Seedfolks and Allen Chapters 5 and 7

Seedfolks really opened my eyes to all the diversity and possible ethnic and cultural differences in my classroom. Seeing all the different perspectives from people of various ages, races, and social classes really made me realize the power of written words and literacy. Some of the lines had such power that I realized that as a classroom teacher I will never fully understand some of the things that my students are going through. I realize that I need to be very understanding and genuine because I will not be able to know the secrets of each of my students that make them who they are.

Reading Allen's book of Mulitgenre Research Papers I realized there are so many ways to enhance a research paper that are very fun and challenging for students. I really enjoyed the way that classes enhanced the quality of a simple work into such a advanced, descriptive piece of writing. It was amazing to me how fun the pieces became with all the questions and tying together the answers to the questions in a piece of writing. I thought it was amazing how the verbs could be enhanced so much and how students learned how to identify the differences between "showing, not telling".

Introducing different ways to add enhancement to a students paper really provides creativity to the students. Giving them freedom to express themselves through the many different types of art allows them to be proud of the work they created and to make it colorful and appealing to readers. Allowing them the freedom to bring in different types of music, or dress up in the costumes they want allows them to feel proud to present their work to an audience. There are many ways for them to play around with their work on different computer programs and designing programs that really increase their confidence and make them feel more proud of the hard work they put into such a long project.