Have you ever felt like a baby?

Last weekend, my roommate (Kim) and I went to Niagara Falls for the Crossing Borders conference! This conference focused on Canada and the United States (not "America," I learned, because we are both technically America) and their similarities and differences. 

Since Kim and I are both Secondary English Education majors, we wanted to pick something along the lines of literature for our presentation.  However, we thought it was kind of lame to pick two novels, one from the US and one from Canada, and compare and contrast them (plus, that would take a long time and we've been really busy lately).  So, while I was in the shower a few weeks ago, I had the brilliant idea of taking two Native American legends, one from the US and one from Canada, and comparing and contrasting them in relation to the tribe's history and culture and such.  Legends are the basis of literature, and the indigenous peoples are the basis of our countries, so it seemed fitting.

Our presentation turned out pretty well and I was proud of our work. We confidently packed our bags and headed to Niagara Falls, arriving at the reception site forty-five minutes late due to heavy traffic in Buffalo. 

Once we got there, we mingled with some of our fellow presenters, and we soon realized that we were the only freshmen there.  More specifically, we were the only non-senior/non-graduate level/non-Canadian-Studies-degree-holding presenters!  We were intimidated and went back to our hotel room to tweak our presentation a tad.

The next day went without a hitch.  We watched fantastic presentations on everything, from the eutrophication of Lake Erie to the police force on the  Haudenosaunee reservation!  Kim and I did our presentation and we received a lot of compliments.  It was a unique experience, and now that I have one conference under my belt, I'm excited to do more in the future.  Overall, the conference went well, even though we were the only youngsters presenting.

And then we switched to tourist mode!  I got to see the falls for the first time!! It was so much fun, and I am glad I had the opportunity to take this trip.

Two of the organizers on the conference on the end, and all of the lovely presenters from Edinboro in the middle!

Roomies :)

Seeing the falls for the first time was amazing!!

The group! Including our advisor, Dr. Kinch



Purple!

Top Ten Coolest Tools for Schools

After much deliberation, I have selected my top ten tools from my SEDU183's classroom's blogs.

10. Pinterest. While I enjoy using Pinterest to waste my time, I think it is very limited in the classroom.  However, it can be beneficial for elementary school teachers to use in order to find crafts for their students.
9. HyperPhysics.  I've never taken a physics class, but from what I hear, it can be difficult.  This is a good resource for students who may have trouble with that subject.
8. Animoto.  I think this tool has more of a purpose outside of the classroom, but I can see how it has some redeeming qualities.  It can be used by students to make projects more flashy.
7. Wicked.  I'm not a science teacher, so this website doesn't have any personal use, but I can see how it would be beneficial for science teachers.  It allows students to have a hands-on portion to their learning.
6. LeeSummit.  Once again, I don't think I would be able to use this resource, but it seems like a great tool for elementary educators.
5. WikiSpaces.  This is useful to teachers of all levels, and allows parents to become involved in the classroom as well.
4. Virtual Book.  This is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom, but also encourage students to read.
3. High School English. This is a tool I can use!!  This is an extremely beneficial resources for students as well as English educators. 
2. Student Publishing.  This is so cool!  It's a website that allows students to publish their own books!  This is a great motivator for students, and can be used in a variety of ways!
1. Super Teacher Tools.  This website has it all!  It has everything from review game generators to seating chart layouts!  This tool gets my number one spot because it can be beneficial to all educators at all levels.

Cool Tool for School!!

How many times have you been completely confused by the theme or tone of a poem, short story, or any other type of literature?  Sometimes it isn't easy to decipher what the author intended.  I've found an AWESOME tool for English teachers to use when teaching these lessons, and teachers of other subjects could definitely find this useful!

wordle.


Basically, wordle is a website that allows you to input text into a box, and produce an image.  The image features commonly used words in the passage--the bigger the word, the more frequently it is used.  This allows students to directly see which words are used the most, and based on these words, students can determine what the author's tone or theme is.

Let's try it out!

1. Go to wordle and click on "create"
2. In a separate tab, open Robert Frost's poem "The Flood"
3. Copy the poem's text and paste it into the large box on the "create" page of wordle
4. Hit "go"
5. Determine Frost's tone based on the words most frequently used

This excercise could be converted into any subject!  The fun of this tool is that students can then save their images to the wordle gallery, and then explore what their classmates created.

Endless Essays

Last week I was in the process of writing two papers for two different English classes: English 104 (Advanced Research Writing) and English 119 (Honors Creative Nonfiction).  In ENG104, we write technical essays with a specific audience and vehicle in mind, keeping most of our paper informative.  On the otherhand, in ENG119, we write highly creative and literary pieces of nonfiction based on a "nugget of truth."  It's obvious that there are many genres within English, but I never truly understood how many genres of essays there were.

For ENG104, we had to collect data through surveys, observations, experiments, and interviews.  Our essay would answer a research question, and we could only use data collected by our first-hand research in to answer the question.  Since I had to do all the data gathering myself, I chose something local and potentially interesting for my question: is the library an effective resource for students?  I hypothesized that the answer would be yes, but I was wrong. 

While I was in the process of gathering all of my data, my ENG119 professor assigned our second essay for that class, a biographical profile.  I decided to write my paper on Gustave Flaubert (the best author ever) and focus on a specific trip his family took when he was fourteen years old.  The whole purpose of the paper was to "focus on a kernel of drama," as my professor described it, in one person's life.  This proved to be a challenge.  I obviously wasn't there to experience Flaubert's trip, so I had to approximate a lot of occurrences, which was difficult and much unlike other essays I've written.

Both drafts were due on the same day.  That didn't seem to be a problem until I began mixing the two very different styles.  My introduction for my ENG104 paper was too fluffy and literary, and some passages in my ENG119 paper began to sound factual.  I had never taken two totally different English classes at the same time, and the polar opposite nature of the genres was beginning to take a toll on my essays.  I began to understand that not only was the definition of "English" broad, but also "essay."  There isn't a set-in-stone format for essays, and such papers can cover a broad variety of ideas and topics.

At first, this caused me to stress about all the unknowns in the field I'm pursuing.  But after thinking about it, knowing that there is a never-ending variety of ways to write excites me.  It's impossible to get bored with writing because there are a million ways to write an essay, not to mention another trillion ways to write other genres of English.  These two classes allow me to excercise two very different talents--acedemic and literary writing--and have made me a better technical and creative writer.

If you want to read my essays, here is my ENG104 essay, and here is my ENG119 essay!!