Amanda FeltsWeblog

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from reading these two articles.  I really like the multigenre project idea, I think that it could be used many more ways than just an alternative to a research paper.  I would like to use it as a final project for the things that were studied in a nine weeks.  When students are given the chance to be creative and not just stick to the traditional ways of doing things a majority of the time they will go an extra mile and really surprise the teacher and their parents.  The multigenre project has so many ways for students to shine that every student would feel some sort of success in school.  I think that visual learners would really benefit from this project because they can see the artifacts and the different types of writings, and see how each can be used. 

The vocabulary instruction gave me a whole new way to think about how to teach vocabulary.  I never thought that there was that many ways to teach vocabulary.  I really liked and will probably use the literature circle ideas for learning vocabulary.  I think that as teachers we do not think or sometimes talk the same as our students and in letting the students discuss and agree on what a word means they truly do get a deeper understanding than if the teacher stands up and tells them what a word means.  The other idea that I thought rocked was when the students drew what a word meant, which would really aid the visual learners.

All of the ideas were just wonderful!!  I think that these articles could really help a teacher teach and be able to differentiate much easier.  The multigenre though would really give students a creative turn to te traditionally boring research paper.