Week 4

I found the lesson on punctuation this week very interesting along with the book Eats Shoots and Leaves.  Its really cool how you can add puncuation in different parts of a sentence to change the meaning of it completely.  It reminded me of a lesson from high school where the teacher showed a letter from a parent to a child.  The first letter was nice and congratualatory, but after changing the punctuation the letter showed that the mother was angry at her child.  I also enjoyed the mini lesson presentations. The Craft Lessons book has many great ideas for lessons and is one of the few books that I feel a need to hang on to and its not just because the bookstore won't buy it back.

Week 3

I really enjoyed the article Eleven by Sandra Cisneros because as elementary teachers I think we need to be able to see ourselves at every age.  I also enjoyed looking deeper into stories and noticing different things. I have always found it interesting to hear what others pick up from stories that I didn't. 

Week 2

Last week was very interesting we decorated out writers notebooks with things that represented us and shared them with our tables.  I really enjoyed sharing things the things that represented us.  I am also enjoying the writing in my writers notebook more.  At first I thought it would be like pulling teeth but its way more enjoyable than that.  Learning about different ways to teach students spelling and coming up with spelling words was also interesting.  It made me think about how my previous elementary teachers taught spelling and how it can be done to be more beneficial for students.  Like taking words they misspell from their writing and making them into individual spelling lists for students.

Class 1

The first class of E-339 was very long, but by it not being complete lecture I think it will be more interesting.  The two stories we read at the beginning of class were interesting because I've always enjoyed people reading or telling stories.  I also liked the articles about origins of names and the activity we did.  The origins of names is a very interesting subject.