Well, I'm glad my demonstration is finished! That makes today a stellar day. Only 17 days left. Now if I can just get my personal essay done tonight, and my research paper done this weekend, I'll be all set.
I loved the "Writing as Reflective Action" article and am anxiously awaiting the opportunities to use them. I really think these are going to make me a much better thinker. I am also eager to use the response journal to reinforce what my students recall about text-based assignments. I have found that my students do not often understand or recall important vocabulary or major concepts even though I try to provide hands-on experiences that will reinforce them. I think the response journal would be a perfect technique.
I am glad Peter Elbow so eloquently expressed some of my more primitive thoughts about student dialect and SWE. I have long resented people who say we speak "Hockingese." What else would I speak since I live here? He suggests a balance between SWE and the mother tongue, which I find interesting. The diagram and discussion about writing to learn and writing to communicate helped me to understand his article even more.
I had a chance to look over the CD Rom. It was quite helpful and seems well-organized. Sharing and Responding looks interesting; again I'm looking forward to trying out some of these strategies. I am already beginning to think of the many practices I will change this coming year.
I'm anxious to see how our discussions develop regarding In the Middle. It's one of the first graduate classes I've taken where we (several students) will monitor our own reading and discussion of a text.
4 comments:
I remember a conversation, although brief, we previously had about Hockingese - I remember thinking, "How the heck do we improve their ability to communicate if we do not frown upon their use of the word ain't?" I see your point, I really do, but kids who show up for a job interview and use the word ain't and a variety of other frowned upon word combinations are definitely at an advantage. How are we supposed to promote growth and job preparedness and at the same time, seem tolerant of their cultural language? I am still torn by this. Let's compare notes in another week or two.
Awesome job today, Patti.
I'm glad you brought up the topic of the CD. I'll try to say something about it in class.
Papers done by the weekend?! Patti, that is some serious overachievement! Just FYI, we will be working on those papers in class throughout the SI. You're not expected to do everything on your own outside of class.
PS for Merrilee: It's back to CONTEXT again. There might even be some jobs for which using "ain't" in the interview would give you a boost. And if they go off, say, to college, and take all of that "Hockingese" out of their vocabularies, it might have some pretty serious repercussions on their relationships with family and friends. Context, context, context.
I tell my students that we have a "home" language and a "school" language. Sometimes it's okay to use the home language at school and sometimes it's not, similar to the analogy Don related today about clothing.
Post a Comment