Meadow+Braden

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__Reflection on Discussion__

I think discussion is one of the most important learning tools in a classroom. Students are building so many skills while participating in these discussions. One important skill they are learning is how to articulate their ideas. Students also see a variety of different opinions through discussion. Its easy to read a text and think that our opinion is the only one that matters. Watching these discussions reminded me of when I was in high school. My best friend and I read the same book but we both had completely different ideas about how the book ended. She thought the main character committed murder and I thought it was suicide. We were both honor students but we read the text so differently and it was open to interpretation. We still to this day debate over it. I think it is important for students to see how a text can be interpreted in so many different ways. [|unitoverview.doc]
 * UNIT OVERVIEW REVISION**
 * [|unitoverview.doc]**
 * UNIT OVERVIEW**

I think in learning engaging students is probably the most essential thing. I know that as a student, if I wasn't engaged in the material, if what we were doing wasn't interesting to me, I wouldn't learn it. I'm still like that. One thing I really thought about when planning my lesson is what my students are interested in. I had to ask myself what would hook my students, not what would hook me. When I think about classes that I enjoyed and that I really learned from, they were classes that hooked my interests and engaged me in interesting activities.
 * Reflection on Engagement**

I also think that engaging ALL students can be difficult. Students are interested in so many different things. We learned in my Ed-Cifs class that everyone has a different learning style. So how can we engage all students when they are so different? I still am planning on teaching the Literary Exploration Unit for 6th grade in the Meridian School District. I now understand a little better where I want to go with the lessons. I have learned that I am actually going to be teaching short stories and some poems instead of a novel unit. I have adjusted my Unit Memo to better fit what I want to teach.
 * New Unit Memo 2/24**

__Resources__- As of now I have a few short stories I know I want to teach. I am still exploring different options. I have read some of the stories that were suggested so I plan on teaching some of those but I would like to branch out a little and find some different resources.
 * Eleven- Character
 * The Wounded Wolf- Setting
 * The All-American Slurp- Theme

__Learning Goals and Standards__ I will be teaching the specific characteristics of Literary Elements. These include: I also am examining different genres from different cultures around the world.
 * Characterization
 * Setting
 * Plot
 * Theme

__Essential Questions__ __Culminating Assignment__ For my culminating assignment I want to have my students make a picture book. During the unit I will be having students journal about life experiences and how they have changed because of them. I want to use one of these ideas to create a story about an event in their life that impacted them. I want them to then turn this story into a picture book using either their own drawings or pictures from a magazine. The picture book needs to include setting, theme, plot and character.
 * How do we shape our view of the world?
 * How do our experiences shape us into unique individuals?
 * How does our culture shape what we believe?
 * How we act?
 * Our biases?

I plan on teaching the Literary Exploration Unit for 6th grade in the Meridian School District. I'm a little overwhelmed with all the possibilities so I am trying to narrow this down. At this point it looks like the options of what to teach are only novels and I haven’t read many of the options, although I plan to. At this point I remember reading The Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and loving it. At this point this is what I want to teach.
 * Unit Memo**

__Resources__ //Confessions of Charlotte Doyle// by Edward Irving Wortis

__Learning Goals and Standards__ I think I will be dealing with Standard 2 which is Comprehension and Interpretation. This unit deals with strategies for better interpretation texts. The main goals are as follows: Goal 2.1- Acquire strategies and skills for comprehending text Goal 2.2- Acquire skills to comprehend expository text Goal 2.3- Acquire skills to comprehend literary text

__Essential Questions__ I’m having a hard time coming up with essential questions since I haven’t read the text in so long. Right now I can come up with a few but I would like to read the book so I can think of some betters ones! 1) Where do we see the difference between fact and opinion in everyday life? 2) What are some biases that you have? a. Where do we get our biases from? 3) What are some differences you see between our society and the society in the book? 4) Who is telling the story? a. How does point-of-view affect a story?

__Culminating Assignment__ For a culminating assignment I like the students to be creative. I like the idea of having them write an opinion piece to the editor of the newspaper about a significant topic in the novel.

Reflection on learning

This assignment really made me think of the experiences in my life that lead to learning. So many different events crossed my mind. It is amazing how many different aspects go into learning. One thing I noticed about the presentations is that most people had a small moment that stands out to them as a huge learning moment. It got me thinking that any moment, no matter how small, can have a huge impact on learning. This made me think about my future students. I realized that they won't just learn from the lesson plans I will someday put together, they will learn from the small, everyday classroom things. It also made me realize that we never know when learning might be taking place. Something we say or do might have an impact on our students. This really put things into perspective. Not only do we have to watch what we consciously teach our students, we have to be aware of what they are picking up from us when we aren't paying attention.

Something else I realized after watching the presentations and after reflecting on my own learning experiences, is that sometimes the worst moments in our lives turn into the best teaching experiences. I know that I learned so much during the rough patches of our lives. I also noticed that a lot of other people talked about how their rough moments helped them grow and learn. This is always something I try to hold onto when I am going through a rough patch. It helps to look at how much we are learning during those times