Our list from tonight

1. Create an alternate ending.
2. Act out the story
3. Paraphrase the story
4. Rewrite the story as a poem
5. Write an essay calle d “MY happiest day”
6. Write a story from the girl’s point of view
7. Write the story from the point of view of the other teachers
8. They could give advice to the teacher
9. They could fix the mistakes of the teacher
10. They could fix the mistakes the girl made in the essays
11. Write about what they would have done if they were in the teacher’s place
12. They could write the story as a song
13. They could draw the story as a comic
14. Write about how they would have coached the girl
15. Make it into a motion picture event
16. Make the story into a powerpoint
17. Rewrite the story in a different setting
18. Rewrite the story in a different time period
19. Reverse the roles of the student and the teacher
20. Complete the story of the girl
21. Scramble the order of the story and make it make sense.
22. Write about what they would do if they were the other teachers
23. Act the story without words
24. Write an outline of the story
25. Write a conclusion of how the teacher should change
26. Draw a picture of the girl and the teacher.
27. Continue the story from where the story ends.
28. Write the backstory of the teacher
29. Brainstorm ideas about teacher-student relationships
30. Interpretive dance
31. Write a personal reflection on the story in your blog.
32. Rewrite the girl’s stories
33. Discuss what makes a good teacher
34. Think about what makes a good teacher
35. Discuss good teaching habits in groups
36. Write an essay about your favorite teacher
37. Share the essay with the class
38. Analyze the minimal pair problems the student ran into
39. Make a board game out of grammar issues found in the story
40. Make a collage
41. Make a collage of the words found in the story
42. Make a collage of the words containing mistakes found in the story
43. Write a news report about this
44. Write a script for a news report
45. Write an interview with the teacher
46. Make Vietnamese food and write down the recipe.
47. Make some cakes
48. Go through and underline the words you don’t understand. Make different definitions for them
49. Find the date July 12, 1976
50. Listen to the story on a tape.
51. Record yourself reading the story and critique it.
52. Beat your partner with a hose.

Readings for this week, whatever number it is

I lost track of the weeks. So it goes.
Even if it weren't mentioned in the reading, I would still want to mention here what concept I've appreciated the most from this year: The K-W-L concept. It's so simple, and it can do so much for helping a teacher who is trying to determine how his or her students will respond to the topic being taught.

I also like what was presented on Sheltered Instruction. This framework is incredibly useful for anything from building an entire curriculum down to designing a specific lesson.

The other part I enjoyed was the section on group work. As I've said before, group work is not my forté, so it's always interesting to read about why it works and how others are MAKING it work. Within that, the buddy system stood out to me for a few reasons. The first reason is that in Scouting, use of the buddy system is required of all scouts. Second, this helps students play on the strengths of their classmates, and build their own learning goals within themselves.

Another Poem

Sometimes
By David Budbill

Sometimes when day after day we have cloudless blue skies,
warm temperatures, colorful trees and brilliant sun, when
it seems like all this will go on forever,

when I harvest vegetables from the garden all day,
then drink tea and doze in the late afternoon sun,
and in the evening one night make pickled beets
and green tomato chutney, the next red tomato chutney,
and the day after that pick the fruits of my arbor
and make grape jam,

when we walk in the woods every evening over fallen leaves,
through yellow light, when nights are cool, and days warm,

when I am so happy I am afraid I might explode or disappear
or somehow be taken away from all this,

at those times when I feel so happy, so good, so alive, so in love
with the world, with my own sensuous, beautiful life, suddenly

I think about all the suffering and pain in the world, the agony
and dying. I think about all those people being tortured, right now,
in my name. But I still feel happy and good, alive and in love with
the world and with my lucky, guilty, sensuous, beautiful life because,

I know in the next minute or tomorrow all this may be
taken from me, and therefore I've got to say, right now,
what I feel and know and see, I've got to say, right now,
how beautiful and sweet this world can be.

Why I wasn't in class tonight.

Above is a picture of my lovely baby car sitting on the lot. I love my car. A lot. Not many grad students have a Volvo, but I'm one of the privileged few who has the luck of driving a snobby liberal car while listening to MPR on the way to Grad School. I rule.

Snobbycar, as I sometimes call her, has been sick lately. I've had an inkling due to the fact that when I turn too far, her wheels scrape the body of the car and throw everything out of alignment. About two weeks back, she got real sick (yeah, bad grammar, deal with it) and I brought her in. My extended warranty covered the following:
Sway arm
Bushings
Ball joint
Steering Stops
Alignment

In all, it came to about 1500 dollars worth of work. I had to pay 200 because of a technicality and a deductible. In all, not a bad deal.
But one does not simply call a guy when Volvo parts are needed. Oh no. Mr Mechanic called Volvo in Minneapolis and they didn't have the parts. Nobody in the surrounding states had the parts. Nobody at Volvo North America had the parts. So they called Sweden. At this point I overheard Mr Mechanic talking to his other Mechanic worker bees in a panicked voice.
We don't speak Swedish, and he doesn't speak English! I heard. How are we going to order these parts if we don't speak Swedish?

Now pay attention, because this is where it gets good.

Upon hearing of their plight, I snuck into a phone booth* and changed into my Captain Awesome outfit. I stepped out of the phone booth and stood for a moment so they could fully drink it in.

Captain Awesome doesn't speak Swedish, but he speaks Norwegian! They're mutually intelligible! I'll save the day! I cried in a manly voice.

After speaking very slowly to the man on the other end of the phone, I managed to get across what parts we needed. I don't know what sway arms or bushing are, and I sure as hell don't know how to say "Steering Stop" in Norwegian, but with the help of the mechanics I managed to describe the parts to the man on the other end of the phone. After getting all of that straightened out, I asked him very casually (but in a manly way), How does one say "Sway Arm" in Swedish?
He casually replied Du sier det "Sway arm!" I guess it's good to know that in Sweden, they don't change the names of car parts.

But I digress. After waiting a week for the parts for Snobbycar to show up, they fixed it and I assumed that I would shortly be on my merry way. But when I got to the driver's seat and turned her on (as I am so adept at doing), I thought to myself My, that's a strange loud noise! And my, that's a strange surging sensation! And my oh my that's nowhere near the horsepower I had before! After hearing out Mr Mechanic's end of the tale on why it wasn't their fault that the engine didn't want to work after they did 1500 dollars of work to it. After sitting at home chewing it over and Googling the symptoms, I brought her to Tires Plus to see if she would even make it to the dealer in Minneapolis. 160 dollars later, they said yes. Yes she will.
Here's the damage:

One Mass Airflow sensor: 500 dollars.
Two Oxygen sensors: 1050 dollars.
Six Spark Plugs: 192 Dollars
One Timing chain: 600 dollars

* May be exaggerated. Maybe.

Readings for week twelve

Reading about Content-Based instruction made me realize how much I buy into that idea. Even though I'm a grammar nut, I've always believed that content-based learning is a much more effective way to teach a new language than by constant correction and an emphasis on being "right" over conveying an idea.

Along those same lines, I believe that a natural acquisition setting is much more effective than a structure-based setting. Since students get to focus on the language for several hours a day instead of just in short snippets, students will get stronger and more immersive experience with the target language.

The structured setting doesn't appeal to me as much due to the fact that there is more pressure on the student to be correct, and there is less emphasis on accurately conveying an idea. The communicative setting is more appealing to me but I still don't like the idea of only exposing the students to the target language for 60 minutes a day.

Reflections on Week 11 class.

Wow. I feel so overwhelmed. When I first read about the portfolio at the beginning of the semester, I didn't fully grasp or appreciate the magnitude of this project. Combined with the Multi-Genre Research project, it seems as though I'm in for a long few weeks. I'm glad that I can work with a partner on this, that makes it a little less stressful.

Aaron and Bekir gave a stirring presentation. I thoroughly enjoyed how they presented their information and engaged the class. The way they got us into groups was very effective, and I felt that overall, I learned a lot more than I would have by simply listening to a lecture.

Poem!

How To Be a Poet
Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Happy Election Day

Success is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated — dying —
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Lessons

I'm still hooked on this daily poem from The Writer's Almanac. I never was much of a poetry fan, but ever since I actually studied it, I've started to really appreciate it. I don't expect this to count as one of my blog entries for the week, but I'll keep posting these nonetheless.

Lessons
By Pat Schneider

I have learned
that life goes on,
or doesn't.
That days are measured out
in tiny increments
as a woman in a kitchen
measures teaspoons
of cinnamon, vanilla,
or half a cup of sugar
into a bowl.

I have learned
that moments are as precious as nutmeg,
and it has occurred to me
that busy interruptions
are like tiny grain moths,
or mice.
They nibble, pee, and poop,
or make their little worms and webs
until you have to throw out the good stuff
with the bad.

It took two deaths
and coming close myself
for me to learn
that there is not an infinite supply
of good things in the pantry.

Readings for week eleven.

I actually learn from Mechanical Drilling. I don't like it, I don't prefer it, and I don't endorse it, but somehow it makes me learn. I've actually thought a lot about it, and I think it's because I can look for patterns in the words, and as long as I can discern meaning from the words, I can try to figure out what is being said and what I'm being taught. This is definitely an advantage for me, and I enjoy the fact that I have this ability.

Reaction to week ten class

I often joke that I sit in the back of the class because I'm Lutheran. If you've ever been in a Lutheran church, you'll notice that they fill from the back to the front. We Lutherans are a modest, sensible people and we don't like to draw attention to ourselves. This is a proven, scientific fact. Any good Garrison Keillor fan knows this. But there is also a darker, more sinister reason I sit in
the back.

I have the ADHD!

One thing that stuck out to me from class this week was Thea's comment on ADD/ADHD students. She said that the worst thing to do to an ADD student was to stick them in the front. When I was a little kid, I would often get put in the front of the class because it didn't appear as though I was paying attention when in reality, I was paying attention to EVERYTHING! It's far easier for me to sit in the back and watch everything that's happening in front of me than it is for me to sit in the back and twist around to see everything that's happening behind me.

Aside from that discussion, I also really enjoyed Mai and Kizuna's presentation. The game got me up and moving, and got me engaged in the content being presented. Kizuna and Mai worked together seamlessly and played very well off of each other's personalities, and all around I throughly enjoyed their presentations.