wedding stuff

planning a wedding in the midst of teaching kindergarten, going to school and having a child, is asking for a nervous breakdown. Yesterday, I woke up at 4am and my mind was running WILD. I kept making mental notes of everything I had to do during the week, regarding school, my daughter, work, and the wedding. I felt so overwhelmed and anxious. Finally, by 7am I decided that I couldnt take it anymore. I got up from bed and started doing the things I had to do. I just cant wait for it to be all over.

...

Having nothing else to read on the train every morning, I figured ehh... why not keep on reading Peter Elbow. And it started to like some of the things he wrote, even its first few pages on free writing. He makes good points about keeping a free writing diary. This could get a person writing and could be theruputic. And what better way to master a skill than to practice it over and over again. He hasnt fully convinced me yet but I have to admist that many of his strategies could really allow a person to brainstorm their ideas before they begin writing a paper. He says there will be alot times when you'll have to edit, maybe cross out and add pointers, but you'll be working on all the ideas you have about a topic. You've done that by putting them down on paper without inhibition. Usually, when I write a paper, I go straight to it. But after reading Elbow, I realized how much time I spend on one specific sentence, making sure that it is perfectly written. With all that time, I'm sure there were valuable ideas that I forgot about.

Free Writing = Free Junk??

I have a love-hate relationship with free-writing. I love when I get to express my thoughts without fear of interruption, judgmental opinion or grammatical errors. The problem is, sometimes this free writing can turn into a complete piece of garbage. Peter Elbow says that's okay, as long as your been exercising your handwriting. But I don't know.... as a teacher, I would say I worry when students take a prompt and run with it so far as to end with writing their super market shopping list. I would know, I've done it plenty of times.

a Caribbean way of life

After class, I couldn't stop thinking about what Charlene and Lisa had said in class. Lisa had made a comment regarding the way people are brought up in education in the Caribbean. She said that there was no such thing as working with groups. In school, you kept to yourself and did your work on your own. To this, Charlene quickly jumped in to agree with her. After giving it much thought, I have to say that I too, would like to jump on the bandwagon. Having been raised in New York, by very traditional Caribbean people, I have to say that it has been my experience that these people have no concept of what it means to "work in group". Their school experience never provided them with one. I don't want to say that they advocate team work or unity. I want to say that working in groups calls for many other aspects that Caribbean people are not accustomed to, which is why 'group work' does not exist. For instance, collaborative learning opens the door to critique. It something that is not looked upon negatively. In fact, when in groups, students are encouraged to critique and analyze a published piece. This would be considered outlandish for a even a working-class Caribbean person to do. I have to say that this topic could really be a source of interest for me. I think I would like to pursue it in the future.

Synecto---WHAT??!!

What this activity made me think of was a friend's grandmother, Talin. She always speaks in metaphors that sound very much like synectoches. Metaphors I've heard of... but what I've never heard of is a synectoche (sp). Between Natasha and I, we were trying to figure out what this word meant as we took on this activity. We had no way idea how we were going to complete this activity without knowing what the word meant. We thought that by figuring out this type of metaphor, it would better help us complete the activity. The real challenge wasnt figuring out what the underlined words stood for, but coming up with what synectoche meant. We thought that the underlined words/phrases stood for other larger concepts. We later found out that what we came up with wasn't very far off from the definition of synectoche. I think it would've really helped Natasha and I to have known before hand, what the word meant. However, it probably wouldnt have been as much fun as it was to figure it out.

Curriculum Project-- First thoughts

I plan to design a unit that primarily centers on African-American literature. The question I would like to my students to focus on is the role that race and gender has played in influencing African-American writers and their pieces. In order to address this question, I want my students to analyze work written by authors who my students have first learned about. I think it is crucial that the students have some background information about the author they are reading as well as their reason for writing. Because I plan to work in Harlem, a neighborhood composed of mainly minorities, I hope to expose my students to literature that is inspiring, motivation and promotes writing in a positive light.
I plan to incorporate a variety authors, some well-known, some controversial, and some unrecognized. In my first thoughts on the curriculum project, I thought I would completely ignore certain author's and their books because of their content and lack of authenticity. But I realize now that some of these books might be the ticket to attracting some of my students to the unit of study. Although these books will not be our primary reading source, we will discuss what makes these books so popular. We will talk about how African-American men and women are depicted in them and how these depictions eventually become stereotypes. I plan to use Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever.
Langston Hughes’ poetry has played a significant role in my life and I hope that introducing his work in my class, will encourage the students to continue reading his work outside of my classroom. Langston Hughes’ poetry will also work well with our reading of Fences by Lorraine Hansberry. The students will be able to make comparisons between two pieces. Using Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred, my first prompt will ask the students to think about their own dreams and hopes for the futures that did not come through. When did they come to the realization that their dreams would not come true? How did they feel? I think this introductory prompt will work well for senior high school/freshman college students who have begun thinking about the future of their lives.

The Poetry Book.

Our yellow poetry book contains a many pieces that I think are versatile and our class will find intriguing. From poetry by the genius Langston Hughes to The Third Bank of the River, I think the professor could not have put together a richer packet. It makes me wonder about the selections that reading/writing teachers choose to expose their students too. I'll never forget my Prose Writing professor who gave us Jonathan Ames, "I shit my pants in the south of france". What was she thinking? Of course, with a title like that, it's needless to say that EVERY student did the reading that week. Which brings me to the question, how do you choose reading that is appropriate for what your teaching, appeals to diverse group of students and at the same, is challenging? It is critical to expose students to new cultures through different texts. It a just one of the ways to help prepare them for their future courses.

Tovani - Coming clean about reading!

Finally. That's my first response after reading Tovani's I Read It, But I Don't Get It. It's about time that an educational book is honest about what is going on in our schools. Schools place so much emphasis on decoding skills that they completely forget that a a big,--- actually HUGE part of being a good reader means that a student can actually comprehend what she or he is reading. Tovani made me think about how much schools love to label their readers as being in level "m" but fail to realize that this readers do not understand a word they are reading. I also love how aside from providing us teachers with ideas to use in the classroom, Tovani isn't ashamed to write about her own experiences with reading. I think this is what makes her so credible and endearing to her students. What I also like about her is that she doesn't expect teachers to do all the work. She sets the expectations for the students and lets them know that as good readers, they are responsible for making sense of their reading, not just sit back and ignore things.