We survived !!

I’m going to be completely honest, when I first saw that I was paired with Christina I was extremely nervous. I was always a good math student, but I haven’t studied math since senior year of high school. When I was substitute teaching in a freshman math class this year, I couldn’t even help my students work their graphing calculators. I was convinced I was going to fail this project and I had no idea what to expect. What kind of a text would I be assigned to read that was about math!?! I was also extremely unsure about how to explain my metacognitive process. I also have NEVER blogged before, so this whole assignment seemed overwhelming and like Dr. Johnson was personally out to get me (just kidding, Dr. Johnson!).

As the first half of this assignment started, I began to second guess the texts I had chosen within my discipline. The Yellow Wallpaper is a great short story, but it can be extremely confusing and frustrating to work with. If I was getting frustrated with it at some points, I could only imagine how Christina was going to feel, considering this is so out of her element. I was hoping she would have a good experience with the texts I chose (Which after reading her blog posts, I think she did !!)

As the weeks went on, I felt more comfortable with blogging and explaining my reading process to the “online world” (which is probably just of Christina and Dr. Johnson). I was surprised at how successful I was with testing out new strategies, like the week that I sketched my way through the reading of The Yellow Wallpaper. I will definitely encourage my future students to use different strategies in their reading, especially ones that are out of their comfort zone. I also think that it is important to read texts outside of your comfort zone as Christina and I did over the past three weeks. I think that we both learned more about ourselves as readers through working with texts of a different discipline. I think that working with different disciplines in this assignment can help all of us as future teachers, especially with the new focus on interdisciplinary work as per Charlotte Danielson and the new curriculum. 

This assignment has really opened up my eyes to different reading strategies, and how important it is to take note of your reading process. By asking questions, doing research, collaborating with peers, and applying different techniques readers can really strengthen their reading skills as well as open themselves up to absorbing so much more than they normally would. I am so glad that I was paired with Christina for this assignment, because I learned a lot from her posts and different outlook on the texts we worked with. I think that after this project I can honestly say that English and Math can live happily ever after with one another!

 

The end of “The Seventh Night”

Before finishing up the chapter, I reread my blog from last week to refresh my memory. The chapter continued with some “old friends” (or things Robert and the Number Devil had previously discussed in the book). I was not surprised by this, being that this had happened a few times during the chapter already (with the hopping numbers and triangular numbers). Robert exclaimed to the Number Devil,

“We’re back to Bonacci and the rabbit numbers”

 

I remembered reading about Bonacci when I had done some research about the hopping numbers, but I didn’t remember exactly what I read, so I looked up Bonacci again. I was a little bit confused, because the actual mathematical term (from what I found) is actually called Fibonacci numbers, but when I found a summary of this book, it said that the Number Devil shortened it to “Bonacci”. I found that Fibonacci numbers are an integer sequence used in math. This made sense of what I had just read in the chapter. I love The Number Devil’s response to Robert when he says:

“See how much we’ve packed into our triangle? And we could go on for days. But I have a feeling you’ve had enough”

This made me think of what Christina wrote on my blog post last week, how math is a continuation of concepts that build off of each other, and the importance of keeping that in mind. I love that the Number Devil wanted to make Robert aware of all of the different concepts they touched on within Pascal’s Triangle; this helped to refresh Robert’s memory as well as having him see the connections between the different parts of math. 

I was very confused by the ending of the chapter, and it left me asking a lot of questions. The Number Devil was beginning to say that he cannot stop doing math, and then the cubes started disappearing and “he grew thinner and thinner until they went off all together and he was only a shadow of his former self”. After this, Robert forgot everything that had just happened… the cubes, the triangle, the concepts and the Number Devil. I’m assuming that this would make more sense if I had read the entire story. Does Robert forget everything at the end of each chapter? Is the Number Devil just a figment of Robert’s imagination or a dream? I am extremely curious!

When I was looking up images of Pascal’s triangle for my posts this week, I came across images on google that were student drawings and creations. This was exciting to me because it showed that teachers are actually using this text in their classrooms to help teach their students about different mathematical concepts! 

 

The Seventh Night (Part 2)

The first thing I did before continuing to read this chapter was to reread what I blogged last week, to refresh my memory. As I began to continue with my reading, I was very excited to see that Robert seemed to be picking up on the “tricks” of the triangle they were creating. Robert said:

“I can see that the numbers along the sides will be all ones no matter how far down we go. And that I can fill in the numbers in the next diagonal rows on either side without doing the arithmetic because they’ll  just be the perfectly normal numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7…”

 

I loved the enthusiasm that Robert showed during this part of the chapter. After coming to this realization, he climbed up the triangle and began to fill in the numbers that he knew. At this point in my reading, I started thinking how beneficial the images throughout the chapter were for the reader. My assumptions are that many people reading this book are people that are not familiar with the math topics being covered. Without these pictures, it would be a lot more difficult to envision the proper triangle being created by Robert and The Number Devil. 

The next part of the chapter confused me a bit, and I had to do some outside research. After Robert filled in the triangle as much as he could, he was prompted by The Number Devil to see what numbers belong in the diagonal row, next to the “1,2,3,4,5,6,7…” row. 

“A knowing smile came over the number devil’s face as Robert read down the row from right to left. ‘1,3,6,10… Hey, they look familiar.’ ‘Coconuts!’ cried the number devil”

 

“Wait, What?” was basically my exact reaction at this point of reading. Why is The Number Devil talking about coconuts… what did I miss!?!?!? I turned to google, and found out that on the fifth night (the fifth chapter of the book) Robert ends up in a desert, and he learns about triangular numbers. The Number Devil teaches this concept by using coconuts. Here is an image I found online that illustrates the concept of triangular numbers

 

After this became clear to me, I really appreciated the connection between the chapters. This shows that Robert truly understood what he had previously learned. It also shows readers the connections that can be made between different mathematical concepts. I then continued reading, and saw that once The Number Devil refreshed Robert’s memory on the previous concept, he was able to use the “Wait, What? Coconut Method” to complete the next row of diagonal numbers. As Robert filled in more numbers, they began getting to be very large numbers. Robert was concerned that he was not able to do this kind of math in his head. The Number Devil was able to fill in the rest of the triangle with a “flash”.

As I continued reading, I remembered Christina’s blog about the different blocks and numbers lighting up. The Number Devil turned off the lights in the room, and lit up the top number of the triangle. He had Robert add up the second line, and then the third, which Robert stated was easy, and that he remembered their “friends” the hopping twos (which I blogged about last week and Christina clarified for me!). 

I stopped my reading for the week here, and am very eager to read the end of this chapter. So far, it has been very refreshing to read something that I would not typically read. I love reading different styles of writing, and I have to say I have never read a book about math before. The continuous connections throughout the book is a very great strategy that the author uses, and will be very beneficial for the students that are reading it. It will help them to understand that the mathematical concepts that they learn are important, and will keep popping up as they learn more advanced math. 

 

 

 

Let’s talk about math, baby…

The first thing that I did before starting to read, “The Seventh Night” from The Number Devil, was to skim over Christina’s past blog posts on the chapter. I wanted to refresh my memory being that I am so unfamiliar with the topic. Next, before reading, I did a little bit of research about Pascal’s Triangle. I know that this mathematical number pattern, but that is where my knowledge ended. I wanted to have a better understanding of the topic before reading the story, and I found a very useful website that explained the number pattern in a somewhat simple way. 

The website states: “One of the most interesting Number Patterns is Pascal’s Triangle (named after Blaise Pascal, a famous French Mathematician and Philosopher).

To build the triangle, start with ‘1’ at the top, then continue placing numbers below it in a triangular pattern. Each number is the two numbers above it added together (except for the edges, which are all ‘1’). (Here I have highlighted that 1+3 = 4) “

It amazed me how intricate the triangle could become, while forming other triangles within it (like the Sierpinski Triangle, that forms when you color the odd and even numbers) Thanks to the website (that I’ll post below!) I understood the basics of Pascal’s Triangle, and felt comfortable to begin my reading of the chapter. 

http://www.mathsisfun.com/pascals-triangle.html

When I started to read this chapter, I was immediately curious about the first six chapters of the book. I’m very curious to see how Robert and the Number Devil became acquainted, and plan to look that up! 

I love the mathematical references throughout the chapter; when Robert and the Number Devil began building the pyramid, Robert says

“And you get sixteen. A hopping number. A two that’s been made to hop four times: 2^4”

 

I am assuming that this is referencing something from a previous chapter that perhaps, the Number Devil taught to Robert. It is great for the students reading this book to see the reinforcement of different forms of math throughout the story. I think that the images in the chapter that I have seen so far are extremely helpful to students (and readers like me!) that are not as knowledgeable of math. 

Something that I noticed while reading, was that the language used throughout the chapter is not extremely difficult. I think it is important to keep this as an “easy” read, being that the text is teaching a math technique. If the language used were more “textbook-ish” I don’t think that it would have as much of an effect on the students reading it. If I were going to be a math teacher, I think that I would definitely like to incorporate texts like The Number Devil into my classes, to help my students better understand certain mathematical theories and formulas. I am really looking forward to continue reading the chapter, and learn more about Robert’s adventure with Pascal’s Triangle. 

 

 

 

Ernest Hemingway

Sorry for the delay on my blog… I was dealing with a family emergency last week!!

 

After finishing up “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I moved on to reading a short story by Ernest Hemingway called, “Hills Like White Elephants”. This week, I found myself going back to my regular note taking (as opposed to the sketching strategy I tried out last week). While reading this short story, I found myself having to do a lot more outside research than I did with the previous text.

Right off the bat, the text talks about, “the hills across the valley of the Ebro”. I found in my research that the Ebro is a river on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain; it is the second longest river in Spain. The first paragraph informs readers that the two characters (An American girl and a man) are traveling from Barcelona to Madrid. 

As I took notes while reading the story, I had a lot of questions. The dialogue between the girl, whose name is Jig, and the man in the story seems very ambiguous. It seems as if each time Jig brings up the hills, that she likens to white elephants, that the man changes the subject. He brushes her off when she brings up the hills, by saying that he has never seen white elephants before. It jumped out at me how much alcohol the two characters were drinking on this train ride. Out of nowhere, the man says to Jig, 

“‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s not really an operation at all.’” 

The man then continues to tell Jig that after this procedure is done, things will be fine, just as it was before. He says that this was the only thing that has caused them problems, and they could be happy when this was all over. At this point, I began to think that maybe they were talking about an abortion, but I was unsure because of the alcohol being consumed throughout the story. Then I began to realize that this was published in 1927, when women were not 

steered away from drinking during pregnancy… at this point the story started to fall into place. Jig wonders if the man will love her once things go back to normal, and he tells her that he loves her now, and will still love her then. At this point in the story, I definitely thought that Jig and the man were discussing the fact that she got pregnant and they were considering an abortion. 

The story ends with the following quote:

” ‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.
‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.’ “

This ending follows suit with the ambiguity of the story. Hemingway does now come right out and say whether or not Jig decides to go through with the operation being discussed. I think that she decides to keep the baby; when she says “There’s nothing wrong with me”, that could mean that she is finally accepting her pregnancy. I love the fact that this story is up for interpretation of the reader. I think that different readers could see this story from different perspectives, which makes it truly unique and interesting. 

 

This is why I am not an artist…..

I just finished the second half of, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and I decided to give the “Sketching My Way Through the Text” strategy a shot. Daniels and Zemelman explained that this strategy is extremely effective and allows the reader to expand their knowledge. I am by NO means an artist, so I was skeptical but figured it would be a good opportunity to test out this strategy. (Seriously, I can’t even draw a straight line with a ruler)

So here is my first page of sketching

 

I wasn’t quite sure where to start with these sketches, so I just tried to draw (not very well….) what I saw in my mind as I was reading. The first sketch was after the narrator explained that she only truly showed her emotions, and cried when she was in the room by herself. She especially held in her emotions when her husband, John, was around. 

The next sketch is how I envisioned the wallpaper in her room to look. She describes that she sees a woman creeping in the corner of the pattern, so I thought that she would have been 

intertwined with the pattern on the wall. After I completed my reading, I was doing some research on the story and found this image. Although this isn’t how I pictured the woman within the wallpaper to look, I enjoyed looking through other images and seeing how other people interpreted the wallpaper to look. 

My next drawing is just an image of two stick figures, one being the narrator and the other being John. After reading about their interactions, I kept on picturing the narrator as being controlled by John. He seemed to hold her at a very low standard, and belittle her in many scenes. At one point in the story he refers to her as “little girl” (679). Between his language towards his wife, the way he treats her, and the way she almost seems to fear him, I realized the power struggle in their relationship that seemed more like a father/daughter relationship than a husband/wife. All of these reasons are why I drew the stick figure of the narrator to be much smaller than the one of John. 

Here is a picture of my next set of sketches. I decided not to include 2 of the sketches, because I didn’t want to give away too much of the story… but it was a sketch and a little chart about a realization I came to about the story. The first sketch is of a nose, because the narrator says that after they have had so much rain and fog that the smell of the wallpaper is much more pungent. This struck me because she goes on and on about the smell, how it travels through the house, gets stuck in her hair. She describes it as “…a yellow smell” (682). This was very strange to me, especially when she says initially that the smell was tempting her to burn the house so she would not have to smell it anymore, but that it doesn’t bother her anymore. My final sketch that I will include in this post is of women behind bars. The narrator talks about the woman in the wallpaper, and how when the light hits the paper a certain way that it looks like she is behind bars (which I pictured to be like a jail cell). Later on, she talks about how sometimes it looks like there are many women behind the bars. I found it interesting and questioned where these other women came from, which is why I chose to sketch this out to try to help myself see it better and understand the meaning behind it. 

I have to say, even though I am not an artist (by any stretch!) and I was unsure about this strategy, I am glad that I gave it a try. Usually, as I mentioned in my first blog post about this story, I read with a pen in my hand so that I can take notes in the margins, underline quotes and write down questions. It was difficult at first to put my pen to the blank sheet of paper and actually draw what I would have normally written down. I do think that the strategy was helpful, and it allowed me to look back at my drawings after I completed the text and actually SEE what I was imagining during my first reading. This was definitely useful, especially with a text that was as complicated as this one. I don’t know that I will use the sketching strategy all of the time, but I am sure I will use it once in a while, and I definitely will be bringing it into the classroom once I am teaching. 

                                                                    

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story that was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. This text is considered to be an early piece of feminist literature, and touches on the subject of the mental health of women.

From being trained in my days as an English literature major when I was an undergraduate, I usually read with a pen in my hand. When I started reading, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, I found myself immediately writing questions in the margins. The story opens up with the narrator explaining that her husband is a highly respected physician, who does not believe that she is actually ill. Her brother, who is also a physician, agrees that his sister is just suffering from “temporary nervous depression” (674). This immediately had my mind running with questions, some being:

                -What kind of physicians are the narrator’s husband and brother?

                -Are they qualified to be diagnosing her with an emotional disorder?

The footnotes in my copy of this text explain that temporary nervous depression is an emotional problem that women were diagnosed with, that stems from anxiety or depression. Nervous women were classified as “hysterical”. 

As I continued reading the story, the narrator explains that she disagrees with her diagnosis, and that since she cannot work she likes to write, but that it exhausts her and she has to hide it from her husband, John. As a change of topic, she begins to describe her house that she lives in, which she says is, “the most beautiful place!” (674). As the house is being described, I am able to envision it perfectly… I can see the giant hedges and gates that enclose the property, which I imagine to be tremendous due to the multiple little houses that are for gardeners and such. The garden is described as somewhere magical, but then I learn that there also used to be greenhouses on the property, but now they are broken. After this, the narrator says, “…there is something strange about the house- I can feel it” (674).

Knowing the little bit of information that I know about the narrator at this point, I begin to question what she is saying about a “strangeness” in the house… are her accusations actually reliable being that she is diagnosed with hysteria? Maybe they are, but at this point I really cannot tell. Using different context clues from the text, I am leaning towards my initial thought that the narrator is unreliable. At one point she says that she finds herself getting “unreasonably” mad at her husband; I underlined this line while I was reading. When I went back to it after I first read it, this line stuck out to me because it is not someone else making this accusation, the narrator is saying it about herself.

As the narrator describes the room her husband has her spend her time in, I learn it served as s nursery, a playroom and a gymnasium before she was living there. The room is explained as having chipped paint and patches of hideous wallpaper adorning the walls. As the narrator continues on, I can picture the wallpaper in my head… 

“The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.” (675).

As much as the narrator seems to despise this wallpaper, later on in the story (after about two weeks of living in the room) she says that she is beginning to develop a true liking for the room, but cannot decide if it is in spite of the yellow paper or because of it. She now uses the wallpaper to entertain herself, she spends hours upon hours following the design of the pattern to see where it leads to. 

The vivid descriptions throughout the text so far really allow me to feel like I can picture the room that the narrator is living in. I continue questioning if her fascination with the wallpaper is stemmed from her boredom, or if it has to do with her diagnosis. I also am still unsure of the reliability of the narrator, and hope that in the latter half of the story that I will be able to draw concrete conclusions about this. 

 

                

“If She Only Knew Me”

I received the following poem from a professor I have this semester. I couldn’t help but share it, it really touched me. It is from the perspective of a 9 year old student, and I think that everyone in the education field or working with children should take the time to read it over…

______________________________________________________________________________________

“If She Only Knew Me” -Jeff Gray and Heather Thomas

If she only knew… If she only knew that I had to get my little brother up and ready for school this morning, she wouldn’t have fussed at me for being a few minutes late.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I didn’t get to eat supper last night, she wouldn’t have taken the extra cereal that Chris gave me at breakfast.  She said, “Only one cereal for each student.  That’s the rule at this school.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I had to watch my little brother last night while momma was at the park with her friends, she wouldn’t have punished me for not getting my homework done.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I like to make stuff during science class, she would let us make rockets like Mrs. Bagen’s class. Instead, we read about rockets from a book.

If she only knew…If she only knew that her rules are as long as the lines at the city pool, she would make a shorter list that we could remember.

If she only knew… If she only knew that my daddy left me and momma when I was two, she would stop telling me that she’s going to call my daddy for a conference.

If she only knew… If she only knew that I get really upset when Leonard talks about my momma, her biggest rule would be, “No talking about other people’s mommas.”

If she only knew…If she only knew how much I love to draw, she would  make me the class poster maker.  Instead, she doesn’t let me because my handwriting isn’t so great.

If she only knew…If she only knew that I need to talk if I’m going to learn, she wouldn’t send me to the principal’s office so much.  She says my talking is disruptive in the classroom.  She’s the only person talking. In my opinion, that’s a disruption.

If she only knew…If she only knew that when she gets mad and screams at the class it scares me. Last year, Mrs. Stewley never raised her voice at me.  Mrs. Stewley was as quiet as a crook after midnight. When Mrs. Stewley talked, kids listened.

If she only knew… If she only knew that some of the boys are trying to get me to join their gang, she would help me say, “No.”

If she only knew…If she only knew how much I like to run, she would have told me about last week’s track team sign-up.

If she only knew… If she only knew how much I need my mentor here at school, she would let me see him more. He thinks I’m cool.

If she only knew that I know stuff that she doesn’t know. I know where to get bus tokens.I know the best place to buy a pop. I know what time the sprinkler comes on at the park. I know what it means to get “dissed.” I know how to live without electricity. I know how to entertain an entire room of people with my personality and humor.I know what churches have the best rummage sales. I know how to stay safe in my neighborhood. I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at the laundromat.

I know a lot more than she thinks I do…

http://www.pinterest.com/lvansise/books-quotes-and-english-major-things/

http://www.pinterest.com/lvansise/books-quotes-and-english-major-things/

Here is a link to one of my pinterest boards that I call, “books, quotes and English major things”

My literacy events…

I consider myself to be very fortunate, because I was exposed to books from the time that I was born. My parents always read to me, and I learned how to read at a very early age. I went to library once a week before I attended elementary school and fell in love with the library. My mom would take me to the library to take out books, and I used to cry when she told me that I had too many books. Her rule was that I could only take out as many books as I could carry. Being the determined little 3 year old that I was, most weeks I carried out a stack of books that was piled up to my chin. 

 

When I was in the first grade, I came down with a terrible case of the chicken pox. This led to me spending many days home from school absolutely bored out of my mind; I even had to miss a family friend’s communion party which I was absolutely DEVASTATED about. I spent the Saturday night of the party home and sick with my grandparents while my parents and brother got to go to the communion party. I spent the entire night in my new fancy shoes that my mom bought me just for the party. I was so excited to wear them that I figured I would get some use out of them around the house. To keep myself occupied I decided to draw, and drawing led to me writing my own little book. It was probably 10 pages long and it was called, “Itchy Itchy Chicken Pox”. I wrote and illustrated a story about a little girl that was traumatically struck with a case of the chicken pox. I worked on the story for so long and was so proud of the final outcome.

A few weeks later, my mom and I were making one of our regular trips to the library and I was browsing through the selection of books. All of a sudden, a specific title caught my eye and I ripped the book off of the shelf. I was horrified when I saw  the book, “Itchy Itchy Chicken Pox” by Grace MacCarone. I ran over to my mom with tears in my eyes, how could it be?? That was the title of MY book that I wrote!

My mom convinced me to add the book to my pile of books to check out for that week, and against my will I did. When we went home, my mom helped cheer me up by telling me that I should be proud of myself because I had the same idea as a real writer did, who had an actual published book! All of a sudden, that started to help me perk up. Once we read the story, I realized that mine was very different from MacCarone’s, and I understood that people can write similar stories but they would each be unique in their own individual ways. 

 

This was a great lesson for me to learn at a young age, but I think it was also important because it made me really think about the fact that books start out as a way for a writer to have an outlet, and one day they could end up on the shelf at the local library. I think that this experience drove me to write more and continue to create stories and hope that one day, they would be for more than just my own entertainment.