Readings This Week:-)* ChApTeR's 1&8*

Chapter 1: Ensuring All Students Read, Write, and Think


Let me start off by just asking a question right off the bat... The title of this chapter really make me feel a lot of pressure being put on just the teacher. Why is it that we automatically think/assume that the teacher must teach every student everything they should ever learn? I mean honestly... I even had a conversation with my mother and her co-worker the other day about my 4th grade teachers and how I was so behind and had such a hard time with reading back then. My mom was trying to place all the blame on my teachers, but I had to immediately stop her and say well it's not only the teacher's fault when students fall behind it's also the parents too. It kind of shocked her that I said that too her because I said it in a very insinuating voice telling her that it was her responsibility and fault too. I just had to get that off my chest because it really gave me a clearer perspective at already thinking about how I am soon going to be a teacher and all these "assumption" that we all make will be dumped on me as well.

Now, back to the reading in chapter 1...
Shifting responsibility from Teacher to Students-- there you go case and point-- it's the title of the next section in this chapter and Fisher and Frey write about a teacher and her class working through a DR-TA by doing several things like using the "Four types of Questions" when using informational texts in order to read between the lines and decode an informational text. Fisher and Frey then go on the explain how the level of thinking a student does needs to increase as they are reading more and more complex reading materials. All of this is mentioned and stated in a great way within our book, but what I really got from it was that YES it is FIRST the Teacher's responsibility to "effectively TEACH" the students how to THINK on a more and more complex level, but then after they have been taught the student needs to start taking Responsibility for their own learning and ask themselves questions internally by practicing metacognition like the teacher taught them day-to-day using all of the different Comprehension Strategies. I can't help but think that Fisher and Frey are not only trying to show us yes the correct way of teaching or students comprehension, but maybe, they are also showing us what it should be like if "We Educators" are doing what Highly Educated Teachers should be doing in the first place. Then maybe this whole NCLB law could disappear and leave us behind.

Chapter 8: Powerful Pens: Writing to Learn with Adolescents

As you can see I am a big titles person and like to infer or predict what the chapter will be about from reading it... and this title makes me laugh because when I read it, I feel like Fisher and Frey were trying to make it seem like Adolescents was a disability or something. Like students had to learn how to deal with being an adolescent while writing. BUT, of course this is NOT what they meant. Although, it gave me a big giggle... (I know, I get off subject) Anyways back to this chapters content... All of the strategies and suggestions Fisher and Frey write intrigue me throughout this whole chapter because we used a lot of them last semester AND I was thinking to myself "oh, I'm so stealing this and gonna use it in my classroom," but then I thought "Wait, I'll be teaching Math not LA" ummm.... not true anymore because of the Common Core standards I realized later on... Then a huge depression fell upon me because I knew how hard it was for me to understand Language Art and English as an adolescent and I kinda felt like "OMG, I don't want to be responsible for (screwing) up a child's education in LA/ENG. Even though I know I can do it...there is still that underlying defeated little girl in me that was so scared as a kid and I just wouldn't want to let any of my student's down. Although, that part of me makes me hesitate teaching all of these types of strategies it is also the part of me that makes me want to fight and show everyone that I can do it after all. (if that even makes any sense)
The section in this chapter about "Why is Writing Neglected in Many Content Area Classes?" was another attention getter for me because Fisher and Frey talk about how so many teachers don't consider writing part of their curriculum and this is so true, for some teachers. As for me, the English teachers that have made more of an impact on me and actually made me learn to like/love English (surprisingly) were the ones who made us free write or quick write, brainstorm, or gave us prompts that related to something we could connect to and develop and build off of rather than just giving us something we had to write about but didn't even care about. Fisher and Frey make excellent points within this chapter about writing to learn in Mathematics which, I must say I was very excited about because I want to be a 6th grade math teacher:-)! It was neat to read the suggestions and procedures they talked about in order to help your students think about math in more than just a scientific way and truly helps them breakdown the question step-by-step.

Question--
How can we make adolescents who seem to be one of those "hopeless" cases your hear teachers talk about become "hopeful" again, without overstepping any boundaries?... of course.

What can I do NOW to show peers that I sometimes don't mean to dominate/over-talk a conversation in class? It's just a way for me to process information by talking out loud...

Think Center:

I actually became a member of the Think-Center the week before we came to class because I got curious after the first time you mentioned it in class. Dr. Price and I during my one-on-one had a two hour discussion about how I think and why I do a lot of the things that I do behavior wise. In our discussion she explained what four areas of thinking I am more dominate in and obviously I am an Extravert thinker. I am also more likely to first think with my Intuition, Feelings, and Judge. To some people, at first, I probably seem very intense, overbearing, and loud. Which can be true at times BUT I always have good intentions for others feeling's. Sometimes when I help too much it could be because I just want to be valued by that person in some way or that I am trying to show the other person that I value them by wanting to help. I am very glad that I now have more internal perspective of how/why I think the way I do and what I can do to balance it out more.