Foot: Multigenre autobiography / pleasure reading

I have revived many nostalgic feelings inside myself while doing my multigenre autobiography. I am going to break it into sections according to the stages of my life (childhood, middle school, high school, and current) and when I look at how far I have come from my childhood I can't believe how many different shows, books, movies, music and people have had an impact on my development. I like to think of my self as an independent person who has shaped their own experiences, but this multigenre autobiography really has shown me how much myself and others are impacted by the culture we live in. I have also been in contact with my parents and lifelong friends to talk about this project, our different recollections of the past and what I was reading, watching or listening to has sparked some debate, perhaps we all like to remember the past in the way that brings us to peace with the present. This experience of reflecting on my past experiences with literature and pop culture and public discourse has been wonderful, when I become an English teacher I would most definitely assign a project like this to my class at the beginning of the semester or quarter. A project like this may not be academically rigorous, but it promotes self-reflection and will bring the student to a clear understanding of how they have become the person they are today. I believe the main objective of this assignment is to get the student to come to a self-realization of what has shaped them into their current person, it is a very worthwhile activity that should be encouraged in the schools.

During the summer and winter breaks I like to read, but while I am in school I have no time for pleasure reading ( I can only enjoy reading for about 2-3 hours a day, any more and it becomes work). However, the other night I was bored and had no homework so I picked up one of my collections of old short stories, this particular one was my Hemingway collection, and what I like to do is randomly run my finger across the index and whatever story my finger lands on I will read ( this is my lame attempt at fate directing me to great literature), this night my finger landed on The Three-Day Blow . This is one of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, Nick Adams is a very innocent impressionable adolescent that is the main character of a number of Hemingway short stories. The story was interesting, there wasn't any climax, but Nick and the other character give into their temptations at the very end by "getting really drunk". The main idea of the story (at least in my eyes) was about how our pasts always catch up with us and how some of us are destined to be like our ancestors.

Foot: An Oral History of the Internet

I always knew that the creation of the Internet involved many different people, companies and government agencies, but I never imagined that so many different parties took part in developing the web. The article clarified for me the controversy of Al Gore saying that he created the Internet. Apparently Al Gore made sure that the government funded different projects that led to the creation of the Internet. However the article was very drawn out and its unique style of using different people's opinions about issues that they all had biases on made for a story that was not true to the facts, but rather people's personal feelings about how they were involved with the creation of the Internet. It would have been better if the article took more of a summarizing approach rather than being 100% personal narrative. The story of how today's Internet came to be is an important story that we all should know, because we all are directly affected by the Internet.

Students could learn from this story because it shows the true nature of human greed, and how when there's a will there's a way, and how our government will step into the the field of technological research in order to keep the American society at the top of the pecking order. The story shows the concept "big fish eats the little fish" through Microsoft using its threshold over the computer software market to make sure that no one else created new Internet browsers or operating systems. A teacher can teach his or her's class about how Microsoft and other monopoly like companies are like the mafia with their unethical business methods. Students can also learn about the market place from this story with how once the Internet became huge everyone started investing in .com companies and how most of the .com companies eventually failed because there were so many different .com companies competing with one another, and how today everyone seems to use the same 2 or three websites to buy most things from (ebay, amazon, etc.). Living in a society where the Internet reigns supreme, the public ought to have a clear, unbiased explanation for how the Internet came into existence.

Foot: Little Brother / Socially Networked Classroom

Before I started reading Little Brother I thought that I was not going to enjoy it, I was wrong. This modern tale of an overbearing government that is always scrutinizing and surveying its citizens is great for the high school classroom because it deals with real societal issues and does not have any political bias. Personally, I don't like technology any where near as much as the main characters in Little Brother, I try to avoid technology if I am able to. However, an increasing number of youths are becoming engaged in technology related hobbies like RPGs (role playing games) such as World of Warcraft (which is the basis for the Harkuja Fun Madness game they play in the story). This story has a large target audience because of our society's shift to a Internet based society, young 'techno-geeks' would be drawn to this book because the protagonists are representative of the smart and resourceful aspects of the 'techno-geek' sub culture ( the book conveniently avoids how technology based games are extremely anti-social tools that cause their users to spend all their time alone and in front of a screen). If I were a teacher and had students who spent all their time in front of a computer, I would definitely recommend this book to them. This book is very intriguing though, I couldn't put it down, and I don't say that about any book, this book could be a great read for anyone, one doesn't have to be part of the 'techo- geek' sub culture to like this story. My only problem with the book is that it doesn't acknowledge that some government surveillance is necessary in a society of our magnitude, there are limitations of course, but national security is the government's responsibility, and they have to be as aggressive as those that want to harm America. The actions of the government and HLS are meant to show an extreme scenario of a government surveillance state, not what is happening in reality.

I flipped through The Socially Networked Classroom and as I was looking at the different activities I see that the multi genre autobiography is the first activity, I think this would be a great activity to have students do at the beginning of a semester to get them thinking about their own experiences with literature and popular culture and how these experiences have shaped the person they are today. The second activity caught my attention because I did this exact assignment two years ago for my Art of Theatre class, and like in Dr.Kist's example I did the activity for Julius Cesar. This activity gets students to link their knowledge of music and it's meaning and apply it to the story they have just read. Both of these activities go beyond literature and a text, they make students realize how the text fits into their lives and into our culture.

Chapter 9 post

I have always liked learning new words, and I believe that many students across the achievement spectrum enjoy vocabulary acquisition. When I went through school I remember this one teacher I had that made us write a word 20 times, then the definition 20 times, then 20 different sentences with the vocabulary word in it. Back then I though t that the teacher was doing this because she hated us, later I realized that repetition is the key to memorization. I would never use repetition to solely teach vocabulary though, I would prefer to let my students choose their vocabulary word from the text, but that is assuming that all students do their reading (a lot don't). I liked the idea study words, don't memorize, because a student can memorize the words and the definition for a week, then forget everything once the test is over, that is why I remember the vocabulary words that I use, not the ones I memorized to get good grades.Teaching word parts and different suffixes is important too, when a student knows the Latin meaning of certain parts of words they are on their way to mastering the English language. Today I went to my students study hall for field experience, we studied math, then finished by preparing for his upcoming vocabulary test. WE had fun studying for vocabulary, and I take credit for this, I made it fun by explaining how mastering the English language will allow for him to shock people with his repertoire of words, but I also made explaining every different word fun for him. I used all of the words in funny contexts, and gave his suggestions for how to use the vocab words in class to impress. To my surprise my student actually got interested in using these new words for his advantage, that made my day that he got excited about something I was teaching him.

Chapter 8 post

The idea of post reading strategies is unique to education because of the wide spectrum of what people will take from a text with them for the rest of their life. I like the idea of scales because of how it gets the student to feel associated or involved with the text. When a student places their opinion on the scale they are joining a team of people that feel the same way they do; this is a great way of covertly teaching students to stand up for what they believe in. I also think it is very benfical that they grade the student on how well they defend their argument, this will force students to learn the art of the spoken word. I personally think that debate skills should be stressed more in language arts classroom, because it is one's ability to make their point, convince and orate that lends to one's success. Also, I think it would be great if students were advanced enough to at the end of the book figure out the scales on their own, to show that they understand the different perspectives that people might have about the book, and the underlying questions the text begs. Somebody Wanted But So Seems like it would definitely teach the gist of a story but would go no deeper than the surface level. I think the It Says I say exercise would be great for getting students to think critically about characters motivations and help them make inferences about the text. My own feeling is that after a text is taught the teacher should give the student reasons to remember the text and inspire the students to look for the morals and situations from the text.

Chapter 7 post

This chapter was very interesting to me because I at field experience I see teachers using a couple of these different during reading strategies.The chapter starts off talking about kids who 'just don't get it' and then talks about a teachers who tells the troubled student to be more like the students who are good readers. I think it would have been to show the troubled reader a good response to a given question to give them some ground work for what is expected, but to have the two smart kids lecture the bad reader would not have good results for the troubled student. It would leave the bad reader felling like he is less than his or her classmates and could lead to the smart kids developing an inflated ego. I know that the say something approach doesn't work, today at field experience a teacher had the students get in groups to read and discuss, they didn't even read, they talked girls and sports, I got my student on track though, and explained to him not to distracted by idle chit chat and shooting the shit, but to rather keep his eyes on the prize, and how an education is the key to success. He bought it. The telling students to go talk about a reading in small groups is putting too much responsibility on the student to think critically in many different ways about a text. The teacher should lead or at least start and guide the discussion to ensure that students are gaining valuable experiences. I think the rereading technique is very valuable to students, I had to learn this for Shakespeare and coming to college level classes. But the rereading depends a lot on whether a student is a dependent reader, I will always try to teach my students first off to become independent readers.

Chapter 5 post

Chapter five gave me some great ideas about how to get students to realize that they are making inferences and how important inferencing is to comprehending a text. Since people make inferences all the time in everyday life they probably aren't aware of their inferencing when reading. In the case of young people, they need us to fine tune their inferencing and help those along who cant make the connections. In life the ability to realize what motivates people, and understanding peoples actions around one makes one more likely to succeed. As a teacher I will explain to my students how being able to inference a text is like being able to read people, in a social manner, this should get all students immediate attention. I liked the list of what and how skilled readers make inferences, I wouldn't put this list on my classroom wall and say "be like this", but I would keep it as signs to look for and behaviors to encourage. I suspect that pages 69 through 71 are teaching gold. Particularly, I remember teachers doing #2 when I was younger, that is read very intriguing passages from a book and have the class discuss what they thought was going on in the passage, then reveal the answer. But my favorite was the 5 minute mysteries, the teacher would read it aloud and the whole class would try to figure it out, every one got involved, even the bad kids. I was enlightened by # 4, when for the first time I realized that while I read ahead of the book I was teaching, I should use what I was reading currently to create some discussions that would correspond throughout a text, so that my teaching of the text had a clearer focus and 'came together' at the end.