I really liked the first sentence of the article when it was talking about how modeling is the primary way in which teachers can show how readers interact with text because I think many times teachers forget that their students have no idea what to do or where to start with reading and writing. Reading is something we take for granted because we have been at it for so long, I think we have to step back and think about what it would be like to be a child that is practicing reading techniques and still learning how to use the text and comprehend the text. We teach in every subject at school, but sometimes we forget that we must too teach reading and all its practices. I thought it was interesting in the case study that the teachers modeling their thinking and focused on demonstrating their own thinking rather than asking pointed questions to the students. I think this is especially important to get students to see and understand how they should be thinking through text and the only way for them to see this is by seeing someone else model the behavior. Another aspect of the study that I liked was when the teacher said that she does not have time to tell the students every word they do not understand and so it is important to teach them how to figure out the definition or the meaning to an unknown word within text. There are so many more aspects to reading than just learning to read and this is also something that is often overlooked by teachers. We must teach our students to research and decode to become independent readers. Finally I really liked the idea of modeling the books in large book format or having a page or two of what you will be reading for the students to read along with you and see where you are asking important questions and see your stopping points. Students could work in partners to learn new reading material, work on comprehension, and shared reading. It would benefit students to ask each other questions that they deem important to begin getting in the mindset of questioning as they read independently.

October 1, 2009

I began working on my DED today for the Pirate Diary along with What if you Met a Pirate. I found it to be most interesting that it really requires you to do a lot of in depth reading that you don’t really realize you are doing until you look back at your notes. I have always had a lot of trouble with reading comprehension so I especially found this technique helpful for me to remember what is going on and to organize key facts and ideas. I found it really helpful after Dr. Frye went through the first page diary entry by Jake Carpenter in class today because it helped me know what kind of items to think about as I was reading. I was a little confused until she went through the series of questions or thoughts really that you would go through with your own class. I found it easier for me to make my own DED to think about good stopping points and try to think about what I would say or think as I would be reading. I also tried to think about how a child might view the big vocabularly words and where they might need extra help with the text. I think it is a really good idea to try to get children in the habit of writing down words that they are unfamiliar with and finding examples in the text that they can refer back to which the DED helps you do.

DED for section 1 and 2

Section 1

Part A

Pages 1-13

Pages 13-21

Other feelings and ideas:

• Jake and his family came to England, possibly from religious freedom?
• His mother died when he was very young, too young to remember. Maybe from the voyage?
• Colonists don’t really care for the taxes, they don’t feel as though they should have to pay taxes to a king on the other side of the ocean that doesn’t understand their problems.
• I am thinking that Will was picked up by another ship and he is on the vessel that Jake Spots during his punishment.
• The pirate punishments seem very brutal especially the cat o nine tails. I think that it would hurt a lot and based on the pictures it looks like it is pretty bloody as well.
• I think it would be very difficult to be on a ship for a long period of time without proper medical care. I guess that the main goal would be to not get injured or sick.
• It is interesting that the pirates carried so many weapons even though they didn’t really want to injure the people on board the ship they were trying to take over.
• The 10 pirate articles in the oath were very interesting and well thought out. I especially liked number 10 about respecting women.
• I figured out what the sea monster was that Will was talking about in the beginning of pirate diary, it was a whale.

Dictionary of Piratical and Nautical Terms

• Flogged- p 17, 23, 26- being beaten with a whip that has nine tongues. You were tied up, the whip was sometimes referred to as the “cat o’ nine tails.”
• Brig- p 10- this is found behind the mainmast and has an oddly shaped sail that is stretched between two spars making a K shape
• Masts- p 10- the tall wooden poles that hold up the ship’s sails
• Starboard- p 11- the right side of the ship, the left side of the ship is the port side
• Contraband- p 13- smuggled goods
• Companionway- p 12- the ship’s staircase, which is very steep almost like a ladder
• Plunder- p 22- anything that could be taken, or found, and anything that could be sold
• Boatswain- p 23- the person that checks the sails, rigging, and the anchor of the ship
• League- p. 35- a league in nautical terms is used to measure a distance that is roughly equal to that of 3 miles.
• Powder Monkey- p. 37- the person that fetches the gunpowder
• Magazine- p. 37- the magazine is in the lower deck of the ship and it is a specially designed place with wet canvas curtains that ensure that sparks will not light the area on fire or the ship would explode. The gunpowder is kept in this location.
• Moored-p 30- moored is when the ship is secured tightly, in this case it was secured off the island
• Company- p 32- all the group of pirates and those that are sailing aboard the ship

Part B

What If You Met a Pirate? P. 6, 7, 10, 11, 22, 23

Section II

Part A

Pirate Diary, p 21-37

Part B

What if you met a pirate? P. 2, 3, 4, 5, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

 October 6, 2009

We continued to talk about the DED’s in class today and we worked through some examples of DED’s. I thought Shelby did a really great job working through her passage and leading the class and specific students through a series of Q&A to reach a certain point that she wanted to address. I tried to think more like a teacher as I worked through my DED’s today to think about certain ideas and questions I would want to bring up for discussion. I also tried to recognize more of the author’s craft portion of the books as I realized today that I seemed to be missing a lot last time I read. I didn’t pick up on very many similies and personification details so I read with more attention this time around the books.

DED section 3&4

Section III

Part A

Pirate Diary. Pages 37-54

Part B

What If You Met a Pirate? Pages 12, 13, 14, 15, 30, 31

Section IV

Part A

Pirate Diary, pages 56-57. What If You Met a Pirate?, pages 29-29

1)      Who were the colonists?

1. a.      The colonists were those people that came to North America or the New World from England. Many of these people came to escape religious persecution. The colonies stretched across the eastern portion of North America. During this time there were 13 English colonies that were under direct rule from the English monarchy. The colonists had a lot of problems with England and their representation as they were far away but yet they required the colonists to pay taxes on goods without any real representation. The colonists had a lot of strong feelings and ideas towards their mother country as well as new ideas about starting their own country and breaking away from England. The colonists experienced a lot of hardships in their new land as they had troubles with the Native Americans, cold winters, disease and hunger.

2)      What are the Navigation Acts?

1. a.      The Navigation Acts were imposed by England that made the colonists to trade only with England and only use English ships and English crews. The purpose of these acts was to ensure that England was going to prosper in the successes of their new country.

3)      How did the colonists feel about the Navigation Acts?

1. a.      The colonial people hated the Navigation Acts because it made them take lower prices for the goods they were making even if they deserved more money for those goods. The colonists went as far as deciding to ignore the Acts and continue producing whatever they wanted for however much they wanted.

4)      Who were freebooters?

1. a.      Freebooters were the pirates in the colonial days because they mostly smuggled goods into the colonies that were not allowed. The goods were illegal because they were not taxed, which is why the colonists got the goods from the pirates. The word freebooter comes from the Dutch word “vjirbuiter” meaning free booty. The freebooters most feared enemy were the colonial officials that were trying to make the colonists pay taxes.

5)      Describe the relationship between the colonists and the pirates

1. a.      The colonists really enjoyed it when the pirates came because they brought them a lot of goods that they could otherwise not receive from England. Some of the colonies even had members give the pirates their letters of marquee and financed them on voyages. As time grew onward the pirates wore out their welcome and the colonists did not allow them to sail into their ports as they felt the pirates were too violent and had bad manners.

Part B

Pirate Diary, pages 58-61. What If You Met a Pirate? Pages 24-27

1)      What did you learn about the different kinds of pirates?

1. a.      Pirates have been around a very long time, up to 4, 600 years ago in the Mediterranean region. Vikings in the north were also considered to be pirates as they traveled in fast ships and raided many towns and villages. Privateers were also a type of pirates that were commissioned by countries with letters of Marque to attack other countries ships and steal their goods. These privateers were loyal to their country that commissioned them and they often served as an unsaid navy for the specific country. Many times these privateers turned into pirates as it was a better way to become successful and continue to gain wealth. In the sixteenth century the pirates in the Mediterranean fought for religious reasons, or so they said. The pirates that were fighting for religious reasons and freedoms were known to be corsairs which comes from a Latin word cursus that translates into plunder. These corsairs would take over ships and take the passengers hostage and would then force them to work on the ship or become a slave. There were also pirates known as new world pirates who went around in the Spanish Main plundering from the Incas and the Aztecs. They spent time stealing their gold and then taking it back to Spain. Finally there were buccaneers who came after the use of privateers. The privateers were outlawed and thus they had to invent a new and rougher breed of pirates. These buccaneers came from the Hispaniola area and were named from the way they barbequed their meat on the boucan barbeques. The buccaneers resided at a base camp type area known as Tortuga and they spent a lot of time hunting. I found it really interesting learning about all the different types of pirates and found it intriguing that there were different types that focused their time and adventures not only in different regions but also on different “treasures.”

2)      Out of all the pirates mentioned in this section, which ones do you find the most interesting? Please explain why.

1. a.      I personally found Mary Read and Anne Bonny the most interesting. It is not very often that you get to hear about women pirates in stories and movies. Most of the time they just show a group of mean men aboard a ship that sing songs and drink rum. I thought it was really cool that they dressed up in men’s clothes to play the part and they even fought in the battles. I wish that they didn’t have to play men though, it would have been cooler if they would have just been known as the women pirates instead of being incognito the entire time. I also did not like the part where they escaped being executed for claiming to be pregnant, it kind of bothered me that they wanted to be pirates until it came down to really being a pirate and then they found a sneaky way out. I also liked Sir Walter Raleigh primarily because he is a North Carolina man. I never really considered him to be in a classification of pirate. The book says that he is a seadog which falls under the privateer category, I would consider him to be more along with the patriot side under privateer rather than a pirate because I feel as though he did a lot of good things for our country, and North Carolina to be specific.

 that is truer than true.

There is no one alive

who is Youer than You.”

Dr. Seuss

September 15, 2009

I agree that in this changing society and especially as the education front is changing it is important to keep up with the times and keep up with the best fit educational method to reach students in the 21st century. I feel as though since we are becoming an increasingly technological society we need to show students how to use what they have to gain information, analyze information, and gather it in a new presentable way. We also must teach students that the world wide web is full of false information and we must show them how to find accurate information and do the research necessary to analyze the source of that information. It is also to the benefit of the teacher to try to integrate as many areas as possible to hit all the birds with one stone, so to speak. There is already not enough time in the day and through the use of technology and theme units it makes it possible to teach required curricula as well as real world critical thinking and analyzing skills.

Another aspect of this unit that I love is that it is interactive and fun. Many times students see social studies as pure memorization of historical events, facts, and people. It is important to show them that history is about telling a story and presenting information that you have gathered in a way that tells the story you have researched. There is never one side to a story and we should not teach social studies purely from a textbook that could have biased information. Textbooks should be used as a guide and a resource but not as a pure information source or teaching tool. Through the use of the internet research and presentation it allows students to get their hands into everything pirates and do their own digging along with giving them valuable life skills in cooperation, research, and presentation skills. I also think this is a great activity/workshop because it allows for multiple expressions and ideas, it does not limit students to a box of information. I think that there definately should be a general guideline to the information they need to find, but it could be presented in any creative well organized fashion.

Making a classroom blog about the information would be a great way to check progress of the students gained information as well as allow them to see some of the ideas others have come up with and share information they have gathered. Through the classroom blogs it could also be a good discussion starter to go over information that has been found and as a building block to further an activity from something someone found in their research. Students will also benefit from using blogs by enhancing their writing skills, and to be able to look back at their information. The blogs will also serve as a hard copy evidence of student learning to share with parents are conferences. The blogs could serve for an entire year of writings to show progress in thinking skills and writing style.

I really like the idea of catering to your students individual needs. I have never really considered allowing students to read different materials, most likely because of the model of instruction that I have viewed through personal experience. I feel as though this would be an extra step for the teacher to find specific materials for each student or a list of materials for them to select for themselves but I do feel as though it is a benefitial and necessary step to further reading instruction. I think that through this process of reading at your own independent level the student will eventually be able to progress through levels and catch up to grade level and then with extra help move past grade level. It does not do any service for a student to be frustrated and reading above what they are capable of reading as it only creates more of a self esteem defecit. I found it interesting in the study that they explicitly stated that students that were struggling with grade level text did not make gains in reading comprehension, this statement says it all by showing that students need to be on a challenge level to make gains and understand what they are reading but when the material gets too difficult they will not be able to progress.

I really like the idea of reading circles. I feel as though this would be a great way to have students grouped according to reading levels and you could assign different books depending on the circle of readers. Students can then work together through the text discussing comprehension and analyzing the text. They could work through vocabulary together and guide each other through each section of reading. Students would feel more comfortable working in a smaller group to discuss their problems with the text if they are grouped with readers that would have similar difficulties. This would also be a great place for students to work on group cooperation skills, speaking, writing, and thinking skills.

My favorite quote from this article stated that 

“What a teacher should “see” is a group of unique unto themselves. Not until differences are “seen” is the teacher ready to teach, because individuals,learning the child must precede teaching him…Differentiated instruction is a way of group of development of each individual in terms of his interests, needs, and capacities. evaluating and living with aindividuals in a classroom that results in a maximum of  development of each individual in terms of interests, needs, and capacities. I felt as though this quote really describes the way in which we should be thinking as teachers concerning our students and our classrooms. You will never have a room of students that all meet the criteria of a perfect fourth grade student. Each student will be on a different level that is specific for themself. It is your job as an educator to find each individual level and push that level to move onto that child’s next individual level. There is no set path or ladder to reach the top, and every child will have their own way of succeeding, your job is to find the right ladder to reach.

I really like the fact that this lesson is not just about the literature concerning pirates but it goes into the social studies aspects as well. Students can learn about real life historical pirates as well as discuss the types of pirates today. Students can also analyze how pirates are portrayed in movies or books like Peter Pan to discuss truths from myths abuot pirates. I also like the theme topic of pirates because it is a fun topic that would interest many kids in the classroom. It gives them the opportunity to learn about how to research, find resources with factual and fictional information. Learn about a different way of life, and even use their creative and imaginative writing skills. Students also learn a lot about group work as they are in partners or small groups for many of the activities throughout the unit. It is just as important to teach your students to work as a cooperative team to learn together and from each other as it is important to teach them basic reading and writing skills. I also think it is a good idea to use a variety of genres when introducing a topic or having children research a topic. It shows students that there are all types of sources of information and different ways in which something can be portrayed depending on the author and the point of view of the story.

2) Pullout: Swashbuckling Adventures on the High Seas: Classroom Activities for a Unit on Pirates

I used DED’s when I was in school and I found this to be a very good tool for me because I had a very hard time with reading comprehension. I think it is a great way for students to be able to look back at their DED quickly to remember what is happening in the story, what their thoughts were, and any questions that they thought of while reading the story. It is also a good place to write down defintions you need to look up, or a specific instance you would like to bring up in class.

Something I really liked in this article was how it also incorporated some fun with art by making wanted posters for individual researched pirates. I beleive that through this fun artistic process it branches out of the ordinary reading and writing a small summary paper and allows students to also draw pictures of their pirate or images that relate specifically to their pirate. The teacher can easily access student’s gained knowledge by looking at their posters for information about their pirate that they researched. These pictures could be displayed for the rest of the pirate unit as inspiration for more story writing or poetry. I really beleive that students learn better when it is a fun topic that is out of the ordinary and when it is made to be extra fun and exciting.

My little wooden shoes

Christmas 2008

September 8, 2009

I think that it would be a cool thing to show your students in the classroom this book and allow them to read through Jack’s thought process about poetry and allow them to see that poetry can be anything. I think it would also be a good idea to have students bring in a favorite concrete object and allow them to make a concrete poem like Jack’s about his dog. You could show the apple example as well as the dog example. Students could then make their own poems that could be displayed around the room. It would also be a great idea to have a poetry wall in the classroom where students can see different examples of poems and types of poetry for inspiration. You could also have an inspiration wall where students could bring in some pictures of things that inspire them to display in the classroom, and whenever they need inspiration about something to write they could go look at the wall.

This story would be really great to introduce in a younger classroom where students are experimenting with their names and finding out more about themselves. I would begin by asking them if they knew where their name came from? Why were you named____? I would then show them the story my momma told me and have them look at the front cover and ask them some questions about what they thought was going to happen in the story. I would then begin reading the story and asking text talk type questions along the way through the story to get feedback about experiences they might have had similar to Lucy’s in the story. I would end the story by asking more questions about how lucy felt about her name? How could you show that you were proud of your own name? I would then have students make a me page all about their name where they could draw and write about events that related to their name either why they were named their name or something special they have with their name upon it. I would also give them time to go home and ask their parents about their name, where it comes from, and why it is special. Student’s could also make some of the things in the story like Lucy had with her name on it. The class could make small cupcakes and everyone could write their names in yellow icing. Student’s could also make necklaces or bracelets with their names, or Me Folders. They could have a year long project where they find things that are special to them in different ways, take pictures of them, and put them in their folder as the year goes on. Students could include other items in their Me Folders like pictures of family, the meaning of their name, their family origin, and any other meaningful trinket they wish to share in their folder. At the beginning of the school year, you could take a picture of each student and they could make a small body for their picture, that would then be attached to their face. These could be displayed in the hallway, on the door, or on a ME bulletin board. Students could then write a small paragraph about themself that their classmates and family would be able to read.

I can definately relate to these experiences because when I was younger I had my name in a frame on my wall with a small flower and the meaning of my name. It was in black letters on pink paper and it said Jocelyn, means Merry or pretty in Latin. In also had some pencils like Lucy that my grandparents sent to me that were engraved with my name on them, as well as a silver cup that was given to me when I was born. My mother also made an effort when my brother and I were younger to find things with our names on them, since we had more unusual names. She had special stamps made for us with our names on them so that we could stamp them into our own books.