Christensen ch 8

I never experienced tracking in my high school and so this chapter was pretty interesting to me. If I wanted to take an AP course, that was my choice. We didn't need to take another class or get a certain score or get a recomendation from another teacher to get into any class at all. I never thought I was that great in English until I decided to take an AP english class. I really don't know why I ever thought I could take the class, because in a way, only certain students took AP classes and I was one of those students that wasnt exactly the greatest in the school. I did notice, just as Christensen said, that the students who have not succeeded were the most creative.

It was interesting that she talks about teaching to untracked students and the activites that she has done with them. The ones that that had no real self confidence in the subject, or were the "bad readers". Motivating these students to WANT to read will probably be the hardest thing, but making reading come to life, such as using the tea party, could help. I think the hardest thing for me will be answering "WHY!? why do I have to read? I hate it.." its hard to share motivation with other students that just have been beaten down with "you're just not good at reading and writing."

ch 5-7 Gilmore

Again, another checklist that Gilmore gives us that we can actually use in our classes. I loved "the ten or twenty or thirty" minute revision checklist. It gave all the things that you should be doing in revision, but in a way (from 1-whatever) to do step by step, and in a logical way. Obviously proofreading would be first, with strengthening your thesis statement almost right after it. These are definetly the first things you look to do when you are revising. I guess never thought to make it so simple for students as to give them a checklist to revise. If I am remembering correctly, only one teacher, a professor here actually, has ever given me a revising checklist of some sort. All the others just give us requirements for the paper and say "go to town."

I thought it was also great how he didn't just give us the checklist but explained each number/part to the readers, explaining why itwas important, what to say to your students, and in terms of his example at the begining of the chapter, AP classes.

I thought it was also interesting the "what DOESN'T count" sort of checklist after he explains all this. That poor handwriting, poor spelling, scribbles, and organization issues shouldn't count against the student. Pretty ironic to me since that is all I feel my mentor teacher is trying to teach his middle school students right now, and yea I do disagree with the poor handwriting. I got marked down for having handwriting like an 8 year old boy all my life because of the fact that nobody could read it. well I could read it, but that is the same reason why when I am grading papers for these middle school students, I don't know if they actually answered the question or not because of the fact I can't read their handwriting. I guess the difference in this is that these are middle school students and i'm assuming Gilmore is speaking of just high schoolers.

Are most of these books for high schoolers? I wish we had some books talking about middle schoolers... since I am sadly stuck in a 6th grade classroom and seem to have not many ideas for students that can't make a complete sentence.

On to more gilmore though, I also liked how he gave yet ANOTHER checklist for revising students timed essays. You would have never thought that it would be different grading students timed esays, but it seemingly is and he points this out. I liked how he wants the students to go back over their own riding though, rather than you just grading it giving it back to them and them crying about their horrible grade. Why not make this a learning experience and do read arounds (which he calls a pass-around activitiy) which is almost the same as the read around. More checklists from poetry to creative writing come up and I loved all of them. I would really come back to this if I was running out of ideas for revision. He does come up with some really cool thigns for revision!

Gilmore 4

The three categories of activity I really found helpful in the begining, starting off the chapter with how he picks and chooses techniques and where they fall. I found this chapter extremely helpful because of the LIST of revision strategies that he uses, the descriptions, what they do, why they work and such. I really liked a lot of the strategies and could definetly see myself looking back to this chapter to imitate a strategy in one of my own classes.

While Christensen and the others we have read have had really good ideas of what to do in classes, and I would use a lot of their ideas in my classes also, they don't do it in this format. A name of a chapter of what its on, and then a LIST, each activity in bold, of how do, for example revise. Instead of having to make all these pages up with post its and other such things (highlighters and pens are hard to come back to and find exactly obviously), you can just go back to the chapter and quickly find what you are looking for, and use it in class intead of reading all night the chapter you remember the activity was in, and then not having any time at all for other things.

Ch 3 Gilmore

Its pretty funny that I already do abreviations when I revise others writing or even proofread my own stuff. I don't use that many but the one I do use, that could even not be considered an abbreviation is a ? I write it everywhere... I'll write it when I don't have any clue what your talking about, when theres no transition, or when I will write a alternative sentence or word into the space I marked or crossed off. I had to explain to my last victim, who wasn't an english major, what the questions marks meant. I realized I wasn't specfici just as Gilmore claims in the first couple paragraphs of chapter three.
I also liked that he says you really do need an explain of what "good work" looks like. Not something professional, but maybe, just like he did, an example of a former students work that is "accessible, familiar and it works" as he says. Marking what works and discussing why it works will give students examples of what they can do and can't, especially on a college essay.
I loved instead of having just a couple students answer, either sharing in pairs or every student reading a passage outloud and instead of someone else raising their hand like gilmore suggests, that same person could add something FIRST, so that everyone has a chance to consider this example of writing.

Ch 6 in Christensen

I thought the idea of a research paper on immigrants sounds like it could be a great to use in the classroom. But one thing, it didn't sound like she really pushed them to do something on their own culture. i think this would make the students more interested in the subject, that they could talk to their grandparents, great aunts, their parents, or even share personal accounts of visiting their homeland or even immigrating themselves.
I liked how that she split up her time very well for research, not only to research in the library but to PLAN what you were going to do in the library. It was all planned very well, that she was doing an example of what they should be doing half the period than giving them time to plan things the other half or research themselves. I also thought it was great that they had to teach the class and write a lesson (which I feel like most students would just do a powerpoint to make it easier).
I liked how she did a whole section on portfolios. For higher level students that are close to reaching college and their college essays, i thought it was gerat that a huge point of hers to make these writing portfolios was for the disadvantage kids who were not so good at testing well, but could show their intelligence in their portfolio.

Gilmore Ch 1 and 2

The first chapter just blew me away. I think it was mostly because he didn't write like Christensen and Jago at all, in a professional tone. While Gilmore definelty writes like he knows a lot about teaching, its not in the same way as Christensen and Jago. I tend to skip over a lot of adjetives and other kinda useless words to me that don't exactly point out the... well point. It seems that in Christensen and Jago, I was doing just that: skipping over a lot of stuff, not meaning to of course, but it wa sbecause it was how it was written. Gilmore does have useless words also, but he writes very similar to me. An english teacher here once said that I write "chatty", and I think thats exactly what I do. I write like I talk. While I have gotten a lot better about doing this, I still try to write as I talk, maybe using the words thesauris a lot more though.

I really liked how many of his sentences were in bold. Most of them were really great quotes about revising and teaching, and very to the point such as "The writing teacher's job, ultimatetly, is not to revise for students but to teach students how to revise for themselves." Plain and simple. I also liked his goals for students, they were simple, yet very important in all writing.

In chapter 2 I really loves his upside down triangle, or as he calls it a ice cream cone or an alien head/ the revision cone. I feel like I could actualy use this in my apporach to teaching and if I did show this to my students, I think that they would understand more what to focus on when revising.

Remember Me

Remember Me

Stubborn Aunt Nini,
Not your real name of course,
It’s more like an cicilian slur,
Than a little old women,
Baking Christmas cookies all day
Just to send them in literal trunk loads
To the whole family,
Around the country.
Squeezing cheeks,
And smells of tomato and storage,
Hiding under your overgrown trees,
Or sledding down your driveway.
I’ll always have memories
Of Aunt Nini.

Italian Household. I am from poem.

I am from:

I am from a big drowsy Catholic church,
Haggard, old-as-time Wednesday night CCD scolding,
And squeezing cheeks godmothers.

I am from “elbows off the table”
A little too hard arm squeezes,
Deep voices of warning,
Winks of encouragement from across the soccer field.

I am from a yelling and screaming,
Typical American household, hiding upstairs,
Between “I’m staying at dads”,
Or “that is what mom said.”

I am from all day boiling
too-spicy-for-my-liking tomato sauce,
Aunt Joanies Italian wedding soup and oil and vinegar salads,
Comfort foods of spaghetti and meatballs.

I am from boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations,
Up and down the basement stairs,
Looking like santa threw up everywhere months before he even comes,
Saying “If you don’t believe, you wont receive.”

You can see it in my eyes,
The fear of my genes,
Alzheimers and heart disease.
The racism that brought my grandparents here to America
To give their own parents the finger and get married.

Christensen 5

I really did hate opening the book and finding out that this whole chapter had to be about poetry. I guess I knew it was coming... Christensen used poetry examples and activities throughout our whole book and we've been doing them in class, I just was hoping and wishing that there wouldnt be a whole entire chapter on them. A non-excited YAY. I guess its good to read and enjoy poetry, and write it of course, becuase like we've discussed, I dont want to teach my kids to hate poetry just because I dont enjoy writing it. I think the activities given have been great and that I would actually use them in my classes.
Beyond this, I loved the teaching of Martin Espada... that poetry can be about injustices and other htings than just nice and happy, or about yourself.
I really love the "remember me poems though", I think thats great to actually write about someone in the class. You obviously have to have a "community" estabilished already, but it defiently makes the student special, and makes everyone apretiate everyone. Nobody would feel left out, everyones included. I think it could make a class really feel connected and I think its a great idea.

CH 5 and 6 of Jago

It was quite nerve-racking reading what Jago had to say about students writing. It was hard to think that Jago could be and almost most definetly is right about teaching some students how to write well might not work at all for another group of students. Am I really going to need to think of a new way each year/semester how to teach this type of group how to write well? Blah. The beliefs she wrote down to "keep her focused" was pretty... well focused on good writing. I liked how at least, if anything else fails, and you start to get overwhelmed with having to find another way of teaching writing, that you can at least fall back to these 4 standards.
I also loved the idea of the 5-day plan. I liked a lot the letter to the parents/whomever at home, to get involved with a childs writing. I know that my parents never helped me with my writing, even though my mom went to college to be a teacher. I also liked the explanation behind the peer "response", not peer revision. I liked the sheet she gave the students, not focusing on the grammar as much as the content, did the main point get across the paper?
Ironically, in chapter 6 jago talks about how you cant give all the revising to the kids though/ you can just put them into groups and assume that they are going to teach themselves. i thought it was good to point out this extreme, because while studying to be a teacher we read/ discuss a lot of things, such as this idea of students learning from each other, but that we also have to remember that we must teach them also. I liked how she ends with writing about she still does write in red ink, and critique... I knew i was still going to do that. suck it up kids! she writes exaclty what i thought, that we're not saying ur (the student) is a bad person, just that your writing needs work... maybe i need to be more sensitive.