Sara+T

3.28.09

Hi Sara, I have uploaded a "Peer Review" for you: I have asked Ed if we could "partner" up since 3 Peer Reviews is a lot. I'm hoping he agrees to this. I have not finished updating my whereto, but if you would like to comment on it before then, that is fine as well.

Thanks, Nasrin

Hi, my name is Sara Thedinga. I am a speech-language pathologist at the Irving Middle School. It is my first year in Boston Public Schools. My students have many different needs. I am often working with students on curriculum based vocabulary and auditory comprehension skills.

Hi Sara- I really liked this breakdown of figurative language! I was only left wondering if you could have maybe included more standards? It seems like your subject addresses more than just the one standard you posted on there. I think it's great that you included information about how the students are working on figurative language in their ELA class because I sometimes wonder if people realize we dont do speech in isolation but really do strive to support the curriculum. Nice work! Amanda  Hi Sara, Like I told Amanda, I apologize for my lateness. I just figured out how to post comments. Let me say, I just covered this standard in __House on Mango Street,__ so I'm really excited to see how you go about things. I have a few questions for you: 1) Are you teaching figurative language alongside a whole-class text? Or are you teaching the terms in isolation and basing it around worksheets and practice? 2) Have you considered blending art with your unit? I had kids draw a lot of figurative language... they loved it! Drawing what a simile looks like literally is hilarious to them. They begin to see the connection. Example: "//My papa's hair is like a broom, all up in the air//." The kid's picture was of Papa-- his hair was sticking up.. next to the hair was an arrow pointing to a broom. It was really cute and they really got it. It became concrete. 3) To add to Amanda's point, I think you can address several standards in this unit besides just Standard 15.3. When I taught mine, I was able to hit the following standards and I think you would be able to as well: > • sound (alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme); > • figurative language (personification, metaphor, simile, hyperbole); and > • graphics (capital letters, line length). (The only reason I can easily pull this up is that my school is OBSESSED with standards-checklists and I was in charge of making a lot of them...)
 * 14.2: Identify rhyme and rhythm, repetition, similes, and sensory images in poems.
 * 14.3: Respond to and analyze the effects of sound, figurative language, and graphics in order to uncover meaning in poetry:
 * 15.1: Identify the senses implied in words appealing to the senses in literature and spoken language.
 * 15.2: Identify words appealing to the senses or involving direct comparisons in literature and spoken language.
 * 15.4: Identify and analyze the importance of shades of meaning in determining word choice in a piece of literature.

4) I know we haven't got to final products... but how do you plan on assessing them? I ask this because I struggled with this myself. I debated with: a) giving a test where they identified the different types of figurative language b) having them create a vignette/ poem and apply figurative language to their writing

Having said that, I found that the latter was extremely difficult and required a lot more teaching of how to create your own... and I did not provide them the skills to do that.

A lot to mull over! Hope this helps... :)

-Nasrin