Carina Alcantara Looping Sketchbook

As I was reading this weeks reading, I couldn't help but think about what we did in school right before Thanksgiving break. In my fourth grade class, we did not even go into the big talk of what is Thanksgiving. We gave each student a parts of speech turkey and they had to color it in according to the part of speech. As they were doing this, we had a virtual field trip playing on the promethean board where they talked about the Indians and described what they wear. Most of the students were too concentrated on their turkey to worry about what was playing. After they finished their turkey, we asked them to write a letter to someone telling them why they are thankful for them. I was in my placement class for two hours, then I was pulled in to help 5th grade with their celebration. When the students are in fifth grade they have one day where they get to dress up like pilgrims and they rotate to do activities related to what pilgrims use to do back then. The very first stat...

In the reading they talked about how they guided whole group  discussion  through the three stages of a primary source analysis process which is observation, reflection, and questioning. They would start  off  with engaging the students and closely observing a primary source. Then, they would prompt the  students  to make inferences and ask questions. Lastly, they  encouraged  the students to connect what they were observing with an  existing  topic of study and urged them to use their new learning to explore further. Basically what we did in class. We first observed the picture of the classroom. We wrote down as much as we could remember about the  picture. Then, as a class we discussed about what we saw and discussed any assumptions we could make and even wrote down some questions we had.  Last semester I was in a literature class where we talked about many strategies and activities we could do with our class. ...

I have always known Christopher Columbus as the person who discovered America. The way my teachers spoke about him made him seem like this wise man who set voyage in search of an adventure. After reading this chapter, I am in shock. I have heard people say that the story of Christopher Columbus is not the real story but I never imagined what it was really like. I never took the time to even do my own research but now that I know I have so many questions. Why did my teachers not tell me the truth? I understand that it wasn't something pleasant to talk about but even when I got to high school none of teachers discussed this with me. I feel like once in high school, I would have been able to take the truth just like they spoke to me about slavery and the holocaust. Which is a very sad topic to discuss but they dit it. Christopher Columbus was not even the first man who spotted land. There was another man on the ship named Rodrigo and he was the one who spotted it first, but Columbus...

In this reading, the author explained why it is important for him to teach the way he does. He has this quote in his classroom and everyday it reminds him of why he teaches. I want to find a quote just like his and have it in my own classroom. That way I have a daily reminder of why I do what I do. I also think it is important for the teacher to learn along side with the children.  Also, I enjoyed reading into the different activities the teacher had the students do. It amazed me to see how interested the first graders were. The activities were as simple as drawing a picture, but you could clearly see the students making connections to what they have been learning in class. There was also an activity where the kids wrote letters to Thomas Jefferson and one students asked him about the slaves he owned. Which got me thinking, at such a young age these kids clearly understand slavery and understand it was not a good thing. They are engaging in conversations about it with not...

I learned that Rosa Parks walked into that bus with no intention to say no to giving up her seat. She got on that bus with the plan to have another normal day. She went and sat on the first seat for colored people and they asked her to stand up and give up her seat for a white person. The fact that she was sitting in the area of the bus where she was asked to sit at in the first place was not enough. Not being able to choose where to sit, was not enough. This picture really spoke to me. I can picture Rosa Parks sitting in the first seat for colored people not knowing what is about to happen.  Also, in the podcast it shocked me to hear that a teacher had 4 th graders act like slaves for a skit. I am currently student teaching in a 4 th grade classroom and that is something I would never do. The teacher followed with having the students list 3 good things about slavery and 3 bad things. There is NOTHING good about slavery.  Resources: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/3...

 “Reconstruction was that time, right after the Civil War, when African Americans took over the governing of the Southern states, including Mississippi, but they were too soon out of slavery, so they messed up, and reigned corruptly, and whites had to take back control of the state governments.”  In one of the readings, the teacher asked her students “What was Reconstruction?” When I read the response from the student, just like the teacher I was shocked. Especially when the student said, “whites had to take back control of the state governments.” This response tells me that based on what the students have learned, this is what they believe now. They see the whites as having power and the ability to control. Why couldn’t the student think that an African American can be in control? The reason is because teachers are teaching to the book and telling the students what the textbook says. They are feeding students the white washed stories. This needs to be changed.  ...

Chapter 1: Introduction As I began to read this chapter, it reminded me of the first day of class when you explained this assignment to us. You told us that the looping sketchbook reflections can be done in any way we would like. The student in this chapter is writing a response paper and she is not sure how the professor will take the response. It turns out that the professor liked the way she responded on the paper and how the student connected it in their own way. The professor even suggested a book for the student to read, which inspired his/her teaching. Which is a lot like what you told us to do, to write out the reflection in a way that it makes sense to us.  "I choose to teach critically because I believe young children are capable of amazing things, far more than is usually expected of them. I am not talking about raising a score on a standardized math test (although that often happens). I am talking about thinking critically and learning to learn, learning to use...