Paper #2 Rough Draft

Paper#2- Compare and Contrast Teachers

My two favorite teachers are Mrs. Kragen and Mrs. Gibbons who were my 6^th grade AGATE English and Social Studies and my 9^th grade Honors World History teacher, respectively. Mrs. Kragen is a professional editor and she taught AGATE classes, which are advanced classes. Mrs. Gibbons was working on her PhD during my freshman year and she got it about halfway through the school year. They were both great teachers and everyone loved their classes. I believe that the most important role a teacher can play is that of a mentor and both Mrs. Kragen and Mrs. Gibbons did a great job of this.

Both of the teachers are highly educated which made them good teachers and mentors. Mrs. Kragen is a professional editor, so she would strictly grade any writing assignments we turned in. Once a month she would assign a book report that would be specifically on something like the plot or the theme of the book. For every grammatical error we would lose points, and if we changed tense during the paper, then she would take 2% off the final grade each time we changed tense. She did this so that we would organize our thoughts better. Mrs. Kragen would also assign 10 sentences a week on one type of writing composition; for example sentences that use prepositional phrases. She assigned the sentences so that we would learn how to correctly use different compositions of writing.

Mrs. Gibbons earned her PhD halfway through the school year, so she had the college experience fresh in her mind which allowed her to better prepare us for college. The textbook that she used for our class was a college level book. It was to get us used to reading at a college level and understanding the information that we read. Mrs. Gibbons would take time and show us how to take really good notes and how to figure out what the most important information from reading is. The notes that she taught are called Cornell Notes and they have been proven to help students remember the information. The Cornell Notes require you to read the text once, and then read it again while taking notes. Then you have to write questions based on the information in your notes.This allows you to quickly review the notes just by answering the questions.

They both tried to improve our core life skills; Mrs. Kragen focused more one middle school and high school skills while Mrs. Gibbons focused on college skills and skills that you would use in a job. Mrs. Kragen would always assign challenging work which would require us to go more in-depth on the topic and we would learn more about it. She had everyone in the class participate in something called National History Day. For National History Day everyone was split into small groups of two or three and then had to pick an important person to research from the past century. We then had a couple months to research the person and would eventually write a paper and create a poster board exhibit on the person. A couple groups from our class made it to the regional finals and one group made it to state. We learned good research skills and how to work in a small group.

Mrs. Gibbons assigned a lot of power point presentations. This was to improve our communication and presentation skills. The first assignment that she gave was a power point, she wrote down notes on what we were doing and then gave us tips on how to improve. The final for her class was also a power point on a civilization that we had been studying for the whole year; after we finished with that she showed us her notes on how our presentation skills had improved through out the year. She would also have an after school club twice a week where you could go and do your homework or get help from a tutor. This helped set a schedule for getting your work done on time.

Both of them genuinely wanted their students to learn, and they would try and make the lessons more fun so that we would be more willing to learn. They also enjoyed teaching and I think that it makes a big difference whether a teacher enjoys teaching or doesn't. In 6^th grade we had a big unit on Ancient Greece and Mrs. Kragen split our class into four Greek city states. We then had our own version of the Olympic Games and a quiz bowl, the winners were given extra credit points. We had learn about the Olympics and study the Greek for he quiz bowl, but it was in a more fun setting. For the final project our class was split into two groups. Each group had to create a civilization centered around one belief- such as brawn over brain or just something like bacon. We had to meet the major criteria for a civilization and every criteria had to have something to do with the central belief. Then we had to create clues for out language and beliefs and stuff and give them to the other team. The other team would then be playing the role of an archaeologist and would try to figure out everything about our civilization. This project was fun and required a lot of creativity while also teaching us about the basics of civilizations.

Mrs. Gibbons would try to make some of the lessons more interesting. She would try to give work that included some of our interests; for example we had to write a paper on a famous murderer. Mr. Gibbons would also talk about her life and her family. It did not always have something to do with the lesson, but it was interesting and helped her to keep the class's attention. She had two Honors World History classes and our class was about half the size of the other class, so we would finished our work and presentations earlier. Because she was working on her PhD, she knew how important it was to take breaks from the work so she would let us have a little party once in while and watch a movie that had to do with what we were studying; for example we watched Gladiator after we finished our unit on Rome.

While Mrs. Kragen and Mrs. Gibbons are both great examples of teachers playing the role of a mentor, they do have some differences in their teaching styles and what they focus on. The differences in their teachings styles helps to show what they wanted to prepare the students for. Mrs.Kragen would stay more focused on the details for the assignments and the skills that we would need in our near future while Mrs. Gibbons tried to improve our skills that we would need for jobs and tried to give us the tools to easily understand information. They are two of my favorite teachers and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot in heir classes. They were both highly educated and genuinely enjoyed teaching which led to the classes enjoying their class more and learning more in the class. Both Mrs. Kragen and Mrs. Gibbons played what I believe is the most important role of a teacher which is to be a mentor.

Paper 2- Formatting for the Paper

Block Format-
1. Role: Teachers play the role of a mentor. Teaches life skills, knowledge, and a friend.
    Teachers: Mrs. Kragen- 6th grade English and Social Studies, Mrs. Gibbons- 9th grade World History
    Both teachers are a positive example.
2. -Mrs. Kragen was a professional editor. This allowed her to find mistakes that we made in our papers.
    She would assign us book reports specifically on the plot or theme, they had to be written in one tense and every time you switched tense, you would lose 2% off your grade. This was meant help the students better organize their ideas. Then we were given a chance to correct the paper and improve our grade.
   She would also assign 10 sentences a week on one type of writing composition, she would then take the best one and show why it was the best so that everyone would better learn that type of writing composition.
   Mrs. Kragen enjoyed teaching and she tried to make some of the assignments fun.
   During the Greek unit we had "Olympic games" and a quiz bowl. We had to learn about Greece and then got to apply it in a fun way.
   The class was split up into 2 groups and each group had to create their own ancient civilization based on criteria and it had to be centered around a belief, crazy or believable. We then had to leave clues for the other team who would act as archaeologists in the future and try to decipher the civilization. By doing this we learned how to connect information.
   Mrs. Kragen assigned challenging work. This made us have to work harder to get good grades and we ended up learning more about the subject.
   We had to do something called National History Day which is a big project on one important person or thing from the past century. You would have to research it for a couple months then you would put together a big poster board or a presentation displaying the information. A couple groups made it to the finals of regional and one made it to state. You learn research habits and information on the subject.
   -Mrs. Gibbons tried to improve presentation skills/communication to a crowd. Skills for jobs.
   The first assignment we were given was a powerpoint presentation.
   All of our final assignments were presentations. This helped make us feel more comfortable talking in front of an audience and will help when we have a job. They were graded progressively.
   Mrs. Gibbons tried to prepare us for college.
   Our textbook was a college level world history textbook. This was to prepare us for how college level textbooks would be written so that we wouldn't be overwhelmed in college.
   She would spend time in class explaining how to find the most important information in textbooks and what might appear on a test.
   She taught us how to take in-depth notes- C-Notes.
   Mrs. Gibbons could understand and relate to the students.
   She got her PhD during the school year and was able to understand how some of the students felt from the homework from all the classes.
   She would give example from her life relating to skills or what we were learning. Sometimes should would just share interesting parts about her life and we would talk about that if we finished the work early for that day.
3. While Mrs. Kragen and Mrs. Gibbons both cared about their students education, Mrs. Kragen focused more on middle school and high school skills while Mrs. Gibbons focused mainly on college habits and skills that would assist you in the workplace.

Point by Point Format-
1. Will most likely be my introductory paragraph with block type body.
2. They were both highly educated, PhD and Editor. This allowed them to better understand the material and they were able to give better feed back on assignments and be more strict on the grading.
   The both tried to make the assignments more fun or interesting so that the students would be more willing to learn. Either life stories and discussions or fun activities.
   Improve core skills- life skills and school skills/habits. Presentations, big research projects, correct studying habits.
3. Basically the same as the block format.

Third Organizational Format-
Basically a combination of the previous formats, more of a finishing tactic to use on the final draft of the paper than a format for the paper.

Boyce and Large

Both writers advocate that true learning and success comes from within. Large believes that if you want success, then you have to build up the child's character. This is done by the parents showing affection for the child from a young age, and then, when the child gets older, allowing the child to face challenges. He says that the child needs to face challenges to improve themselves, but this can cause stress which can have adverse affects, so the parents should provide support as the kid faces the challenge. This allows the kid to improve and to begin to build their character with their own experiences. Boyce believes that children need to learn life skills to succeed in life, besides just getting good grades. he says that this can be done by using ones inherent mindfulness. He says that taking time to think away from yourself can help you deal with almost any situation and will usually result in success. He has studies going on at different schools and says that yoga can be a way to help calm and prepare yourself. Both writers focus more on the ability of having a strong mind and good character than the actual learning of information because they believe that if you have those characteristics, then the rest will follow.

Drafting Paper 2

Teachers- Mrs. Kragen, 6th grade AGATE English and Social Studies
                Mrs. Gibbons, 9th grade Honors World History
Mrs. Kragen was the first teacher who actually challenged me with the work. She gave us a lot of work but also made the class fun. When we learned about Ancient Greece the classroom was divided into 4 polises and we competed against each other for points and extra credit. I haven't learned any new writings skills (noticeable) since her class and I have aced all of my paper because she graded so hard with her papers. We also had to do something called National History Day in her class. We were divided into groups of 2 or 3 and had to do a lot of research on one person or thing in modern U.S. history. People from all over the U.S. competed and there were different levels of judging. I was with my friend and we did William Boeing and made it into the regional finals. We spent about half the year working on the project and one group in our class went to state. She really affected and improved my work habits and my writing skills.
Mrs. Gibbons gave a lot of presentations in her class and we had to do a lot of research. Up to that point in time she was one of three teachers that actually gave difficult work. Our class was small and there was only 10 people in it, all of which I have known since 7th grade, so everyone talked a lot and helped each other learn more. Mrs. Gibbons would have discussions on the readings and actually taught us how to read a real college level textbook and take the information out of it and turn into presentations or tests. She also assigned a big powerpoint presentation on one great empire that was to be completed throughout the year for quarter finals and then the year final. I had the Mongol Empire and had to research the 12 main components that make a civilization and relate it to the Mongols. I learned how to give presentations in her class and how to perform in-depth research.
In both classes I had a lot of fun, learned a lot, and got to hang out and work with my friends. These are my two favorite teachers.

Roles of the Teachers

Mr. Escalante played all the roles: disciplinarian, mentor, ally, friend, and therapist. He was a disciplinarian and an ally because he made the students work hard and long after school hours so that they would be able to learn more information and go to college. He was a mentor because He taught them the information and made sure that they could all understand it. He became their friend and therapist because he helped them deal with their personal problems and genuinely cared for them, he also had complete confidence in their abilities.
Ms. Watson was a mentor and an ally/friend. She was a mentor because she wanted the students to learn information that you can't learn from a textbook, she taught them how to view art with both the heart and the mind. She was also their ally and friend because she wanted them to learn and to succeed and she wanted them to further their education instead of just getting married.
Jack McFarland was a mentor, ally, friend, and therapist. He was a mentor to Mike because he took extra time to explain and help teach the information and he genuinely enjoyed doing it. He became a friend through mentoring Mike and they began to enjoy their discussions. He was an ally because he did everything he could to help Mike get into college. And he was a Mike's unknowing therapist, just by spending time with Mike he helped him deal with what happened to his dad.
Sister MPH was mainly a disciplinarian but she was also a mentor. She was a disciplinarian because she was extremely strict and would call home whenever Audre misbehaved. She was a mentor in the fact that she was Audre's teacher, even though Audre did not really like her.

Mr. Escalante- Mr. McFarland

Mr. Escalante and Mr. McFarland are both very similar to each other. They are both passionate about teaching and put in a lot of their time to help the students improve, with extra classes or clubs and by assigning a lot of homework. They also developed personal relationships with students and helped them with family problems. Both of them wanted the students to succeed in life and helped them get into college, Mr. Escalante by vouching for his students truthfulness on the AP Test and Mr. McFarland by vouching for Mike to get into his old college. Also both teachers helped the students financially, Mr. Escalante got them free college credits with AP Calc and Mr. McFarland got Mike a loan for college. Both of them were loved by their students and became more than just teachers to them, they became mentors and friends and helped the students live a better life.

MLS Reaction

I thought the movie was kind of boring but also interesting. I was surprised that all the students showed up on the first day of class having already read the textbook. It was cool how Ms. Watson changed her lesson plan completely so that she could still teach the students about art. Her new lesson plan was based on what she enjoyed and about thinking about art psychologically. It was interesting to see how much she changed some of her students lives. I thought it was stupid how the nurse got fired for protecting the students by giving them contraceptive devices. I also thought that it was pathetic that the male teacher was sleeping with students that were at least ten years younger than him.

School Comparison

Garfield High School was a poor school. It didn't have enough money for computers and the students mainly came from poor families. On the other hand Wellesley College was a very fancy and prestigious school. The students were all female and they all came from wealthy families. Also Garfield's teachers don't really care about the students and set low expectations for them while in Wellesley all the students already read the textbook by the first day of class. At Garfield the students were involved in gangs and other things and the school didn't really care, besides Mr. Escalante. At Wellesley the nurse was fired for giving contraceptives to students. At both schools the students main goal at the beginning was just to graduate, high school at Garfield and college and then marriage at Wellesley, but by the end the students had higher goals like going to college or getting more advanced degrees. Both of the featured teachers changed the schools and helped the students grow and improve their lives. Garfield was basically a modern, ghetto high school while Wellesley was a high end traditional conservative college, but both were changed and improved by two dedicated teachers.

Mona Lisa Smile Notes

Ms. Watson went to the school to make a difference. It is an all girl private Catholic school/college. The other teachers are nice to her. She teaches history of art 100. The students do not respect the teacher. They already know everything that MS. Watson is trying to teach them. The whole class already read the entire textbook. The school board seems to disapprove of her. Her roommates warned her to defend herself. She changed her teaching so that the class wouldn't know the stuff before she taught it. New syllabus- What is art? what makes it good or bad and why? Some students really like Ms. Watson and other students don't like her. The school nurse was attacked by student for giving out contraception. They have classes for proper etiquette. The school nurse was fired. They have marriage lessons. Ms. Watson is teaching the students her way and letting them know that they don't have to get married and have their educational future stop. She gave a student a second chance on a paper. She is pushing the same student to apply for Yale. Male teacher wants to dance with Ms. Watson but female students takes him instead. Ms. Watson helps set up an art exhibit for the students to go to. Paint splatter piece has a special meaning for her. The school wants her to stop teaching as much modern art as she does, more traditional teaching. The student was accepted into Yale. Ms. Watson's boyfriend come to visit her during the break. Student can't get over that the teacher doesn't want to see her anymore. Ms. Watson was proposed to by her now fiance. She doesn't want to marry him and get mad. Ms. Watson is discussing Van Gough with the class outside of the classroom. She was mad when the married student missed some classes. The student is threatening her. Ms. Watson was invited to be a guest at a student's secret society. They are asking her personal questions that she has to answer, and they seem to be having fun. Students are talking about the teacher got engaged over Christmas, but then she tells them that she split up with him. Students talk about the Yale application and how Ms. Watson filled some of it out. Next day she is mad in class and tells the students to just listen. Talking about advertisements and what they mean with the education. Argues with principal and wants to quit. Goes to talk to the male teacher. He gives her a Christmas present. He promises not to sleep with students when he is with her. Student finds out boyfriend was lying to her. Ms. Watson's roommate doesn't like the male teacher and questions why she is dating him. One girl just causes trouble for everyone. Student who was supposed to go Yale isn't because her fiance is going to a different school. The girls who causes trouble's husband is never around. Yale girl wants to be a housewife. Connie goes to her boyfriends dorm to try and get back with him. The girls are being over dramatic. Ms. Watson is being reviewed and they don't want to fire her because enrollment for her class is higher then ever. All the male teacher's war stories were a lie. Ms. Watson is invited back with restrictions that limit her to a specific syllabus and she can only talk about her specific subject. Students all complete flower paintings so that teacher would remember them. One girls gets a divorce and moves in with a friend because shes not welcome at her mom's house and is deciding to go to Yale (different girl). She now likes and admires the teacher.

Mr. Escalante- Good/Bad Teacher

1. I believe that Mr. Escalante, in the film Stand and Deliver, is a good example of a teacher because he taught to the the students. He taught his lessons in a way that they would understand it, for example in one of the classroom scene he gave them a algebraic problem involving jigalos and their hoes. Some parents may not view it as good, but the students enjoyed it and they learned how to solve the problem. He also genuinely enjoyed teaching and interacting with the students. In many scenes he would try and motivate the students or talk to their parents so that they would have more education opportunities, and he argued with the AP Test administrators when they accused his students of cheating because he had faith in them. While overall he is a good teacher he was also a bad teacher at times like when he refused to admit that he was wrong on a problem and all the students had the correct answer.

2. Brown believes that a good teacher will have a tremendous dedication to his job and the learning of the students along with preparation for the future and support for the students. Mr. Escalante fits these criteria because he devoted so much of his life and time to teaching the students that he began to neglect his own family and even had a heart attack because of the stress of preparing them for the AP Test. With his help he was able to convince the students families to help the students succeed and go to college and he taught them all the knowledge that they needed to pass the AP Test with a 100% pass rate.

3.Sir Ken Robinson's main criteria for good teaching is to be creative. He wants the students to understand what happens in the real world and not to focus on what's right and what's wrong.

4. If there was no background outside of the classroom Robinson would most likely rate Mr. Escalantes teaching badly except for the real world applications of it. But when it is taking into context he would have to rate Mr. Escalante well because Mr. Escalante is a math teacher and the only way you can teach math is through solving the problems and learning if you are right or wrong. You are not suposed to be creative inside of a math classroom, you are supposed to learn logical thinking and how to use math. Mr. Escalante did try very hard to teach his students calculus for the AP exam so that they would get college credit for the class. Robinson would have rate Mr. Escalante well on that part because he is trying to help them succeed in life.

Lorde's Essay

Lorde describes the teachers that she had in chronological order up to first grade. It was mainly centered on her reading and writing. She was raised by her mother who was very strict and this stayed with her throughout the story. When Mrs. Baker first read to her in the library she was very happy and her mother wanted to do everything that she could to help her learn how to read. Her mother taught her how to do basic reading and writing and skipped some kindergarten lessons like using a crayon and music paper. Her mother told her what the right ways were and what the wrong ways were. When Lorde went to kindergarten her teacher was a bitch. The teacher couldn't stand having a student that was smarter than everyone else and didn't like it when Lorde refused write the wrong way. Luckily Lorde's mother got her into first grade. This teacher was strict like her mother and kept moving Lorde back and forth between the good kids and the bad kids. The main reason she was moved back and forth was because she couldn't read numbers. Also once the teacher assumed that she cheated on an assignment because it was too good. Basically the school teachers underestimated the students and punished them for being too smart.

WS Reading

All of the topics talked about in the WS reading are ways or styles of writing essays. Our second paper is an essay and it should include at least one, but more likely most, of these things when we write it to better communicate the topic or main idea.