Jones Noticing Blog Week 8

Kallie M. Jones
October 23, 2012

Observing and noticing things in my class has really been fun and interesting. My class continues to teach me about behavior management and how to work with them to help them become better students. Today, October 23, 2012, I noticied a couple of things about how my students write and what motivates them to write. In my classroom students have a lot of time to reflect and write. In the morning they are to be eating their breakfast or reading. In the afternoon when they return from brainboost and Ray University they have to option to read or write. A lot of students write about something that has happened during the day, but a lot of them also use their imagination or prior books that they've read to create a story. One student, a 4th grader, wrote a story called Alcapone in Alcatraz (spelling may be off a little bit). The student knows that Alcapone was gangster from Chicago and Alcatraz is a prison in the Harry Potter series. This was very wonderful to notice and this is important because this student was able to make text to text and text to self connections because he knows that some gangsters go to jail and that Alcapone is part of Chicago's history. I can understand that this particular student has had more writing experience outside of class. Developing good writing skills also allows the student to be vocal with their experiences and opinions. This is a case of a particular focus student being able to articulate this thoughts and ideas through writing. Other students are able to do this as well. Students are eager to write down what they think and share it with me, my MT or their classmates. It is always a wonderful thing to see young minds working.