ch 3

Ive noticed that I write my blog continuously throughout reading the chapter, while others write after reading the entire thing. I write what i feel about a certain part while others write about what they thought about the entire chapter as a whole.. maybe next time I will try this.
Anyways, I loved the paper on test taking. Test taking was never that big of a deal in my school... i mean yes, we all wanted good scores on the ACT, MEAP and SAT but none of us ever really got a low score. We all got MEAP scholarships and pretty average or better scores on the ACT and SAT. It sounds liek in this class that they hardly knew anything on the tests, and i never knew that what i would face at a school. I knew some schools would study for the MEAP, which was a joke test in my schools... but I guess I never realized I could be actually teaching at one of these schools that have to study for these tests.
Another reason to love the read around though. It made kids realize they werent the only one that felt "studid" after taking a test. I loved that she paired this activity with the book about Brigham, that testing started off as pretty much weeding out the non-whites or "elite/upper-class" or, the more your parents make, the better grade you'll get on the SAT... which i guess makes sense why my high school had not had any problems.
I think the forgiveness poem is SUCH a great idea, especially for kids in high school. My friends and I all pretty much hated our parents in high school... I think it would be a good way to "realize their loyalty" as Linda says, that even though your fighting with them every day, that they are human. Its one of hte ultimate things I learned in high school, and begining of college.
Again, she uses coloring to point out things in a writing. I also like how she made the students color their own writing and compare it to the example essay they first colored in, it shows them implicitly what they have to work on and what an essay "should" look like, or how they could go about writing an essay. I also liked her starting intros with questions or even conversation... It definetly gives a start to at least SOMETHING.
I also loved later how she took the students on field trips to colleges, and brought in former students showing that it could be done, and that fellow students at the same high school, or in the same position as themselves could do it. Its like pushing them towards college without lecturing them about it. And "accidently" writing a college essay... totally brilliant.