Blog 11 Final Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed using a blog this term to communicate thoughts and experiences with classmates.  I found that reading others blogs I was able to see great ideas and even implement them in my own classroom to help not just ELL students but all my students.  I loved the way some of the blogs were designed and plan to take away some of ideas and implement them in my own blog for my classroom.  So, yes I do plan on using a blog for my own classroom to help increase not only my own technology use but my students.  In addition, it is a great way for parents to see what is happening and to keep up on current events or if they have questions.

            The only difficulty I had with the blog was setting it up and designing but this came from a lack of knowledge with blogs. 

            Thank you to everyone and I think this was a great and creative way to post via the traditional posting method.

BLOG 9

Blog 9

Genre	Features	Support ELL/Challenges
Fiction (Realistic/Mystery)	Pictures	Support-Pictures in this story were detailed and specific to what the text was saying, helping students with decoding of words and following the story.
	Setting	Challenges-The setting may not be recognizable to students if it is not a familiar location/area, it was a haunted house and a school yard.
	Story Line	Support-The story line was clear it included a beginning, middle, and end and flowed easily for understanding.
	Characters	Supports- This book was a great example of when characters could be both a support and challenge.  The main characters were identified in the beginning which is helpful.  Challenges-A character was added mid-story that ended up being a major part of the story at the end.  Some of the students hadn’t even realized that he was in the book earlier.
	Point of View	Challenges- Who was telling the story was not of any of the characters, which can cause some confusion.
Non-Fiction (Biography/Memoir)	Pictures	Supports-The pictures were real and not drawn, so they were easily recognizable.
	Labels	Supports-This was helpful to point out key words, and for us to go over them before reading.
	Facts	Supports- Real pictures and factual information helped the reader understand certain types of animals’ important details from the book.
	Point of View	Challenge- This book was a challenge because it was a memoir and her point of view was immerged in the book, which isn’t everyone’s point of view. Supports-It showed the readers that they could create or tell a story about their own lives.
	Table of Contents	Supports- To help organize the story and look back easily for information that needed clarifying or to point out an important detail.

BLOG 8

             Watching the videos the teacher used numerous strategies to promote comprehension and in the reflection pointed out the strategies she used and why.  Sheltered lessons are broken into three phases, pre-reading, during reading, and after reading.   One thing for all lessons is the importance of going over CLO’s and overall goals for the lesson.

                During the pre-reading phase the teacher used key vocabulary words that were written down on a sheet of paper for all students to see and she discussed the meaning of these words, also showing pictures to help with a better understanding of the words.  She also had the students talk about strategies when they come to a word they don’t know.  What I really liked was that the teacher also incorporated the students own knowledge to help with understanding, like the birthday song.  One think I do for all my students is do a picture walk for a book, and I understand now how important it is to also have the students think of the guided question “What does this topic look like in my culture?” 

                In phase two, during reading the teacher made sure the students were following along, that she read aloud and also used an overhead projector to re-visit key words or sentences in the book.  The students were engaged and it was obvious that they were interacting with the text.  Also, I thought it was key that it was noted that output is as important as input, second language learners need a wait time to respond to questions. 

                In phase three, after reading the teacher revisited the objectives and reviewed key words, key facts in the book and if there were any connections made, like the girl connecting it to another book they had read.  The diary board was a great visual and helped with revisiting the text in future lessons.

                Overall the lesson was engaging and many strategies for vocabulary and comprehension were used with adults modeling how they think being one I had not been aware of how important it was to use