Make up report for missing class on 2/28/08

I watched the video of class on 2/28/08. You presented a study of Anette LaRue entitled "Home Advantages." It studied families in a working class school versus middle class and upper class schools. Qualitative differences were discussed.
There was a sense of separation between home and school. Parents felt a lack of confidence, lack of information, and a lack of initiative (special requests). An uncritical/critical category showed that parents were not critical of the academics of school but were very critical of lunchroom procedures.
The differences between the families were competence, confidence, income/material resources, demands at work, and networks (the amounts of information about the system). The class then discussed the implications of these findings. Some teachers wanted parents to receive more information about student progress. A secondary teacher wanted high school students to accept more responsibility for their grades and work.
Urban versus rural issues were mentioned. There may be less social connections in urban areas. Are these problems or realities? I think these are realities. I always contact my parents after testing and let them know what they need to work on with their children. I use letters and phone calls to keep the home and school connection strong.
Chapter 4 in the Leu book was reviewed. The discussion on the chapter was prefaced by three questions. What were the key ideas? What are the websites you visited and what impressed you about those websites? What activities would you like to try? Leonard stated that emails and chat rooms have no place in school. A second grade teacher explained a webquest that she designed for her students about penguins.
Ed Fry's material on "Increasing Fluency With High Frequency Word Phrases," was presented. It included comprehension and vocabulary activities and lessons for grades 1-6. I like Dr. Fry's word lists. This is a site I will definitely check out.
The International Children's Digital Library website was shown on the screen. I would like to peruse this site.
The Xu book was discussed. The teacher in the chapter discussed the step by step process of designing popular culture text units using the standards and cross-curricular integration. There were many connections being made by students in this chapter.
The teacher had to do research on her students' interests and then learn about rap music. This gained the respect and trust of students. The checklists were helpful resources.
Chapter 5 of the Leu book examined English and the Language Arts curriculum. Copyrighting issues, technology vs. interpersonal skills, and comparison/contrast issues were mentioned. Wikki, and my spaces sites were reviewed. The teach.web site for creating classroom home pages was perused. I used this site for my classroom webpage for project 2. I decided it was more fun than a blog page for my parents. We will see how many parents actually visit my web address!