Changes over the semester from my learning and experiences in Introduction to Language Arts!!

Wow!! The semester is basically over, and I am moving on to my senior year. That is very hard to believe, exciting and sad at the same time. It feels like just yesterday I pulled up to Meredith college and unloaded my stuff into the freshman dorm. I have learned a lot in these three years that I will take with me into my future. I can't wait to see what my senior year brings. This semester I have grown not only in my studies but also as a person. I have become a lot less anxious than I used to be and more independent. I have really learned a lot from my courses especially my introduction to language arts class!

One thing I realized was that there are six language arts which I never knew before. I never really thought talking and listening were a part of language arts learning. I never really considered them to be and I believe many of my previous teachers did not either because it didn't seem like many of my teachers allowed me to freely speak in class. I also learned about different types of reading which I was able to view in my classroom observation when Mrs. Smith read aloud to the children. I also learned about reading and writing workshops which I was able to observe as well. If my teachers had allowed me to participate in reading and writing workshops, I would've probably liked school more. It was wonderful to see how enthused students were when participating in these workshops and to see how enthused Mrs. Smith was about them when I asked her in the interview. I really believe Powell elementary is doing the right thing by having those children participate in reading and writing workshops because I could tell students were benefitting from them. I know in the future I will implement reading and writing workshops in the classroom because I have seen the benefit from them and I am intrigued by the independent learning that is going on in these workshops. I also learned about the different types of listening and all about phonemes, grapheme, and morphemes which I had never heard about in my life before this class! I also really enjoyed learning about the different stages of spelling, which I know will come in handy when looking at future papers written by students.

I really loved the fact that almost everything I learned about in class I was observing. I believe that really engrained the mateial into my head. I learned so much about writing workshops because almost every time I went to observe that is what I saw. I was so excited to get in the classroom and witness the writing workshop taking place because I knew what was going on within them. In the interview I felt really knowledgable talking to Mrs. Smith about the writing workshops because of what I learned in class. During a reading workshop I observed in Mrs. Smith's class, a little girl was reading and using sticky notes to mark the main idea of the book and other things. I remember learning that students did this in the reading workshop while they were reading. So many things I learned from class I was able to observe in the classroom which reinforced what I learned in class.

The final project in Introduction to language arts helped me learn more about the writing process. I learned about the different steps in the writing process but also practiced each step when I was writing my book. I really enjoyed writing the book, because it gave me a chance to share my story of my life in elementary, middle, high school and college. I was able to be creative in organizing my text and pictures the way I wanted to. I believe this would be a wonderful project for students to take part in because they are able to apply the steps in the writing process and be creative.

Overall, I believe I have learned a lot from my introduction to language arts class this semester. There are many things I am going to do in my classroom such as literature circles and reading and writing workshops. I can't believe this semester is coming to a close, but I can proudly say  have worked hard and learned a lot from my classes and my self. Now its time for summer and preparation for my senior year!!!

The impact of my field experiences on my course learning....

I have really enjoyed my observations/field experiences of the classroom. They have definitely impacted my learning for the course. The observations have helped improve my learning of language arts in the K-6

classroom. I was able to learn about reading and writing workshops in class and then go to the school and actually get to experience these strategies for language arts instruction in the actual classroom. I was able to see the benefits and happy faces of the students that were taking part in the reading and writing workshops.

I was pleased to see that this method of teaching language arts was very beneficial for the students. Mrs. Smith even told me that student testing had improved when they implemented reading and writing workshops into their curriculum. Most of the times when I went to observe, there were few discipline problems and I could tell students were interested in the reading and writing workshops. I think it is great that students can choose what they want to read and that they have a lot of free time during the day to write. I have truly fallen in love with the children in Mrs. Smith's classroom, and they made my experience even more enjoyable. I loved listening to their comments to Mrs. Smith's minilessons and how creative they were with their stories they wrote in their writing workshop.

My reflections show how much I learned from my observations. Usually my reflections were very long because of how much I experienced in the classroom that I had learned from my Education 300 course. This semester I learned and observed reading and writing workshops. From my observations I also learned about fractured fairy tales, biographies, story elements, fables, narratives, and inferencing and drawing conclusions. I thought Mrs. Smith was a very dedicated teacher who wanted the children to succeed. I thought Powell elementary was a good school that I might like to work at in the future. My overall observations allowed me to experience what I learned in Education 300 in a third grade classroom with actual third graders.

Revising and editing...

During class this week you conferred with peers to make revisions/edits to your narrative story. Discuss this experience in your posting this week. Likes? Dislikes? Would this work in a K-5 classroom? What if you are teaching in a middle/secondary content specific classroom? How can you make changes to implement this practice?
I enjoyed getting feedback about my narrative. Usually I feel like I am being criticized when I get feedback about papers, but the way this format of revising and editing was set up I did not feel criticized. I actually agreed with the comments the people made about my paper, and looked forward to correcting it. I believe the person who revised my paper did not give me as much feedback as the person who edited my paper. The conference with the person who I edited with also made it more clear what I needed to correct on my paper. I really liked getting valid and constructive feedback about my paper. I also enjoyed reading another person's paper to revise. The only thing I did not particularly like was the fact that I wasn't quite sure what to revise for. I think there should've been a little more direction as to what to revise. I found myself trying to edit the paper instead of revise it. Usually when I look over a paper I pay attention to the grammar part and don't really focus on revising.
I believe this method of revising and editing would work well in a k-5 classroom. I believe it would work well, because students would be working together in order to better one anothers work. Teachers would benefit from having students revise and edit one anothers papers so that not all of the work is on them. By editing and revising one another's papers, students would become better at revising and editing. This would help students with their grammar. Students would also learn how to take criticism and would learn how to work with their peers better. I believe having peer revisors and editors in the k-5 classroom is very beneficial. The only thing that would need to be implemented would be to give students more time in the revising and editing stage. Also, the teacher should give students specific things to look for when revising.
I believe this also could be used in a middle/secondary classroom in language arts or maybe even in other content areas where they might be writing a paper. The teacher should just make sure the students know what to look for when revising and editing. She should probably make these students go in a little more depth with their revising and editing then in elementary school, because they will know more grammar and have more revising skills.

Overall, I belive peer revising and editing is beneficial to students in k-5 and middle school. I believe it gives students a chance to work with their peers and it helps students become better at revising and editing. It also can free up some time of the teachers so she won't have such a huge job to fill. I really enjoyed revising and editing other peoples papers and received some useful feedback about my own narrative.

Experiences with writing workshops, reading workshops, literature focus units, etc...

What are your experiences with WW, Readers Workshop, Literature Focus Units, Thematic Units or Literature Circles? Discuss your likes, dislikes, pros, cons, etc. to using these types of strategies for LA instruction.

I have had experiences with writing workshops and reading workshops in two classrooms I have observed at Powell Elementary this semester. Mrs. Smith's classroom usally typically participates in a writing workshop when I am observing them. Mrs. Smith does a writing minilesson with the students and then they have free time to write. The students are all in different places in their writing, which I thought was kind of chaotic at first but am now seeing the point of it. Some students conference with Mrs. Smith. I really like the fact that students have more independent time to write what they like to write about. Students are able to have more of an influence on their education. I belive students are also able to be more creative, because they are able to choose what they write about and are not confined or limited to what the teacher asks them to write about.

I have also had the experience of observing a reading workshop at Powell Elementary in a fourth grade classroom I observed. I really enjoyed this experience as well. In the reading workshop I witnessed the teacher giving students a very brief minilesson and then students read and some students read with her through guided reading. I really enjoyed observing the reading workshop because I knew the students were happy reading what they wanted independently. It made me happy to see one student so lost in her book that she didn't even look up once. I remember being in elementary and middle school, being told what to read and not having as much time to read what I wanted to. I really liked the fact that students were able to read what they wanted to and were given this time during the day to do so. The only problem I could see with the reading workshop would be if students did not like reading and did not want to take the free time to read. Some students are just not motivated to read on their own. In Mrs. Smith's class when they were participating in the writing workshop, I saw some students not working as well as others and easily being distracted and not wanting to do their work. This is the only possible problem I could see with these workshops.

I have not had any experience with a literature focus unit, but I know that a literature focus unit is when teachers and students read and respond to one text together as a whole class or in a small group. Teachers choose the text that will be read in these groups, it should be from a high-quality literature selection. This text can coincide with the lesson or unit that the students are learning about. Students can then do projects for better understanding of the unit. I hope that I will eventually have some experience with a Literature focus unit. I believe a literature focus unit could help students better understand the unit they are studying about through literature.

I have had experience with literature circles in my Education 255 class in college. In this class, we have participated in one literature circle where I read The Watsons go to Birmingham-1963, this was a very good book. I really enjoyed participating in this discussion group and I realized that my understanding of the book was so much stronger from having been in this discussion group. I was able to see different aspects of the book that I had not considered. I was also able to gain more knowlege about the parts in the book that I had forgotten or not read as carefully. By having the different tasks to do, everyone in the group has a role they must fufill. Because their are different roles students have to read, it is easy to see who hasn't read because they would not be able to do fully complete their role. One negative thing is students might depend on other students to gain knowlege about the book.

Overall, I believe these strategies for language arts instruction are more beneficial then detrimental. I think it is great that students have more say in their education now. Students are learning more independently and are learning about stuff they are interested in. I believe it is important for educators to continue this type of education because I belive it is making students more interested in language arts instruction and this is being shown in their test scores.

ASSESSMENT!!! AHHHHHH!!!

The first thing that comes to my mind when you bring up assessment is tests, and I do not like tests. Considering I believe I kind of have a little bit of test anxiety, I really do not like tests. I feel like naturally I don't really do as well on tests as others because I get very stressed out. I feel like I didn't do as well on the SAT because I was very stressed out right before I took it. I think I am better about tests than I used to be. I try to think to myself that if you don't do well on a test it doesn't mean you can't do well on the next test; it isn't the end of the world. My parents always told me, "Lori just try your best and study hard before hand and we will be proud of you." This still didn't always calm my nerves, especially before the SAT which determined what college I would get into. Now that I am in college though I am learning that I do worse on tests when I freak out about them before hand then if I just relax and study hard. If I freak out about the test, it is also harder for me to focus on studying for the test.

When I was younger, I was in the top class in school and many of my classmates were being pulled out for A.G. and I soon realized I was not being pulled out. I guess when they did the assesment at school, I did not demonstrate that I was smart enough to be in A.G. I was so distraught about this that I told my parents, and they took me to see a special psychologist who specialized in testing students for A.G. He determined that I was equipped to be in that class and I got pulled out like the other students. I probably got nervous while being tested and did not do as well as the others. I will never forget what happened to me because of testing. I felt very ostracized and lonely when almost my entire class went to A.G. and I did not because I did bad on one test one day!

Now I believe it is so hard for students and teachers, because so much emphasis is placed on the EOG's. Teachers have a hard time getting everything in before the EOG and are therefore mainly teaching what is going to be on the EOG. I believe students and teachers would rather be learning material they are interested in but instead have to focus more on the EOG. Even more emphasis is now placed on the EOG because of the No Child Left Behind Act. As a future teacher I know a lot of emphasis will have to be placed on the EOG's but I am going to make sure I still teach what students are interested in so that they will stay engaged in school. I think it is important to assess students to see where they are in their learning but there also can be too much assessment going on. I believe I will asess students when I need to and make sure they are learning the basic concepts I am teaching, but I will not over assess them. I also am not going to put pressure on them and make them feel like if they don't do well they are failures. Reality is that students have bad days and don't always do their best on tests and as teachers we need to be understanding of this. I know I will be understanding of my students so that they don't grow up to have testing anxiety and so that they are better equipped to handle the pressures of assessment.

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.