How I Met Your Mother-- All Caught Up!

Since my girlfriend and I started dating one another (about 6 months ago), we have worked very hard to watch the entire series of the CBS show How I Met Your Mother, starting with the first season. This past week, she and I finally completed our final disc of season 5. In addition, we have caught up to the series' current spot in it's currently running 6th season.

I'd have to say that my favorite episode thus far is the "Slapsgiving 2" episode, in which Marshall creates a website that counts down to the next time he will slap Barney and then sends him the link. In this episode, Barney spends his entire Thanksgiving paranoid that he will be slapped when he least expects it. Nonetheless, he is slapped exactly as he suspects, after Marshall delivers a lovely Thanksgiving speech.

Something else I love about this show is that CBS actually created a blog for Barney's character on their website. Barney's Blog corresponds with his antics throughout the individual episodes, and it adds depth to the show's credibility. This is an example of a legen.... wait for it.... dary form of multi-modal creative writing. This can easily be emulated in the classroom by asking students to choose a character from a story and design a daily blog based upon their characteristics from a story.

Stephen Koch's The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction

In Stephen Koch's The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, one of the most fascinating statements that appealed to me said: "Style is a created, man-made thing, and yet it finally emerges as naturally as breathing. Or put in another way: To work, any style must seem "natural"- "natural" to you- and yet its "natural" voice or voices can be achieved only through effort and polish (114). This spoke to me as a student because I remember when I first wanted to write from a certain voice. When I wrote articles for my high school newspaper, I wanted to write like my favorite writer, Rick Reilly. However, as I was just beginning to write, I found myself frustrated about my skills as a stylistic writer. Although I could have been easily been discouraged, I practiced, and with practice, I became a better writer.

As an educator, I feel that this is one of the most important lessons that student-writers can learn. Although we often learn a great deal about writing voice and style is through mimicking other writers' stylistic tendencies, when it comes to writing, practice is the most effective approach toward developing as the writer you want to become. This can definitely be taught and supported through the writing workshops because it teaches students the importance of revisions. If writers continue to adapt their stories in order to improve upon targeted areas of weakness, they will eventually reach a product for which they can feel proud. Thus, I feel that style is developed within the writer instead of through the sole inspiration of others, and through diligent practice, one's style can be improved.

Ian Frazier's "Hungry Minds"

After reading the article "Hungry Minds", I am able to understand the true value of a writing community. In this article, Frazier writes of a minister's description of the soup kitchen volunteers as providers of “a window into what makes humanity human, into the deepest levels of being." As people help one another gain the necessary resources for survival, they become a tightly-knit community of compassionate, understanding human beings. This is also the product of the product of the community of writers created by the writing workshops that are held by the church mentioned in this article. By working together to help one another excel at something for which they are very passionate, these people are not only getting to know one another and helping each other with grammatical errors. Rather, these people involved in the writing workshop become a team; a support group. Through their interactions and through their sharing of their works, these individuals are also providing a view into the essence of humanity.

This article was very relevant to me as an educator for a few reasons. First, I would love to help create a writing workshop at a local soup kitchen in Portage County. From a previous presentation that I delivered to my residents in the past year, I understand that Portage County is one of the hungriest counties in the state of Ohio. Thus, I think that it would be incredible to help serve food at the kitchen and then facilitate writers' workshops to help people grow together, learn together, and, most importantly, find hope in someone else's praises and feel as if they belong to something larger than themselves. Another reason that this is relevant to me is because I believe that through participating in similar activities in a classroom, students would be able to grow as writers and communicators. Most importantly, though, is that by creating writers' workshops, educators are empowering students to know one another very closely and to grow as intellectual, well versed human beings.

Noden's Image Grammar

For my Image Grammar strategy demonstration, I presented the "Experiment with Forms" strategy, which asked students to create one form of writing (such as poetry or a skit) from another form of writing (such as a news article). Although I felt that my presentation went well, I would have loved to present another strategy that I think would serve as an amazing form of summative assessment. If I would have been able to teach this strategy for longer than one day, I would teach the strategy "Mix Forms with a Multigenre Research Paper." This is a project that is similar to one that I completed during my Freshman year at Kent State University, for which I worked in a group to create a research report about the "going green" movement, which was supplemented by a website and a presentation.

I feel that by asking students to present their research in a non-traditional fashion, they would be able to develop communication skills that would help them in the future. Additionally, I believe that this is a great way to assess students while considering that many people struggle with test-taking. Finally, by asking students to either create a T-shirt or video presentation (to name 2) to accompany their research, educators prepare students to use several forms of the media. Thus, this type of project would be an excellent way to foster responsible, informed users of visual technology while challenging them to work creatively as well as through thorough, valid research.

Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman

While reading Winchester's "The Professor and the Madman", I was really unsure of whether I would enjoy this book. When I think of the dictionary, which is the point of focus for this novel, I often theoretically yawn. Although I find vocabulary acquisition to be an imperative facet of education, I was not necessarily enthused to read a book that tells the story of how the Oxford English Dictionary was established. However, I was surprised when I began to read.

What I found was that this story made me feel multiple emotions. As the story told of how a man in a psychiatric ward was the leading contributor to this dictionary's first edition, I found it hilarious that the English language could have been defined by a madman. However, in Chapter 10: The Unkindest Cut, I was troubled by the grotesque act of self-mutilation that is performed by Dr. Minor. As the author described Minor's life as "solitary" on page 189, I am not surprised that he went mad. Although many situations in which people act insane are often depicted to be humorous, the events in this chapter seemed very disturbing to me.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it to college students. I would not teach it at the high school level because of some of the explicit content. However, I enjoyed how witty this novel is, and I specially loved the format in which the author defined specific, relevant words as if they were being read from the dictionary.

Atewell: Conferences about Content and Craft

On pages 226-229, there are questions listed to help assist with a one-on-one writing conference. As I experienced these conferences during my junior year of high school, I feel that these conferences allow students to grow as writers and as proofreaders much better than peer editing. During peer editing exercises, students are forced to read a piece of work for which they may have no invested interest and decide what type of grade it would earn. However, as the person who designs the rubric, the educator can provide better insight into the editing process.

This section stuck out to me because the questions provided are great ways to help students take ownership of the writing process. By asking leading questions such as "What else do you know about this topic? How could you find out more?" By asking students what their paper needs to be a better piece of work, educators are enabling writers who are able to to answer any type of prompt by writing with critical thinking skills. By actively teaching students how to judge their own writing, they will be able to succeed at the most rigorous of writing assignments by thinking critically, Thus, by hosting one-on-one conferences, educators can enable students to think like and grow as writers.

Changing Our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy

Something that stood out to me in this article was that students often use their signatures as a way of defining themselves. Additionally, the author describes a connection in the minds of students between handwriting and literacy. Unfortunately, I feel that this is not only a misconception of students. Many educators often define a student's intelligence by the legibility of his or her writing. An example of this lies within the packet of essays that we ranked in class a few weeks ago. Many of the lowest-scoring essays were also the least legible. Although in some cases this may seem like a coincidence, I fear that educators often attribute intelligence to legible handwriting.

I currently found myself making this same mistake. I was grading a multiple choice assignment the other day when I came across a very messy paper. The handwriting was very poor, and I struggled to decipher some letters. When I finished grading the assignment, I had expected there to several mistakes. However, the score on the sheet of paper was one of the best in that particular class. I found myself confused why I had expected the score to be low until I realized that I had simply expected the score to be low because the student had poor handwriting skills. Thus, I feel that we all need to overcome the idea that poor handwriting is the equivalent to poor intelligence.