Thursday, January 31, 2013

January 31*

JOURNAL TOPIC:

(1) Write a synopsis of the action in last night's reading.
(2) Describe your reactions to the text.  What do you remember thinking and/or feeling while you read?  What do you think contributed to your reactions?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Reading quiz
3. Vocab review
4. Continue reading

HW:
1. Study vocab for quiz tomorrow (Friday)
2. Have your poem/song ready for recital
3. Comment to this post with your observations from today's class and/or suggestions for next time

22 comments:

  1. I think having students in front of the class asking questions and analyzing the reading was very beneficial. We should keep doing that in succession to each nights reading, I took away more than I thought I would.

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  2. I too liked today's class, I found it interesting and I took a lot of things from it. I also think that when we read new pages that we should have these kinds of discussions. My only suggestion would be is that maybe we stay in our seats so that if people who aren't as confident can say what they think and not have to feel obligated to go in front of the class

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  3. I think for our period to have a conversation we need a spark to light the fire. Maybe you could start the conversation a little bit and see if the fire would continue to burn or just get muffle.

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  4. Personally, I thought that today's discussions had a lot of potential, but there was still a lot of people holding back. I think tomorrow we all need to come out of our shells and offer forth our opinions and questions.

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  5. I agree with Andrew. It took a while to start up a conversation and once we had one going it only lasted for a short period of time and then it just sort of died out into silence.

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  6. Not to be negative or anything, but I thought I was a slight waste of time. I benefit more from the teacher... Well, teaching. When we read the novel as a class, it gives me a whole new perspective on why the author wrote like that or why that incident happened in the book. Also, in my opinion, I hated how people were asking questions about quotes and allusions in the book. I enjoy reading a book for the plot and suspense. I also have a little background information on why Bradbury wrote this novel. To me, I feel like that is enough to learn about the inciting incidents this story has to offer.

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    1. But we ask those questions to get a feeling for Bradbury. Example, when Montag says, "We've started and won two atomic wars since 1990." The book was copyrighted in 1953, 8 years after WWII and 9 years before the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I feel like looking into the allusions at least a little bit or researching the timelines really helps get the sense of what he wants us to take away. That example showed you his thinking of "current" world events and that he thought nuclear wars were imminent. Plus, this is an American Lit class, I think this is what we are supposed to be doing. :)

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    2. and I didn't put the Missile Crisis in there because I thought Bradbury predicted it. It was just pretty cool how the book came out in the middle of both those major events.

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    3. You know what, you actually have a good point. I usually just skim over why ever I don't understand, but maybe I will try to pay attention to these allusions now they are starting to sound interesting to look in to....

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  7. I think that having a student talk to us about what we read and ask us questions really helped me understand things from the book that i was having trouble on, it is a really great idea to do that but the down side is that not everyone reads the book or even has the book to begin with.

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  8. I thought todays conversation was very beneficial, but we shouldn't talk about it the whole class period. I understand that some people can get confused about the text and need clarification, but those who can grasp the text might get a little bored talking about it the entire class period. We should continue to do this, but I think it should be brief.

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  9. I agree with what Whitney said. I think we should do this more because it was beneficial but reduce the time because we just sit there and don't say anything for half the time.

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  10. For me I prefer reading as a class and having the teacher explain what is trying to be told in the story. Although today's discussion helped me understand some key points in the book and I believe the class discussions have a lot of potentional and can be helpful. So either way is fine with me.

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  11. Personally I would have rather done something else during our class time than that. Yes, it is beneficial to some and gives opportunities for students to ask questions and feed off each other, but in our class period only 3-4 people were carrying on the conversations so I didn't see it as being successful. I also agree with what Eli and Whitney said, that we should spend less time with the conversation next time.

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  13. today was a new experience but it's for me, personally, I like it better when Dr. preston reads along with us. he seems to bring more to the table, offering thoughts that i wouldn't have began to muster.

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  14. I thought it was a waste of time. It may have been good for the few students who were confused about the story, but for everyone else it wasn't beneficial.

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  15. I think that the discussion that we had helped out a lot. By discussing the things as a class, we got to see many different out looks on what they thought the reading meant and that helped us to figure out what the reading was about. I think we should do this again.

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  16. I AGREE WITH RICKY AND ANDREW FOR OUR PERIOD BUT ALSO I THINK ITS MORE OF SHYNESS OF MY SILENCE IN CLASS, BUT I THINK PEOPLE SHOULD REALLY READ THE BOOK AND SHARE WHAT THEY THINK OF THE BOOK..... ILL TRY TO JUMP IN THE CONVERSATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE...

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  17. I think that the class conversation has a lot of potential to be beneficial for those who are having trouble understanding the book. Our period just needs to interact more, maybe with a little bit more help from you starting the conversation it will be more successful next time.

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  18. I thought it was cool how people just went up in front of class and just started sharing ideas and thoughts and we didn't have to wait for someone to take charge. It was interesting to see how Nick and Roman brought up ideas and we all dissected it and out together different perspectives!

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  19. I loved the fact that we all had total control over the agenda. It was very helpful, for me anyways, in the fact that i learned more about the book than i realized. I really do want to do this more often, because it gives me a better understanding of what im reading.

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