Sandy Media Coverage

As I was watching the news last night I became very upset. At first I thought it was because I was watching images of people's destroyed homes and people who may be without power for weeks to come, but I realized it was something else that irked me. During the last week or so media coverage of Sandy has been everywhere. This is certainly understandable as it was a storm unlike any we had seen in the northeast before. However, the nature of the coverage seemed to be eerily consistent no matter what channel I watched. News outlets simply went from one devastated scene to the next, telling stories of terrible loss and occasionally stories of hope. The thing that bothered me was that very little of what they showed was actually "news". There was often very little practical information about new developments as far as power and shelter. In a typical 30 minute newscast (not including commericials), I felt like there was often no more than 5 minutes of actual stories that could be considered news. To be honest, it often felt like local and national news stations were simply compiling images of destruction to show like a continual slideshow for viewers.

I guess my question is, when is it enough? How many destroyed lives, houses and communities do we need to see to let us know how bad things are? As seems to be the trend in the modern 24/7 news cycle, it is all about the ratings. Media outlets will show us things that will get a rise of emotion out of viewers in order to keep us from changing the channel. Those emotions may range from happiness, sadness, fear, anger or pity.

As I am finishing this post I am just realizing that this connects to chapter 4 of Kelly Gallagher's text. (I am also seeing snow starting to fall outside, great!) He has students evaluate and judge an hour long newscast and seperate the "real" news from the fluff pieces. They find an average of about 6 minutes of "real" news in an hour long newscast. Now I am not saying the devastation of Sandy is a fluff piece, but I think the sad thing here is that media outlets may have used the scenes of devastation in the same way. I may be wrong about this. Maybe, like others, I had spent too much time watching the news coverage and it made me angry/sad simply because of the devastation. I would love to hear some feedback on this one. How did the news coverage make you feel?

Burning Questions

(Consider this a preview for my opening activity tomorrow.)

BURNING QUESTIONS:

This activity from chapter 5 in our Gallagher text seemed important to me. I think that so much of learning needs to come from asking questions. The deeper understanding of any concept can only be reached once we ask and then explore further what WE want to know. I decided it would be fun to post some burning questions of my own. For a topic, I chose Notre Dame football. For those who don't follow sports or college football, Notre Dame is 7-0 (at least at the time of this post) and have been in the conversation as one of the best teams in the country for the first time in more than a decade. Still, they have more to prove as the season goes on and I have some burning questions regarding the Fighting Irish.

1) Will Everett Golson step up and be a consistent leader at the Quarterback position?

2) Our defense is good, but are they SEC good? ( Alabama, Florida, LSU,etc.)

3) Will all of the Notre Dame haters finally give ND their due if they beat Oklahoma this weekend on the road?

4) Will Notre Dame finished undefeated and play for the national championship?

5) Does Manti T'eo have a real chance at winning the Heisman even though no true defensive player has won since the late 90's?

I could on for much longer but I feel that the non-sports fans might fall asleep. The next step would be for me to pick one question and then reflect on it in my writer's notebook. Stay tuned for my next post which will reflect on one of my questions above!

Inform and Explain: 3 Favorite Activities

 Kelly Gallagher makes a great point at the beginning of Chapter 3. No matter what we do in our lives, we all have to write to either inform or explain. It can come in any form, but like it or not we all eventually have to explain ourselves and inform others. I found all of the activities in Chapter 3 of the Gallagher reading to be both practical and creative. I decided to pick 3 that I could see myself using and explain why.

1) Congrats, newly minted ________

I think this writing activity is great for several reasons. First of all, it allow students to have a choice of what they are going to write about. They can choose any topic and write a detailed sarcastic list that I think will certainly appeal to a secondary student's sense of humor. Secondly, it forces them to explore a topic and write about in detail. This may seem basic, but I think the "analyze and explain" skill set is important for many types of writing. Lastly, the end goal is to take a sarcastic list and turn it into a positive list. The student example shown goes transforms from "How to Get Sent to Boarding School" into "How to Be a Model Teenager". This is a clever twist as it removes the humor and forces students to really think about how to be a good doctor, teacher, cop, nurse, scientist, etc.

2) I Was a Witness

One of the reason's I love this idea is because it touches on my second favorite subject, history. Reading and writing are so important because they touch upon an infinite number of topics and subjects, such as historical events. In this case, the student will read an actual eyewitness account of a historical event. (This is likely much more exciting than what is in their history textbooks.) I think this is a great way of modeling writing for students. Students can build upon their own reflections to inform and explain what they saw. This strengthens the idea that events in their life are important and should be reflected on and discussed.

3) Unwritten Rules

This activity asks students to consider the unofficial and unwritten rules in their lives. I like this because it forces students to think critically and allows the teacher to get to know some of the ins and outs of their daily lives. Much like the first activity mentioned, this type of writing allows for a certain sarcasm that seems to fit with young writers. It also explores the facets of life that aren't often discussed in the classroom. It points out that certain things are understood even if they are not explicitly explained by authorities or society in general. This exercise calls for students to think deeply about norms within groups, whether those consist of baseball games or high school bands. While reading about this exercise, I couldn't help but think about our social or cultural norms. I think these lists of rules can help a teacher explore norms that students have within their peer groups in and outside school. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the responses that students come up with.

Kelly Gallagher and the Jesuits

As I read Chapter 2 of Kelly Gallagher's "Write Like This", I found that there was an interesting connection with his idea of reflection and the Jesuit's teachings. As someone who has been in Jesuit schools from high school until graduate school, I immediately thought of how the Jesuits stressed reflection in their own lives and in the way they taught. I can specifically remember writing about community service projects that were required of us every year at Fairfield Prep. It was always interesting to look back at an experience that took you out of your comfort zone, such as working in a soup kitchen or tutoring kids in an inner city atmosphere. I always found myself feeling anxious before community service and feeling amazing afterwards. Through reflection I realized the importance of doing things that make you feel anxious or scared. I found that 90% of the life was simply showing up.

This is why I agree with Gallagher's assertion that there is not enough expressive or reflective writing in schools. There is so much learning and growing that can occur by reflecting on certain moments in our lives. To put it quite simply, using more reflective/expressive writing can help students become more thoughtful human beings. I'm not sure how or if that fits with our state standards in CT, but somehow it needs to fit. The Jesuits would agree.

Thoughts On The Writer's Notebook

I must say that I have been taken by the idea of using a writer's notebook. I have read many articles and chapters about the importance of having a journal or writer's notebook in the classroom. But I must admit I did not see how important it was until now. I think it is important to note how effective it is for teachers to do the writing exercises themselves. The exercises we have done in class have been exciting and original. They force you to write in a way that seems more open ended. I think that many students get bogged down with formal writing in school. I know that I often felt that way in my English classes as a student. The importance of being able to write without the pressures and rules of formal writing is crucial for students to have a good relationship with reading and writing. Now I am not saying that we need to get rid of formal writing such as essays and research papers, I am simply saying that the writer's notebook can be used as a springboard for better writing. A student can easily look into their writer's notebook and turn one of their free writes or scribblings into a short story, essay or even research paper. I can say with the confidence that when I teach in the future I will use the writer's notebook everyday with my students.

Letter To Classmates

Below is my letter that details my experience with writing as a student. Enjoy!

Dear Classmates,

     My relationship with writing has always been complicated. I love to write probably as much as I hate to write. Writing is something that can feel like a chore at times. It is similar to go going to Church, the gym or running errands. You may not always want to do it, but you always feel better when you’re done. (For the record I have not been to the gym or Church in several years.) I freely admit that I don’t write anymore unless it is for school or correspondence through e-mail. I often think of something great to write down and then it disappears as quickly as it came into thought. That is one of the reasons I am excited for this class, especially after reading Fletcher’s “A Writer’s Notebook”.

     Some of my earliest memories of writing come from grades 6-8. I had a teacher named Mrs. Sullivan for all three years who challenged us to read and write things that, on occasion, seemed to be more appropriate at the high school level. Her assignments were the most challenging I had up to that point as a student. We read Shakespeare, wrote research papers and did other things that many students struggled with. As you can probably guess, Mrs. Sullivan was not the most popular teacher for many students. She was tough, but never without good reason. The work I did in 8^th grade for Mrs. Sullivan prepared me for the rigorous amount of writing I would have to do at Fairfield Prep.

     In high school, I had several teachers that made me love writing and eventually want to teach. Some of these included: Mr. Sather, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bramble. They all had similar but different styles. Mr. Sather had a dry sense of humor and made you think critically about difficult questions. Mr. Bramble had an Ernest Hemingway beard and a flair for acting out scenes from different texts.  (For some reason I can still remember him fighting Grendel when we were reading Beowulf.) Mr. Wallace always allowed free time in class to write about whatever was on your mind that day. He would play classical music and dim the lights to create a relaxed atmosphere. (There were a couple of times were it was so relaxed that I fell asleep.) This activity, more than any other, has stuck with me over the years. It was teachers and classes like Mr. Wallace’s that made writing fun.

     Unfortunately, for as many positive experiences I had with writing, I probably had more negative ones. I can remember having to write five paragraph essays over and over again. It got to the point where it seemed too scientific and limiting as a format. The one type of writing I have hated more than any is the research paper. You cannot simply sit down and write a research paper off the top of your head. It takes preparation and constant revising to write a really good research paper. As a student who used to procrastinate, this made my life difficult. I was happy to read about the I-Search paper in Jim Burke’s “What’s the Big Idea?” a couple of semesters ago. It allows the student to concentrate their research on what they are interested in rather than what the teacher assigns as a topic. I would recommend this book to any English teacher as it has great examples of teaching through student inquiry and really giving students choice and ownership in the classroom.

     I like to read many different styles of writing and read every day. Sometimes it may just be a newspaper or articles on the internet, but there is always some form of reading. I generally enjoy novels and short stories, although I often find myself drawn to sports biographies and articles. One of my favorite sports biographies is called “When Pride Still Mattered” by David Maraniss. It is an in depth profile of Vince Lombardi that delves into his development as a coach and his relationship with his family outside of football. It is both inspirational and tragic in many ways.

     To put it quite simply, I want to teach writing as both a practical tool and an outlet for expression or communication of ideas. It is important to me that students develop a love for reading and writing that stays with them for the rest of their lives. I feel like if I can do that alone, I will have accomplished a great deal.

     The only question that comes to mind is in regard to students and their inclusion of very personal content. Obviously, this is something that needs to be handled delicately. I want to be someone students can trust, but I don’t know whether it is always a positive thing for me to be reading about very personal secrets and traumatic experiences. In other words, is there ever a case where things can get too personal? I want to get to know my students as well as I can, I am just curious if anyone has any input on how to handle these situations. Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

Keith Manning

New Concept Map for UDL

I have attached my new concept map for Universal Design for Learning. With this concept map, one can understand the different aspects of Universal Design for Learning. Those aspects are: The Power of Digital Media, Origins of UDL, UDL Framework, UDL Implementation and the Application of UDL. In this concept map you will notice that the UDL has been seperated into five sub-sections. Each sub-section has bold font and is an important element to UDL. For instance, the first sub-section is "The Power of Digital Media". This area points out that media is flexible in many ways such as being: networkable, markable, transformable and versatile. The concept map has been helpful to me. Every time I finshed a page I created a new sub-section(s) and found it helpful with my reading comprehension.