Post 2

I really enjoyed reading Crystal's blog.  I also am really excited about dealing with adolescants, because in my experiences in this program so far, I have only worked with younger students.  I want to see what it is like working with students in their teen years.  I enjoy when we go to the middle school for observations.  I also, like Crystal, and excited to be corresponding with the students up north in Pennsylvania.  That will be interesting communicating with them.  I also really enjoyed reading Donya's blog about her son with dyslexia and ADHD.  Donya, like myself, is a dual major, and I think it is great that she will be able to help her students with learning disbilities, such as dyslexia and ADHD, as well as her son.

An idea that I found important from the article we read was the biopoem.  I found this very interesting because I had never heard of it before.  This strategy teaches students to make inferences about what a statement implies.  This is a very important concept for students to grasp because being able to infer is a huge part of reading comprehension.  The most important idea I found in the article is just writing to learn in general.  From what I have seen in classrooms, writing is not used very much, and there is no emphasis placed on it.  Also, while reading the article, the listen-stop-and-write strategy stood out to me.  This is a strategy used where teachers will teach for a period of time, and then give students a period of time to reflect and take notes on what they just heard, and formulate any questions they might have about what they just heard.  I think this is a great strategy and students would really benefit from it, I know as a student it helps when I can think about something after I listen, information makes more sense when you have a little while to process it.  A few questions i have after reading this article are:  Why is there not any emphasis on writing to learn in the classroom?  Is it because the instruction time is limited?  I was also confused as to what they meant by assessment to writing to learn?  Was it saying it should be assessed, or not?

Hi everyone!  I probably already know all of you, but my name is Amanda Smith and I am a senior.  I am a dual elementary and special education major.  I chose this major because I feel that teaching is a very rewarding career, as we all know the salary is not rewarding, but the reactions that you get from your students are.  My ideal grade to teach would be somewhere around 4^th or maybe even 5^th grade, but I believe I would be most happy teaching inclusion at the middle school grades.  I am very excited to teach English and Social Studies, while I am a little nervous teaching the math content area.  I feel a little uncomfortable teaching students in an area that I don’t feel highly skilled in myself.  I am from Poplarville, Mississippi and still live there most of the time.  It’s a tiny little town about 30 miles south of Hattiesburg.  I have a very small family, and I am very close to my parents and grandparents.  I have one younger brother who is 18 and a senior in high school this year.  My boyfriend Blake, is 24 years old, and is a coaching major here at USM.  I have a great best friend, Kerrie, she has helped me get through a lot, and would be lost without her.  I never really know what to say when asked interesting facts about myself, I don’t have that many.  One thing that I find interesting is that I was a nursing major at first, and I even did a semester in nursing school and nursing clinical.  I hated it the entire time I was in it, and that is what brought me here.  I didn’t really know if I was going to like this field either.  I ended up loving it once I got into the education classes and clinical in the schools.  I have pet, a very mean grey cat, but I love her anyway.  My hobbies right now consist of school and spending time with friends and family.  That is about all I have time for at the moment. Although lately I do not have much time to read other than books for school, I enjoy reading the Pretty Little Liars series books, even though it’s horrible to say I love them because they are scandalous.  I have many favorite movies, but the one that comes to mind right now is Fried Green Tomatoes, It is a very touching classic movie, and I will always cry every time I watch it.  I enjoy a variety of music.

Syllabus

The one thing that stood out to me while reading the syllabus was that it was another literacy class, and I enjoyed and learned a lot from Dr. Boyce in 407 so I hope I enjoy this class as well.  After reading the syllabus I think this class will be focused on using a variety of ways to teach literacy and language, and I hope to learn just that.  I am excited to find out more about the Elizabethtown Project, I think that it will be fun to collaborate with people from up there, and see their views on things.  I got a little worried when I seen how big of an online component is in this course, because I always have internet issues at home, of course.  I always work through it anyways though.  As of right now I do not have any questions or concerns.  I am very excited about the class.