Bright Ideas Conference

April 12, 2008

This is the first conference that I have ever attended and I must say that I did enjoy my experience. When the group that I decided to go with started planning on going to this conference I did not know what to think. I had no expectations and I thought that we were going to some other school that we would not know anyone. I was totally wrong when I got there.

When we walked into the building, it was so quiet. If we never saw the sign we would have never figured out where to go. We already thought that we were late, but we were right on schedule. The check-in was easy, the people weren’t too friendly, but maybe that was because it was so early in the morning and all these different people were so excited. After check-in we notice that people start coming out of this room and that is when I notice all the people that were from Western. I didn’t feel like we were the only ones there anymore. It was nice seeing familiar faces, because it gave me a chance to tear away from my group.

I love the schedule they gave in the folder with all the sessions, I felt organized and structured. I also felt that they gave us enough time in between each session to decide were we wanted to go next. The first session that I decided to go to was the about incorporating Multi-cultural voices in the classroom to relate to the students lives. It was great. The lady was so personable and I felt that she had character, which made it easy for me to relate to her. I thought that we were going to end up going into these sessions and these people were going to be all stuffy and boring, but this lady wasn’t. She was so laidback and fun.

I did an activity in this session. We had to get into a group and read from this book called, The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koetge. Our group had a chosen character named Lester and we just read all his journal entries about his schooling and life experiences. It was rather interesting. Then we answered some questions about the things we found out from the readings and then had a group discussion. It was nice to learn the connection between the characters in the book and the presenter told us about how we could use these in our classrooms. I loved this session, because it made me think about what I want from my students and how I want to be able to connect to my students and from my students to make connections in reading literature. The presenter gave us a handout of all these different Multi-cultural voice books and I was very pleased. I love getting book list, that will expand my book collection.

Another interesting thing that I found is that the she had work in an Alternative school and I started to think to myself that I could see myself working in an Alternative school because I think you have more say in what you can teach.

After the second session, which I did not enjoy as much, we had lunch. Lunch was wonderful. I love sandwiches and this was very fulfilling. Me and one of the others girl had been talking about lunch on the way up to the conference and we were criticizing it, saying that it was probably going to be skimpy, but we were wrong. We both enjoyed our lunch.

Overall I did enjoy the conference. It was very comfortable and laid back. A lot of students were in jeans and tennis shoes and I wasn’t expecting that. I thought that it was going to be very structured and boring, but I did have a good time. I thought that the sessions were very hit and miss, you get one extremely good one and then the others just did not turn out well, but I’m happy that I went and got to get to experience this experience. I was especially happy to see all the familiar faces from classes that I have and friends that are in the same major as me.

Presenting Image Grammar

WOW!!!! THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN. Ashley idea about doing a French theme for our group really worked out well. I was very happy how our first day of presenting went well.

Being in front of the class and teaching, brings back all the reason that I love to teach. I love to have a good time with students. Even though these where my classmates, I love the rush that get.

I love the way Image Grammar's chapters flow together. How they all intertwine with each other and build off of one another. I thought that we looked and sounded great. When we first came into this project, I was thinking to myself, "How in the world are we going to teach for a whole hour and fifty minutes on this book." But it worked, actually it wasn't enough time. There is so much information in Harry Nodens' Image Grammar, I wish we had more time. I was also scared that our classmates would not be interested in our topic, because its about grammar and it is kind of complex. But I'm glad that our classmates where engaged in our topics and seem to be interested.

I had fun. I didn't think that I was going to be all that excited about presenting, but I was. Group projects don't usually work well with me, but this was interesting and I learned stuff. I'm happy that I was in the group that I was in and I absolutely loved presenting my information today.... IT WAS MAGNIFIC!

Poetry Group

It always amazes me how many forms of poetry are out there. When this group was schedule to go, I fought with myself, because I do have this grudge about against poetry, so I wasn't sure about how much information I was going to be willing to take in.

I know I said this in class already, but whenever I think about writing poetry, I get so uneasy, because I feel that I poetry is too complex. I feel that poetry should not be analyzed, because it is so complex only the author knows its true meaning. When writing poetry I feel that no one will understand where I am coming from, know one will get it. I must admit that I am intimidated by poetry. But I also have to admit that the different kinds of poetry that this group brought to the table made it rather interesting.

I love how we got to cut up magazines. I felt like I was back in grade school, doing arts and crafts. I was excited about the glue, the scissors and the construction paper. I love the idea of cutting out letters from magazines and forming words to make to poetry. At first when we started I thought I wouldn't be into it, but I found myself really intrigued and anxious to get some good words. I can see high school students really getting into it. And as a teacher, this form of teaching poetry, also makes it exciting for myself.

I also like the list poem. I think I'm a pretty intense poem and I was really feeling this. Overall this group made me realize that I need to stop saying that I hate poetry, because in reality once I get pass the rhyming and the analyzing, its pretty fun. Great job!