Ed 376 Adolescent Literature

Tonight I embark on an adventure that I have been dreaming about since I took Adolescent Literature from Ben Nelms in the 80's at Mizzou.  Teaching a reading course to college students.  I painstakingly designed the course from top to bottom, but I know there will be things I will need to adjust and redo.  This is an eight week course meeting three hours in one night a week.  These students are about to swim in adolescent literature.  I can't wait to see what comes from it.

Top Ten Cinderella Books

Cinderella books have been beloved through the years.  The story shows how kindness shall prevail over wickedness, a theme that we need desperately in today's world.  In the primary classroom I would center my Cinderella studies on setting.  Where is this story taking place?  How many settings do we see in Cinderella?  In the intermediate classroom, I might consider discussing the bullying aspect of the stepsisters.  How does the bullying get resolved?  What feelings does Cinderella have to go through before she can overcome it?  In Middle School we might discuss gender roles.  Have those changed today?

Here are the top ten Cinderella Books:

These books were chosen due to their settings and gender roles.  What other Cinderella books might be chosen?

Using Padlet

I am trying to use new tech tools for the classroom.  Here is our class example of Padlet.  We had a lot of difficulties getting in to write and some students never could get in to write, but those that did, were able to write some great pieces!

Created with Padlet

Frontloading

Frontloading is a literacy practice that helps students gain useful information that helps them comprehend complicated texts.  We are discussing frontloading by looking at a variety of strategies.  These strategies will help teachers scaffold their lessons to give students the support they need to learn the content in their classes.

Frontloading strategeis happen before reading takes place.  Students are making connections to the content by bringing their prior knowledge to the table.  Teachers are also using frontloading activities to close the learning gap between students.

Here is an example of a frontloading activity taught in class.  The strategy is the Frayer model, which is useful in teaching vocabulary.

Here Mollie is showing how the brain remembers new words: by using examples, non-examples, characteristics and the definition.

The students will learn many other frontloading strategies such as KWL Plus, Mind Mapping, Quick Writes, Chapter Tours and Concept Mapping.

Welcome to 338, Spring 2016

Welcome to Educ 338, Spring 2016!

It was a delight to meet each of you tonight!  It's fun to find out what connections we have with our students!  Who knew I would have my neighbor, Zach, as a college student!

Blooming tree outside of my house

Tonight we developed our blogs, discussed a bit about reading comprehension in a content-area class, and got to know each other a little.  We discussed Madeline Hunter's lesson plan format and I collected a little data about the class as a whole about reading.  A third of our class does not have time for reading for pleasure.  I would love to change that somehow!

Looking forward to learning with you all next week: March 23rd, 7-10 pm.