Blog # 5

October 2, 2012

Dear Dr. Jones,

Reflecting back on how this class is going thus far in the semester, a few words come to mind: educational, helpful, and enjoyment! I have really enjoyed this class thus far. I really did not know what to expect coming into the my first semester as a grad student as well as one of my first electives. The course caught my attention from the name, I am not a great writing and at times I have difficulty reading. The fact that the course said Improving Reading through Writing incorporated both of the skills I wanted to improve on, it seemed to be a course that would not only help me as a student but also as a future teacher.

The other words I used to describe this class were helpful and educational. I am learning different techniques that are helping me as a student improve my reading. During one of our first classes we discussed using a found poem to help with comprehension of our text. This was a completely new take on a found poem for me, I had only used it with lyrics from a song never with a book. It opened my eyes to topics in the book that I seemed to have over looked, those little details that slip through the cracks when I read began popping out to me and giving me a better understanding of what I was reading. All the different techniques and skills being taught to me are really helping my writing and reading improve as a student. When we received our genre pieces project, I was not sure what to expect, however, I have learned so many different ways to work with the topic that I never expected to use. Through all the group/partner work we do in class I find myself learning with an open mind and accepting others ideas and welcoming change into my thoughts. 

I have never been much of a writing or a reading, after beginning this class I find myself writing more often, I found my passion for poetry again! I had never thought it would come back. Although recently I have been writing more, I don’t truly allow myself to think as much as  I could. My writing recently has been a therapeutic way of dealing with things. I don't believe there is really any reason why I am not choosing to engage in thinking much when I am writing. If I work on engaging my mind more in writing I feel it will improve the overall feel of my work. I feel it will add a more meaningful voice, I will get myself to dig deeper and push myself to use a more engaging voice. 

Many different activities that we have worked on in class have influenced the way I will teach in my future classroom. I really enjoyed learning about the different journal entries, and how to get students to think deeper in their writing. I also really like the card strategy activity, it really allowed me to see my thoughts from a different perspective and it allowed me to think deeper as to why I thought the way I did. Being exposed to writing a blog is also something that is new to me. It has allowed me to use technology more and think about using it in my future classroom. I like that I can view my classmates blogs and I can see how they feel about certain topics they choose to write about. Overall I feel this class has given me so much and I look forward to continued learning in this course throughout the semester! 

Sincerely, 
Jaimie