Ever need that extra pep talk to remind you why you are teaching? Here you are!!
http://www.schooltube.com/video/10112/Do-You-Believe-Dalton-Sherman
It is not allowing my to directly insert this video but above is the link to the video, it is worth clicking on!
This video is done by a group of 7th graders from Ron Clark Academy. The students can be hard to understand but if you go to the youtube.com website and click on more info the lyrics are posted on there.
A jolly roger was design to signify fear and that pirates are aboard this ship. For my jolly roger, I choose a red background to signify blood. Many of the pirate flag are designed on black fabric so I thought that my jolly roger would be easy to notice. I also used many symbols to warn other ships that they were in trouble. In the middle is a bleeding heart which means that they will experience a slow and painful death. A dagger is shown thrusting into the heart to mean that we are ready to kill you. So in the middle of my jolly roger it is easy to see that we are ready to kill you in a slow and painful way. I also have three skull and crossbones to warn everyone that death is upon them. The two devils on the bottom of the flag represent torment. I think it is very clear that any ship flying this jolly roger is someone that means business.
I thought it was interesting how the article suggested starting the unit. I liked the fact that the students were ask to find information about pirates on their own before class discussion. I believe that it is also useful to have the students indicate what they wish to learn from this assignment so they have an idea on what to look for while reading. I love the idea about a pirate notebook because the students are already aware of notebooking. This will help the students to keep their ideas and important facts together in one notebook. Being that this will be a large unit, it is ideal for student to remain organized throughout. I thought adding a pirate dictionary with definitions was a really cute idea because who does not like to talk like a pirate! There is a national talk like a pirate day!! I am very interested to read The Journal of Jake Carpenter because it is a historical fiction text. I love reading historical fiction text because they get students engaged in the reading because the books are exciting, but they are learning very important key elements. After reading this article, I am extremely excited to start our pirate unit. I was extremely thrilled to see that the article included hand outs and notes at the end. This was a very nice inclusion!
I can’t wait to start this unit. Since I decided to become a teacher, I have always had this “dream” unit in my head and I was thought it was unreachable. Well for over 3 years I have been developing a pirate unit myself that includes many of my friends to “capture” the classroom dressed in character. All of my friends know about my “dream” unit and thought it was very ironic when I told them about this unit in class. This will surely help in my addition to my already growing unit.
I absolutely love my name. My parents always thought that Savannah, GA was such a beautiful place and every time my dad would visit there he would always tell my mom that if they ever had a daughter that he would name her Savannah. Well as my mom likes to say it, I was a happy surprise. But she knew the moment that she found out that I was a girl, that my name was going to be Savannah Rae Meeks. I never had a problem with my first name, but it was not until recently that I have been honored to have my middle name. My middle name was passed down from my grandmother, to my mother, and then to me. The history behind my name is wonderful, but try growing up in Detroit, MI was the name Savannah Rae. For the longest time, I would tell people that I did not have a middle name. Mainly because I was always teased about it. People would try to fake their best country accent just to say my name. Now that I am older (and out of the north) people do not seem to notice my middle name as much. So through out time, I began to appreciate my middle name and the history that it holds. I always swore that I would never name my first daughter’s middle name Rae, but now that I am a little bit wiser, I know that I will pass on the family middle name.
As I am reading through the assigned readings, I am very interested in the idea of writing about your name. If my teacher had me write about my name, I could have wrote a whole book. I love my name. I love everything about it. I really find it interesting how many people say, “oh your name is so beautiful” or “that’s a really neat name I can remember that”, but you would be surprised how many people forget my name. My parents always thought that Savannah, GA was beautiful, so hence the creation of my name. My middle name was past down from my grandmother to my mom. The only strategy that I did not relate to was making a list of things to write about. I do understand that this helps a good number of students collect their ideas and thus making writing easier. But I was that child that making list, bubble maps, or Venn diagrams did not work for. I enjoy to just jumping in and writing and have the thoughts flow out of me. The main problem with that is that I tend to jump around to different topics. My brother is someone that needs a list. He needs to be able to cross something of a list in order to feel like he is on the right track and making progress. I found this section of the book very helpful as far as motivating your students to write.
p.s. Did you catch the sunset tonight. A beautiful blend of purple and pink with the outline of the mountains. Just in case you did not, here is a picture from my porch.
The part that I found most interesting was page 5. Aimee Buckner was describing an encounter with a fellow teacher. They were discussing how the other teacher has her students write every day. “‘Well, they write the answers, in complete sentences, to the questions at the end of each reading story, social studies chapter, and science section.’” I can relate with writer on the importance of the students having a place to freely write whatever they wish in a notebook. I was never asked to write in a writer’s notebook in grade school. Like the teacher that I quoted, my teachers believed that we got enough writing by just asking the questions or writing responses to prompts. The main problem is when I have been instructed to write freely now, I have an extremely difficult time. The writing section on the SAT and the Praxis was my lowest section. I had to take the writing section of the Praxis twice. I agree with Aimee Buckner that students need a place that they can collectively write about whatever they wish. I found it extremely clever that Chance, the gifted student, decided to bring in a tiny spiral back pocket notebook. This immediately reminded me of my older brother. She never specified what she wanted. I think it is important to remind the students of what Aimee Buckners expresses, “Keeping a notebook isn’t something you “get.” It’s not a science, there is no one right way. Keeping a notebook is a process. It’s something that “gets” you-leads you from one thought to another until you, too, experience the writer’s joy of discovering something you didn’t know you knew.” I believe this is important to discuss with your students because students (of all ages) have a tendency on focusing on if they are doing it right or not; mainly focusing on the end grade. While they should be focusing on the enjoyment that they receive from writing.
