This is the third part to a three-part blog series that I write for my Teaching Writing course. Through my internship and many literacy classes I took throughout the UTRPP, I learned so much about becoming a literacy teacher and lover. For me, a lot of it was developmental. I look back and realize how much I thought I knew, but didn't. I can't imagine where I will be a year from how and how much I will laugh at myself for this blog post -Enjoy!
Something that I learned in my Mathematics class recently is that area and perminiter are not the same! I mean I knew that they were not the same thing, but for some reason this blew my mind, along with others in my class.
Anyways... When you teach area it is important to follow these steps: 1. Teach the attribute
2. Measure
The Progression of Formulas 1. Rectangles (base x height) 2. Parallelograms - think about cutting off a triangle at one end and putting it on the other end- it turns into a rectangle! You can do base x height 3. Triangles - two identical triangles that are put together make a parallelogram 4. Trapezoid Today in our Mathematics course we learned about teaching length. Easy peasy right? Not exactly...
Length is difficult for students to understand so there is a progression that teachers can follow when teaching that makes it easier for students. 1. Attribute - teach the attribute 2. Compare - students can compare items in the room, which is larger and which is smaller? 3. Non-Standard Units - let students measure with shoes! This way students do not focus on the length, rather just focus on the attribute 4. Standard Units - inch, centimeter A way to bridge the gap between non-standard units and standard units is to have students create their own rulers. In the younger grades teachers may want to have students just fill in the numbers. Yuu would have hashtags evenly spaced. In the upper grades you would want students to create their own lines. It is still difficult to see myself as a writing teacher but I am feeling more and more confident. Implementing the Friday Letters (see the article link below) is going well. My CT and I have had many opportunities to talk about how we feel the lessons are going and how we feel the students are doing. I have even had to make changes to the next days' lesson after my formative assessments.
We are a few weeks into the school year and so far I do not see myself as a writing teacher yet. I have had the opportunity to teach a few writing lessons, but none of them were too elaborate. The first one I taught was how to proofread a letter (or really any paper). Incorporated in this was a review of the day before, writing a letter. I also taught how to write about your reading. These were all topics covered in the 20 Days of Reading that my internship school had every teacher begin the school year with. Other than that we have not started our writers' workshop to work on the writing crafts.
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