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Teaching Flashback!

I taught a language arts lesson where students were to identify the beginning, middle and end of a story. It was taught using a thematic approach being 'pirates'. I dressed up as a pirate and the introduced lesson with a poem about what pirates do. This was followed by a story I composed entitled 'The Pirate's Treasure'. Students were asked questions about events which took place. and learned to identify the beginning, middle and end of that story and any story they come across. 

I believe the lesson was a success and the students enjoyed it immensely!

Regards
 

Hello Viewers,

My name is Tobitha Fontenelle a second year student at the Division of Teacher Education and Educational Administration. Over the past semester we have been learning about the writing process in our LIT102 course. We looked at five genres of writing namely: Narrative, Descriptive, Poetry, Persuasive and Expository writing. 

As part of our LIT102 assignment we were required to complete a Podcast using one of our pieces for the purpose of story telling. I have decided to do a podcast on a Cinquain I wrote about Verbs. This poem was written for a grade two audience for the purpose of teaching them about Verbs. I invite you to sit back and enjoy this short piece by clicking on the link below.

Regards,

Tobitha

Mini Lesson Reflections

For the last few weeks of our Lit 102 classes we were engaged in some mini micro-teaching where we were all placed in groups and had to prepare a lesson to teach on the various stages of the writing process. Teaching a mini lesson was new to our group members and the majority of the class. The first group who went selected the topic and the genre of writing. The topic selected was a Christmas theme and the genre chosen was a descriptive piece of writing. Most of the lessons taught were fun while and engaging and demonstrated the correct way in which the various stages of the writing process must be taught. However, a few groups failed to model to the students which can in turn create the students obtaining misconceptions about the writing process. What really out about this lesson for us was the fact that we were allowed to give each other feedback about the lesson. This in turn helps to improve our skills and knowledge as upcoming teachers. I must say that some groups had very limited time to prepare their materials to teach these lessons as we were required to use the piece of writing from the previous group. There we are of the view that adequate time must be given to successfully execute various lessons.

All in all this teaching experience was nothing but a learning opportunity for us.

Nasha Bailey's Podcast

Hello Bloggers

The semester here at the Division of Teacher Education and Educational Administration is almost at an end. To conclude all coursework, a podcast reflecting one of the writing genres extracted from my writing portfolio was created.

Please sit back and enjoy.

Best Regards

Nasha Bailey's Podcast

To view my podcast video, please follow the link below and allow 15 seconds to load:

http://www.powtoon.com/embed/eF4h8ZYnIKY/

Carina's LIT102 Podcast

Carina Snagg's LIT102 Podcast

Click on the link to view the Podcast: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By-yuCOcX29BYUFDcm8zM2FVV09EbnFZQ25MTEl0S2wtYTRn/view

POETRY- Cinquains and Versed Poems

In our second poetry session our lecturer did two other kinds of poems with the class. We did Cinquans and Versed poems. A Cinquain poem is a verse of five lines that do not rhyme. Miss Polius broke down the Cinquain by telling us that the first line consist of the topic, second line describes the topic, third line has three descriptive words ending in -ing, fourth line makes a statement about the topic and the final line uses a synonym to replace the topic.

Cinquain Lay Out-

She provided many examples of Cinquains to ensure that we understood. Then she asked us to create some of our own. Further, we were given an oppertunity to perform our Cinquans to the rest of the class. Our group members were impressed with the quality of Cinquains that were produced in a matter of 15 minutes. Finally, Miss Polius highlighted that Cinquains can be used to teach a concept in any subject area and she encouraged us to create some that we can use for teaching practice.

Example of a Cinquain-

After learning about Cinquains our lecturer transitioned smoothly into another type of poem. She did this by giving us the versed poem entitled: Chant to Kill a Snake and in groups we were required to perform the poem in our own unique way. This segment had all of us dying with laughter and as we vividly remember Gizelle Antoine's voice saying, "kill him, kill him, kill him I tell you". This was an epic session where shrills and shrills of laughter travelled across the entire block. When we were in a somewhat normal mode again Miss Polius gave us some insight about versed poems. we were informed that a versed poem may not necessarily rhyme and it consist of many verses. We could tell that this type of poem was not the favourite of many of our colleagues as it was a more complex type of poem that requires more time and effort to create. We did not get a chance to write our own versed poem due to time constraints. However, we clearly understood what it was about because Miss Polius enusured that we did.

Your Truly,
TabsNashRina

Poetry Questions

Our group has found this interesting picture which asks some important questions about poetry. It is of vital importance when preparing any piece of writing the writer must take into consideration the audience. These questions can guide a poet to creating an ideal piece for the choosen audience. We hope this is useful to you because we found it to be very useful to us.

Yours Truly,

TabsNashRina

Poetry Writing

POETRY

Miss Polius introduced Poetry to the class in a way I would never imagined. Firstly, she asked us to come to the chalkboard to write all what we knew about poetry. Surprisingly, my colleagues and I were able to fill up the board with things that we knew about poetry. For sure we knew that there were different kinds of poems including, Limerick, Cinquain, Sonnet and three versed poems. Additonally, we listed other things to the effect that poetry is fun, rhythmic, sometimes rhyme, musical, a summary of thoughts and so much more.

Then our lecturer went on to expound on Limericks. A limerick is a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines only have to have five to seven syllables, and have to rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm. She showed us the various strategies of how a Limerick can be edited to form other Limericks. 

As a group we were elated to learn about this type of poem because we saw it as an opportunity to equip ourselves as we retun to the classroom to impat knowledge to our students. Limericks can be used as ice breakers to bring some humour to the kids before or after a lesson. It can also be used to teach a concept depending on the nature of it. As the session came to a close we reflected also on the enthusiasm of the lecturer and how she catered for inclusion of all her students. We would like to commend her and let her know that she is great teacher.

Yours Truly,

TabsNashRina

Decriptive Writing-

On October 25^th, 2016 our literacy class was very interesting. The class began with our course lecturer asking volunteers to read their descriptive pieces they had written as part of our lit 102 assignments. A few of our classmates opted to volunteer to read their piece of work. This was a very interesting activity for us as we were able to hear and see how creative many of our classmates were. Also, as our classmates shared their pieces of work this assisted us in providing ideas for our own personal writing as well as pieces of writing that can be useful for our students in the classroom.

Additionally, one of the few persons who volunteered to read aloud their descriptive piece was one of our group members carina. This exercise provided her with much more confidence than she possessed.

We then moved on to another genre of writing which was expository writing. We began this lesson with an expository piece being given to us. We read the expository piece and tried to formulate an outline (plan) for this piece. This was indeed a good activity as the process for doing an outline was modelled and as a result it served as a guide to me when we would have to do my own. Lastly, during the course of this lesson new vocabulary was being learnt. we enjoyed learning new vocabulary as this definitely will assist us in improving our written and oral abilities.

TabsNashRina

Poetry- Limericks

Our class about Limericks were OFF THE HOOK exciting. The entire class was fully enagaged and up in laughter after limericks were presented one after the other. I worked in collaboration with Jervaughn to create a limerick based on a true story about out LIT102 lecturer. We performed it using role play and props to add to the whole presentation. See below a link to an anchor video of the limerick being performed by my partner and I along with the lyrics of the Limerick.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By-yuCOcX29BNVVIQWpZVkRJNUk

There once was a farmer who taught

her limes and her lemons we bought

the pears were so biggy

they looked like a piggy

no wonder de tings cost a lot!

Acronym for Revising and Editing

I found this acronym to help a writer to revise and edit their piece of writing. This can be very useful to students in assisting them to ecome better writers.

Posted by: Tobitha

The Writing Process Session 2 (Revising and Editing)

Welcome back colleagues, we hope that you have been doing fine. This new blog is to tell you about our second session of writing with Mrs. Polius. During this session we continued with the writing process this time moving into step three of the writing process. In step three Mrs Polius Revised and Edited the paragraph that she wrote for us as a sample. Together we were able to revise the paragraph by adding and removing ideas to make the story more cohesive. At the end of the revising stage the lecturer decided to edit one time since we had some more time. Editing is the fourth stage of the writing process.

A First Impression is a Lasting Impression

I would like to say that I am impressed with the way Miss Polius has decided to go about teaching us the writing process. It has opened my eyes and it gave me a clearer insight as to how I can instill good writing skills in my students. I am sure my other colleagues can concur with me. Miss Polius keep up the good work. You have always intrigued me and I want to be as good as you in teaching Language Arts.

Post by: Tobitha

Interesting Teaching Aid

We found this very intersting teaching aid that incorporates reading and writing. It can be very useful in the classroom in order to show students the connections between reading and writing, to encourage students to participate in additional reading and writing and to get students to keep track of their routine for reading and writing. Feel free to implement in your classrooms and to modify it to suit your students needs.

Writing Process Descriptive Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Y2uIyJM4g

Hello fellow colleagues, please take the time out to view this informative video about the writing process. Please enjoy!

Writing Quote

This is a quote that caught my attention. It basically serves as a reminder of the purpose for writing and what it should be. I really love this quote so I decided to share with you.

Posted by: Tobitha

The Writing Process Session 1

We have been very elated by our lecturer Mrs Polius over the past few LIT102 sessions as she delicately disect the writing process. We have completely changed our view about writing as we thought that writing was just one long process. Contrary to our believe, we learnt that the writing process consist of many small steps. At each step there are tasks broken up that should be ocmpletely. The steps of the writing process can be seen below. 

Mrs. Polius commenced the session by getting all of us into the prewritng process. She asked us to think about a topic so that we can brain storm and plan for. we then moved on to the drafting stage where we were asked to put our thoughts on paper. Miss polius asked us to choose a fruit and write how it feels, how it smells, how it sounds, how it looks. After which some of my colleagues were invited to share what they had about their favourite fruit. The session ended on a high note and most of my colleagues including my group members left the session with a full understanding of how to go about teaching the writing process to students in the future.

Welcome

Good Day to all and welcome to the blog belonging to Tobitha, Nasha and Carina. We would like to thank you for all your contributions in advance, as we look forward to building our knowledge in LIT102. Feel free to share your ideas and views on anything on this blog.

Thank You!