Today we shared our individual readings through the jigsaw activity. For this post, please comment on another reading that you did not speak upon in class. Try to share a short summary and anything interesting that you think is worth sharing with the class. 

This is the last blog post!!! As per Prof. Jackson's request, any blog post that you have not commented on, please make sure that you do so by Monday so she can complete her grading as soon as possible. Thank you all, it was nice having class with you! 

--Mellisa

MRS. YOUNG VISIT  --

Our guest speaker this week spoke on students with disabilities. As teachers we are required to follow the guidelines that students' IEP and 504 plan set up. However, these are some questions that I would like you to consider to think upon:

1)How much care do we give to students with special needs? Do we simply follow the IEP or do we go beyond the means based on what we as teachers "believe" is right for our student?
2) How do you, if you do, inform the other students within the class that their fellow peer is special needs? (Not only applying to those with educational needs, but physical and health wise also).
3)Do you attempt to make changes to the curriculum for students that have not been diagnosed/ gotten an IEP/504 plan?

I am also sharing the novel that Mrs. Young spoke about in the presentation which is
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida. 

I also found this link that list simple steps to engage our students. I think it is helpful to look at whenever you need a reminder on easy ways to engage students.

http://www.pointloma.edu/experience/academics/centers-institutes/center-teaching-learning/teaching-tips/8-ways-engage-students

There are times when a student wants to learn, but simply does not have the motivation to. Engaging our students is a huge part of achieving the growth mindset through our students. Many look at video games and class activities as a waste of time in the class. Think back to when you were a younger student. What are some memorable "hooks" that some of your teachers used to engage you? Did you find them to be useful to LEARNING, or was it just for fun?In this blog post I'm asking you to comment on the usage of games, activities, and manipulatives within the classroom. Do you think that they are a waste or a vital part of education? 

The Handmaid's Tale Excerpt - Yenny, Task 3 Presentation

I
Night
1


We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; themusic lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh. 

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an after-thought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children's, and army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.
No guns though, even they could not be trustedwith guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren't allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren't allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us. 

They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well. If only they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged,we thought, some deal made, some tradeoff, we still had our bodies. That was our fantasy. 

We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semi-darkness we could stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and touch each other's hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed: 

Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June. 

II
Shopping
2


A chair, a table, a lamp. Above, on the white ceiling, a relief ornament in the shape of a wreath, and in the center of it a blank space, plastered over, like the place in a face where the eye has been taken out. There must have been a chandelier, once. They've removed anything you could tie a rope to.


A window, two white curtains. Under the window, a window seat with a little cushion. When the window is partly openit only opens partlythe air can come in and make the curtains move. I can sit in the chair,or on the window seat, hands folded, and watch this. Sunlight comes in through the window too, ami falls on the floor, which is made of wood, in narrow strips, highly polished. I can smell the polish. There's a rug on the floor, oval, of braided rags. This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare time, from things that have no further use. A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do 1 want?


On the wall above the chair, a picture, framed but with no glass: a print of flowers, blue irises, watercolor. Flowers are still allowed, Does each of us have the same print, the same chair, the same while curtains, I wonder? Government issue?


Think of it as being in the army, said Aunt Lydia.


A bed. Single, mattress medium-hard, covered with a flocked white spread. Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed.There's a lot that doesn't bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last. I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.


So. Apart from these details, this could be a college guest room, for the less distinguished visitors; or a room in a rooming house, of former times, for ladies in reduced circumstances. That is what we are now. The circumstances have been reduced; for those of us who still have circumstances.


But a chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to be dismissed. I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight. Where I am is not a prison but a privilege, as Aunt Lydia said, who was in love with either/or.


The bell that measures time is ringing. Time here is measured by bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few mirrors.


I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in their red shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The red gloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my hands, finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen. I never looked good in red, it's not my color. I pick up the shopping basket, put it over my arm.


The door of the room - not my room, I refuse to say my - is not locked. In fact it doesn't shut properly. I go out into the polished hallway,which has a runner down the center, dusty pink. Like a path through the forest, like a carpet for royalty, it shows me the way.


The carpet bends and goes down the front staircase and I go with it, one hand on the banister, once a tree, turned in another century, rubbed to a warm gloss. Late Victorian, the house is, a family house, built for a large rich family. There's a grandfather clock in the hallway, which doles out time, and then the door to the motherly front sitting room, with its flesh tones and hints. A sitting room in which I never sit, but stand or kneel only. At the end of the hallway, above the front door, is a fanlight of colored glass: flowers, red and blue.


There remains a mirror, on the hall wall. If I turn my head so that the white wings framing my face direct my vision towards it, I can see it as I go down the stairs, round, convex, a pier glass, like the eye of a fish, and myself in it like a distorted shadow, a parody of something, some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a moment of carelessness that is the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in blood.


At the bottom of the stairs there's a hat-and-umbrella stand, the bentwood kind, long rounded rungs of wood curving gently up into hooks shaped like the opening fronds of a fern. There are several umbrellas in it: black, for the Commander, blue, for the Commander's Wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red. I leave the red umbrella where it is, because I know from the window that the day is sunny. I wonder whether or not the Commander's Wife is in the sitting room. She doesn't always sit. Sometimes 1 can hear her pacing back and forth, a heavy step and then a light one, and the soft tap of her cane on the dusty-rose carpet.


I walk along the hallway, past the sitting room door and the door that leads into the dining room, and open the door at the end of the hall and go through into the kitchen. Here the smell is no longer of furniture polish. Rita is in here, standing at the kitchen table, which has a top of chipped white enamel. She's in her usual Martha's dress, which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before. The dress is much like mine in shape, long and concealing, but with a bib apron over it and without the white wings and the veil. She puts on the veil to go outside, but nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha. Her sleeves are rolled in the elbow, showing her brown arms. She's making bread, throwing the loaves for the final brief kneading and then the shaping.


Rita sees me and nods, whether in greeting or in simple acknowledgment of my presence it's hard to say, and wipes her floury hands on her apron and rummages in the kitchen drawer for the token book. Frowning, she tears out three tokens and hands them to me. Her face might be kindly if she would smile. But the frown isn't personal: it's the red dress she disapproves of, and what it stands for. She thinks I may be catching, like a disease or any form of bad luck.


Sometimes I listen outside closed doors, a thing I never would have done in the time before. I don't listen long, because I don't want to be caught doing it. Once, though, I heard Rita say to Cora I hat she wouldn't debase herself like that.


Nobody asking you, Cora said. Anyways, what could you do, supposing?


Go to the Colonies, Rita said. They have the choice.


With the Unwomen, and starve to death and Lord knows what all? said Cora. Catch you.


They were shelling peas; even through the almost-closed door I could hear the light clink of the hard peas falling into the metal howl. I heard Rita, a grunt or a sigh, of protest or agreement.


Anyways, they're doing it for us all, said Cora, or so they say. If I hadn't of got my tubes tied, it could of been me, say I was ten years younger. It's not that bad. It's not what you'd call hard work.


Better her than me, Rita said, and I opened the door. Their faces were the way women's faces are when they've been talking about you behind your back and they think you've heard: embarrassed, but also a little defiant, as if it were their right. That day, Cora was more pleasant to me than usual, Rita more surly.


Today, despite Rita's closed face and pressed lips, I would like to stay here, in the kitchen. Cora might come in, from somewhere else in the house, carrying her bottle of lemon oil and her duster, and Rita would make coffee in the houses of the Commanders there is still real coffee and we would sit at Rita's kitchen table, which is not Rita's any more than my table is mine, and we would talk, about aches and pains, illnesses, our feet, our backs, all the different kinds of mischief that our bodies, like unruly children, can get into. We would nod our heads as punctuation to each other's voices, signaling that yes, we know all about it. We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each other in the recital of our physical miseries; gently we would complain, our voices soft and minor key and mournful as pigeons in the eaves troughs. I know what you mean, we'd say. Or, a quaint expression you sometimes hear, still, from older people: I hear where you're coming from, as if the voice itself were a traveler, arriving from a distant place. Which it would be, which it is.


How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk. An exchange, of sorts.


Or we would gossip. The Marthas know things, they talk among themselves, passing the unofficial news from house to house. Like me, they listen at doors, no doubt, and see things even with their eyes averted. I've heard them at it sometimes, caught whiffs of their private conversations. Stillborn, it was. Or, Stabbed her with a knitting needle, right in the belly. Jealousy, it must have been, eating her up. Or, tantalizingly, It was toilet cleaner she used. Worked like a charm, though you'd think he'd of tasted it. Must've been that drunk; but they found her out all right. 


Or I would help Rita make the bread, sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of touch.


But even if I were to ask, even if I were to violate decorum to that extent, Rita would not allow it. She would be too afraid. The Marthas are not supposed to fraternize with us.


Fraternize means to behave like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have to be, he said. From the Latin. He liked knowing about such details. The derivations of words, curious usages. I used to tease him about being pedantic, I take the tokens from Rita's outstretched hand. They have pictures on them, of the things they can be exchanged for tweleve eggs, a piece of cheese, a brown thing that's supposed to be a steak. I place them in the zippered pocket in my sleeve, where 1 keep my pass.


"Tell them fresh, for the eggs," she any. "Not like the last time. And a chicken, tell them, not a hen. Tell them who It's for and then they won't mess around."


"All right," I say. I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?

Jane Smiley Lecture

Pulitzer Prize-winning Novelist Jane Smiley to Speak about “The Writing Process”

Teaneck, NJ – On Thursday, April 23, 2015, celebrated novelist Jane Smiley will be the featured presenter at Fairleigh Dickinson University bi-annual Gene Barnett Speaker Series, offering insight and tips on the writing process.

Smiley is the author of 14 novels including A Thousand Acres (1991), modeled on Shakespeare’s King Lear, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992 and later adapted into a film. Her most recent novel, Some Luck (2014), the first entry in a planned trilogy about the history of a farming family, the Langdons, was long listed for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction. Smiley has also published five young adult novels and two collections of short stories.

Among Smiley’s many nonfiction works are a biography of Charles Dickens (2002), “A Year at the Races” (2004), a memoir of her experiences as a racehorse owner, and “Thirteen ways of Looking at the Novel” (2005). Smiley has also authored a variety of essays in a wide range of magazines such as The New Yorker, Harper’s and The Nation.

Born in Los Angeles, CA, Smiley received a B.A. in literature at Vassar College and a M.A., M.F.A. and PhD at Iowa University. From 1981-1996, she was a professor of English at Iowa State University.

The lecture will be Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 8 p.m. in the Wilson Auditorium, Dickinson Hall, on the Hackensack side of the campus. Copies of Smiley’s books will be sale and signing after the Q & A session.

The evening is open to the general public with tickets at $10 per person. Tickets will be available at the door starting at 7:15 p.m. on the night of the lecture. The cost is free to faculty, staff and students with valid FDU IDs. There are no advanced ticket sales or reserved seating. If there are groups of 10 or more call (201) 692-7032 and group seating will be arranged. For additional information, call (201) 692-7028.
 

Source: http://view2.fdu.edu/fdu-whats-new/press-releases/2014/03/pulitzer-prize-winning-novelist-jane-smiley-to-speak-about-the-writing-process/

Before I post the question, try exploring or writing down this website as a PAARC resource. You (as the teacher) can prepare PAARC like questions using your curriculum to help better prepare students.

www.edcite.com

The articles/chapters we read for this week focused on the importance of classroom management and the environment of the classroom. Do you believe classrooms need rules and why? How important do you think the environment of your classroom is in relation to student learning? What type of classroom culture would you like for your future classroom? One that fits the learning activities you have planned for your students or will you let your classroom take on a character of its own?

In the article School Culture, the author explains how there are four basic purposes served by public schools in America today:

• Intellectual
• Political and civic
• Economic
• Social 

the author goes on to say that most public schools fulfill all four of these goals in some manner but most usually see only ONE of the purposes as primary and the others as secondary. Do you believe that the purposes listed above are accurate attributes to describe the purpose of today's American schools? Do you believe that each of these purposes are equally important or is one superior over another? If forced, what purpose would you choose as the most important.

In the article How to Assess Higher Thinking Skills in Your Classroom, the author says that some sort of planing tool (the most common being a blueprint which is a plan that indicates the balance of content knowledge and thinking skills intended in your learning targets) is needed to ensure that the initial learning goals set for the lesson are met. Why is it important to have some type of planning tool (like a blueprint) to lead your lessons? Would lessons be less effective without the use of a blueprint?

"Teaching Students with Disabilities"

This article states that the best ways to accommodate students with disabilities in the classroom are to:

1. Show and tell
2. Tell it again (and again)
3. Stick to the routine
4. Control the climate
5. Stay flexible
6. Know what's fair

How well do these strategies apply to each type of disability or disorder? Specifically:

• Specific Learning Disabilities,
• Visual/Auditory Processing Disorders,
• Speech/Language Impairments,
• Developmental Disabilities,
• Emotional Disturbances, and other
• Other Health Impairments

Differentiated Instruction in the English Classroom

The article suggests ice-breakers for the teacher to understand their students as well as provides students the opportunity to get to know one another. However, the ideas of the ice-breakers may not be inclusive to ELL students or students with social anxieties in terms of intermingling in such a setting with their peers. Could you recommend a way to re-work the "Get to know me" ice breaker that could accommodate these types of students situations? Could you suggest perhaps a different ice breaker that could be interactive in a different way?

Teaching for Equity

The article "Teaching for Equity and Justice" calls for classroom practices that are

• Grounded in students' lives,
• Involving critical thinking,
• Multicultural, anti-bias, and pro-justice,
• Participatory and experiential,
• Hopeful, kind, and visionary,
• Activist,
• Academically rigorous, and
• Culturally sensitive.

We all know that we need to find a way to include multicultural stories and perspectives in our classrooms. But what do we do if the curriculum we're given doesn't have "enough" diversity? How can we supplement what we are given with several perspectives, all within a small amount of instructional time?

1. What aspects of your classroom management strategy incorporate these traits?
2. What parts of your instructional strategy allow for hands-on work, engagement, and academic diversity?
3. How would you respond to a student or parent who expresses distress over our history of racism (as in "Unsung Heroes" by Howard Zinn). How would you respond to a student or parent who expresses dissatisfaction (racism, homophobia, conservatism, etc.) over your curricular choices?

Accommodating Literacy Strategies to a Class's Needs

In my Creative Nonfiction Class, my professor decided that we needed help writing stories that had fully-realized endings and themes.

So he gave us a packet of deconstructed essays that had been submitted earlier in the semester. Each page of the packet included the first few sentences of a narrative essay, with just enough information to place the reader in time and space, but not to provide any more context.

Then, he gave us a page with those chosen essays in chart form.

I've recreated the page here, using quotes from books that are popular in middle and high schools.

The Quentin Tarantino ending was actually a thing on the original activity.

Each column included a key element of the original essay, with everything but the opening passage very vague and paraphrased.

He split the class up into groups of 4-5 and had each group roll a dice four times. (There were six options on his list.) One group could get the numbers 2, 4, 3, 1, for example; this meant that they had to choose the second option from the first column, the fourth option from the second column, and so on. So, a group with those numbers would have to construct a (fictionalized) story starting with the opening sentence of 1984, using the mood from To Kill a Mockingbird, following the theme from The Great Gatsby, and concluding with a similar ending to The Hunger Games. Get it?

Then he had each group split up to do the shared-timed-writing exercise.

You know, that one where you write for ten minutes and then pass the story on to the next person so see where they take it.

He instructed us to make sure we read the entire story before beginning to add on to the end.

He made sure that every person wrote the ending to the story they had started. That was the point of the whole thing: we had to bring our stories to a close.

What really struck me about this exercise was that he had accommodated a common and often bizarre writing activity into something that would help the class. Normally, I don't like this strategy. Too often, it's just a test of students' on-the-spot creativity, and it results in some crazy and not-very-good stories.

But the quality of the stories didn't matter for this adjustment, because we were focusing on pulling all of these conflicting requirements together into a fully-realized story. Unwittingly, we were learning how to take things like character, setting, mood, and theme, and bringing them together into an effective conclusion.

So the activity was both fun and helpful.

So, based on this...

 

What are some activities that you have participated in or can think of that take a well-worn strategy and flip it on its head?

 

Think about a literary strategy we have discussed in class. In what ways can you adjust it to fit a class's needs? Say your class needs to focus on a particular element of grammar, or thesis statements, or concluding paragraphs. How can you tailor a literacy strategy to those needs?

Word Morph Game

Let's get a word morph game started! As a refresher, a word morph has you change one letter at a time to slowly transform a word into something completely different. You may rearrange the letters to make it work.

I'll do the first two. Each person make one morph at a time and watch it unfold!

imagine

meaning

Cartoons about Education & English/Language Arts

I found this cartoon a few years ago in the newspaper. It's from the comic strip Get Fluffy. 

Feel free to share the cartoons you found in the comments below!

Websites on Grammar & Mechanics

Feel free to claim the websites you found on grammar in the comments below!

It Ain't Easy to be Teaching (in the 21st century)

Standard English and Non-Standard Speakers

Hey, guys, hope you had a good weekend. This week I decided to focus on the article we had to read about Teaching English to Non-Standard English Speakers. This is a common topic in the Education world because students who know English as a second language are becoming more and more common in our classrooms, or even just students who struggle with English, and that's great. Teaching these students and helping them become more proficient in English can be incredibly rewarding, I'm sure, but first you have to figure out how you help and teach these students. Going off the article, what do you think about the ideas mentioned in it? Do you agree or disagree with them? Lastly, what are some strategies you think would be beneficial and useful in teaching these Non-Standard English speakers?

Your favorite activity?

For homework this week, we had to take a look at three different videos from the Teaching Channel website. Between the Silent Tea Party, Text Graffiti, and the SIFT Method, what did you find was your favorite activity? Which of them would you like to one day implement in your own classroom, and why? What did you like about this activity specifically? Every teacher has their own way of doing things, so how would you change the activity to fit your style and your classroom?

PARCC Discussion

This week we're going to talk about the PARCC, since we're focusing so much on it in class. First off, what do you think of the new state test? What is your opinion of it? After reading the two articles Professor Jackson gave us on the PARCC, what do you think are good aspects of it, and what are some bad aspects? What do you think works, or doesn't work, if anything. Do you think that it's a reliable test in terms of determining whether a student is at "grade level"? If not, why do you believe that it is not reliable? Finally, if you had a child or children, would you tell them to take the PARCC, or would you opt out like some other parents are doing?

Watch Ken Robinson Discuss Education Reform

For this week, let's keep it simple. Watch the following video and in the comments section, post a reaction to Mr. Robinson's ideas. It can be anything as long as it addresses something Mr. Robinson says in his speech. 

If you can't view the above video, you may access it by clicking here.

4 books, 2 plays, 2 films, and 4 poems

At the end of our last class, Professor Jackson asked us to create a list of literature that we would want to use in our assigned grade level classrooms. Although it was impossible to do so in 5 minutes, we did discuss how having a theme for the year might help us single out grade appropriate novels and such.

For this week's blog assignment, please pick a grade level and a theme and then list at least one book, one play, one poem, and one film (yes, it can be a movie adaptation of a novel or play) that would fulfill those parameters and explain your choices. Please do not repeat grade levels or themes (books and other literature may be repeated). Finally, respond to at least one other response with a questions, suggestions, constructive criticism, or any other comments that come to mind. 

Check out this resource. It might help with your responses.       

Teaching Growth Mindset: Develop a Game Plan

After watching Professor Carol Dweck's lecture at Young Minds 2013 about teaching growth mindset (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXhbtCcmsyQ), develop a game plan that will introduce this concept to your students and how you will measure student progress and acknowledge students that exhibit growth mindset habits. Be sure to mention what grade level you're teaching and, if relevant to your plan, what subject.

This plan doesn't have to be comprehensive, but it should be well-developed enough to serve as a foundation for a plan that will be utilized in future practice. Your plan should definitely include how you will address growth mindset training in the very first week of class.  Have fun. Be creative. I look forward to your ideas!