Group teach Poetry

I thought that the experience our group had teaching about poetry went very well. As a group we looked through the book of 20 poetry writing exercizes and picked ones that interested us and thought would be a good lesson.

I really thought that through the read-around there were really good poems written from the different activities that we presented. The first two were obviously easier activities that would be done earlier in the year, which that knowledge could then be built upon. Both the I am Poem and the Found poem were good starters and were a good way for students to understand how to edit poetry. With the "I Am Poem" you can have your students build off on the lines that they created, adding different poetic elements. The found poem is really all about editing language found in any kind of topic. The latter poem activites, memory mapping/ list poems, and the confession poems, required a little bit more thought and creativity, and were better suited for writing done later in the year. This is why we chose to go in the order we did. I think this went well.

My activity was the found poem. I was very pleased with the outcome of the poems. i wanted to do this because i like hands on activites where you can cut and paste and make writing more colorful. the only issue I had was I think I handed out the materials a little too soon. It was hard to get everyone's attention when they had things to look at. So I would have changed that. In a future class I would probably have the students stick to one article and keep the poems more focused, but they turned out to be very creative and varied. This is a fun activity, but in a classroom, you would need to have really good classroom management skills, especially for younger students.

Teaching college kids (and English majors) new poetry activities is a little different than teaching real high school / middle school students. I did a poetry lesson in my pre-internship and it went well, but they of course need a little more guidence and push to be creative. In the process of the group teach I learned all the different methods we taught, and really think that I will use them in the future.

group teach communitites

I was a little confused by the communities discussion towards the end of the class. I didn't really see how it was addressing building classroom communities. It was more about communities in general. I think we got a little off topic discussing racial issues, although relevant to communities.

I really liked the activity where we had to write a poem based off a picture we had. Some of the classmates said they forgot that they were supposed to relate it to communities, and working together in one. But it was great to create empathy and put yourself in someone elses shoes.

I was not in class for the second presentation, but I discussed it with a classmate, and it seemed like a great way to understand how power and oppression has been started and continued in communities, and the difficulties that it takes for some groups to get lifted out.

The group did a good job of presenting their topic. I just didn't get much out of creating classroom communities. Maybe I missed that when I was gone, or that wasn't really what they were trying to teach.

Gilmore Chap 5 on-demand essay revison

I really liked the checklist provided in Gilmore. It gives the student an actual strategy. I never even thought about revising test essays on my own work. I just write them as soon as I can and turn them in; plus i didn't want too many scratch marks on my paper. Now I see that the extra time I had could have gotten me a better grade.

I think the order in which Gilmore puts his checklist works very well. I was never taught what the passive voice was until maybe my sophmore year of college, which I thought was far too later. i still use the passive voice informally and it comes naturally to students. Revisiting verbs as the second step in his process is one of the most important items on the list. In revision it will strengthen arguements and your whole writing. Using dull verbs makes writing and reading dull.

The rest of the checklist works great for revisions of all kinds, not just on tests.

These revising strategies are really great for showing students exactly what is expected of them on tests. Another good point of this chapter is to let students know what test assessments on standardized tests look for. Thoughts and organization tell them much more about the student that small spelling errors. On-demand or timed essays should be practiced regularly in the classroom. Essays for tests, or informal assessments for student knowledge on lessons can help students practice writing, which should improve their test taking for standardized tests.

Gilmore Chap 4 peer revision

I really liked the activites that Gilmore set up for student revisions. The read aloud in small groups is obviously a great idea. If a sentence doesn't read well outloud, it is probably a good indicator that it is hard for an audience to read. It points out wordiness and unorganized thoughts. Peers listening can give a side that the writer never thought of. They can also ask questions if things were unclear. these techniques would improve the writing to make it more clearly written. It is also a great way for people to work together. In many jobs, you will be communicating ideas back and forth between people, so why shouldn't this be done in schools.

other ideas I thought were great that I never heard of were the color marking, cutting and pasting, and shortening word count. I really liked the color marking, and cutting and pasteing because it gave the writing and editing process a visual perspective. the color method would be great for teaching grammar and parts of speach so that students can see and find it on their own. the cutting and pasting method also seems like a great way for students to physically mess around with their writing to see if it flows better in a way that they did not expect. thoughts are often circular and jump around. they are never perfectly linear. student writing can also show this so the cutting and pasting method would probably be very valuable. shortening word count is something that I have heard of but not really seen done. It's a great activite because student writing often gets overredundant or wordy. They often add fluff to get to a certain page length.

the teacher student conferencing is something that I always hated doing as a student. often if it was optional conferencing I would never go. Gilmore presents the material in a new light for me because I see how i will need to do this as a teacher.

I liked the idea of zero tollerance grading, because the students must revise, and will get a much better grade in the end. It will also encourage them to revise before it is turned in so they will not have to revise again later.

Publication of Student work is something that keeps coming up. I think that it is a great idea, because they should care more about how their work is presented if there is someone other than the teacher reading it. Gilmore really presents good information in this chapter to give activities that promote revision.

Christensen Untracking English

I went to a small school that did not have many choices as far as advance or remedial classes. There were a few AP classes available. You had to have the teacher's permission to join the class and I believe a B or better. I did become part of this class, and I felt that It really prepared me for college. It also gave me college credits towards my English Major for passing the exam. The other English class that everyone had to take their senior year was College English. So both were pretty geared toward college anyway.



I had a great experience being part of the AP class, but I do agree with Christensen that classes should generally be untracked. The benefit to this seems to be taht you can and should teach in a variety of ways that benefit students. They should be designed to challege all levels of students, and "create desire to write instead of desire to complete work" (Christensen). This is what a teacher should strive for in both advanced and average students.



I do believe that AP classes should be kept. But they should be open to any student wishing to join the class. I think all students should be able to choose where they want to go. AP English I felt was beneficial because I wanted to pursue English in my college education. Many students won't have an English major, and minor so it wouldn't be in their interest to take AP English, unless they wanted a challege or liked reading and writing.

One last thing about Christensen's ideas on how to promote writing. I loved her idea on Dialogue journals while students are reading. They seem like a great tool to get studnets thinking and questioning. Pre-writing activities like this usually are a great way to promote discussions in class too. Over-all she does a great job in showing that all students are capable and can give a lot of insight to any English class, and therefore should not be tracked by grades and prospective student abilities.

group teach multi-genre

I thought that the group did a really good job at explaining the multi-genre research paper. I am currently working on my multi-genre research paper for Dr. Baer, so I was already familiar with the format, although prior to this semester I had never heard of one.

I really enjoy this type of project because of the built in motivation it gives to students. It allows for so much more creativity and choice for the student that the students will choose to do well on it. Allowing them to choose interesting topics also helps.

But just because it is a fun project and students have so much freedom, it does not mean it is an easy. I have a hard time switching from the more formal essay into presenting research in a poem or other genre. I also am doing as much research for my project, or more, than I would for any other paper. Since I like the topic, I want to do as much as I can, and get the correct information.

The only problem with this type of paper is that i believe students could really get away without researching, if they are able to choose any topic. They may choose one that they know a lot about anyway, and are smart enough to make it look like it is full of research when it really isn't anything new that they learned.

I really appreciated how the group had us make our own M.G. paper. It worked well as a group project. It is also hard to understand what a Multi-genre paper is without actually seeing one or doing one yourself. It may be a very foreign concept for students to write creatively about research, so it is important to provide examples for this project. But the group really did a fine job teaching the lesson, giving us examples, having us actively doing the work, and managing their time in the classroom.

Questions for Linda Christensen

I know that it is important to teach about social justice to all students, but my question is would lesson plans be altered at all for a more rural and less diverse school? Sometimes social justice doesn't seem to be as important in that kind of a setting, although it can be where it is most needed.

Are there any techniques to get all students, or the most unwilling students motivated? The book seems a little overly optimistic about kids really getting engaged in the assignments.

What has been the most rewarding part of teaching social justice, have you seen real concrete evidence of lasting behavior change among your past students?