Freshman Teachers

They wanna do their best

carless about the rest.

Practice is the road

in which they´ll take the load.

--------------------------------------

Their work is such a battle field

imagination can´t reach the things they live.

Building a future is a big a deal

learn and teach whatever you feel.

                           -:-

Poem written by: Roberto Hernández

How to Constructing a Test

I want to contribute to Noras´s questions, about how to prepare or construct a test, because as good teachers, we have to know this:

The construction of an educational test includes the following steps:

First, we have to planning the test, because an effective testing requieres careful planning by determining the general course objectives. The objectives, we have to dividing into their components:
phonology/ortography, grammatical structure, vocabulary and general fluency of the students.
After done this, we have to establish the General Design of the test (how much items we need on the test); at this point, two extremely important factor must be considered: one is the time to be provides for testing and the other is the degree of Speededness we wish to build into our test.

Second, preparing the test items and directions. The items can be multiple-choice or short-answer and the directions should be brief, simple to understand and free from possible ambiguities.

Third, we have to reviewinfg the items, some days before giving the test to the students and correct the items if it is needed.

Pretesting the material is another step. This consist on review the items and check if they are statiscally satisfactory. To know it, they meet two requirements:
1. If they are of a suitable level of difficulty (neither too hard or too easy)
2. if they discriminate between those students who have the skills or abilities being tested and those who do not.

After done all this steps, we are able to reproducing the test, been sure that it has Validity, reliability (creible) and Practicality, which are characteristics of a good test.

I hope this can help you to prepare a good test.

Discovering similarities and differences

Making a Venn diagram or a chart can help you quickly and efficiently compare and contrast two or

more things or ideas.

Make a Venn diagram, simply draw some overlapping circles, one circle

for each item you're considering. In the central area where they overlap, list the traits the two items have in common. Assign each one of the areas that doesn't overlap; in those areas, you can list the traits that make the things different. Here's a very simple example, using two pizza places:

A poem written by Comandante Simon in our civil war

Somewhere, someone is mourning

for the body of a brilliant one.

Man or woman, it doesn't matter.

The tears in this country, an entrance

to a void . . . shadows touching skin like frost.

A star fell north of this city. Armies parade around

in their uniforms bragging about the killings.

Dead bodies thrown into a pit, cry.

Flesh hits wind, wind hits flesh.

How many dead?

Finally, they are covered with dirt at noon.

All eyelids are closed.

No one knows nothing.

No breathing assaults to hold us.

The bitter tear over the world,

and no other country does not want to taste it,

taste the dead on their tongue or wipe away all the weeping.

Helen Adams Keller was born on a plantation called Ivy Green^[3] in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to Captain Arthur H. Keller, a former officer of the Confederate Army, and Kate Adams Keller, a cousin of Robert E. Lee and daughter of Charles W. Adams, a former Confederate general.^[4] The Keller family originates from Switzerland.^[5] Helen Keller was not born blind and deaf; it was not until she was nineteen months old that she contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain," which could possibly have beenscarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind. At that time, she was able to communicate somewhat with Martha Washington,^[6] the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age of seven, she had over sixty home signs to communicate with her family. According to Soviet blind-deaf psychologist A. Meshcheryakov, Martha's friendship and teaching was crucial for Helen's later developments.

In 1886, her mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind child,Laura Bridgman, dispatched young Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out Dr. J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice.^[7] He subsequently put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised the couple to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located inSouth Boston. Michael Anaganos, the school's director, asked former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and then only 20 years old, to become Keller's instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship, eventually evolving into governess and then eventualcompanion.

Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with d-o-l-l for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present. Keller's big breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water"; she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.

As a young woman, Keller's eyes were replaced with glass replicas for "medical and cosmetic reasons", according to Keller biographer Dorothy Herrmann.

She is an execellent example of courage .....I admire her

WHERE IS THE LOVE???

What's wrong with the world mama?

People living like aint got no mamas

I think the whole worlds addicted to the drama

Only attracted to the things that bring you trauma

Overseas yeah we trying to stop terrorism

But we still got terrorists here living

In the USA the big CIA the Bloodz and the Crips and the KKK But if you only have love for your own race

Then you only leave space to discriminate

And to discriminate only generates hate

And if you hating you're bound to get irate

Yeah madness is what you demonstrate

And that's exactly how anger works and operates

You gotta have love just to set it straight

Take control of your mind and meditate

Let your soul gravitate to the love y'all

People killing people dying

Children hurting you hear them crying Can you practice what you preach

Would you turn the other cheek?

Father Father Father help us Send some guidance from above Cause people got me got me questioning Where is the love? (where is the lovex3) (the love2x)

It just ain't the same all ways have changed

New days are strange is the world the insane?

If love and peace so strong

Why are there pieces of love that don't belong

Nations dropping bombs

Chemical gases filling lungs of little ones

With ongoing suffering

As the youth die young

So ask yourself is the loving really strong?

So I can ask myself really what is going wrong

With this world that we living in People keep on giving in

Making wrong decisions Only visions of them living and

Not respecting each other

Deny thy brother

The wars' going on but the reasons' undercover

The truth is kept secret

Swept under the rugIf you never know truth Then you never know love Where's the love y'all?(I don't know) the truth y'all? (I don't know)

Where's the love y'all?

People killing people dying Children hurting you hear them crying

Can practice what you preach Would you turn the other cheek?

Father father father help us Send some guidance from above

Cause people got me got me questioning Where is the love?

(where is the lovex3) (the lovex2)

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder

As I'm getting older y'all people get colder

Most of us only care about money making

Selfishness got us followin the wrong direction

Wrong information always shown by the media

Negative images is the main criteriaInfecting their young minds faster than bacteria

Kids wanna act like what the see in the cinema

Whatever happened to the values of humanityWhatever happened to the fairness and equality

Instead of spreading love, we're spreading anomosity

Lack of understanding, leading us away from unity

That's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling underThat's the reason why sometimes I'm feeling downI

t's no wonder why sometimes I'm feeling underI gotta keep my faith alive, until love is found

People killing people dying Children hurting you hear them crying

Can you practice what you preach Would you turn the other cheek?

Father Father Father help us Send some guidance from above

Cause people got me got me questioning Where is the love?

People, this is a BLACK EYED PEAS´S song. I think it has a big message for everyone.

WHERE IS THE LOVE???

Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJpyskHMwRs if you want to listen the song and watch the video on youtube.

Black horse.

Horse of rusty body
your neigh is so powerful
that is possible to guess in the distance
your unstopable march.

The misery and and hopless
were following your steps
you carried at your back
the fruits of greed, dreams and
ambitions.

the line of your road goes
through laberynth of loneliness
hunger and anguish
path of dust, walls of beams.

your black and thick breath
disperses in the wind and in the time
while your shape loses in the hills
fulls of broken illusions and faded hearts.

Salvadorian Dream

This fragment is taken from Joan Manual Serrat’s song: “Tender people escape from this land because is sick, and do not wait tomorrow what it did not give you because there is nothing to do”.

In El Salvador there are many people who abandon their home everyday, searching the opportunities they never found here. They have promised their families incomes to maintain their economy. The farewell is painful but this routine never stops. Salvadorian people are the fourth biggest community in United States, 1.5 million live there. Taking this decision is a risk but the desperation, survival and the well being make the person forgot it. Currently this dispersion has been enlivened by natural disasters, social violence and economic crisis; it seems there is nothing to do, then the unique option is going for United States. Probably this phenomenon will never finish but we have to say that what impel the people take this decision is the inadequate investment for social programs and politicians that the only thing they do is fill their pockets with money. Many people have emigrated searching an opportunity to succeed; the Salvadorian dream is North America because the hope is gone. Escape is the only alternative.

SACRIFICE

What I´ve given before

is what they´ve thrown in the floor.

The more I walk

the more they talk.

Even if I do well

they would say I come from hell.

Others have just lived the same

but they´ve tried again.

Although it´s not valuable for them

it´s worthy for my friend

there my goal goes

it leads me to fight for my folks.

Poem written by: Roberto Hernández

"Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them, but you know they are there!"

This is an excellent saying that shows the real friendship... a friend is someone who you can talk about everything , someone who is always by your side, telling you that nothing is imposible and everything has solution but death.

It is a little difficult to find someone like this but I know that the only special and sincere friend can be God... He never lets you fall and he is always by our side.

Think about it... Do you want to be His friend?

The decision is in your hands...

HAMLET

I want to share some of Shakespeare's most famous lines, which are from this play.

(He is one of my favorites writers).

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

ME

I am the person, who loves, laughs and cries,

The person, who lives and sometimes feel that died…

I am who is often mistaken

And other times, I do everything good…

I am like everybody but at the same time very different…

I am, who has lived wonderful days

who had sprouted from the interior

Some of them with a incomprehensible inspired..

I AM WHO WRITES WHAT THE SOUL DOESN´T SAY…

How to design a written exam...

As we are studyng process essay. Do you know what the steps are to design a written exam?

I would like you to participate in designing an exam, you can write the steps in this post...

Now, tell me what are the possible steps?

Looking for the information, taking in consideration the student`s learning styles... Can these be steps?

I thought spend my time

I thought I spend my time

loving and being loved

beginning to realize that was spent tearing

while it was my turn

des

pe

da

za

da.

Claribel Alegría

Untitled...

I come to look for you, brother, sister because I bring the the poem,

that is bringing the world on the backs

I am as a dog that roars, bellows along, barks

to the beasts of hate and anxiety.

I bring dreams, sadness, happyness,calmness,

democracies, they are weak as "cantaros"

mouldly religions in the souls,

rebelions that has smoke tongues,

trees without love.

We are without love, my brother

and it´s like being blind in the middle of the earth

I bring death to scare someone

who plays with death.

Life to make happy to the calm and soft souls,

hope and grapes for painfuls.

but, I bring above all a violent desire of hugging.

hugging lovely as an oceanic storm.

I want to make with hugs a sweet hug which

surrounds the earth.

I wish above all, that our life were as the water and wind, free...

that nobody never says my land, my ship.....

I want that everyone says, the land of us..

the men a women.....

Edd " the doll " Ruiz

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

This week I have a new book to recommed, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a man whose life's mission was to lead his people to freedom and strength.
take a little time to see this book in uca library.

Malcolm X (pronounced /ˈmælkəm ˈɛks/) (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz^[1] (Arabic: الحاجّ مالك الشباز‎), was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist.To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans.^[6] His detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, and violence. He has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska. By the time he was 13, his father had been murdered and his mother had been committed to a mental hospital. His childhood, including his father's lessons concerning black pride and self-reliance and his own experiences concerning race, played a significant role in Malcolm X's adult life. After living in a series of foster homes, Malcolm X became involved in hustling and other criminal activities in Boston and New York. In 1945, Malcolm X was sentenced to eight to ten years in prison.

While in prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam. After his parole in 1952, he became one of the Nation's leaders and chief spokesmen. For nearly a dozen years, he was the public face of the Nation of Islam. Tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam, led to Malcolm X's departure from the organization in March 1964.

After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, after which he disavowed racism in all its forms. He traveled extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the secular, black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year after he left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York.

Cuentos de Cipotes

It was difficult to me understand the book Cuentos de Cipotes from Salarrue. It was a good idea for Museo de la Palabra to produce a cartoon about the book, our new generation will never forget who Savador Salazar Arrue was.
Our culture is important, and what Salarrué tells us is part of our history.


http://www.youtube.com/user/salarrues#p/a/u/2/6RwZeAe8zas

Salarrué, Salvador Efraín Salazar Arrué (born October 22, 1899, in Sonsonate, El Salvador. Died November 27, 1975 in San Salvador, El Salvador). He was a writer, poet, and painter.

Known by the pseudonym of "Salarrué" (a derivation of his name), he is considered one of the greatest exponents of Salvadoran narrative, and one of the founders of a new Latin American school of folkloric narrative ("narrativa costumbrista"). He was born in Sonsonate, on October 22 1899, and died in San Salvador on Noviembre 27 1975. A poet, a painter and a writer, he has been considered the greatest exponent of cuzcatleca narrative. Salarrué was one of the founders of the new Latin American fiction current. In his "Cuentos de Barro" ("Clay Stories") and "Cuentos de Cipotes" ("Children Stories"), he manages to fully identify with the countryside, agricultural world, in a way unprecedented in Salvadoran narrative.

Roque Dalton

I found one video in youtube about the Poem of Love from Roque Dalton, and I thought it could be the perfect contribution to this blog, I hope you could see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4UIHLk4r8

Roque Dalton was born 14 May 1935 in San Salvador, El Salvador, and was killed by his own guerrilla group forty years later, also in the month of May. Despite the brevity of his life span, Dalton wrote more than fifteen books that transformed the political and poetic spheres of his native country. He has been recognized as one of the leading poets of El Salvador, who united artistic and political varieties of the avant-garde into a whole. He cultivated diverse genres--essay, novel, drama, movie script, journalism, and political commentary--all with sarcastic humor and irony. His works have been translated into English, German, Japanese, and several other languages. The illegitimate son of a wealthy Salvadoran of Irish-American origin, Winnal Dalton, and a humble nurse, Marcía García, Dalton lived his childhood with his mother. His official name was Roque García; before graduating from secondary school he never used the name of his father.

Do schools kill creativity?

Why following footprints printed in the sand
if I can open my wings to the sky?
Why losing my feathers
if they can take me to the place I belong?
why not closing my eyes to pictures seen by thousand eyes
to let my mind show me shiny, golden stars?

The thought I wrote above came after watching a video about education and creativity being developed (or killed? ) . It made me wonder about the real outcomes of education... I hope you take a little time to watch it, and think about it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Open Doors

This story begins about a journalist named Abigail from a Salvadorian Radio. She was born blind; the beginning of her life was difficult because her future seemed to be unknown. But for her intelligent she became in a triumphant person; she was best know when her interviews public figures specially politicians. She had no patience with any attempts when someone tries to hide the truth. Abigail knew better than most people how to listen to the human voice. She couldn’t see all the little tricks people sometimes used with body language and the expressions on their faces to give false ideas. She only could hear what they said. It was almost impossible for the people she interviewed to hide the tiny changes in their voices that show what they really though. No matter how hard they tried to cover it up, she could always tell when a person lied.

One day she received an opportunity to work in TV studio and recover the sight. The manager of station wanted to hire her because she was so popular that he though she would be good for his talk show. He persuaded her offering good salary and the expenses to the surgery. An excellent doctor was in charge to make the operation. Abigail was scared because nobody knew exactly if that would be possible. She wanted to see, so she decided to take the offer. Definitely her dream come truth. She could see.

When she started to work on television, she couldn’t perform very well her new job. Her skills as interviewer weren’t the same. Her sight made her forget to listen. Abigail couldn’t question like she used to do it. For that unforeseen situation, she decided to quit and came back to her old work place, but this time she had all benefits that the TV station offered her one time. Now Abigail usually takes a black scarf to tie around her head to cover her eyes throughout the interview. She was back!

Sometimes what we call incapacity like blindness, deafness, mute or other that a person has, result the best weapon to succeed. Perseverance, humble, being risk taker, autonomy, hard working, etc are the aspect that we need to grow up so all the doors will always be open for us. We do not allow something stops our dreams; we have to persevere to reach our goals.

Let´s support our Team!!

I just want to remenber my classmates and the members of this blog that our national soccer team plays the most important match on Saturday. It will be in Mexico.

So, "La Selecta" needs our support!!

please, don´t forget to watch this match...

on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.

"BE A PATRIOT!"....

Process Essays :

I think this article will be helpful to understand better the process essays. Also, I give you the website to check it better: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/process.html

A process paper either tells the reader how to do something or describes how something is done.

As you write your process essay, consider the following:

• What process are you trying to explain? Why is it important?
• Who are the readers? What knowledge do they need to understand this process?
• How many steps are there in the process?
• Why is each step important?
• How long does the process take? Is the outcome always the same?

Process essays are generally organized according to time: that is, they begin with the first step in the process and proceed in time until the last step in the process.

PROCESS ESSAYS_ A sample of an outline

Outlines help us in the organization of ideas. Here is a sample of a Process Essay outline.


Outline

I. Introduction
Thesis: Ingestion, digestion, and absorption are the three major steps involved in the digestive process.

II. Food is ingested.
A. Food enters the mouth.
B. Food is chewed.
C. Food is ready to travel to the stomach.

III. Food is digested.
A. Food is mixed with acidic gastric juices in the stomach.
B. The partially liquid food moves from the stomach to the small intestine.
C. Enzymes are secreted.

IV. Absorption
A. The digested food passes through the walls of the small intestine.
B. The digested food is absorbed into the bloodstream.

V. Conclusion
Paraphrased Thesis: The digestion process involves three major steps: ingestion, digestion, and absorption.

A Process...

"With an explosion everything began, the same way everything will fall apart... and then we will be reborn in infinity, like stars, like space, like everything that shines..."


That is just some thinking that came to my mind after watching a video that explained the big bang theory. Well, I must admit I have written it in some kind of poetic way...but still it was inspired by that video (I guess inspiration can come from anywhere). I have provided the link , so you can see it. Besides, it talks about a process, so it also adresses our class topic.

I think, creativity can be similar to the Big Bang. You know, there is nothing at the begining, and then...lots of stars are created...

http://alt1040.com/2009/09/la-teoria-del-big-bang-en-2-minutos

Edited by Marisol