Popcorn and movies

After last week's class, I really got to thinking about how important it is to make the information relevant and tangible to your students. A seemingly simple description of a literacy tool can sound so complex to ears that have never heard of it before. The shoe analogy observed in the movie reminded me of just that; even though it seems so simple to us, we often have to think like our students....however scary that might be.

In my practicum last week I was teaching writing, specifically on the idea of a thesis. This simple word can be so daunting to students, and it is one that will consistently reappear throughout their school lives. However, I discovered that the idea is fairly difficult to describe and even more challenging to put into real writing. My students barely understand the concept of an essay, and I think the idea of a thesis may have been over their heads. That is the tricky part of teaching like this....coming in twice a week, following someone else's lesson sequence, trying to put the pieces together...there are bound to be some disconnects. I think I may have found one.

In a school world overcome with five paragraph essays and a large amount of matching someone else's format, I think it is beneficial to teach students to be creative. There needs to be more emphasis on originality and writing for writing's sake instead of just assessment. Standards can be creatively wrapped into writing, and the teachers just need to figure out how to do it well. As we saw with our reading lessons and Al Capone, starting with the quality instruction and then incorporating the standards is a sure fire way to effectively meet the needs of one's students.