Mind-Mapping...dum, dum, duuummmm

Where to begin in the wonderful world of mind mapping/graphic organizers...First I personally had never even seen a concept map or graphic organizer until I came to Southern. This was after both high school and two years of junior college. Therefore when I got an assignment to complete one, I freaked slam out! I now can create one for a grade, but it does not help me at all to have one personally, mainly because I was never taught how to create them or what they are used for. This chapter helped me answer some of the questions that I never knew. I love a good play on words so the quote from the chapter that I would like to use is "With a little "Inspiration" and time in the computer lab, Marisol Acuna's world history class mapped out important concepts as they reviewed information on WWI." I would like to practice these skills in my own classroom so that my students can have something that I never got the chance to experience, hands on participation. I like that we had the option to be creative in this blog posting this week, even though I opted out; mainly because graphic organizers are not really my thing (personally).
Quick question: Where can I go (online) to get the experiecne I need with graphic orgainizers to be able to learn the concpet well enough to be able to teach it?

Read Alouds and Text Talk

At this point I am mentally and physically exhausted and typing this while holding a sleeping child, however I am going to give it my best shot. First and foremost read alouds give students a chance to hear fluent reading and voice intonation which they sometimes cannot get while reading silently to themselves. As a child my grandmother read to me everyday, that was "our" special time together and it is something that I will never forget. I think that is one reason that I love to read today. She was very expressed when reading and always gave life to whatever story we chose. By teachers incorporating rich read alouds into the classroom and stopping for text talks students are actively engaged in the story and thinking critically about each aspect. When students make predictions in the story they are placing themselves there and connecting themselves personally to the text. They get to experience new vocabulary first hand in context and not single words with definitions in the back of the book that have no meaning other that coping them for a grade. New words have so much more meaning when they are related to context and can be immediately discussed. Dr. Stacy opened my eyes to read alouds in a whole new way. I plan to use read alouds in my future classroom as often as possible. I know this is short, sweet, and to the point but that all I have in me tonight. 

Qs

How can you get every child involved in the discussion related to read alouds and not single the same ones out each time?

How do you choose the best books to use?

Writing to Learn

“Writing to learn requires that students use different kinds of knowledge at different times.” This one sentence stood out most to me. All students have knowledge, but can they access the appropriate knowledge when needed? By using the writing to learn strategies, teachers can easily see specifically what students do and don’t understand in a content area. Just because a student “knows” something does not mean they understand it or can think critically through the process of the information. One strategy in chapter 8 that I liked a lot was asking the students to write an explanation of a particular topic in a way that a younger child could understand. I think that this is a good strategy because students have to manipulate the knowledge they have into a simpler version, which in turn can help them relate and understand the topic better themselves.

In the Knipper and Duggan article, it not only kept stating that “writing to learn engages students” but also it gives students a chance to question what they know about a topic. Questions are contagious (as has been demonstrated in our class :)) but when they are topic related, students can gain a lot not only from their own questions but from the questions of their peers. The article gave several strategies and ideas about writing to learn and how the processes could be carried out. I feel like I could definitely incorporate some of those strategies into my future classroom. It was beneficial to see the different styles of “note taking” in the article. I for one never was taught to take notes so being able to see the different ways hopefully will help me in both school and in my classroom.

Questions:

Does writing to learn across the curriculum really help students to think creatively? (I can see how it would make them think critically, but not really creatively when they are limited to what they can write about)

How does pre-writing help students before they read about a topic, especially if they do not have any prior knowledge?