What I read and why...

When I was a middle school I started to read books all the time. Many of them I read in a day after school. I would lock myself in my room and read until I was done. In 8th grade I first read Pride and Prejudice. I read it because I heard there was a movie coming out with Keira Knightely in it and I liked her from the Pirates of the Carribbean movies. I fell in love with Pride and Prejudice and wanted to read more Jane Austen books. Also in 8th grade my middle school librarian would let me pick out books to read from the secret teacher's library. I read books like Anna Karenina, The Secret Life of Bees, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I loved them all and now own all of them. I also started to read Nicholas Sparks books then. I own all of his books now! During high school it was harder to read because of the school work load I had but I always found time.Now in college it's even harder to read during the school year. I have five new books waiting for me at home that need to be read but won't be till school ends. Not to mention that I have about 20 books in my bookshelf that I still need to read. I love reading because it is an escape for me. I get so wrapped up in the characters, the setting, and plot that when a person tries to get my attention while reading I do not hear them at all. I block everything out around me when I am reading a good book. I love reading books that take place in Europe and that is probably why I am trying so hard to get over there in the next few years to see all the places I have read about. I also love reading post-apocoplytic books which is very strange because I don't like thinking out my world being destroyed and all of us dying. Books like The Giver, The City of Ember, The Hunger Games, and The Uglies are all amazing to me to think that our world could end up like those settings one day. I hope that when I am a teacher I can show my students how wonderful it is to read and have them want to continue to read as they get older. I want to show them that reading is not just about answering questions on a test or doing a project on a book. It's about learning something new and experiencing a new place. It's an escape that you can always go back to and visit.

CT's Education Reform

For the past few weeks, there has been news of the Governor's education reforms in order to close to achievement gap in CT. I am not sure how I feel about the whole entire proposal but I know that saying teachers need to do a better job will help close that gap. Yes it is important for teachers to continue to serve their students, they must improve and learn new skills all the time. Yet I don't believe that just changing the teachers will be enough. Connecticut is percieved as a rich state mostly from the Greenwich and Fairfield towns near New York. However, when one goes a little east towards Bridgeport and New Haven, the urban cities are what bring on this achievement gap. Many students who live in urban areas come from home lives that tend to not view education the same way white middle to upper class families do. I think that go really get every student to improve in school needs to start with the home. Parents need to value education even if they did not recieve the best education themself. Parents are the first role models that children have in their lives and it is easy to see that the children will follow in their footsteps. Many students in CT go home from school to no parents, or fighting, or violence, or neglect. For them learning starts and stops in the classroom and doesn't continue at home. I beleive that it is because of this students in CT are widening the achievement gap. Teachers can only do so much to get students motivated and prepared for school and standardized tests. The scores of students should not be solely based on the work of the teachers. Teachers can always do better to meet their students' needs but it can only go so far. I believe that CT needs to better educate many parents across the state first about the values and possible success education holds. From there, teachers will be able to better collaborate with parents  and both can work together for the children. I do not think that our Governor has thought of this as a vital reason why many schools are failing. It is not just CT but many other states as well. Improving tests scores are not the answer to this problem. We need to improve parent involvment in the education of their children.

Original writing piece

For class I am planning on writing another chapter to the end of 13 Reasons Why. I really enjoyed that book yet I was not too thrilled with the ending. I wanted more, so I decided to write what I wanted to happen at the end. I am not sure if I want to write a chapter that is a few years from after the suicide or if I want to write about something after all the people on the tape have listened to them. I don't know what will come out once I start writing but I hope I do the characters justice as Jay Asher was doing. I don't like it when I read these amazing books but the ending is nothing like rest of the book. I felt that way after reading Mockingjay and Jane Eyre. The books were great but when the ending came, it felt either rushed or too simply for the complexity of the rest of the novel. I never felt there was complete closure after reading about those characters. I didn't feel at peace with the story. My goal in my original writing piece is to create that closure and peace I felt I didn't receive in this novel.

Writing Posters

I found this on Pinterest. It's a great reminder for younger students to remember what they need to focus on in their own personal writing. Using sticky notes allows you to move the students' names when they have mastered one goal and may need to move on to another goal.


Here is another poster I love about why writers write. This is wonderful to have in the classroom in order to remind students about what they can write about. They can write about expressing thoughts, sharing experiences, communicating, telling about important events, sharing feelings, wanting something, asking questings, teaching, and persuading.