Friday, January 27, 2012

Blog 2

I read over my classmate’s blogs this past week and I really enjoyed getting to know them a little bit better.  When it came to talking about the syllabus, I saw that a couple of people and myself seemed really psyched about the Elizabethtown Project.  When I read Kayla's blog she stated that she was confused about how the education majors at Elizabethtown were going to see our blogfolios.  For some reason I didn't think of that.  At all.  Also as I read Adrianne's blog I saw that she said that she is definitely not excited about teaching English because it is her worse subject.  I can definitely add to that.  English is my WORST subject.  I honestly am worried about teaching it.  It's just so many things about it that I am scared I might leave something out.

The "Writing to learn across the curriculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes" article is great.  As I read it and how it was talking about the differences between writing to learn and learning to write and the many strategies suggested helping students, review, summarize, and prepare for assignments.  It had me think about the CIR 407 class I took last semester where I learned about all the different types of strategies for comprehension.  A lot of the strategies listed in the article such as the guided writing procedure is a really good one.  Reading this article was very beneficial.  I truly enjoyed it.

During class, we watched the TED video.  I absolutely loved it!  He made sense of everything!  The two exercises that I tried were Savoring and Silence.  For savoring I listened to my dishwasher.  I wouldn't say that it was something worth 'savoring' but it was okay.  For silence, I tried it this morning when I got up.  I just laid in bed and zoned out.  I really liked that.  It actually helped me relax.  Just hearing complete silence let me rest and handle all of my thoughts without any disruptions.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Hello world!

Hello fellow classmates!!  As most of you know I am Alyssa Williams and I am so glad and excited to be in senior block!  


I am from the coast--Moss Point, MS and I can pretty much say I am a homebody.  Since I am away from home it is just my boyfriend and me so I guess that can be our excuse for always being at home.  I can stay at home and watch tv all day or read a book and be perfectly fine.  I am a reality show fanatic but also love the classics like I Love Lucy and also stand-up comedy.  Love it.  I just recently got a new puppy, her name is Reaux and she is the sweetest thing ever.  
Helping children and realizing that they are our future is what brought me to education.  My ideal grade is either Kindergarten or 1st grade.  The things that I am excited to teach are the foundations such as the alphabets and numbers.  Also if I were to teach a higher grade I would love to teach science.  To me that is the most interesting subject of all.  The content area that has me most nervous of all is math.  Math just isn't my niche.  There are so many ways and short cuts to get around math I would just be both nervous and concerned whether or not if I am teaching everything they should know.

After reading the syllabus for this class I was very excited.  I look forward to doing the assignments, especially the Elizabethtown Pennsylvania Project.  Having a "pen pal" that is also a preservice teacher would be awesome!  I like the fact that there are a lot of projects instead of the “usual work”.  Things like that keeps me engaged.  I look forward to getting started in this class.  I see that everything is going to be beneficial!