WS sections 50 and 51. How it will help with 3rd paper

                Writing Simplified sections 50 and 51 will help writers with the third formal paper because the paper is an argumentative essay. The material in sections 50 and 51 is all about writing an argument essay. In the sections it tells you a little about what an argument essay is. The reading also gives you guidelines of what to put in the paper. In the Writing Simplified reading it also gives you a few thesis statement examples. It shows you what a poor, mediocre, and good thesis statement looks like. This is important and can help with the third formal paper because in our paper we have to have a good strong thesis statement. Sections 50 and 51 in Writing Simplified can also help with the third formal paper because it gives a sample paragraph. Reading the sample helps give you an idea of what kind of things you put in argumentative paragraphs. The reading also gives an example argument essay. This is helpful because if you have never written an essay like this before it can help show you what one is supposed to look like.

Children, Arts, and Du Bois

                In my opinion, it is important for students to do a form of art while they are in school. Different forms of art that students could take can include poetry, lyricism, singing, visual arts, drama, dance, or anything else along those lines. I believe it is important for art to be an option at school because with art students can express how they are feeling which is very important. Maybe someone has trouble talking about their feelings, but is able to let it out through art. That would help them so they wouldn’t have to keep their feelings bottled up inside. Art also gives students the chance to be themselves. They can let others know more about them, express their feelings, or tell a story about what they are going through in life. They can do those by writing a poem or song, make a dance out of it, or draw a picture. Another way arts curricula could help students is because it gives their minds the opportunity to be free. Students can use their imagination. They can come up with stories to write about, a story to dance to, or draw pictures of a story. I think this could help because instead of having to just learn what is being taught in school, students can have time to learn about themselves and be creative.

"A Real Education"

                The article “A Real Education” by Barry Boyce is about Boyce’s opinion on using mindfulness to help students and teachers. I think Boyce’s idea might help students in K-12. Barry Boyce states, “Mindfulness practices can increase people’s awareness of their own emotions and their ability to regulate them. This can make it possible for them to reduce feelings of depression and anxiety.”  I believe it is important for people to be able to understand their emotions and to know how to cope with them especially if they are feeling sad or mad. I think it is good that mindfulness could help with reducing depression or anxiety because if a student is feeling depressed or anxious they might not pay much attention at school causing them to not get the education they need. Also, being able to be aware of your emotions could help with doing well in school because you might be able to get along with other classmates better or know how to avoid them when they make you feel a certain way. I think a student’s emotions play an important role in their education because if someone’s feeling mad or sad they are more likely to not pay attention compared to someone who is in a good mood feeling happy.

"Gift of Grit"

                I think “Gift of Grit” was an interesting little article to read. I think Paul Tough’s book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character sounds like it would be a decent book to read. In the article, Jerry Large states, “As the title says, if you want success, build character and the rest will follow.” Jerry Large also says, “If more parents hug and kiss and coo in those first years, we’d also have a lot more happy and successful children.” I agree with both of those statements. I think if you show your children that you care about them and show that you’re there for them when they are young they will always know that throughout their life. I think a child who has parents who show that they care would have a better chance at succeeding compared to a child whose parents don’t show that they care because the child whose parents care are there for them and will motivate them to do well. A child whose parents don’t show that they care might think since their parents don’t care about them then they don’t need to care either. I also agree with building character because without it no one would be themselves. If you have character you might not be as afraid of doing bad or failing. You would try and take chances.

"Waiting for Superman"

                I think the film “Waiting for Superman” was good. It was interesting to see what a few different families have to go through just to get a good education. I don’t think it’s right to have a good school basically be like a lottery. Seeing the families in the film waiting to hear their name or number be called was sad. Those families would get their hopes up of their child going to a good school only to be let down. I don’t think a family should have to go through that just to get a good education. In the film “Waiting for Superman” they mentioned, “Money has grown from 4,300 to over 9,000 dollars per student since 1971.” I don’t really understand why the cost per student has gone up over 4,500 dollars in 40 years. Also in the film someone states, “Failing neighborhoods could be blamed for failing schools.” I agree with that. I think if everyone was getting the good education they need then a lot more people would be graduating and the dropout rate would be lower. Also, if people got their diploma and went on to college they would have a better chance at getting a good job therefore there would be less crime, drugs, and less people relying on money from the state. Lastly, another thing mentioned in the film was about tenure allowing teachers to have their job for life even if they aren’t good teachers. Does this still apply today? I don’t think that’s right. If a teacher isn’t doing their job well they should get fired. Having bad teachers is only going to cause the drop out and graduation rate to increase.

Final 2nd Paper

What is a teacher? According to dictionary.com, “a teacher is a person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession.” Some people may wonder what makes a great teacher. According to Dan Brown, a teacher at the SEED Public Charter School, “Great teachers have strong relationships with their students’ families and engage in meaningful ways with the larger community.” There are many different kinds of teachers in the world. Some teachers are different than others because there are different subjects to be taught, many different teaching styles, some teachers have more knowledge in the subject they teach, and some show that they actually believe in their students. According to wisegeek.com, “the most common teaching styles are informal instruction, direct instruction, inquiry based learning, cooperative learning, and information strategies.” Teachers also have different forms of punishment for when their students act up, don’t follow directions, turn assignments in late, cheat on tests or quizzes, and for not arriving to class on time. Throughout your life you will encounter many different teachers. You will have a different opinion about each teacher but some of them might be similar to others. A major role a teacher can have in their students’ life is to inspire them to try and not to give up. Mr. Escalante from the movie Stand and Deliver and my tenth grade math teacher, Mrs. Johnson, both do a good job at helping and inspiring their students.  

            Mr. Escalante cares about and believes in his students. He shows that he cares and tries to inspire them to do well in school and to go on to college. Mr. Escalante teaches a math class at Garfield High School with students who don’t take school seriously because they have never had the motivation or encouragement to do well. He tries his best to change their outlook on education. Mr. Escalante takes the time to get to know his students. Once his students trust him and start looking up to him, they change their minds about learning and actually want to be in and try in class. In the movie it shows Mr. Escalante teaching his students before and after school and on the weekends for very little pay. It also shows him fighting to let his students retake the AP Calculus exam after they are being accused of cheating on it. When his students were accused of cheating they seemed to have lost some motivation. They didn’t want to spend as much time learning and studying but once they found out they were going to be able to retake it, they were interested in studying again. All of Mr. Escalante’s students passed the exam. Also, in the movie, it shows Mr. Escalante at Ana’s parents’ restaurant. She was going to drop out of school but he told her parents, “She’ll just get fat, waste her life away in your restaurant. You have to understand she’s a top student. Ana could go to college, come back, and teach you how to run this place.”  One thing I think his students learned from him is that if you really try you can succeed and not to give up. If a teacher didn’t believe in their students they wouldn’t go the extra distance to teach them or fight for them to have the opportunity to learn.
            My algebra teacher, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. Escalante are similar. She also believes in and encourages her students to do well and not to give up. Mrs. Johnson is willing to spend extra time with any of her students who are falling behind or struggling in class before and after school or during lunch just like Mr. Escalante would spend extra time with his students. They aren’t the only two teachers who spend extra time helping their students. In Mike Rose’s I Just Wanna Be Average, he states, “Macfarland occasionally invited us to his apartment. It was a time in which I absorbed an awful lot of information.” Mrs. Johnson tried her best to change her students’ attitude about not liking math. She would make math problems more fun and let her students work in groups. She also knew most of her students were worried about failing the state test, the WASL, at the end of the year since we weren’t learning geometry like most of the other sophomores. She would encourage and motivate us to study and do all our assignments because it would help us do better on the WASL. At the end of the year she knew some of her students didn’t pass the test and were pretty bummed about it so the following school year she would still encourage her old students to do well in their new math classes because she knew if we studied enough and kept up on all our work we would be able to pass the WASL. She never gave up on her students. She kept checking up on us the following school year even though we were no longer in her class. Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Escalante both do a good job at showing their students that they believe in them and teaching them to keep trying even if you are struggling or fail an exam.
            Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson also have some differences. One thing they don't have in common is their teaching styles. Mr. Escalante teaches informal instruction. He got to know his students and what was best for their learning capabilities. He also did some inquiry based learning. At one point in the movie, he cut up an apple, passed it out to his class, and asked them how much they had. Mrs. Johnson's teaching styles are inquiry based learning and cooperative learning. She has her students do problem solving and critical thinking while working in small groups. Another thing Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson don't have in common is the amount of knowledge they have in the subject they teach. Mr. Escalante was supposed to teach computer science, but the school didn't have the supplies for the class so he had to teach math instead. Unlike Mr. Escalante, Mrs. Johnson has the supplies needed to teach the subject she's well educated in. Lastly, another thing they do different is the way they punish their students. In the movie, Stand and Deliver, one of Mr. Escalante's students wasn't following directions or doing his work so he punished him by making him sit on a chair in front of the class so everyone could see him. If Mrs. Johnson's students aren't following directions or distracting the class, she sends them out in the hall. There are many different ways a teacher can punish their students.  In A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde tells us, “Sister MPH divides the class into two groups, the Fairies and the Brownies. I always wound up in the Brownies because I talked too much.” Even though Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson have some differences they both do a good job at inspiring their students.
            No matter how similar or different teachers are, they all play an important role in their students' lives. Without teachers we wouldn't be as educated about things as we are. According to Paolo Freire, “the more ‘containers’ a teacher ‘fills’ the better a teacher he is” but as you can see, Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson do a great job at educating their students without “filling” their “containers”. They actually give their students a chance to learn and give them extra help if needed. Students need to take their teachers more seriously because not everyone has a chance to go to school. Some people have to learn on their own. In “Learning to Read” Malcolm X states, “I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary- to study, to learn some words” because he was in prison and didn’t have the opportunity to learn like most other people.

 

 

Works Cited

 
 

Brown, Dan. “What makes a great teacher?”

 

Freire, Paolo. “’The Banking Concept of Education’ from Pedagogy of the Oppressed” 1970

 

Harris, Bronwyn, and O. Wallace. WiseGeek. Conjecture, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-different-teaching-methods.htm.

Lorde, Audre. “From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name”

Rose, Mike. “’I Just Wanna Be Average’ Part 2”

"Teacher." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/teacher?s=t.

X, Malcolm. “’Learning to Read’ excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X”

2nd Paper Rough Draft

            What is a teacher? According to dictionary.com, “a teacher is a person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession.” There are many different kinds of teachers in the world. Some teachers are different than others because there are different subjects to be taught, many different teaching styles, some teachers have more knowledge in the subject they teach, and some show that they actually believe in their students. According to wisegeek.com, “the most common teaching styles are informal instruction, direct instruction, inquiry based learning, cooperative learning, and information strategies.” Teachers also have different forms of punishment for when their students act up, don’t follow directions, turn assignments in late, cheat on tests or quizzes, and for not arriving to class on time. Throughout your life you will encounter many different teachers. You will have a different opinion about each teacher but some of them might be similar to others. One of the major roles a teacher can have in their students’ life is to inspire them to try and not to give up.

            Mr. Escalante from the movie Stand and Deliver cares about and believes in his students. He shows that he cares and tries to inspire them to do well in school and to go on to college. Mr. Escalante teaches a math class at Garfield High School with students who don’t take school seriously because they have never had the motivation or encouragement to do well. He tries his best to change their outlook on education. Mr. Escalante takes the time to get to know his students. Once his students trust him and start looking up to him, they change their minds about learning and actually want to be in and try in class. In the movie it shows Mr. Escalante teaching his students before and after schools and on the weekends for very little pay. It also shows him fighting to let his students retake the AP Calculus exam after they are being accused of cheating on it. When his students were accused of cheating they seemed to have lost some motivation. They didn’t want to spend as much time learning and studying but one they found out they were going to be able to retake it, they were interested in studying again. All of Mr. Escalante’s students passed the exam. Also, in the movie, it shows Mr. Escalante at Ana’s, a student in his class, parents’ restaurant. She was going to drop out of school but he told her parents, “She’ll just get fat, waste her life away in your restaurant. You have to understand she’s a top student. Ana could go to college, come back, and teach you how to run this place.” One thing I think his students learned from him is that if you really try you can succeed and not to give up. If a teacher didn’t believe in their students they wouldn’t go the extra distance to teach them or fight for them to have the opportunity to learn.
            My tenth grade math teacher, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. Escalante are similar. She also believes in and encourages her students to do well and not to give up. She is willing to spend extra time with any of her students who are falling behind or struggling in class before and after school or during lunch. I personally got to experience what it was like having a teacher believe in me just like how Mr. Escalante believed in his students. At the beginning of my sophomore year, Mrs. Johnson knew I wasn’t happy about having to retake algebra and she knew I thought I was going to fail the state test, the WASL, at the end of the year since I wasn’t learning geometry like most of the other sophomores. Mrs. Johnson would help me outside of class when I was struggling with what we were learning. She kept telling me, “Study and do all of your work and you will pass the class this year.” After keeping up on all my assignments and studying, I started doing really well in the class and was now one of her top students. Whenever we would have a substitute teacher she would write in the notes, “If students have any questions or need help have them ask Allie Stephens.” It was a great feeling knowing she believed I would be able to help my classmates while she was gone. That helped motivate me to keep doing well in the class. When the end of the year arrived, I didn’t pass my WASL test, but Mrs. Johnson told me, “If you keep up the good work next year, I know you will be able to pass the WASL.” She was right, I passed the WASL my junior year. All throughout the year she would check up on me to see how I was doing in math. Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Escalante both do a good job at showing their students that they believe in them and teaching them to keep trying even if you are struggling or fail an exam.
            Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson also have some differences. One thing they don't have in common is their teaching styles. Mr. Escalante teaches informal instruction. He got to know his students and what was best for their learning capabilities. He also did some inquiry based learning. At one point in the movie, he cut up an apple, passed it out to his class, and asked them how much they had. Mrs. Johnson's teaching styles are inquiry based learning and cooperative learning. She has her students do problem solving and critical thinking while working in small groups. Another thing Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson don't have in common is the amount of knowledge they have in the subject they teach. Mr. Escalante was suppose to teach computer science, but the school didn't have the supplies for the class so he had to teach math instead. Unlike Mr. Escalante, Mrs. Johnson has the supplies needed to teach the subject she's well educated in. Lastly, another thing they do different is the way they punish their students. In the movie, Stand and Deliver, one of Mr. Escalante's students wasn't following directions or doing his work so he punished him by making him sit on a chair infront of the class so everyone ould see him. If Mrs. Johnson's students aren't following directions or distracting the class, she sends them out in the hall.
            No matter how similar or different teachers are, they all play an important role in their students' lives. Without teachers we wouldn't be as educated about things as we are. As you can see, Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson have some things in common and even though they have some differences they both do a great job at inspiring their students not to give up.

Works Cited

Harris, Bronwyn, and O. Wallace. WiseGeek. Conjecture, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-different-teaching-methods.htm.

IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094027/quotes.

"Teacher." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/teacher?s=t.

2nd Paper

            What is a teacher? According to dictionary.com, “a teacher is a person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession.” There are many different kinds of teachers in the world. Some teachers are different than others because there are different subjects to be taught, many different teaching styles, some teachers have more knowledge in the subject they teach, and some show that they actually believe in their students. According to wisegeek.com, “the most common teaching styles are informal instruction, direct instruction, inquiry based learning, cooperative learning, and information strategies.” Teachers also have different forms of punishment for when their students act up, don’t follow directions, turn assignments in late, cheat on tests or quizzes, and for not arriving to class on time. Throughout your life you will encounter many different teachers. You will have a different opinion about each teacher but some of them might be similar to others. One of the major roles a teacher can have in their students’ life is to inspire them to try and not to give up.

            Mr. Escalante from the movie Stand and Deliver cares about and believes in his students. He shows that he cares and tries to inspire them to do well in school and to go on to college. Mr. Escalante teaches a math class at Garfield High School with students who don’t take school seriously because they have never had the motivation or encouragement to do well. He tries his best to change their outlook on education. Mr. Escalante takes the time to get to know his students. Once his students trust him and start looking up to him, they change their minds about learning and actually want to be in and try in class. In the movie it shows Mr. Escalante teaching his students before and after schools and on the weekends for very little pay. It also shows him fighting to let his students retake the AP Calculus exam after they are being accused of cheating on it. When his students were accused of cheating they seemed to have lost some motivation. They didn’t want to spend as much time learning and studying but one they found out they were going to be able to retake it, they were interested in studying again. All of Mr. Escalante’s students passed the exam. Also, in the movie, it shows Mr. Escalante at Ana’s, a student in his class, parents’ restaurant. She was going to drop out of school but he told her parents, “She’ll just get fat, waste her life away in your restaurant. You have to understand she’s a top student. Ana could go to college, come back, and teach you how to run this place.” One thing I think his students learned from him is that if you really try you can succeed and not to give up. If a teacher didn’t believe in their students they wouldn’t go the extra distance to teach them or fight for them to have the opportunity to learn.
            My tenth grade math teacher, Mrs. Johnson, and Mr. Escalante are similar. She also believes in and encourages her students to do well and not to give up. She is willing to spend extra time with any of her students who are falling behind or struggling in class before and after school or during lunch. I personally got to experience what it was like having a teacher believe in me just like how Mr. Escalante believed in his students. At the beginning of my sophomore year, Mrs. Johnson knew I wasn’t happy about having to retake algebra and she knew I thought I was going to fail the state test, the WASL, at the end of the year since I wasn’t learning geometry like most of the other sophomores. Mrs. Johnson would help me outside of class when I was struggling with what we were learning. She kept telling me, “Study and do all of your work and you will pass the class this year.” After keeping up on all my assignments and studying, I started doing really well in the class and was now one of her top students. Whenever we would have a substitute teacher she would write in the notes, “If students have any questions or need help have them ask Allie Stephens.” It was a great feeling knowing she believed I would be able to help my classmates while she was gone. That helped motivate me to keep doing well in the class. When the end of the year arrived, I didn’t pass my WASL test, but Mrs. Johnson told me, “If you keep up the good work next year, I know you will be able to pass the WASL.” She was right, I passed the WASL my junior year. All throughout the year she would check up on me to see how I was doing in math. Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Escalante both do a good job at showing their students that they believe in them and teaching them to keep trying even if you are struggling or fail an exam.

Increase in Standardized Testing. Freire.

            What I understand from Paolo Freire’s story, “The Banking Concept of Education” is that teachers just fill their students minds with the things they want them to learn. According to Freire, teachers have their students, “record, memorize, and repeat” the things being taught without letting them actually realize the true meanings of what’s being taught. Paolo Freire compares students to containers being filled. The more a teacher has filled their containers, the smarter their students are. I think Paolo Freire thinks teachers only let their students learn what they are teaching about and they don’t give them the chance to extend their knowledge. I think Paolo Freire likes the problem-posing method better than the banking education because it gives students the chance to actually extend their knowledge and learn without a teacher telling them things and having to just memorize it. This helps students with real life problems because in reality someone isn’t telling you how to solve every problem in the world so it helps them learn how to think of solutions to solve real life problems. I don’t think Freire would like the increase in standardized testing because it is just testing the knowledge of students and if their teachers are just telling them what to memorize without actually giving them the chance to learn it then they aren’t really learning much.

Comparing in class assignment

Doesn’t everyone enjoy a good apple or orange?  They’re nutritious, juicy, tasty - having similar growing qualities.  Don’t the two words just seem to make your salivary glands go wild?  All in all, I think they have more similarities than differences.  Don’t you?    

Both Apples and Oranges are tremendously nutritious. Stocked full of Vitamin C these fruits are very beneficial to a person’s health. Vitamin C is a chemical compound and according to LiveStrong.com, vitamin C assists in healing wounds and helps prevent infections in a person’s body (“Benefits of Oranges”). Both of these great fruits also help improve cardiovascular health due to the rich amounts of vitamin C they contain.

Both apples and oranges owe their large amounts of vitamin C to the fact that they grow on trees. In fact, their trees are very closely genetically related. According to resident apple tree expert bitbutter www, “Given enough generations of geneticists to tend for the trees, with enough resources at their disposal, I believe it’d be possible to create a descendant of an apple tree that was very similar to orange trees as we currently know...” Also, both types of trees are grown by humans in orchards, and their respective fruits are cultivated by similar methods.

Those methods both the same result a delicious and juicy fruit. Oranges are juicier than apples when you bite into them but they both make great tasting juice. Depending on what you like to eat you might not fancy them.  Because they are sweet, therefore many people think they are also delicious. According to greenfreshgiant.com “oranges are loved by adults and kids alike.”

Apples and oranges are extremely delicious and similar. PhDs have said so, the prime example being James E Barone, surgeon in chief of Stamford Hospital Connecticut. He said in the British Medical Journal of 2000 that “A striking and heretofore unappreciated similarity was noted. In only one category, that of “involvement of Johnny Appleseed,” was a statistically significant difference between the two fruits found.”  With all the similarities in the methods of production, they do in fact ‘grow on trees’, even though they aren’t free. Then all the similarities of taste, and nutrition the similarities far outweigh the differences. Which while they exist are clearly less important than the similarities.

Works Cited

Barone, J. E. "Comparing Apples and Oranges: A Randomised Prospective Study." Bmj 321.7276 (2000): 1569-570. Print.

"Ask The Atheists." Can an Apple Tree Evolve into an Orange Tree? N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.asktheatheists.com/questions/1087-can-an-apple-tree-evolve-into-an-orange/>

Best Health. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.besthealthmag.ca/eat-well/nutrition/15-health-benefits-of-eating-apples>.

Dittrich, Lisa. "Benefits of Oranges." LIVESTRONG.COM. N.p., 28 Sept. 2010. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.livestrong.com/article/253078-benefits-of-oranges/>. "Health Benefits of Eating Apples."

"Oranges | Green Giant Fresh US." Oranges | Green Giant Fresh US. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.greengiantfresh.com/fresh-fruit/oranges>.

Oranges and Apples

Oranges and apples are both juicy and taste good. Oranges are juicier than apples when you bite into them because of all the water they take in but they both make great tasting juice. Depending on what you like to eat you might not like them. They are sweet but many people think they are both delicious.