50 States Song

This is another good history video that will help students to learn the state capitals. It is a clip from the cartoon "Anamaniacs." The clip is only 2 minutes long and since the episodes of this show are 30 minutes long, this is less thatn 10% of the final work. It is for educational purposes and, to my knowledge, has not been made into multiple copies. This clip is safe under copywright law, but I think it would be a good idea for the teacher to cite where he or she got the clip from.

We Didn't Start The Fire

This is a really fun video that I found on Teacher Tube. It is a collage of pictures and videos depicting historical events mentioned in the song "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel. The creator of this video didn't cite where he got any of his media from but I think it's ok because all of the clips are so short. None of them are longer than a few seconds so it is definitely less than 10 % of the work that is being shown. However, he includes the entire song and posts it online which is in violation of copyright law.If he was just showing this clip once in his classroom it would be fine, but since he posted it online without permission it is technically illegal.

Personal Technology Project

Here is a screen shot of the MindMap I made for Jane Eyre. I will divide my students into groups and they will work together to create one of their own. Basically they will all have the same character, each student will choose his or her own event to focus on. They will summarize the event and then analyze it in relation to the character.

Here is a link to the lesson plan on Google Docs

Lesson Plan: Jane Eyre Mindmeister

Utah State Standards for 9^th Grade Language Arts
Standard 1: (Reading) Students will use vocabulary development and an understanding of text elements and structure to comprehend literary and informational grade level text.
Objective 3: Comprehend literature by evaluating the contribution to meaning of several literary elements within a work of literature

A.      Describe how conflict, character, and plot work together.

                 B.     Explain how character is developed through implication and inference

Objective:

Students will work together in groups to put together a collaborative “Mindmeister” of a character from Jane Eyre. This activity will help them to learn how to analyze different aspects of the plot as they relate to one of the characters in the novel.

Introduction:

One of the most important literary skills for you to develop is the ability to analyze characters based off of the things that happen to them in the book. Oftentimes we assume that the information we have of a certain character relies on what the author tells us, but it is important to learn how to make inferences on our own. [Review what an inference is: a conclusion drawn from evidence or reasoning]

Discussion:

-          What makes a situation worth analyzing? How do you know if it is significant or not?

o   If it involves the main character, has some kind of effect on the main character either at the moment or later on in the novel, relates to an overlying theme of the novel

-          What’s the point of all of this? Wouldn’t the author tell us if there was something important about the character that we need to know?

o   When you are reading good literature there are different layers to the text. If you really want to get something out of the story then you need to be able to dig a little deeper rather than just accepting blindly whatever the author puts on the surface. Example: One of the themes in Jane Eyre is the need that all people have for supportive familial relationships. Bronte never comes right out and says that Jane wasn’t a complete character until she found her family, but we can infer that based off her relationship with St. John and his sisters. Remember, there are no wrong answers here as long as you can support your ideas!

Assignment:

Students will be divided into groups of 4 and each student will be assigned a day where it is their job to work on the collaborative mind map. By the end of the week each group will turn in a mind map that is a compilation of their group’s ideas.

-          Groups will meet together on Monday to discuss what character they want to map. Each student will choose an event that is significant to the character and write a short summary and analysis.

-          When it is their day to add to the map they will put up their event, summary, and analysis (as seen in the example). Each student will have his or her own color so I can see who does what.

-          Extra credit will be given to students who contribute to the analysis’ of other members of their group: be sure and post in your color so I know who to give credit to!

English Companion Ning

I spent some time this morning poking around English Companion Ning. This is basically a discussion forum for teachers where they can post a question and other teachers can answer and give their advice. There is a particularly long thread of comments in response to a post where a teacher asked for suggestions on how to run his classroom the day after one of the students in his school was tragically killed in a car accident. This is a difficult situation for sure and it presented itself a couple of times during my high school years. Reading the advice and condolensces to this teacher reminded me of the profound impact that teachers can have on their students. It reaffirmed to me that this isn't an easy job I'm signing up for, but it will be worth it. I have a feeling that resources like this one will be invaluable to me when my time comes to stand in front of the classroom.

Personal Technology Project

For my project I am going to learn how to use Mindmeister. My class will read Fahrenheit 451 and use Mindmeister to analyze and map out themes and characters.
The idea is that each student will choose a unique aspect of the storyline and then the maps can come together to give students a more analytical idea of what the book is all about.

Woops!

I had my class website all done by Monday night and I totally forgot to post the link! Here it is
http://sites.google.com/site/watkinsclass/http://sites.google.com/site/watkinsclass/

Some New Goodies

While poking around on the internet for some rubric templates I came across this awesome website. It doesn't look like much, just a page of links set up by some teacher. There are some really good links on there though, and they have a different page of links for math, history, language arts, etc.