why are we reading these books?

aside from the obvious, its a reading class and its expected that book reading be in the curricula, i think you are having us read these books because we are coming to the end of our undergraduate career's, for the most part, and you want to prepare us for possible problems that we might encounter in our future endouvers by having us read books about teachers who were new to the field and have succeeded amazingly. They have gone up and above the duties and actions of standard teachers and changed the lives of their students because of their outstanding commitment and their ability to think quite far outside the proverbial box to engage students in the classroom in a way that no other students have been so in the past. Furthermore, you are not sitting us down in the traditional method of lecturing, or teaching us first hand. You are having us read, realize, and learn for ourselves in the probabe hope that more of us will retain more information because we are forced to read these helpful books, rather than sit in class where we can ignore teachings, we can day dream, or play on our computers. I rather enjoy the books and the lessons that you have assigned us, and I feel that I am learning a lot from the experience. Thank you

Why Are we reading the Books....

I think we are reading this book to build our literacy skill and also to read about teachings of other teacher. The Freedom Writer's Diary is about how a teacher connects with her student by introducing literacy to them. I understand that the book I'm reading could related to me in future and it would be great to know before I face the real world. I don't know if I'm right but, the 'Group work' your making us to do is to make us understand the literacy in the reading by sharing information and to work with other future teachers.

I hope this class and the book will help me to develop the literacy in my curriculum.

i think that you are having us read one of these books because they all have to deal with education/pedagogy. reading one of these books will help us gain perspective on teaching and help boost our literacy skills at the same time. these books, like this class, will help us to get a better idea of what really goes on in any subjects classroom. literacy truly is a vital component of any field, which i am beginning to learn. at first i wondered why the art and PE majors had to take this class but now it makes sense. the project that goes along with the project will force us to think critically. we were not just assigned a book report that we could bs the night before, but a group assignment that requires us to show you an understanding of the material. another reason i think you are assigning this is that i would have been suprised if i got out without having to read a book in a class titled READ haha. all in all i think this is just another step to get us to prepare for life outside of college, and teaching in the classroom.

Reading one of The 3 Novels

Let me first say that signing up for this class is mandatory and now I can see why its required as part of the program. My initial thought is why am I going to a class about reading? but to this day it has exceeded my expectations and you know what they say about expectations and disappointment ^_^
I used to read a lot but since entering college my time is dedicated to school texts rather than recreational reading so even when school is out I just find something else to do rather than read although i do keep up with Men's Health :) I never realized that there were so many components to Literacy and the more you read the more fine tuned these skills become.
The reason I think we are reading these novels is because we can see that there are so many different lenses and angle which we can view pedagogy in action and each one of these books gives us a different perspective. Dr Wilber could have given us any three novels to pick from but these had a specific purpose as stated above.
I am reading Teacher Man and I think it is phenomenal because it is a book where myself or anyone can relate to since it takes u back if you are older, to your school days, or if you just left high school, or observing one now, that the dynamics of the class and school still has some basic principles that would never change in American classrooms of abroad and that there was at least one teacher that stood out among the rest and that might be the one who has doubts and question themselves on what the hell did I get myself into. So these books show us the trials, errors challenges and success that arises out of teaching which we can all relate and learn from as past or present teachers.

Why we are reading these books...

I think that Dr. Dana has us reading one of the three of these books for a few reasons. When we first entered the class she had discussed with us of why we are even taking this class. As a physical education major, I admit I didn't know why they had to add this as one f my requirements. But she had explained that literacy is everywhere and no matter where we are or what subject we teach, reading will be apart of it.

The book that I am reading in my group is Freedom Writers which entails many situations and topics among students at a school. These situations could occur when I am a teacher and it is helpful to see how the teacher in this book deals with it. Today there are so many issues with racism, sexism, and sexuality that I will one day have to deal with.

Why were reading these books

I think that we are reading these books because they have to do with education and teaching and we are all taking this course because we are pursuing a career as future educators. I'm not really sure what the other two books were about, but I read "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt.
The book is about his life as a new teacher in New York. I thought it was a great book because he wrote about all the real life struggles he faced dealing with new students that didn't take him seriously. Being a teacher is tough especially if it is with students that don't treat you with much respect. Throughout the story his students would try to take him off track by asking him questions about his personal life so that they would get out of doing work. While I was reading I remembered that the same thing would happen in my high school every time we had a new teacher or substitute and it always worked!
I think it is the perfect book for everyone interested in becoming a teacher and I think that all students in the teacher ed program should be required to read it!

Why Are We Reading This Book

Well, let's get the completely and totally obvious question out of the way first, this is a reading course and Dr. Dana has been telling us from day one that the more we read, the better we become at it, the more we will like it.

I am sure you are looking for a more in depth answer however, and here is mine: I am reading Freeom Writers and it is really inspiring me to want to teach to the best of my abilities, not that I didn't want to before, this is just inspiring me to think outside of the box!. Ms. Gruwell had to overcome so many road blocks, it is scary, but she did it because she wanted nothing more than to give the kids a safe environment in which to grow and be nurtured. I doubt I will ever reach as many kids as she has, but I am more than willing to try now. It really is a inspiring book that I would reccommend to any teacher, young or old who is looking for a reason to go on.

Dr. Dana has also told us from day one that we need to come to a complete overall understanding of what we read because if we can't get something positive out of the book, we have failed to really read it for what it is worth. I feel that this is the reason behind the project for the book, we are reading for content and understanding and then coming up with a fun and inventive project to go along with the book, much like how we will one day to as teachers.

I am reading this book because..

Hello Dr. Dana!

I am reading The Freedom Writers, so I cant speak for the other book. But I think that you are making us read this book because:

1) This is a reading class, after all. So it only makes sense that we do some actual reading.

2) The book is somewhat interesting, compared to some other choices you could have gave, haha. The themes and ideas presented are more relative to our young adult lives growing up in urban and somewhat-urban areas. In other words, these themes are familiar to us (struggle, inner-city life, racism, stereotyping, ethnicity, diversity, violence, etc.) either due to our personal experiences or our familiarity of them through media, books, music, and movies. Therefore, it becomes an easy and rather enjoyable read.

3) You are also making us read this to make sure that we grasp the overall idea(s) presented in the book. You want to make sure we understand what we are reading. And in order to do that, you are testing or evaluating our understanding through our projects with our groups. By giving us the freedom to do the project however way we'd like, you are entrusting and letting us show you that we understand what we have read in a way that's enjoyable to us. Therefore, it is creating a more worthwhile learning experience.

I'm Rich Pobuta - And I'm out.

Vocab

For my unit students will need to know the vocab from earlier lessons, and learn new things relating to gasses. Most of these willl probably be delivered to students during direct instruction. There probably won't be too many new vocab words other than the various gas laws. Making the connections between gas laws will be the most important part of the lesson.