I really like the idea of “I poems” as a way to introduce yourself and what you are thinking. In block 1 we had to write “I poems” to introduce ourselves to each other. I thought this was a very good idea. In the powerpoint the idea of using “I poems” to further their wonder about a topic they have been researching. This is another great use of “I poems”. You can be creative as you are learning new information. Writing poems about a subject you are learning about lets you not only show what you are learning through research but it also lets you have a creative outlet for this new information. Students are able to gather information and figure out what information is the most important and where they can work all of this information into a creative writing project. Overall, I believe using poetry in addition to research is a great method of showing students how they can gather information, go through it to get the best information out, and compose it together into a poem as a way to learn and understand a subject better.

You can tie in seals with the science curriculum in so many different ways. When life cycles are studied or even when habitats are studied you can tie in seals. Students also study mammals and sea life.

http://bpzoo.org/our-animals/mammals/harbor-seal/

What are harbor seals? What are some characteristics of the harbor seal?

http://library.thinkquest.org/6043/seals.htm

What are some things that are different between a harbor seal and dolphins? What are some things that are different between a harbor seal and whales?

http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/animals/harbor_seals/index.php

Where would you find a harbor seal? What kind of habitat do harbor seals live in? What kind of food do they eat?

Both articles talk about wanting your students to think about what they are reading. They want to be involved in the text they are reading. You want your students to be active readers by asking questions while they are reading. The “Discussion Director” article talks about asking your group the questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how. These questions will get them into thinking about what they are reading and get more into their reading. The article about Reciprocal Teaching talks about breaking your students into groups and having them each take a certain part of what they read to clarify. Each student takes a turn being a certain member of the group until the section is read. Both article show that you should have reading groups for your students so they are able to talk to others about what they have been reading. You want your students to be active readers and the article about discussion director talks about how you are teaching your students to ask good questions.

Reading and vocabulary knowledge are two things that go together and both will be used throughout your life. When students are learning to read you want to prepare them in every way you can to understand what they are reading. Vocabulary is a huge part of a student’s understanding. By doing simple exercises such as the vocabulary activities in the multi-text unit you are teaching a student how to use context clues and prior knowledge to figure out the meaning of vocabulary words. ELL students can even use knowledge they know to work on figuring out the meanings of words. Vocabulary is one of the most important parts of learning to read. Exposure to reading is another way to help a student’s vocabulary grow. The more a person reads to more they are going to be aware of new words. Another issue in vocabulary instruction is morphemes. This is the way a student can break up words to help figure out the meanings. You break words into two meaningful parts. These strategies are all useful in teaching people meanings of words. The article, the multi-text, and the vocabulary instruction all tie together in helping students become better readers and understand more vocabulary words.

The article on instructional levels was very informative and made me think. The article is basically talking about what we are doing in a multi-text lesson. To implement this whole process we would have to use many of the skills we have been taught in this class. We would have to give the reading assessment to figure out the reading levels of our students. By doing this we would be able to find out what level each student should be on. We could take this information and use the article we read to think of different books we could set up multi-text lessons for our students. By finding out what reading level each student is on it makes it easier to maybe group students together so different groups can read books about the same subject, yet on different reading levels. You can still plan a text talk lesson but have different levels of text to engage readers across a variety of levels.

The article about shared reading made me think about all of the times my teachers throughout school would read to my classes. They would never go into as much detail as the shared reading teachers did. Usually if they came to a word we might not know the teacher would ask the class if they knew the word and if nobody did then we would talk about it. I think the shared reading strategies used in the article are great ways to broaden a child’s reading habits. It is best to model a behavior you want a child to learn and by reading and showing kids how to best figure out an unknown word by using context clues you are showing them how to develop good reading habits. by just giving the student the definition to a word you are not helping them to learn anything but by helping them break it down and figure it out by using context clues you are teaching much more than just the word. By doing shared reading with a class you can show how to do many different kinds of reading. The article said that there are four main categories of shared reading, comprehension, vocabulary, text structures, and text features. Each of these are things kids have to learn while reading so why not teach kids to do it by reading to them. Giving them an example of the way they should read so they can become great readers and writers. I also liked how one of the teachers interviewed said by teaching her students to read like writers she was also teaching them to writer like readers. This idea is great for helping your students understand the thoughts behind both reading and writing. I think this article was a very good article for us to read so that we can observe and understand the thought behind shared reading and why it is important to do activities like this in a classroom.

The pirate unit is something that is really neat to me. It will grab so many students’ attention because it is about pirates, which are a very fun subject for kids! I like the way the lesson is set up with the double-entry diaries for the students to use to take notes. This way, like the article says, seems like a great way to take notes and be able to find what you are looking for as you are going back over your notes on your reading. The teacher models everything. This is something I love because I feel like for the students who are visual learners they are able to see what they should be doing. This helps to cut down on a lot of confusion as well as giving the students a format to follow as they are thinking about their reading. With this unit the class is going through many different types of instruction. I think going from whole class, to groups, to individual work is great because you are able to dive into your readings and your information in many different ways and on many different levels of thinking. This whole unit of study goes beyond the teacher teaching the class about pirates. This unit has the kids digging for the knowledge themselves. It gets them involved in their learning and is much more fun than listening to a lesson about what pirates did. The twin texts are awesome. I think that by pairing a fiction and nonfiction book together on the same subject you are able to show the kids that yes this stuff was real and did happen but learning about it doesn’t have to just be boring history. I think using something like this pirate unit in the classroom is a wonderful way to keep learning interesting and change it up by having the twin text books in there.

Today with the internet being such a key part of our world I believe teachers knowing how to implement computers in the classroom is very important. Students can gather so much information from sources off of the internet its great. As a teacher you have to do your homework and find sites where your students’ can get information from. Using a blog the way the article describes is a great way to help students learn about doing research and what good sources are. It is even a great way to save the information you use from year to year. This way you have all of the framework set up for the same project the next year.  I think that organizing this by way of a blog is a great resource for teachers. You are also able to share information with fellow teachers and they are able to find all of the information you used in one place. Another positive thing about teachers using blogs is they are a way to share students’ work and for the students to show off what they have worked so hard on. The article on blogging points out so many uses for blogs it makes it hard to deny the fact that blogs are very useful in the classroom now and will only become more of a positive aspect in later years.

I have never been a big poem writer. I always would try to come up with something really good for classes but could never seem to find the right words. I would think poems had to be insightful, or rhyme, or follow some certain guidelines, but that’s not how it is. I thought “Love that Dog” was the cutest book of poems, about poems, I have ever read. I loved how in the beginning the boy wouldn’t write poems because “girls do”. I love how throughout the book you go through all the different kinds of poems and even many different writers. This book was a great, fast read. I loved it! It even made me want to try my hand a poetry writing again. As for “All the short poems plus fourteen more”, I thought it was amazing. The book was full of great examples of how simple ideas can be turned into great poems. There were poems about so many simple things, but the poems were wonderful. I really loved reading both of these books and I can’t wait to begin our poetry unit.

This is my mini lesson in which I taught using a story about my dog, Buddy.

Ashley – Old English – ash meadow

Brooke – Old English – small stream or a babbling brook

I was named by my mother. She always wanted a little girl named Brooke. When she was trying to come up with a name that would go with Brooke she decided she liked Ashley as a first name better than Brooke. My mom was still determined she wanted to call me Brooke. This is how I began my life long adventure with confusing teachers by not knowing what to call me.

My friends and I have discussed how if I were called Ashley I wouldn’t be the same person and I probably wouldn’t be friends with them. My name is who I am and what I am known by.  As for having nicknames, my best friend calls me Brookie and my uncle calls me Brookster. They are the only two people to call me anything other than Brooke and are the only two that ever have tried to call me anything different.