Post 2

     After reading Adrianne's and Brittlyn's post I found out that we all are interested in the Elizabethtown pen pal assignment. Like Adrianne myself, I am not much of a writer and I think this assignment might help me overcome my fears of teaching writing.
    "Writing to learn across the curriculum" was an interesting article that included many different ways that writing can be used in the classroom. The most important idea from the passage is writing to learn instead of learning to write. Learning to write is simply just going over a topic to get a finished product. Writing to learn allows students to expand their knowledge on a topic, clarify what they already know and question themselves. When a teacher is giving a writing assignment, they can give the students a rubric to follow by. This will make the grading process easier and can be used as a self monitor for the students. More important ideas from the reading passage are the different strategies. The article list many different ways students can write to enhance their learning. Strategies that prepare students for reading allows students to activate their prior knowledge on a topic. What stood out to me was a statement about students needing frequent feedback from peers or teachers. It stated that this was important for the student's self esteem and image. Another thing that stood out was the creative writings. I hope to be able to use these one day in my own classroom. A question that I have about the article is, "Will we be using these strategies during clinicals?"

http://cir411mwspring2012.blogspot.com/

Introduction

Hello Everyone,
         My name is Kayla Kirk and I am very ecstatic that this is our last semester of coursework. I will be even more ecstatic when I am in the classroom teaching. Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted to become a teacher. In the second grade, I participated in a school program where we had to dress up as what we wanted to be in the future. Guess what I was?? A TEACHER. The older I got my heart was leaning towards the medical field because I wanted to help people. As a senior in highschool, I participated in the Allied Health Program where we had to go to clinicals. While attending clinicals, I realized that I could not handle the needles, hospital smell, and the sick people. This is what influenced my ultimate decision to become a teacher. Even though I can not help people medically, I can help them mentally and with building their knowledge. My ideal grade is 2nd-4th grade. I believe these are my ideal grades because the students already have a routine and are willing to learn. I am excited to be able to teach the students science. I love science and hope to make it fun so the students will gain a love for it too. Science is full of hands-on experiments that I believe students will enjoy. The content area that I am nervous to teach is math. Math is not my strongest subject and as a child I got frustrated easily with math. Hopefully, the math class we are enrolled in this semester will enhance my confidence on teaching this subject.
     Here's a little bit about myself. I am the youngest child of four, although I do have a twin brother he is still older than me be eight minutes. I am a family person. I have five nephews and two neices whom I love spending time with. I juggle two jobs and school, so I stay busy. My two jobs consist of working at Longhorn Steakhouse as a waitress and substitute teaching. I have been dating my bestfriend for over six years. Once we both graduate in December of 2012, we will be moving to Washington D.C for his career. We are excited, yet nervous to be moving away from our families.
     While reading the syllabus it stated that we would learn ways to teach content information by using literacy practices. I believe this class will have a lot of writing involved including the blogs. I am confused on how the education majors in Elizabethtown will be able to view our blogfolios. Will we be sending them our web addresses? I think that the choice of having the service learning project or the blogfolio as a grade is a great idea. Being able to go to a local elementary school and work as a volunteer will allow us to have a different viewpoint of the classroom. I am looking forward to this class and learning more about teaching the older children in the middle school grades.