Make Cycles

infographic of make cyclesYou can find our current Make Cycles in the drop down menu and on the Make Cycles page.

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Author: kjaxon

Make Cycle 2 & Golden Lines

Make Cycle 2 & Golden Lines

Hello again everyone,

First of all, really beautiful work with the mentor texts. You did a fabulous job noticing the structures of these texts like the repetition of names, the use of features like italics or dialogue or lines breaks for impact. I also appreciate how many of you connected with the story of Maria and your own struggles with naming and pronunciations. We have such a responsibility as educators to do this most basic thing: know our students’ names. As so many of you pointed out: names are a huge part of our identity.

I added some of your insights below, which I will do often in updates. In the National Writing Project, we choose favorite passages or sentences from each other’s writing or our own writing, a practice we call “golden lines.” You can place Golden Lines from your students all over your classroom on bulletin boards or feature on a class website or ask students to highlight one sentence they are proud of to share at the end of each day. Everyone can read their Golden Line; it’s a great way to end a day…celebrating writing. Thank you everyone for such thoughtful ideas.

Golden Lines from the work with mentor texts:

Chapter 2 from My Name Is Maria Isabel really brought me back to my childhood and how much I relate to the story. My name Is Maria, which is a very common Hispanic name. Growing up, my family always called Marifer which is a combination of my first and middle name put together. When you say my name in Spanish I love the way it sounds. However, when I first started school when they would say my name in English it felt very weird and it was hard to get used to just as I imagine Maria Isabel felt. One thing I really like about this story is that it really connects to Maria Isabel’s identity and how she got her name. Once her name got changed in school, she felt misplaced. –Maria Ocampo

“I do not yet know who I’ll be, what I’ll say, how I’ll say it” is my favorite line in the story. This is an inspiring line and has such strong meaning to the story. The author gives me, the reader, hope that this little girl will grow up and have a strong voice. –Laurie Greco

To me, the subject of your name as a connection to family seems an important one for children in these stories. Maria Isabel is not happy with her teacher changing her name for the sake of making it easier for the class because she feels like it is robbing her of part of her identity, saying “We already have a Maria so we call you Mary,” is disrespectful and totally disregard what the name might mean to the family. –Catherine Schulze

I would borrow the element of using real world experiences into my writing to connect the real world to my own pieces of writing. A line I really enjoyed was when the writer stated “Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday” because I believe this quote from the song of the Freedom singers was the writer’s own mentor text. –Serena Loera

But the first that I noticed that stuck out to me was the use of descriptive words that she used. My thick curls, my pink blanket, and new toes really allowed me to get a crisper image at the scene. These things canreally help visualize a story or poem for the reader. And the other thing that I noticed was that the speaking words were in italics. That really helped me understand and figure out what was stationary and wat was vocal words. –Mike Akers

Make Cycle 2 is now on the site in the dropdown menu under Make Cycles for those of you who want to get started.

Enjoying our class so much already.
Kim

Week 2: Reminders & Updates

Week 2: Reminders & Updates

Hello nice people of English 333!

Thank you so much for a great first week! I appreciate your incredibly thoughtful work already.

Video update below with some information for this week. Please try to take a few minutes–less than 8 min–to watch the video updates. I think they will provide further context. 😉

Coming up this week: full descriptions on the Make Cycle 1 page

  • Wednesday, Sept 2: respond to Mentor Texts (what structures could we borrow as writers from these texts?)
  • Monday, Sept 7: Make 1 due (plus reflection on your Make).

Remember to always respond to a peer’s response: write one, then respond to one. This is just great practice as future teachers and also helps build our community. Thank you in advance for this. I appreciate your time.

Week One: updates

Week One: updates

Hello again everyone!

So awesome to see the introductions taking place in our Currents Community already; thank you! The amount of cute kids in our feed is adorable overload. As promised, here is a longer video update that I hope explains some of our tasks. Below is another video that shares our website and its organization.

Hope you’ll join our Currents Community soon. You can find instructions here. Introduction and some thoughts about your reading and writing is due by Wednesday night, Aug 26 (midnight(ish): just hoping to read and respond to y’all on Thursday morning). Again, prompts and information on the Make Cycle 1 page linked in the menu at the top of our website.

Excited to meet you all this week! Feel free to reach out with questions: kjaxon@csuchico.edu 

Our routines and insights into week 1: 

Quick walkthrough of our website:

 

Welcome to English 333 fall 2020!

Welcome to English 333 fall 2020!

Hello everyone! I am so excited to write and work together this semester! Please check out our site and the various pages. I’ve created a quick welcome video that I hope offers some insights into our course. I’ll add a longer video soon with more insights about our class and then I will update the weekly video each week(ish) on the main page.

One book to buy for our class: About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland. You’ll need it in hand by Sept 8. 😉 The Chico State bookstore has copies too with options to rent or buy.

You should also check out:

  • The Syllabus page
  • The Make Cycles page, which also has drop down menus outlining the tasks for various weeks. I’ll update those “Make Cycles” every two weeks from that Make Cycles drop down menu. Make Cycle 1 is there now or HERE.
  • Your first assignment is due by Wednesday night (Aug 26): post an introduction and reflect on literacies to our group in our Currents Community. Instructions for joining the community can be found on the Make Cycle 1 page along with prompts.

Let me know if you have questions, of course, and I look forward to seeing you online!

Kim