Matt's Blog for English 486

      I think from Core Standards, even starting at the fifth grade level, that the informational reading is very important and can easily be implemented in a classroom setting. I think that even at the fifth grade level it became important that students summarize the texts and begin to analyze different points of view in the text and be able to cite and explain where and how they came to the conclusion that they did and I myself making a big effort to teach students these skills and make them aware of their importance at this age as it is something that they will be doing for the rest of their school career in secondary schools and possibly even in college depending on their major. I also think it is important at this age for students to start to learn about how to read more into a text by looking at other sources that may support or challenge their ideas as that is a major focus in secondary schools. I am surprised at the amount of different subjects that students are s...

Teaching Grammar and Writing by: Matt Dickman Oxford Teaching Guides: How to Teach Grammar  by Bas Aarts, Ian cushing, and Richard Hudson What was this text about? Half of this text was about the subject matter that is English Grammar and the other half of this text was ways in which a teacher can implement the subject matter and different ways that they may want to incorporate grammar and grammar lessons into their classroom.This book is very much an informative English language and grammar refresher for English teachers; therefore, making the book nearly vital for all educators to have on their shelf. Educators will be able to take this book off of the shelf, use the very detailed and well structured table of contents to be able to navigate through the book and find exactly what the teacher is looking for. By doing so, the teacher will then be able to refresh their memory and find a definition for the sub-subject in grammar that they are looking for more information ...

I was surprised to find some of the language core standards that were placed in for example grade 6 and stated that the students should know intensive pronouns such as "myself and ourselves." This seemed like something that was being built on from 5th grade, but I would have expected that 6th graders would have already known how to do this. I did find the section 'Knowledge of Language' to be very helpful too, as in grades 5-8 it demonstrated that students should know how to speak and write. I think this is important because when you think of an English Language Arts class, normally speaking and listening are not something a student would expect to be apart of the curriculum. I also found it helpful to read the 9-10th grade standards as well as the 11-12th grade ones because it was more general and I felt as though that gave the teacher more room to incorporate other activities that could meet other standards that the core standards has set for students. However, some...

Teaching Visual Literacy by: Matt Dickman Text: Graphic Novel Classroom: POWerful Teaching and Learning with Images  by Maureen Bakis) 1.) What was this text about? The book Graphic Novel Classroom: POWerful Teaching and Learning with Images , was very informative when it comes to what texts should be taught in a high school classroom and what strategies the author, Maureen Bakis, uses in her classroom to help aid the students’ learning of graphic novels.  The following paragraph will introduce some of Bakis’ teaching methods. Bakis starts her class with a TedTalk video about graphic novels. She tries to find videos with McCloud in them, as she believes Scott McCloud does a great job explaining what a graphic novel is about, the importance of graphic novels in the classroom, and how to teach them to students. Bakis then allows for discussion to take place about what the students have heard about her class, why they took the class, and how many of them en...