Williamsme1's Blog

I enjoyed reading this article and found it quite easy to read.  I think shared reading is very important in your classroom; no matter if you teach kindergarten or 8th grade.  One thing I found meaningful was the section in the article on vocabulary.  I think vocabulary is so important for students to know.  I also feel that it is very important for students to be able to figure out the meanings of words through the use of context clues, word parts, and resources.  I also like to order in which these are presented.  You would not want students to look all their vocabulary words up on the internet and in the dictionary before they looked for context clues and word parts.  I agree with the expert teachers in the article, and would always look for context clues first.  I would then look at the word part and what each part means.  If neither of these things helped students figure out the meaning of the word, I would then let them use other resources.  I also felt like these 25 expert teachers were all on the same page, especially when the authors of the article asked teachers about letting students “skip it”.  Some of the teachers were shocked because they would never encourage their students to just skip words they do not know.  One teacher made a great point about giving permission to a struggling reader to skip words.  I totally understand her point.  Can you imagine how many words a student would skip?  The story would probably not make any sense to the reader, and the reader would be gaining nothing.  I really thought this article was quite helpful.  I look at shared reading in a whole new light.  I am ready to embrace shared reading!

I’ll have to say, that at first, I was not too excited about learning and researching pirates.  However, after I got started with internet workshop, I had a change of heart.  Before participating in internet workshop, I did not really know a whole lot about pirates.  I do not really remember learning much about pirates when I was in school.  Most of what I know, or thought I knew about pirates, came directly from movies and television.  Most of what I knew was not historically accurate.  I learned that pirates rarely buried their treasure, and their treasure was not really gold and silver.  Most of the time their treasure was food, clothes, alcohol, etc.  I had a lot of misconceptions about pirates and exactly what they did.  I also did not know much of anything about the different types of pirates there were in different locations.  Most of my exposure to pirates was through Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow, in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  I found it very interesting how four different websites had different information about buccaneers.  All four websites stated different ways the buccaneers got their name.  There were many discrepancies found when comparing the four websites to one another.  One thing that was pretty much the same, was the location and time period of the Buccaneers.  I guess there are discrepancies because it happened so long ago, and may have not been documented the same or at all.  I think it is important to teach kids that there can be discrepancies, but that does not mean that the information is inaccurate.  I really learned a lot of good information that I can use in my classroom.  Internet workshop is a great tool to teach students, as well as teachers, all about pirates.  I am glad that I got to participate in this experience, which will help me greatly when I become a classroom teacher.

While reading this article, I noticed that one of the barriers teachers have when teaching social studies, is the way in which the information is presented in the textbook.  I can really relate to this, because even though I was reading on grade level, some of the information presented in the textbook, to me, seemed to be  written in another language.  I could read the vocabulary and language used in the textbook, but I did not fully understand or comprehend the meaning or inferences of the words I was being asked to read.  I can fully understand how this would be a barrier for students and teachers.

Giving the students specific websites to do research is a great way to prevent students from accidentally viewing inappropriate or even misleading information about a particular topic.  It also cuts down on the actual process of having the students find reliable information about their topic, and gives more time for the students to actually do reasearch about their topic.  This also helps students who are not yet computer-savvy to understand the components of a computer and the functions of the internet.  Give students time to do this.  If you do not give students enough time to manipulate the keyboard, mouse, internet features, etc., they will spend more time trying to figure out the computer and less time researching.  Having students share their research findings, in my opinion, is one of the most helpful tools.  They are not only sharing information they collected, but are listening to their peers and gaining more information about the topic.  I absolutely want to use blogs in my classroom.  The 21st century is all about the internet, so why shouldn’t classroom teachers adapt their teaching to join the rest of the 21st century?  It is a reality.  Students in elementary school do a lot of their game playing, communicating, and homework on the computer/internet.  Times have changed, and teachers must change their ways of teaching to adapt to the changes in the world.  Students who are not exposed to the internet and all of its benefits, will eventually fall behind in society.  Blogs are also a motivator for students.  Students who know their work is going to be published on the internet for their classmates to see, will take more time and do better quality work because of that factor.

I really enjoyed reading about how the Pirate unit was presented to students.  I absolutely love the idea of a Dictionary for Piratical and Nautical Terms.  Pirate lingo is not always the easiest to understand.  In order to teach students about pirates, and give them accurate historical information, words used during that time period are part of it.  Having students develop their own dictionary for piratical and nautical terms, to me, is key in helping them learn about pirates and have fun doing it.  A Pirate-Diary Notebook is also a great way to engage students while learning about pirates.  Finding out what students know, or think they know, about pirates before you start the unit will help you, as the teacher, clear up any misconceptions or information that is not true in its entirety.  For example, people who have seen movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean or Hook, may have misconceptions about pirates.  Pirates are often misrepresented in movies, and students need to be given accurate information when learning about pirates.  However, the article states, “Pairing fiction and nonfiction is an effective method of enhancing students’ reading comprehension, boosting students’ interest and engagement, and expanding their knowledge and imagination” (Frye 16).  I totally agree.  Students do not just want to know facts.  They want to hear stories about pirates, and not all the stories they read should be just factual.  I feel that the stories they read should be historically accurate, but the story within the history should engage readers.

The activities described in Swashbuckling Adventures on the High Seas are really quite helpful.  I feel that all the activities listed are engaging and will help students understand and process the information.  Double-Entry Diaries will also help the teacher get inside the minds of his/her students.  I think that it is very important to give your students engaging books to read.  Having students read books that are not interesting and engaging, will often discourage children from reading books.  I also like the idea of a data retrieval chart.  Being able to have students organize their information while they are studying a unit, will help them understand the material and be able to pull it all together at the end.