Last of the Semester

At first, I couldn't possibly understand why I needed a class based on literacy when my subject area is math. I quickly realized how much apart of math literacy really is. I didn't realize how much work could be done in such a class either, but learning how students learn and different approaches to get them to participate and think critically have now become important roles that I need to incorporate into my classroom. I've learned the different types of literacy - it doesn't just apply to something like english. Literacy can include computers, music, art, etc. - it doesn't just apply to words.

It was a great idea to have all of us share different lessons we would like to do with our students from our unit plans. Because they applied literacy, I think it's possible for many of those different activities to be interdisciplinary.

The hypertext activity was a real eye-opener, and I would like to try that with a group of mature high school students to see how they will react.

Thank you for a wonderful and incredibly insightful class, Dr. Dana!

last post

This class has taught me the possibilities of a literacy involved inter-disciplinary unit. I now am filled with new ideas for future unit plans that will involve traditional phys. ed. concepts with more of an educational value. I think this class has opened up my eyes and looking back would not say that I feel I did not get to learn something that I wanted prior to coming into this course.

what I learn in this class

I think this class was great, I didn't think this class was going to be this good just because the title of the class. I feelgood now about reading because Dr. Dana made feel good when she said that we all good readers because we read daily and reading can be fun when you willing to it. reading does seem as bad now after taking this course. But I do think schools need to get rid of those textbooks that nobody could understand. In this class I learned that we use and need literacy in our daily lives. We need to integrate technology in to our classes because the upcoming generations will be so knowledgeable about technology, it would be a great way to teach and get students involve in our classes. Technology is playing a big role on how and what we read in our daily lives.

Last Post :(

I really want to say that by taking this course I feel a bit more comfortable in being able to go up in a crowd of people and teach about a subject that I truly enjoy. Even though I might not be in a classroom setting all the time with being a physical educator, I feel that many things that I learned in this classroom will greatly benefit me in a good way. I now have an awareness in what different ways one could process information or as what we like to call it learning. I have the opportunity not only to teach students how to be healthy but I have the chance of making a positive impact on someones life. I really enjoyed coming to class every week and discussing very interesting topics that surround our field. I really like seeing the variety of teaching methods especially with the rise of technology it will be amazing to see what new tools us teachers can use.

thank you,

last post

It is only fitting that I am posting this final blog late. I had a hard time keeping up with the blog all semester, I would forget to post or not be able to and most of my posts were late so it is only right that this final one is as well.

I enjoyed this semester. I enjoyed working on the unit plan and thinking about how to incorporate literacy into the lessons. Literacy is important and it was good to learn more techniques to use to implement literacy.

The one thing I did not like, actually two, is posting to this blog and using the wiki. My connection at home to the internet is slow so it would take a long time to load wiki and blogger so many times I would get frustrated and give up. Despite those two little things, I enjoyed the class and enjoyed meeting people from all majors.

thank you for a good semester

I've been reading your blog posts and thinking about how hard this class is, initially, for all of us to get our heads around. It's the most diverse class I teach, in terms of including every kind of teacher major (or almost), and the connections to literacy are much clearer in some cases than others. What I appreciated so much about this class was that you were willing to look at literacy in different ways, making new connections to your subject field that I think will enrich you as teachers.

I know that made this class a challenge, especially for some, and I always respect those who meet a challenge head on. I think a lot of you are this way, and that aspect alone will help you be the expert teachers you will become. I also tried some new things in this class, like a class blog instead of individual ones and although some of you struggled with that as well as the wiki, you were all willing to give it a shot. So thank you.

My best wishes for the holiday season and a new year.
Dr. Dana

The Final Stretch

I would have to say I had a lot of fun in this class. I still remember our first day of class back in September like it was yesterday (chills). All I kept wondering was what the hell is this class going to be about. I must say I learned so much in this class. I never had such a diverse class when it comes to subject matters. I am normally am in all PE classes with PE majors so I only knew PE students. To get back to my point I had a great time hearing and learning what other students in different majors had to say about teaching, and literacy, and most importantly their philosophies. Reading was not my for tee which was announced on the first day, but since then I also declared how I wanted to change that. I learned Reading and Writing is for anyboy especially children/students. Even though I already knew the importance of Reading but now I have an even better picture of it. With out doubt I will always encourage my students to read and because of this class I have a sharper, more clever approach to inspiring them. There really were not any bad things I did not like about the class, just that I really wanted to hear someone sing the Tea-Pot song at least once. So before I depart I want to once again thank everyone in the class, my PE crew, and my new friends in the Arts, Science, Music, English, History, and Math departments. Thank you again Dr. Wilber and everyone have a safe and hopefully mentally long month off.

The Final Chapter...

I'd like to start out by saying that I did not like having to post to a blog. Everytime I write an entry and hit publish, I get a response back that there was some sort of error. Even though I'm told that "Now Blogger saves your drafts automatically!", it never seems to be saved. After several tries of the past week I finally gave up out of aggravation, and am trying once again.
One thing I got out of this class was working on interdisciplinary lessons. It is now easier to think of teaching an art lesson incorporating other subjects, like reading, writing, history and math.
Something that I did not like about this class (similar to this blog), was haivng such a strong focus on technology. It was a reading theory and process class, not a technology in the classroom one, and it felt as though everything we did focused around forcing computers into every aspect of a childs life. I think our schools should be less focused on forcing technology down a childs throat and concentrate more on teaching them to read and write English.

r407 Learning Experiences...

I learned that reading is fundamental in all subjects, we as teachers must incorporate readings in a way that meets the students' interest because literacy does keep the youth out of trouble, the more they read and learn the less time they will have to spend time on the streets (this of course with the help of parents). Without incorporating reading, it creates a habit among students so consistency in reading is very important.As we heard it in class that 70% of all inmates are illiterate meaning this is related to crime. I am a Health Education major and literacy is a big chunk in the learning process of the Health subject. If a student can not understand a prescription he or she will end up with an overdose, or might not take into account warnings, secondary effects, or allergic reactions.A person who does not have the habit of reading will lose the connection of comprehending a reading and therefore when they are exposed to reading they will draw wrong conclusions. For instance, not being able to interpret a food label, they may end up overfeeding themselves or intoxication from a vitamin or mineral overtime.Reading keeps us healthy, we heard in class that the more one reads the less likely to develop or the more likely to delay Alzheimer's disease, so in conclusion by incorporating reading the students' learning are in good hands and consistency in making sure students understood the material, went over the vocabulary, and most importantly are making reading a habit that will remain for life.

What I got from this course

This was the first class that I feel like I did something that I will be doing in my teaching career. I really enjoyed doing the unit plan because I had never done one before and it gave me an idea about what I will be doing in the future. I also learned something about real world teaching. It's one thing to talk about teaching methods but until you actually get out there it's tough to know what it will be like. Philosophy has it's place but Dr. Wilber gave us some first hand examples about what it will be like when we step into the classroom and some of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we do.

Last Post from Alex

This class has been very interesting. I intitally sign up because it is mandatory but I am glad I did. There are two major things that this class did for me. The first one is this class help me to create effective lesson plans; a skill that i am going to use through out my career as a teacher. The second thing is that this class got me really thinking about teaching in real world conditions. i mean, life is not picture perfect and sometimes teachers have to be willing to sacrifice in order to reach students. Also,society and technology are changing so fast that I have to be able to adapt in I really want to connect to my students. I would definitely recommend this class to others

Final Post

When I registered for this class I was not sure why this course is a required course. I knew reading was important, I knew literacy was involved in all aspects of education, but I did not realize how much. This course has opened my eyes wider in more than just my subject area (English). I learned how important literacy is in all subjects including PE. I knew that in teaching English, is not just about reading and writing, we need to be able to teach our students to be literate. I learned that there are many more tools out there that can be used besides books, film, internet and that I need to be creative in ways to incorporate all of the tools that are available and even ones that might not be readily available.

Overall I enjoyed this class. I now understand why this is a required class. I think this class really does get us ready for the classroom. The one thing that i would have liked more is not to have everything due almost at the same time. Having the book project and the unit lesson plans due so close together with our personal philosophy statement made it a little hairy. With that said, to me this class has been the most beneficial class thus far in the education towards my goal of being a teacher.

Final Post

As an English Education major, I already knew that literacy was going to be a needed skill in my classrooms. This class has helped to expand my understanding of the broadness of the concept of literacy. Literacy includes any system of meaning, any form of gleaning information from symbols. This will apply to every facet of my teaching: reading, group discussions, hypothesizing, etc. The book project that was required for this course, which was was designed to foster our literary abilities, is an example of the type of projects that I will be assigning to my students.

When I first entered this class i truly wondered why i needed to take it. While "reading" itself is a very useful tool, i never really looked at the literacy aspect. This class has taught me that reading is MUCH more then just the letters and words in a book. Literacy in Physical Education is nothing without being able to read and be literate, especially in various different situations. As a softball player it was easy to see after it was described to me. This class has also opened my eyes to the fact I will most definitely have students with problems, and who knows, maybe I might be the right person to help them.

Over all I really liked this class, but I do feel that towards the end here things started getting a little confusing. I feel as though communication could have been a little better over these past few weeks. I just felt a little rushed in completing the assignment in terms of email responses. But all together this class has gone above and beyond teaching me about how to make a unit plan. I am leaving this class with a better understanding of how I can and will work with my future students. This of course is the whole point of taking these classes.

Final post

As a p.e. major i naturally felt that this class was going to be a waste of my time. I did not see where a connection between reading and physical education could possibly be made. That being said i found after going through the assignments of the class that i could use literacy in my P.E. and health courses, and came to realize that integrating literacy into my classes would ultimately benifit my students. My job as a teacher is to educate my students to the best of my ability, i would hardly being doing so if i left literacy out of my lessons.
Throughout my time in this class there were many times i felt as though i did not belong, and then there were times were the thought of literacy in my classroom made perfect sense. The one thing that I have taken from this class is that every student should have an opportunity to learn, and that we as teacher are responible not only for teaching, but also recognizing when a student needs help, and to help those students in need.

Final Blog.

When I came into this class, I wasn't sure what we would be doing really. I thought we would just read in class, and do things such as discussions. But from taking this class, I have learned the proper definition of literacy. I thought literacy just involved reading. It didn't occur to me that it had other parts. I knew before hand that a teacher must not just use the textbook, but also other learning tools. One must use technology for instance. It is everywhere, from the moment we wake up, we check our emails, we turn on the television and see what the weather is or what is going on in the world, check our messages on the phone and so on. It was good to go into that in more detail. I liked how we were doing the reading on line for that one article in class, and the discussion we had about that vs. a printed version. Technology is important in learning and everyone should use it. I also learned to have essential questions, and how to incorporate more critical thinking questions into my curriculum and lesson planning. I really liked how the class was student oriented in discussion, with Dr. Dana being the facilitator.

Final Post

What did I get out of this class? I feel as though I am better able to define what literacy means to me. I also feel as though I learned alot about how to think critically. I think I will be able incorporate literacy in many ways into my teaching when I enter into the teaching world in the next year. Overall, I think this class was a great experience for all involved. There were several thought provoking classes that I am glad to have been a part of.

Last post...

As an education major here at Montclair we are taught to actively incorporate literacy and critical thinking into our lessons. As a physical education major at first glimpse at these topics everyone's response is how can that fit into PE...you're not supposed to learn in that class. Well you are! We are given a basis in our classes about how we can begin to incorporate these things into physical education but it is classes like this one that make us take our basis of knowledge and run with it. This class opened my eyes to this not only by the teachings of Dr. Dana but also by my fellow classmates and the idea's they presented to the class no matter what content area it may have been. It made me explore the vast definition of literacy and how it is applied to all areas. Also as much as I am the type of person who does not like to read unless it is my own personal choice of topic, I really enjoyed reading Teacher Man. It is comforting as a future teacher to hear the stories of the trials and tribulations of teaching....some that scare you, and some that bring a smile to your face.

There is only one comment I have to make about a class like this. I learned A LOT from the students in the class who were of different majors. However, sometimes especially in physical education I wish there was more information. It is difficult to find books that even present the thought of literacy in physical education. Yet, I thank Dr. Dana for incorporating physical education into the class because some teachers lack the information in that area so they totally disregard it.

What I Did or Did Not Get from this Class

What did you get from this class?

Having taken this class, I now have a better understanding of what the term “literacy” means. Originally, I had thought that literacy was comprised of reading and writing skills only, so I was surprised to learn that speaking and listening skills were also part of the equation. Another thing that I learned from this class was how I can better support struggling readers. The textbook for this class offered a lot of new and innovative techniques (e.g., anticipation guides, bookmarks, double-entry journals, etc.) that I will definitely be incorporating into my own teaching repertoire. Since Dr. Dana is also really interested in technology in the classroom, I also learned new ways to teach content through technology. In particular, I thought that using iPods to give lectures or to give pronunciation drills would be great for my ESL kids. Before I had thought about teaching students language through music, but I had never really thought about using the iPod for anything other than music. Finally, this class helped me to shape my own personal definition of literacy. I realized that it’s not shameful to have magazines, comic books, and other less prestigious reading materials in the classroom. While I had planned to use these materials to teach literacy before, I had thought that most administrators and other educators would dismiss this idea and that I wouldn’t have the conviction to support it further. Now that I’ve heard other people confidently vouch for these materials, I feel more confident in their usage as well.

What didn't you get that you wanted to learn?

One thing I think I did not get from this class was feedback, and it drove me nuts. I am not a very confident person, so if people don’t tell me I’m doing a good job, I’ll think that I’m not. I never really knew where I stood in the class or whether or not I should be changing anything. In particular, I really would have liked if we could have had workshop days in the class for the unit plan. In other classes, I’ve had teachers review my lesson plans and then give me feedback. They helped me to write better lesson plans by keeping an open dialogue with me. Since I don’t feel like I got that from this class, I don’t know if I wrote lesson plans that really emphasized literacy. I just have to hope that I did. I also would have liked to learn more about the signs that indicate struggling readers. I don’t think we really covered this in this class, and I think it would have been beneficial to do so.

Last Blog of the Semester

With the semester wrapping up, I actually took a lot away from this course. Beginning with the first articles we were assigned to read, I learned about tips on how to be a successful reading and on how to read more. I also learned about literacy, which I always knew what it was, but I did not know of all the components such as application, interpretation, comparision, etc.. and how it applies to everything in life because you need to be able to read to pretty much do anything. One of the most important concepts I learned through this course was the idea of moving away from the textbook and incorporating other sources. As a social studies major, this concept applies greatly to me because social studies is always learned through a textbook, but there are so many other ways to teach students such as primary documents such as articles, videos, pictures, books and whatever else. From this course, I also took away from it on how to use preparation activities in the classroom like the KWL charts, Double Entry Journals and Mapping. Before this class, I did not realize how important it was to use them in the classroom.

When I took this course, I did not have any expectations coming into it because I did not know what to expect. I was not really sure what this course was about and all I knew it was a requirement. I believe I walked away with plenty of information that I will use in the future both in and out of the classroom.

What I learned in Read 407

Along with taking our Reading Theory class this semester I was also enrolled in Teaching Writing; both classes were most helpful for they explored the thinking process that students go through when they read or write. I already knew that reading impacts one's writing ability, and I am sorry to say that I learned more in my Teaching Writing class than I did in our Reading Theory class. I already knew the reading process for I had to discover the process on my own when I was only four years old. Our Reading Theory class only reinforced the information I learned when I was four.

My Teaching Writing class was more helpful for one because I was required to tutor students in their writing skills. I worked as a tutor for fifteen hours in Mt. Hebron Middle School this semester either reading a student's draft and then discussing what they wrote, pin pointing what i liked, what they might want to change, and what I would like to know more about so that they could rewrite their draft; or sitting in an office and reading the papers that the students wrote and filling out a response sheet that allowed me to explain to the student in writing what I liked about their paper, what I would like to know more about, and suggestions I might have for their revision process.

I know how helpful my tutoring experience was for me in understand the student's writing process and perhaps if the Reading Theory class also required that we tutor students in a school on the reading process that we could better understand the reading process that students go through and where they struggle the most when they read, what factors are an issue for the student, for each student processes the information that they read differently and different factors upset the understanding the student has about what they just finished reading. When I took my Grammar for English class we were also required to tutor students in reading and writing on the elementary school level, and learned a lot with that experience as well. I know that I could have drawn on these experiences from my past and incorporate them into our Reading Theory class, but it is easier to learn when you are allowed to apply what you learn at the time you are learning the information.

I did learn the difference between phonics and phonic awareness and was able to explain the difference to another English major that was having difficulty understanding those concepts. Also, I was able to have the opportunity to write and create my dream unit on teaching Romeo and Juliet and I know if I didn't take this course, that I would not have had the opportunity to create the tragedy unit that I will be teaching next semester.

I wish that I had learned more about the reading process, why people read and interpret information differently, why do students misunderstand what they read, how to improve a student's thinking and interpreting skills, and how can I as a teacher reach my students if they are all at different reading levels. I think I could have gotten more out of the class if I was able to research what I was interested in learning as an English teacher trying to improve student's literacy skills.

My Thoughts on Read 407

I don't think I knew exactly what to expect from this course. I knew that reading and writing were important elements of school and encompassed all the different subject matters, but I didn't see why a whole course was necessary on it. Throughout the semester the idea of literacy, what it means, and the depth of its use were of constant focus. It began to occur to me how narrow my scope was on what literacy actually was. I too often made the mistake of looking at reading and writing as basic parts of learning that all students should have mastered during the early years of their education. I realized I took forgranted that many students, while being able to read, might not understand the content or meaning of material, or while being able to write, might not be able to do so effectively. This course really helped me to realize how challenging literacy can be for many students and why it is so important to incorporate it in ways that help as many students as possible. I had previously known that literacy would play a huge role when I taught social studies, but I neglected to think of all the ways in which assignments might be confusing or ineffective for who students who struggled with literacy. I believe above all else this course has taught me to be more aware of how I use literacy in my classroom and to be more conscientious of the kinds of problems students might face with literacy (and also that literacy is not just reading and writing!).

Final blog post!

Sorry to sound so excited about that Dr. Dana, but I cannot wait for the end of this semester, winter break, and traveling for a few weeks! I found this course to be very informative and helpful. I was a skeptic at first as to why I needed to learn about reading to be a biology teacher. However, after taking this course it has become very evident that fosterng literacy skills in students is something that all teachers need to participate in, not just those in the language arts department. The ideas we have discussed in class, those shown in the Subjects Matter book, as well as those that you have had us do in class are all very useful and practical. As far as things that I wanted to learn that I didn't, I don't think that there really are any. I learned more about what reading, writing, and literacy as a whole are in this class than I have been taught before in other classes. Overall I found this course very useful and informative, and thats something that can be hard to come by these days!

Alex's post about books

I think that you have us reading these books so that we can see that being an effective teacher requires much more than a diploma. It requires that we have a kind of tenacity and passion that these teachers displayed. We also have to understand the importance of the relationship between us and our students. You can't really "teach" a student until you connect with that student first. All of these teacher are human and accessible to their students in a way that many modern day teachers could never understand. Because of this, the students were able to view the teachers as "one of us." Another thing that these books reflect is teaching in the real world. These are not romanticized views of how people changed the world with their stellar teaching. Instead, these are stories of how ordinary people refused to let negative circumstances defeat them or abate their passion for changing lives through education.

P.S. I KNOW I AM RED BUT I HAD TO SAY SOMTHING!!!

Why we are reading these books.

I think we are reading these specific books because they each tell the story of a teacher and what they went through. I'm reading Teacher Man and he talks about when he first started teaching, coming here, being Irish with his brogue and all. He started out in a vocational school and his kids were the ones that the other teachers didnt want to deal with. It was not his ideal class. He just wanted to teach English and yet he could not teach them a single lesson. It basically shows teaching from the other side, preparing us for what is to come. Every class can not be the ideal one; you dont know what your class is going to be like. I think it prepares you a bit for what could happen and it shows the changes of teaching from then to now. For instance, he hit a kid in the face with a rolled up magazine and didn't get in trouble. Yet if that happens now, you will lose your career. I feel that this book, as well as the others, gives us insight as for what is to come.

Why are we reading these books?

Why are we reading these books? Well, I don't know exactly why or can't tell you why we are reading them. To my understanding, we all are enrolled in this reading class, we are suppose to read. Although the reading is power, it is knowledge. I enjoy reading because it allows me to learn, think, imagine and feel. I have no idea what the other books are about, but my own that i have choosen to read "Freedow Writers". In class, we were presented with three books to read, in having the privlage to make a choice I choose something I hoped to gain something from. i learn throuhout this book about a young college graduate who became a teacher in an urban district and the struggle of her students success throughout high school. The journals presented within the novel revealed ginuine feelings towards the teacher and thier lives. The teacher's passion for teaching and having thier students succeed is very inspiring for me.

In conclusion, i feel as though the reason we are reading these books is because to learn and gain inspiration in being a successful teacher in the near future. To help students at all times and never give up on kids. "To earn respect, you must give respect" Just because we are teachers and have the title doesn't mean students will respond to you with high authority, we can learn as much from them, they are young and as we get older we need to adapt.

We know our world, and though we may think we know the whole world, we only know what effects ours. Our contained-to-our-family-and-networked world. Reading these books is supposed to flood our minds and figure out our own beliefs according to which ever way our book guides us. I saw some people react to this post as literacy and how it effects us. I agree, without this skill it would be hard to comprehend what goes on in most books, the world, body language... think of how lost we would be if we couldn't record stuff. In our futures based on teaching, we need to know these skills and reading is a way to promote learning them.

Why you're having us read these books

Considering this class is on literacy, it makes sense to me that you would incorporate a few books. You have given us a choice of three different books that we could read and have allowed us to work in groups to design our own literacy based project. I think this has acted as a model that any of us could use in the classroom to incorporate literacy. By giving us a choice on books we were able to pick the book that interested us most. Letting us come up with our own project, and picking our own due date, gave us the freedom to do a project that we might actually enjoy. Also, I have a feeling that all the different groups are going to come up with very different projects. This might also give us ideas as to what sort of projects we could do with our students in regards to literacy. I think you are having us read these books to allow us to remember what is was like to be a student who had to read a novel or do a book report. Even now with all my courses, it's somewhat overwhelming because I feel like I don' t have enough time. It's important to remember how some literacy assignments might feel to students.

Why we are reading these books?

I believe we are reading the books because this is a class on literacy. Reading novels is a good way of incorporating reading into the curriculum and the choice gives students the opportunity to be interested in the topic. Obviously we will all be interested in books about teaching because we will all be teachers and we want as much knowledge of how it actually is to be up in front of a classroom by yourself for the first time.
We are given this example of literacy as well as others to promote the teaching of literacy in all subject areas. Literacy is one of the bench marks for teaching and learning, so it makes sense that since we play both roles, we should become as familiar with incorporating it into our lessons as possible.

Why Are We Reading These Books?

I believe we are reading these books for a few different reasons. The first reason has to do with the whole basis behind this class: to promote literacy. All of these books seem interesting and thought-provoking and, personally makes me want to read more. Second, all of these books give us an important view into our future professions. As stated in a prior post, each of these books give a view into the challenges faced daily by teachers. In my book, Teacher Man, the author gives accounts of the challenges of being a new teacher, teaching in an unfamiliar setting, and the everyday dealings of being a teacher. These are challenges I will definitely face as a new teacher. Although I might not almost get fired for eating a sandwich on my first day, there are definitely similar experiences I will be faced with and can draw from my reading of this book to help deal with them.

Reasoning behind the assigned readings

After having selected the book Reading Lolita in Tehran, and reading some summaries from the other books, I think the reason we had to choose one of these books is because they all have a message crucial to teachers-to-be. All three texts deal with overcoming obsticles, and teaching for the sake of learning. When an education is put above all other politics and issues, students will always benefit. As future teachers, we need to learn that sometimes you need to throw caution to the wind, and teach for the sake of your students.

Why Are We Reading These Books?

The book I decided to read was Reading Lolita in Tehran and I can only base my response off this book since I don't know about the other two. I think we were assigned Reading Lolita in Tehran because it's about a college professor telling her story about teaching banned American novels to eight Muslim girls living during the Iranian Revolution. The author, Azar Nafisi, not only meets with these eight girls but she also teaches at two major universities in Iran. Nafisi does not really follow the Iranian standards of how she should act or dress during the revolution because of her beliefs. This story makes you feel as if you're actually in revolutionary Iran with her description of how she risked her life teaching these books and how eight girls also did so they could just read and be knowledgable.

I think this book in particular was assigned because it is not only about a professor rebelling in ways against the government due to her beliefs but because there were eight girls who risked everything to read American books. Within the story, these girls slowly begin to reveal their identities as intellectual women who want to be educated and literate. This book was assigned since it is of non-fictional characters who want to be knowledgable about the outside world and there is no better way for learning about literacy then through a book.

Why Are We Reading Different Books in Groups?

By assigning us one of three books to read, I believe Dr. Dana is "practicing what she preaches." Throughout the duration of the course, Dr. Dana has emphasized the importance of using other reading materials (not just the textbook), and what better way to make her point clear than to have us view these sources as our students one day will.

Like we will try to do with our own students, Dr. Dana is trying to get us interested in what she teaches. By giving us a choice in what we read, Dr. Dana is making the material more meaningful. She is, in a sense, personalizing the curriculum for each of us. If you're like me, you probably read a summary of each of the three books before you decided on the one you wanted to read. You picked the book that you felt you could connect with and that you would most likely enjoy reading. If you've started reading your book already, you've also probably realized that it doesn't read like a textbook. The pages turn a lot more easily, and the content is a lot more approachable. These feelings, undoubtedly, will also be the same feelings our own students will experience one day. Thus, by viewing this assignment through the eyes of a student, I think Dr. Dana is hoping that we will see the significance of implementing such an assignment in our own future classrooms.

Importance of Reading the Assigned Books for R407.

The why we are assigned to read Subjects Matters and then pick a book out of 3 choices (in my case "Teacher Man") is only done to help us become better teachers. Through Subjects matters we can create a more meaningful teaching style, because it there points out that relying on books is not it, variation is important so that students keep focused while class session is carried on.

This book also gives plenty of examples on how we can help students learn efficiently through comprehension of reading, and also how teachers can assess whether students understood the material or not. This can be done through methods mentioned such as double entry journals, KWL, exit slips and admit slips, and much more. This way we can create a more in depth unit plan and eventually improve our teaching style that can meet everyone's needs.

Through Teacher's Man, we can see that teaching is not an easy job, fights may happen in one's classroom at some point in our teaching career. We are limited to teach, we are expected to follow the curriculum or else we get in trouble. It sorts of gives you advices through his stories because it makes us understand that teachers and students should be a team to back each other up when facing problems with parents or the principal. These two books and the articles posted on wiki are helping me expand my ideas regarding teaching and how to be become better at it.

Using storytellin in Physical Education

I never really thought that some sort of story would have an impact on students wanting to participate in the physical education setting (gymnasium). I really want to teach in a high school setting and i feel that the only way i can have some type of story in relation to what i want to teach my students is using some real life stories. I would use stories or experiences from other people who are either in the same position as some of my students or were in a more serious predicament in their life. For example, I could influence some of my students who don't tend to take school serious by telling them about this one individual who was born and raised in a very poor, dangerous, and drug related urban city and how he used all that negativity and applied it on the football field. I personally know this person and now he is playing for the NFL and coming from the same place as he did I know that this type of real life story telling is something that can make a difference in a child from being a successful person or an unfortunate statistic that plagues my city.

stories in social studies

Stories and the telling of stories plays a huge role in the area of Social Studies, especially history. History is full of story telling. The earliest ways that many of us learned history was through stories. Our teachers would tell us stories of the pilgrims and folk heroes. However, those types of stories were not always 100% factual.

Another important aspect of stories in history is the first hand accounts of people who lived through certain events. Their stories can give us a better sense of what really happened than reading a textbook with facts.

Also, many civilizations did not record their history and way of life in writing. Instead, much of what we know has been passed down through oral history or stories.

Stories are very important in the area of Social Studies.

Health & Storytelling

For the first time this semester I really had to give this topic a bit of thought. I was or maybe still am not really sure how to answer this but I feel I have a good grasp on it. So, when I hear storytelling and health my first thoughts go to my younger students. Since I want to teach elementary I'm thinking of my K-2 students. I figure those first three years would be most difficult to try and explain to them how it is not right to stuff your face with junk food such as McDonald's everyday. And so one of the only ways to teach them would most likely be is to tell a story. In this day and age I am sure Barnes and Nobles has a bunch of kids story books about how dangerous and unhealthy it is to be obese. So I am not to concerned. I think I would try and do some factual lesson plans first(meaning showing them a easy way to understand obesity using newspapers, magazines, but all pictures). But unfortunately if that does not work, I guess I would use the books. I could see myself now reading them a book about the little boy who cried, "FOOD," one too many times. I cannot wait. But luckily if they laugh I sure will be too. Hopefully no one in my class will become upset with their similarities of the book but hey its gonna happen, that's why were there, to help. As for my 3-6 students, I am not as worried about the storytelling but still worried about feelings being hurt. Like I said, I really never thought of involving storytelling as a feature in my unit plans but now that I do think of it I am sure I will be. I see now using stories in a few lessons will help my youngsters understand what I am teaching. I also bet it will make a long lasting laugh reading a few pages to friends and relatives during Christmas break but once again, its for the kids. In all I do see storytelling in my feature of teaching.

Storytelling in Health

I think storytelling can be incorporated into health and pe. in various topics. For example, in an alcoholism and drug topic you could have stories of what happens to people when they abuse alcohol and drugs. You could also tell stories of what happens when people overtrain during weight training and of what happens to people. I'm sure there are other times when you could use storytelling, but it is difficult to thing of in health and pe.

Storytelling & Math

It never struck me that storytelling would play a role in mathematics. Word problems are important, but they don't involve storytelling. I think any story regarding the history of an important figure or concept in math would interest students because it gives them background on what was going on when the discovery happened or what the atmosphere was like when the discoverer was alive. How is this part of storytelling though? It's more factual and biographical than what one would picture a story to be. So how would one incorporate storytelling into my subject area? It might be fun to have the students create their own stories involving whatever material we're learning. If my class were learning about measurement, I could ask them to come up with their own short stories using what they've learned or perhaps ask them to come up with a story about some mathematicians who need to solve a problem. How would *you* say storytelling relates to math?

stories in biology

storytelling doesn't really have a huge role in biology, but it does play some part. i would say the place it has the biggest role is when it comes to the actual scientists who have made various discoveries. sometimes when we're reading about these people in a text book we forget that they're actual people who lives sometimes colorful lives. once i got to college i learned a lot more about people such as james watson & francis crick (credited as discovering the structure of DNA and received the noble prize for it, when in actuality they were working with everyone else's data and never did any data collection of their own). the real discoverer of DNA's structure was Rosalind Franklin. this is just an example of how story telling has a place in the biology classroom to give the students a deeper connection to the material.

physical education and integrating other subjects

When Jose, Miguel, and I met up we went over a few topics that we wanted to do and even though we haven't completely finished we discussed how we can show students how they can incorporate their subjects into physical education. We hope that we can scope this unit plan out more clearly and to better evaluate in how we can successfully integrate other subjects into the physical education setting.

integrating other subjects into physical education

Me, Chris and Jose met up to discuss how other subjects can be taught by using physical education. Most would think that all one learns in a phys ed setting is only how to play certain sports but you can make students learn other materials such as science, math, and history. Phys ed is associated with all 3 but it is never taught to students at a grammar or high school level. For example, math can easily be associated with phys ed just by either taking statistical measures in a students performance. History can be taught by teaching the true background on what phys ed was built on. The science aspect is something that a teacher can just put up a poster of the human anatomy and have students learn body parts.

Unit Plan

At first I was a little scared of this task. Questioning myself was I ready for this? Can I really be almost ready to be a teacher? Do I have enough ideas to come up with a plan? But as I worked with my partner, Ayron, it all just flowed. Wow, I (we) can do it! Once we came up with a theme, the ideas just kept coming. I think it will be a good unit. A unit that the students and teacher will hopefully enjoy together. And even more it is something that we will both be able to incorporate into our lessons when we are teaching.

So Dr. D you asked was it a hard assignment, well, not really, but very thought provoking. I know for me, once I got over the "idea" and excepted the reality of me being a teacher, it just started happening. It is a lot work but so far it has been also fun doing this project (at least for me).

How our unit plan is going

Cheryl Bodak and i are working together on our unit plan. In P.E and Health in most of our classes we are required to do AT least one lesson plan AND a unit plan so we understand what we need to do and we are pretty on top of things. Also i have the luxury of having taken a class that partially went into reading in a P.E. environment so i have some idea of games and such that we can incorporate that are also effective. So the fact that we have background knowledge on how to do the unit plan and since we have ideas that we can use, we are pretty much on top of things.

Incorporating literacy in P.E.

Going back to when I was in elementary school there would be a series of games we played with the gigantic map of the United States. Asking questions, it was up to the students to see how quickly they can get to the state or area on the map that corresponded with the correct answer. This was a game appreciated by most and was an excellent way in testing geographical knowledge while incorporating physical fitness in a fun situation.

unit planning

Ok, so I have been working on this unit for the last two weeks now and I think it's going ok. When I got the email to just start working on everything, I felt a little overwhelmed. However, I have used the UBD format before so I felt comfortable with that. I decided to do my unit on the social movements of the 1960s, with the overall theme of equality.

The part I'm having the hardest time with, like some others in the class is filling out the calendar and figuring out how everything is going to fit in. I'm excited to see what others in class have been doing.

Yoo-nit plannin'

My subject area is English. Randi and I met last week and came up with many ideas for our project. We both agreed that a common theme should connect all of our lessons in the unit since one of our goals is that our students should learn to identify such themes across a span of literary works. We brainstormed a couple and settled-for now-on "Choices and Consequence." Luckily we have similar tastes in literature. Some ideas for class reading: Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"; Camus' "The Guest"; Franz Kafka's In The Penal Colony; Shakespeare's Hamlet or Othello (or really any Shakespeare play); etc. Some films: "Schindler's List"; "The 25th Hour";"Click"; "Memento"; "Oedipus Rex"; "Othello"; "Hamlet"; etc. We discussed how this theme is relevant to civics and democracy and came up with some key questions: Does making choices mean making compromises? (what is a compromise?) Is there a downside to having a freedom of choice? How much personal freedom of choice should people be allowed? How can this create problems in a growing society? etc. Students will keep in-class writing journals, learn vocab relevant to this topic, participate in group assignments that require role assignments and outside research, and possibly have an assignment that requires them to bring in music lyrics that involve this theme.

Unit Planning: 2nd grade

The unit plan is different from what I'm used to, which is quite fine. I believe this style of unit planning allows my partner and I to brainstorm essential questions that would lead to a whole new perspective in things. It was a rough beginning because my partner and I was a bit confused, but he managed to get things cleared up for us. Overall, we pretty much have the main planning and thinking prepared, now we need to create lesson plans.

Tech reading

Technology has taken over the way I read and write. 75% of what I read is done on the internet which is great because news is so available and has the ability to be live, no trips to the library or picking up a newspaper to find the material I need. Technology has also changed some of my writing habits. I often catch myself using shorthand and abbreviations when writing formal papers due to the amount of time I spend talking on the computer and texting. Without technology I would not read as much due to the inconvenience of finding information when I want it instantaneously.

Unit plan

Ive done my pre-planing and layout, now just writing the lessons.

How has tech......( Alex. b)

Technology has changed the way I read and write in many ways. First whether its at my house, in school, or at the job I am always working with a computer to read or write something. Technology has made reading a book or writing a paper by hand seem outdated and slow. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy taking the time to read but when i am bombarded with so much tech this type of reading outweighs the former. The funny thing is because I am around tech.. so much it makes that time when i can stop and read a book special.

How has technology changed the way I read and write?

Nowadays any average Joe can have a web page for just about any purpose. Any one of us can create a site, and have it published and ready to go in a matter of minutes or hours, without undergoing any sort of evaluation or revision. The ease of publication on the internet has led me to read in a slightly different way. When reading something online, the credibility of the source should always be in question. Now obviously, if you're reading an article on the New York Times website, or something of the sort, it would be a lot easier to determine the validity of the article. However if you're reading someone's personal website or blog, a few questions should come to mind. Who is the author? What is the purpose of this page? What credentials if any does the author present?

As far as writing goes, I feel that the actual physical process of writing has become more efficient, at least for me. I can type way faster than I can write. It's much easier for me to proofread my writing when using a computer, not having to read my own chicken scratch.

How has technology changed the way we read and write?

I would have to agree with what Jose said, technology has not really changed the way we read but it definitely has changed what we read. There is no reason to get your hands dirty while reading a newspaper any longer, just read it on line. You can get up to the minute news. You can get just about anything on line.

I also agree with Jose that writing has changed. You no longer have a first draft of something unless you save it that way. I know there are times when I get lazy and let spell check correct my spelling. That can be a good thing sometimes, but we are not teaching our students the importance of spelling correctly, except for maybe being in a spelling bee. And what Briand said about Iming and texting that has to be killing our spellers of the future.

Unit Plan

So far the unit plan project is going really well. It is the first time I have ever done one so I'm learning and good deal about the work that is involved. I think that our plan will be very interesting since it is interdisciplinary. Edith and I had a good first meeting where we figured out some of the basics to our plan and even some goals and other crucial parts of what we are going to do.

Technology, Reading, and Writing

In our generation technology is all over the place and has made life a lot easier in many ways. However not all the effects of technology are positive. Reading and writing in today's youth has suffered due to recent technology. AIM lingo and grammar has replaced proper writing. Young people including myself don't write well because we are so used to texting and IMing our friends using many slang words that don't belong in the classroom or a professional setting.

Unit Plan

The unit plan is not going as well as i hoped. It is very hard to incorporate reading into a P.E. class although not impossible. I thought that it would be easier to do a unit for a health class, but it is also proving to be difficult. There are a lot of magazines that are made specifically for teens in health classes so i plan to find one and use it for my unit plan.

How Technology has Changed the way I read and write

I don't think technology has changed the way I read but it has changed what material I read. For example if I want to read about sports I don't look at the sports section in a newspaper, I go online read about the most recent sports news or stats. By having a computer at home I am able to read almost any type of news before it gets on a newspaper.

On the other hand technology has changed the way I write. When typing a paper technology helps you because the computer software has spell check, thesaurus, and many other features that help my writing.Technology is a good source to research and find things you don't find in books. Technology also affect my writing in a bad way because when I am not using a computer I sometimes misspell words that I usually don't misspell.

Unit Plan

Cris, Miguel and I meet to discuss what was going to be the purpose and the title of our unit plan. We have decided to do it on integrating other subjects into physical education. For example integrating addition and numbers into fun and active activities will help students learn basic math while having fun.

Unit Plan: Social Studies

My partner and I have chose to do World War II as our Unit plan because we are both interested in it, and have always found it to be exciting. It was not a problem coming up with what we would want our students to know/ the goals of the unit when doing the planning and thinking matrix. Actually, filling out the matrix seemed to be the easiest part so far. The matrix kept us very organized, and we came up with great ideas. When teaching the students, we plan on keep them interested in the topic but not just using a textbook to teach them but a variety of sources. We intend on showing them actual videos of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the battle of Iwo Jima, a newsreel of DDay, and speeches made by major figures(Eisenhower, FDR, MacArthur). We would also incorporate soldiers first hand accounts through books and magazine/newspaper articles. When I began thinking about all the stuff I could use to teach the kids, to keep them interested, and even my family history of World War II, I became really excited.

However, my excitement was short lived because I moved onto the October calendar and trying to sketch out how to fit everything I wanted to do like: note taking, movies, debates, exams, planned and unplanned quizzes, class readings, etc...I became overwhelmed to say the least. The biggest problem I ran into was in my education courses I have never really been taught how to do a daily lesson plan or a unit lesson plan...when I have done them I was lucky and would only do minor parts of something in history, like Pearl Harbor. When trying to decide what major battles students needed to know, I became aggravated because there are so many and it seems like there is such little time to fit everything in. Moreover, I think because of the way my high schools schedule was set up using block scheduling, I'm only used to how my teachers taught in an hour and half class.

Although I do think I am making progress because I do know most of the stuff I want to include, I still feel like my partner and I have a lot of work ahead of us. Hopefully on Wednesday I will be able to at least better organize the calendar.

How Technology has changed the way I read and write

Children today are born into a society where vibrant colors are flooding their mind at such an early age through television, commercials, and even computer screens that the child's brain becomes over stimulated before it even gets a chance to develop the concept and abstract ideas of shapes and less vibrant colors than technology tends to intensify. Thus a child born in the age of technology is forced to maintain a constant level of high intensity and over stimulate the brain, as the child gets older the intensity levels and over simulation of the brain must increase or else the child will become bored for not having the brain have to keep up with such an intense pace of learning on a visual and colorful level.

I am old fashioned. I believe in reading books and I believe that children need to learn on a normal lower intense level than technology allows and insists on teaching children. I do not think that everyone has to expose children to technology at an early age for their cognitive skills cannot handle the over load of images and colors and make sense of them at that age. Children should be exposed to technology later in life when they are better equipped to handle it on a cognitive and more physical level. Children should have books read to them at an early age and as they get older the Leap Frog books that help them learn to read is a brilliant and positive technological advancement that I am willing to support. For I do not agree with digital literacy or other forms of technology that tend to take place or books or writing by hand. For all children are taught to write not on a computer key board but with a pencil, crayon, pen, and paper. For writing is a physical development that children go through and their writing improves and changes as they get older and write more and more. By the age of 9 children are taught to write in script and the writing process begins all over again, and all of this takes place outside of the technological world.

Technology has changed the way students read and write for there are blogs, chat rooms, e-books, articles on line, text messaging, and on and on it goes. However, no student even in this day and age with technology rising, can escape the fundamentals of learning to read and write and those ways begin with paper, pen, and a hard covered (or soft covered) book.

Developing a Literature Unit Plan

Once I come up with a novel, play, story, or poem I want to teach my ideas start flowing with how I could go about teaching that particular text and what other texts I could associate with the one I am about to teach. I love reading tragedies and want to develop a tragedy unit. Luckily for me I student teach this Spring and my cooperating teacher wants me to teach Romeo and Juliet. Over the summer I had already decided that when I teach Romeo and Juliet I wanted to connect their story to Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Gwenevere, and the Greek tragedy Pyramus and Thisbe which explains the mythology behind why there are white mulberries and red mulberries. Therefore over the summer I was looking for a text to teach the story of Tristan and Isolde and didn't find a completed text of the story. For the story was written by two French poets and each had a portion of the story completed but neither author finished their version of the story. Thus I decided to show the film Tristan and Isolde as it is the closest version to being complete that I could find. As an assignment I would have the students do research as I had done to find out the origin of the story Tristan and Isolde and what components were associated with the story; such as the use of a love potion which can be compared to the potions used in Romeo and Juliet.

The unit will take more than a month to complete if I am going to have the students compare all of the above works in order to have them fully understand the components associated with tragedies so that they can be able to as a story unravels decide if the story they are reading is a tragedy or not and why.

The only problem I am running into is that the school I teach at is an urban district and the students don't have textbooks or literature. All literature studied is done within the classroom setting and homework is only studying vocabulary words from their vocabulary books. Therefore I need to design a lesson plan that allows all of the texts to be studied within the classroom; which is also why it will take more than a month for this unit lesson plan to be taught.

I'm a problem solver and critical thinker already, so developing good critical thinking questions is not a problem for me and I already have an idea of what I want the students to learn and get out of my unit lesson plan. I know the themes and connections I wish them to make and the predictions they would be able to make either half way through or at the end of the unit when they pick up another tragedy text.

If I am allowed to, which I'm not so sure I am, I would have the students do some extra research about the components most associated with tragedies, have them think about why those components are important to a tragic story and then maybe even have them write their own tragedy using the same components that they found associated with tragedies.

The process for developing a lesson plan is not difficult for me because I already know what I want to teach and how I would go about teaching. I choose a different method for every text that I choose to teach which keeps the students interested and me versatile. Teachers tend to teach in the manner that they learn best; since I was in Kindergarten I had developed my own methods of learning and therefore know the different methods I wish to utilize for my teaching literature in my classrooms.

Lookin' good

I've been reading your posts about your units, and I am really proud of how they are coming along so far. I know planning an interdisciplinary unit that incorporates literacy is not easy, even for experienced teachers, and I can see the ways all of you are struggling with the important questions: what does inquiry mean? Or interdisciplinary? How can I incorporate literacy into what I am planning and what counts as literacy?

I'm not going to comment on each of your posts because I want to sit down with each "team" and look through what you have and give feedback to you directly on what you have so far -- but know that I am reading (and taking account) of your posts and your comments to each other. I most like when you comment to each other even when you don't have to -- that really tells me that you're thinking as apprentice teachers in the same boat, rather than as individual students trying to pass a class.

So, nicely done so far. For class this week, bring everything you have worked on so far for your unit. You'll have time to keep working and to give each other feedback as I meet with each group. Also, bring your book group book and start thinking about what you can do with it. (Besides using it as a doorstop, etc : )

History/Health Unit Plan.

My classmate and I worked together on Friday. It was a hectic week, neither of us could meet on Wed but we were able to put thoughts about the unit into words. It's a bit of a challenge when you want to combine two different subjects into a one unit plan, somehow we managed to pick a topic that relates to both (History/Health).
We have chosen 4 major diseases that impacted the world history and still does in some parts of the world like Malaria (bubonic plague, ebola, small pox will also be part of our teaching unit). We are still working on what kind of material we'll use but we coincide pretty much in how we want this to work out. So far so good, good luck everyone!

When i first read what the assignment was for this week I felt a bit overwhelmed. It wasn't until I sat down and really thought about what I wanted to plan my unit about that I was able to take a deep breath and plow through it. Now that I have finished with the planning matrix and preliminary calendar of events, so to speak, I feel confident that this whole unit planning thing isn't nearly as scary as it seems. The topic I chose, cellular metabolic process (snore, I know), while it isn't necessarily the most exciting, is essential to learn in high school. This unit also has a bunch of fun laboratory activities that go along with it, which is always a plus in a high school classroom. I hope I'll be able to integrate a lot of the literacy activities we've been learning into this unit to make it fun and exciting for a class to learn.

H.S. Art Unit Plan

Sorry this is late, but after meeting with Alex today to discuss our unit plan, I feel mush more confident and ready to persue this project head-on. Rather than teaching basic skills and techniques in art, our unit was created with skilled students in mind, focusing more or philosphy and theories. Hopefully it is alright to be planning the unit as the students final assignment for the year.

ESL/Social Studies Interdisciplinary Unit Plan

Since I want to be a middle school ESL teacher, I've always thought it would be a good idea to do a unit on citizenship. Luckily, my partner Monica (from Dr. Dana's other class) also thought that this was a good idea. We're both Linguistics majors, but really, this is an interdisciplinary unit we could possibly do with a history or social studies teacher one day.

Anyway, here are some broad lesson ideas that we came up with for this unit:

1. What Does It Mean to Be a Citizen? -- An Open Discussion with Our Students about What This Term Means and How Its Meaning Can Vary Across Cultures
2. Immigration, Citizenship, and Other Related Terminology -- A Basic Vocabulary Lesson
3. What's It Like to Be an Immigrant Today? -- Students Write about and Share Their Experiences
4. How Does One Become a US Citizen? -- A Lecture on this Topic*
5. What Are Your Rights as a US Citizen? -- A Lecture on this Topic*
6. Why Is It Important to Know Your Rights? -- A Lecture on this Topic*
* We don't want to do straight lectures for these lessons, so we'll be trying to think of fun activities that we could integrate into these lessons as well.

Then for the final assessment, we were thinking of having a final unit project. The kids would have a number of choices, but they would have to use the knowledge they gained to complete these projects. Here are some ideas we've come up with:

1. Essay (5-Pages)
- Should be written on one of the following topics or a teacher-approved topic:
1.) Why is it important for immigrants to gain citizenship and to know their rights?
2.) Compare and contrast what it means to be a citizen in your native country to what it means to be a citizen in the US.
3.) Another teacher approved topic.

2. Create an Informational Website for New/Future Immigrants
- Should be written in the student's native language and should include details about becoming a citizen, citizen's rights, and the lives of immigrants; the website should also be translated into English; the student may also include other information he/she thinks is relevant.

3. Start a Community Program that Will Help New/Future Immigrants
- Pretty much the same type of thing as the website -- students have more freedom to create art projects like posters, fliers, etc.

4. Interview an Immigrant and Write about His/Her Life Story
- Students should try to make connections to what they've learned in class when writing this report

In general, we tried to come up with a unit that our students might find meaningful (through shared personal experiences and/or involvement in the community). Anyway, what do you guys think? Does this sound like a reasonable unit for intermediate to advanced ESL students?

you guys are doing great

I know this was really confusing and kinda scary at first, and I think you're all doing great. I love that you are posting your ideas and asking each other for thoughts. This is exactly what teachers do -- and exactly what I was talking about when I said dissonance, or not knowing exactly what to do or even what it's going to look like, was tough.

I knew that I could put you in your seats and have you listen to me lecture some more about unit planning and read more about learning but I think, at this point, you were ready to put your wheels to the road and try tying some of this together. You're going to bring in everything you've got to class next week and we're going to look at them and make suggestions and try some things out. I'll bring in a unit of my own I designed long ago in the same ways and we'll critique it. And most of all, we'll look at how you've integrated literacy strategies and texts.

Keep thinking about texts. What are different kinds of texts you can use with your students to teach and reinforce ideas, especially for different learners. Think about multimedia texts, online sources, even guest speakers and interviews.

And keep going. You're on the right track, folks.

Math Unit

I actually would like to hear any ideas anyone would have regarding making a hands-on experience in the math classroom. I did an inquiry project over the summer, but not one that involved implementing math. My partner and I are trying to figure out what specific topic to cover while both of us want to teach high school. It's important that we use technology and make it interesting for our students. So many questions plague how we are going to go about our lessons: how many group activities should we have? What kinds of activities will tie our lessons into the real world? What technology should we use in order to ensure our students are efficient when they get to the college level?

Right now is the struggle to come up with a question that will span our unit and be answered effectively. Any suggestions?

Social Studies Unit

My partner and I had already started working on our unit last week. We've already brainstormed what we wanted to have in our unit and have thought of three essential questions that, I feel, encompass the themes we are trying to bring out in the unit. Assessment and actual lessons still need to be worked on, but I feel we have a strong base. I'm glas we're working on this because I feel this is the best sort of preparation we can get before we begin student teaching. I like doing this by myself, and feel confident that I can plan unit. That confidence right now is mostly because I don't have actual students yet and I know that you'll be there to assist and give feedback on what we're doing. In any case, this is what we'll be doing as teachers so I'm happy for the practice.

Unit Planning

I was really confused at first. I never knew their were so many ways to help students understand and learn content. My favorite so far is KWL. I feel that I will use that alot because of my field. It is slowly taking effect, but it is getting there to me. I just really have to think more what I am trying to get across to my students. Once I can figure that out I think I would have no problem with this.

Unit Plan Experiment

At first the assignment was a little confusing to me, but now that it has been cleared up a bit by Dr. Dana, I think everything will be smooth sailing. I've created unit plans in the past but I would have to say the integrated units are in my opinion a bit difficult. My partner and I have some ideas on how to make our unit work which is always a good start. Tommorrow we'll jump into it and hopefully get some aspects accomplished.

Alex's post about unit planning

I think that things are going pretty well. My partners and I have come up with some interesting concepts about art that we are eager to share with the class. Now we have to sit down and actually write out the unit plan.

special education

This week in my Teaching Science in Secondary Schools class we had a guest speaker come in to talk to us about 504 and IDEIA plans for special education. I learned that 504's are used for students with a medical or physical based problem. A 504 falls under the American's with Disabilities Act and calls for an IAP (individualized accommodation plan) to be made for the students. IDEIA is used for students with a learning disability, and and IEP is made for these students (individualized education plan). Both the IAP and IEP are legal documents and teachers must comply with what is written. I found this info to be very useful because it is something that really isn't covered much in our education classes, but at the same time is very important to know and understand.

literacy in history

thinking about all the different aids i could use, i feel that visual aids along with primary sources are the key to students' literacy. primary sources are first hand accounts of an event and used along with say a movie would be very effective because they would get the actual point of view and the hollywood version. literacy is very important in history because without it, learning the information would be extremely difficult.

literacy in Physical Education

I find that is easier to integrate literacy with smaller children because they are willing to anything to have fun in their physical education class. Using note cards to do relay races is an example of using literacy in Physical education. For example have to piles of note cards with words written in them, split the class into 4 groups each group will have 5 minutes to create a sentence that make sense and they can also make more than one sentence if they have time. One student from each group will run to the pile of note cards and pick up one note card and bring back to their group this will go on for the five minutes the group with the best or the most sentence will be reward with points. this is just one example of integrating literacy and other subjects into physical education. Another way is to use math note cards, or use short stories to explain the rules of a game or safety procedures.

Literacy Activities in English Classes

There are so many ways to include literacy activities into the english class that hopefully class will not be boring and there should be something for everyone to enjoy. One of the activities that i will incorporate in my classes is using role play. By getting the students up, moving around and letting the students be creative and act ia one way they will be able to visualize the work. This could be done with short stories and with any book we will read. This role playing can be done prior to reading the story, with info given to them to create a scene for themselves and then see how it compares to the story when finished reading. Another activity that I will use often in my classes when reading it the Think-Alouds, where you stop reading and think about what you have just read, think about where the story is going, and maybe even make a prediction. I would also encourage my students when they read on there own that they should have post-its handy. This way they can easily mark a page where they might have a question, confused about something, need a definition or just mark a section that they enjoyed.
These are just a few ideas I have about how I would use literacy activities in my class with reading.

Literacy for History

I would use primary documents as a main object for literacy. I believe primary documents for history are way more exciting than the textbooks that are primarily used. Videos and reenactments of historical events would help me use primary documents so we can use those and see how the students interpret what they read. The students may see each event a little different. I want to be able to teach my students the proper skills on how to read and understand primary documents so they can get a better understanding of events. I think it could be more interesting if they can understand it first hand, rather than have someone else tell it to them.

Literacy Activities in Physical Education

When I read over the Chapter I was not shocked to find that Physical Education was not brought up. However, it did lead me to work off the other subjects to see how It can relate to physical education. Literacy is important in all subjects, and Physical Education is not any exception. At a young age there are numerous activities which can further a child's literacy. For example a game in which they must spell out their movements ei: run, hop, skip. Also the actions used in the games, dances, etc. can be taught with the help of visual cards. Currently, there is a lot of work being done to make children more technologically literate in P.E. class with heart rate monitors and computer usage.

Knowledge Presented in Physical Education

Content knowledge is very useful for teachers to have in order to obtain an effective lesson. Every subject teacher in education are responsible in having a lesson plan. Having a lesson plan allows teachers to create a productive outline or agenda in teaching their lessons. In physical eduction, teacher need to comprehend and have the knowledge of every aspect of human heath, fitness, and body. One of the main objectives in physical education is to teach physical knowledge and skills to students to new and proper ways of staying fit, practice sports, all through psychomotor, cognitive, and affective learning.

Literacy Activities in Literature Classes

Literacy is extremely important to teaching English Literature classes. Reading, writing, and thinking are essential to the class. However, not all students like to read. As a way of getting students more involved with the books that they might read and encounter I had devised an exploratory activity to engage the students in the next book they would be reading.

The copy of The Odyssey that I have has a very dull and boring cover, it is blank. When a student goes to pick up a copy of the book they will find it boring and probably would want to read something else that is more entertaining. Therefore, as a homework assignment the students would need to do some research on the Internet, go to the library media center if they do not have a computer in their home, and see what The Odyssey is really about. Find summaries, or websites that take them through the adventure, so that when they get to class the next day they will have some semblance of what the book is about.

The next day in class I would have the students discuss what they found and share the information with their peers. I would hope that the students would find the story fun and engaging and that they would want to read it after all the research that they did about The Odyssey. The other point is to have them not judge a book by its cover. As much as we try not to prejudge anything, we do anyway. Hopefully this approach to the book would help students see that prejudging is not always an accurate course of action to take. Especially when it comes to a book.

Knowledge presented in the Health subject

The Health subject covers lots of areas such as nutrition, sexual education, hygiene, study of human diseases, and much more. There are many ways of how knowledge is presented in the Health subject, and these include of course the usage of books, web articles, showing posters, bringing guest speakers, playing educational videos and/or brief clips to spark the visual understanding of the class, handouts, tape recordings, and so on.

I have had humorous teachers and their style definitely tend to wake up students' attention (small jokes helps to keep students' interest into the subject matter) while the learning process still takes place.

In the schools, some teachers still rely teaching Health only through one textbook and when that happens, students' interest into Health sort of dies because they get bored. Teenagers need variety and when teachers are successful at introducing all Health topics with creativity, not just the books but also using video clips, bringing guest speakers, and so on, these simply sparks all students' interest into learning and that's what matters, that the new generation learns Health with pleasure.

The Presentation of Knowledge in History

Knowledge is passed on in history through many different forums. Originally knowledge was passed orally from elders to younger people in groups or tribes. Today people can look anywhere and learn about history. Anything from a book to a family photo can tell someone a lot about past events. Many people who don't enjoy history see it a monotonous reading with many dates to memorize. I don't see it that way. I think history is just story telling. It's the story of how we got to where we are. True, that can be told through books, but one can learn a lot about time period by listening to music, seeing how people dressed, or watching a movie from that era. History has as much to do with dead presidents as it has with everyday working families.

How Knowledge is Presented in Mathematics

I think Mathematics can be presented in a few ways. The usual way is textbooks. In the beginning stages of math, the textbooks are good. The student isn't bored by it, there are pictures and many examples, its colorful and so on. But as you get higher into your math courses, the books get so boring. I am taking Modern Algebra this semester, and if you open the book to any page, its all words. It's boring and has way too much writing. I don't even understand it most of the time. I think the textbooks should be used as a guide, not followed step by step. This brings me to my next way.
Supplemental materials is another way to present mathematics. I think this is a great idea because it lets you see other ways things are applied. Lets say the teacher teaches a new lesson and they hand out a worksheet or something like that. It is another way of teaching students. And I know I always liked to get things like that because it took us away from the book.
And of course, there are hands on activities, projects, movies, and current event things. A hands on activity could be doing measurements. For instance, the perimeter of the room... I loved doing hands on activities because it was fun, and you got to see how it is used in the real world.
It all depends on the teacher and how they present the material to get the students involved and wanting to learn. If they keep using the book and nothing else, it will be really boring. But if they use different methods, it will be more interactive and fun.

Knowledge in the Art Classroom

In the art field there are several different tehniques used to present information and knowledge to students. The first is of course text books, as well as other written media, such as magazines, books and the internet. These sources are used mainly to present facts, like art history, design concepts and vocabulary. Pictorial sources, either text books or otherwise, provide a visual example. Another method is through example. By visiting museums, children get to see first hand what great art looks like. Living and eventually teaching is such a close vicinity to NYC is beneficial for an art teacher, because of all the local museums, with a variety of work on display. But the most important way of passing on information to students is verbally, and through demonstration. Students learn technical skills needed for art making, many of which would be difficult to comprehend if presented only as text.

As students develop their internal catalog of knowledge, these basic skills can be essential in moving on to bigger and better things. They say you need to crawl before you walk, and, likewise, you need to learn the basics before you can make a finished work of art.

Methods for Presenting Knowledge in the ESL Classroom

Depending on the method that a teacher adheres to, the way of presenting knowledge in an ESL classroom varies greatly. Here are some of the most common methods used today:

In the Grammar Translation Method, knowledge is presented primarily through famous works of literature. Students are asked to read, to discuss (in their native language), and to translate famous works by English and American authors. They are not taught to speak the language but rather to read and translate it. While this method is not typically used in the United States, it is still very popular in other countries (like Japan, where I want to one day teach).

In the Direct Method and the Audio-Lingual Method, the emphasis is on teaching students to speak the target language (in this case, English). The other aspects of literacy are addressed under these two methods as well, but speaking is considered to be the most important. With these two methods knowledge is presented in the target language (again, English) only, and it is distributed to the students in the form of either vocabulary items or grammar drills. (Grammatical rules are not supposed to be directly given to students using these two methods, but some teachers give them anyway). In high school and in college, my teachers taught me Spanish using (what I believe to be) a combination of the Direct Method and the Audio-Lingual Method. (My teachers “cheated” a little, however, because they spoke to us in English as well.) The school I am observing in Clifton right now also seems to teach ESL using a combination of these two methods. (These teachers don’t “cheat” by the way, so imagine yourself being in another country and being taught the language in that language – scary, huh?). Thus, it appears that this is currently the main way that second language knowledge is being presented to students in the United States.

In the future (and to some extent currently), ESL teachers in the United States are being expected to adopt programs like the SIOP Model or CALLA. Under programs like these, academic content (i.e., math, science, social studies, literature, etc.) is presented to students through modified instruction in English. This way students develop reading, writing, and speaking skills both in BICS (i.e., conversational language) and in CALP (i.e., academic language). In the past, many ESL learners in the states had BICS but were not familiar enough with CALP to succeed in the mainstream school system. Thus, this is why we (as ESL teachers) are trying to implement methods that distribute knowledge in ways that better accommodate our students and their needs.

Alright, well, I hope that wasn’t too boring to read! As teachers who might have ESL students in your classrooms, I think it's important for you to be familiar with how these students are learning English. If you are, perhaps you will have a better understanding of where they are coming from and what additional help they might need.

Knowledge in Social Studies

Knowledge in social studies is presented in many ways. The first, and most common, comes in the form of textbooks. Personally, I hate textbooks (especially history textbooks). I feel textbooks give students a very generic and boring view of history. This generic and boring view of history given in textbooks is definitely the #1 cause of statements such as "Why do we have to know this?" and "History class sucks." Textbooks are fine to use a guide through history but using them as the only source of knowledge in a history classroom can really kill the subject matter for many students.

Another way knowledge is presented is through primary sources. Primary sources can be anything from newspaper articles, documents, interviews, etc., from a certain time period being studied. With the growth of the Internet and the easy access to information, the use of primary sources to present knowledge to students has become extremely popular. I feel primary sources give students a better connection to subject matter, especially in history. It's one thing to read about the Civil War in a textbook. But to read a newspaper article detailing the events of the Battle of Gettysburg will give a student a new kind of connection with history.

A third way knowledge is presented is in films. Documentaries and feature films lets students actually see what they are learning about. Personally, I feel pretty lucky that I'm going into a content area where there is an ENTIRE CHANNEL devoted to it. Not to mention, there are literally thousands of movies about historical events out there.

To sum it all up, there are ways to present knowledge in social studies everywhere. It's up to the teacher to use these ways in an interesting and worthwhile way in order to prevent hearing those seven deadly words: "Why do we have to know this?"

Knowledge Presented in Social Studies

In social studies, knowledge is mainly presented through textbooks but there are plenty of other ways social studies knowledge is presented. Some of these other ways is through reading a nonfiction book or novel concerned with someones real life experiences or a time period in history. There are so many books now especially concerned the wars of the 20th century that is about a soldier who was part of D-day during World War II or even most recent, stories about the first company to set foot in Iraq. Movies are also a way present history as long as they do not fabricate the events, and take trips is almost the best way to learn about history because you can easily go to historical locations such as Gettysburg or Philadelphia where there is an abundance of history and increase your knowledge just by walking around. However, in the classroom most history is presented through a textbook even though there are plenty of other ways for knowledge to be learned.

Variances in Social Studies

I would like to say that because of how broad the Social Studies field is, and because of the amount of disciplines that fall into its confines, that teachers present Social Studies using a variety of methods to really engage their students. From my experience, what usually happens is quite the opposite. The majority of my teachers that have taught history (which I will only focus on because of its emphasis in high school) relied heavily on the textbook and the memorization of facts which were often written on the board. I, who personally loves history, would be devastated by the lack of activities and discussion in my classroom. I distinctly remember one teacher who would maybe teach three days out of the week. The other days he would put up sample questions from previous SOL tests on the board, to make sure we would be able to pass the test. After we reviewd this for about five minutes he would tell jokes for the the remainder of the period because I think his true passion in life was to be a comedian. In any case, this seemed to be the trend of teachers I got. They didn't care if we really learned, only if we passed the standardized tests and had no other objectives than to make students memorize facts.
I have noticed in my college courses that there has been, what seems to be a national trend, steering new teachers away from fact-based learning in Social Studies. Social Studies is field with a lot of depth and with a lot of opportunities. Teachers are now being taught to make an effort to incorporate as many of the disciplines they can into S.S. because they all intertwine and it makes it easier for students to make connections. The textbook is not to play a key role anymore. Other sources are being brought in. Regular non-fiction books, newspapers, documents, movies are playing a major role. Also the experience of both students and teachers seems to be shaping how content is presented. As I am currently being taught in my methods courses, it is possible to incorporate a wide variety of knowledge using a wide variety of methods. There are three types of knowledge which are stressed: didactic which focuses on the learning of facts or base knowledge, reflective which allows students to understand concepts and make connections and affective which gives students the ability to make decisions and take social action. What I had learned in high school was mostly didactive and I've realized what made it less interesting for many students was the lack of reflective and affective goals made by my teachers. I often heard students ask what they had to learn history for. Had the teachers presented the content using all three forms of knowledge students wouldn't have had to ask this.
I would like to believe that anymore teachers are really engaging their students by using a wide varity of methods. Debates, mock court trials, field trips, games, use of secondary sources, are all ways in which Social Studies can be presented, and that is a very very modest list because the options are quite numerous. There are so many elements to S.S. that I believe teachers have a wide range of methods to pick from. Teachers often have to present the material in ways which work for their students, and S.S. definitely gives a lot of options. While I still think the textbook is an important tool in S.S. courses, because students do need base knowledge, I believe many new concepts are being creatively represented in the classroom. I think teachers are trying more than ever to make S.S. interesting for students because the old method, that I had in high school didn't seem to be working.

For Dr Dana

Hi Dr Dana Its miguel class. I recently got into a car accident which was this past sunday and I have no car as of right now, reason being i couldnt make it to class was because there are only 2 cars in my family and my mother has work early in the morning and i have no other siblings or relatives that are available to give me a ride to school that early in the morning due to their work schedule. If there is anything i can do to make up the work that i may have missed please let me know. i dont want to have this effect my grade. I also sent you this through the blackboard system i dont know if you recieved it yet but if you read this here please let me know that you have recieved this message. thankyou and have a good day.