OWP Day 4

It's day four of class and I am unbelievably tired.  I know I fell asleep before 11 last night and didn't wake up until 6:15 this morning.  So that is what, 7 hours of sleep.  A miracle in my book.  But I think yesterday's early morning adventures with the dog have caught up.  Plus the constant requests for my signature on documents.  Documents that I am now starting to suspect I am the only reading prior to signing.  Yesterday I caught a hugh number of mistakes on the declaration of things that are being either taken from the new house or left.  You see I want a new refrigerator for our new house, not that bad, I could live with the current one for at least a year or two (or probably forever - but lets not tell my husband that), and on the declaration its says that it is staying.  Which by the way, is not what the purchasing report or anyone else has said.  Then they said the oven is going - huh?  Ok, now that thing seriously needs to be replaced at some point, but no one takes an oven with them when they move.  Especially one that has seen better days.  Then there is a the question of the window air conditioning unit in the Florida room.  Really?  How did everyone miss all these things that I caught on a quick glance.  My husband is so much better at catching things than I am.  His response - "Oh, I was looking for that page, where is it?"  Page 5 dear, in plan black and white.  Please call the realtor and have her get us the actual information before she submits this.

Joy!  Then we are having some guy walk through our house this morning assessing it.  Oh double joy!!  I'm going to walk through your house and tell you what it is worth.  Me and only me.  Guess what buddy - I left that overly friendly dog in the house to keep you company (oh and to keep her from over heating).  Ok, so I am being a little cruel this morning - blame it on being tired.  It has been a rough two weeks.  I honestly can't wait to be back in the class room in about three weeks with my Middle schoolers.  Yes, I can truly say they are mine now.  They may drive me crazy, I may get little sleep, they may not want to see me, but like my own kids, they are mine.  Oh, and my CT's too.

Oh, I guess I am supposed to be writing about something specific this morning too.  The process of creating a digital story.  Ok, so here it goes.  It is a jumbled mess, that is what it is.  You start with this really big picture, many ideas, pictures, music, and you keep whittling away at it until suddenly something starts to come into focus.  That is how the process has been so far.  I started with this big idea of working for Sportservice for 7 years and as I started to go in one direction, I did a complete 180 and went in a completely different direction.  Now I am just working on the first year and really the idea of running away from home to only return home and find what I was looking for.  You know the typical growing up story.  Sometimes you have to look far and wide to really appreciate what you have waiting for you.  That is my digital story.  And it took working on this project to really understand what that year was about, because up until yesterday I really hadn't thought of it that way.  I thought about it as work and getting away, but not really the implications and results of or even what the whole year ended up being about overall.  So anyway, this morning I need to step away and record the audio for my digital story.  I think I am going to record it in pieces instead of one big piece.  It will be easier to set the pictures and words together.  Or maybe I will record it all in one line.  Hmmm....decisions, decisions.

Wow, where did this first hour go...I guess I will go back to reading my classmates blogs.  It is always good to see what other people are experiencing.  Pieces of puzzles to store in my brain for a later date.

Questions created by group 1:
Find their own voice
Writing is relevant to them
Writing enhancing their knowledge of learning of English as a second language
Use technology to learn and generate their ideas in understanding English - writing to learn; feel confident that they can do this themselves - student centered instead of teacher center (collaboration is good)
The act of talking and how important it is to learning
Writing is a dynamic process - it is not just static pen and paper
Writing should become fun - the students are used to using the tools for things outside of class, lets bring those tools into class and use them


From Writing Next (http://www.all4ed.org/files/WritingNext.pdf):

The Recommendations

Eleven Elements of Effective Adolescent Writing Instruction

This report identifies 11 elements of current writing instruction found to be effective for helping 

adolescent students learn to write well and to use writing as a tool for learning. It is important to note

that all of the elements are supported by rigorous research, but that even when used together, they do

not constitute a full writing curriculum.

1. Writing Strategies, which involves teaching students strategies for planning, revising, and

editing their compositions

2. Summarization, which involves explicitly and systematically teaching students how to 

summarize texts

3. Collaborative Writing, which uses instructional arrangements in which adolescents work

together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions

4. Specific Product Goals, which assigns students specific, reachable goals for the writing they

are to complete

5. Word Processing, which uses computers and word processors as instructional supports for

writing assignments

6. Sentence Combining, which involves teaching students to construct more complex,

sophisticated sentences

7. Prewriting, which engages students in activities designed to help them generate or organize

ideas for their composition

8. Inquiry Activities, which engages students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to help

them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task

9. Process Writing Approach, which interweaves a number of writing instructional activities in

a workshop environment that stresses extended writing opportunities, writing for authentic

audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles of writing

10. Study of Models, which provides students with opportunities to read, analyze, and emulate

models of good writing

11. Writing for Content Learning, which uses writing as a tool for learning content material

What does this mean for our group:
I like how this shows ideas on lower achieving students improving their writing because of technology
Things beyond grammar - they need to be confident in their writing
How we weight grading, what they write should be weighted higher than the grammar itself


Thoughts on video - we are watching a video in class today that prior student created on being Cherokee in the 19th century.  The video moves between voices.  Which means that we get to hear different people's perspective during this time.  Sometimes I get lost in the story and other times it makes sense.

Well here is my video - rough draft as it is.  Audio probably needs to be re-recorded.  I wish I could be as good at recording as Ashley is, but I guess with more practice it will come.