I've started multiple blogs that I abandoned in the past, and I vowed that I wouldn't let the same thing happen to this one. But, I did . . . at least for a while.
I was a bit overwhelmed being in my first year of teaching with four preps and taking four classes myself, and I let a few things fall behind. A few things like . . . grading, washing my hair, and this blog. Still, I wouldn't trade this semester for the world. I love my school and my students, and I love my classes and peers. I learned so much through the readings and discussions we had in this class, and although I only completed half of the blog posts, I learned a lot about my self-discipline and my writing. I know it takes a while to turn something into a habit . . . I believe I've heard somewhere before that it takes 21 consecutive days to make something a habit. I also know, and tell my students, that the more you write, the better a writer you become. If I want my students to follow my advice, I have to follow it myself. I learned that digital writing takes work and commitment, but that it is vital to have knowledge of in this day and age. Kids know how to use iPads at the age of three (I would know; my three-year-old can download apps) and if we as teachers want to be able to keep up with the best practices in educating the next generation, we must be able to keep up with the digital world. I also learned what a strong community can be built digitally. I hope to maintain contact with my classmates for a long time past graduation. When it comes to integrating blogging with instruction, I think students would be excited about the concept. I am already planning on creating a class website for next school year so that my students can participate in online discussions with each other and improve their computer literacy. I would love to incorporate more digital writing next year. The main challenge I faced was simply keeping up with the blog. Now that I have it, though, as well as access to my classmates' blogs, I plan to keep up with it, even if it is not weekly, and keep in contact as best I can with my peers. I am eager to see what everyone becomes and what dreams they accomplish. I want to read their poetry and stories and continue to share experiences. The success, then, is having this way to keep up with all of this. It doesn't just end on the last day of class; we all still have a means of communicating. Of course, another major success would be learning how to create an Infographic. I'm still planning on eventually learning how to make videos and animations. All in all, I'm glad to have participated in this digital journey and I'm looking forward to continuing to write and improve my instruction on digital writing. Also, summer . . . I'm very much looking forward to summer. Good luck to everyone!
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I absolutely loved reading Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher. I would recommend this book for high school ELA teachers who are interested in advancing their students' knowledge of argument writing and who wish to enhance their instruction on the subject. Fletcher's book is filled with ideas on helping students understand audience, occasion, and purpose and to understand how to analyze and utilize ethos, pathos, and logos. She includes activities and prompts that go beyond traditional academic writing assignments. Some of my favorite prompts:
1. Argument Essay on Gender and Toys (Chapter 5) 2. Personal Argument Case Analysis (Chapter 7) 3. College Success Letter (Chapter 7) These prompts are relevant to students lives and they can easily make connections, which in turn encourages them and enhances their writing. Along with these prompts, she includes classroom activities that will help students build a sense of purpose for writing. A few of my favorite classroom activities: 1. Analyzing the Rhetorical Situation - This involves using Calvin and Hobbs comics. (Chapter 3) 2. The Back Cover Book Description - This helps students understand audience by having them write a description of their favorite book while keeping the audience's interests and needs in mind. (Chapter 4) 3. The Mock Rejection Letter - Another activity for teaching students to keep the audience in mind that involves real-world writing. (Chapter 4) Fletcher includes detailed descriptions on how to use these activities in class and she provides student samples and anecdotes from the lessons. I could easily implement these in any of my classes. Finally, Fletcher closes with a reminder in chapter 7 on how to teach rhetorically - I agree with Dr. Scanlon that everyone should read this chapter. Of course I enjoyed discussing this book with my Lit Circle as well. They always have different ideas and perspectives of the text that add to my own. This is definitely a book to keep on my desk for future reference. For my tech creation, I played around with Infographic. I just created a simple "About Me" infograph, but it was a great way to get to know how to use it! I've never created one of these. This would be amazing to use in class to talk about virtually any topic - characters, genres, even grammar. I could even have students create these as part of a report or presentation. It's like a virtual graphic organizer.
My next goal is to create a Powtoon - I've played them before, but I've never created one. It would be fun! I like the idea of an "open post." In my past experiences of trying to start a blog, I always tried to find my niche and pick a specific topic to write about, and then I would get bored and quit. I like this activity because we are showing a little bit of ourselves in each post.
Every Friday for bell work I have my students complete a similar "free write" activity. Some write about food, others write about their day, and others may write a mini-story or poem. I will attempt to write about each of these things in my open-blog posts, including the story and poem. On that note, today I'm going to share with you my favorite restaurants in Orlando for quick, fairly inexpensive food. Keep in mind that I've only lived in Orlando since October and I typically only eat at restaurants that are close by my house (near downtown). 1. Hop-Bo Chinese Restaurant Conway Plaza, 4420 Curry Ford Rd. This place has some of the biggest, crispiest, most delicious egg roles I've ever had in my life for $1.20 each. They also have a General Tso chicken combo plate for about $8 - pretty much the only thing I ever order when getting Chinese. 2. I L Pescatore Inc. 651 Primrose Dr. The Gamberi Cioppino is filled with jumbo shrimp. It's $17.95, but it's huge so my boyfriend and I split it and have leftovers. 3. Smashburger These burgers are huge and you can buy a Groupon for $7 for two burgers. That's the extent of my list of favorite restaurants. I don't get out much. Thanks for stopping by! |
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April 2017
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