I have enjoyed this semester so far.  I am enjoying working with the fourth grade children at Apache Elementary School.  I am enjoying the field trips, and I enjoyed performing Chautauqua.  I am not only enjoying the experiences, but am also learning quite a bit. 

                It has been good for me to work with children in creating stories.  Last semester in my Children’s Literature class I felt that I had not taken enough time with the students to get to know them and build relationships.  So this semester I created a game that we can play at the beginning of each session to get to know each other as well as teach concepts about story telling.  The game has been helpful, I think, in helping the students to open up to me, and I have been able to learn things about them that help us while we are working on their stories. 

It has been a challenge for me to help the students tell their stories in their own words so that it makes sense, without me taking over, or putting it in my own language.  I also see that I need to go back and read some of the texts from my reading method books for ideas. There are times that I recognize that something is wrong with the way they have phrased a sentence or idea, but I have a hard time communicating what is wrong and how to fix it.  I need to do more research.

The field trips have been good.  I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to see, and visit places in our community that I would not do on my own.  It has also been good to associate with my peers in different situations.  I have felt that some places have been more conducive to classroom discussion, such as The Indian Cultural Center, and Sycamore Community Center. Others were distracting, such as the Nature Center and Cold stone Creamery.  I still learned and I enjoyed the time there, but the atmosphere in both places was more relaxing and I think harder for the instructor to accomplish the objectives for the day.  So what I have taken from this experience is that there is nothing wrong with going and doing, but I as a teacher need to recognize that different settings create different atmospheres and reactions from students and so if I am aware of that, I can adjust my objectives and expectations to make the experience beneficial for all. 

The Chautauqua performance was good for me.  At first I had a hard time deciding what story to tell, but the theme of this class is working with culturally diverse students and so as I looked to my life to see experiences that I personally have had. I realized the story of my grandmother adopting my aunt; Grandma was a white woman, Aunt Roberta is of Mexican heritage.  As I wrote down the story and began to work on it I was forced to think about the issues involved in this experience, what feelings, prejudices and ideas were here.  I then began to see how powerful story telling can be, and especially telling personal stories.  I don’t know that the children we are working with will learn anymore than just how to tell a story well, but at some point I hope that the story will help them learn about themselves and about others around them, and help them to begin to look through other people’s eyes.

I have enjoyed using my webpage this semester.  I took some of what I learned last semester and have changed this webpage.  I add information from oldest to newest postings, which makes it easier to read I think, and I have added more pictures. The other thing I was going to do was add a place for others to comment and respond to my postings.  I have not done that yet, mostly because I have not seen the need for it, but I may still do it. 

The only real concern I have with this class is doing the chapter presentations, and book talks.  We each have been assigned a chapter to read and present to the class.  It keeps getting pushed back because we run out of time because of debriefing or the fieldtrip presentations go long.  This is a two edged sword for me, because on the one hand the discussions and activities that we do which causes the postponement is valuable to me, and it would bother me to have to quit and move on to the presentations.  However, on the other hand each student has put time and effort into preparing the presentations and by constantly pushing it back it gives the impression that their work is not important, and by the time they do present it isn’t as affective as it could be.

 I notice that we won’t be able to meet with the Apache students while testing is taking place and so perhaps the presentations, and book talks should be scheduled for that time, so that we can take advantage of our time together to concentrate on the Chautauqua work.   

I believe that I deserve an A so far.  I have participated in all the assignments.  I am keeping up with my webpage postings.  I am participating in discussions, and I am learning.