Almost Finished.

Now that this semester is just about over I would like to talk about how much I feel I've learned from blogging and this class. I really loved the openness of this class. I think it is great that TO is able to "Monitor and Adjust" when need be. He does not try to make us try to fit the schedule, but rather he has the schedule fit to us. I think this is a great lesson to be learned. What ever can go wrong will go wrong, this is teaching high school every day. Making sure to monitor and adjust is a key necessity for being a successful teacher. Although this is just my opinion, what do you think?

When we censor literature we take away great ideals to be learned and morals to be taught.

"To assert that young adult literature exists merely as a transition from children's books to "real" adult books is to undermine young readers astuteness. A young reader should never be made to feel that what he/she is reading is simply fodder for them to devour until they are apt enough to handle "true literature"." This quote is from Jennifer Kemper's "Censorship & Young Adult Literature". I really feel that some people believe that young adult literature is only for those who cannot comprehend "true literature", which makes young adults believe that it is beyond their ability to waste their time reading such books. The other issue that arises with young adult literature, which only reinforces this belief, is the censorship that surrounds this genre. In my opinion it is truly sad that people think that it is okay to withhold the classics as well as upcoming literature. There is a saying that I have recently heard, to teach literature is to not only teach the mind but also the heart. When we censor literature we take away great ideals to be learned and morals to be taught. Is that not what all literature does? So why is it okay to take this into others hands and tell young adults what they can and cannot read while in schools. This is a serious hardship to take into account. What do you all think?

The Hunger Games

Being in Young Adult Literature and reading The Hunger Games brought many questions to my class about whether or not to teach this book in schools now with the new hype because of the movie release. The question  that arose, in relation to the Harry Potter, would the same thing that happen to us with Harry Potter happen this this generation with The Hunger Games? Will teachers teach this to death? Is that even possible? I think that not pushing the issue, actually giving your students the option to read this as a class novel could pose as a preventive measure. If students do not want to read it, don't force them to. If they want to make sure that the unit is fun and interactive, this way your lessons can live up to the book's amazement. I think this would be a great book to teach in the high school level but I would never want to be the teacher to ruin a good book that children are actually reading. What do you guys think? Would you teach this book in your classroom?    

Teaching 'that person'.

"You're going to have to teach that girl you hated in high school." This was a comment that was made in my Young Adult Literature class today. The discussion was in regards to the book Change of Heart. People in the class were saying that they could not and did not want to relate to the female character in the book because she was that girl they hated in high school. This discussion got me thinking and apparently got another girl in my class thinking the same thing, "you're going to have to teach that girl you hated in high school." When trying to figure out the books that you will ultimately teach it should not matter whether you like it, what should matter is if you think the students can get a message out of it. Personal feelings on characters, themes, and books in general does not apply when you are a high school teacher for ELA. For instance when I was in school I had a teacher that was teaching us something from William Shakespeare. As soon as he began class he said to all of us, "I hate teaching things like this, but the state says I have too." It put us all in the mindset that because he did not like it (someone that chose to further his education in a field that William Shakespeare had such a huge influence on) neither should we. Verbalizing personal opinions on books or authors is something that I feel, as educators, we should not do. Leave your personal (negative) feelings at the door and do your job. Every ELA teacher has the ability to place different works into their curriculum. If administration says you have to teach certain books, teach them, that does not mean that you are only limited to those books. Right? Moral of this blog, we all will have to teach people that we may not have typically gotten along with when we were 16 but the truth of the matter is, we're not 16 anymore.

Khan Academy

A couple of days ago I was on my IPad downloading apps and I came across the Khan Academy application. You do not have to have an IPad to access this site though, which is nice. If you do just type in the App Store Khan Academy and download it, if you don't, type into Google Khan Academy and the first hit is the site you want to click on, here is the site, http://www.khanacademy.org/
I think this is a really interesting way to get students involved in certain areas in education. Granted he does not focus on English, which for most if not all of us is a downfall, but he does focus in the Sciences, Mathematics, and some History. An idea for this site is to have your students go on and complete whichever exercises that fit into your lesson for that time period. It is something that you could have them do at home over, say like a Christmas break. It gives videos on how to accomplish the exercises then they can practice on their own! I think it is a pretty cool idea. It keeps them in an active educational mindset while at home. What do you think?  

Video

When I was in high school I was in a TVT class where I produced, edited, and filmed various videos. I really enjoyed this class. It made me want to potentially teach the same class someday. There is a test that I will have to become certified in but it is something that I really fell in love with my senior year of high school. When we got assigned the video project I could not wait! My group really had a lot of fun with the project and I could not wait to blog about it. I definitely want to have some sort of project like this one in my classroom someday. Even if I do not teach a TVT class I will find a way to incorporate video technology into my classroom. I do not have a link for this post, but I really wanted to let all of you know how much I enjoyed doing this project. Did anyone else enjoy it like I did?

This past week in TO's class we not only discussed Podcasting but also various internet websites that can be beneficial in the classroom as well as fun ideas for us to explore. My and Ryan's topic was to explore Pinterest. We created a board that is called Writing Prompts, this board has quotes and different pictures that we intent to stimulate students writing. This type of assessment keeps the students interested and their options open. They are able to choose any picture and relate it to anything they wish, just as long as they write. Pinterest is a great way for teachers to gather ideas and also spark classroom creativity. I cannot air to see what everyone else was assigned and how they relate it to education!