This week

This week, I observed more and graded papers. The papers I graded were sentences the students wrote using vocabulary words from "Wordly Wise." I noticed that many of the students had associations with some of the words, and they sometimes used those words incorrectly in their sentences. For example, "renaissance" was misused a few times because many of the students have heard about the British Renaissance or have been to the Renaissance Festival, but do not know that the word means "rebirth." One student's sentence read something like--During the renaissance, the people had a lot of livestock and food. Whether or not that's true, the student did not show in the sentence that he/she knew the meaning of the word. On the other hand, a word that was used correctly by many students was "immortality," which they associated with the book Tuck Everlasting. What I learned from this is that as a teacher, I should be aware that students associate words. I can use associations to help them remember meanings of words easier, but I should be careful to help them understand the true meaning of the words.

Another thing I noticed as I graded papers was how often the students left out commas, misspelled words, or ended sentences with prepositions like "at." Sometimes a quick grammar lesson is necessary, even for students who are above average. As a secondary education teacher, I will have to deal with little grammatical errors that students do because either they did not fully understand the rules in the first place or their elementary teachers did not teach them correctly. Many people have a hard time with English grammar, understandably.

Meeting with Ms. Townes and Observation so far...

I met with Ms. Townes for the second time about a week ago. We had previously decided through email to meet at 3:00 that day. She forgot I was coming, so luckily I caught her before she left. She told me that she likes her students to participate in projects and hands-on activitites often. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she teaches reading, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she focuses on vocabulary and grammar. For the first month of school, her students are working in the book to get back in the routine of school, and then they will begin their projects. She will provide books for her students to pick out, and they will arrange themselves into literature circles where they will work out a time-plan to read the book, discuss it, and do projects/assignments within Ms. Townes' guidelines.

I like Ms. Townes' plans for her students because I can tell you from my own experiences that giving adolescents choices is a good idea!! When I was in 7th grade, my reading teacher let us pick out books to read, and similarly to Ms. Townes' classes, we grouped into literature circles and discussed the books we read. What I liked most about it was that I was able to choose the book I read (from about 4 or 5 that my teacher provided). I still remember some of them, too--The Giver, They Cage the Animals at Night, and A Time for Dancing. I loved all of these books! Previously, in 6th grade, I did not have a very positive experience in my reading class because that was a transition year, and I no longer had a choice in what books I read for school. This was very very different from 5th grade where my class went to the library every week and picked out a book to read for fun. I had no problems reading in fifth grade, but 6th grade was a very different year in reading class. I'll admit that I'm pretty stubborn, so I did not like someone else telling me that I was going to read some book that I wasn't at all interested in, and even in high school, I struggled with finding the motivation to read books that were assigneed to me. I was an honors student, and I made good grades, but it was the hardest thing for me to make myself read books that I didn't pick out! As a child, I loved reading, but when 6th grade came along, all of a sudden I hated it. At that age, it's very important to give students choices in their learning experience. They hate feeling forced into doing things they do not want to do. (By the way, I finally matured enough to make myself read things that I don't pick out...haha. I guess I wouldn't have made it this far if I hadn't gotten over it!) Also, though, Ms. Townes told me that she wasn't much of a reader in school, so I wonder if she had a similar experience.

Moving on...

Wednesday, Sept. 3rd, I observed Ms. Townes' class. We previously decided that I would come every Wednesday and Friday at 1:30-2:30. She forgot I was coming again. Wednesday was progress report day, so the students read and/or worked on vocabulary in their workbooks. It looked like there were about 20 students in the class. I guess I don't have much more to say about Wednesday because there wasn't much to observe.

A Little Bit About Me

My name is Elizabeth Oliver, I am a senior at MTSU, and I'm planning to graduate in Dec. 2009. I'm working on a bachelor's degree in English, concentrating in Secondary Education. I hope to teach middle school because it was my favorite time in grade school, and I just like that age group. I know this sounds strange to some. (I've heard many middle school horror stories from other people!) But I guess everyone can have a different experience! I loved it, and I hope I can bring something fun and interesting to my future students that will make their middle school experience more pleasant. I'm participating in a service learning practicum this semester because I want to get experienced in the classroom as much as possible before I begin student teaching and then...real teaching! I want to be as prepared as possible, and there are plenty of ways I can do that. This is one way. I also just started substitute teaching because, like I said, I want to get in the classroom as much as possible. Well, that's a little bit about me.