Week 4 class

During our craft lesson of yesterday's class, I found it really helpful that we were using the skills that we had learned, and relating them to an actual book. I am really enjoying this whole cluster, because we are learning about, and creating actual lesson plans that relate straight back to certain things (specifically books). These are tangible things that will be able to help us in our classrooms, rather than just concepts that have been helpful in past classrooms. In other courses in my time at IU, I have read stories, and memoirs of successful methods used by somewhat famous teachers, but this does not give me practice in these instances, only information. The fact that we are now using these methods to create out own, and present to small groups of students in our own classes, seems incredibly useful to all of us as future teachers.

There is one term that I have heard many times this semester that I have found very interesting. The term 'read like a writer' is something that I had never thought of before, but feel could be a great aspect to incorporate in our classrooms. When I feel I am reading something as a writer, I am analyzing a piece, and breaking it apart as to why the writer wrote it as he or she did. This can be interesting to do with students, because it could give one an insight on how the students are viewing the piece. It could be used as a way of assessment for critical analyzation by your students.