Darc Kontinent Strikes Back!

So I was invited to play at Roy's Pizza's 25th Anniversary. We rocked out to some great 80s rock tunes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4WhuCu56IE&feature=youtu.be

It's only too bad you can't really see my rat tail, and yes those are leather pants.

Discipline-Specific Reading

Man this was really hard for me to remember everything. Most often we used the text book as far as reading goes. I don't remember ever reading a novel or anything that I would consider fun. That is unless you count movies as a text then we "read" some pretty cool movies. In geography we looked at some interesting graphs. In fact probably one of my favorite maps is the one that shows the size each country would be according to it's population. Just last semester in my Content Knowledge class we were shown a graphic novel based on history called Maus. It is about the holocaust and I think that is an amazing idea to use in a history class. It has pictures, it doesn't take super long to read. It is a guy getting his dad's first hand experience. That is why I liked it. I'm reading a journal about the Bourgeois during the French Revolution. That is probably the worst reading experience I have ever had. I don't understand it, the writer makes references to tons of scholars I've never heard of, there are huge run on sentences with about 15 ideas each so that it's hard to keep track of his original statement, and he uses a vocabulary that only proves the point that he memorized the dictionary. The way to cope with this is reread and take it slow. Maybe some sort of graphic organizer would help. Anyway, that is exactly the type of stuff I want to avoid, unless I am there and able to coach my students through it. Otherwise, torture.

Resting in the trenches.















Propoganda Guilt trip.


















Army pup in gas mask.

It's a Total Chick Drink

So while wandering around on a hot humid Virginian summer day, I was asked if I'd like something to drink to cool myself off. My answer was obviously yes. I was offered the typical beverages. Coke, Mt. Dew, Orange soda, and Fresca. As it just so happened I had been craving a Fresca for about three weeks at this point. But, for fear of persecution that I enjoyed a feminine soda I chose something else. I was quite upset with myself. It's totally a woman's drink.



This random woman proves this.

Effective Dimensions of Writing

I for sure do not think of myself as a writer. I would rather just tell people my ideas in person. Although it is really easy to tell something hard to hear through writing such as that you think they could improve at a certain aspect. I've always enjoyed creative writing. Sometimes poetry although I suck at it but I like writing short stories. I text message quite a lot because it's usually easier and you don't have to catch someone just at the right moment. The assignments I always enjoyed in school, and the ones I'd like to have my students do, are when I write about something I am interested in. If you tell me to write a paper on how math has evolved... blech. But if you tell me to write about the major causes of the civil war, I'll do a better job. So I hope to let my students pick aspects of history or geography that they think are cool and nurture their writing that way.

Connecting School and Home Experience

So in order to connect home with school I will use geography. I was in second grade and my teacher had this elaborate system of passing out valentines using an address system. Well I didn't know how to read addresses so I simply looked at the name of the recipient and gave them their valentine. I got away with not knowing how to read them, or so I thought. A few years later I must've been in 6th or so I had to go with a cousin to deliver flowers. Our grandmother worked at a floral shop. I was dubbed navigator. Well I couldn't read addresses so I failed at guiding us where we needed to go. However, I did learn that day. It just  would've saved me some embarrassment if I had learned earlier.

1) I suppose this experience stresses the importance of the address system and how to figure out where we are going. It's really easy here in Utah where we are on the Grid System. I can use that experience and realate it to Global coordinates in a geography class, or in just learning to read a map and save the kids some headache and embarrassment later, hopefully.

2) I guess every student live somewhere so i can teach them that being able to read a map is important. By tapping into what they know already, such as addresses, or map reading I can even relate to how important that was in discovering the Americas or Lewis and Clarke finding their way around.

OK Obviously another guilty pleasure of mine is the Snuggie. I remember watching the infomercial with my brother for the first time and making him get off an important phone call so he could see how this family at a baseball game looked like a cult. In this picture I was hiding in the basement of my in-laws with a book and the Snuggie. Sadly, I was caught.