Millenials

Bauerlein and Howe’s interview discusses the authors’ two very different viewpoints on the Millennial Generation. Howe ,writer of Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, claims that the Millennial generation is one of innovation similar to the GI generation. Howe believes that our generation has the ability to shape the nation into a better and safer society. Through developments in technology the Millennial generation has been provided with a plethora of venues for growth in communication and education, perhaps aiding in the steady incline of IQ scores.

Mark Bauerline presents his own views on the Millennial generation in his book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. As clearly as it is stated in the title, Bauerline believes the Millenial generation to be the least intelligent generation in history (RUDE!). He claims that our generation has no depth, as result of our access to unlimited social networking and gaming technology. Bauerlein also claims that the Millenial Generation is self obsessed and missuse their access to technology.

I enjoyed the interview and hearing both arguments about whether I, and my generation, are the nations saving grace or inevitable downfall. Oddly enough I agree with both sides of the argument. I do believe that facebook, twitter, halo, etc. have created a more self absorbed generation, yet these same networks allow us a window of communication to peers all over the globe! It is important as teachers that we use our knowledge of the millennials to better instruct and engage our students.

Website Review

http://www.hispanic-culture-online.com/Hispanic-culture-blog.html

Topic: Hispanic Culture

Target Audience: 6-12+

  Hispanic Culture Online is a wonderful website for students to explore the 

customs and traditions of the Hispanic world. I believe too often Spanish classes 

focus primarily on the language and do not focus enough on the Hispanic culture, this 

website provides students with the ability to really see how the Hispanic people live; 

what they buy, what the eat, what they believe.

The website includes a Hispanic Culture Blog which focuses on the traditions, 

culture, language and products of Spanish America. Students can interact with the 

website and other users through their use of this blog!

The site includes information on all things Latin American including:

Latin home and decorations, famous Hispanic people and interviews, jewelry, cuisine, 

cooking, and recipes, traditions and faith, hispanic holidays, and travel. 

The site is wonderful for all things cultural, but also provides spanish learning tools 

and software for struggling students to use at home. The website can be used by 

teachers and students alike to explore and investigate Latin American culture, while 

also being used as a type of inquiry based learning. 

Text Set

Anaya, Rudolfo A. Bless Me, Ultima. New York: Warner, 1994. Print.

This is a novel about the development of the American Mestizaje in the south west. The book discusses traditions, religion, and stereotypes of the Chicano people. 

Menard, Valerie. The Latino Holiday Book: From Cinco De Mayo to Dia De Los Muertos-- the Celebrations and Traditions of Hispanic-Americans. New York: Marlowe &, 2000. Print.

The Latino Holiday Book is the essential resource for everyone wanting to celebrate and honor the special traditions and celebrations of Hispanic Americans. For each celebration, Menard discusses their religious or social history, typical customs, special foods and activities, and gives recipes and instructions for making the authentic foods and crafts that particularly represent a day's traditions.

Ooki, Nancy. Hispanic Heritage Unit Study. Homeschool Learning Network, Inc.; Edition 1 edition 

This unit study uses age-appropriate, reviewed links across the web to further your knowledge on this topic. It is best utilized with an internet connection. Great for homeschoolers, teachers, and anyone interested in having fun learning more about this topic.

Poore, Marge. 1,000 Mexican Recipes.

Offering 1,000 recipes for traditional fare from all the regions of Mexico, as well as dishes inspired by the nueva cocina of today's top Mexican chefs, this cookbook covers what home cooks need and want to know about Mexican cooking. Throughout, the author shares the cultural and culinary heritage of the people and food of Mexico from her perspective as a traveler and impassioned enthusiast of the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4oksMinds

Hispanic Heritage Month

This video is a brief clip displaying many Hispanic traditions and practices. The video has a brief narration explaining the importance of Hispanic heritage month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRJZ9B3eC0

This 13 minute video focuses on el día de los muertos in México. There are images of graveyards, singing and dancing rituals, along with the customary facepaint and dress. The video is very authentic and allows viewers to get a real sense of the festival. 

http://www.hispanic-culture-online.com/#axzz29mj3Dfsz

This website is chock full of Hispanic culture resources. Hispanic holidays, religion, travel, cuisine, and people all have their own pages to be explored. The website is updated monthly with news and resources pertaining to the hispanic calendar. 

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/resource_library/hispanic_resources.html

Smithsonian Education resource library provides resources and links to a plethora of Hispanic cultural topics and lesson plans for teachers to use in their classrooms. There is everything from the stories of immigrants to carnivals celebrating masks in Puerto Rico. This is an awesome resource for all Spanish teachers. 

http://questgarden.com/53/04/4/070721163927/process.htm

This webquest is titled Hispanic Heritage Month, it is an inquiry based activity that requires pairs of students to select and research a historical Hispanic person of their choosing. The students will gather required information and present to the class. 

http://www.scaruffi.com/history/latin.html

This website provides excerpts from “A History of Popular Music”, giving the descriptions and histories of popular Hispanic dances. 

The Motorcycle Diaries is a 2004 biopic about the journey and written memoir of the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who would several years later become internationally known as the iconic Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. 

Frida is a 2002 Miramax/Ventanarosa biographical film which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. 

http://www.inside-mexico.com/index.htm

Inside Mexico offers in depth articles and news about Mexico, its amazing rich culture, history  and traditions. Arts/Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWdHafEdr-A&feature=related

This clip depicts a crowded street in Puebla, Mexico full of street vendors and customers celebrating Independence Day. The clip not only displays various traditional foods of Mexico, but also the daily life in the cities.

http://spanish4teachers.org/HispanicCultureAll.html

This website is specifically designed for Spanish teachers wanting to teach culture. The website provides worksheets, lessons, powerpoints, and links to Hispanic culture resources. This is a great website for teachers to visit in order to start generating ideas on how to present culture.

Sinatra Reflection

Sinatra’s article focuses on scaffolding learners to think, read, and write in varying content areas. Sinatra states that the teaching-learning construct incorporates three specific parts; examining text structure, concept mapping, and implementing teaching styles that help learners achieve reading and writing connections (Sinatra p 266). Understanding the organizational patterns within an expository text aids in student reading comprehension and understanding. Through examining text structures we are able to easily identify the main ideas and supporting concepts throughout the reading. The largest part of the article deals with concept maps and graphic organizers that can be used to help students better categorize and understand the text they are decoding. Sinatra emphasizes that it is important to not just give students the map to complete, but for the teacher and students to first work through the mapping process together so that the students will have a proper model as to how the mapping should take place. Teacher guidance and support is imperative for student understanding and mastery over the mapping strategy. 

I love the idea of the graphic organizer. Being a visual learner myself, I think they are a great way for students to physically see how a text can be broken down into specific categories. Although typically lower level language classes are not reading large or difficult texts, I do believe that these strategies could be implemented in a higher language literature class. I found this article to be interesting but not too helpful in my own content area.

CHAPTER 11

Daniels and Zemelmans chapter 11 focuses primarily on the difficulties students face in decoding texts across content areas. The chapter provides the reader with multiple strategies that can be used to help foster student critical thinking and understanding.

Read-alouds is one strategy mentioned throughout the chapter that I find to be very helpful within the foreign language classroom. This strategy involves instructors modeling the correct pronunciation and syntax of text along with the proper way of decoding the text into useful information. With the internet, smart phones, and wikipedia, students are forgetting how to think critically for themselves; Think alouds are an awesome tool in helping students to understand how certain inferences are drawn according to context.

Providing students with alternative forms of material is another suggestion that I find to be beneficial in all content areas. Students learn and comprehend material differently, and it is important as teachers to support all different learners by providing different means of materials and activities to engage our students. I found this chapter to be very informative on the development of reading skills and currently implement some of the mentioned strategies in my own foreign language classroom.