Steady now. Focus!

Looking back from here, I sure have come a long way since the beginning of this class. Lots has changed, but I decided to bring back one element from my past for the final unit. For my Medieval Learning plan, I would focus each activity that I did by copying one or more of my guiding and essential questions into each. I would then have a point to focus on and then I would know that I answered the questions that I had. For my previous unit, I feel that I had gotten a bit off topic and my activities answered questions that I had, but not the ones that I wanted to focus on. So for this final unit, I decided to go back to what I had started with.

For each activity, I have picked the standard and text that I want to work on in addition to the questions that I am hoping to answer by doing this activity. For being halfway done with the contemporary unit at this point, I feel that writing down the questions has definitely helped me to focus my learning. I have stayed within the limits of the theme which I set for my self instead of juggling with a variety of themes at once. I hope to keep the questions paired with my activities as it has really helped me so far. I feel that my work is more focused and that I am getting what I want to learn out of my activities. With so much excitement leading up to the end of the year, I hope that my work will be guided by the questions that I came up with and that I will have a wholesome learning experience.

Transmitting Live

While working alone most of the time on our own individual learning plans, I really like that we attempted to break out of our bubbles with commenting on each other's learning plans. Getting feedback from my partner about every other day would have been really helpful except that communication on both ends was a bit lacking. I only commented on my partner's learning plan a few times but when I didn't get any feedback, I became a little disheartened and stopped commenting all together. I felt that if I hasd gotten feedback, I would have been able to been more motivated to finish my work and I would have also caught the little errors that I usually skip over. A second head looking can catch many errors that the first one can miss the first time.

Feedback on my work is really important to me, whether its from the teacher or from another student. If I can get a second opinion on my work, I feel that I can do a better, more complete job. If we do this activity with partners again, I will try to work harder to keep the communication between my partner and I going and I will bug them until it starts up again. Both partners need to contribute in order for the partnership to work successfully. I feel that I learn more when I get feedback from other people so if there is someway that I could get more feedback than what I've gotten so far, then I am all for it.

A State of Mind

I feel like I've learned a lot since starting. I know how to pick texts. I know how to complete standards. I know how this thing goes. But there is one thing that is missing. One missing ingredient that can make the whole recipe blow up in my face if it's missing. And that's concentration.

I know that I've already blogged about this, but with summer coming up, I've got a bad case of senioritis. I can't seem to focus. I need to get my work done in a timely matter and stop making up excuses. The calender planning method seemed to work well last time so I am going to try it again. I keep piling on excuses and that has go to stop too.

But I should get around to the main point of this post before signing off. Agatha Christie writes a beautiful mystery. People go to such lengths to hide information about themselves that they think others will find incriminating. I love the slather of crime shows on prime-time as much as the next guy, but it can get so easy to guess the the character who acts more suspicious than the others. But in Christie's novels, I have no idea who did it. It amazes me how well she was able to capture her characters and how more life-like they were than any TV counterpart could be. I've come to realize how much more powerful books can be than movies. Sure it's easier to sit in front of the screen and watch your favorite characters and the plot unfold. But reading it in book form puts you in front of the action. It's something I've probably always known, but just came to fully realize it now.

Don't touch that bookmark
E

Something UNexpected

As I worked my way through the end of the 19th century unit, I made a discovery that I had never planned on making. I thought that I had already planned out the theme that I wanted to focus on for this unit, but as I finished up all of my texts, I found a new connecting thread between all of them. I discovered how women characters played an important role in all of my texts. I had already known that the Victorian Era was quite restrictive in terms of behavior, but the women in my texts were action stars and in charge of their own destiny.  I had originally tried to focus on how stories were told and how that made them effective mediums for telling stories, but this important role of women was too important to forget about.

From this discovery, I have learned to not always expect what I initially think to be true. I think I will be better off trying to find a unifying theme for my unit after I have read a few of the texts that I chose so as not to jump the gun and make incomplete discoveries about the time period before I have finished my work. Next time I need to be a little more careful and be willing to change my ideas. But even if I don't, I might have a Eureka! moment like I did in this unit and find something I hadn't been looking for but found anyway.

Onward explorers!
E

Due Date

Oh no!
Oh dear!
I'm in such a big, big hurry!
I've got no time to dilly-dally!
I've gotten so past due!

So I've gone a little overboard from reading some Lewis Carroll. So what? I'm a big kid. I can control myself. Usually.

This time I want to talk about something that I'm pretty sure everyone has struggled with in their lives at least once. Or maybe a bazillion times like me. Putting things off for to long and waiting to do them right before they are due. Sure it's happened to the best of us, but to succeed and actually get things completed on time, I learned that some prep work has to be done.

I had fallen behind in completing my lesson plan and the deadline was slowly looming. I became panicked and frustrated, thinking that there was no way that I would be able to finish it on time. But then I realized I could get all of my work done, I just had to take it in more manageable chunks. Instead of seeing the work I still had to do as one large project, I broke it down into groups of about two sections. I could see myself completing one of these smaller groups. So with my work divided up, I took out my calender. I planned to finish a mini-unit everyday. Once I had it all written down, I felt more compelled to stick to my plan rather than if I had kept it all in my head. It's pretty hard to lie about something written in pen.

I am super happy with my results! I feel that I have been more motivated to complete my work. But besides getting things done more quickly, I feel more interested in the work that I am doing as I am not stressed out by the amount of time I have left. I still need to work on my procrastinating skills, but I feel that planning out when I need to complete certain activities by really helped me get more work done. I am going to try to use this calendar method of planning for the next unit so I don't fall behind again!

Over and Out!
Emilie

Image from http://pic.blackberryseeker.com/bb/wallpapers/upPics/201005/16/Broken-Clock.jpg

Time Traveling

In tune with my recent reading of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells,  I have given greater thought on how people from a different time view something a different way than a person who lives during that time sees it. As I work my way up through the history of British literature, I first thought that the texts would be alien and unrelatable to my own life in terms of the way people used to live and how they spoke. As it turns out I was very wrong about that. But I hadn't really remembered this essential point until I started reading about time travel into the future.

From reading The Time Machine, I have seen the world in a very different light. As I explored the new Earth with the Time Traveler and the unknown species and world, I began to realize how different life could be. Comparing the Time Traveler's discovery of the future Earth to how I am learning about the difference that a hundred plus years can have. I learned that the life described in my books are very different from what it is like today. I need  to get a feel for the historical context of the book. I can't forget that times were different then and I should learn about the time period to better understand the motives and behaviors of the characters. Times changes so it is important to adapt and learn to those changes to better understand a story.

When traveling in time, backwards or forewords, in a time machine or in a book, it is very important to remember that you are visiting another time and place so try not to compare it too much to current things.

See you soon--or have I already?
Emilie

Going deeper

There comes a time in every English class where all the students are assigned a hefty novel to read and not usually one of their choosing. They will spend weeks on that one text, going over the plot and symbolism and every other possible aspect of the story. By the end, the book is exhausted and the whole work is left as a carcass before the students. They know most everything about the text and there is not much left that they haven't studied about the text. After weeks of  this intensive study, only then do the students move on to other shorter texts as time allows. Wanting students to juggle more than the one big text may make the students confused and unable to fully understand both. In freshman English, we spent about 3 weeks reading Romeo and Juliet, acting out the scenes and having class discussions to better understand what was going on through Shakespeare's tough prose. Now, I have to read about five texts ever two weeks including a long text. I find it very difficult to fully appreciate and understand the texts when I have to cram in all of the analysises of all of those texts in short amount of time. I feel that a longer time is needed to understand the meaning of and the beauty of the text.

Until Next Time
Emilie