Taylor's Writing

No More Fake Reading: Merging the Classics with Independent Reading to Create Joyful Lifelong Readers Why I Chose This Book:      Along with most of the class, I was not sure what book I should choose for this presentation. I tried searching the library catalog but came up empty because it's hard to be intrigued by a book unless its in your hands and you can skim through it. With this in mind, I headed over to Sean's office to look through his book collection. This book stood out to me because of the cover. It was an image of The Scarlet Letter , a classic, opened up to a random page halfway through the book and a students' phone was in front of it. The student was more interested in their electronic device than a classic book of literature. This is often the case in secondary classrooms. Students are so attached to their phones that they have a hard time putting them away to focus on a lesson or read a book assigned by their teacher. I was intrigued by...

When we think of English, three things tend to come to mind; grammar, writing, and reading. They are all closely related because in order for one to be a good writer with correct grammar, they need to be good readers. The ELA standards for reading are split into two categories; reading literature and reading informational texts. The literature portion deals with identifying themes, complex characters, rhetoric, and other aspects of literature. The informational portion deals with identifying arguments, bias, and the author's point of view. There is quite a bit of overlap between the two sections, but they each require different skills.  As I looked through the ELA standards, it surprised me that ELA teachers are responsible for teaching a wide range of skills. There are history related skills covered in the ELA standards when students need to read historical documents such as the Gettysburg Address or the Letter from Birmingham Jail written by MLK Jr.  A lot of the skil...

Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response  About the book... - The main purpose of this book is to give teachers strategies for how to teach students to comprehend, analyze, and respond to arguments.  - The skills taught in this book are meant to prepare all students to be college and career ready even if they don't view themselves as good students. -Activities and scenarios are provided for teaching the elements of the rhetorical situation (audience, occasion, and purpose) to high school students. -Most of the activities provided in this book include examples of authentic student work or possible responses crafted by the author. -At the end of each chapter, there are lists titled "Points to Remember" and "Prompts for Quick Writes or Pairs Conversations."  -Rhetorical approach to arguments- based on situational awareness and responsiveness instead of rules and formulas.  Overview of the Chapters: Chap...

I will start off by saying that I was actually surprised at the depth of knowledge and skills that are included in the standards for writing and grammar. From a former student's perspective, I did not recognize the amount of information I was learning in high school. I vividly remember being opposed to graphic organizers and outlines for essays in high school. I thought they were pointless and instead of filling them out, I would write the paper with only the thoughts in my head. My English teachers told me that if my papers were meeting the right criteria, then I could do without the paper outlines and I did just that. It wasn't until I got to college and started writing more challenging papers that I realized the importance of outlines and started creating my own before writing my papers. From a teacher's perspective, I think outlining a paper is an essential part to writing, especially when students are learning so many forms of writing and other information. Outlines he...

V for Vendetta  Brief Summary:  The book takes place in a post-war England in 1997. A fascist regime has taken over and the government is controlling of its citizens. There is relatively no privacy as the government watches, listens to, and monitors everyone. The "undesirable" people have been eliminated in "resettlement camps." The government believes in strength through unity and no individual liberties. The book centers around two main characters along with an array of other government figures. V is an anarchist who is determined to take down the fascist regime in England and restore justice to the people. Evey is a sixteen-year-old orphan who is saved by V and later becomes his protege.  Themes: Law and Justice Anarchy Gender Surveillance and Censorship Hero vs. Villain (Good vs, Evil) Morality Discrimination Freedom and Happiness  Power of Ideas Terrorism  Why I Chose This Book:  The first reason of why I chose this book wa...

In our class, we have been learning about the main components of English language arts. They include speaking and listening, writing and grammar, literature, and visual literacy, but unlike the other categories, visual literacy does not have a section of its own under the Common Core State Standards. That is not to say that visual literacy does not appear at all in the CCSS, but it is not as strongly emphasized as the other categories. Visual literacy first appears under the anchor standards for college and career readiness for reading. It is categorized under the integration of knowledge and ideas section stating that students should be able to "i ntegrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words." While this is not directly related to graphic novels, it is relevant to visual literacy because it includes diverse media and visual representation. Similarly, other hints of visual literacy can be foun...