Reflection on my assignment
I think Krystal did a great job completing my assignment. She completed it fully and followed the directions, and met the criteria on my rubric. In reflecting on this assignment I think I would change the focus of writing about a “hurt” to being “let down by someone”. I think that this change would help students write more freely and make it whatever degree of personal they choose. I also think it will help maintain a school appropriate level in what students divulge. I think changing the assignment to include the option of writing about a time they let someone else down. This is not at all because of anything Krystal wrote, I actually decided to make these changes after class on Tuesday. Krystal offered nice feedback on the assignment:
Sarah- I really liked this assignment. I thought you did a wonderful job explaining what you wanted your students to gain from reading as a reader and reading as a writer. The assignment was a lot of fun and I appreciated that you gave options. I think this assignment will help the students think deeper about the story and give them a chance to improve their writing as well. I did this assignment by just writing what I felt at the time. I just tried to get everything out on paper. I definitely would need to continue the writing process you laid out and edit my work to improve the writing piece. Great assignment!
I’m glad Krystal liked this assignmenta and I hope my students will also. I will keep options available and allow the students to write about what they choose, within guidelines of the assignment and it’s goals. I feel the instructions were adequate in keeping students within a certain focus of the assignment and also continue to process of revision and refinement. This assignment served it’s initial purpose which was to get something on paper, so there is a place to start the writing process. As readers, I believe the assignment worked well in correlating the story to student lives and encourage students to refelct on their past and focus on how they want to respond to situations in the future.
Response to Kait’s Writing assignment
I did Kaitlynn Hill’s writing assignment, a poetry assignment and it was a mentor text on one half of the sheet, and on the other half there were key words which were followed by blank lines, which I as the student was directed to fill in.
I did the assignment and noticed something kind of interesting.
My blanks filled in alone made an interesting and unique sounding poem.
universe
sun moon
breath in my lungs
life
I am living
I feel every moment
every birthday
years go by so quickly
passing by too fast
I’m afraid of blinking
my son is here
his sibling on their way
to think
feel
embrace life’s sweetness
kiss my husband and children like it’s a first
play
laugh
life
please
come go
please don’t forget to hold it
everything you’ve got and never let it go. life. love. laughter. happiness. and family.
Writing Assignment 2 of 2-FINAL
Sarah Ponce
Dr. Ellis
EN 310
April 20, 2010
12th Grade Writing Assignment
Text: “The End of Something” by Ernest Hemingway
Rationale:
As a reader I want my students to:
- Notice the emotion of the narrator and feel the characters
- Question what will happen next
- Infer opinions about the characters
- Connect the situations in the story to their own lives
- Feel the story strike a chord within
- Challenge students to assess what is “wrong” and “right”
While reading as writers, I want my students to:
- Notice and examine the use of irony in the story
- Observe the authors use of sentences, and the structure of the text
- Notice word choice
- Think about what they didn’t like about the writing and think about what they would mimic in their own writing-and then mimic it.
- Consider how they would improve the story, or make it their own.
- Look at sentence openers and notice something about them to use in their writing later.
Assignment:
Read the short story “The End of Something”. In response, please spend 10 minutes writing either:
A letter to Nick, as if you are Marjorie. What do you think she would say to him?
Or you may write a response that changes the end of the story. What should happen differently that the author did not include in their story?
Everyone has a time in their life when they were let down by a friend or someone close to them. Or, perhaps a time when you let down someone close you. Please choose one of the following prompts and respond how you chose. You are free to incorporate any of the techniques we have learned so far this semester. If you choose, you may write this composition as a song or poem, a letter, an essay, or a short story. If you would like to compose your writing in an alternative form, please come talk to me and we will work it out.
Please choose 1 of the prompts below:
1) Please write about a time in your life when you were let down by someone you trusted and loved. How did you feel? What did you do? What words, if any, were said?
2) Write about a time in your life when you were let down by someone you trusted and loved. What do you wish you would have done? What do you wish you would have said? What would you say to them now?
3) Write about a time you let someone else down. How did it make you feel? What would you have done or said differently?
This is a rough draft which you will spend time revising. This draft should be a time to “dump” your thoughts and feelings onto paper. You will be able to organize, re-write and refine your work. Your writing is your masterpiece. Craft it how you choose. If you choose to use knowledge from our previous unit on poetry, you may choose to shape your revision into poetry. If you would like to keep it in letter form, that is also acceptable. The revision process of your piece should include, but is not limited to doing the following:
- Notice and examine the use of irony in the story
- Observe the authors use of sentences, and the structure of the text
- Notice word choice
- Think about what they didn’t like about the writing and think about what they would mimic in their own writing-and then mimic it.
- Consider how they would improve the story, or make it their own.
- Look at sentence openers and notice something about them to use in their writing later.
This first revision will be turned in for a completion grade. If you choose, you may write questions, comments or notes to me regarding your piece and I will answer them and return my feedback with your drafts. These drafts will be returned to you with my feedback to your specific questions. I will also include my own notes to you regarding your writing if I have questions or comments.
After this draft is returned to you, you will have time to revise and refine it further. Pay close attention to the goals listed above as you refine your piece. Your next draft will be passed among a small group of students for peer feedback. It is your choice whether or not you make changes to your writing in the end, but use the peer review time to your advantage and receive feedback on how you can improve. Writers can always improve their craft. You will be assessed on your active (or inactive) participation in the peer editing time. Your peers are a great source of feedback and suggestions. Respectfully communicate your thoughts and respectfully receive them from your classmates. We are all working together to better each other as writers.
After this final round of refinement, your drafts should be ready for completion and be turned in. The following rubric will be used to assess your work and application of the previously established guidelines. When you turn in your assignment, please include all stages of revisions, notes and peer feedback with your final draft. I will use everything to determine your earned grade.
Rubric:
Finished product meets criteria for established guidelines: 4 (needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Finished product consists of well developed, structured lines or sentences: 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Finished product is reflective of stated assignment topic: 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Student actively participated in the peer feedback assignment, offering quality feedback to fellow students and practiced editing, proofreading and observational skills: 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Student successfully shows all stages of revision and reflection of their work. 4(needs work) 3 (average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Student uses mentor text in some way and emphasizes that part of their writing visibly 4( needs work) 3 (average) 2(satisfactory) 1 (well done)
Context:
This assignment incorporates 1.2 (personal growth) 4.1 (focusing on language usage) and 4.2 (how variety in language shapes and reflects experiences) and is part of a larger unit which encourages students to identify how their lives are shaped by decisions and how they are responsible for their decisions and their lives. I want my students to recognize that they are in control of their responses to things that happen in life, even though they cannot always control what happens, they can control their response. I want my students to read this short story and feel connected to it in their own lives, when they experienced a time when someone close to them let them down, or perhaps be able to apply the concept to a time that they may have let down someone else. I was students to make this connection between the text and their lives on a personal level but also on a level as writers, to see how language and word choice can influence the tone and feel of a piece of writing. How does the author include inflections in his writing to more powerfully convey his story? How can writing be used to express yourself and what means of delivery are there within the craft of writing to enhance your simple words into daggers of power and meaning? This writing assignment is in the mid-end of the semester after students have achieved a level of comfort in the classroom and with peers and also with me, to be able to write about a personal time and have others reading their writing. This assignment comes after learning techniques throughout the semester to grow writing skills which will allow the students to select a form they feel best fits the delivery of their message in this personal writing assignment. I want students to be able to match the style of their story and their favored writing style to parallel their feelings. Will they have a short and succinct story to tell in short lined poetry? Will they write it as a letter and be intimately personal? Will they construct it as an essay and write out facts? I want my students to choose which method they want to use, and after having covered a few this semester, this assignment allows such selection to be appropriate. This writing assignment is intended to be genuine and the class will be respectful of each other’s work.
Finally posting writing assignment 1 of 2
The text I have chosen to use is “The Moustache” written by Robert Cormier.
As a reader I want my students to:
- notice the the emotion of the narrator
- question what will happen next
- infer opinions about the characters
- connect the situations in the story to their own lives
- feel the story strike a chord within
- challenge students to assess what is “wrong” and “right”
While reading as writers, I want my students to:
- notice and examine the use of irony in the story
- observe the authors use of sentences, and the structure of the text
- notice word choice
- look at sentence openers and notice something about them to use in their writing later.
Assignment:
Students will be assigned a writing assignment to practice some of the noticing they did as readers and as writers for the story “The Moustache”
- Instructions:
- In the story “The Moustache”, the narrator was faced with a dificult decision-a decision he didn’t want to have to make. In the end he chose a decision that would change his life forever. Please compose a 2-3 page well developed composition on a time you were forced to make a difficult decision that changed your own or someone elses life. In your composition, please be sure to use what you learned from the mentor text “The Moustache” including a case of irony. Please use well constructed sentences and a variety of sentences openers (at least 7 different openers). For one of your paragraphs, select a paragraph from “The Moustache” and using it as a strict mentor piece, mimic a paragraph of your own to be constructed in a parallel fashion. (Asterisk the paragraph in your writing and also the one in the mentor text so I know which ones to look at)
Rubric:
Finished product meets criteria for sentence openers: 4 (needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Finished product consists of well developed, complete sentences : 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Finished product is reflective of stated asssignment topic: 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Finished product is appropriate length: 4(needs work) 3(average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
Student successfully used a paragraph as mentor text to craft a similar paragraph of their own in their composition: 4(needs work) 3 (average) 2(satisfactory) 1(well done)
This assignment fits into an overall unit that focuses on decisions, responsibility and coming of age. It is created for 9th grade students. In encouraging students to write for expression and about their own lives, students are able to find commonalities between text and real life. By applying their studies of literature to their own lives, students are better equipped to make decisions and be responsible for their choices inside and outside of the classroom.
Mediation and Syllabus Proposal.
VOTE FOR PEDRO SARAH!!
With several topics to hit in our final weeks of EN 310, I’m oddly and slightly bummed there are too few meetings left in which to tackle any majority of them. With no intended disrespect, I feel like our engines have just turned over and begun roaring to life, ready to take us on a road trip of real learning. That being said, it is what it is and that is three weeks. Three weeks to cram into the nooks and crannies, those topics which we are most passionate about, topics we long to know more (or something) about, topics to bind together our technique and approach, understanding and abilities into a solid and confident educator, who supposedly is ready for the “real world” complete with its opinionated adolescents, fiery parents and seasoned professionals. What makes us ready? Which nooks and crannies are most needing of being satisfied? What is the final glue to hold it all together. As a class, we have come up with some great ideas. Again, it’s a shame we can’t cover each of our hearts desires but there have been common threads among many of us within the classroom and they are:
1) Discovering and discussing potential classroom challenges.
Proposed Syllabus: An entire class time or week (two class times) should be devoted to exploring potential problems within the classroom, among colleagues, parents, students etc. We should brainstorm possible situations and then brainstorm solutions to those problems. Perhaps having seasoned professionals there to answer questions (Dr. Ellis is adequate I believe) would be helpful but ideally I would like to have a new teacher, one who has been teaching 1-3 years come in and talk about their beliefs as they began their new job as a teacher and what their expectations were, what kind of challenges they ran into, what was unexpected etc. This approach blankets other commonalities among suggestions from our class. For example, it includes the Hope/Fear chart and will inspire discussion naturally to encompass a fairly broad range of topics. We will be able to ask questions, get answers and run “what-if” scenarios etc. “pick his/her brain”.
2) Review GLCE and Examining State, Federal Standards
Proposed Syllabus: Learn about these standards. I know so little about this I don’t even know how to structure a day or two to learn about the standards. Without knowing even where to begin, I believe this would be a great area to begin tackling. Learning these will obviously and undoubtedly help in the creating of lesson plans. A wise thing for a professional teacher to know.
3) Doing each others activities and receiving peer review on them.
Much like teachers collaborate, it would be nice to have our class practice that as a group of future teachers. We have collaborated to a degree, though that degree has almost always resulted in individual projects that are joined together. There isn’t anything that we have all worked on as a whole to develop and collaborate. One way we could practice this would be to work through lesson plans our classmates have created. Actually doing activities included and offering feedback on how they worked, things that could be tweaked or offer insights on how they think it could be strengthened. Perhaps small groups would work best for this considering the restricted time available.
4) Practicing writing:
There has been mention of returning to our own writing either by blog or by journal to keep with the motto “good writers write, write and write some more”. I enjoy our writing time so I’m throwing this in as a 2 cent thought to keep journal writing alive to the very end! As a slight twist however, I think we should use them not as free writing so much for the last few weeks but as a journal, a teacher reflection, a diary (call it what you want) of what struck you most in the class that day. We would use the last 10 minutes a day writing what was most significant to us, what we learned, what stood out, ideas we liked, things that worked, things we want to try in our classrooms etc. Make our final weeks synonymus with good habits of teacher reflection-by way of doing what good writers do. Write.
Persuasive Essay-Topic(s) I’d like to explore
Sarah Ponce
Professor Ellis
EN 310
Persuasion Essay
March 21, 2010
Leaving No Child Behind
As educators, it is our responsibility to do our best in educating each and every student that comes through our classroom. There are laws protecting children and attempting to provide every child with equal quality education, no matter their individual differences or specific challenges. Being thrown into a mosh-pit of students is a sink or swim type of situation. Generally speaking, some students simply sink and there’s little administrators can do to assist in rescuing them. Or is there?
Because of the integration classroom era most school districts now have within their classrooms, students with a variety of abilities who are consolidated into one place and they are all left to the responsibility of a single educator. This pressure on the educator is significant and burdensome especially when her time and efforts are forced to be spread so thin. While educators contort to meet the demands of various needs among students, students fail to receive quality but instead receive effects of teaching in quantity.
This practice creates a platform of slotted gaps gaping wide. While children who needed extra attention used to slip through the cracks, there are now those children as well as gifted children falling through because they are not being challenged in their abilities. This failing educational system has a severe impact on students, educators and the future outlook for all of society. Since students are being produced on a mass scale in a cookie cutter fashion, there is little wonder where we are headed. In efforts to avoid a colorless and mindless sequence of generations’ action must be taken to up-heave some, perhaps many or most, practices going on inside our educational system. The change begins with those who can influence administration and have a direct impact on the students. Those in the best position to create change are the educators in the classrooms.
For all of us “almost” teachers, we are new comers trying to arm ourselves with preparedness as we begin to enter the field. There is a resistant force out there and politically correctness within our field that keeps fences up and old practices in place. Bringing in new ideas and new techniques are not always welcomed by seasoned and tenured colleagues so before we step into this hard-knock of reality, there is something I suggest we learn and embrace with ownership to be ready for the unexpected. The questions ares: How do you as an educator, balance your time and resources, assignments in an all inclusive classroom, when you are responsible for a wide range of students from under-achieving to over-achieving, for example a student with Aspergers, Autism or other challenges and high achieving “gifted” children who perform above their classmates or grade level? How do you modify assignments? How do you assess each student if they are given different assignments and how to you move the class forward as a group when students are at such various levels of understanding and performance?
I would like to learn how to do these things because so many districts have introduced inclusion classrooms ridding segregated ones and this change appears to be what the educational system is moving towards in the big picture.
fictional narrative in very rough (somewhat cheesy)draft poetic form.
I do not have a face to see,
Or put inside a frame
I do not have soft cheeks to kiss
I don’t yet have a name
You can’t yet hold my tiny hands
Nor whisper in my ear
It’s still too soon to sing a song
Or cuddle me so near
But all will change come the summer of 2011
That’s when the doctors say I’m due
I’m your new grandson
I can’t wait till I meet you
All I ask between now and then
Is your patience while I grow
I promise I’ll be worth the wait
Because of all the love we’ll know
So what I have to give you now
is a wish to you from me
I cannot wait to be a part
Of this wonderful family
Yet she turns up at the coffeehouse,
Loneliness not her style
http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_famous_ballad_make.html
Summary and links to other related and helpful web content.
MI 117-130: Summary with links to related, helpful, web content
Mechanically Inclined this week covers the topic of subject-verb agreement and the use of past, present and future tenses of verbs. In Chapters 4 and 5 there is a lot of focus on the action part of speech-the verb. The verb is the power punch of the sentences. It tells the most and means the most. Jeff Anderson (of Mechanically Inclined) offers exercises, and offers examples of the most common errors. Agreement between subject and verb is the focus of these chapters there is great attention paid to the tense of the verb as well. Anderson uses examples of first, second and third person, and pairs them appropriately with the verb tense of past, present or future. It is in this skill of accurately and efficiently being able to match these two parts of speech, Jeff Anderson highlights as important. Students who know how to correctly create sentences are students who have a strong foundation on which to build their skills. Chapters 4 and 5 of MI are dedicated to promoting an understanding of how to use tenses and the correct subject pair. Anderson includes charts/graphs breaking down the elements of speech and how and where to use them. These visual aids are helpful in the learning process.
Quite Helpful Links:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/599/01/
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp
Another Post.
“Students need coaches more than they need critics”, says Gallagher in Teaching Adolescents Writing. This single sentence could have been the whole chapter. I have been thinking about graduation and what it is to ‘teach’. I have been guided down a path of typical ‘teacher’ behavior which is to assign homework, mark it right or wrong and critique student’s academic performance with a red pen. Check-check. That’s wrong, that’s wrong and that’s wrong. This approach is detrimental. However, I can see how it happens and I have been on the receiving end of his kind of ‘teaching’. What would have been nice is feedback on what I was doing right and how to improve upon that. Telling me what I did wrong wasn’t telling me what to do right. Much like in parenting when a parent is yelling at a child, “don’t do that!” we don’t give the child proper guidance on what they can do only on what they cannot. I suppose being a teacher contains elements of parenting. It may work best by positively reinforcing the students strengths while encouraging them to work on their weaker areas. They need to be coached in refining skills, not criticized for doing something wrong; the very thing they are supposed to be learning how to do. Sentence Stalking: This attitude is unfortunate. http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/specconn/main.php?cat=behavior§ion=main&subsection=classroom/positive
TAW
“What do I need to write in cursive for?” Ali asked me while we worked on her writing. “Why do I have to write at all? Can’t I just tell you what I want to say and you can write it? I CAN’T do it! I never learned it!” “No, Ali, you can do this. I’m here if you need help, but this is your writing not mine.”
In Kelley Gallagher’s book Teaching Adolescent Writers, weaknesses in the school systems literacy programs are revealed. Illiteracy is still a very real problem in the United States, whether we choose to face that reality or not, it is very real. Students are falling through the cracks, reaching high school grade levels, even graduating while hiding a secret of some level of illiteracy. Can they read? Can they write? Can they do both well? Gallagher offers statistics in Teaching Adolescent Writers that says they cannot and they do not. Students do not write well enough to make them successful in the ‘real world’ of careers and they even fall short of requirements for graduate degrees. Students are simply not delivering. But their education isn’t delivering to them so how is this “problem” addressed and not addressed?
Write. Write. Write and write some more. Students need practice. I remember in high school when I was assigned (in my opinion) ridiculous amounts of writing. Granted it was a writing class but the expectations were enormous. We had requirements for our writing assignments also, a sort of check list to include certain kinds of words, have a certain number of different kinds of endings. I hated it. I only did it because seeing a big fat ‘F’ on my paper scared me. But my hate was as genuine as it comes-pure and simple. Looking back, that class and all that writing, the requirements and the mass amount made me a better writer.
Gallagher is right in suggesting public schools enhance their approach to teaching writing. From what the reports show, most schools are behind and have needs for implementing change. It is the responsibility of the educational system, including parents and the student themselves, to make sure the students are making a successful transition and prepared transition from school to higher education, or into the professional world, with sound skills in literacy.
-Sentence Stalking:
Encourage comprehension monitoring by modeling “think alouds” to identify what is and isn’t understood.
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