Poetry Unit

Poetry is among another category in school that wasn't always my favorite thing. I never had the most confidence in poetry, in my head I wasn't good at it. I have learned that that is entirely not true. Throughout this unit I have been able to see that anyone can do poetry. Poetry doesn't have to rhyme. Poetry can be anything you want it to be. It was fun to come up with prompts and have other groups complete your prompt. That was a fun aspect as well. Not only was I able to create a prompt for another group to try out but I was able to get feedback as to how well it worked and what could work better. I am going to be in my own classroom one day and I am going to come to my poetry unit and I am going to remember back to this class and how I am capable of giving my students the opportunity to engulf their creative minds in the world of poetry.

Books I want to remember:

Love That Dog

Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry

Links:

Poetry Box Rules, from PBS NewsHour

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/poetryboxrules.html

Poetry Writing Practice

http://home.att.net/~teaching/langarts/poetry.pdf

Elements of Poetry

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/elements.html

Riddle Poem Features

http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson169/TermsHandout.pdf

Forms of Poetry for Children

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poeform.htm

Lesson Plans for Language Arts

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons

Shakespeare Unit

Overall this Unit was different then any other I have experienced in the past with Shakespeare. This is usually an area that makes me cringe. I have always had such a hard time grasping what the heck he is saying. It is always so over my head, which leaves it even harder to come together as a group in previous classes and have to talk about what I had read. With this unit I was able to see that Shakespeare doesn't have to make me cringe. I was able to take Shakespeare and make it enjoyable for myself. Not only was it more enjoyable but I was able to understand it. The group presentations of our take on A Midsummer's Night Dream was the most successful part of the unit in my opinion. It helped me to look at it in a more relating sense, I was able to see it in todays terms, with how it would seem if it was taking place in my life right now. That helped me to see that I could be confident in having Shakespeare in my classroom. With the Hobart Shakespeareans I found that it was another great way to see that you can put your students up for any challenge as long as you help them in believing that they can do it. Seeing that fifth grade class reading some of the novels that they were and seeing them act and read the Shakespeare that they had was amazing to see. If fifth graders can do it, I most definitely can.

Links I want to remember:

http://www.rsc.org.uk/exploringshakespeare/

http://www.pathguy.com/mnd.htm

http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/maune/ShakespearePages/ReadingTips.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/hobart/

http://www.fireflybooks.com/Shakespeare.html

http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/carrick/index.html

Children && Young Adult Novels

This unit I found myself enjoying a lot. I have not read a book a week ever in my life. It was amazing how easily a good book can go by. The novels Stargirl and Speak were my favorite of the unit. I like how that can show young adults life lessons. They getting to their minds while reading the novels. They get to see the cruelty that high school can have. They get to see how to be above that type of behavior, and they can see the perspective of the person that it is happening to. They are good story lines, that are easy to be read by the young adults and children. There are so many book series that I loved when I was growing up. I was a fan of Lurlene McDaniel's novels. I loved Goosebumps, Captain Underpants, and so many others I can't even remember. I loved to read when i was younger.

Author websites:

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/lurlene/

http://www.lemonysnicket.com/

http://www.jerryspinelli.com/newbery_002.htm

http://www.writerlady.com/

http://www.pilkey.com/

http://www.cslewis.com/

http://www.rlstine.com/

Fun unit :)

Fairy Tales

This unit was a refreshing start to the semester. I haven't really looked at fairy tales in quite some time. I had never really gotten a chance to look at fairy tales in the context of the stories that we read in class. I have a hard time finding myself being okay with teaching and reading some of these stories in the classroom full of young elementary aged students. But the stories twists and different contexts is what made it so interesting for myself to dive in and read the stories, reading the same stories I've grown up hearing over and over again to have a new sometimes disturbing twist to it made it more interesting a new seeming to read. Tatar was a great book to look at all the different ways that the same story can be written. With all of the different cultures that are present in our world it is interesting to see their spin and take on the story, and how they wish the portray it. I really enjoyed Kissing the Witch. It was also a book in which I have not read and to see the different turns that Emma Donoghue had throughout the novel. There are great links that I am excited to take away with me to use and apply to my classroom one day when it come to a time for fairy tales.

Fairy tales have so many different elements to them such as:

Morals
Magical
Usually very fictitious
Good v. Evil
Good prevails
Similar characters- helpless girl, a charming prince, a wicked stepmother or evil stepsisters
Villain is hideous
Victim is beautiful
Girl always gets the guy
Usually has to do with royalty- a princess or prince
Adventurous

Fairy tale links:

Grimm's Fairy Tales

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/

Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/aesop/aesophca.html

Folk and Fairy Tales From Around the World

http://www.darsie.net/talesofwonder/

Fairy Tales

http://www.lib.umd.edu/ETC/ReadingRoom/Fiction/FairyTales/

(From: http://www.readwritethink.org)

Fairy tale cartoons:

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/fairy_tale.asp

Fairy tales get real:

https://vista.csuchico.edu/webct/urw/lc1584091215011.tp1651713269041//RelativeResourceManager?contentID=1651713805041

About Me!

My name is Katelyn Swanberg, and I am a Junior here at Chico State. My hometown is a long 8 hours down South in a city no one ever knows about; Murrieta.

I have wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl. I would play school for hours upon hours with all of my stuffed animals in the section of my room that actually looked like a miniature classroom. I wasn't the type of kid that was begging my mom to take me to get new toys I was the kid begging my mom to take me to the A+ Teaching Material Store so I could pick out new work books, behavior charts, and decorations for my classroom. I was obsessed, and that love for teaching only grew and became a real goal for myself. I have always loved working with children, and my first opportunity to help in a 1st grade classroom my junior year of high school absolutely sealed the deal for me. I fell in love with the age, and knew from that moment on that I wanted to be that teacher that I helped all year long in a classroom of lower elementary aged students. I want to make a difference to them, and be that teacher that they remember years down the road. I want to know that I am setting them up with the fundamentals that they will need to successfully make it through all of the years of education to come. I want to be their role models.

When I first looked at the syllabus and I saw all of the books that were required I will admit I had an instant dread for the class. I hate that I have gotten that way when the thought of a lot of assigned reading is present, but when I got through the first class on Monday I found myself not dreading the course anymore. I am excited to read these books, and have a completely different experience than I have with that in any other course. I am looking forward for all that is to come out of this course. I expect to have to work hard and be on top of my assignments. I also expect to think outside the box more than I would do on my own. I am excited for the challenges that this course is going to bring, and for the excitement of better preparing myself for my future as a teacher.