The English Conference

At the English Conference I went to the last two mini conferences. These meetings were undoubtedly eye openers to what is being done right this instant in the classroom! The way these two women conduct their classes is in an ideal performance. TIME was strongly emphasized. There needs to always be a time to read and a time to write. It seemed that the content of what their students would read would be trivial-- and of course it would be! As long as kids are utilizing time to read, what more could a teacher really ask for? They made a clear point that not every kid is going to want/ enjoy "To Kill a Mockingbird." Sometimes the reading level isn't even up to that level. Once again, as long as their students were reading was the vital point. When it came to writing, it didn't seem to matter what they wrote about either. As long as their students were writing, this was the other vital point. With the reading it was said to lead to increased speed and a gaining of vocabulary.

These two women talked about how they tell their students to read at least 2 1/2 hours outside of class. By doing this, their students have OWNERSHIP of their readings. Owndership to students leads to choices. The choices lead to a navigation of unknown text. They get to pick out their own books and creat their own stamina, different tools, and stratgeies. When asked how they monitored this, the answer was book marks and sometimes a set of vocab words from the choice of books. Friday would revolve around a reader response day or even a book club (sounded like what we had in 374).

One of the best things said in this conference was how Jen, one of the teachers, said that she feels like a student in her own class. She leanrs something everyday. By having students share in class this leads to each individual kid using each other. Social connections come from the books that each kid reads. And the most influential statement wwas how the social connections don't stop with the kids but leak into the teacher.