Day Four/ 23 July 2009
A certain someone who shall remain nameless showed up late again. Only by ten minutes, though, a definite improvement.
Great journal sharing. I believe if we had time, everyone would have shared. It is always amazing how key the sharing is to building such camaraderie in a very short amount of time.
And now for our feature presentation -- Jeff Lawton, English teacher at Warwick Vets HS. Jeff presented us with valuable and useful information on multi-genre research projects. I think many, if not all of us, are thinking about how we can implement these into our classrooms come the fall. I am hoping to get some version of one completed by our renewal meeting in November so I can give some feedback.
Then it was time for a bit of research, not as much as other days, but I think most of us would agree it was worth it to give some extra time to Jeff.
Discussion of the articles was insightful once again. The key comment, in my opinion, Maggie's quote from her professor -- "good teaching is good teaching".
Hope you have an enjoyable weekend. See you all in the morning. And now that the certain someone is feeling better, perhaps she will be there for 8:30 (no promises, though).
Great write-up of the day, Jerilyn. I love your first line: "I don't think the post that I posted was posted." Also agree about the value of Jeff's presentation even though it was a bit longer than we had planned. Lastly, I think you actually arrived a little early today!
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is my penance for sharing my journal entry today, but I will graciously accept the challenge.
ReplyDeleteRecap for Tuesday, July 28th
Journal sharing was a melting pot of emotions today. We hope that Julie's friend will be o.k. We certainly hope that Tim works through his midlife crisis and that Caroline is in a much healthier place a year from now!!!
Our guest speaker Keith Sanzen put a nice twist on Critical Literacy. I loved the integration of Youtube into the literacy block. I especially liked how he introduced the levels of literacy in the beginning and was then able to reflect with students on all 3 levels throughout the year. On an elementary level however, we need to introduce just inferencing for example, separately and spend at least a month modeling and reviewing the strategy. I especially like how critical literacy does allow students to make connections to the world around them and work through solutions for problems they encounter.
Our handout discussions were truly engaging. Sue's article on "Willing to be Disturbed" taught us that it is ok to tell a student that you don't know the answer to a question rather than bs your way through it. It made me also realize that confusion and "different" is good. I truly believe that out of confusion comes clarity. More importantly, if we make the effort to understand why people are different it will help us to empathize. Empathy can only lead to open mindedness!
I like Caroline's artice on "When Kids Make Books" mainly because it was geared towards elementary teachers and 1/2 of us teach in an elementary school setting. It made me continue to believe that writing must be meaningful and engaging for our students. By allowing students to think of themselves as writers and publish their own books for example, the desire to write increases along with many other literacy skills.
Good luck to all presenters. I can't wait to hear all the presentations.