Using Murder Cases to Teach Argumentative Writing

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this text. I thought it is was really interesting and presented a lot of the teaching strategies that would be quite useful in the classroom. One of the ideas that I was most attracted to was the one that stated that one of the best ways to show students how to use evidence to support their claims is to show them how evidence works in a criminal case via a drawing of a possible crime. When using this strategy the teacher would give his or her students the ability to draw their own conclusions about the scene. They would then have to prove their points by explaining the rules behind their logic. I really liked this explanation of argumentative writing and would definitely use this idea in my own classroom. I especially thought it was useful that the appendix of the book gives definitions of different legal terms involved in murder cases.         

Teaching Demo

Here is the PowerPoint for my Teaching Demo tonight :)

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OhFF5KJyVAW4P_W9uSjw_UsdNVgXNFv6QlFuTV3n9AU/edit

School Anxiety

I can't really write about anything else right now. As we are passing the halfway mark of the semester, I can't help but feel nervous. Finals are coming up quick. All my big projects are about to be due. There are so many books I still need to read and so many papers I still have to write. Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, especially since I am a bit of an overachiever. I'm guessing that some of you who might be reading this blog are feeling the same way. Here is a little reminder for all of us:

We will be okay.
It will all work out in the end.
No one is perfect.
We are all only human.
We just have to keep doing our best.


We should all also remember to take care of ourselves during stressful times. If you are stressed out or feeling anxious remember to take time for your sanity. Taking a break to sleep, eat, or spend time with friends doesn't make you a weak person. It makes you a smart one. Burning yourself out is not a good idea if you can avoid it.

Are any of guys stressed out right now? How do you deal with it? Lets take care of each other in the comments.

Tech Exploration

I would definitely consider myself a current resident of the internet. I wasn’t always here, but now that I am I feel rather integrated into the culture that surrounds it.

Kahoot is the site I liked the best. It is such a simple tool that has massive potential in the classroom. It can be used to create competition that children usually enjoy. It is also a very fast paced game. I think that this is a good thing to use as a final review. If it is used to early in the lesson what may happen is that the kids could be absorbed into the competition a little too much. This means that they will begin guessing answers, making it difficult for the educator to make absolutely sure that his or her students truly understand the material.

I really liked the virtual bubble map site. I think that it could be really fun to work with in a group setting. The only real problem I could think of that one might run into while using this resource in the classroom may be that some un-engaged or bored students might not use the bubble map in the way that it is supposed to be used.

The 100 teaching tools page was awesome! I definitely plan to share this with some of the teachers and tutors I know. I also thought it was really cool that this site shows a lot of well known social media platforms to showcase how they can be used in education.      

Based on what I did today and Bloom’s Taxonomy, teachers need to think about how different resources need to be used during different points of the learning process. For example, a teacher shouldn’t have students use a resource that is better for checking for understanding at the very beginning of a lesson.

Based upon all of this exploring, I feel like I will definitely use technology with my students more often. I have a smart board at my disposal after all. I like a lot the games that I saw on the main page and really think that my adult students would enjoy them as well. I also feel like technology is something I could use help keep myself more organized as well. In this way, technology can end up help both me and my students.  

Weekend Fun and Good Vibes

Hey everyone! So last week I went a little heavy with my post and wrote about my thoughts on censorship and children's literature. This week though, I'm feeling like going in a bit more of a casual direction and just talking about my weekend. I have decided to do this because, before every tutoring session  that I have (with both young and old students), I always begin with the questions "how was your weekend? Do anything exciting?" I feel like I always want to start with that little ice breaker, that little nod of caring. I like showing my students that I'm not only invested in them as an educator but that I'm also invested in them as a fellow human being.

Anyway though, I had a fantastic weekend. My best friend, Jack, crushed his LSAT this past Saturday (if you don't know what the LSAT is, it is the test you have to take to get into law school). I surprised him by showing up to his house with a huge box of donuts and a bunch of balloons. Then we went out and got ice cream at Cold Stone. We also stopped and picked up a new bottle of whisky. My friend is a whisky guy and refuses to really drink anything else. We thought it was appropriate since we were celebrating and all. Then we went back to his house. My boyfriend came over too and we all hung out drinking whisky and watching Fight Club, which is Jack's favorite movie. Way later that night my boyfriend and I stopped at another friend's house for a birthday party that was going on. There I talked someone into helping me dye my hair soon so get ready for that. We didn't get back home and into bed till like two in the morning. It was a super fun day/night filled with happiness and some of my favorite people in the world.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?? ell me in the comments guys. I wanna know :)

Musings of a Future English Educator: Censorship and Children's Literature

Two weeks ago I read Sherman Alexie's one and only middle school book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I read this because I had assigned it to one of the kids I tutor. He and I both ended up loving this book. For the first week of reading, he was only supposed to finish the first fifty pages of the book. Instead though, he read the full thing. This was really exciting, especially since he is usually a very reluctant reader. I think there were many things about this book that drew both me and him into it. For one thing, the story feels very true to life. It doesn’t censor much. I did worry that this might be a problem, since I was asking a younger student to read and think about much more complex issues than he is normally exposed to. This ended up not being a problem at all though. In fact, I think it might have been one of the main reasons as to why he was able to engage with the text on a level I had not seen from him before. I feel like the main character of this story is a very relatable character for younger readers because of how he goes through some very realistic struggles throughout Alexie’s novel.  

Overall, the experience of teaching The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian really got me into thinking about the censorship of children's books. I know from the small amount of research that I did that The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been highly contested within the school system. It does, after all, deal with heavy subjects such as racism and alcoholism. The main character of the novel, Junior, also uses a lot of profanity to express his emotions. At the same time though, I think it is important to keep in mind that children are often subjected to these things in their actual lives. Keeping a child from reading or watching something that has something that has been deemed “inappropriate” does not mean that that child has not been already exposed to that thing. Therefore, doesn’t make sense that we should encourage these kids to read books that deal with such subjects? Isn’t a good thing if they are able to find someone to relate to in the pages of a book? A character who might be going through a similar problem that they or one of their friends is having to deal with in the real world?

What do you guys think? Is censorship for children's literature a good or bad thing? I’m really curious to know how you all feel about this topic :)

Hi reader :) This is an introduction to my blog. I guess I'll tell you a bit about myself. My major at UCF is English Lit. I am currently taking education classes for my minor. I am two semesters away from graduating. Someday I hope to be a professor at Valencia College, which is where I work currently as a Supplemental Learning Leader. I have a real passion for teaching and I hope to talk a lot about this passion on this blog. Besides that, I am also a huge book nerd, compulsive coffee drinker, proud Hufflepuff, and happy owner of five cats (yes, you read that last bit right). I love to have fun and try new things. I am very easy going and hate  to stress out about things.

Overall, I think this blog is going to be very fun to maintain. I'm excited to see where my writing leads me this semester.