FOOT: Pleasure Reading "Water for Elephants"

I just started reading Water for Elephants recently. I am only a few chapters into the book but I hope that I can finish it soon. I just really cannot wait until I have free time again. I have just been really bogged down with homework recently and haven't had much time to read. It is not a book I would typically go for but I have found it pretty interesting thus far. I hope to post again once I finish it! I really want to finish it before the movie comes out because I am one of "those people" who like to read the book before seeing it in theaters.

FOOT: Pleasure "Reading" A Minor Bird concert

So last night, Tiffany Ankrom, another INLA major, and I went to a concert at Musica to see A Minor Bird from Canton, Ohio. I had never heard of any of the bands playing (Winter Gloves, Young Galaxy, and Chasing Chariots) but decided it would be a fun time hanging out. Tiffany knows some of the people in the band and wanted me to come. It was a pretty good show. I ended up really liking the music of most of the bands. While I was there, I was thinking about the lyrics of the songs each band was singing. I think it would be an interesting for students to take the lyrics of a song and look at them like poetry and compare different artists and genres.

FOOT: "You're Leaving a Digital Trail"

In short, this article, "You're Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?" by John Markoff kind of freaked me out. The whole idea that the small town idea is now expanding to mean that basically the whole world is your small town is really freaky. On another note, I found the idea that insurance companies could use the data to screen potential clients to be kind of wrong. It made me angry that technology could be used in ways that I see as mean spirited as that. Also, the idea that people taking part in protests could be tracked as well sent some chills up my spine. Aren't Americans allowed to form peaceful protests? Don't we have the right to assembly? I could understand if they were trying to find out people in a riot, but not a protest.



I feel that this article could be used as supplemental material if you were teaching a unit on privacy or big brother. If you were using a book, such as Little Brother, it would be a great way to show real world examples of some of the events that occur in the book. You could talk about EZpasses, cell phones, etc. being used to track people and I believe that there could be some lively debate that could occur from this.

FOOT: Pleasure Reading "Matched"

So I decided after reading Bo's blog that I wanted to read the book Matched by Ally Condie.


After reading it, I really enjoyed it and I think it would be a good book to suggest to students who might be interested in dystopian fiction.

Here is how the book jacket describes the story:

"In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion."

If you are interested in listening to an excerpt of the book you can check that out HERE.

The only thing that really bugged me was the ending! It is kind of a cliffhanger ending and it makes me anxious to find out what is going to happen next!

FOOT: Firestone Experience

While at Firestone High School, I tried to work with my student on test preparation for the Ohio Graduation Tests, or more commonly known as the OGTs. I worked with the same student, who for this blog I will be referring to as Cora, that I did during my Principles of Teaching experience. This semester, I was glad that I actually had time where we just sat down and worked on test preparation. Last semester during the Principles of Teaching Field Experience, I really did not get to do more than just shadow my student. I feel that this semester really gave me the opportunity to work on actually teaching.

One way that test preparation could be infused into the classroom with multi-modality in mind is through the use of computers. I think that using the computer as a way to administer practice tests might be a way to relieve some anxiety that might come from just having a test booklet and pencil in front of the tester. Since students may feel more comfortable using a computer because they may be using social networking sites or other texts online, they might not be as anxious when taking the test. My student, Cora, had told me that she did not like taking tests. When I asked her why she said something to the effect that she did not like the whole testing process where one just sits in a chair with pencils and paper and that the process made her anxious.

During my Modeling Algebra course in college, we used an online website to work on homework and lessons. Basically, it was either multiple choice or short answer questions that we would have to answer. If we did not understand how to do a problem, you could use the “Help Me” button and the program would go step by step with you through the problem. When you were finished with the help section, the program would give you a similar problem with different numbers to work out. I think that this kind of multimodality would be very beneficial to the students. In addition, another bonus from these online math problems was that the numbers for each student was different so that way students would be unable to copy someone else’s answers to the homework. It allowed for us to be able to work on problems in class and not cheat so that way we were really learning.

Cora had a lot of problems with Math. When we were working on English and Social Studies, she did very well and would have passed those tests. For those tests, I think she just really needed to work on her active reading skills. I think that Cora would have benefited greatly from an online math program, like the one I used with my Modeling Algebra class. She would be able to get the detailed help on how to solve the problems better than I could explain to her.


I think Multimodality for test preparation in this form could start at an early age through the use of computer programs such as these. I think that if there were a way to provide students with some type of software at a young age such as the Jump Start programs or something similar, it would really help them learn and enhance their knowledge that they learn in school. If students could get started with test preparation early, then in high school, teachers would not have to be playing catch up with it. I feel that by using educational video games at home, in my personal experience, it really gave me a leg up on test taking and classes in general. I know that in grade school, students will take tests such as the CAT or IOWA tests but the grade school teachers should be working on test preparation skills then. I never learned any type of test preparation skills in grade school. The only thing remotely close to test preparation was “Use a test to take a test.” I think if teachers in elementary and middle school really started the students learning how to read texts for a test then students across the board would be performing better.

While I was at Firestone, I saw no real multimodality incorporated into the classroom for test preparation. In the English class I observed, they were in a weeklong unit on the Writing section of the OGTs. It was taught the “traditional” way through lecture and an overhead projector. There was not much engagement on the student’s part. I think it would have been a cool idea to create a game where students would work together in groups on writing prompts. Each group would work on developing a writing prompt and then create a project or electronic presentation showing how each group would tackle their prompt and the writing process. At the end of each presentation, the class could have a discussion on what they thought would work in an essay and why as wells as what they thought might not work in an essay and why.

Another way I would like to incorporate multimodality into my classroom would be to really work on active reading, possibly through the use of a WebQuest. I think that a WebQuest would be a fantastic way to get students working independently on active reading skills. I have seen a few times where teaching active reading is either a whole group or small group kind of activity. Students really need to learn how to actively read independently because that is a skill they will need when taking a standardized test. HERE is a link to a nice list of WebQuests that I found on the web for high school literature classes.

Something that I find somewhat disturbing is the tension that exists between the emphasis on test preparation and the expanding definition of literacy. Yes, standardized tests are there so that some form of learning can be measured. Yet, I feel that when I was observing classrooms during my Principles class, I noticed a lot of teachers saying things to the effect of “You need to know this to pass the OGTs/ the test.” I feel that some teachers are only looking at that reason to learn the information instead of creating authentic learning experiences where students learn the material and also discover more about themselves. Literacy is not just “learn all of this information out of a book” anymore. I think that some day in the future, the OGTs should be reexamined to incorporate the different types of literacies out there. I think that the classroom should also be reconfigured to incorporate different texts. It would be ideal if every classroom could have a fusion of the traditional texts and the new texts so that the students could have authentic learning experiences that reflect the growing and changing world around them.

FOOT: Publish or Perish

I have a dream. I have a dream that one day when I own a house, I will have an office and in my office, there will hardly be any wall space left because the walls are hidden by floor to ceiling bookshelves. It will look something like this, but with darker woods, the desk in the middle of the room and dark green walls:

I know there are many people who love their e-readers, such as the Nook, Kindle, or iPad. I have personally debated about getting one of these devices. Yet in the end, while reading “Publish or Perish” I saw this quote:

“No matter where consumers buy books, their belief that electronic media should cost less—that something you can’t hold simply isn’t worth as much money—will exert a powerful force.”

I thought about this statement and how I held this belief too. I know you can hold an e-reader but there is just something about turning a page and the smell of a book that is more impressive and dear to my heart than holding a larger version of an iPhone or e-reader.

I thought the ideas presented in this article were interesting. It got me thinking about how one day in the future, my students might be more familiar with their e-readers than a physical book. I will most likely one day in the future have to adapt to this technology. Yet, e-readers are putting a damper on my dream office. I find a bookshelf filled with books to be more appealing and impressive than a “playlist” of books. No matter what, I think I will always like walking around a bookstore for hours on end, looking for new books, more than sitting in front of a computer, staring at a screen.

FOOT: In preparation for Fashion Week Cleveland

The other day, I met with Donald, the head of Fashion Week Cleveland. He invited me to come look at the space where the actual even will be held. We visited The Western Reserve Historical Society where we walked around and looked at the space and where everything would be stationed. More specifically we walked around the Crawford Auto and Aviation museum. I had never been to the museum before so I found it very interesting. My original idea was to incorporate literature into my designs, but after walking around the venue I am toying around the idea of vintage cars and dresses.

I'm still unsure about what direction I want to go in. I think it is a great idea to take students to museums and expose them to learning outside the classroom. I know when I was younger, we had scavanger hunts planned by our teacher at the Natural History Museum.

If anyone was interested in going to Fashion Week Cleveland (Yes, I know it's expensive) you can find information about the event and after party HERE.

These are two of my dresses (and part of my duct tape wedding dress in the background) at last year's Fashion Week Cleveland

FOOT: Make-up assignment

I have learned a lot so far this semester that will impact my future classroom teaching. I would really like to incorporate what I have learned about myself in my multigenre autobiography in my future teaching. One activity I would like to conduct in my classroom would be based off my interest in the nerd core rapper MC Lars. Since he raps about some literary texts, I would like to design a video project dealing with this idea. I would like to have my students take a text that we covered in the school year, perhaps a poem or novel, and have the students create a song or rap that covers what happened in the text and present it in a new way. It would be ideal if I could then get the students to create music videos to go with it. First, I would have them listen to some of MC Lars’ songs such as “Mr. Raven”, “Hey There Ophelia”, or “Ahab” to show them what I am looking for. Then at the end of the project, I would like to have the students show their music videos to the class and have the students hold a pseudo-Grammy awards ceremony.

In addition, all of the readings that we have discussed this semester will shape my future teaching. I would really like to use some the activities from Dr. Kist’s book at the beginning of the semester as icebreakers. I would also like to use the idea of a multigenre autobiography in my classroom but change it up a little. I would like to have the students work in groups and have each group cover a different type of text that has influenced them. For example, Group 1 would cover books, Group 2 covers TV, Group 3 cover Movies, etc. and then at the end of each week for the first x amount of weeks we would cover one presentation a week. I would like to include a writing segment with this exercise as well where everyone writes a reflection essay to end the presentations. I also have learned how to incorporate more forms of technology and different types of texts into the classroom. Everywhere I turn and I see something on the news, hear a new song, or look at a new website, I think to myself if I could use this as a teacher. If so, then how would I use it? I have gotten paranoid about using my EZ pass on the turnpike because of Little Brother. I also think that Little Brother might be something to use in class if I were teaching a unit on technology in literature.

Here is a video I found of Cory Doctorow, the beginning has a little bit of sketchy material when he talks about the "intimacy kit"