Horton Hears a Who! What a wonderful book to have in the classroom...

In my future classroom I would love to have Horton Hears a Who! as a part of my collection. I just feel this is a great book about helping others, standing up for what you believe in, and helping the small people. Every child needs to learn this kind of lesson. I also love Dr. Seuss and believe all of his books are worth reading and are kid friendly. I saw the movie that just came out with my boyfriend and absolutly fell in love. It was such a good movie, and I was suprised my boyfriend liked it as much as he did. After reading the book to take to a classroom tomorrow to share with a student for my Edu 255 class, I knew I would need to add it to my collection. The theme of this book is about helping others no matter how small they are. When Horton hears a small sound he looks around and finds a small speck of dust. The dust has creatures living on it called the Whos. They need help and Horton is the only one for a while that will help him until the other animals finally hear the Whos and decide to help them as well. Horton never gives up in his determination to save the Whos. The main story element exemplified is the theme, because the other animals besides Horton go from wanting to hurt the speck of dust, to wanting to save it. This theme of helping others is greatly illustrated in the end when all of the animals gather around to protect the speck and the kangaroo that wanted to get rid of it most in the beginning, now wants to help the speck. Some questions I could ask students are if they were Horton would they save the whos and why do they think Horton saved them? I would relate this to  the Science curriculum and ask them if they thought there were any planets besides Earth and if they thought they were bigger or smaller? I would ask them if it was important to help a person smaller than them and how they could help a person smaller than them. I would finally ask them why they didn't think the animals believe Horton the first time and if they felt like no one paid attention to them sometimes. An activity I could do with them is have them draw a picture and write a couple of sentences of when they helped someone smaller than them.

What makes writing worth reading?...

Well there are many things that make writing worth reading. People sometimes disagree on what good writing is, but I believe good fiction writing usually needs to have a good plot, characters and story line. A good nonfiction book about a person or another subject needs to typically be accurate.

I think most people would say that writing worth reading is writing that is interesting and appeals to them.
However, this should not be the only thing that makes writing worth reading.

Sometimes it is necessary that we read writing for safety issues like different signs we have to read to drive, recipe instructions, or instructions on how to put something together. This writing might not be interesting, but we have to read it in order to do things the correct way or to be safe.

Many good books are necessary to teach us things, even though some of my textbooks are very boring to me, I still believe it is important for me to read because I am learning about the particular subject I am taking. Sometimes I find that my textbooks are very interesting as well, like my abnormal psychology textbook. It definatly appeals to me.

Writing needs to have merit to it in order to be considered good I guess. Gossip writing can be very entertaining to us all, but I wouldn't really consider it good writing. I don't really feel like I am learning a whole lot from that kind of writing. From a textbook, I might learn about an important subject. From a chapter book I might learn about an important theme presented in the story or I could learn from the characters.

A way a person might be able to tell if a book is quality writing is if they have a pulitzer prize or a Newbery award. Usually these awards are looked at based on if there is quality writing displayed. Thes awards measure the story elements such as themes presented, characters and the story line. Many of these book are good books and quality books as well.

Basically, most writing is worth reading, and a person determines rather the writing is worth reading for themselves.

"Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never hurt me," or will they?...

It is completely false to say that words can never hurt a person. It takes a strong person to say that no words have ever hurt them because everyone has been called a name they don't like or has been hurt by something someone said to them. Even though words might not physically hurt us, they definitely hurt internally. It is not the words that are necessarily bad, it is the way people interpret the words and give them meaning which makes them hurtful. Some words that are hurtful to people are racial slurs which are demeaning to many people.

Children seem to be becoming even more verbally viscous than ever before because of all of the social networking sites that children can use to bully other children. Not only can children be bullys at school, but they also can be verbally abusive through AOL instant messenger, my space, facebook etc. Because of this issue, I think it is very important to sit down with kids and talk about the power that their words have on others. They need to understand that they can really hurt someone by what they say.

Language is very powerful and especially now when the whole world seems to have to be politically correct. When teachers label a child they must use person first language so instead of saying "Schizophrenic Suzie", we must say Suzie who has schizophrenia. We also must not label anyone retarded or gay. Words which are also labels can have a very negative effect on some individuals. Religious holidays are also not allowed to be mentioned anymore in schools. Instead of saying "Merry Christmas," many public places say "Happy Holidays" to not offend people. Public schools are not allowed to sing Christmas songs either. Many people even want to have the words "in God we trust" taken off the dollar bill because they deem it to be offensive. There was also controversy over whether to have the ten commandments up in a courthouse or not.

Anyone who says that words don't hurt, are lying. Words offend people everywhere. This phrase has good intentions, because it is good for children to brush off ugly words said to them, but isn't really true. Children should learn to forgive people for the nasty things other say to them, but sometimes it is hard. The truth is WORDS HURT!

How I learned language when I was little

Well I had to call my mom to see how I learned language and she said I used a blend of both phonics and whole language. She said I used more phonics though and that I had a phonics game at home I used to practice sounding out the letters. My mom said she also believed I learned phonics at school and that I learned how to read fairly quickly. She said even when I was little my parents would read books to me and before long I would have them memorized so if either of them accidently fell asleep, I knew what part they missed and I could turn the pages on cue. I believe it is very amazing how children can easily memorize their favorite book and know when to turn the pages. When I was little I enjoyed reading so much that I made my parents tape me reading. Rewatching that video it seemed like it took me a while to read, but I was able to sound out and read all the words well. My mom said I never really struggled with reading but I do remember struggling a little with speech. I had a tough time saying "library" and had to go into speech therapy for a little bit. My speech never hindered my reading though, that I am aware of.

My previous learning has impacted me greatly today. I enjoy reading and am a fairly fast reader. I have noticed that when helping students read I tend to get them to sound out the word to help them learn it. I guess phonics helped me a lot and I try to help students the way I learned to read best. All of my classes this semester in college have a lot of reading for them so it is important that I use those beginning reading skills to help me. I believe phonics helps students learn language better so I believe I am going to teach that in my classroom. Teaching students memorization is not completly effective in my mind. Although if a child is struggling learning with phonics then I will teach them using whole language. All children are different and some children might learn differently, so I believe as a teacher it is my duty to find the best method of learning that works for that student. As long as my students are able to effectively read, I will be a happy teacher. The method doesn't matter as much as the learning does, that takes place within the child.

The Six Language Arts

What suprised me about the six language arts was that there were so many. I originally believed that reading and writing were the only two language arts. I didn't think to include talking and listening as a part of the language arts, because like Dr. Duncan said most teachers do, I assummed students already knew how to talk and listen and that this wasn't a part of the curriculum. Viewing and visually representing are another part of the six language arts that I forgot to include as a part of the curriculum of language arts.

I believe viewing and visually representing should definatly be apart of language arts because they supplement the original literature. Sometimes students are able to understand the literature better if they view the movie after reading. The internet might have additional activities that students can participate in to supplement their knowledge of the literature. Kidspiration is a great tool to use for visual learners. With this program, students can list the main points of a story in a creative way. Viewing and Visually representing allows students to supplement their knowledge of literature in a creative way.I believe students only benefit more from viewing and visual representation. If Viewing and visual representation were not a part of language arts then students would be missing out on literature illustrated through viewing and visual representation.

My experience with all of the language arts was very positive. More of my language arts time was focused on the language arts that would be thought of first, reading and writing. I enjoyed language arts classes when all of the language arts were included. I distinctly remember one of my language arts classes in middle school where the teacher was pregnant and the entire semester we just read silently. This was very boring and I felt like I learned nothing. I believe students need to be supplemented by all of the language arts. My English 206 class at Meredith kept me very interested in learning because we read outside of class, discussed the literature in class, then towards the end of the semester we watched some movies of the stories representing the different eras of literature. I was able to understand the post modernism era better when my professor showed us episodes of The Simpsons and pointed out the aspects that made this tv show a part of that era. I believe all of the language arts are important especially when used together and one is not more important than the other. My language arts preferences have changed a little, I used to enjoy listening to literature, but now I enjoy viewing and visually representing literature. I believe my language arts preferences will always change depending on what helps me comprehend the literature better. All of the language arts are beneficial to the student and help the student grow in their knowledge and education.

blogging...hmmmmmmm

Well I have not really thought about blogging personally. I have never really thought about getting into it because I feel busy enough as it is. I believe facebook is enough for any person and don't really see the need to twitter or anything else like that. I can understand how this would be beneficial for a class though because you can reflect back on the work in a class. I probably wouldn't like to do this everyday but I think I will like the fact that I am reflecting back upon myself and maybe it will help me understand myself a little more. If I could understand myself a little more that would be very beneficial to me. Hopefully I will grow to enjoy blogging!