Thanksgiving List of Thankfulness

I am thankful for:

• My family who always encourages me and thinks I'm a neat person


• Pumpkin pie because it is vegetable, milk, crust, and sugar so I can pretend it's a full meal


• Trees


• Having a good job with fun students


• Books that keep me company when I'm lonely and bored


• Airplanes so I can travel quickly to see my family and friends around the world.

Thoughts on How the Project is Going

We have been up and running with the Blogamundo Project for about a month and a half.

Wow!

It seems like I've been doing this forever and it seems like we've come so far. This is quite a revelation for me. I was feeling like I wasn't getting very far, and that I really wanted to be more organized. Now that I've realized I've really only been doing this for less than two months, I don't feel so bad. I think we've actually made some good progress.

Things to feel good about:

• The students come in and log into Blogger without me telling them.
• We have a routine set up for getting people onto the blog system which works well (as long as Blogger is cooperating).
• I have a weekly schedule set up that helps me with planning M:Technology, T:Writing/Grammar Lesson, W:Journal, Th:Writ/Gram Lesson, F:Editing/Free Journal.
• We have streamlined the blog time so that we rarely run into our reading time.
• We have hosted an Open Blog Night to introduce parents to the project and show off our blogs.
• Students are getting excited about different types of writing. Some students enjoy one aspect and some students enjoy another, but almost everyone has gotten excited about at least one writing assignment.
• With the focus on editing, student's writing has improved a lot. They know what I'm talking about if I say, "Capitalize your title."
• I see less and less use of text messaging slang, such as "u" instead of "you."
• The students are able to self edit and even ask each other for help sometimes instead of me.

Things to work on:

• Getting students to edit as they go instead of going back and fixing their mistakes.
• Practice reading their work aloud so that they can hear what is wrong with it.
• Better incorporate other types of media into their blogs.
• Figure out how to catch up new students with certain blog assignments that they really need to do.
• Make a checklist of assignments that are critical to the project for each student to have.

The Village of Degerby

(We did a blog on a favorite place and it was a little hard for some to get started, so I did it with them. This is my example.)

Halfway around the world, and almost as far north as Santa's home in the north pole, there lies a tiny little village called Degerby in the land of Finland. I lived there for almost a year.

The village had about 15 houses, one school, a bank, a Lutheran church, and a recycling center. And that was about it. Other than a small hill and a lot of trees. Oh, and of course, people. Children ran around the town from house to house, playing with their friends, walking back and forth to school, and generally having free reign. Everyone knew each other and spoke to each other regularly.

The hill was in the middle of the town and all the houses were situated either around the bottom, or nestled on the hillside. We walked over the hill to visit friends, or around the hill to reach the school.

The village was quiet, especially at the house I lived in because it was the last house on the road into the village, so if a car came by, we knew it was coming to our house. On one side of the house was a garden, with a chicken house, and then miles and miles of fields. On the other side was the wooded hill with a line of birch trees marching up the road. It was a peaceful place.

Practice Formatting

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Salem Keizer School District http://www.salkeiz.k12.or.us/

My name is Rebekah. My name is Rebekah. My name is Rebekah.

1. This is a list.
2. I like lists.
3. Lists are fun.

Now I'm going to do bullets:

• Here is my first bullet
• Here is my second bullet
• Here is my third bullet

Practice Formatting

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

Blogamundo Homepage http://sites.google.com/site/blogamundoproject/Home

My name is Rebekah.
My name is Rebekah. My name is Rebekah. My name is Rebekah.

1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four

I love lists.

• I love lists.
• Lists are fun.
• I make lots of list.

Practice Formatting

The quick brown fox jumped over the
lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped
over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox
jumped over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy
dog.

My name is Rebekah. My name is
Rebekah

http://sites.google.com/site/blogamundoproject/Home

1. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
2. But the dog jumped up and chased him.
3. Hello

So that's my list.

• Here is another list
• I like to make lists
• Lists are fun

Poetry Blogs

We have been studying poetry in class lately. Mostly we've been working on how to analyze poetry, but I've noticed that there was some interest in writing their own poetry as well. So today I thought I'd give them a chance to do that on their blogs.

It takes a little longer than I thought it would.

But here is some of the incredible stuff that they turned out:

Misty's Poem
Troy's Poem There's quite a bit more poetry on his site if you look around.
Fabian's Poem
Kenzie's Poem

There a lot of others too, but these are just some I picked out. Some of the student's used newspaper articles to make "found" poetry. We were particularly working on the rhythm and sound of poetry.

A Weird Week

We have a weird schedule this week because of Veteran's Day on Tuesday. So we came to school on Monday and I decided to do some testing instead of blogging. Then we had Tuesday off and now we're back for three days. I'm having trouble deciding what to do with these three days.

Since I want the students to have a chance to experience authentic writing, I am really trying to give them a lot of say in what we are working on in the project. This morning, one class really wanted to take pictures to put on their blogs, and so we went out and did that. Then another class really wanted to stay in, so I had them finish old blogs and then asked for a subject matter. Someone facetiously said, "Falling asleep in class" so I told them they could write about techniques for that, and then gave them a couple of other ideas to write about sleep. Most students chose the topic of researching teenagers and sleep.

So far, I like the results of having the students a little more involved in their own choices on the blogs. I think they are at a place where they know a little more about blogs now, so they feel better doing this. It is easier for them to think of things to write, now that they sort of have a feel for it.

Working on Editing

I am pretty much setting aside Fridays for editing our blogs. That way students can edit everything from the week and practice using the writing process. They usually have 3-4 blogs posted per week, so they almost always have something that they can edit.If they have fixed all their mistakes I usually have them read it again to see if there is anything they can do to make it sound or look better.

Those students who have finished their editing, or have edited as they wrote throughout the week, get a free day to post whatever they want to on their blog. Friday is a good day for that because often they want to write about their weekend plans.

My new worry is how to use the blogs to be the best writing tool. So far it is really helpful in getting the writing process going because editing and publishing is sort of built into the blog. The pre-writing process is a little trickier. I think I might try using Scribblar.com to see if I can get them going on the pre-writing.

Election Coverage

I gave a blog assignment today about the election.

Assignment:
Today on your blog write about your opinion and views of the election
OR
Write a letter to President Elect Obama telling him what you think he needs to work on or change now that he is going to be president.

It was interesting to see the reactions of the students. It is really difficult for a lot of them to express opinions about major national events. They know what happened, but it is hard for them to make any meaning out of it. There were some insightful comments and some strong opinions, but for the most part it seems that politics is a very distant idea to them. They don't really see how it relates to their lives at all. I wish that these students could have been out at one of the big rallies just to get a feeling for what is really going on here.

It's incredible how distant we can become from our own democracy. We live in a country that has one of the most open democratic voting processes and we don't even realize it most of the time. I watched a little show on some Chinese journalism students who were following the American election and they were astounded at how the people, just normal citizens, had access to information about the government and had a say in how things would go. I was reminded of how much we take for granted. They have no voice in their government and now choice as to how it is run or what happens.

Even though sometimes it doesn't really feel like I have a lot of say in government, it's good to remember that I have a lot more than most of the world and for that I am thankful.