Poetry

I am a huge fan of poetry and I love to find new ways to use it the classroom. Here are two templates that I came across that I thought I would share:

1. Diamonte Poem

______________________
(noun)

______________________________________
(two words, nouns or adjectives, describing the subject)

________________________________________________
(three verbs ending in "ing" telling about the subject)

_________________________________________________________
(four words, the first two describe the subject the last two describe its opposite)

________________________________________________
(three verbs ending in "ing" telling about the opposite)

_____________________________________
(two words, nouns or adjectives, describing the opposite)

________________________________
(opposite noun)

2. Bio Poem [this poem template would be great for the first week of school]

(first name)

(four words that describe you)

Relative of (list three close family members)

Resident of (place where you live)

Who reads (four books)

Who likes (three things you like)

Who loves (three things you love)

Who wishes (three things)

Who admires (three people)

Who needs (three things you need)

Who aspires to (at least two aspirations)

(last name)

check out this site to find more poetry templates and ideas for lessons: http://www.cape.k12.mo.us/blanchard/hicks/Poetry/Poetry.htm

To close, here are some fun poems that I found:

I've Been Sitting in Detention
by Bruce Lansky
(Sing to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”)

I’ve been sitting in detention

since the end of school.

I’ve been sitting in detention

just because I broke a rule.

Throwing meatballs in the lunchroom

wasn’t wise, I fear.

I was aiming at the trash can,

not my teacher’s rear.

Teacher let me know

when you’ll let me go.

Please don’t keep me here all ni-i-ight.

I apologize— throwing food’s not wise.

Don’t keep me here all night.

I am going to sneak out of detention

if you will not let me go-o-o-o.

I am going to sneak out of detention,

so, teacher, let me go.

My Class Has Got a Know-It-All
by Ted Scheu

My class has got a know-it-all— the kind who likes to tell the proper way to sit and walk and count and speak and spell.

My class has got a know-it-all— the kind who always knows the stuff that happened yesterdays or even long agos.

She’s constantly correcting me if I’m a little wrong, like when I bring a bug to class or when I sing a song.

You wonder why a rooster crows? Exactly how a flower grows? And who invented radios? Or even if a glowworm glows? (I can't believe it, but she knows.)

You wonder why the sky is blue? And how your paper airplane flew? Just if a fact is false or true? Or when our book report is due? (I can’t believe she knows that, too.)

You might think I’d be angry with this showy, knowy creature. But someday I will be like her: I’m going to be a teacher.

Shared writing at my Tuesday Experience

I was so excited when my class gathered at the carpet to share what they had been writing in their journals with their peers. I wish the our whole Language Arts class could have been there, the stories that were read were creative and very funny. The prompt was "If I was four inches tall". One of the stories of the student was about his little sister finding him and using him as doll for her dollhouse and dressed him girlie clothes, which I found to be very humorous. The classmates were very respectful when listening to the story and provided some great feedback to their peers. The teacher had very little to do with process, she reworded some of the students questions for clarification purposes, but for the most part the students were in charge of the shared writing time.
I was excited that I was able to see this in practice in my classroom, I hope everyone else has had the opportunity to see some of what we have been learning carried out in their field experiences.

Tuesday Experience Drawing to an End =(

Well I can't believe that our Tuesday Experience is almost over, I will really miss my class!

This week is conferences so in the morning I couldn't be in the classroom, was there anybody who was able to stay for a parent-teacher conference? Well because of conferences they had a short day, dismissal was at 1:30.

Because it was a short day and I am more confident in the classroom the teacher let me take charge of the class. Morning meeting is conduct by the students and the teacher supervises, so I supervised. Then I brought and picked the class up from PE. Once the class reached the classroom I transitioned them into the social studies lesson I had prepared for the day. I was please with how well the lesson went. The students were amazing, they were so well behaved and we had some very productive discussions, and unlike when I first did discussions with the class we didn't go off topic.

The lesson I did with the students was on Native Americans. I introduced the lesson by going over the Woodland Native Americans. The map was taken out so that students could point to the region that would be considered woodlands. After I did a mini-picture walk through the story I was going to read them that took place in the Woodland region. I asked what cues from the pictures let them know the story took place in the woodlands. I then read The Rough Face Girl. The book has amazing illustrations and can be used if you are doing a lesson on fairy tales or Cinderella stories. After we discussed the book and illustrations. I then wrapped up the lesson and told them what story we would be doing next Tuesday which took place in the Plains.

I had a great time doing this lesson and the class was wonderful and very attentive. I am really going to miss them when our time is up in the classroom!

So what is going on in your field experiences? Are you having a good time? How are your students?

Welcome Back!

Well I don't know about you girls, but break seemed way too short to me! I had a lovely Easter break, full of sleeping in and summer job interviews. Did anyone do anything fun for their Easter break? Go any-where?

This year we celebrated Easter in Rhode Island at my mom's youngest brother's house. Each Easter we switch off between my dad's side of the family and my mom's, and this year Easter was with my mom's side of the family. I love Easter with my mom's side of the family because it is pure chaos: there are children running around, adults laughing and joking in the kitchen and a slew of fun traditions. One of my favorite traditions with the Coppa's is the peanut hunt. Peanuts are hid throughout the downstairs of the house while the younger kids are playing outside (or upstairs). Then the kids come down and search for the peanuts, once they have found all the peanuts in one room of the house the adults go back and re-hide more peanuts in that room. It takes the little ones a while to catch on, so it is very cute. Every year with the Coppa's someone hides peanuts all throughout my Auntie Liz's (the oldest of my mom's siblings) car. This year they were hid in her purse, glasses case, glove compartment, visors of above the driver and passenger seats, and all the cup holders and side pockets in the car. So far she has only called to yell at my mom for the glasses case and visors, she will be probably finding them for months.

So that is one of my family traditions, what are some of yours?

Science Can Be Fun

Hello Ladies! I know this is not language arts related but I was doing a lesson for my Science and Social Studies class and came across this very cool website that is both teacher and student friendly. It has a ton of cool activities and I thought I would share it with teachers and future teachers....check it out if you have the chance it is very fun! (Make sure your volume is working on your computer otherwise the link is no fun ;p )


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/activities/changing_sounds.shtml


ps. As I continued exploring this site I found that it also has some cool English activities.

Thesaurus Lesson =)

Well Ladies I have completed my Thesaurus lesson with my students today and I am pleased to say that it went very well, which I am very excited about because I was very anxious about how this lesson would go over. I started my lesson on March 4th and we reviewed what we learned today and students were able to work independently, which was a big deal for me. I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to grasp the concepts to work independently with out the me constantly modeling every problem; but they worked very well and while I walked around observing their work I saw how hard they were working and the effort they were putting into their work.
When introducing the lesson (on the 4th) I told the students that one of their fellow students had inspired me to write the short story we would be reading aloud because he reminded me of the time I got my dog. I then moved into reading the story I had written for the lesson, after I read the first few sentences I asked for a volunteer to continue reading (my most excited moment was when one of students who is dyslexic volunteered to read). I stopped the each new reader after a certain point to ask questions about what they were reading. Since they were going to be editing one of my paragraphs that I purposefully made worse than the others. Students were more than happy to let me know what was wrong with my “bad” paragraph, things like: “you used the same word twice”, or “your descriptions aren’t very strong”. I was pleased that they all caught on to what made my poor paragraph bad.
After competing the read aloud portion of the lesson I handed out a ditto that had my bad paragraph with the poor description words underlined. I asked the students what they were learning about in the library, which they all answered: reference books. I then brought out the thesauruses they would be using for the activity. As I passed a thesaurus to each group of two I explained the different ways a thesaurus can be used. I also modeled how to look up words in a thesaurus because it was a different set up then the dictionaries they had been using in the library. Once each student had their ditto and a thesaurus we, as a class, did the first two sentences together. After I had the students work with their partner and finish the ditto. As they worked I walked around the class observing how they were doing. If I saw an answer that was unique or creative I had that pair go up to the overhead I had and write their answer so the whole class could see how their peers were doing.
As I was walking around I was also able to help students who were struggling, and answer questions. I was thrilled that the students stayed on task and work well with their partner. My teacher pulled me aside to let me know how impressed she was with the success of my lesson and the improvement of my classroom management. At the end of lesson, as I went around collecting their work, we discussed what we learned about using reference books and when to apply/ use them. We also discussed how during CMT testing we aren’t able to refer to these books which is why it is important to build a large vocabulary and come up with creative ways to engage our readers.
My Lesson:

SAINT JOSEHPH COLLEGE TUESDAY FIELD EXPERIENCE
Language Arts Lesson

Date (Started): March 4, 2008
Grade: 3rd

Title: Using a Thesaurus

Standards:
Standard 4: Applying English Language Conventions, students apply the conventions of standard English in oral, written and visual communication.
4.3 Students use standard English for composing and revising written text.
Standard 1: Reading and Responding, students read comprehend and respond in individual, literal, critical and evaluative ways to literary, informational and persuasive texts in multimedia formats.
1.1 Students use appropriate strategies before, during and after reading in order to construct meaning.
Blue Print:
Comprehension: answers literal and inferential questions about grade-appropriate books read aloud by the teacher and about own reading in context (at instructional level); applies comprehension strategies, such as summarization and prediction to grade-appropriate stories read aloud by the teacher and to own reading in context (at instructional level)
Objectives:
Students will sit while teacher introduces lesson
Students will participate and insist in instruction
Students will be able to use Thesaurus with guided instruction
§ To engage students in the practical uses of a thesaurus and to reinforce the use of synonyms as a way of making writing more interesting.
Students will be able to complete ditto(s)

Rationale: Throughout the students writing workshops the students have been doing all year, during the editing as a class they have discussed enriching their writing with better vocabulary. Students have been going over different ways to make what they are writing sound more interesting and engaging. Students are also familiar with how to use a dictionary.
I feel this would be a perfect time to introduce using a thesaurus to help in making writing more interesting and expose students to more vocabulary.

Materials:
@ The Day We Got Dixie (story composed by teacher)
o Transparency for teacher’s overhead
@ A First Thesaurus: The Word Hunter’s Companion by James Green (one for every student)
@ Ditto/handout for paragraph editing
@ Homework ditto/ handout for students who may finish early

Procedure:

1. Initiation: To engage the class, the teacher will make a connection to the student (Charlie) in her class who has gotten a puppy to introduce the task the students will being doing. Once teacher goes over directions for the task, teacher will also explain appropriate behavior for this activity:
§ Ask neighbor for help before asking teacher.
§ Is appropriate to use Thesaurus and dictionaries
After going over directions teacher will start reading The Day We Got Dixie, and then call students to continue the reading.

2. Development of Lesson: After certain points of reading The Day We Got Dixie teacher will pause and question what makes the writing good or poor. Once the read aloud is complete teacher will introduce the ditto that allows students to revise teachers “bad” paragraph. After modeling what to do for first two sentences on the overhead and modeling different ways to use a Thesaurus, teacher will answer any questions that arise. As students work the teacher will circulate around the room to make sure that students are understanding the activity and using the Thesaurus correctly. If the teacher observes good work she will have the student come up to the overhead and write their answer to model the work for the rest of the class. For any students that finish their work early, after teacher checks ditto, the teacher will give them another activity to do that involves using a thesaurus.

3. Closure: At the end of the lesson students will hand in their work to the teacher, so teacher can evaluate it (check for understanding of the words to see that they are used in the correct context). While collecting work teacher will review with student what they learned and how they can apply it to their everyday writing.

Response to Listening 3-6-08

As put forward in Tompkins in chapter seven, people listen differently according to their purpose. The four different purposes are:

1. Discriminative Listening: people use this type of listening to distinguish sounds. For example young children would use discriminative listening as they develop phonemic awareness (Tomkins, 2009).

2. Aesthetic Listening: this is used when people listening for enjoyment to stories that are read aloud (Tomkins 2009). An example for those of use doing field work would be when we do read-alouds or reading circles with our students.

3. Efferent Listening: people use this type of listening to understand a message and remember important information, as Tomkins' points out, this type of listening is required in many instructional activities. When students listen to their teacher as they present information, give instructions, or read informational books aloud students are using efferent listening (Tomkins 2009).

4. Critical Listening: this is form of listening is used to evaluate a message and is an extension of efferent listening.


I really like the page 232 of Tomkins, it broke down what students need to learn about listening for aesthetic, efferent, and critical listening:


1. Aesthetic Listening (Procedure):

• Listen to a story read aloud
• Listen to a poem read aloud
• Write a response in a reading log
• Choose favorite quotations from a story
  

1a. Aesthetic (Concepts):

• Difference between aesthetic and efferent listening: Concept of story

1b. Aesthetic (Strategies and Skills):

• Activate background knowledge
• Predict
• Visualize
• Make Connections

2. Efferent Listening (Procedures):

• Take notes
• Do note taking/note making
• Use graphic organizers
• Participate in instructional conversations

2a. Efferent (Concepts):

• Organizational patterns of informational texts
• Features of informational books

2b. Efferent (Strategies and Skills):

• Activate background knowledge
• Set purpose
• Organize ideas
• Summarize
• Monitor understanding
• Ask questions
• Get clues from the speaker

3. Critical Listening (Procedures):

• Analyze propaganda
• Create advertisements

3a. Critical (Concepts):

• Critical listening
• Types of persuasion
• Propaganda
• Deceptive language
• Propaganda devices

3b. Critical (Strategies and Skills):

• Evaluate the message
• Determine the speaker’s purpose
• Recognize appeals
• Recognize deceptive language
• Identify propaganda devices

Lesson Planning

This post goes out to all my fellow classmates, teachers, and professors. For my next Tuesday I have to plan a lesson to help teach the students of my third grade class how to use a thesaurus. I am looking for any ideas as to how to make this less confusing for students. I have already written something that the students will edit and underlined the words that I would like them to look up in the thesaurus. I was wondering if this sounds too confusing, and if anyone has any ideas how to instruct students how to use a thesaurus. I was going to model, but I am afraid it will not be enough. Any suggestions would be much appreciated, and feel free to ask more about my lesson if you don't understand something, I know I didn't provide a great deal of detail here.

Todays Achievement

I have to say today I saw how knowing about children's literature pays off, and would like to say a special thanks to Patty Pickard for familiarizing me with all different types of children literature. Today during S.S.R. (silent sustained reading) one of our students finished his book and couldn't find something else to read. He turned down all the suggestions of his classroom teacher. After hearing about the last book he read and what types of books he was interested in I was able to find him a new book to read (one of the Time Warp Trio books). I was so excited when he told me that he was enjoying the book. I just wanted to share this moment with my fellow bloggers and recommend that you keep up to date on children's literature, I know I am always amazed at the new material out there.

Tompkins' Reading and Writing Poetry

While perusing the Language Arts Patterns of Practice text I became really interested in Chapter 11 Reading and Writing Poetry. I have a passion for all types of poetry and I was excited to learn interesting ways to use it in the classroom. I liked the idea of a writing notebook just for poetry and then having a class book of poetry that students can contribute poems to. I also found the Poetry Workshop Grading Sheet to be a useful tool because I didn't really have a solid idea of how to grade student poetry. However my favorite part of the chapter was the word pictures because this in my past experience has really gotten students interested in poetry because they can see how poetry is not only fun but how it can come in all different forms. When I did poetry in one of my past field studies I did a great poem that was in the shape of a giraff, and of course the poem was about a giraff.

Chelsea, Francesca and Scott...Examining Writing Skills

For the past two class sessions I have learned a great deal about different things to examine when looking at students writing. When reading Chelsea, Francesca and Scotts work I learned to look beyond the surface/appearance of the writing and to take a deeper look at what is being said. For example when reading Scott's story about a panda, he attempts to use a variety of sentences which overall are more varying and complex than Chelsea. Chelsea's writing on the surface is neat and tidy with few spelling errors and good spacing between her words. However learning to look deeper allows the reader to see that she lacks variety and elaboration techniques making Scott story more engaging and stronger.
Learning how to look at language development will help a great deal when I have to help the students of my Tuesday experience revise the stories they have written and need to revise. This will also be useful for when I will help them compose a story about their memorable day in letting them know what I am looking for and later for how to evaluate their work.

Classroom Management

This Tuesday I did a lesson on poetry, which overall went well, however it would have gone smoother if I was better at classroom management. After talking with my supervisor who observed me I learned so different classroom management techniques that I thought I would share:

• Remind students before the lesson begins about expected behavior,


• (If students have side-bar conversations going on while you are talking) Pause/stop what you are doing and look at those who are talking, after they quiet begin again,


• Use a sterner/harsher voice to get students attention letting students know you are incharge,


• Bring voice down to a softer tone so that students must quiet down to hear what you are saying(I personally like this method and it works well in my classroom),


• If students' calling out is a major problem, hold a class meeting and ask the children to make recommendations for solving this problem. This would include the type of discipline to be used for the children who continue to disturb the class by calling out.

Here are a few websites that give classroom management strategies:

• http://www.teachervision.fen.com/classroom-management/behavioral-problems/26200.html


• http://geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4127/


• http://drwilliampmartin.tripod.com/classm.html


• http://www.4faculty.org/includes/108r2.jsp

I hope that these will be helpful to you future teachers out there, I know I found a few techniques that I found useful. If anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them. =)

Response to Reading and writing processes - 2/7/08

Make a list of the reading-writing connections you have observed in your Tuesday Experience. In the past three visits to my Tuesday Experience I have noticed the following reading-writing connections:

• In readers circle I have listened as the students respond to texts that have been read to them through guided discussion,
• Students also ask questions and use a dictionary or thesaurus to clarify misunderstandings or to reach a better understanding,
• For writing I have observed students responding to what they have read and make flow charts and,
• Students also during writing workshop write drafts that they have the teacher proof read; students aslo use dictionarys to check spelling.

Technology in Elementary Schools

Prompt: "Since you are all in Tuesday Experience, can you share with me what you see happening in your school setting with respect to technology?"

The school that I am currently working in for my field experience does not use much technology in every day classroom activities, that I have observed. There is one computer in my classroom for students to use, and the use of that computer is primarly to see what books are in the library. In the library, however there are several computers that students recieve instruction on (learning typing, how to use programs, and accessing information on the internet).
I know that there are some schools in the district that are in the process of having Smart Boards installed in the classrooms. I was wondering if any of my fellow student teachers have had the opporunity to use the Smart Board and I was also wondering what they think of it. I worked in a classroom last semester that had a Smart Board put in just around the time I was leaving so I didn't get to work with it. Since I know so many schools have a least one Smart Board in the school I would love to learn how to utilize this technology.

What do I write about in my blog?

The most challenging thing I did today was...

Yesterday I faced one of my greatest fears as a future teacher during my Tuesday Experience: classroom management. Yesterday at Morley they were celebrating Edward Williams Morley's birthday, so through out the day at different times students were able to get up say happy birthday and spray silly string in the air. While both the teacher and I were in the classroom it never got out control, however when the teacher had to step out the students started to get a little crazy. I thought that I was never going to get the class to regain control and the teacher would come in to a mad house. To get the students attention and bring the class back in the teacher I am with says "Excuse Me" and if she gets to a third 'excuse me' there is a penalty, she says she rarely gets to a third 'excuse me'. When she left me alone I was afraid the students wouldn't take my "Excuse Me" as serious as their teacher, never the less in my most authoritative tone I said "Excuse me" and the students stopped and looked at me. I felt a sense of accomplishment in that moment. From there I had them finish what they were working on and the teacher came back to a quiet class. I was walking on air for the rest of the day.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Any suggestions for future classroom management techniques?

The Girl with the Brown Crayon

Paley's literacy instruction inspires me to...

When reading Vivian Paley's Girl with the Brown Crayon I made a text to self connection. Last year I was lucky enough to spend a school year with a second grade class and do many reading activities with them. The second grader's were loved the David books by David Shannon (No David!, David Gets in Trouble, David Goes to School...etc.) much like Paley's students loved the books by Leo Lionni. When reading how Reeny connects the characters the books the author it reminded me off how the second graders related David to their younger siblings and people they knew. It never fails to amaze me how children and adults can form such strong connections to what they read.
What really inspired me about Paley's instruction was how she appreciated Reeny's interest and did more books by the author to see how she and her other classmates would respond to them. I also like how she had the poster project, allowing the students to be creative, and open discussions about what they liked and didn't like in the stories they were reading. It was also interesting to read about Reeny's text to self connection with the character of Fredrick. Paley has really inspired me to really dive into children's literature.

Writing Workshop

During my first day at Tuesday Experience the teacher asked me what were my strengths, and for me it has always been English. She thought this was great and put me in charge of a writing workshop. The theme of this writing workshop is 'Memorable Day'. For the students writing assignment they would ideally brainstorm and write an account of a memorable day they had. In general however, the students have a hard time composing autobiographical works. She suggested to me that I should visit the school library and find books that would help inspire students how to write about a memorable day. So here are my questions for people reading this blog:
Can any one think of good children's books that have the theme of a 'Memorable Day'?
How would you help students struggle with writing about this topic?
How would you define a memorial day to a student?
If you could do a writing work shop what would you do it about?