Placement Hours

For my placement at FSHS, I will be on the campus MWF from 8am-11am. At some point we plan for me to be there in the afternoon at least once a week as well because her students during the morning are library assistants instead of being a regularly styled classroom. That makes 9 hours a week, not counting the potential afternoon. I am admittedly worried about getting all of the hours in because of our late start and the two weeks that I'll be in Italy in April.

Culturally Responsive Voki

   

Where I'm From Photostory-- Completed!

Where I'm From Photostory

Where I'm From

I’m from wide, muddy rivers, and mountains so high,

That frame sunshiney days and a gorgeous starry night sky

From extended family, plus Dawsons and Erdies,

And going to school at the “Home of the Bees”

I’m from the peanut butter blossom cookies grandma likes to bake,

Plus the thick chocolate fudge Aunt Jenny told me how to make

I’m from watching the sunset come through my favorite tree,

From friends who came as strangers but became a second family

I’m from taking in stray cats I was never supposed to name,

And when everyone got together for the big East/West game

From the bus stop and roads hard to navigate in the snow,
And travelling around for "Warped Tour" and an anticipated screamo show

I'm from a family of two kids with an eight year age difference,
I feel bad for all the fights to which my mom has had to listen

I’m from sleepovers, music trips and Ninja Turtle nights,

And somehow never really learning how to ride a bike

I am from the “friendliest city” that you’ll ever see,

From the college church group where God became real to me

From home grown tomatoes and thick “Stanley sweet tea”,

And a land so wide open it’s hard not to feel free

Student Interest Survey

Lately we've been talking about the power in letting students participate in choosing materials for class, and sometimes a big part of that is a Student Interest Survey. We were supposed to locate a Student Interest Survey that pertained to our subject area-- in my case Journalism or School Library Media. In the vein of library science, Scholastic's website had an area about how to sustain classroom libraries. This site had a link to a student interest survey in hopes of helping teachers discover what types of books their students want to read.

Louis Moll Entry Pass

In Luis Moll’s research, he discovered that instead of a “cultural deficit” (when students are deemed unintelligent or unteachable because they are from a different culture), there is in fact a “culture capital”—or vast wealth of knowledge—within the community of these otherwise unreached students.

Moll did his research with Mexican-American students in school in Tuscon, Arizona. He analyzed  the Latino community in Tuscon in regards to the spread of skills and knowledge within the community. When he found that the community had a lot of knowledge, but not what the schools were trying to teach, he encouraged teachers to start teaching in manner that helps the students find meaning. These teachers found that student participation increased drastically when the teacher let them work on subjects that interested them.

While this study took place in Arizona, it is obvious that this study would prove true in whatever area it was done. Foxfire did similar work in Alabama, but regardless of where you are, students are more likely to be interested and involved in the work they are doing if it is a subject that they actually care about. It doesn’t really matter whether the students are English as a second language or students in the backwoods of West Virginia, or even innercity youth—sometimes standard practices just don’t cut it.