JHolcomb's EDUC 5352 Blog

  Seventeen holes down, one more hole to go. Only four times I’d embarrassed myself so far. An easy Par 1 hole. Second-to-last place was going to be mine.   I approached the hole. It was your average finisher on a mini-golf course. One ramp leading into a tiny hole inside a dragon’s mouth. With the right combination of power and precision, excellent golfers can squeeze between his gapped-teeth and win themselves another round of torture on the house. With the wrong combination, the ball lands in the vault that signifies the end of your $10 mini-golfing spree.     Hit the ball already. Don’t break a window.   Josh and St. John voice their confidence with jeers. I don’t let it go to my head. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. I lift my left foot, then my right foot, then my left foot. I am centered. I am in control. I am the pre-accident Tiger Woods of mini-golf.   You’ll never take second-to-last place from me.   Ashley ...

  Book, Head, and Heart for Jerry Craft's  New Kid Before I go into my Book, Head, and Heart analysis for Jerry Craft’s New Kid , I want to take a moment to talk about how much I appreciate this reading strategy. A lot of kids treat reading as a box to check on a list of nonsensical homework assignments. They don’t realize that reading can both be important and fun. BHH gives them the chance to tackle books from another angle—instead of reading for completion, they are asked to read in a way that makes their pre-existing opinions important while also leaving room for new opinions to take hold. I will definitely be using this in my classroom.   That being said, here is my BHH for New Kid .   BOOK: This story is about Jordan . There isn’t all that much plot, but the book doesn’t need a long and complicated plot full of twists and turns. It’s more of a character study on a young, African-American boy and his experiences in an upper-class, predominately white ...

  Reading as Thinking When I’m reading, I don’t really “see a movie.” I also don’t see still images. I see flashes—blurbs of events that pop in and out of my mind. They’re almost gif-like. I see these short clips of character actions intercut with scenery that loop a couple of times before fading away. But this only happens if I see anything at all—sometimes I’m simply absorbing the sound of the words and the meaning of the dialogue. In these moments, I’m enjoying the story and how the writing sounds in my head. Some sentences just sound amazing—they have cool rhythms. Sometimes, the dialogue is so poignant that it echoes a few times in my mind. This is the extent of my ‘hearing’ when I’m reading. I don’t hear the birds chirping or the creek gurgling. I don’t feel the wind. I’m much more invested in the story and the characters’ actions than the sights and the sounds. Details like characters’ appearances don’t really stick with me, but their actions do. I separate person from per...