Classroom Community Investigative Paper Essay Example for Free

Classroom Community Investigative Paper Essay Feeling a sense of community is important for almost anyone. Even now, in college, the students in the Elementary Education Program at Utah Valley University are in cohorts. Why? To help us find others who we have common interests with, and who can help us learn and grow into great teachers. Because being in an environment where we feel safe as well as feeling a sense of belonging is important. Developing a classroom community for elementary students is imperative. A student who feels comfortable in the classroom will be able to learn and grow because they will not be afraid to make mistakes in front of others, and they will learn to appreciate the opinions of others. The sooner a child learns to work with and value others, the better. This not only benefits a person during their school years, but is an important part of success later in life. One tool we have learned about this semester to improve classroom community is morning meetings. Though I have not personally seen an elementary classroom morning meeting in action, the evidence of its success that I have seen and heard from our guest speaker, Sylvia Allan, as well as what I have read in our text books and researched online, has convinced me to try morning meetings in my own classroom. Our morning meeting packet states that morning meetings build a classroom community, which may improve student test scores. That is great reason to try them. Earlier in the semester when we were introduced to morning meetings, I was so excited. My goal as a teacher has always been to value every student. I was thrilled to have been given a tool that would do just that. My focus for morning meetings will be to help each child in my classroom realize how important and irreplaceable they are. Morning meetings will help to create an atmosphere of trust, which is essential for optimal student learning. The responsive classroom. org states that morning meetings â€Å"Build community, increase student investment, and improve academic and social skills. † That is exactly what I hope to do with them. Using the morning meeting tool in our own college classroom has been an effective tool for me as a student. Because I transferred from another cohort this semester, I did not know anyone else in our cohort. Participating in morning meeting has given me the opportunity to learn more about the other people in our class. Learning about the similarities I share with these people has allowed me to make connections with some of the students in my class, and has made me feel more comfortable and more willing to participate. I plan to use the morning meeting format as it is presented in the morning meeting packet with a few modifications. The greeting, sharing, group activity, and news and announcements portions are all important for the children to get to know one another and feel comfortable in the classroom. However, I will probably just write the news and announcements on the board and briefly go over it with the class because I plan to be teaching older grades. I would also like to add memorization of a poem each day, as well as a fun saying a la Silvia Allan. I like these ideas because it gives me the opportunity to prove to my principal that morning meetings are not only effective in building a classroom community, they are academic as well. I plan to initiate full morning meetings into my classroom on the first day of school. Because I have not actually used them in an elementary classroom setting yet, I am not sure if I will do every component every day. For example, the greeting may have to be on Mondays only due to time constraints. I also may not do a group activity every day. I may use this time as an opportunity to work on a concept I noticed the entire class had a hard time with. For example, if most of the class had a difficult time learning a math concept the day before, I would have a student with a good understanding of the concept explain it to the class while we are in morning meeting while the positive classroom community juice is flowing. Hopefully, the students who are having a difficult time with the concept will feel less threatened because we are working on the concept during morning meeting time, not math time. So how does a classroom community lead to differentiation in the classroom? Having a classroom where students feel accepted and accepting allows the teacher to be able to make accommodations for students who need it because the rest of the class understands why they need it. One of my favorite â€Å"Hallmarks of a Differentiated Classroom† that describes this in detail is â€Å"shared responsibility for the classroom between teacher and students, in the goal of making it work for everyone†. When students feel comfortable in the classroom and care about their fellow classmates, students are willing to share their strengths with the rest of the class for the betterment of others. They also realize their limits and are willing to strengthen them by learning from other students. A classroom community is a very important part of a successful classroom. It gives students a place where they feel comfortable and are not afraid to make mistakes. Students who feel comfortable in the classroom are more willing to make mistakes and learn from them, thus giving them a better opportunity to achieve their full potential. I am excited to use morning meetings in my classroom to build a successful classroom community.

Animal Testing in the United States Essay -- Science Product Expiramen

Millions of animals die each year in the United States due to animal testing. Animals are used in laboratories to test chemicals in products and also used in research for the study of diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Unfortunately, these animals suffer tremendously while being experimented on and afterwards they are commonly put to death. The government has established legislation which gives certain guidelines for animal in laboratories, but it does not apply to every animal. The government even requires certain animal experimentation on specific products such as pesticides. There is also much dispute on whether or not animal testing is actually reliable in research for human products and diseases. The issue of animal testing becomes an issue of ethics; do humans have the right to harm other species for their own benefits? This would be a much easier question to answer if people actually knew how relevant and useful animal experimentation and research was for humans. As of r ight now, humans are harming animals in experimentation without even knowing how valuable the results will be in benefiting human research. Animal testing is a cruelty to animals and it should be made illegal in the United States. The Draize test and the LD-50 tests are the most common types of product testing. The Draize test is done to measure the harmfulness of a chemical by observing its effect on the eyes and skin of animals. This test is mainly used to test chemicals in cosmetics. It is administered by applying 0.5mL or 0.5g of the test substance to the eye or skin of animal (most commonly rabbits) for four hours. The animal is then observed for fourteen days. There are two types of Draize tests: Skin irritancy test: experi... ... 8 March 2006. "Draize Test." Wikipedia. 22 February 2006. 7 March 2006. "History: Animal Welfare Act." 2005. American Anti-Vivisection Society. 8 March 2006. "http://www.aavs.org/welfare01.html> "Iams... The Suffering Behind the Scenes." 2006. 8 March 2006. "Public Health Service Policy of Human Care and Use of Laboratory Animals." 1 January 2006. National Institute of Health. 6 March 2006. Stephens, Martin and Rowan, David. "An overview of Animal Testing." 2006. The Humane Society of the United States. 8 March 2006. Stevens, Karen L. "Animal Testing Alternatives." All for Animals. 2006. All for Animals. 24 Apr. 2006 .

Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega

The first scene that will be analysed is the one where Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega are going to fulfil their duties as gangsters (0:06:45-0:20:12). The scene shows how normal it is for the main characters to have a job as gangsters and kill people on command of their boss. While watching it, the viewer has the impression that the world in the film is absurd, but it is a perfect example of a social satire. The main characters live in a world full of violence, drugs, but they find themselves perfectly suitable in it. Also, the verbal humour has a crucial role here; lots of comical ornaments of the speech, curses, irony and sarcasm create the whole background of this environment. Basing on the benign-violation theory, the whole scene evokes amusement, because characters present quite controversial behaviour. For the purpose of the forthcoming analysis, the scene will be divided into three parts:1) Jules and Vincent's dialogue in the car (0:06:45-0:08:43); 2) The conversation about the foot massage (0:08:43-0:13:46)3) The score of gangsters and debtors (0:13:46-0:20:12). As the first part of the scene begins, Jules and Vincent drive a car and the main focus here is on the dialogue between the characters; they talk mostly about Vincent's journey to Europe. He mentions many cultural differences: the policies of hash bars, the law of policemen, beer in cinemas, or mayonnaise on fries in Holland, how a Quarter-Pounder with cheese is called a Royale with cheese in France. At this point, the viewer has no idea where the main characters are driving or what the purpose of their mission is. It can be only assumed that they are partners and that the circumstances are quite amusing, because they seem serious, but their conversation is completely ridiculous. This contrast is highly intriguing and introduces the viewer to the world full of absurd.

Mark Twain - 1159 Words

McKettrick 2 Mark Twain’s use of irony to express a better sense humor is displayed in many of his short stories. Such as â€Å"Luck†, in this story a clergyman explains how the â€Å"hero† was able to make mistakes and receive commendations and medals because acts of stupidity turned into acts of military intelligence. â€Å"He was appointed an officer, a captain of all things† (Twain, â€Å"Luck†), the clergyman said for the reason that the stupid â€Å"hero† that had barely made it through basic training was appointed a captain. â€Å"He continued to climb up, over the dead bodies of his superiors† (Twain, â€Å"Luck†), the hero continued to make mistakes and was promoted only due to the death of his superiors and his â€Å"so called† acts of military intelligence. Twains†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"She always stopped and posed† (Twain, â€Å"Hunting the Deceitful Turkey†): speaking about how the boy hunted th e turkey all day and how the turkey knew that the boy was an awful shot and the turkey would play with the boy by posing because of it. Twain used the turkey to create irony by giving the turkey human like smarts and actions, and give the boy turkey like hunting skills. â€Å"I followed an obscenely lame turkey over a considerable part of the United States† (Twain, â€Å"Hunting the Deceitful Turkey†) the boy said after getting lost and wore out by the turkey. Twain used the irony of the hunted turkey to getting away from the hunter boy. Twain also combines humor and irony with animals in â€Å"A Fable† by Mark Twain with the use of a cat to explain a mirror and the other animals being too stupid to realize what they’re looking at. â€Å"There was nothing in that hole but a donkey† (Twain, â€Å"A Fable†) the donkey had seen himself in the mirror and had not realized that the thing in whole was a mirror showing his reflection in it. â€Å"Anybody but a near-sighted fool could see that there was nothing in the hole but a elephant† (Twain, â€Å"Hunting the Deceitful Turkey†): the same thing that happened to the donkey happened to the elephant. McKettrick 5 â€Å"Clemens(Mark Twain) studied the Mississippi River and the operation of a riverboat†(Mark Twain, â€Å"biography†). Twain in his early life was fascinated by the Mississippi River, thus causing him to want to be an apprentice of a riverboatShow MoreRelated Mark Twain Essay1449 Words   |  6 Pages Mark Twain was a pilot, a comic lecturer, a humorist, a short story writer, and a novelist, to name a few of his many accomplishments. On November 30, 1835, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, became the first man of any importance ever to be born west of the Mississippi River. He has become an icon as the American writer. This is because his way of writing cannot be simulated by Europeans or anyone else, due to the fact that the western setting of America creates aRead More Mark Twain Essays1018 Words   |  5 Pages Mark Twain, a Racist?Mark Twain was a man that was way ahead of his time. In a time when people were judged on color,Mark Twain grew up in Florida, Missouri (Mandelbrot, Twain). 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