Analogies of the 1770's and Today

I am amazed and stunned at the striking similarities between the Patriots vision of our young country in the 1700's and the awaking Patriots of today. Patriots are gathering speechless and agast at the daily onslaughts against the Constitution. Is it possible that a few can dictate to the many? Is it true that a few can "rewrite" the very Constitution that formed their freedoms and liberties to tear it apart? I ask myself as did Abigail Adams (p21) do we "have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them?"
As i type this blog, i just heard that the Senate voted to pass the Obama Health Care Plan. A Plan that was passed against the voice of the majority of American people. I watched on T.V. of the protestors gathered at the White House who are against this plan, i heard on the news Saturday, March 20th, of people in Alaska calling meetings to gather up their arms in preparation of standing in defense of their freedoms, there are Tea Parties from coast to coast, there is talk of a Sugar Tax on soft drinks. What is happening in and to our country? To our Constitution? Are we headed for another revolution?
Abigail again writes to her Dearest friend from the kichen table (p21), "You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you, an inactive spectator." We also must not now be inactive spectators, we must rise to the occassion, preserve our freedoms and liberties, and ensure that they will be passed on to the next generation.

John and Abigail Adams

I am new to this and got some help from a daughter to use it successfully, I hope. I am intrigued and amazed at the kind of people John and Abigail Adams were. Further, it was such a singular thing that so many "great" men were alive, living in the colonies, and moving towards separation from England to form the new republic, as it is referred to as in McCullough's book. Adams was truly the man of the hour for his vision and staunch support of the liberty and freedom being fought for. If anything, I have "fallen in love" with the history described and the passion these people had to sacrifice so much to give us what we have today. It was no accident that these "patriots" were born at that time. Adams was such a thinker, and writer. He was very talented in being able to "see the bigger picture" and think beyond a war to what he thought the new government should look like, and then have the tenacity to fight for that vision and help others to see what he saw. I am thrilled by the book and information. I feel as if I am there myself watching as the beginnings of our great country transpire and unfold.

Thoreau and Adams

I was wondering if anyone else noticed how much both of these men talk about self-sufficient and not a slave to material things. I found this to be interesting as our society continues on the path of living on credit the same concerns that were held at the beginning of our nation.

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Feedback

 

In chapter 4 of Classrooom Instruction That Works, I found a solution to a problem I've been having with a group of my top students. They have increasingly put less and less effort into their study, and it has been showing in their performance. I put up a rubric on effort and we discussed it. Then I gave them the chart that is shown here. Each week they have to rate themselves on their effort, and I give them a performance score that relates to their work for the week. Then we discuss any discrepancy and what needs to be done as far as effort to get them where they should be. I've only been doing this for two weeks, but it seems to be making a difference.

Nonlinguistic Representation

As I have been reading our text, Classroom Instruction that Works I have been intrigued at how many of the strategies are simplistic in nature. For my first Pre-seminar lesson I have chosen to use the strategy of nonlinguistic representation. In short this strategy uses imagery to help the student "dual-code" the information that they are hearing in class. For my lesson I used the opportunity to teach this form of coding by modeling it to my class using examples from their writings to fill in the bubbles. Then as a class we created a spider web by identifying examples for the state of Utah with the five themes of geography. For independent practice students created their own spider webs using the five themes of geography to describe the county in which they live. I have attached an image of my lesson plan and the outline of the spider web I used to initially teach the concept.

Walking

I loved the reading. I am having a very good time with the reading of the article "Walking." I really love the language and mechanics of the text. I love the cause and effect, and other things that the author brings through this very descriptive history. The analogy the author makes with the rural community and the city is amazing. I love the poems and the rich description of self-character as well as the adjectives to describe the surrounding areas and people. The culture is so rich and full of truth. Well, I will stop here and continue with a little more details on the next blog. Enjoy your reading.

John Adams

Masters Degree in Education and yet my ignorance about John Adams profound! Distressed but undaunted I read on...

Just Sharing

 

I wanted Judy to see a couple of samples of my 6th grade students' work after trying the same strategy we did at the Saturday training. It may not seem like much to some of you, but to be honest, I was thrilled. I've done similar things with students before, but I changed things a bit this time. One thing that I did was give each student an index card to write their 20 words on. That really helped the students participate when their group presented to the class. My student population is about 80% Native Americans, and they tend to shy away from the attention of a class presentation. Sometimes I have a really difficult time getting them to take pride in their work. Every group did their best on this and were pleased with their project. Anyway, it worked great!

My class is currently reading biographies and is so tickled that I join them while I read John Adams. It sparks a dialog about his life as we finish each session. This is my 4th post but none has worked yet...hoping for the best with this one!

Clarification

I am about halfway through Classroom Instruction that Works, and I have a question for anyone that has used the strategy for note taking called Topic-Restriction-Illustration (page 37). I know I've worked with this book before, somewhere, but I can't seem to quite visualize this particular framework. I am trying to use some of these strategies in the lessons I already have going in my classroom, so I would really like to understand this one. Thanks to anyone who can clarify it for me. I am having one of my duh... moments.

Walking

I thought I would get us started on commenting about Walking. As I was reading the essay, I was reminded of the need to not get so bogged down by work and different aspects of life, that we forget to enjoy the little things. As a mom, I thought particularly of how fast our kids grow up and we need to remember to enjoy them and each stage they are in.

As a history teacher I noticed the several allusions to walking west. "We go eastward to realize history....we go westward as into the future." During his life, Thoreau experienced the great movement westward. He was born around the time period when Manifest Destiny started to play a role in the development of the United States. I wonder if his feelings of moving west had anything to do with this idea of Manifest Destiny?