Coffee Shop Experience

Today I met my group at the Starbucks in the IMU to do our project. My part involved drawing the map of the shop and observing how it was set up. I had never noticed before how strangely this coffee shop at our schools union is set up. There are two large counters and then a tiny area that looks like most other coffee shops for people to sit with colorful couches. Then there is another much larger area for seating but it looks much more uncomfortable. It is made up with many wooden tables that seat 2-4 people. I would much prefer to sit in the section with the couches but since this area only seats about 6 people and this is a very popular area for students to spend their time it is very difficult to find an available spot on the couch. I think the shop is set up this way so they can include the couches to give the union a coffee shop feel, but also have a larger section so people can sit at tables and get work done but still be close to the shop so they can get refills of their beverages when needed. Most people in the shop were students and professors. The first clue of this is the fact the shop is in the Student Union. It was also very easy for you to tell this because most people there had some kind of book, notebook, or papers in front of them. Even though I don't drink coffee or go to coffee shops to do my work I have many friends that spend much of their time in the Union Starbucks working on homework and studying. I have also had many group meetings there to discuss group projects. It was also kind of fun to listen in on other people's conversations and then think about your own conversations you would be having with your friends if you were to met at a coffee shop. It is funny how much time people can spend talking about something so minor such as discussing what ingredients you prefer in your latte. I know many people there were very stressed because it is the second week of school and you could see from the looks on many peoples faces, and the many books and papers in front of them, that they were trying to get everything organized and figure out their first assignments and projects. I know they were feeling this stress because that is the stress I always feel the first and second weeks of school. It is really hard to get adjusted to a new semester and remember everything that you are going to have due and to be sure you get it done on time.

Crafting Writers Chapters 1-3 and 6

The author of this text has a very unique way of addressing writing in elementary classes. I really enjoyed how she tied into the chapters her personal stories of figuring out recipes at restaurants and learning how to swim. At first these stories seemed irrelevant but as I continued reading I was able to understand how these stories tied into what I am supposed to be learning. One of my favorite parts from these three chapters was the quote from Don Fry about voice: "Voice is the sum of all the strategies used by the author to create the illusion that the writer is speaking directly to the reader from the page." I had never really understood what a writers voice really means but this section helped make it clear to me that each writer has his or her own unique style that would be very difficult to mimic.
Chapter 2 had some very good ideas on how to get a child to write with more detail and it introduced how to look for specific craft in writing. I still find specific craft kind of confusing but what I think it means is using something in writing that has specific instructions on how to use it, such as a simile. Chapter 3 really made me think about how you include the 5 senses in writing and how important it is to do that to make your writing truly descriptive. I think everyone could improve their writing just by thinking about how all 5 senses would be used in what they are writing about. I had also never thought about how the many variations of particular words came about. There are so many different ways to say the word "said" but they all give off a slightly different meaning. Chapter 6 was different from chapters 2 and 3, it focused more on incorporating writing with earlier elementary grades. I really liked the section on art and how essential it is for a student who is learning how to write. Writing and drawing are both ways to express emotion and you can add more detail to both art forms to make them more effective. All in all these chapters did a good job at keeping my attention and I feel as if I learned some very valuable things from them.

The Talkback Project

I found the writing with blogs and the Talkback project to be very intriguing. Pre-teens and Teenagers are all about expressing their emotions and feelings on their personal blog sites everyday and intigrating this blogging into school work seems like it would make sense in helping students to become more excited about their school work. The project was set up so students would read a novel and then blog their responses to the novel on a Talkback Project blog so the teachers were able to respond to these blogs with their own ideas and opinions. One part of this article even mentioned a parent who was overseas in Iraq getting involved in his students work by participating in the readings and blogging as well. I think this is a very good idea to get all sorts of parents involved in their students work because they can access this blog site from work or home and it would not be too time consuming. I understand the safety issue also presented in this article. Pseudonyms are used but students can mess up and mention things about where they live. If this project is to be successful I think it is important to emphasize to students how crucial it is to be safe on the internet and not give out any personal information. Students will probably be blogging on their own anyways so this lesson could be benneficial for their safety at home as well. We are living in a technological society and students these days are used to expressing themselves online so if teachers can find a way to intigrate this into the classroom most students should respond to it well.