A Rush and a Push and This Land is Ours

Well, on Monday I went to my last UCF class, possibly ever. I’ve been in college (on and off) for so long, it was a little surreal. Looking forward to moving onward and upward (fingers crossed). I’m going to take this opportunity to say best wishes to all the lovely people I’ve worked with this semester: my unofficial group from Dr. Scanlon’s class, Bethany, Brandon, and Nathan, and my other unofficial group from Dr. Olan’s class, Rena, Kaley, and Gretchen (forgive me if I misspelled anyone’s name). And to everyone, it was great hearing your thoughts, opinions, and presentations. Dr. Scanlon, you were a very nice professor, obviously passionate about writing and teaching, and I enjoyed your class.

(In case you couldn’t tell, my spirit punctuation animal was parentheses.)

I gained a new appreciation for the importance of student writing as a part of their intellectual and emotional development. I also have a folder full of strategies and ideas—information that I can take with me to be a better teacher of young writers and a better writer myself. I actually really enjoyed both textbooks, the Gallagher and the Fletcher. Maybe it was because there was a greater sense of immediacy to the information (more opportunity for real-life application than in semesters past) and I feel like both will be invaluable resources. To say that I enjoyed the digital writing would be a bit too strong, but there was a certainly novelty to it, and it was a nice way to interact with and get to know classmates. I could see using it in the classroom.

Finally, I am equal parts proud with and disappointed in myself for finding Smith’s quotes/titles for the majority of my posts. Have a great summer, everyone!

 

Teaching Arguments Book Review

I’ve chosen to do a bulleted list of the most interesting/useful/new-to-me ideas I’ve gleaned from Fletcher’s book.

• The first would be the doubting/believing game. We often just breeze through reading and come to superficial conclusions about the author’s ideas or points of view. This game forces us to “comprehend a text before we critique it” (Fletcher 6). If someone is arguing their side and we stand there with our fingers in our ears humming, how can we accurately respond to their ideas? To argue properly, we have to have to ability to (truthfully) say, “I can see where you’re coming from, however…” On the other hand, when we are “the choir the writer’s preaching to” (Fletcher 28), this game also encourages us to distances ourselves and view the matter critically and objectively.
• Fletcher helps us understand that our “audience” is not some static, fixed-in-time, hive-mind. Though we should of course try to hone in on who we’re writing to, our audience will be full of people with ever-changing feelings, opinions, and circumstances. We as writers and teachers of writers need to be cognizant of Kairos, “the opportune time for action” (Fletcher 58), a moment in history where things are in flux, or fluid. I think of it as being able to take the temperature of the room, knowing whether or not your readers or listeners are more likely to be receptive or susceptible to your arguments at this point in time. As I was reading, I kept thinking of a moment from the show Parks and Rec. Leslie, the main character, is campaigning for office against the spoiled son of an unpleasant businessman named Nick Newport. At one of her rallies, a reporter asks her if she has any comments on Mr. Newport. Leslie responds that she thinks his business is poisoning this town and that he’s “a jerk.” The reporter clarifies, “No, I meant did you have any comments about his death this morning?” Obviously, that was not the right moment in time to air her grievances in front of reporters, and it illustrates the importance of knowing the right time to speak on a matter.
• I enjoyed Fletcher’s explanation of Logos, Pathos, and (I keep wanting to say Eros now, because of her) Ethos. Up till this point, I actually didn’t have that much background knowledge of those devices. I appreciated the point she made about how they often overlap, and how one doesn’t really work in complete isolation. For instance, when a writer wants to effectively utilize Ethos (“Listen to me! I’m trustworthy!”), they have to include elements from Logos (how can we trust your credibility if you can’t make your points logically?) and Pathos (why should we trust you as a fellow human if your argument is lacking passion and empathy?). I also liked her quote explaining Pathos as “the catalyst that transforms ‘I know it’s good for me, but I still don’t care’ into ‘I’m doing this today’” (Fletcher 186).
• One of the very useful things I’ve taken from this book and this class is the importance of showing personal examples and letting students know that you didn’t just arrive in this world, head full of Literature, grammar, writing skills, and teaching strategies. We as student teachers had to work to get where we are. The problem is, students often see us as humanoid knowledge-dispensers, not as people with histories and lives outside the classroom. Students need to understand that this knowledge is not mythic, it’s attainable. If they’re willing to put up the same struggle we put up, they can get similar results. I also loved the bit about showing students how to make the reading/studying experience more enjoyable (finding a cozy place to sit and a cuppa whatever-you-like). When studying for my Professional exam, I always had a cup of coffee, a snack, and my Pandora set to “Electronic Music for Studying.” It makes the process much more pleasant.

These Things Take Time

[Bet you thought I would get tired of finding quotes from The Smiths for these things. Well, you were right, but now I’m committed.]

              At my internship again, doing my mini-lesson. He’s having me give my lessons to every class period, so I’m getting more experience. I still have my final full lesson to do Tuesday (cutting it to the last minute), but I already have my lesson plan ready. Today, I’m doing my Writing Demo from class (the one with the alien/sci-fi pictures and the dialogue-only story). It’s gone over pretty well so far. Some students have come up with some fairly creative stories and had some great insights into the images (pointing out a few things even I hadn’t noticed).

                It’s hard to stay motived at this point in the semester. Dr. Scanlon says we should #finishstrong, and that’s what I’m trying to do. The only thing I’m behind in are my blog posts and comments (mainly comments). Looking forward to summer. I know we all are, even though many of us still have tests to take. I still have to take my subject area exam. Also like many of you, I’m a bit trepidatious about the exam after learning that it’s largely guesswork. I don’t remember the final results of our discussion, though. Did we say there’s a particular book that’s useful for studying for that test? Or just study everything and hope for the best?

                 

 

Tech Creation Post

So, I went to Storybird and made two magnet-type poems. Initially, I was trying to link several images to excerpts from a longer poem (Walt Whitman) to create a short book, but it wasn’t letting me use more than one tag to find images.

You can view my poems at the links. You may have to scroll down a bit. Enjoy (?)

https://storybird.com/poetry/poem/7bbgjh9tqd/

https://storybird.com/poetry/poem/vy4gak6kw9/

 

Everybody’s got to live their life, and god knows I’ve got to live mine.

**Continues to use Smith’s lyrics for my titles**

So, I heard a song I liked and bought the whole album. I’ve been listening to it for a week, but I’m not yet sure if the band is any good, or if the song I liked was a one-off. Are they fine wine or dollar-store cola?  And really, I’ve been thinking it’s kind of sad that I don’t trust myself to determine whether or not something is “cool” based on my own judgement. Every time this happens, I think of Lucy. As English majors, at least a fraction of you have probably read E. M. Forester’s A Room with a View. Lucy is an Englishwoman who travels to Italy. At one point, she finds herself at a tourist spot, but has forgotten her guidebook:

“Of course, it contained frescos by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values she was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell her which they were? She walked around disdainfully, unwilling to be enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was no one to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved the nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful.”

I laugh at Lucy, but I am her sometimes. I’m perfectly capable of forming opinions, but occasionally, in certain instances, I worry whether or not they’re the best or correct opinions. But who decides whether or not something is “beautiful” or “cool”?

Another example: I read about a painting that had long been considered to be a Rembrandt, which was later discovered to be in fact not a Rembrandt. Now art historians were facing the awkward task of re-determining the painting’s value. But the painting didn’t change, so why should its value? Did it become less beautiful?

The point I’m trying to make is that we all know beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Art, music, literature, fashion, etc., can be judged by a set of external criteria to determine whether or not they’re up to snuff, but if a thing moves you or makes you happy, it has value. At the same time, however, it’s nice to have your choices and feelings validated by an authoritative source.

 

 

Using Technology to Amplify Instruction

1)      I would not consider myself a digital native. It would be more appropriate to say I live in the woods on the outskirts of DigiTown, with a shotgun, transistor radio, and a cellar filled with canned goods. Townsfolk visit from time to time and show me the wonders of the outside world, but it seems a bit like sorcery to me. That’s an exaggeration, obviously, but I sometimes have a tendency to stick my heels into the ground and resist change. If I see a use for a new technology and it seems like something a tech layperson could actually do, I’ll make an attempt to learn it. I’m on Facebook because everyone and their grandmother is on Facebook (thought that last part is why people are leaving Facebook). Apparently, the cool kids are on Instagram now? I’m on Tumblr because I love various fandoms and there’s a lot of funny commentary, meta-analysis, fanart, comics, etc.

2)      I like the idea of my classroom having its own online space on Padlet, a place to post images, videos, reminders, quotes, etc. specific to the class. I really like the Socrative/Kahoot concept, with students and teachers getting real-time feedback on their understanding, and students being able to use their own phones.

3)      Students posting a book review or taking part in an online book discussion on Goodreads is obviously more authentic than typing a paper and turning it in to me. Students are using a medium they likely feel more comfortable with and since they are interacting with a live, real-time audience, the activity will have greater relevancy and immediacy. I’ve seen Prezi demonstrated in other classrooms, and it’s a great tool for keeping a presentation interesting and fluid. A commenter on the virtual bubble page said he uses it to map out the various meanings contained in a line from a poem, which I thought was a great use for it. That and the visual mapping page would also be great for character maps.

4)      What I found most interesting about this presentation is that many of the tools we use casually for our day to day affairs are readily adaptable to the classroom. Some of these are obviously created with educational use in mind, but others (Twitter, Google, Skype) are things people use every day for many uses.

5)      Technology can be successfully integrated at every stage in Bloom’s Taxonomy. It’s important, however, that we don’t just focus on the bottom levels. Technology should be used not just to facilitate and organize, but also to create and stimulate.

6)      I’d like to create a Kahoot quiz to use in my Internship. Storybird seems like a fun tool, perhaps for students to create their own condensed, in-their-own-words version of a classic novel. I messed about on Picfont using vacation pictures already on my computer. That could be useful for analyzing imagery in a poem or doing a character analysis, especially if the book has been adapted into a movie and pictures of characters are available online.

There’s more to life than books, you know (but not much more).

Help, I can’t stop using Morrissey quotes in my posts.

There are just too many things to read. I don’t just mean my textbooks (though I feel myself slowly, inexorably falling behind with that). I’m two chapters away from finishing Catcher in the Rye. Holden’s had a glowing neon “DOOMED” sign over his head for most of the book, so I can guess it doesn’t end very happily. I bought collections of H.P Lovecraft’s and Neil Gaiman’s short stories nearly a year ago, and I’m still working my way through them. I used to be such a voracious reader of books, but now I read so much dreck online. Well, not necessarily dreck, but I really need to catch up on my Literature with a capital L. For some reason, the things I read online feel so ephemeral, as if reading it on ink and paper makes it more real and permanent.

I feel as if there are so many “important” things I haven’t read, but when I go to the Classics display at Barnes and Noble (obviously the highest academic standard), I’ve read about three-fourths of them. This summer I have at least two things I want to read: The Bell Jar and The Force Awakens novelization (a strange combination that rather depressingly sums me up as a person). Thinking of all the things I need to read both as an English teacher and a well-read (read: pretentious) individual makes me feel like Sisyphus, trying to accomplish an eternal, impossible task.

Post 2: Open Post

I was going to open this open post by saying that I don’t know what to write. Then I realized that’s such a cliché. Then I realized pointing out that it’s a cliché is also a bit of a cliché. It’s inescapable. Please help.

At my internship again. Spent my morning reading student stream-of-consciousness freewrites. It’s making me reflect on my own writing from when I was that age (it was terrible and I utilized a lot of synonyms for “darkness”) and how it’s so easy to fall into these clichés. The cumulative knowledge I’ve gather about the intricacies of the teenage psyche (from reading over 100 of these freewrites) is that teenagers generally are bored, they are tired and want to take a nap, they are worried about having to look for their first job, they are existentially confused, and they want to go to Taco Bell (seriously, several of them specifically say that).

My writing demo is coming up, but I’m not sure what I’m doing. Hopefully, after I see a few of them demonstrated, I’ll have a better idea. Dr. Scanlon sort of demo-ed one for us last week. The most surprising thing about that was how quick it seemed and how little she actually talked. My problem is I sometimes feel like I have to hover and micromanage, or the students won’t understand. I need to learn to step back and let them do the work. One of our textbooks (they all start to blur) said that if you (the teacher) scaffold difficult things too much, student never really get an opportunity to challenge themselves and improve.

Post 1: Intro

So. This is my introduction: Hello, I’m Ashley. I’m an English Language Arts Education major at UCF in my first internship. I’m there now, actually. The kids are all silent reading Catcher in the Rye. I’ve never read it, so I’m reading it in my (ha!) spare time to keep up. The internship is going well, so far. Everyone has been welcoming and helpful, and the school is relatively close to home. I’ve had so much philosophy shoved in my brain over my college career, but I feel I need more hands-on experience with the nuts-and-bolts of actually teaching and running a classroom. Too much of my knowledge exists in a void, with nothing to attach itself to.

I feel ambivalent about this blog. My initial reaction to new (well, new-ish) technologies is knee-jerk, mulish dislike, even if I ultimately end up embracing it. I recognize the value in pushing out of your comfort zones, technological or otherwise. I liked Gallagher’s example of running with the bulls or being trampled by them. This is the way the world is going, and embracing these thing will help us and our students.

What else? I live in Daytona Beach. I’m a homebody who keeps to myself (though I’m pushing out of those comfort zones as well). I love Literature and Sci-fi/Fantasy (Star Wars, Doctor Who, MCU, anything in the Whedonverse). My Goth roots run deep, but I’m learning to wear colors along with my black and shoes other than Doc Martins. My blog tagline is stolen from a Morrissey song. What about the rest of you? How are your internships going? How do you feel about blogging? How are you pushing out of your comfort zones?