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.