Anna's ENGL493 Blog

Book Talk The Things They Carried I chose this text for a book talk because I thought that this text is the perfect specimen to combine both English and Social Studies classes. In  The Things They Carried,  the author, Tim O’Brien describes his Vietnam experiences in multiple short stories throughout the novel. Some of the stories are true, while others are untrue but are based off true stories. However, there is no way of really knowing which stories are true or false. The book follows feelings of guilt and fear, but there is also a focus on the true experiences that soldiers faced during their time in the Vietnam war. For example, one of O’Brien’s short stories follow a fellow soldier’s feelings of anxiety and his addiction to tranquilizers. The book follows feelings of courage, anger, sadness, death, and ultimately, can help teach empathy to a group of students.  The book also touches on O’Brien’s feelings of disappointing his family and his political view...

Response to Secondary Standards‐ Based Grading and Reporting Handbook After reading the Spokane Public Schools Grading Handbook, I gained a somewhat understanding of the grading that schools in the Spokane district uses. In the handbook it shows examples of PowerSchool and how it can help parents and teacher communicate through an online source. Instead of parents asking their children for their grades, they can simply log on to the website and check the grades themselves. I think that PowerSchool is a great source for teachers, parents, and students to use regularly. I also liked the section explaining the power of getting a zero on an assignment. Simply by getting a zero, a student’s grade can drop significantly, often by one or two whole grades. While I understand the significance of a zero, I don’t know if I agree with the idea that teachers have no need to use zeros as a score. What if the student never turns in his/her work and refuses to do so? Am I as the teacher supp...

My thoughts on...... Assignment Template After reading the Assignment template for California’s state standards, I noticed that they were similar to Washington’s standards. Similar to what was said in class last week, I noticed that the standards are pretty similar across many states. Furthermore, I thought that the section on Summarizing and Responding would be extremely helpful to students who struggle with noticing a difference between the two. For example, when I was younger, I struggled with summarizing in every piece of writing that I had to produce. While summarizing can sometimes be helpful, it is important for students to realize that there is indeed a difference between the two. Responding includes the student’s own ideas, and their own thoughts on whatever reading they are summarizing/responding to. I also liked the bullet points under the descriptions of each definition. Both descriptions used the method of annotating, which both summarizes and includes valid thoughts...

Response to Core Standards... Before becoming involved in the classroom and the Education Program, I was not a fan of state standards. I felt as if I was a machine in a factory that was being perfected to become “prepared for the real world.” Though I thought that becoming part of the real world was important, I felt that I was only to adhere to such standards and that felt boring and cold to me. I felt like the real world isn’t made up of state standards, so why should school be made up of it? However, now that I am pretty far involved within the Education Department, I now see the necessity for such standards. They are needed to hold not only teachers accountable, but students as well. On the other hand, I do think that there needs to be an improvement in how the standards are introduced to students. Teachers need to be able to incorporate these standards into their lessons, while also keeping their students engaged. When looking over the standards on the core standards website...

Response to Graphic Novels in the Classroom: I personally have not had a lot of experience working with graphic novels. Something that I remember clearly, however, is an experience that I had in college. I have not had any experience in high school; but I am glad that I had the opportunity to read such a type of literature in my schooling career. In my English 270 class, Introduction to Fiction, we got to read a graphic novel about Batman and Superman. I personally love superheroes, so I was excited to read such a thing. It was something that I was interested in reading and something that I looked forward to. Now that I have experienced reading something like this type of literature, I understand how graphic novels can help and get kids interested in reading in middle and high school. The graphics helped me, and I assume they would help young readers understand the story. When I was younger, I struggled with reading and had to often re-read passages or chapters to understand ...

Response to DISCUSSION AS A WAY OF TEACHING The “circle of voices” section of the assigned reading interested me because this would be an easy group discussion method I could use in my position as VP of Chapter Development in my sorority. (Basically I am in charge of retaining members and maintaining a safe and understanding environment). There has been a recent problem where people have been interrupting each other and stomping on each other’s ideas with their own. While I do thing that it’s important for everyone to have an opinion and express their feeling towards something, I do think that it isn’t okay to stomp on other’s ideas. This discussion activity would be perfect for that, by following the rules stated in the article. An example of this might be that one is only allowed to touch on another’s ideas by bringing up was has already been said, not by coming up with new arguments. Furthermore, by using “specific moves,” I would be able to teach the women to communicate bett...