Final Post

Blogging was a whirlwind for me, I’m not going to lie. It was difficult for me to keep up with all that I have going on and do a blog at the same time. This was a rough semester for me. I was in and out of the hospital and in a really bad Crohn’s flare. My life has been incredibly hectic with health issues going on and managing a chronic disease while going to school. I’m still learning how to do this and it has been quite the challenge. What I am getting at is I had all of this going on and my blog was the one who suffered for it. I set my priorities and I feel like the blog took a second seat to what I had going on.

I feel as if I gave it my best, but failed in the end. I didn’t really fail because I tried at it in the first place. I kept it going the best that I could and got things in on time. However, when it came to the book posts is when I was in and out of the hospital. That took a pretty hard hit for me because I felt like I was trying to stay afloat. I had so much going on-on top of all of this my brother had to have spinal surgery-that I felt like I prioritized my assignments, and my blog became not last, but close to it.

I learned that I like having a blog, but I need to set aside the time to actually keep up with it. It is nice to sit down and write, then have people actually read what you have to say. However, I think that I will stick to pen and paper from now on. I think that I actually do better at writing in a journal because I can grab it whenever I want to grab it. Digital writing is such a neat tool to have in the classroom though. It keeps people connected and I think that it is something that I would love for my students to do. However, I do think that this would be more of an extra credit thing in my class, or for something to use to ask questions about assignments. I personally don’t think that I could keep up with everything.

My challenges have been listed, but my success is coming this far and actually doing it. I created my blog and I participated in it. I might not have been as active and fantastic with it as I would have liked to have been, but I did it. That is an accomplishment right there. I think that with all that I had going on this semester, coming this far with my blog was a personal success. I learned that I need to make time for all of my assignments, and I learned that I need to prioritize better. This was an amazing experience for me because I feel like I have come out of this learning a lot. I enjoyed reading and commenting on other’s posts just as much as I enjoyed writing my own. I wish that I would have done more with it, but I am proud of what I have and what it became-just an assignment to a really big learning experience.

Professional Book Post One

This book is filled with mentor texts and writer’s notes after each text. The book begins with a how to on how to use the book. The Ralph Fletcher, the author, has a section where he introduces himself. The texts are all short texts that you can easily use or incorporate into your lessons. They are also ELL friendly, for they are short, but word friendly.

I think that this is a great book for every writing teacher to have in their classroom. Since there are a bunch of short texts, it makes it easier to pull from when you are trying to put a lesson together. Also, since the author writes these short texts, then has a writer’s notes section, it is easy to figure out how to use each text in the classroom. He takes the time to give you background on the pieces and he takes the time to tell you how he would use it in the real world classroom.

I am really enjoying this book and I am really glad that I got it. I was looking for mentor texts for a lesson, and these that he has in here are perfect. You could use these texts to teach about so many different things, and I think it is also nice to have the author’s feedback on what you can do. I highly recommend it.

 

Golden Pieces (Since this book is made up of short texts, I chose some of my favorite pieces.)

 

“Shaping the Story”- Have you ever been lost? Getting writing right and shaping your writing into something beautiful.

“The Family Plot”

“Developing a Character by Describing One Physical Attribute”- “One of the hardest things in fiction is to make a character come alive in the mind of a reader” (30)

“Squished Squirrel Poem”-Can you write about a squished squirrel?

“Using Personification”