My Blog Wordle

Here is my blog Wordle! Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3487796/Alix%27s_Blog_Wordle

Go to www.wordle.net to make you own!!

Multigenre

We were asked to write a journal entry about why we chose our particular topics for the multigenre project. I decided to share this journal with my blog followers...all 5 of you. Just for some background info---our multigenre project is a project that is centered around a main topic (mine is transracial adoption). We must reasearch our topic and include 3 different genres of writing about our findings. One of mine happens to be a blog! Check out Journeys Through a Black and White World if you're interested!

Why I Chose Transracial Adoption:
Adoption has always been something thats interested me from day 1. I think that there are some major pros AND cons about it, but I personally love the idea of welcoming an unbiological child into a loving family. During the summer after sophomore year, I participated in a study abroad program to Cape Town, South Africa. Through this program, I was given the opportunity to partake in experiences that will stay with me for a life time. Many of those experiences involved sweet local children that needed a little extra loving. We visited several townships or slums and interacted with the locals. We were even able to spend the night in one of the local townships with volunteer families. This was an extremely terrifying experience but also one that opened my eyes to a type of poverty I had seen in pictures but never actually believed it existed. While in these townships, I met some of the most loving people I've ever come in contact with. Many of these loving people were young children.
Ever since my experience in South Africa, I've had a growing interest in adopting a baby from Africa. I've always wondered how a child would adjust to life in a family of a different race and how the family members would adjust to welcoming a child of a different race. This project provided me with the perfect opportunity to do some research on these ideas and find information from real families that have gone through this adoption process. I plan to look for blogs written by parents or siblings that have first hand experience with transracial adoption. I plan to look up statistics about how interracial families operate. I'm very excited to learn more about this topic because it is something that I am seriously considering doing in my lifetime. But, adoption is not something that should be taken lightly. And I would never want to bring a baby into my family without being fully prepared about the challenges that adoption brings. It wouldn't be fair to the baby, and it wouldn't be fair to the rest of my family. This project will hopefully provide me with a better understanding of what it takes to go through with a transracial adoption...the good and the bad.

Sources used to create blog, instant message conversation, and birth certificates:

Kisses From Katie: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/

Joining the Journey: http://joiningthejourney.blogspot.com/

Oatsvall Team: http://oatsvallteam.blogspot.com/

Adoptive Families: http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=428

Transracial Adoption: The Pros and Cons and the Parents' Perspective: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:oZRpR5OExcQJ:www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/blj/vol20/morrison.pdf+transracial+adoption&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh0h8Hma-RFWyRBIUdqB1ykov0t1P78B2J_RWxJ3oiMOTP00Da44G3Lq5rqGnauXIdGRcDttMsY9RwA4z6Ywlck3JpNJRAEm9PatFMIZgOd-6t1RNSPDggX6kyOAaRb_LvFiTqk&sig=AHIEtbTLnbMK1HSyKosU_KfajgsH1bqzMA

Where Do I Belong? by Ola Zuri: Children's literature book about transracial adoptees finding their place in their new families.

Birth Certificate Generator: http://kenyanbirthcertificategenerator.com/

Personal Conversation with adopted teen from my hometown.

Actual quotes from these blogs, books, conversations and articles were used in the making of Journeys Through a Black and White World, the birth certificates, and the instant message conversation.


The Making of my Genres:
1. The birth certificate: I found an online resource that generates fake birth certificates. I thought this would be an neat genre to use because it could show the difference in the birth certificates pre and post adoption. If you look closely, the child, parents', and requesting recipeient's names change.

2. Journeys Through a Black and White World Blog: This was the genre I spent the most time on. I found myself getting very personally involved in the making of this blog. I would catch myself constantly dreaming of different posts I could write. I chose this genre because I thought that it was an honest way to get a peak into the lives and emotions of a family going through with a transracial adoption. I wanted it to come from the mother's perspective because I thought it would be the most honest and raw perspective I could write from. I read through many other similar blogs and even used quotes from actual mothers in my factious blog. I wanted this blog to seem as real as possible. I eventually had to stop myself because the blog was consuming my every thought! This genre was definitely my favorite to write.

3. Instant Message Conversation: I wanted to include some genre that would give a peak into the thoughts and emotions of siblings that are about to welcome a new baby into their lives. I wanted the children to be younger so I could highlight the immature, stereotypical thoughts that children of this age might have. I figured an instant message conversation was a suitable genre because it seemed very realistic. I can clearly remember countless conversations about our family that my brother and I had via instant message.

Sorry I've been somewhat MIA for the last few days! The end of the year always gets to me...you know the saying...so much to do, so little time! But, I'm back in action and commenting on blogs. Check out what 'Ms. A' had to say...

http://kidblog.org/MrsDahlsClass4/pablon/thinking-stem/#comment-751

http://kidblog.org/MrsRippsClass/ksripp/what-i-am-missing-in-4th-grade/#comment-2270

http://kidblog.org/MrSeyfertsClass/anna242/gerogia/#comment-411

Wedding Inspiration: A Spring Soiree

Just a quick something I came across today that made me smile....oh to dream....

Wedding Inspiration: A Spring Soiree

Writers Block

So I'm having huge writers block about what to do for my big multigenre project. There's so many things that I want to know more about, and I'm having trouble narrowing it down and choosing just one. I want to do something that will positively affect my life and my students. I've been reading a daily devotional called Simple Abundance. (I highly recommend it!) And it's basically about a slow and steady path about improving your life and spirituality. It's not like most devotional books that I've read...it's not super biblical or way over my head. It's a quick daily read that I've found fits easily into my life. Simple Abundance is all about baby steps. It's not asking you to make huge life changes in a matter of days. There's a process to it...observation, reflection, admittance, commitment, progress, etc.  My daily devotionals have really become an object of much thought throughout my days, and I've got an inkling that my topic for my project lies somewhere within the pages....

Unfortunately, I'm running out of time to figure it out....so stayed tuned!! I'll be blogging about my chosen topic in the next day or so!

Multigenre Research

I found this article very interesting and though provoking. I love reading about teachers that are willing to engage in well constructed, difficult, and beneficial activities with their students. The project discussed in this article is a time consuming activity that requires a large amount of work for both the teacher and student. But, in the end, I think that this activity would be extremely beneficial for any student as they learned how to look deeper into factual information, formulate interpretations about it, and produce individualized work. In my elementary school, they have a similar program set up. Type 3 is a gifted program that allows students to choose a topic, research about it, and produce a product of their choosing. This product can be a website, a movie, an event, a club, etc. The students have full control over what topic they choose, but they must stick with this topic throughout the entire year. They are given computers and research time 4 days a week. The project discussed in this article seems like a more thorough and thought-out version of the Type 3 I have observed. In Type 3, the students aren't necessarily asked to make and draw upon their own interpretations of the material they find. I wish this wasn't the case. I wish the students were pushed a little bit further and asked to include some of their own thoughts, opinions, and interpretations about the information they find. But, I do admire the school for including this program into their curriculum. I do wish it was open to more than just the gifted students, but I do give them much credit for their effort!
Chapter 12 Quick Thoughts:
-I found the sample year long plan for upper grades writing workshop very helpful. This is a great model to refer to when planning a schedule of your own.
-I really like the idea of students writing about a variety of aspects of one topic---the way an author writes, the information given, the perspective, etc.






Find article here: https://docs.google.com/viewera=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12e7726df07e4d64&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/ui%3D2%26ik%3D4e488948fa%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12e7726df07e4d64%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dsafe%26realattid%3Df_gksdq6i10%26zw&sig=AHIEtbRLX4eWw5GmuLerYHvZci4uBNcSQQ&pli=1

Linger Longer

Managing a Writers Workshop can be one of the most daunting tasks of the entire workshop experience. Planning is easy...you make these great focus lessons, writing prompts, activities, and creative ideas that you type up and just hope everything works out. Actually implementing what you plan is another thing altogether. One of the points I liked most in chapter 7 was about the teacher holding a strong presence in the classroom. As I read, I imagined a sweet perfume moving around the working students. No one wanted to perfume around for too long....it might suffocate the writers and their creativity. But, if the perfume was absent for a prolonged time, the writers might forget the sweet smell and thus lose motivation for their task at hand. The perfect teacher presence is that that you can always smell the sweet perfume, faint as it may be, but you are never overwhelmed by its scent to the point you need to crack a window somewhere QUICK.
Writers Workshop Kits: The Easy Way Out. I do believe that the idea behind Writers Workshop kits is a good one, but the actuality of it is not. Recently, I've been struggling with my feelings about different organizations that place untrained college graduates in high-risk public school classrooms. This chapter reminded me of this. I see two sides of the story: 1. Just like these organizations, teachers that are buying and using Writers Workshop Kits are trying to do a good thing. They are trying to bring creativity into the classroom. They are trying to give their students options and possibilities in their writings. But, what they're really doing is cheating the students. They're cheating the students because they are giving them a instant Writers Workshop that doesn't take into account anything about the actual students and their likes, dislikes, strengths, weakness, etc. In this same way, organizations are cheating students by placing unqualified young graduates in classrooms full of kids who need help the most. Yes, I do believe these organizations are trying to do good for these children and trying to fix what is so broken in our educational system, but why place unqualified people in the  most desperate places? I agree with Ray when she says that writing workshop kits are highly insulting. They're saying that we can just buy our way into a successful and meaningful writers workshop. It's insulting that these organizations think that any random graduate can effectively educate children when there are people, like my classmates and myself, that have been studying elementary education for years. I digress, I digress...

Talking It Out on Valentines Day

Who doesn't like to feel special? I can answer this question with pure confidence....absolutely no one. Everyone wants to feel special. Today is a perfect example. Valentines Day is one of the most loved and hated holidays of the year. People love it when they have someone who thinks they're extra special. People hate it when they don't. Writing conference are like little special meetings we can have with our students. They are a time when our students get the individual attention that they need and want. They are a time that we, as teachers, can connect with our students on a personal and academic level. During these special times, we can give direct instruction on issues that particular students are having that day. Sometimes, students learn more in these short one-on-one moments than they might during the entire writing workshop. I believe that we owe it to our students to make time in our day for these conferences. Every students needs a little extra help and lovin' every so often. And every teacher has a time where he or she feels disconnected from a few students both personally and academically. Writing conferences are the perfect time to get a feel for where each child stands and how you can help your students' individual needs. Maybe if we have writing conferences more frequently---Valentines Day can come more than once a year...

"We're not leaving this room until everyone is silent". How many times have you heard that? We've all said it. I probably said it last week. As teachers, we are groomed to dislike talking. In the ancient days of teaching, talking was a direct indication that students weren't paying attention and therefore weren't learning. I have to disagree. Talk is an important part of the learning process. Discussion, debate, and questioning are all important aspects of a student's learning process. Sometimes we just need to talk it out. It's very easy for teachers to think that the classroom must be silent in order for students to be productive. But, if students are silent, how can they bounce ideas off one another, learn from other's writing techniques, comment on classmate's writing topics, or share their problems or concerns with todays possible writing topic? 'Writers Workshop is a place where students learn how to live as writers and how to do what writers do'. Well, I know for a fact that writers talk. Writers think out loud, ask questions, search for answers, bounce around ideas, confer with peers, and share what they've come up with so far. So why shouldn't we? Sharing is a vital part of writers workshop. Sharing lets us learn about our writing communities and those that are a part of it. By sharing, students can learn together and help one another. They can develop personal relationships and connect with one another's work. They can seek advice or comfort when stuck on a certain idea. Writers block?? No way. We've got 24 brains on the job. Yes, talk can sometimes be a bad thing (like in the middle of the CRCT), but in writers workshop, it's not. So, let's just talk it out.

Chapters 9, 10, & 13

I've always been an athletic person, and sports have been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. For the most part, I've had a wonderful experience on almost every sports team I've ever been on....great teammates and inspirational and effective coaches. Chapter 9 brought up many memories from my sporting past. Ray discusses the importance of working and improving upon our own writing practices as we teach them to our students. She went on to explain that students 'listen to me because they see that I know what I'm talking about. You can't get that if you don't write' (p. 99). When thinking back to some of my least favorite memories in sports, I automatically think about those few coaches that never had the full respect of the team. As players or students, it is very difficult to take instruction from someone that you don't respect. I can remember coaches yelling at us to do this or play like this when we all knew that this particular coach had no playing experience whatsoever. Drill after drill, play after play, our coach would continue to criticize our every move. How could I listen to someone that had no idea what I was going through? He had never felt the pressure of a close game or the stress of unending practices. He had no idea what I was going through...and I respected him less because of it. This same exact thing goes in our classrooms. How can we expect our students to respect us and take our advice if they can't relate to us in some way? We need to show our students that we actually do know what we're talking about. We've been there before. We've struggled with that same thing. We can only do this by practicing our own writing and not simply telling them how to do theirs. As I reflect now, I've realized that my most memorable and effective coaches are those that had actually been in my shoes before....not those that had simply claimed to be.

"We are all people who write in here"

Random thought about Chapter 13: In the intro to the chapter, Ray describes a short whole-class introduction that she did with her class. As I read through her introduction 'monologue', if you will, I couldn't help but notice her easy, open, and understanding tone she used with her students. Never once did she set any strict rules, assignments, or regulations. She used phrases like 'Some of you might want to...', 'I was thinking that you might...', 'If you find one you like, you might....', and 'If anyone wants or needs to try...let me know how it goes for you. I'd love to find out...'. I absolutely love how she spoke to her students. I love the informality of it. I love the openness of it. She was giving her students ideas but not set assignments. I can only imagine the respect she must hold from her students.

I love the idea of having underlying teaching in your lessons. Ray talks about how during one of her writing workshop introductions, she read a poem of hers about overalls (instead of some huge topic like love, nature, dreams, etc) to show to her students that we can and should have faith in the ordinary. Students internalize so much more than we give them credit for, and this is why it is so important to plan our lessons with the utmost care. Although we might not say something directly, students notice the underlying meaning in lessons, readings, and assignments. Because we know this, we have a responsibility to enrich our student's mind in as many ways as possible...whether it be directly or indirectly. When planning lessons, even just short lessons like Ray's overall lesson, we need to make the most of every interpretation of what we are trying to get across to our students.

Chapters 1-5

For me, one of the most intimidating tasks involved in teaching is planning and implementing exciting, meaningful lesson plans that students will not only benefit from but also enjoy. While reading about Writers Workshop, I came to the realization that Writers Workshop is a dream for both the students and the teacher.  Now before you call me lazy...I want you to understand exactly what I mean. Students benefit from Writers Workshop because it provides them with an enjoyable, personal time to explore their own thoughts and feelings and write about them however they may please. Teachers benefit from Writers Workshop because their students are given a time in the day that exemplifies the enjoyment and fun of writing. Through Writers Workshop, teachers are able to show their students that writing can be very pleasant...especially when writing about something personally interesting. It's kind of like killing two birds with one stone: the students are practicing important writing techniques (sometimes without even knowing it) and teachers are providing their students with creative, unrestricted time that benefits the students. And it doesn't hurt that there isn't too much planning involved....kidding, kidding.

Once the students get a feel for Writers Workshop, they can begin molding some of the activities to better fit their own interests. As I've recently learned, Writers Workshop is all about the students and their interests and thoughts. So why not allow the students to plan some of the centers or activities in Writers Workshop? It seems to me that this democratic style of teaching would greatly appeal to the students. I imagine that they would all enjoy picking the different activities and would treat Writers Workshop time with the utmost respect being as they were the ones to plan it.

In this reading, I really connected with Ray's description of why writing and should not be integrated with other subjects in the classroom. Obviously, there will be many times when students will need to read and write purely about a certain subject or subjects. But, Ray makes a fabulous point when she lists her many reasons why writing and reading should be taught independently and away from the other subjects. When I think about my writing career as a person, the first thing I think of is the millions of essays and papers I've written throughout my educational career. Like Ray says, when we are writing for other subjects, yes, we are writing, but we are writing to serve something else. There are so few times that I can remember in school when I was given an opportunity to just write...write with no ulterior motives....write just to write....no topic involved. I hope my future students never feel that same way.