Job Interview Tips

http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/free-resources/professional-development/job-interview-tips

While on Pinterest I found a link to a website that talked about job interview tips for teachers. After reading the article I suddenly began freaking out. Will I be prepared? Will I have to teach myself many new things I am not learning in college? Even though I will  not graduate until next spring, time goes by fast and that means before I know it, I will be looking for a teaching job. I already bought at least five books from Amazon to help me. I got an IEP guide, an RTI book, and a special education resource book plus others. I even just bought an EZ Grader to have. I am so nervous that I won't be able to ace an interview and land a job. I feel like over summer I should start creating a portfolio of sorts of examples of lessons I have done. I do  not know what I will do if I do not have a teaching job  next fall. :-(

Reform Political Cartoon

Here is a political cartoon a teacher from West Haven created. I am part of a group on Facebook called West Haven Federation of Teachers and School Nurses because I am from there. I really like this cartoon because it shows how teachers are truly feeling about this refrom business. There is not much else to say because the cartoon says it all.

Picture Book

When I was younger I use to have my mom read me this story. There was something about it that intrigued me and it was very touching having my mother read it to me as well. It was one of the few bonds I really had with my mom because she was and is not a very emotional person. She doesn't show her feelings unless she is mad so that is probably why this story meant so much to me. I loved that this story showed how naive a child can be because in many ways I was naive so the little bird was in a way like me. When I finally have a child I know that I will always read this book to them since it meant so much to me as a child.

Poems

Here are two poems that I wrote when I was in 5th grade. I was obsessed with poetry and rhyming about pretty things! Of the two I think that second is my favorite. I believe this was when I loved the idea of fairies and I think this poem was about fairies in the forest and nature!

Touch of the Sword- September29, 2002
Soon enough I will reach the land
That holds my treasure in a skeleton's hand
My sword awaits me when I finally receive
The passion, the victory, and the hope I believe
Will lead me to a great adventures in my world
Of fighting zombies, ghosts, and many more
Take my life to the touch of the sword
Recreate my past to my time before

The Tree Has A Heart -2001 or 2002
As the sun rises over the  mystical sky
Could you hear in the trees a butterfly?
While that tree stands with all its might
If you jump, try to reach the never-ending height
Breathless spirits hide all day
But at night they begin to pray
Inside the three holds mysterious thoughts
Climb the tree and if it is caught
Soon the sun will set in the West
and that's when tree climbers do their best
When the day comes to a certain hour
At the time you leave, you might feel sour
Though inside you are warm and sweet
Tomorrow, today will repeat.

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.

Writer's Workshop

I envision writer's workshop in a very similar way to reader's workshop. If a child does not like to read, chances are he/she will not like to write as well. I would try to create mini-lessons in my writer's workshop that tailor to various needs students have when it comes to writing. My goal as a teacher would be to show students that they can overcome their obstacles in writing. I don't want to have my students give up because they can't write a particular way. With their journals, I hope to see improvement in content, fluency, and creativity. I want to stress to them that no one is a great writer overnight, it takes time and effort to become what one feels is a great writer. Conferencing will be used as a way to focus on each individual and their personal improvements for writinig. I would want my students to feel special knowing that time is being put aside for them showing that someone cares about what they write about.

Collaborative Learning

I believe collaborative learning does support literacy because two or more students working together have different prior knowledge and experiences that can help the other students.. For example, two students are working on summarizing a story, one student has never had anyone read to him/her at home or ask questions about stories before. The other student has parents who would ask him/her to tell them what was the story they just read about. This student would be able to help the other student in strategies he/she learned about summarizing a story. Having students simply work alone does not take into factor that not every student has had experience with literacy before entering school or the classroom. Collaborative learning allows students to teach each other which may help them retain the information better since it is coming from a peer.

Reader's Workshop

I envision reader's workshop as a goal in my classroom for the whole year to get students to comprehend what they are reading better. This can be done through a series of mini lessons, conferencing, and journaling. Each mini lesson would consist of a skill that is used to better understand text, with an introduction to a skill, the students will work independently from there on and be assessed on their understand of the skill and their master of the skill through meeting with the students at least once a week about their reading and the skill and by reading their journal entries that are assigned. This gives the teacher the ability to check with each individual and see what are the next steps to take with him or her.The mini lessons must be quick and interesting. I see mini lessons as being just an introduction to a skill that will go into more detail through the journaling and conferencing. The introduction must keep the students' attention in order for them to work independently on their own in the future.

Online Stories

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories

Here is a website that I found a few years ago while looking for something to do with my little cousins. They love watching and listening to these stories over and over again. There is Little Red Riding Hood and Jack & the Beanstalk that were some of their favorites. I thought this was a great way for toddlers and preschoolers to see stories come to life. On the read and write tab, children can do worksheets by a topic like aliens or learn about the word of the week. This website can be used in a PreK-1 classroom as a center option. The children can go on the computer and listen to some stories. To make sure the students comprehended the story, you could have them tell you what the story was all about. For example, there is a story about how Anansi the Spider got long legs. If a student listens to that story, you can ask how did Anansi actually get long legs. I feel like this website is a great tool for a classroom trying to show students how stories can come to life and enhance vocabulary and comprehension on many topics.

Language Arts Memory

Throughout elementary school I had a reading textbook per grade along with a workbook full of worksheets that went along with the stories. Those worksheets were either grammar based on the story we were reading or comprehension worksheets. That is all I remember. I don't remember specific teachings my teachers taught to actually comprehend what we were reading. We did a lot of SSR too. I also remember going to the Title 1 reading instructor yet in second grade but I did not understand why. As I got older I started to read more chapter books on my own and in middle school I began to hate reading class because I  hated the fact that we had to write papers and answer questions about the books we were reading. If we were having a quiz on a chapter and I got the answer wrong I would get mad because I felt that reading was not about assignments. That these authors did not write these books in order for students to anaylze them like we were doing. If I got an answer wrong I would eventually correct my mistake as I continued reading the book. Part of reading to me is thinking one way about a book, realizing that the book means something completely different and going back yourself to the previous pages and comphrend it on your own. If I said the wrong answer as to what some character did, I would eventually get to part of the book where it contradicts what I thought and I would self-check to make sure it made sense. I would eventually find out what the character really did and I hated that I had to take a quiz to tell me I was wrong in the first place.