The Graveyard Book: After a paideia seminar in my Methods class on this book, I would really like to incorporate this novel into my classroom. The Graveyard Book is a coming-of-age story of a boy, Bod, whose family is murdered when he’s just a toddler. The boy was to be killed as well, but he managed to escape by crawling into a graveyard. In this graveyard, the story of Bod’s life unfolds as he guarded and taught by a cast of dead people.

“The Necklace”: A short story which illuminates the literary device irony. I am currently working on a mini literature lesson for this story which uses the song “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette to enforce the concept of irony.

Because I want students to be able to see “the big picture” I would tend to create thematic units. By creating lessons based on substantial themes, students can see how literature relates to the world around them.

My 5 Steps to Integration

Purpose:
- Objectives, objectives, objectives!
- The main purpose in an interdisciplinary unit is modeling and teaching students how to learn (Wild, Mayeaux & Edmonds 95).
-Teach students to communicate effectively, to work productively, to treat others respectfully, to read critically, to persist through difficulty, and to lead democratically.

Substance:
- Do not hide behind fluffy activities with vague intentions.
- Curriculum mapping: descriptions of content, descriptions of processes/skills, assessment
- Understand standards

Connection:
-“Interdisciplinary designs are best when sensible, no strained, integration is planned and that not all disciplines need to be involved in the lesson design of a unit. If we had forced the connections, we would have created artificial lessons to justify a contrived theme” (qtd. in Wild, Mayeaux & Edmonds 88).
-Rely on deeply rooted connections not superficial “integration”

Collaboration:
-Team: Work on identifying and reflecting the connected, global concepts during team planning (Wild, Mayeaux & Edmonds 95).
-Students: encourage collaboration through active learning.

Differentiation:
-“The best education for the best, is the best education for all”
-Teach to the students, not to the test; students can achieve mastery of standards through choice, active learning, and challenge.


Works Cited:
Wild, Monique D., Amanda S. Mayeaux, and Kathryn P. Edmonds. TeamWork: Setting the Standard for Collaborative Teaching, Grades 5-9. Portland: Stenhouse, 2008.

"The Best Education for the Best is the Best Education for All"

While I was in my English Methods class the other day, I was introduced to the quote “the best education for the best is the best education for all.” After thinking for a moment, I was struck by the importance of this sentiment. When students grace the doors of my future middle school Language Arts classroom, they may already be wearing a title of “low proficiency reader” or “advanced reader”. As a teacher, it will be my job to see past these unjust labels and provide all of my students with the same tools for success. If you do not present a lower-level reader with thought provoking, complex texts, how can we expect them to be able to think and read critically? Simple texts produce simple thoughts. If teachers never attempt to provide lower-level readers with complex texts, simple thoughts will continue to cycle. In all fairness, all students must be given cognitively demanding, classic works. This quote really helped to drive home the importance of differentiation. Differentiation is for all students; the curriculum differs, but is not different. As we have discussed in class, literature circles would really help to support differentiation because students have a choice when it coming to their book selection.

Tricks to Teaching Literature

A funny thing happened on the way out of my Lit. class... courteously of Dr. Kelly Roberts of the Meredith College English Department



10. Ignore the back of the book (“read; answer questions”)Avoiding reading and answering questions that can be done by anybody

9. Entice like there’s no tomorrow (because there will be lots of them!)
Make sure that you can entice students. Our job is 1. Give them the basics of how to read and comprehend 2. To keep them reading. Set their hearts and minds on fire.

8. Divide the pages and multiply the review.
Three weeks designated for a unit; steady stream of realistic reading. Cycling back will make it stick in their head (responsibility).
*It is discriminatory not hold students with the responsibility doing homework. Set homework expectations; life skill way beyond the skills.

7. Have respect; don’t dissect (esp. when it comes to assessment)

6. Read Alouds

5. Keep your bag of tricks handy
No dissecting! Keep a steady supply of active learning strategies

4. Remember how porcupines make love
Very carefully :
- Keeping the main idea, the main idea
- Scaffold: pre-reading, during-reading, post-reading activities

3. Everybody loves a book club; somebody always hates The Book
It's important to remember that uou will always have someone that will dislike The Book; encorporate choice in the classroom through activities such as literature circles and choice reading.

2. Consider integration – it is integral to the integrity
Incorporate writing, grammar AND literature. Why not tie in art? social studies? science? math?

1. Remember only one thing: Keep ‘em reading!!

Write Right

Throughout our mini-lessons it has be interesting to see how the stages of the writing process can be applied to writers of any skill or age. As a future middle grades Language Arts teacher, it is important to see how stages of the writing process can be applied to adolescents. In my academic career, I have found that I too tend to jump from the “brainstorming” stage to the “published” stage. I found this is particularly true in my college writing. I tend to jump right into the “finished product” paper forgoing the detrimental prewriting stages. This causes me to have to make large revisions later on. After relearning about the stages of the writing process, I have now attempted to start my papers at the very beginning – with brainstorming.

I have always found that personal writing was a release. As a child, I would put my "top secret" thoughts in a heart-shaped journal I would hide under my mattress. Even though I no longer have that heart-shaped journal, I still can appreciate journaling. Personal writing helps to organize your thoughts and emotions, and I can see how journaling will be very beneficially in the classroom. Journaling as a warm-up would help students to "check their emotions at the door" and have a productive class period.

What? Whole Language in ESL?

As a future Language Arts teacher, my courses in that content area at Meredith have focused on a lot on the differences between phonics and whole language. My EDU 300 class, Introduction to Language Arts, has explored this difference in great depth. As a result, for the native-English speaker, it seems as though phonics is more beneficial to learning. Because of this notion, I wanted to examine whole language when dealing with English Language Learners.

According to our textbook, Bilingual and ESL Classrooms Teaching in Multicultural Contexts, current ESL and bilingual approaches advocate a whole language philosophy. The whole language philosophy was originally developed for English speakers in English language arts classes. Specifically, “Whole language approaches focus on use of authentic language that is meaningful to students, proceeding from whole to part, integrating development of multiple language modes and domains” (Ovando 149). From what I gathered from the explanation, whole language works from general knowledge to specific knowledge: meaning first, then conventions. This is explained further, “Whole language focuses on using language, focusing on meaning first, getting students to write early and often, accepting invented spelling for beginners but expecting conventional spelling as students advance in the writing process, exposing students to high-quality literature and authentic texts from diverse writing genres, allowing students to make choices in reading, and encouraging all to be voracious readers” (qtd in Ovando 149).

In terms of the general Language Arts content classroom, this holistic approach to reading and writing is deemed as inadequate. In fact, many scholars in favor of the phonic approach have called the whole language philosophy the “crime of the century.” Those opposed to the whole language approach, feel that this approach does not give students the foundation on which to form a concept of spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. It has been thought that whole language is merely a memory device, and it ignores the phonic composition of words in the English language.

Overall, I found it interesting that the whole language approach is used in current English as a Second Language classroom despite the large debate surrounding this philosophy. It will be interesting to see which philosophy will be used in my future school.

Language Arts and Socialization

It goes without saying that communication is the foundation of one’s social life. If a student were to have trouble in reading or writing – two forms of communication – then that child runs the risk of stunting his/ her social life. For Sahara, her difficulty to make and keep friends may stem from her academic delay. From passing notes in the hallway, to sending instant messages online, reading and writing are integral parts of making and keeping friends.

Throughout my time at Meredith College, I have tutored ESL students around the Raleigh area. In working with these students, I can see the importance of reading and writing on their social skills. Ms. Savastano, a kindergarten teacher at Powell Elementary, stated that, ““the fostering of self-confidence and self-esteem is extremely important.” Ms. Savastano informed me that as Irbin began to speak and communicate in English (he knew none when he came to Powell Elementary in August), it was important that the teachers encouraged and praised him for everything he said and did. Even from the beginning, it was easy to see that Irbin was very eager and loves to learn. Today, Ms. Savastano can see that Irbin is gaining more confidence daily and speaking more. She said that it is important not to correct his mistakes in a harsh way so as not to discourage him. Through this example, we can see that language arts have a great deal to do with socialization.

Although this ESL student represents an extreme case, it helps to show that language delay or disability can have an impact on socialization. Students with less vocabulary or poor grammar may be reluctant to speak up in class in front of their peers.

As a teacher, I would encourage all of my students to keep a journal. In personal journals, students can write about events in their own lives and about other topics of special interest. Furthermore, I would encourage collective learning such as group work, and think-pair-share activities.