Hungry Minds

I think that the title itself draws attention to the article. I thought that first and foremost the mere fact that this was all taking place in a church. I know of many churches around my home that incorporate soup kitchens during the day. It's comforting to know that things like this go on in many major cities such as New York. I said in the beginning that the title intrigued me because I didn't know where the writing was going. Being hungry is a terrible feeling, but I think that the author was trying to convey that being hungry to write is just as important/noticeable as being hungry for food. When I first started reading about the writer's workshop that was being held there I honestly found myself, ashamed, stereotyping those who would be going to a soup kitchen. Normally we think of homeless people, or even people in need of a free meal like that as being unintelligent. However, that really isn't the case at all. The author recalls so many stories of the people who came in and out of the workshops and the impressions their writings had. One point in this piece really stuck out to me: "In the workshop’s fourteen years, several participants have died. Pierce, a tall, white-haired man with bushy black eyebrows, was a volunteer at the soup kitchen. Almost every piece he wrote centered on the most important moment in his life—when he attempted suicide by jumping into the East River. After police pulled him out, he quit drinking; many of his pieces ended, “One day at a time.” A few years ago when the workshop reconvened, we learned that Pierce had died of a heart attack not long before." Even a man like this had such an impact on Frazier. We don't know what is going on with other people in their lives, but Pierce had the opportunity to showcase it to everyone by writing and sharing his work. His life changed because of it, and I want to think that this may have saved him slightly before his time to die had come.

I personally knew a man one time who was homeless for 4 years. The man was a local at our Taco Bell and he always sat outside. He never asked you for money or food, but one time he did ask me for a pen and a notebook. Most of the time I went to Taco Bell right after school. Tim was sitting there one day when he asked me, and I happened to have my book bag in my car. I got out a notebook that hadn't been used yet, and I gave him a pen and pencil. I asked him why he would want such a thing and he brought out, from his trash bag, and old tattered notebook and handed it to me. Page to page was filled with writings. This particularly was a journal he had been keeping. Tim told me he wrote in it everyday. When I asked why he simply said "I have a life too, and maybe one day someone will want to hear about it." I never really thought about that day until reading this article.

Everyone has a voice. Today's society lends us the opportunity to have it heard. Right now for instance I am writing on a blog that the entire world could view if they wanted to do so. Another form of writing is graffiti which almost anyone can do as well. We all have voices, and that is what I think this particular writing is telling us. The great thing is that it's real. There really is this opportunity that has been given to so many to have their voices heard throughout a room full of people who truly are going to support them. Below is a video of a writing workshop being used in a very young classroom. It goes to show that with the right preparation and state of mind, anyone willing can learn. I think it's a great video to showcase the variety of ways this concept can be used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi9hkwvF2Dg

Linking Our Mini Lessons to Image Grammar

We have been doing these mini-lessons in class recently. I have honestly enjoyed doing mine, and taking what others have to offer from theirs. I like the idea of doing such short lessons within our classroom time. It does have its down side though. I hate when the students who are trying to create these elaborate lessons must be cut short. Of course it would be ideal to give us all much more time, however we aren't given that luxury by only having class once a week. Anyway, back to Image Grammar. Many of us have been given the lessons that we are supposed to take right out of this book by Noden. Many of these particular lessons come right out of the book. The fictional lesson was one of my favorites. We took fictional writing but placed our own spin on it. Noden's book is filled with a lot of strategies that will help us as future educators. One of my favorite strategies is on page 90. It's called "Read a Scripted Fantasy."

This strategy allows students to close their mind and really try to get a grasp on items that they are going to be writing a poem on. The best thing about it though is in the beginning the students have no clue what they are doing this for. They simply are told to think of a machine and an animal. I like that afterward there is a set of steps that the students are supposed to follow. I like it because although it is a very organized strategy, it leaves enough independence to the students to create their own kind of poem. Creating poetry actually is one of my favorite things to do with students.

Poetry allows us to write whatever we want to write, and it really can't be a "bad/wrong" piece of writing. We are given the option to rhyme or not, make it long or short and we can choose whether to have it make sense or only be understood by us. The ability we have in poetry is endless. I think that is a message that Noden is trying to relay to us in his book that our possibilities as teachers are endless. He gives us strategy after strategy that we can use in our classroom. He also gives us topics and scenarios that would allow us to think outside of the box as a teacher. Many times we ask this of our students but we never do it ourselves. Below is a video of an alternative form of "poetry." These kinds of ideas and ways of "performing/creating" poetry are alternative ways we can help encourage our students to participate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdta43fVmes&playnext=1&list=PL1C2B0C673BAC96EC&index=9

The Professor & the Madman

This book was actually really interesting to me. My girlfriend had to read this for a separate class last year, so I was already very familiar with it. I think the concept behind it is brilliant. It truly depicts how writing can bring people together. James Murray and William Chester couldn't be more different from each other. Although Chester may have been considered "normal" before the murder, he was still discharged from the Army for weird behaviors as well. However, through the use of a pen and paper, these two men found a bond piecing together one of the greatest reference books in the world. When I think about a dictionary I honestly can't imagine the work that has gone into one. Looking at page after page of words being defined honestly gives me a headache, and I only turn a few. Yet, where would we as English majors be without the dictionary? It's hard to imagine that these words took that much time, effort and thought into defining them for a world to reference to constantly.

I thought for a while how this book would relate to us as future educators. As I said above, I think one of the messages in this novel is that writing can bring even the farthest strangers together. I think applying that to high school classes is a huge task, but one that is inevitable. My job, in my eyes, is to create a room where I teach not only how to look at literature, but how to put your writing down on paper. Now, that seems simplistic, sure. Yet, after observing in Akron and student teaching now, I think that's really the first couple of steps. Kids need to get back to the basics and then I can act as Vygotsky and take them further. I think that while teaching my students will no longer be separated by differences they may have, but united in the fact that as of now, they are all in the same boat. I think this book shows that concept. A convicted man behind bars, adding to one of the greatest books, with the help of a well respected man from Oxford.

Re-Reading Harry Potter

With less than a month away from the premiere of the new Harry Potter, my roommate, girlfriend and I are all starting to re-read the series. With so many books I feel like it's going to be quite a task. The books are rather long and will require me to be dedicated in my reading. However, doing this will only help me when it comes to teaching. We are in positions where many of our students are unfamiliar with this literary "canon" that we are expected to be experts on. Yet, I personally think that these are some of the books we should be brushing up on. Many of our students will find this sort of reading to be more enjoyable. Although the school may require us to teach Shakespeare, The Great Gatsby, The Chocolate War etc., these books are ones we can use to fill in for those students who need a suggestion of a book to pleasure read. I also know that for instance at my school my cooperating teacher has told me she was able to choose a young adult literature book at her own discretion for her Junior level class. Back to my topic. Harry Potter is set in a world of fantasy. Wizards, witches, werewolves, trolls etc. These books really open up the imagination of the reader. Obviously everything is fictional, and half of the enjoyment is how you view it in your mind. We talk about everyday in class ways in which we can really reach our students. We have given examples of successes that we have had thus far in our teaching. For the most part, I haven't heard us talk about many books we are teaching in the classes.

I think of last year when we were in Dr. Pytash's class and she gave us the opportunity to choose a young adult book to read and do multiple assignments that went along with it. Honestly, this was my favorite thing I have ever done in a college classroom. I enjoyed it for several reasons. Dr. Pytash introduced this activity to us in a way that was as inviting as possible. She did research on all of the books we were able to choose. She told us the categories in which they fit into which allowed us to narrow our decision. Once we had dones so, we chose the books, read them, presented them, wrote papers on them. Now, obviously there were much more details than that, but what I truly loved was the ability of choosing something ourselves. I really got excited about what we were doing and I got excited about sharing my book with everyone. I ended up going on to read the next two books in the series and The Hunger Games has become my favorite trilogy. Below is a PDF file about some research done on young adult literature. Not only has it been incorporated into English classrooms, but into others as well. This research is trying to show that young adult literature can benefit students in all areas, and all subjects that schools offer. I enjoyed reading it, and found it to be very interesting and informative.

http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/literacy/young.pdf

Chapter 4 Writer's Workshop

I actually used this chapter in my ten day unit plan. My unit was on Characters. I had to do anything and everything that included characters and how they apply to reading, writing and English in general. I started off my unit by actually reading the first paragraph of the chapter. My students looked at me perplexed. Yet, I got their attention. My absolute favorite line in this entire chapter is located in that first paragraph: "Now don't misunderstand: By "action" I do not mean merely street fights, car chases, and passionate love scenes. By "action," I mean any thought, word, or deed that engages your character with some other character, and thereby becomes an event." I think that is such a good statement for a couple of reasons. My final assessment for my students was them composing a very short, two-page narrative. When I told them that I wanted them to develop their characters, they all become flustered and clearly anxious about the assignment. After reading this to them again they started to settle down. I remember Dr. Kist reading this to us in class one day and I knew that I would be using it to help my unit.

I think it's a great chapter with all the in-depth looks we see for characters. Koch talks about the point of views, roles of characters, voice, dialogue etc. When I am writing a story I never really think about the depth that my characters can have. I have the power to develop them into such dynamic people. With this chapter I did a lot of activities with my students. We did activities that allowed them to develop characters that didn't even pertain to what they were writing for their narratives. I talked to them about the ability to really get into developing their characters. Like our activity in class where we acted out skits with random stuffed animals. I did something very similar to this in my classroom as well. My students loved it and afterward I allowed time to begin writing and I think that really helped them open up their creative minds and get going on their writing.

When I wrote my own narrative for my students, I modeled characters from my life that were real. I developed them in ways that I only could have. Nobody else knew what had happened in my story. I had all the power. I think that really was my overall message for my unit. I challenged my students to be creative, use the pencil as a weapon when writing. "Give me more, more details, more dialogue, more actions, more adventures, more characteristics, when in doubt, write more." This was my "lecture" at the end of the day before their paper was due. Below is a funny clip from Family Guy. I chose this because we see the dynamic development of Meg, Brian and Stewie within a short two minutes. Little things like dialogue, scenario and body language tell a lot about characters. Although this is a video, you can see how this being written would give a great indication of who these characters really are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lich59xsjik

Writing

"Good writing occurs because a writer passionately desires to say something....Students do not need more abstract advice about how to write. They need somehow to have their feelings kindled." X.J. Kennedy This statement couldn't apply better to my feelings about writing. I like the idea that Atwell established her classroom as a workshop. In chapter 10 she lets us know that she believes it is imperative for her to be a role model for her students. With her bringing papers of her own, or stories, poems etc., it shows her students that there are adults who write as well. We can't ask our students to write for us if in fact they don't see us writing at all. We are English teachers and this should be like breathing to us anyway. I hope to establish my classroom as a workshop just like Atwell in the future.

http://www.oneofus.co.uk/index.php/writing_tips/writing_exercises/

Above is a link that has a couple of writing activites that could help others dive into some "non-traditional" way of teaching it. My personal favorite is "Writer's Tennis" because I have had such success with this actually in my life. I was introduced to it during high school, and I actually used this when I was helping tutor for the OGT at Akron North. Many of my students were not passionate writers, and when we were practicing on some of the essays for the OGT I used this approach. I would help them after they wrote a paragraph and we would write off of each other. Clearly the students wouldn't be able to do this on the test, but my idea was to keep them thinking and writing the entire time.

Student Teaching

I think it's only appropriate to talk about student teaching in this blog. I want everyone to know that I absolutely have been loving my experience at Field High School. I am learning and gaining so much from this experience. When I am in my classroom I am able to lead discussion, grade papers and dive into lessons. I have taught 2 lessons completely so far and have been very involved in others every time I am there. Taking everything in about the school has given me a better outlook on how my future might be shaped. I see how schools are run and how everything gets done. I have been watching other teachers as well and soaking everything in.

I do wish that KSU's teaching program would have gotten us into schools sooner. I have talked to many teachers over the past few months about my experience and they were shocked to learn that we had only been in the schools starting last year. I am not in anyway bashing our program, I just am learning so many more things by actually physically being in a classroom as opposed to just reading about it. I would be interested in seeing if anyone at KSU would actually consider placing education majors inside of a school somehow even earlier than Junior year. On a POSITIVE note, like I said, being in the classroom for hours has proven EXTREMELY beneficial. Learning things like, how to redirect lessons that are going poorly, treating students equally, interacting with students is truly something you can't learn from books, and I am learning so much just by being there. I can't wait to see how this unit turns out!