Final Blog Post- Synthesis

This course was actually very useful for me because I will actually be able to use the lesson plans that we created.  They were very helpful because I can use the same lesson or adapt my lesson to fit with other subjects or topics.  I also have many ideas of activities I can use to teach, which I really liked about the class.  I didn't just do assignments that don't have a purpose.  One thing I plan to do is really use effective vocabulary lessons.  I have mainly seen teachers who have the students copy words and definitions from the textbook, but I want my students to have information they can actually use.  I plan to have the students learn the words in context, and then doing fun activities such as riddle me this, or charades of some type.  I think that by doing this more students will learn and remember the words.  They will also think there is a purpose for the activity rather than just busy work.  I plan to use comprehension instructions, especially focusing on the before, during, and after of readings.  I want to give students good before activities such as having them make predictions to help them with their readings.  Also good during activities such as following up on those predictions are relevant because it will help the students to really understand what the text is saying.  Furthermore, an after activity such as, writing a paragraph on what they learned will really help the students to understand the topic.

Overall, I learned a lot throughout the course.  I now have a lot of ideas that I can use while creating lesson plans.  Especially, fun activities, so the students will find joy in learning and not just think I am having them do bus work.  I also learned how to address and teach towards multiple learning styles and environments.  One way to do this is by having variety in the lessons and activities.  This class was very useful and I will refer to it multiple times in my future as a teacher.

 

blog post: your choice, classroom observations

This semester I have had the opportunity to attend Logan High School to observe a ninth grade Biology class for my science methods course.  In the class the students receive vocabulary words that they must learn for each unit in the class.  After learning about how to use vocabulary instruction appropriately, I realized that the teacher does his vocabulary instructions in a very ineffective way.  He hands out a list of their vocabulary words and has the students copy the definitions from the book.  They do this on the first day of studying the unit, which means that most of them forget most of the words by the time they learn it.  I think it would be more beneficial to teach the students the vocabulary words as you are going over them in the lecture.  You could have the words highlighted on the PowerPoint, and then do some sort of review with the students at the end by having them play a matching game.  It would also help if the students did something other than just copying the vocabulary words from the book.  One thing that would be fun in the class is to play charades with the words because they are all scientific words, so it would be fun to watch some of the things the students would come up with for each of the words.

Affective Dimensions of Writing

Personally, I would not consider myself to be a writer.  I know that is strange considering I am an English major, but I am actually a terrible writer when it comes to creativity and design.  I have to try extra hard to state a specific point in writing, and I am terrible when it comes to my grammar, as most of you can probably see. However, I do enjoy writing.  I remember as a child I would tell little stories with pictures and captions.  My mom recently found a picture I drew when I was about four that showed my family camping.  It had our "trailer" labeled along with the "mowtans", each family member, and our dog.  I never realized that this was writing, but fora four year old it was a great detailed picture.  For recreation writing now, I mainly just do instagram.  I enjoy looking at people's pictures and commenting on them. I also really enjoy keeping a journal of funny things that my little girl says like how she calls a button "butt" I want to preserve the funny memories we ha e of her so the word journal has been a really fun thing for us to do as a family.  One writing assignment I remember doing in school was for my Survey of American Culture class I took when I was a freshman in college.  For the assignment we had to choose a style of home and do a project that consisted of at least thirty pages of work.  For my project I created a scrapbook of the anniversary inn.  It was such a fun project because I got to tour the hotel and see all of the fun themed rooms.  I enjoyed this assignment because I got to be creative with the report without it only being a paper.  It was much more enjoyable to me because I got to choose how to report the information.  My least favorite assignment I have ever done was the grant project we were required to write in high school.  My teacher did not give us much instruction on how to complete it, and it was just very long and tedious.  The thing I disliked the most was that the teacher said it was very important and we would have to use it all the time in our careers, but I can honestly say I do not remember how to write a grant because I have never created one since then.  I know I will have to have my students write assignments that they do not particularly enjoy, but I will try to make them as fun as possible by allowing the students to do other forms of writing like scrapbooks, facebook posts, image stories, etc.  I do not want the students to hate to write, and I want to see as much creativity in the students work as I can because I think if I had more choices in the style of writing I could use I would be a much better writer and enjoy it more than I do.

Blog Post 2 Connecting School and Home Experiences

Image of Kenneth Thomasma with a Naya Nuki statue

When I was in fifth grade, my parents took me to a book reading on Naya Nuki, written by Kenneth Thomasma. The event was held at my local elementary school in Richmond, UT.  After attending the book reading, I discovered that I had a love for reading.  My parents bought me a signed copy of the book, and I finished the book the next day.  If I had not attended the book reading, I don't know if I would have found my love of books at such an early age.
 
This experience may have shaped what I think about the subject of English by helping me to discover how much I love to read.  It does not matter the style of book, I just love to read.  I think it also helped me because I was able to meet the author and have him sign my copy of the book, which for a fifth grader is pretty awesome.  I think that having that personal connection made me want to actually read the book.  It also lead me to read the rest of the books that he wrote, which led me to read other books like The Boxcar Children and Harry Potter.
 
I can use this knowledge in my own teaching by informing students of events that have to do with English that are going on in the community.  I can let them know when authors are holding book signings or book readings that they can attend.  I can also invite authors to either do a book talk in our classroom, or have a skyped session with an author of a book we are reading.  I feel that by doing this students may also discover they have a love of reading because they have a personal connection with the author. 

Hey everyone, my name is Kelbie Jackson.  I am from Richmond, UT, but I currently live in Fielding, UT.  I have been married for almost four years, and I have a beautiful little girl named Paisley.  She will be two in November.  My husband and I are expecting our second baby in January, who is going to be a little boy.  I am studying English and Chemistry and I hope to teach both those subjects in high school.  I would love to teach tenth grade, but I wouldn't mind teaching twelfth grade.  I would also like to be either a cheerleading or drill team coach at the school I teach.   My hobbies include dancing, sewing, cooking, and reading. 
For me English is the best subject ever because you can have a lot of fun while teaching it.  You are a lot less limited to the activities, books, and topics you teach because you can relate so many different works to one another.  It is a subject that allows students to express themselves through their reading and writing, and I really like that about English because it allows shy students, like myself, to express themselves without having to speak.
Chemistry to me is a subject that allows you to have fun and watch things explode.  I like it because it is very structured and you have to follow things precisely in order for them to work out.  However, it is fun because you get to play around with chemicals and watch how chemicals react with one another.  It is also great because you get to learn how everyday things are created.  For example, lotions and shampoos. 
The thing that drew me into teaching English and Chemistry was two of my high school teachers I had so much fun in their class that I knew I wanted to do something with English and Chemistry.  After taking a few of the classes in college I realized that what I wanted to do most was teach these subjects so I could try to influence and help other students love the subjects just as I do.
I would say that literacy is an understanding based on how well students understand and comprehend a specific task or skill to enhance ones life in an unbiased way.
I think literacy definitely relates to my discipline because someone can be able to read and write or do chemistry perfectly, but unless they are able to apply it in their own life they are not considered literate in English or chemistry.  For example, a student can read The Life of Pi all the way through and write a paper on it does not mean a student is literate with the novel.  However, if they learned a few survival techniques from reading the novel then they would be considered literate.