Impact Project
I am in the process of completing my impact project to fulfill my student teaching requirements and to graduate on December 12th, 2010 with a B.S. in Elementary Education!!! When I have completed it, I will post a file and share it with the world!
Much love.
Multi-Text Study
Hello all, it has been a while! 
As a part of my reading methods class at Appalachian State University in the spring of 2010, I was required to create a multi-text study with a group of pre-service teachers. We based our project on a fourth grade level and we used a series of ten Cinderella stories to base our main study on. The multi-text study has vocabulary and character trait activities, along with an internet workshop and a few artistic integrations as well. This multi-text study is well rounded and could be used by any teacher working in the fourth grade. If you would like to view it please click on the link below.
EXCITEMENT!!
Just FYI. . .I’m going to the BEACH today. . .and I am SO excited!!!
I plan on posting pictures when I get back!! I hope you all have a beautiful spring break!!
P.S. When you’re bored and surfing the web, click here. Hehehe.
The Importance of Vocabulary
I want to take you back in time. You’re in the fourth grade and you’re about to read a passage aloud with the whole class. Your friend Joey finishes reading this sentence: “She delicately squeezed the icing tube , and she created flawless flowers all around the edges of the wedding cake.” Your teacher asks you, “What do you think delicately means?” You’re panicking now, right?!
In the intermediate grades, children often hesitate to state what they truly think the answer is. However, it is crucial that we as educators ensure that our students have good vocabularies. Studies show that the less vocabulary a child knows, the harder it will be for them to continue reading on their grade level. Pronunciation of words may not be the issue for a child, and he/she could just be passed onto the next grade level without a good comprehension of their vocabulary. In my opinion, a child cannot own a word until they KNOW what it means. In my case, I can read in German all day long, but I only know a small bit of what any of it means. Reading it is not the problem, but understanding it is! This is why we as educators need to ask our students questions like “What do you think that means?” or “Can you give me a definition of that word?”. Children don’t always like it, but they need to be aware of what the words on the page mean. It’s for THEIR benefit!
We also need to teach our students strategies that they can use in order to “decode” new words. Context clues, breaking words down into root words (morphology), and even grabbing a dictionary for a quick definition are all great suggestions for children. Students with a higher vocabulary usually have greater comprehension, thus when encountering new words, they will be able to decode the word’s meaning quicker.
As you could assume, teaching vocabulary and decoding strategies for new words is a MUST!!! If you want to read more about how vocabulary is incredibly crucial to our students’ academic growth, read this article by clicking here. You can also click here for a detailed packet on vocabulary instruction in the classroom!
P.S. Please visit my Pirates (Arghh) page, and read the section on Peter and the Starcatchers. There, I talk about some additional vocabulary building techniques when teaching with great literature!
One More Double Entry Diary Example!
In the blog post below, you will find where I completed another double entry diary for another book. I have completed a 2nd one on another children’s book about pirates! The book is called What If You Met A Pirate? Enjoy!
| From the book What If You Met a Pirate: | What it means to me: |
| Quote: “Most died from disease, especially in the tropics. Pirates who died in battles were rare, but not as rare as old pirates.” (p. 4) | Reaction: Growing up, I always had this perspective on how pirates lived these cruel and ruthless lives, stealing treasure and drinking rum all day. I guess these misconceptions are still taught in schools today. |
| Passage: Flogging-The offending sailor was tied up and whipped with the cat o’ nine tails. This type of whip had nine hard cords, and each cord had three hard knots. Ouch! (p. 6) | Reaction: I think that this punishment was harsh, but these men were harsh all around. They stole from good people, and there is no excuse for that. |
| Quote: “Pirates wanted weatherly boats-usually sloops or schooners that could sail closer to the direction of the wind than the heavy, square-rigged warships sent to capture them.” (p. 10) | Inference: The sloops and schooners were the smallest of the types of boats that pirates normally sailed on. I assume that these boats were easier to guide through storms than the larger ones, and that they went faster. |
| Quote: “THEY WORKED. HARD.” (p. 14) | Inference: I know that pirates had to work hard everyday that they sailed. They were constantly changing the sails according to the wind. Those sails were huge and I know they must have been heavy! |
| Quote: “Pirate life was hard, but fair.” (p. 16) | Inference: On every pirate ship, there were no pirates that received more goods than another. They shared it all equally because they all worked equally hard to pirate everyday. |
| Quote: “The real trick was to take a prize without getting a lot of people killed.” (p.20) | Reaction: The pirates did what they had to do to get their goods; they were pirates! I don’t think that they really wanted to hurt or kill anyone in the process. I’m sure that some pirates probably wept over losses of friends and fellow sailors. |
Double Entry Diary Example
This is an example of a Double Entry Diary for one of the children’s books that I am currently reading about pirates! The book is called Pirate Diary-The Journal of Jake Carpenter. To read more about what a “DED” is and how it can be used in the classroom, please read the blog post directly below this one!
From the book: What it means to me:
| Quote: “I’ll make sure you’re belly is never empty if you learn me my letters.” (p. 11) | Inference: I think that pirates probably often made deals with other pirates aboard ships to keep themselves alive and safe. It seems like most pirates were just out for themselves during that time. |
| Quote: “The only man the captain will listen to is Noah. As first mate, he takes orders from the captain. In truth, Noah manages the ship-and the captain too.” (p. 17) | Reaction: It makes sense to me that the first mate would basically be running the ship. Many leaders of today have servants and assistants working underneath them to fulfill their duties. |
| Quote: “The first to leap across was a tall, red-bearded man dressed in a fine frock coat. He led a crowd of perhaps twenty pirates toward the quarterdeck.” (p. 22) | Cause: Jake’s ship had been tricked into an attack by another pirate ship. This often occurred during piratical times, as it was a way for pirates to easily steal even more stolen goods for themselves. |
| Quote: “If we jump ship we have not a penny. Yet if we stay aboard we are slaves.” (p. 23) | Inference: It seems like if you were a pirate on a ship back in those days, that you probably didn’t have much say in how you were treated. A lot of pirates probably had no choice but to become pirates themselves, as they weren’t given a lot of freedom. They couldn’t just swim to shore! |
| Quote: ““The anchor’s dragging! I’ll let go the sheet anchor.” This is a reserve, only used in the direst emergencies.” (p. 49) | Reaction: Had that been me in that storm, I would have been so afraid. I get frightened easily when any kind of thunder/lightning storm happens at my house! |
| Quote: “I am most relieved that you have forsworn piracy. You will no longer be a threat to South Carolina or a danger to the good people of Charleston.” (p. 53) | Reaction: I think that even though Jake was probably for the most part relieved to not be a pirate anymore, he will probably miss pirating just a little. He made friendships on his ship and became used to that lifestyle. |
Double-Entry Diaries!!
So I loved keeping a diary as a little girl. . .actually, I still kind of keep one. I feel like it helps me to better remember precious moments in my life when I write how I feel about them. So why not take this idea into the classroom?
As I have been walking through a 4th grade piratical unit in my upper-elementary grades reading course, I have discovered so many educational classroom approaches that children love. I know this is true for this piratical unit because it has been tested! A variety of 4th grade classes at Hardin Park Elementary in Boone, NC have worked through this unit over a period of time, and the feedback along with the learning experiences of these children have been positive!
A double-entry diary (DED) is a way for students to reflect on information found in books, magazines, websites, journals, etc. In one column, students record information they find within their text, and in the second column, they write about how it makes them feel, or what they think the information means. In this way, students retain information better because they are able to write it down, along with their opinions and inferences about it, thus making the information more meaningful to them. The idea for using a DED in this piratical unit is for students to collect important information about pirates by reading the following books: What If You Met a Pirate? (Jan Adkins) and Pirate Diary-The Journal of Jake Carpenter (Richard Platt).
I really enjoyed reading the first book (What If You Met a Pirate?). It was so much more interesting than reading a boring text book. This book had beautiful illustrations, labels pointing to pirate gear and accessories, maps, and timelines! It was very interesting and meaningful to me as I read through it! The second book (Pirate Diary-The Journal of Jake Carpenter) was awesome too! It gave a pirate’s perspective of being at sea and living day to day as a pirate through a diary-type of text. When children view this, they will already be thinking about diaries and how they are written. This should help in introducing the DED idea to students and they WILL benefit from this type of research! If you would like to read more on DEDs and how it was implemented in the 4th grade classes, please click here, and read this article for yourself!
Yo Ho Ho!
I Poetry. . .What is that?
“I Poetry”…what could that mean? It isn’t quite like the poems you would read by Emily Dickenson, nor from Shel Silverstein. These are the poems that clearly define the poet behind them.
But wait; doesn’t each poet do that already when they write a poem? Doesn’t it come from within them?
The answer is yes. However, the way they interpret their poem is all their own. When poetry is composed in the classroom as a way to reflect on certain knowledge, a famous person in history, or individual character, it is often called “I Poetry”. The poet usually writes as if he or she is describing him/herself or another person. This type of poetry allows for students to get creative and think deeply on what they recognize within themselves, or someone else. These poems are always written in the first person, giving the poet a chance to be innovative in how they choose to reveal their understanding of a character, a historical figure, or themselves.
I have written an “I Poem” in the spirit of Blackbeard! He was a notorious pirate from the 1700s, and children would love to write poems inspired by his typical piratical nature. You can check it out on my Pirates (Arghh) page, or just click here. You will find a link on this page where you can hear me recite this poem as well!
Because I enjoyed writing the piratical “I Poem”, I wrote one about myself as well. You can find it here on my poetry page. You will also find another link on this page where you can hear me recite this poem as well!
To learn more about “I Poetry”, open this powerpoint and save it for yourself!
I Poetry (Developed by Beth Frye, Katie Blackburn, and Kelley Wilson)
Response to Integrating Instruction-Level Social Studies Trade Books for Struggling Readers in Upper Elementary Grades
Ok, first of all, that was an insanely long title. Sorry about that.
Second of all, this article speaks VOLUMES! We as educators (and future educators) know that in order to give the best education possible to our students, we have to get on their level of learning. It will do our students no good if we simply teach the ONE way we want to, all day, every day. Though our ways of teaching will reach most of our average level students, the few exceptional children we are bound to have in our classrooms will either struggle, or grow bored of our routine. The lack of accommodation in a classroom is like blowing air into a busted balloon; without proper accommodations, improvement will be a lot less likely to happen in students that have exceptionalities.
But HOW can we as educators teach our students the same material if we accommodate?
First, we need to conduct assessments among all of our students at the beginning, the middle, and the ending of each school year. This way, we can examine academic growth, and properly judge the instructional level each student is on throughout the course of the year. After this is completed at the beginning of the school year, we can accurately assign reading material to our students that would not only be relevant to the curriculum, but also relevant to their individual instructional-levels. Assigned reading material should never be easy for the student; it should be challenging enough to spark interest, but easy enough for the student to read silently.
This article mainly focused on using social studies trade books in place of text books, when accommodating for struggling readers. I agree with this approach, but I think if we as educators can get as far away from text books as possible with ALL of our students, the better learning experience our students will have. I will be honest; I don’t remember anything memorable from upper elementary social studies, because the name of the game was to read the section as fast as you could, answer the stupid questions at the end, then maybe we could go outside early and play. We never read fun books with significant information about what we were studying; THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME.
I hope as an educator, I can live up to my teaching standards! I know it’s difficult to accomplish superb teaching skills when we have our hands tied with so many other responsibilities, but I know it’s worth it for the students in the end. Who knows, maybe I’ll be some child’s favorite teacher one day. If that’s all I ever accomplish as a teacher, then I would be satisfied!
Response to Shared Reading Article
After reading this article, it became apparent to me that the opinions of educators vary across certain issues as to how to best adhere to our students’ needs.
There is no doubt in my mind that shared reading ought to be implemented into the daily lesson plans of elementary teachers; especially in the primary grades. These are the years that children really need to be exposed to entertaining and educational literature in the classroom, so that they will hopefully enjoy reading as they grow older. Shared reading helps children to comprehend the meaning of stories and passages, and it also seems to boost their confidence in reading aloud in class as their reading skills improve.
As these educators had different answers as to why shared reading is important and how it should be implemented in the classroom, I found that the authors of the two piratical readings I just finished had some differing information and opinions on the life of Blackbeard as well. While researching the life of Blackbeard on the National Geographic website for Kids, and after reading the Not-So-Jolly Roger, the information on Blackbeard varied between the two sources. Some of the information collided, while some of it coincided perfectly. I think it is very important that we as educators should make it clear that while researching a topic, not all of the correct information can be found via one single source. If you think about it, you really just need to break the word “research” down. Re-, meaning to perform a task more than once, and -Search, meaning to look for something. Explaining this breakdown may help students to better understand the meaning and importance of research, and why multiple sources need to be used to find the correct answers to their questions.
