Jago Readings

I love reading Jago! She writes with such ease and some of her witty comments make me laugh out loud. I have found that I can read and understand her style of writing as the pages just keep turning and I get lost her amazing teaching ideas. I found myself highlighting like crazy! The Foreword was so inspiring. While I was reading it, I knew that this Carol Jago must be someone who is talented and passionate about teaching (characteristics I hope to excel at one day).

I especially like how Jago points out that standards can “create a ceiling for achievement” (xiii). We need to teach excellence beyond the standards. I also agreed with her idea about poetic education. On page 2, she perfectly summarized the way I feel about poetry. It is also clear that she agrees with our other readings from Newkirk and Atwell: poetry is not just for April! I look forward to hearing alot more from Jago.

Stacia

Jago Ch. 4

I agree with Krystina-this book is great, and Jago has great ideas.  I hope to implement her revising tehniques in my classroom.  While I was reading, I saw the word “crayon” and had to go back and read again.  It caught my attention like it caught her students’ attentions.  I feel that this technique would have been extremely beneficial for me as a student because I would visually see what I was doing wrong and what I had to fix.  Hopefully when I do this in my classroom, the students will learn from it and also find it interesting like I did.

 Alexis

Jago, chapter four

Dr. Stearns was right, I do very much enjoy reading Jago’s book!

I really like that she emphasized the importance of giving students positive feedback on their papers, and minimizing the negative. Jago writes: “Although a critical approach to teaching writing is meant to encourage excellence, it can sometimes discourage students forever…This does not mean kids should be praised for turning in drivel…I believe young writers learn as much from my pointing out a sentence that sings or a sharply supported point as they do from my teacherly complaints about split infinitives and faulty parallelism” (47). She makes it clear that she does not diefy only positive feedback, but realizes its helpfulness.  I’m sure that we can all remember several times when we got back a piece of writing that was riddled with teacher-red comments. I know that when I saw these markings, I felt awful, and when I got a paper with few markings, I felt GREAT.

Wouldn’t it be nice to recieve a paper full of teacher-red comments that were positive? If our students’ strengths are pointed out, they will play to them and try to repeat their good-doings.

 Krystina

Atwell Chapter 13

I picked this chapter to read because I am interested in what Atwell had to say about poetry.  I have always loved writing poetry, but I never read others’ idead about it.  However, I enjoyed what Atwell had to say and her ideas of how to teach poetry.  I really liked David Murray’s quotation about poems.  He said, “Poets remind us not to preach, but merely to reveal.” (422)  From reading poetry, we can gain an understanding of what the poet is discussing and how he feels about it.  As a poet, I believe that this is a great way to express myself.  I get to get my thoughts and emotions out in a creative way.  I am also excited to turn my snapshot into a poem and can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Alexis