MGP Expository

For my MGP topic, I chose to teach kindergarteners on the importance of national holidays. For my expository part of my project, I want to talk to the students about how they celebrate Independence. I thought about having the students color or draw pictures of what they do to celebrate. Then we would have a class discussion where they would show the other students what they drew and talk about it.

Stilleto Stoners

When we watched the clip about how there is an increasing number of young, succesful women that are smoking weed shocked me. Personally, it is against my moral beliefs to take illegal drugs. However, I know that there are many people that experiment with illegal substances. I do not think legallizing the drug will benefit anyone, in fact, I believe that will increase in the amount of drugs that will be abused. The video stated that the women that chose to smoke after work, because it brings relaxation and de-stresses them. I believe that there are safer and smarter ways to relax and get away from the daily pressures of the everyday life.

Narrative Stories

Narrative stories are stories that are written that consist of characters, settings, conflicts, and resolution. They are told to serve a purpose from the author, normally to tell the author's opinion on a subject or an experience that the author went through. The story can be true or fiction. The characters make up the people in the story, who do the conflicts and resoluting in the story. The setting is where and when the story takes place. The conflict is a situation that arises in the story, when there is the most tension or when there is a problem. It is the turning point in the story. The resolution is what happens after the conflict. It is the answer to the problem. It is normally the conclusion to the story. When you combine all of these elements together, it creates a clear and descriptive story with details that is shared with the audience.

Narrative

My topic is designed to teach the students the importance of national holidays and why we celebrate them. For my narrative story, I decided to create a fictional story to try to explain some of these reasons.

It was the 4th of July and Tommy and his grandpa were going into the town to go watch the parade and the fireworks. This is something that Tommy and his family did every year. He had so much fun at the parade and loved seeing the fireworks. He wondered though, why they did this. So he asked his grandpa, "Grandpa, why do we come out here every year and do this?" His grandpa said, "to celebrate Independence Day, Tommy."

"What's Independence Day?" asked Tommy.

So Tommy's grandpa told him, " Well Tommy, a long time ago, the pilgrims came over the ocean to a new land and settled there. After they had been here for a while, the King of England, from where they moved from, decided that since they were getting all of their supplies from England, that Englad should just go over there and make it a part of their country."

"The people that lived on the new land didnt like this at all. See, the reason why they left was because they didn't like living under the King's rules. So, they decided to get his army to come over to the new land to fight the people into giving in. The Americans decided to build up their own army and fight back."

"The war lasted a long time and the soldiers fought hard and long. Many of the soldiers died fighting for this country's freedom. In the end though, it was worth it because the new land soldiers won the war!"

"After this, they decided to make the new land into a whole new country. They created a document that united and protected everyone in the new country called the Declaration of Independence. On the day this paper was signed, began the first day of the new country of the Unites States of America."

"We celebrate this day to remember all of the fallen soldiers and to celebrate us becoming a new country," he explained.

"Oh, I get it! It is kind of like America's birthday, right grandpa?" asked Tommy.

"Right," said his grandpa and they went onto the fron row to watch the parade, with a new appreciation of the holiday.

Memories..

Today in class we talked about five memories from our past. I talked a lot about the funny memory about my father and his rollerskates,but I am going to elaborate more on the warm memory. Growing up with a dozen or so cousins, it was always a packed house, especially around the holidays. We were always getting into something or another, good and bad. When Christmas came around, we always know what room the presents were hidden in, so my grandparents gave us a "gift" when we were young. They gave all of the grandkids a ribbon with a bell on it that we would wear around our necks. Everywhere we went, they would know because they could hear the bell ringing. Those things got me in so much trouble back in the day. When I went away for college, I felt as if things woud be different when I went home for the holidays. Instead, I was greeted by my grandparents and a shiny red bell an ribbon for me to wear.

All About Me Book

Today in class we made these "All About Me" books. Mine consisted of my love of baseball. And how my favorite team is the Texas Rangers. I decided to make my blog about how my parents fell in love at these games.

Once upon a time, there were two huge baseball fans that were both in the same game at the same time..sitting next to each other. Both were young and both loved the Rangers, so after a few innings, conversation sparked easily. Soon, converstaions about games became conversations about likes and dislikes. One thing led to another, and then came the first date.

The first date was nerve-wrecking for them both. They were scared that baseball was the only thing that they had in common. Once they first saw each other, sparks flew. The nerves just disappeared. And love began to grow. Dates consisted of dinners, movies, and of course, games.

As time went by, thheir love became a romance and they knew that they were meant to tbe together. After three years of dating, my mom wanted nothing more than to go to an away Rangers game on their anniversary. So he wisked her away, for a romantic little getaway. At the game, they were so excited an the Rangers were winning. Without warning, and totally unexpected, they turned my mom's attention to the jumbotron. There, in front of thousands of people, was a proposal. Shocked, she turned and there he was on one knee. That's where the beginning a long and happy marriage. The End.

P.S. This is a true story. : )

If I won...

If I won the lottery, first of all I would probably freak out. I would be so excited! I would split the money between my parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. The first thing I would do is to pay off my student loans. I would probably get a nice apartment, but nothing that is ridiculously priced. I would save my money and not blow it on pricey things. I could keep my car and everything until I actually needed to get another one. I would also give at least a quarter of what I earned to a local charity. I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity so it would probably go to them. Other than that, I would probably save the rest of my money and build onto it from my job.

Writing is a PROCESS

I vaguely remember hearing my elementary school teachers saying that, "writing is a process." When I first learned this, I followed the steps that they laid out for me at the time, but as I went through school, it became harder and harder to abide by these steps. As I have found though, by following these steps, it makes the writing process faster and makes for a better paper.

Step 1: Prewriting. By using graphic organizers, it is an easy way to map out your ideas and topics. In school, I used to make my semantic maps that looked like clouds and from there I would link smaller clouds that related to one another.

Step 2: Drafting. Once you have your thoughts organized on a graphic orgnizer, the next step is to put those thoughts on paper. Once you do this, you can think moe about the content of your paper and what you are writing about.

Step 3: Revising. This is when you go back and look at your rough draft and make changes, such as adding or deleting sentences. You don't focus as much on grammatical errors, but on content and the ideas that make up your paper. A really good idea is to have others read through and give you advice on how to make it better.

Step 4: Editing. This is after you have gone through and revised your story, you go back and fix your conventions. Check your spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. You can also get others to go through and find and correct mistakes.

Step 5: Publish. This is the final step. Once you have created a wiriting piece, publish it! Frame it and put it on the wall. If it is a letter, then actually send or deliver it to the person who you wrote it to. Reward yourself for doing a great job!!

Circular Stories

A circular story is a story that starts off with one particular event or object, and circles around with objects that relate to each other to end up with the same event or object that originally started the story. The objects/events must relate directly to each other but can go far off from the original object/event.

Circular stories can be used in the classroom to teach students many things, from listening to sequencing and just overall better understanding. Having the students interact with the story and participate in activities that relate to the events in the story will help them get a better understanding of it. By having the students read or perhaps just listen to the story, and have them put the events in the order that they occurred in the story, could help to expand the students' memories and teaches them to learn to pay attention.

Reading can be made fun in many ways. Teachers can have the students make drawings, or perform skits, or create their own stories that go along with the same story or type of story. Also, the teachers could bring in props from the story, or ones that relate to the story, in to help give a visual understanding to the students. Plus, it excites the students to get to hold the objects or see them, engaging them deeper into the story.

Motivation

For the most part, I learn the best by taking notes in class and studying them by going over and over them again in my head, also called rehearsal. By studying the information, over and over again, it helps me memorize the info faster.



According to the MI Test, I have a high intrapersonal strength, follow by musical and logical strength. This surprised me. Generally, I have a good sense of self and an understanding of myself, but I am not always comfortable in my own skin. I am not musically gifted, but I love music so I can see where it can influence me. I thought that I would be logically strong, because I am neat and organized and I like structure, in every part of my life. Although I am a super neat and organized, I do have a little creative streak also. I like to make things unique and bold in their own way, including my work.



Personally, I am more intrinsic when it comes to motivation. I have to feel like I have to push myself to achieve something. I feel unproductive if I don't get something done. I really don't like when I am applauded for my success or let down when I don't get it done. I like to know that I have done it right though, even if that means just a check mark on an assignment. Things that I have gone above and beyond on, however, I like to have a little recognition for my hardwork from others. I don't need something extravagent, just a good job, or just something a little more than just a smile, or "thanks."