Pytash: Chapter 2

"Why don't kids know more words? The obvious answer is that they don't read enough."  That was the quote that grabbed my attention when I read this chapter.  The second thing that grabbed my attention when I read this chapter is that when a student is handed a copy of Great Expectations in ninth grade they are familiar with fewer than 80% of the words in that book.  That is not OK with me.

I like the idea to give the students a bookmark to write down words they are not familiar with.  That way when there is a class discussion the students will have something to talk about.  I also like the Do/Don't list.  It has some good ideas.  Such as: Keep lists of new words posted around your classroom for constant reference. Try to use these words as you teach.

I think it is very important for students to keep track of words that they have problems with.  If they just skip over those words they will never know them.  If they keep track of them and take the time to talk about them and learn the meaning they are more likely to remember it.

Foot: Firestone

I think the Firestone experience was a good one because the students got one-on-one attention from the tutors.  I just wish I could have helped him more.  My students’ biggest problem was social studies and I don’t know much about social studies.  I think helping students with reading comprehension will help them in all aspects of testing.  I think if my students are having problems with social studies, besides talking to their social studies teacher to make sure they get extra help in that class, I can have my students read non-fiction books paired with fiction books to get them interested more in social studies.  I think test prep needs to be fun for students.  I like the idea of playing some kind of game with my students, like Jeopardy, to get them to remember information.

I think schools emphasize test prep too much.  I think it overwhelms students because all they are worried about is “cramming” for the test.  I don’t think they should feel like they are cramming for a test.  I think the material teachers teach should make students feel prepared for tests.  I think teachers need to make the content more interesting for the students.

While I was at Firestone High School I observed one English teacher while she taught the Crucible.  The class read the play out loud and they had to answer questions about the play on worksheets, they watched the movie, and then had a test at the end.  I think the students were bored.  While they were reading the play I couldn’t understand most of what they said.  I don’t think the students got a lot out of it.  I wish the teacher would have had student break into groups and act out scenes.  I think they would understand the play more if they had the time to study scenes and really get into the material.  They could have done a class project about the play and made a newspaper with articles about things that happened in the play.  Students need to be interested in the material and I could tell none of the students cared about the play until they started watching the movie.  I like when students see the movie version of a play or a book but they need to understand the text version first before they see the movie version.  They could have done a paper comparing the two versions too. 

I think standardized test preparation can be merged with multi-modal literacies.  I don’t know if it would be an easy merge because everyone is so used to the way they prepare for tests now.  I think using multi-modal literacies will make the information more accessible to students because students now have grown up with different types of texts.  They know how to use computers, and phones, and games.  Those things just need to be included in schools so students understand the information easier. 

When my student told me he was having problems in social studies I asked him if his teacher was helping him prepare for the OGT’s at all.  He said she gave him part of a OGT practice test.  I think teachers need to do more than just had a student a practice test and say have at it.  I think teachers need to sit down with their students to find out exactly what their problems are.  I gave him a larger practice test and went over every single question with him and whenever he had a question we looked it up on my smartphone and I explained everything I could.  I let him keep the test and the answer key so he could study.  He is lucky enough to have a computer at home and he said he would look up anything else he had questions about.

Social Studies must be a really hard subject to teach because the students need to memorize a lot of information.  I think reading non-fiction books in an English class will help students be more interested in social studies. 

I also go the opportunity to sit in on a math class while I was at Firestone last semester and that math teacher spent 50 minutes on two equations.  I don’t know much about math but I think they should be able to go over more information than that in 50 minutes.  I’m not sure what could be done for students to prepare better for the math part of standardized tests, but I had a math teacher that played math games.  I think math based video games might help students.  Learning reading comprehension will help students with word problems in math.

I think reading is very important and I don’t think students read enough.  Students need to be given the opportunity to read more books that interest them.  Reading will help in every subject and it will increase their vocabulary.  I think students should read everything they can get their hands on.  Not just fiction.  They need to read non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, blogs, anything else that interests them.  The more they read the more they will know.

I hope to get my students interested in reading.  I want them to read because they want to…. Not just because they have to.  Students also need the opportunity to write too.  Writing will help them find their own voice and to respect the things other people write.  The only class I saw any students write anything was in Mr. Parks English class.  I think students should write in most of their classes but especially English class.  They should be able to write more than just papers.  That is why I want my students to have some kind of newspaper project because writing an article is different than writing a paper.  Different kinds of writing are important because students will need to read different kinds of writing for standardized tests.  If they get to write different things it will be easier for them to read them and understand them for the test.

Foot: Contemporary Film Review

The film I saw was called (818) which is the area code of the place the movie takes place.  It is about a has-been TV actress who is married to the owner of air conditioning stores.  Her children are spoiled and she is having an affair with her husbands cousin.  Her husband has kind of a midlife crisis after his youngest daughter dies and everyone blames him.  He decides to change his will to give away all his money to charity because that is what his dead daughter would have wanted.  The has-been actress and her lover decide to kill her husband.

This movie is a comedy because almost nothing goes right.  Other people die in this movie too and people go to jail.  I don't want to give away the ending in case anyone has the chance to watch this movie.  It was a really funny movie. My favorite quote is, "We are talking about the LAPD, that's like being investigated by a crossin guard."

A. Personal Issues-  This movie is full of family delemas.  The wife is cheating on the husband.  One daughter has an eating disorder.  The father goes through a midlife crisis.  The son even makes a comment that he misses where they used to live because they were a real family then.  The whole family falls apart because of the actions of one person.  The kids do end up maturing by the end of the movie.  I think they are the only ones who learned anything.  I think this aspect of the movie struck a chord with me because I am divorced so I understand a family that falls apart.

B. Techniques- At the beginning of the movie they had a cartoon version of the main character.  She was a TV actress and used to be famous and they animated her early career, kind of like a montage.  The music was really interesting.  I have never heard music like that before.  Other camera work I liked what the few times they showed commercials for the air conditioning store.  They would showing them filming the commercial and then zoom out and the commercial would be on a TV and the camera would zoom out some more and someone would be watching the TV.  I think that is and interesting technique.

C. Acting- I think the acting was very good.  The funny thing was, the lead actress was a TV actress.  So Beth Broderick who played the TV actress in the movie was really a TV actress in real life.  I think she did a great job acting like a spoiled diva.  Ryan Hansen who played the spoiled rich son also played a spoiled rich kid in Veronica Mars.  I think he is typecast because I think he plays a really great spoiled rich kid.  I don't think anyone was miscast.  I think everyone who was cast did a great job in their roles.

D. Plot- I think the plot was very convincing.  Even though the audience knows everything that is going on through the whole movie I was still wondering who would get accused and who would go to jail and if anyone would get away with anything.  I wasn't bored at all.

E. Themes- I think this movie shows a very dysfunctional family.  People need to realise they need to keep their families strong.  During the Q and A session at the end someone commented that the movie portrayed how the people of  L.A., California really are.  Someone from the audience grew up in the (818) area code an they said that the people there are exactly like the movie portrayed.

F. Genre- The Director of the film spoke before the movie started and he said it was a comedy.  But I think it is much more than that.  It is very very funny but there is murder in it.  It isn't a murder mystery because the audience knows everything that is happening.  I think it is more like a murder comedy. 

G. Representation- All of the men in the film are represented like sex crazed morons.  All the men in the movie want to have sex with the has-been TV actress.  All the women at first seem different but they all like to shop.  I think the men are represented the way they are because the has-been actress still wants to be famous and wants everyone to want her and she accomplishes that by sleeping with everyone.  The women only care about having money and money is the reason everything in the movie happened.

H. Ideology-  I think this movie kind of challenges marriage because the main character is married twice through the movie and both relationships fall apart because of money and greed.  People need to realise that relationships need to be built on more than money.

Foot: Film Festival Experience

I am going to start with my Film Festival Experience.  I went to see (818) with my mom today at 2:30 pm.  We got there really early so we could eat first.  I haven't been to Tower City since I was a kid but it hasn't changed much.  It is still pretty much exactly as I remember it except there are different stores now.  The whole place was decorated for the Film Festival.  There were posters everywhere.  After we ate we walked around a little bit to kill some time.  We picked up our tickets at about 45 minutes before our film was supposed to start.  After we picked up our tickets we stood in the line for our movie and waited to be seated.  About 15 minutes before the film started a Film Festival Volunteer led us into the theater where we found our seats.  In my next post I will talk about the film.

After the film there were a couple people there to answer questions about the film.  One of the people was the producer.  The other one was Beth Broderick, the lead actress in the movie.  She was in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and she is one of my favorite TV actresses, and I got to meet her!!!!

This was the best experience ever.  I think I will go to the Cleveland International Film Festival every year. When my kids are older I want to take them too.  I think this is a great experience for anyone.  It isn't like just going to a regular movie.  Besides the movie being really good, my favorite part of the whole experience was the Q and A session after the movie.  The producer and Beth Broderick answered questions the audience had about the movie.  I will definitely be going next year.

Foot: Great Films and How to Teach Them

My favorite chapter of this book is Chapter 7 because it is all about movie genres.  I like this because it would be a great way to get students to understand literary genres.  I would like to use movies in my classroom and I want my students to appreciate the film versions of the books they read.  If there is a film version of a book I have my students read I want them to see it after they read the book.  I want them to compare the book and the movie.  It would make a good project.  And if there isn't a film version of a book they are reading they could make a project of taking a scene from the book and filming it.  They could also write a paper about if a movie was a different genre.... For example if a Western was turned into a Musical, how would it change?

Chapter 8 was also very interesting to me because it is all about how different people are represented in films.  It can be different than how people are represented in books.  In movies camera angles and the actors that play the characters are very important.  In books the way characters are described determines how the reader sees the characters.  I think it is important for students to see both aspects of a story.

Foot: I'm So Totally, Digitally Close to You

When I read this article I started thinking about my Facebook habits.  On page three of the article it says, "For many people - particularly anyone over the age of 30 - the idea of describing your blow-by-blow activities in such detail is absurd."  I agree with this comment.  I am 30 years old and I can't imagine telling everyone every little thing I am doing.  I post something when it's important or exciting.  I don't tell my entire life story, and I don't post something 20 times a day. 

I also agree with the rest of the article about keeping up with all my friends.  I have over 200 friends on Facebook.  I know each and every one of them because most of them I went to high school with.  I do exactly what the article says, I skim through the news feed and and if anything important pops up I can talk to that friend about it.  Also when I see my friends in person I don't have to ask how they have been doing because I have been keeping up with their Facebook pages and I already know what is going on but we can start talking like we left a conversation and not miss a beat.

I like Facebook because it is a great way to keep up with my friends.  I also like the idea that updating Facebook can make you more aware of who you are.

Foot: You're Leaving a Digital Trail

I honestly don't care if "They" track a GPS chip in my phone or if "They" track my Google searches.  I don't have anything to hide.  If it would help doctors to track the flu patterns and they could save a lot of people from getting sick I don't see a problem with any of it.  People post so much on Facebook and on blogs there isn't much privacy anyway.  I understand that there is always a possibility that this can be used badly but I would rather save a lot of people by tracking data than worry about my privacy.  The government could put up cameras everywhere and be able to watch me wherever I go and I wouldn't care.  They would get really bored watching me anyway.  I think there would probably be less crime if the government could watch everyone all the time. 

I understand that this article ties into the book Little Brother that we read earlier in the semester, but even when I was reading that book I didn't see any problem with the "Big Brother" type of technology.  I wish at least law enforcement was able to watch the city with cameras or something.  If there were cameras everywhere then criminals couldn't get away with as much stuff.  If people were more accountable for their actions maybe they would act better.  I would love to see a world where there was no crime because people couldn't get away with it.