...planning for an 8-week scheme would surely but multiply. While the freedom at my fingertips was invigorating, there was the gnawing sense that failure to grasp the key issues involved would lead to the teacher’s greatest fear – wasted lessons; wasted lessons after which the class would struggle to maintain a respect for the teacher. Furthermore, it would be the waste of an outstanding opportunity. As commentators to the publication Teaching History have repeatedly stressed, the new History National Curriculum for Key Stage 3 offers teachers a ‘glorious flexibility’ to throw out the straight-jacket of centralised requirements beholden to political overlords (Dawson 2008, 18). Instead, led by a relit passion for their discipline, teachers are able to respond to the very specific needs of their school and construct personalised routes towards a variety of objectives. For some commentators, the National Curriculum Key Concepts and their accompanying levels represent the vestiges of an ancien regime of central control that prevent true pupil ownership developing (see Knight 2008). However, a determination to facilitate pupil progression in six concepts at the heart of our subject should be valued as a way to structure our planning, teaching and assessment. What is more, aspiring to teach such crucial concepts – in addition to the corresponding Key Processes – should complement rather than devalue what is, in my opinion, the history teacher’s unique advantage; insodoing, it would release...
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...I would categorize my senior year as one of wild progression when it came to my writing. Senior year mirrors my sophomore year almost exactly when it comes to just pure progression. In that sophomore year, I greatly improved in an area that had irked me for years, the organization of content, and I grew in other critical areas throughout the course of this year. While I would consider my writing far more refined than it was in 10th grade, there are still multiple core elements that I always work to improve. The first few journals last semester echoed the thoughts of a teen who refused to take risks in his writing, who couldn’t be told his faults without a fear of personal attack. Last year the majority of my writing was for AP courses, and...
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...I’d written approximately 18 songs by my senior year of highschool, enough to have an album. Along with it, I’d written a bunch of drafts, uncompleted pieces along with some chord progressions that in the future I would intertwine my lyrics with. However, I never had the capacity to display my work or talk about my struggles, especially that my problems seem to get out of hand. But man it felt so damn right to just let it all out in Keen or in the back of my notebooks in class when a word or phrase would come to mind. ‘Click!’ It was just like that or maybe the sound came first and whatever tone embodied the theme to my song. My naive heartbreak to my mental upheavals were all demonstrated in every individual song. They weren’t necessarily...
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...research paper writing has always been challenging for me. Because writing is a task that I have never been proficient at I feel that I do not have any strengths however, I do have several deficiencies. One of the biggest problem that I face is trying to figure out how to write what I am thinking. I simply have difficulty trying to express my thoughts through words and then there are the insecurities I face about my writing abilities. While I am not proficient at writing I have received positive feedback that can be beneficial in helping enhance my writing skills. After taking the UNV-103 course and being required to write weekly journals I have come to realize that I need to focus on the logical progression of my ideas, theme and purpose within each paragraph. I also need to focus on the mechanical errors as I write. My saving grace is that I desire to become more efficient at writing. Although writing is a talent that many were born with however, for those like myself it’s a craft that we have to work at. Despite the difficulty of writing I firmly believe that anyone can and should achieve a working proficiency since it’s it has become the basis of most communication for today’s society. Writing every day, taking my time, asking for help and proofreading are great ways to improve my writing skills. Notwithstanding the fact that I have never been a good technical writer, my academic background has more or less been focused on creative writing. Writing has never...
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...lesson material. I will suggest a few methods that I will use in my secondary education mathematics classroom. The first strategy of monitoring I will discuss will be quizzes. There are multiple advantages for this form of testing. First, is that it easily produces recorded data. I can quickly grade multiple choice questions and record the students’ grade. Being able to record this grade will allow me to present scores to the parents when I am asked for a student’s progress. Another advantage to a quiz is the ability to assess both the entire class and each individual’s understanding on a topic. I will be able to look at the overall measurement and decide whether there is a need to review the topic or lesson, or if the class is ready to advance in the given studies. Also, by presenting multiple quizzes through the term the students and I can create a set format, which can help ease classroom anxiety. Another form of monitoring students’ progression through a lesson is homework. Homework can be one of the most effective methods for tracking mathematical progress. Assigning, collecting and grading homework can be a very timely way to gather information on how each student is progressing through the lesson, but homework provides a way for students to effectively review knowledge that had been taught that day in class. Through the grading process data will be created making it easy for me to track the progression of each individual student, and inform me when an individual or...
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...As you begin AP everything will seem overwhelming, and like you have no time for activities other than AP English. You will learn to discover yourself and how to write things about almost any type of literature, among many other things. At the end of the year you’ll go back, and read all your writing that you’ve saved throughout the year, and reflect upon it. So here’s what I’ve learned. I looked at my first piece of writing which was about a song “That’s the way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” by Carly Simon, and my last work which was based on “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry. My first paper was a summary of the song with some comments in with it. I also did not know how to properly cite my sources and used verse numbers...
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...Throughout the course of the first nine weeks in Mrs. Theisen's AP English Language and Composition class, my writing has changed dramatically. Towards the start of the year my writing was very weak, yet it has improved towards the start of the second nine weeks. My writing began in this class with bad thesis statements, weak transitions, awkward grammar, and lack of relevant evidence. My writing skills at the beginning of this class started in a rough spot. There are a plethora of examples of how weak my writing was at the beginning of the nine weeks. To begin, my thesis sentences lacked relevance and contained bad grammar - if I had a thesis sentence to begin with. In the very beginning of the year I had no thesis statements in my papers,...
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...Burgos B. Javier. “Animal Experimentation Is Unscientific”. At Issue: Animal Experimentation. Ed. David M. Haugen. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. 51-54. Print. Javier Burgos is the president of The Nature of Wellness and graduate of Barcelona University. The Nature of Wellness is an organization that informs the public about both medical and scientific flaws in animal testing. Throughout this article he informs the reader of the faults in the tests that scientist conduct on animals. This article will aide me in proving my premise that animal testing often produces invalid results. When the other states, “The pseudo-scientific belief that human medicine can be based on veterinary medicine has led the biomedical establishment to engage in...
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...Executive Summary This report examines the need for a learning tool that would improve and develop the learner’s literacy skills. Methods of analysis includes examining the needs from relevant stakeholders and the outcomes from a community of inquiry. Results of the research and feedback demonstrated that although students may possess English GCSE qualifications the business community and bodies such as OFSTED highlight that the level of literacy amongst today’s school leavers was not adequate in terms of the functional skill. The report highlights the importance of increasing student’s level of literacy and functional skills. There are areas specifically in terms of cross-curricular activities that could be further explored. The report recommends the creation of a learning tool in the form of a booklet to enable students to develop and improve their literacy skills within the business curriculum and thus the functional skill. Once the initial proposal was agreed in order to maintain focus throughout the project, SMART objectives were established and addressed, a time plan was created and the personal tutor was involved during the project (Refer to Appendix 1). Introduction ‘Literacy is a fundamental human right and the foundation of lifelong learning. It is fully essential to social and human development in its ability to transform lives. For individuals, families, and societies alike, it is an instrument of empowerment to improve one’s health, one’s income, and...
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...Throughout the course of the semester, my writing as drastically improved through analyzing and understanding the course goals, its objectives, the topics of the papers, and grading rubrics. Utilizing the syllabus allowed me to see what was expected of me as a writer, and how I would be critiqued in my writing, starting with the first paper which asked me to explain the moment or experience when I knew I was a part of a discourse community. At first, I did not understand what I was supposed to write. Once we talked about it in class and went over discourse community characteristics and sample papers, my paper began to flourish from draft one all the way to draft four. In draft one, I finished my paper with “I became so good with weave that...
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...Andrea Harris Alzheimer’s Dementia Rasmussen College Authors Note This paper is being submitted on September 13, 2012 for Abnormal Psychology summer 2012 by Andrea Harris. Alzheimer’s Disorder is a disease that severely affects not only the person, but the family as well. There is no cure, only ways to slow down the progression. This disorder is not known by a lot of people or understood. The only way to do that is by educating. In this paper I hope to go over symptoms, treatments, diagnosis, and what to expect when someone you love is affected. This is not something that only attacks the elderly, it can affect any age. After reading this I hope to bring a better understanding of how to help loved ones and what to expect. My mother has Alzheimer’s disease and I am her daughter as well as her caretaker. This paper is personal for me and is meant to help those loved ones have a better understanding and how to deal with being confronted with is. Alzheimer’s is not a personal disease, but a family disease. It affects everyone involved emotionally and physically. I know that even to do this I struggle. This paper is my gift to help simplify things and help caretakers and loved ones build knowledge not only for the person with the disease, but for them as well. There are several types of dementia such as from trauma or drug use. In this paper we are talking about Alzheimer’s dementia. It is the most common form and is over 70% of most cases. When you hear a doctor tell you...
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...In project-based writing, students go through every stage of the writing process (8.14ABCDE) during every writing cycle. I anticipate being able to complete 4-5 writing cycles during the school year. In order to ensure students write a fiction, poem, expository, and persuasive piece (8.15-8.18), I will give students the option of when to write each piece during writing project cycles. Grammar TEKS (8.19-8.21) will be addressed and taught in context of the writing process, as is currently happening in class. In Step 4 (Doing the Work), students will be researching and gathering information to help them effectively write their piece (TEKS 8.22-8.24). During Steps 2 and 6, students will be presenting their ideas and work for the class to evaluate...
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...Book Review “ ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet…he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” Matthew 24:6 Philip Caputo’s relationship with the Vietnam War is depicted in a disturbingly beautiful way in the memoir “A Rumor of War.” Throughout the course of the book, approximately 16 months, we observe a young, ambitious boy ready to prove his manhood, in search of adventure turn into an aged disillusioned man. The words Caputo uses give the sense of involvement, the sense of being right there with the troops, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, but really, we are never even close. Caputo has humble intentions for writing the novel. He wants us to see what he saw and try to understand what happened from another perspective. The words he uses and the way he ties them together are full of passion. Only through a thorough reading of the novel can one appreciate the work and sincerity of this memoir. Furthermore, the reader comes to the conclusion that through the situations presented to these military men, vicious inhumane behaviors become inevitable. Caputo does an amazing job at capturing the dynamic changes in behaviors, mental states, and attitudes, within individuals as well as within the platoon as a whole. "Most of all we learned about death at an early age when it is common to think of oneself as immortal. Everyone loses that illusion eventually,...
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...On the other hand, there is no better way to further understand writing in the medical field than from a first hand credible source. A close family friend of mine, Sara Hess, is an occupational therapist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Chicago. A short background regarding occupational therapists is to note that they are very different from physical therapists. Physical therapists deal with rehabilitating the physical well being of a patient. Occupational therapists focus their work on aiding patients in being able to do everyday tasks they are not able to do because of their impairment. Considering this, to enhance my knowledge for you and I video interviewed her to understand what writing really means in this certain field. If you are...
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...like many of my classmates…little to no college experience and no classroom interaction within the last decade. Again, like many in class this semester I come from a military background; I served in the Air Force for 14 years. Much like the Air Force, writing has rules; grammar, punctuation, syntax, clarity, purpose, the list goes on and on. You must follow these guidelines in order to produce an effective product. It is often said that good writers are not born but rather created. EN105 begins this process with students and has done so for me. It has broken the rigid walls of military style writing (cut and dry) and began the process of exhumation to reveal my hidden inner essayist. My experience in EN105 began at a pinnacle time in my life of complete change. My transition from active duty back to the civilian world came at an unforeseen time and I had to change quickly. I had to learn to speak civilian English again and now I had to learn to write it. Through collaborative interaction with my peers via threaded discussion boards and insightful weekly reading assignments, I have gained a vast amount of knowledge; experienced different unique writing styles and seen dedication and passion go into works of writing. Though initially I feared sharing my work with anyone other than the professor for fear of harsh criticism and feeling naked to the world; the process of “peer review” became one of the most beneficial tools in the repository of writing tools that I...
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