Jara's Blog

Morphology Article

Jara Griffin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:34:34 +0000

I am one of those rare nerdy students that love etymology. I think it’s fascinating to learn where words come from, why they mean what they mean, how certain parts of words make it different parts of speech, and the list goes on. One of my favorite things is figuring out where the words come from based on their root words. I took Latin in high school and treasured those moments when, looking at a Latin word, I went “oh! that’s where our word comes from!” I think many children find that fascinating as well which is why I’m glad the article included root words from Latin and Greek derivations.

I thought it was interesting how the article mentioned that some people thought that an effective way to teach vocabulary was through explicit instruction. I agree with the other group of individuals who think that vocabulary needs to be taught meaningfully through relevant text choices. I also think it is important to teach students the strategies to learn. I feel that many teachers hold information such as strategy from their students. Growing up, I often felt that my teachers had some hidden knowledge for how to do what they do and that I wasn’t entitled to that knowledge because it was just for teachers so that they had something over us. However, it’s my job as a teacher to create my students into active learners. I’m not there to impart some fabulous higher knowledge into their spongy brains; I’m there to facilitate their learning. Without teaching them these strategies, they become mindless robots to simply memorize and regurgitate what I’ve told them.

I like that the article included a chart of high, medium, and low frequency morphemes for prefixes and suffixes…and those pre- and suffix meanings. I had never seen one of those charts before but it lays the information out in a useful manner that is easy to read. The suffixes that change the words’ parts of speech reminded me of the School House Rock song for adverbs which harmonizes that you can even make adjectives out of other parts of speech by adding an ending like -ick, or -ish, or -il. I never realized there was a name for those types of endings: derivational morphemes. So cool!

Poetry Response

Jara Griffin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:06:30 +0000

The first poem book I read from our selection was all the small poems. All in all. I did not enjoy this collection of poems. To me, most of them seemed merely descriptive and mundane. I was unsure how deep I should have been interpreting the poems. A few did make me chuckle, though, in their simplicity. Two in particular have stuck with me: “safety pin” on page 48 and “flamingo” on page 64. I enjoyed “safety pin” because of the sharp contrast between the two stanzas describing a safety pin closed and open respectively. “flamingo” humored me through the two photos accompanying the descriptive poem of a pondering flamingo.

I absolutely adored Love that Dog. I feel this book really encompasses a child’s reluctance to poetry, especially a male child, while emphasizing free verse poetry as actual poetry. Many students enter a poetry unit with the assumption that all poems must rhyme when this is not the case. I also savored the narrator’s growth in writing his poetry as well as confidence in himself as a writer. It also became rather difficult not to share the narrator’s exuberance at Walter Dean Myers’ visit as well as his obvious reluctance and melancholy towards his dead pet dog.

The Brown Angels poetry collection was inspiring. The way Walter Dean Myers describes the photos and the lives of the subjects is intensely heartfelt. The words Myers uses sucked me into the short stories they poems paint. The words also flow off my tongue in an astoundingly beautiful way. It’s no wonder Sharon Creech chose to her her narrator focus on Myers poem, “Love that Boy.”

Notebook Know How p. 15-34

Jara Griffin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:02:38 +0000

This selection of pages enlightened me into some different strategies used for getting students to write. Even though I hate highlighting, my favorite two strategies (because they go together) are Rereading/Highlighting and Lifting a Line. Many time, we as writers will write things within context that are rather profound, rise questions, or have another meaning. It’s only possible to find those moments by rereading and pulling that line back up much like Christopher in the chapter did. As Buckner states, it allows students to get to the point of the story the line comes from with the student able to take the narrative in a new direction.

I was confused about where the folded over pages came from. It seems like it came from out of left field. Why are students folding over pages? They know the teacher will see them. When Buckner wrote that I had to take a step back and reread the section to make sure I didn’t miss something.

The History of “Jara”

Jara Griffin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:14:10 +0000

My name is one of my absolute favorite parts about what makes me, me. When my parents decided to have children, they agreed that my mom would pick out the first names and my dad would pick out the middle names. Mom decided to create a pattern with her children’s names. They all will start with the letter “j” and will descend in number of letters. She began with Joshua, a “j” and six letters. Five years later, Jason came with a “j” and five letters. Then came me. A girl’s name with four letters?? What could it be? Jane? No…that wouldn’t work. But Mom had some help. While she was pregnant with me, she was reading a contemporary romance novel. The heroine of the story was married to a man named Jared but he died while she was pregnant. She went into labor in a taxi and the cabbie helped get her to the hospital and stayed with her while she gave birth to a little girl. The cabbie’s name was Steven. In order to honor both men, the heroine named her baby girl Jara Stephanie. Mom immediately fell in love with the name therefore some odd months later, when she gave birth to her youngest child and only girl, she declared the girl’s name to be Jara. It is not a common name, people pronounce it incorrectly all the time, but I think Mom did a stupendous job picking out my name because its uniqueness embodies who I am.

Notebook Know How/HOT Blogging

Jara Griffin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:46:50 +0000

I have never been a fan of keeping a journal. For some reason, I just could not keep up with it. However, I know the importance of writing for students. I like in Notebook Know How how the author gives us ideas to jump start students writing in their journal. I found her comment on getting them to start their own writing instead of doing it for them especially thought-provoking. Something I also think is important is the modeling. If students have not been through this process, or any process, before then they do not know how to accomplish the task without first being shown how. Letting them watch you struggle is key though because that’s how writing works; it doesn’t just flow from the brain to the hand to the paper; writing is work. One thing I was not aware of was the similarities between reading fluency and writing fluency. It never occurred to me that students should be fluent in writing which includes getting their thoughts on page in a timely manner. I also adore the concept of word graveyards. I know I struggled with finding new words to use and the thesaurus quickly became my friend.

As for HOT Blogging, I found this article to be worthwhile because I am also not much of a blogger. One comment that really stood out to me was the one about students bringing to class what their classmates posted. I think it is important to hear what others have to say and not just yourself. You already know what you think about it but how can there be a discussion if you don’t know what others think about the topic. Another aspect that jumped out at me while reading is how enthusiastic Stephanie’s students were about blogging and it occurred to me that while technology is a huge part of today’s young generation, at their age it is still a novel concept. Given many venues to display work, ask questions, and respond to text excites students because they are able to make something their own that can be shared with many people instead of just the teacher. I think this allows for students to develop their higher order thinking skills because they are able to think about their response without the stress of doing so in front of the class and type it out instead of speaking in front of everywhere. Also, because their response has already been created, they won’t stumble over what they’re going to say in class and can speak confidently when the discussion moves to the classroom.