Wordle of my blog! :)

Go here to see the wordle for this blog! It's a really neat website, http://www.wordle.net/. Very creative and a great tool to use in your classroom, as well as, everyday  life! :)

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3487823/Just_Beause_Blog

"Gonna Get Over You"

"Gonna Get Over You" by Sara Bareilles

Goodbye 
Should be sayin' that to you by now, shouldn't I? 
Layin' down a law that I live by
Though maybe next time 

I've got a thick tongue, 
Brimming with the words that go unsung 
I simmer then I burn for a someone
The wrong one

And I tell myself to let the story end, 
That my heart will rest in someone else's hand 
But my 'why not me?' philosophy began
And I say...

CHORUS:
Ooh, how am I gonna get over you?
I'll be all right, just not tonight
But someday, hey, oh I wish you'd want me to stay
I'll be all right, just not tonight
But someday

Maybe, it's a vicious little word that can slay me
Keep me where I'm hurting you
Make me hang from your hands
Well, no more
I won't beg to buy a shot at your back door
If I'm aching at the thought of you, what for?
It's not me anymore

And I'm not the girl that I intend to be
I dare you darling, just you wait and see
But this time not for you, but just for me
And I say...

CHORUS

(Say) Say, it's coming soon
(Someday) Someday without you
All I can do is get me past the ghost of you
Wave goodbye to me
I won't say I'm sorry
I'll be all right once I find the other side of someday

CHORUS

---------------------------------------------------------------

One of my absolute favorite ways to express myself is through music. I

love it. I will always be the girl that sings at the 

top of my lungs (it doesn't sound good-- but I don't care). 

There has been so many times that I have been sad, mad, scared, 

happy, unsure, confused, and heartbroken,

and the best way to express myself, 

is through song. When I write for myself,

which is usually the only type of writing I do, 

I will either stop in mid-write or 

at the beginning or end of my writing

just to listen to the music that is associated with my mood.

It's incredibly cathartic for me. 

I am the type of person who talks

and talks

and talks

about my problems with my friends.

They understand that is just how I am. 

We all have different ways that make us who we are. 

I am the girl who has to talk about her problems.

Sometimes, to the point where I even annoy myself

with how much I am talking. 

lol.

However, it cleanses me. It helps me deal with what is going on.

It heals me. 

That's the only way to explain it.

Music most definitely has a lot of control of my mood.

Or does my mood have control of the music?

Either way, it does not matter. 

It soothes me and it helps me. 

Just like writing. 

I believe that a lot of other people are like this too. 

At least I hope so.

I posted the song above, 

one of my roommate's introduced this song to me 

and I love it.

I think I partially love it because it expresses

so well

how so many of us have felt at one time or another. 

Plus, I just like to share songs that I think are amazing. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, here is a link to a website, called PostSecret.

It is awesome. Look at it.

It is updated every Sunday. People from all around the world

send in postcards and write one of their

deepest secrets on them.

Some are a bit risk-ay, some are sad and 

some are just happy! :) take a look!

http://www.postsecret.com/

Comments4kids

I absolutely LOVED this assignment. Reading everyone's pieces was amazing! It's so wonderful to see how many talented writers are out there-- and at such a young age too! :) Below are the websites I visited (and I think I might have to go back and check on these websites again to see what else these students have written!-- there is some really amazing stuff here!)!

http://wildcatwritersof804.blogspot.com/2011/04/devils-beast-part-1-creative-writing.html#comment-form

http://kidblog.org/2017Purple/lexir/me-myself-and-her/

http://kidblog.org/2017Purple/author/AnnaC4/

Hmm

So, I took the GACE on Saturday. It actually went better than I thought, I'm still nervous about my results but, I think I'll be okay :) OH! I was telling my students about my taking the GACE on Saturday and they were all excited for me and they asked me if they could have a party if I passed it. :) I thought that was so sweet! Kids say the cutest things! :)


Moving on, I'm really trying to think about what I want my multigenre project to be about. I'm having a hard time thinking of something. I think I might have to go back through my writer's notebook and the multigenre article that we read for last week and see if I find anything that strikes my fancy or might lead me to something that strikes my fancy. We'll see, I need to get cracking on this!


So, Kristen and I decided to do our text set on a second grade standard that is based around understanding different elements of fictional texts, such as fairy tales, fables, etc... I think we decided to go with fairy tales and we have a large group of texts (that we should probably narrow down) and we are going to read them and discuss the common themes that are relevant in each fairy tale. Kind of like "What are the elements that make up a fairy tale?" "What types of things make fairy tales different from other types of stories?" My idea actually derived from a project that I did in Block 1, though that project was different. But, I do think it is an interesting concept, to have students think about what types of elements make up fables, fairy tales, myths, legends, etc... I think it is definitely something worth knowing and something that I know I would have been extremely interested in when I was in the second or third grade. I'm excited to see how it turns out and what we can come up with. I might try to get my focus lessons to go along with our text set. I think that would be kind of a neat thing to do, and both assignments would kind of help each other out, so that's always good :)


On a side note, one of my best friend's is getting married this coming Saturday so my friend and I have to leave this Thursday so we can get home in time for the wedding. I'm sooo excited for her, but I'm not gonna lie, it kinda freaks me out that we are at that age where everyone is starting to get married. It'll be weird to see her walking down the aisle to her future, but I am so ecstatic for her ! :) I think this coming weekend will be fun, I definitely have not had the best of weekends at the moment, so I'm ready to get home, see my friends, and heal myself a little. Not that anything awful or terrible or anything like that has happened. But, I often find that when I have had a hard weekend or something that didn't go my way it kind of helps for me to go home and heal myself. It's theraputic and cathargic for me :) It reminds me of what it is really important in life and it makes me whole again, to be able to get back to my roots and remember who I am :) .


This is a Bible verse that also helps me get through the hard times, the good times, and just the normal times. I like sharing it because it has helped me in so many ways, I like to think of it as helping others too....


"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."-- Jeremiah 29:11




This is a picture of the mountains where I come from. This is home to me.



Lookout Mountain, Georgia



Spring Break and Stress!

So, it's Sunday, and that means Spring Break is almost, offically....O-V-E-R. :( :( :( :( I'm really upset about this because I feel like I need an extra week to get done the things that I should have got done over spring break, actually done. Not to mention, I'm taking the GACE this Saturday, so on top of the, neverending course work it seems, I somehow have to find the time to study for the GACE. I'm not tooooooo worried, ok, I lied, maybe I'm a little worried and nervous. But, everything will be okay :) I just know it will be :)

Spring Break readings

Here we go....

    So, while doing the readings for this week, I stumbled across 2 very important (or at least to me they are) facts. The first comes from the article we read about multigenre research and the second comes from Ray, chapter 12; when you really sit down and think about it, I like to believe that they go hand in hand :)

So, in the article, the main thing that popped out to me is the utmost importance of student choice.....guided student choice. I place emphasis on the word 'guided' because often times, when a teacher has given me student choice, i have been at a loss for WHAT to write about. I always end up thinking, "OK, great, i can write about whatever i want to write about.....so what do i write about? I have no idea. There are too many options and...uhhh...I kinda don't know where to begin, so I'll just pick something and go with it." Yep, that's usually what it looks like when my previous teachers (in my younger schooling days) gave me "student choice". I never asked them to help me think of something to write about cause they would either 1) look at you like you are crazy because you are this 10 year old kid, whose imagination is flying, therefore should have PLENTY to write about and 2) they would say "well just write about something that interests you. do you play sports? do you like barbies? write about one of those things?" (really, you REALLY want me to write about barbies...i mean i could...i did find them pretty awesome as a kid, but i HIGHLY doubt my teacher REALLY wanted me to write about barbies...i think it was all a ploy to just get me to write about SOMETHING). Anyways, back to the reason i placed emphasis on the word 'guided'. In the article, it discussed ways that students could choose things to write about. I feel like, as a former student (and currently one), when i am struggling with what to write about, i don't want a superficial "do you like sports? what about barbies? puppies? dolphins? fluffy pink bunnies?..well then write about that." I want someone to work with me and help guide my thinking to help me discover what to write about. They don't have to pick the topic for me, but if I am to write a deep, personally connected piece, then i would like to write about something that i find interesting and would like to learn more about (like the girl, who in the article, wrote about the Titanic)....not fluffy pink bunnies. I really enjoyed reading this article not only for the reason that it highlighted the fact that students, when writing multigenre research pieces (and any other kind of piece), should pick something that they are interested in and have HELP when choosing that topic (i.e., guidance from a mentor or a teacher). The topic does not have to be chosen for them but if I really like the though provoking questions and the FQI that the article posed as a way to help guide students and narrow down their selections, and also, figure out WHY they want to write about this piece (not just because they had no choice and couldn't think of anything).
    The other thing that the article talked about, and was mentioned in Ray chapter 12, was the importance of personally relating to a topic and focus lessons when having a whole-class unit of study. As a writer, it is important to me to feel connected, personally, to what i am writing about. Honestly, if I have no interest in the topic (or whatever the case may be) and do not feel personally connected to it, my writing ends up looking like terrible and I'm just not proud of it. I know we are all different as writers, but for me, connecting with what i am writing, whether it is topic, genre, or whatever, is of the utmost importance because if I don't connect with what I am writing, then my writing isn't going to go very far.  Another aspect that I found important was the concept of having focus lessons work together with the units of study, so the students work can build upon each other and include the information that is given to them in the focus lessons, instead of being "hit-and-miss" lessons. I don't know why this is such an enlightenment to me, but, nevertheless, it is. For some reason, and I don't know why this didn't come to me before, but it makes sense to have the focus lesson during writer's workshop be relevant to the students work. There has never been a time in our class where our focus lessons could not be incorporated into our writings. This was a revelation of common sense to me. :)

"Good Behavior"???

      What classifies “good behavior”? That seemed to be a reoccurring theme throughout this week’s readings, and one that I have given a lot of thought too. I’m not going to lie, even though I like this idea of a writer’s workshop, it scares me too because it requires the teacher to hand some of her control over to her students. I’m all about student choice, and I think that students should be able to talk and work and socialize at the same time but this writer’s workshop gives a “slightly out-of-hand feeling” as the book described. I think it is super hard for teachers to let go of that control because of the fear of what would ensue. I think if we gave students more control over what went on during their writing times (or any other time) they might actually get used to it, so the “slightly out-of-hand feeling” might go away because the students are used to having the control and they know what they have to do in order to get what they have to get done, done. It’s a hard balance to find I believe, but definitely one worth finding for sure. The book discusses how the nature of writing should not feel super controlled all the time (which is one reason those writing workshop kits do not work). I have never thought about this before, but it is so true. When I was forced to write in elementary/middle/high school and I had to be working on a very specific part of a particular piece (i.e., making a rough draft, or “brainstorming” or revising, etc…) I feel so unmotivated. The point of writing is to enjoy it, write what you feel, be proud of what you write, don’t be proud of what you write, do whatever you want to with your writing (within reason I suppose). Writing is a journey and our student’s should experience the best parts (and the worst parts) of that journey. The point is, is that they are experiencing it, which is more than I can say for my writing experiences in the pasts. Students just can’t experience writing in a positive way if they are being controlled all the time with their writing. They won’t want to write anymore. We want them to write.

      A final and second main point that struck me in with this week’s readings was the difference in the teacher’s role in a writer’s workshop as the book describes and a writer’s workshop that many of us have experienced growing up. The book states it this way, “…we don’t ever want to think of students’ independent work time as a time for us to work on other things that need doing. We need to be out there teaching, for one thing, and for another, if they sense that this is a time when we “let me loose,” we will have problems. Letting them choose their work doesn’t mean letting them loose” (p. 74).  I got too main points out of this statement: (1) “we don’t ever want to think of students’ independent work time as a time for us to work on other things that need doing.” Ok, now, I get it. Teacher’s have a ton to do throughout the day, a lot of which is “behind the scenes” type of stuff. I also get that teacher’s do not want to take their work home with them (honestly, who does????). BUT! I have read on countless occasions that when the students are doing something independently, like independent reading or writing, the teacher should be doing that as well or, at least, helping other students with these specific things during this time. Think about it. When students are working on math problems, I have rarely seen a teacher go up, teach a lesson, then go back down and sit down at their desk without ever interacting with the students. I usually see them answering questions, helping students understand a concept, and making sure students get it. Why should reading and writing be any different? Are these not subjects too that require and deserve a teacher’s respect so students will respect it too?  I have also read that it is hard for students to learn to appreciate things like writing or reading if they never see their teacher’s doing it, which makes sense. If the teacher does not have to do it, why does the student? Makes sense a little bit. Student’s should see their teachers work. They should see that their teacher has written pieces or is currently writing pieces or has struggled with pieces just like the student. I think it would let the students see the more “human” side of the teacher, as well as, appreciate what they are doing more because they see that their teacher has done it and experienced it too. I cannot tell you how many times I had a “writing workshop” in my younger schooling where the teacher has given us a topic and a form to write in, said “Write.”, then went and sat back down to start grading papers or what not. I understand completely that having this independent time cuts down on the work load at home (let’s face it, we have our own, private lives to take care of at home too), but the students need us. They need us to be interactive with them. They need to see that we have experienced what they are experiencing. It will make them appreciate this art a whole lot more.

      The second and final main thing I got out of the above statement was “Letting them choose their work does not mean letting them loose.” A lot of this goes back to my first paragraph, so I’ll cut this one a little short. Basically, I think student choose in writing is a great idea. Growing up, I hated student choice because it was so hard for me to think of something to write about. But, I also rarely got student choice in writing. So, if we give student’s more choices consistently, they might, eventually, have a whole long list of things they would like to write about. And let’s be honest, the reason why we (as students) acted “loose” was because we never got the chance to be responsible for our own writing. We were never allowed the chance to have that responsibility, so when we got ‘free choice’, we probably acted out of hand. If we give students’ more opportunities to write about what they want or feel, “letting them loose” won’t be a ‘problem’. In fact, we may start hating the fact that we might, occasionally, have to give them a topic to write about.