How Do Your Students Learn?

Not everyone learns in the same way. I know you all know this, but it never hurts to review. There are three ways people learn. Some learn using a combination of these.

  • Auditory
  • Visual
  • Kinesthetic

If you’re a classroom teacher, and you are only using one of these modes to relay the content of your lessons to your students because most of them are, for example, visual learners, then how are the other students in your class going to learn the material effectively? The truth of it is, it will be difficult for them. Your goal is for all of your students to learn the material, so use a combination of the three ways above.

Example:

You are teaching spelling/language.

Visual: List words on the board. Students look up each word and write down the definitions.
Auditory: As a class, the students say the words aloud.
Kinesthetic: Assign a different word to each student. Each student draws a picture of their word. When they are finished, student 1 says his/her word aloud and its meaning, at the same time, he/she puts an action to the word. Then student 1 holds up his/her picture. The class then repeats student 1’s word and the action student 1 put to it. This cycle repeats with student 2 doing the same thing with his/her word. The class repeats student 1’s word and student 1’s actions, then repeats student 2’s word and actions. This cycle continues throughout until all students have done their words.

Once the whole class goes through the words, the teacher will give the definition of one of the words and the students will write down the matching word. You can do the reverse of this as well.

Yes, this method works. I used it in my high school junior language class. The words were extremely difficult for the students, as they had never seen them before. I used this method and they went from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s. They had a great time with this as well.

If you have any questions, please leave a message in the comments section.

Theme Can Be So Mean

Theme was the one literary device that my students had the most difficulty understanding. Personally, I think it’s the word itself that can be a little scary. I always started out giving examples of themes and then listed various pieces of literature that centered around those themes. Of course, these examples were stories they had already known. I also took the word theme and listed on the board other words that meant the same thing (synonyms), such as main idea, central topic,  or point at issue (just to name a few).

Getting down to the definition, theme is the basic topic that the story itself centers around. The dictionary definition from dictionary.com puts it like this:

  • a subject of discourse, discussion, meditation,, or composition; topic;
    • Example as given by dictionary.com: The need for world peace was the theme of the meeting.

As you can see in the example, world peace is the central topic (theme). That is what the meeting was to be all about.

Editing

Editing anything you are writing can be daunting for some. You might very well know how to edit and know what to look for that needs correcting, but what if, even though you know how to do this, you still don’t want to do it. I’ve been there. You want to be done with your paper or project. But editing is important. It’s that step that can make or break your credibility and that grade on your paper, so it’s a necessary evil. In the end you will be glad you did it. Make it easy on yourself though by keeping up with ways to make your editing skills effective.

Some things to look for when editing your own paper (or someone else,s). Filler words can be a problem if you are using too many of them. Here are some listed below:

Just Only Much
A lot Perhaps Always
Very Really Actually
Rather Stuff Literally
In order That Slightly
Seem Sort of Kind of
A little Somehow Can
Then See/saw Definitely

If your sentence makes sense without these words, then don’t use them. One here and there doesn’t hurt because sometimes they add emphasis to a point trying to be made.

Dangling modifiers is another big one. This is when a sentence is unclear because of what is being modified. Here is an example below:

  • Racing against the clock, the car ran a red light. We don’t know who was racing against the clock. As the sentence reads it sounds as though the car itself was doing the driving. Below is how to fix it.
  • Racing against the clock, I drove the car through a red light.
  • While cleaning the house, the dog went outside. In this sentence it is unclear who is cleaning the house, and the way it is read makes it appear as though the dog was cleaning the house and going outside at the same time. Here is  the fix below.
  • While I cleaned the house, the dog went outside.

Repetition is another problem to look out for. When writing it is so easy to say the same thing twice or three times but in a different way. We do this because we want to make sure we are getting our point across. As you are editing and looking for this. First, delete the repeats. Then, come up with other ideas to emphasize the main point. You could add statistics, back up your idea with research, or maybe you interviewed someone. Use something they quoted. 

There is so much more to editing. They key is to have resources ready and on hand. Dictionaries, Thesauri, books on grammar, formatting resources, and the like are just some of what you can use. Please find below a list websites that can help:

http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073545430/student_view0/index.html

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

https://www.grammarbook.com

https://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/building-sentences

http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/passive.htm

https://www.engvid.com/english-resource/common-spelling-mistakes-in-english/

http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/grinker/start.htm#

http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/index.htm

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl

Learning New Vocabulary

Having students put actions to new vocabulary words and their meanings and continuing to repeat that action as they’re learning them will help students to understand and remember the words and their meanings. I did this with one of my classes who were struggling with learning their vocabulary. As a result, their retention of these new words and their definitions went way up as evidenced by students’ test scores.

The Tutor’s Corner

I travel to clients within the vicinity of Salem, Oregon only.

Brochure The Tutors Corner

The Necklace

This short story classic The Necklace is a popular one in classrooms. It teaches some pretty hard life lessons that, if learned the hard way, can leave you in a rut with much regret.

The protagonist, Madame Loisel, is a woman who doesn’t come from wealth. She didn’t have a dowry of any kind when she married, and she didn’t marry into wealth. Her husband was a clerk within the Ministry of Education. Her life was a simple one with nothing of high value and was never happy with anything she had. She wanted more and felt she deserved more. She ends up borrowing what she thought was an expensive necklace from a well to do friend so she could wear it to a ritzy party. The purpose for all of this was so that people at the party would see her as a woman who was well off and of a higher station in life. It worked. She had the time of her life and received much attention; that is until she got home and realized she lost the necklace. After looking everywhere for it, she still couldn’t find it. Her and her husband know now that they must replace the necklace, so they go into much dept paying for the necklace that was lost. During this time, the protagonist, with much resentment, works herself and her fingers to the bone working odd jobs until the dept is paid (her friend didn’t know her necklace had been replaced). In the end she turned out to be a rough haggered woman looking older than her years. At the end of the story she runs into her friend on the street. After reminding her friend of who she is (because she looks so much different than before), she tells her friend of the hard times she had and the many sorrows and no money. Then, she blames her friend for her troubles. Her friend asks why and Madame Loisel tells her about the necklace. Come to find out that the original necklace that the protagonist lost wasn’t worth but only 500 francs. Madame Loisel, thinking it was worth more than that, replaced it with one that was 36,000 francs. What a lesson learned, huh? If she had just told her friend from the start, or if she hadn’t felt she needed the necklace in order to get others to like her or pay attention to her, she wouldn’t have ended up in the mess she got herself into.

 

How often do some people today feel this way; always wanting more and never being happy with what they have? We dream of owning a big house, lots of money, notariety, etc; much like Madame Loisel in The Necklace. Some go so far as to make it their main focus. Well, what can happen if you concentrate too much on being something you’re not or on wanting material things just to fit in with others? You can end up at a point in your life where you don’t want to be. I’m not saying you shouldn’t own nice things. You can. Just don’t lose sight of who you are. Be happy with yourself. It’s been my experience that people will like you more for who you are on the inside. Anyone who likes you for what you have is not a friend worth having.

Adjectives

Adjectives, words that describe (or modify) nouns, are beautiful words. They create so many vivid images that allows a story to jump off the page and into your mind. In other words, they make the difference between showing and telling. It’s one thing to give information, but, when it comes to story telling, they do more that just tell. Please see the chart below from the following link for types of adjectives.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Printable+Adjective+Chart&FORM=RESTAB#view=detail&id=4B69B77A5FCD3E127151FA34FDC21810BB6208F8&selectedIndex=8

Types of Pronouns

As stated in a previous post, a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun. But, keep in mind that there are many kinds of pronouns and each  kind has its own job with a sentence. I will touch on some of them here.

Subject (Personal) Pronouns = I, you, he, she, it, they  

A personal pronoun is used when it is the subject of the verb

eg. I walked around the block.

Object Pronouns = me, him, her, it, them, you, us, whom  

An object pronoun is used when it is receiving the action of the verb.

eg. Sally threw it to the dog.    

Possessive Pronouns = mine, yours, ours, theirs, hers, its      

A possessive pronoun shows definite ownership.

eg. The candy bar is mine.

Possessive Determiners = my, your, his, our, her, its, their      

Possessive Determiners show possession just like possessive pronouns with the exception of one thing. They are used as adjectives to nouns.

eg. This is my bike. John took his book to school. 

Reflexive = myself, itself, yourself, oneself, himself, yourself  

Reflexive pronouns are used when the subject and the object are the same.

eg. Jack hit himself.

They can also be used as the object of the preposition.

eg. He is working for himself.

Lastly, they can be used as an intensive pronoun to emphasize the subject.

eg. Sue fixed the refrigerator herself. In this example,  if we leave off herself, we still know that Sue fixed the refrigerator; therefore, the pronoun herself is only there for emphasis.

Demonstrative Pronouns = This, that, these, those

Demonstrative pronouns are used to indicate something.

eg. Those are the books I told you about.

Relative Pronouns = Which, that, who, whom, whose, where

Relative pronouns refer to a noun used previously in the sentence. It can also be used to add information.

eg. The lady who passed me yesterday just walked by. eg. The book, that I read yesterday, was very good. Notice in this last example how the pronoun “that” introduces the clause “that I read yesterday.”

Interrogative Pronouns =  Who, what, where, why, how

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask a question.

eg. What are you doing?

Indefinite Pronouns = each, all, anybody, somebody, either, few

Indefinite pronouns don’t name any specific thing.

eg. Some don’t like to eat out. Igave candy to each person.

Reciprocal Pronouns = one another, each other

Reciprocal pronouns are used when actions or feelings are returned or reciprocated.

eg. We love one another. They gave each other a gift for Valentines Day.

What’s Coming?

There are examples of foreshadowing all around us. For example, dark clouds in the distant sky indicate that a storm is brewing and most likely will result in a downpour. A look of menace on your neighbor’s face as he stands in his driveway looking at your house indicates he may do or say something later. Foreshadowing in literature is a plot device used to give the reader a hint or a clue as to what is to come later in the story. I must also add here that atmosphere comes into play here and is related to foreshadowing. You wouldn’t create a happy and joyous atmosphere and foreshadow something evil. The atmosphere sets the mood of what is foreshadowed. The presence of the witches in the first act of Macbeth creates a mood that is dark and somber. What the witches tell Macbeth foreshadows the evil that is acted out or dramatized later in the play (Beckson & Ganz, 1989).

For a closer look at act I, click on the link below.

Bibliography

Beckson, K. E., & Ganz, A. F. (1989). Literary terms, a dictionary. (3rd ed., p. 20). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act1-script-text-macbeth.htm