Music as poetry

   Music plays an important role in our lives.  Music is an escape, emotions, and feelings which is why students relate and defend it like there's no tomorrow.  I had an English teacher who tried to incorporate music when introducing new literary periods, however I feel as though it can be used to a whole new level. 

    I got this idea from someone so I cannot take credit for it, but why not use music as a way to show students that they are exposed to poetry everyday?  Survey a class about poetry and see if anyone can list places that they are exposed to poetry everyday then bring up music and ask if it's poetry.  As an assignment have students pick their favorite song (keeping it school appropriate of course) and have them analyze it like they would a poem.

   Then, have them present what they found in the lyrics or sound of the music after the song is played allowed for everyone to hear.  For the listening part I recommend using a player such as spotify, which is a free internet radio in which you can create playlists.  It has just about every kind of genre of music which would be great to create playlists for students to listen to while doing creative writing.  

Choosing the Right Tool

"In order to integrate technologies effectively, you must choose the tool that fits the use" (Wilber 43).  This seems to be the main purpose of chapter three as well as chapter four as Wilber explains what blogs, wikis, and digital stories are as well as how to use them.

I am still fairly new to blogs and wikis yet, but luckily I'm gaining some experience with them before I start my student teaching next semester.  Wilber gives so many different perks to blogs and wikis, and digital stories.  He explains how blogs can be used as resources to share ideas with other teachers or as a teaching tool in the classroom in which students are actually blogging.  Blogs can be used as book discussions and a way to post questions and connect outside of the classroom.

However, the main point that Wilber points out that I LOVE is that through blogging or more specifically, individual blogging, students are writing on daily basis.  One of the problems we discussed in class was how statistics about students reading and writing has declined.  Is it really that students don't read or write as much or has the way they read and write just expanded?  Blogging I believe will help students to become stronger writers or at least become more aware of what they are writing and it shows them that they do read and write on a daily basis.

Using Twitter as a Teaching Tool?

Tumblr is becoming very handy at finding new ways to use social networking sites as educational tools.  While browsing through tumblr under the tag for education I came upon an idea someone blogged about for using twitter in the classroom.  I would never have thought to bring twitter into the classroom or figured out a way incorporated it with teaching in an ELA classroom.

Twitter is something that I found many high school students are familiar with using and use it quite frequently.  While I was going through practicum I found many of my students making references to twitter such as hashtagging.  The blog that I came across in tumblr discusses how he/she had their students create a twitter account for God and their job was to tweet about what his feelings are or what he might think.  This idea can be used for characters in a novel, play, short story, etc.  Students can follow each other and interact as though they are the main characters, which can help show that students have an understanding or a grasp on the literature they are reading at the time.  It's a great way to connect something that some if not most teens use on a daily base to what they have to read for the school curriculum.  Of course there are concerns I have with this idea such as how will students be assessed and what to do about students who might have ever used twitter before or don't have access.

I want to know what others think of this idea and I welcome any suggestions because I might try something like this when I student teach in the fall.

Book Reports, Version 2.0

  Let's face it, no one likes to write book reports.  At least I haven't met a student who does.  It is a poor way of making sure students have read the book and even then that's not really accurate because most students can get on cliff notes or spark notes and write a book report from it without actually opening the book.  It is surprising that so many students will confess  to using the aforementioned sites to complete assignments on books.  Not that the sites are bad resources, but that's beside the point.

   I don't have any experience with podcasting and I didn't really have a grasp on what it was used for or how to use it.  Robert Rozema sums it up in simple terms.  Rozema defines a podcast as, "a blog in audio form."  In The Book Report, Version 2.0: Podcasting on Young Adult Novels Rozema explores using podcasting in the classroom in replacement of the paper version of the book report.  The podcasting doesn't completely eliminate the paper version of the book report but the final project ends up as a podcast. 

   I have fallen in love with his idea of using podcasting as a way for students to create book reports.  Podcasting a book report really demonstrates if a student has read the book instead of relying on cliff notes and spark notes because students are encouraged to implement sound effects and be creative.  They show that they understand the book by interpreting it through sound effects, point of view, and music; things that paper and text can't necessarily do as easily. 

   I'm so glad that I'm learning about how to use such technology as this now right before I go into student teaching next semester.  I definitely plan on trying to work with my cooperating teacher to try out using podcasting and goodreads in the classroom.  I'm sure that by the end of the semester I will have a ton of new tools to use before next semester.  I just have to keep my fingers crossed that my cooperating teacher is open to trying new things.

Exploring Tumblr

   I have had a tumblr account for quit some time but never really explored how it could be helpful to me as a future teacher.  So, for a change I decided to sit down and explore anything with the hashtag "education."  At first I thought that I would get a lot of blogs on elementary education, but surprisingly I found a lot on secondary education and not just elementary education.  It seems like a good way to connect with other teachers, especially for first year teachers or student teachers.

   Browsing through some of the things that others have posted under #education varied from conversations between teachers and students that are funny and to some with teachers sharing teaching ideas or asking for help.  One of the ideas I found on tumblr that might come in handy I included below.  I would imagine that it would work with any play or story and serves as a good way to make sure students understand what is going on in the story or play.

I have attached a link to the tumblr for this idea.  This is a set of directions for creating a movie poster for Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.  Create directions to demonstrate what students are supposed to do.

New Literacies Stance in Teaching ELA

   When we start to think about new literacies and using it to teach in an English Language Arts classroom people instantly think about using fancy technology.  However, new literacies being taught in the classroom doesn't necessarily need to involve any technology because that's not the main focus.  Miller and McVee in Multimodal Composing in Classrooms talks about a grad student and her experiences of teaching and trying to incorporate new literacies into her classroom.  She learns through experience of what new literacies actually is because when she starts teaching in the beginning of the school year she has the students doing activities that are outside of the box and not traditional such as using music and sitcoms to teach about storylines.  She then starts to move back to the more traditional way of teaching when she moves into her unit on short stories which instantly loses students' attention.

   In the end she learns of how she teach using new literacies to keep her students' attention and learning.  Not all of the activities she has her students do involve technology which I find to be awesome.  Technology I believe is something that should be incorporated last and not used as a hook since it is possible to teach with new literacies with out the dependence on technology.  Many of the activities required students to pull from their own knowledge and experience from their surroundings outside of school such as music, television, and even video games.  Letting students build use what they know and love outside of the classroom and to bring it into the classroom is a great new way of looking at different literacies since it has evolved past just plain paper and print.

    I can imagine myself taking some of her ideas and trying to apply them to a classroom of my own because she used many great ideas for teaching on a whole other level.  There is a time and place for everything, but she incorporates a tiny bit of traditional teaching that students are still writing, but now they have a purpose and a connection to what they are doing.

Young Adult Literature

    One of my goals that I am making as a preservice teacher is to keep up with the latest novels read by young adults.  I want to be the teacher who is up to date on what students are interested in for many reasons.  Books can be entertaining or they can help people to deal with a difficult situation and as most know, high school can be rough for a lot of teens.

    To help me keep up with the latest books that tweens and teens are reading I plan on using goodreads.  If you don't know what goodreads is, it is a website that you can create a free account to which allows you to mark, rate, and comment on books you have read.  The site also allows you to connect with other users, recommend books to others, share favorite quotes, read an overview of other books, and create lists of read, going to read, and currently reading.  It is a site that I would recommend for anyone to use no matter what age because it is a great way to keep track of books that have been read or get ideas of what to read next.

    I can see goodreads as being a good tool for the classroom, especially for the students who really enjoy reading.  If you are interested in checking it out yourself I have created a link to the homepage for the website above.  I hope you find it as beneficial as I have.

Why Are Students Bored With School?

    It seems like every 6 months or less there's a new ipad, smart phone, computer, tablet, website, social networking site, etc.  It is almost near impossible to keep up with such great advancement in the classroom with the rapid growth and change in technology.  Dr. Larry D. Rosen explores the "iGeneration" in his article Rewind, which is about why students are finding school to be boring.  He uses his child as an example of student who finds school to be boring because of how he is taught.

    Dr. Rosen explains that the reason students are becoming bored with school is because students are immersed so much with new technology that classes which don't use this technology become boring.  He claims that often his son is bored to tears over homework because it does not involve any of the technology that students use on a daily basis.  One of the questions he asks that stood out to me was, "I try to help him by finding websites that present interesting ways to understand his homework but it really isn't my job, is it?"  He has made an excellent point that the teacher should try harder to implement something that students use on a regular day, however it is not just the teacher's responsibility, rather it should be a joint effort.  

    With budget cuts teachers don't always have access to new technology to adapt their lessons as easily, however it is possible in a low technology class.  In The Socially Networked Classroom, William R. Kist explores ways that teachers can keep school from becoming boring for teachers who have access to technology and those who are limited.  In a classroom that is limited Kist shows that by bringing in topics that students explore while using technology.  He finds a way to get students involved in a limited situation when it comes to technology.  Kist gives me faith as preservice teacher that there are still ways to get through to students in a limited setting.

A Brief Introduction

Dear Reader,

   I am a student of Slippery Rock University preparing for a career as a Secondary English Education major.  The purpose of this blog is to give you insight into the thoughts of an English Education major.  I will be exploring the world of multimodal teaching as well as other teaching strategies or topics.  It is my goal to make literature come alive to students the way my teachers did for me.

   "Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of a fire."  ~William Butler Yeats~