BEST ACADEMIC WRITING 2004

College Writing Committee

College Writing Committee Members for academic year 2003-2004:

• Lynn Anderson, Recreation and Leisure Studies
• Mariangela Chandler, ASAP
• David Franke, English
• Regina Grantham, Speech Pathology and Audiology
• Mary Lynch Kennedy, English (Chair of the College Writing Committee)
• Andrea LaChance, Childhood Education,
• Linda Lavine, Psychology
• Kevin Sheets, History
• Gail Wood, Director, Memorial Library

Introduction:

The College Writing Committee, with the support of Provost Davis-Russell, is pleased to share with you this collection of the best writing 2004. All the essays were composed for a class the previous academic year, and each showcases our students’ ability to address and invoke their audience, develop a dramatic structure—yes, even in the sciences—and to shape concepts. In each of these essays, writing is more than reporting back facts: it is the medium of thought, the shape of a writer’s thinking and understanding. Readers will find much to praise here, but less visible perhaps is the hard work of teachers in many disciplines at Cortland who have encouraged their students to succeed in writing by finding a topic that the student needs to discuss and by supporting them as they revise. We on the College Writing Committee have been impressed by the number and quality of submissions this year, which suggests something about the way that our community has come to support writing as a process we all engage in, administrators, teachers and students. This volume bodes well for future years as new initiatives come to fruition, among them a writing center, new writing programs, an infusion of new resources into writing across the curriculum. We encourage you to visit the Cortland On-Line Writing Resource Center to learn more.

DENTAL MALOCCLUSION IN ORYCTOLAGUS CUNICULUS
LESCZYK KREMPEL............................................................ 3

UNDERSTANDING CHILD DEVELOPMENT: BUILDING EFFECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICE
GERRY PONTERIO.......................................................... 7

MARE REPRODUCTIVE LOSS SYNDROME
TINA COOMAN.................................................................. 29

TO MY GRANDMOTHER, THE RENEGADE
SARAH DELARCO............................................................. 37

THE GHOST OF MORGAN
TANJA JACKISCH............................................................... 40

COMING OUT CRIP
LESCZYK KREMPLE........................................................... 42

TRAJAN’S MARKETS
ARLETTE PROTHIN.............................................................. 48

Dental Malocclusion in Oryctolagus Cuniculus
Lesczyk Krempel

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Professional Writing 329

Creative Nonfiction

Dr. David Franke

I hate watching my husband cry. “I’m aww wight,” he sniffs, as I poke at his lip, which is already swelling.

“Honey, do you want me to get you some ice?” I’ve learned how to deal with Jon’s injuries: excessive coddling.

“No. I’wl be fibe, weawy. Oww! Not so hawd!”

I stuff an ice cube into a washcloth folded into a rabbit shape and decorated with googly eyes, and offer Jon his “boo-boo bunny.” He holds it against his lip while I slide down from my chair to the floor, swearing when my tailbone thuds against the floor, and begin crawling around under the coffee table hunting the big bunny who caused the boo-boo.

We adopted Raspberry about three years ago from an overcrowded, understaffed shelter in Herkimer, NY. She had been there for more than a year and a half, while other rabbits were taken in and adopted out. I had been warned that the director of the shelter was very particular about who adopted their animals, you know, background checks and waiting periods, but she was thrilled that I was interested in Raspberry. A local man had been petitioning the shelter to have her “put to sleep”, to free her from the pain and agony of her disability. Raspberry is a “special needs” rabbit; I’m a “special needs” human. Nobody else wanted Razzy.

Raspberry has a malocclusion: her teeth don’t line up. You probably think rabbits are rodents, but they haven’t been classified that way since 1912, when the order Lagomorphia was established for rabbits, hares, and picas. Both rodents and lagomorphs have open-rooted teeth, which will continue growing throughout their lives; the animals grind their teeth together, or against hard objects like sticks, to wear down the teeth, which have very soft enamel or enamel on only one side. Rodents, however, have a conveniently simple two pairs of incisors, while Raspberry and her lagomorph cousins have four pairs, two quite long upper incisors on the top and two shorter lower incisors on the bottom, with four “peg teeth,” very short incisors, one each behind the main ones. Since Raspberry’s top sets and bottom sets don’t line up, they don’t wear down enough and they grow far too long.

The laws of nature dictate Raspberry should die; her teeth should either grow down out of her mouth, into her cheek and lips, or up into her brain. Raspberry and I have very little respect for survival of the fittest, though. If her teeth aren’t taken care of before they start to really annoy her, she will bash her face against the wall or jump from a high place face first, or hook her teeth around something fixed, like the cage bars, and yank her head back furiously until she pulls them out, and leaves them laying on the floor. She doesn’t need to perform this primitive self-surgery often; Jon and I are becoming quite competent rabbit dentists.

Malocclusions can be pretty mild; some rabbits only need treatment once a year. Raspberry, on the other hand, has the worst case of incisor malocclusion her vet has ever seen. Every once in a while Razzy goes to the doctor for her dentistry, but mostly it’s a do-it-ourselves matter. A malocclusion can’t be cured, but we clip Razzy’s teeth very short at least once a month, to let her chew and eat fairly normally and without pain. People look wary when we say we need to clip our rabbit’s teeth, but it’s really not a big deal. The nerve stops before the teeth break the gum line, so it doesn’t hurt a bit.

What does hurt is being kicked in the teeth by a twelve-pound leporid. Leporids (rabbits and hares) have large, powerful hind legs, perfect for evading enemies, thumping out messages, and smashing predators, or rabbit dentists, in the face. Leporids also possess very long, sharp, curved claws. Jon has a series of puffy red scratches on his neck. You might not guess on first glance that rabbits are terribly fierce fighters.

I take a few, much milder, kicks and scratches before I finally have a good hold around Razzy’s middle, and slide her along the floor to Jon. She struggles, four paws splayed outward, but Raspberry’s feet are totally covered in fur, without pads like cats and dogs, which gives me a slight advantage as I scoot across the slick hardwood floor. Her eyes are bugging out; she is in full freak-out mode.

Jon attempts to wrap her up in a towel to keep her paws in check, the classic “bunny burrito” trick that has served rabbit owners so well, but Razzy is not interested in having her limbs bound and lets him know with a few bruising kicks to the sternum. Finally all paws are tucked in just so, and I pick up the clippers for my role in the operation. I suppose I’m the rabbit dentist, while Jon is just the hygienist. I remember when I got my first filling, the dental assistant held me down in a similar fashion, while the

dentist attempted to pry my jaws open.

I attempt to pry Raspberry’s jaws open. She’s even better at this than I was. She has a physiological advantage; she can’t really kick us now, although she’s trying, burying her mouth in her dewlap so I can’t get near her teeth. The dewlap is a loose flap of skin, covered in fur, of course, which female rabbits can tuck their baby bunnies under to keep them cozy and warm. This is wrong- she’s cheating.

I don’t get mad because I’ve never been a real graceful patient myself. I was twelve when I got JRA. I was just a kid, so I hope that doctor has forgiven me for the minor bruising he sustained when I swung at him. He didn’t tell me what it meant to “aspirate the joint”; he just came at me with the largest syringe I had ever seen, comically large, a Ren and Stimpy needle. “What are you going to do with that?” I croaked just before I started flailing.

The synovial fluid he drew from my right knee tested positive for rheumatoid factor, confirming my diagnosis: Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. In the thirteen years since then I’ve learned to chill out around needles. In fact, I inject myself twice a week with Enbrel, a laboratory engineered biological response modifier which binds with the excess tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha in my joint to ease the swelling, all for only 1100 bucks a month. I still look to the side when the needle slips under my skin.

I don’t attack medical practitioners anymore. The last time I saw a doctor, I only wailed a bit and screamed vulgarities while he injected my shoulder with cortisone, a shot in the front and a shot in the back. The doctor bit his lip as he wiped the trickle of blood from my bicep. “Are you all right?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’m cool.”

Raspberry is only four, so I forgive her. When I’m finally able to raise her chin and cram my fingers into her mouth, she starts drooling on me. That way my hand gets all slippery and she can try to push my fingers away with her tongue. Believe it or not, this often works. Rabbit tongues are pretty damn tough. It must come from eating bark and sticks and grass. Razzy can’t do me too much damage with her crooked front teeth, but she has 26 other teeth to grind my skin off with. At least her molars are straight; molar malocclusion requires that a vet grind the teeth down while the rabbit is sedated. I wouldn’t mind if Raz was sedated right now.

The clippers I use are just five dollar Walmart dog grooming clippers. When Raspberry goes to the vet, she gets properly trimmed with a device which looks a lot like a Dremmel disk saw. The vet once suggested I buy one of these, but I think I can do less damage with the dog groomer. I imagine us throwing Razzy in her carrier and rushing to the animal hospital ER with her ear in a bucket of ice. As it is, I sweat like Rush Limbaugh at a NOW rally while I wait for the vet to return with my precious Razbunny, completely intact.

We didn’t name Raspberry. She was Raspberry when we got her. Raz has more nicknames than any rabbit I know- mundane ones: Razzy, Raz, Razzamatazz, Razbunny, Razamabunny, but also a few more telling names: Thumper, as she is the first to warn our other rabbits of potentially threatening situations such as a car driving by, the wind blowing or Jon brushing his teeth, Chowhound, because she often eats her entire half-day food allowance within three minutes of being served, then she eats all of her mate, Braveheart’s, food before he has tasted it, and Binkybutt.

Razbunny lived in a small cage at the shelter for the first quarter of her life. There wasn’t any room for hopping or playing. When we brought Razzy home she walked, as well as a rabbit can walk and not hop, one foot in front of the other, like a skulking cat. We had known Raspberry for a year before she learned to run like a rabbit, hopping and jumping. And then she binkied. A binky is a silly rabbit dance; spring straight up in the air and flip around before falling back to earth. The best binkiers follow this up with a loud, lightning gallop around the house crashing into and knocking over as many things as possible, then back to the jumping. Razzy is a shy binkier, just silly little floppy hops, then hunch down low and peer sidelong to be sure all is well. Some experts theorize that binkies are a survival technique that allows the rabbit to take in the surroundings very quickly. This expert has seen a field full of rabbits binkying like lunatics; I wonder if being the world’s dinner can really get to you, and if binkying is a better survival technique than Xanax.

The clippers are hooked around Raspberry’s upper incisors. This is the easy part. Clip. “Good girl!” Jon says. Bottom teeth: Clip. “Oh, what a good, good girl!”

“Almost done!” I say. “Lemme see those toofers.” Yes, I do talk baby talk to my rabbits. Don’t tell anybody.

Razzy is losing whatever patience she had for this procedure. She’s spitting all over me. The scent of rabbit saliva is like a sweet breeze across a spring meadow after a light rain, smelled from the other side of a damp, decaying wooden barn door. But I manage to check the teeth. The incisors are short and cleanly cut, perfect for cutting grasses and carrots. The molars look great for grinding it all up, just like mine on a smaller scale. Maybe my teeth are turning rabbit-like from all the carrots and sprouts I eat.

I kiss Razzy between the ears. Raspberry is a Holland Lop; in the middle of her head, between her floppy ears, an incredibly soft tuft of caramel colored fur sticks up, alfalfa style. I kiss her here over and over while Jon tells her what a good bunny she is, smoothing her soft, brown fur. I place her on the floor. Jon prefers to put her back into her cage, because that’s where she wants to go anyway, but I like to let her realize the ordeal is over and she is free again. After a moment’s pause she races into her cage, up the ramp to the spacious second floor, presses into the furthest corner and glares at me. I suck.

I feel like dirt for two minutes while she glares, sometimes thumping to alert her cousins that I am not a benevolent being; in fact, I prey on gentle, trusting rabbits: enticing them for weeks with carrots and parsley and alfalfa pellets and timothy hay and clean litter and then one day BAM! I show my true colors; I am a sick human who finds joy in torturing rabbits and collecting pieces of their teeth!

This lasts exactly two minutes, I’ve timed it. Then Razzy shakes a lot, like a dog just come in from the rain, and she begins cleaning herself- trying to wash away the indignity. It would make a touching story if Braveheart, her mate, stood by to support her in her recovery, but he has taken the opportunity, when I opened the cage to let Raspberry in, to jump out for some binkying and knocking things over.

Soon after comes begging. She pulls at the bars with her stronger, straighter teeth and paces in front of her food dish, which is full of food. I can’t blame her; I always demanded stickers or toys or lollipops after medical procedures. I still do, actually. So I feed her blueberries or strawberries and compliment her on how neatly she eats without her teeth sticking out at odd angles. She begs for more, and I give it to her. The other rabbits get pissed and glare at me, so I give them treats, too. They beg for more, but I don’t fall for it. I try to explain, “Razzy gets extra treats because she went to the dentist, you didn’t go to the dentist!”

Razzy hops out of the cage and sniffs me. She marks me by rubbing the scent glands under her chin against my shoe. After all this, I’m still her human. I hunch over, kiss her, and she half-binkies away. I pull myself back up into my chair, and I retire with Jon to the bathroom, where the Band-Aids are kept. “That wasn’t too bad,” he says. “Want to get out the syringes and do your Enbrel now?”

Understanding Child Development:
Building Effective Teaching Practice
By Gerry Ponterio

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Education: Childhood / Early Childhood

EDU 656, Classroom Application of Child Development

Dr. Shi Hae Kim

Introduction

            Today’s teachers face a daunting task. Their primary responsibility of educating the younger generations is complicated by all the auxiliary responsibilities that have been thrust upon them, tasks that have little to do with students’ educational development. In order to succeed, teachers’ practices must be very effective within the small windows of opportunity they have for instruction. Understanding the complexities of child development will be paramount in providing effective teaching strategies.

            Observation of students in the classroom has been invaluable to my work as a pre-service teacher. It has answered many questions about how children interact in a school environment. Reflections on my observations have led me to ask many new questions. Among them are: Why do same age children achieve different developmental levels? Why does one teaching strategy work for most students, but not others? When is it appropriate to introduce a challenging new skill to students? I have observed students from Pre-Kindergarten to sixth grade in my home school district and neighboring districts. I have worked as a one-on-one teacher’s aide for an autistic student and tutored many low-achieving students. The school community has come to know me as a teacher who helps students with learning problems. Students appear to feel comfortable coming to me for help, teachers delegate assignments knowing they will be completed efficiently. The problems these students face make education a difficult task. The problems of the teachers are more complex. I have learned that anyone entering the teaching profession must be very well organized and practice effective pedagogy in order to succeed. Understanding the development of children is vital to that success. Using narrative research in the observation of children has helped me gain a greater understanding of children’s diverse needs. Drawing on my experience as a photographer, I have chosen to illustrate these observations in an attempt to bring clarity to my interpretations. I have spent the past twelve weeks in a practicum, observing 71 sixth-grade students. My observations have revealed three interesting themes, which are addressed in the following sections. Learning to see, learning to write and group work captured my interest because of the understanding of child development they provide. Thereafter, an interpretation section discusses the relative aspects of development theory. In the final section I address the implications of these theories for educators.

Learning to See

A penny for your thoughts

            Lynn showed me her incomplete science notebook page on the Penny Observation lesson. The sparse page was mostly a white empty sheet. At the top, there was a quickly scratched title, “Penny Observation”, and two headings, “Qualitative and Quantitative.” Although the handwriting was readable, the letters appeared choppy and broken, like the writing of a younger child who was copying one letter at a time. The list of observations contained a few specific items, but the rest were general, nonspecific words that were hastily written.

“Well that’s a good start, Lynn. What do you think we should add to this?” I asked. “More observations?” she asked tentatively. “Good thinking! Let’s look at what is on your list first and then we’ll look at the list from the Class Notebook.” I offered. “Shiney, curculr, words and letters, 1992, Ameriham Lincon, flat and bumpy.” Lynn read. Her voice had a measure of confidence. She turned her head and looked up. Her eyes expressed a hint of confusion; these observations are right, but why aren’t they good enough? “That’s a lot of observations Lynn. Let’s look at the class notebook and see what is on that list,” I suggested. Lynn opened the class notebook and found the Penny Observation page.

She read, “dirty” and stopped to look at me with a questioning stare. Then she looked back at her notebook, then back at me. Through her bent wire-framed glasses her eyes were enlarged slightly, magnified by the smudged lenses. Lynn’s eyes had a penetrating focus. I wondered if she, like many LD students, was a visual learner.

“When scientists make observations, they don’t always observe the same objects. You were observing a newer, shiny penny and the penny observed for the Class Notebook was a dirty one,” I explained.

She smiled and continued reading the list of observations from the Class Notebook. “Abraham Lincoln” she read. “Look at how that’s spelled, Lynn,” I replied. “A-b-r-a-h-a-m?” she recited. “Let correct the spelling in your notebook before we continue,” I suggested. She erased Ameriham, and then brushed away the eraser dust. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two notebooks copying the correct letters onto her list. “In God We Trust?” she continued. She picked up the penny from her desk and stared at it intently. Her eyes were squinting behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “Is it hard to see?” I asked. “Its so tiny!” Lynn replied. “Maybe Mrs. Lighter has a magnifying glass. Let’s ask her.” I suggested. Mrs. Lighter smiled and replied, “Yes we do!” She had been listening to our conversation while she attended her after school chores. She walked over to the corner bookshelf and picked up a large, six-inch magnifying glass, cradled in a gray plastic handle. Turning toward us, Mrs. Lighter smiled when she brought Lynn the magnifying glass. Lynn took the magnifying glass and examined it closely. The large lens reflected curved, white, rectangular shapes from the overhead lights and the bright windows. “Let’s clean that glass before you use it.” I offered. Handing the glass to me, I wiped the large lens with the corner of my shirt and returned it to her.

            Lynn held the penny in the palm of her left hand and with her right hand, placed the magnifying glass flush on the surface of the penny, staring intently. The penny looked the same. “Lift the magnifying glass up off the penny and see what happens,” I suggested. “Wow! Its bigger” Lynn’s excitement resonated. “That why they call it a magnifying glass” I said. “In God We Trust!” she said with a smile. “Good observation! Write that down in your notebook”. After recording her observation on her growing list, she returned to the penny searching for another detail. I asked her if that was all she wanted to write about this observation. “What more can you say about that observation, Lynn?” I asked. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, and then back at the penny. “Well, where is it written on the penny?” I asked. She looked again and reported that it was written over his head. “Is it written in a straight line?” “No, its around the rim.” She said. “Write it down! Now what does your observation say?” I asked. “In God We Trust, over the head, around the rim.” said Lynn. “Is that better than before?” I asked with a smile. “Yes, its better.” she smiled back.

Lynn noticed that the list of observations in the Class Notebook mentioned whether the detail was on the front or the back of the penny. She took the initiative to revisit her notebook and added this detail to each observation. After completing her observations of the front, she looked at the back of the penny, recording every detail, one by one. When she ran out of observations to record, she looked to me with a “What’s next?” expression on her face. “Just look at that list!” I said with enthusiasm. Lynn’s face beamed with satisfaction as she looked at the page, now filled with two detailed lists of observations. She realized how much new information was added to her original list. She had more than tripled her first effort in only thirty minutes. There were so many new observations that she had to continue the list on the next page. “Look at that Lynn, that didn’t take very long, did it?” I said.

“What kind of tie is Lincoln wearing?” I asked. She picked up the magnifying glass and stared intently. Slowly she moved the magnifying glass back and forth. On the surface of the magnifying glass, bits of light danced, merged, and drifted away at the edge. Lynn’s soft self-talk of “ooohs” and “aaahs” accompanied the dancing reflections like a duet. “I don’t know what it’s called,” she said. “What does it look like?” I asked.

“It looks like a bow on his tie. Mrs. Lighter, Lincoln has a bow on his tie!” Lynn cried out. “That’s called a bowtie, Lynn. I didn’t even know that myself” said Mrs. Lighter. “Neither did I. I was just wondering if it was striped or pokka dotted. See, you taught us something we didn’t know. I’ll bet you nobody else in any of the science classes made that observation. Great job Lynn!” I said.

Friday morning

Eyes dart back and forth quickly. They look at the teacher. They glance at each other and return home to the paper on their desks. They glance at the clock and back to their desks. They looked at the turtle.

They look out the window at the sunny day and the blue sky and back to their white papers. They stared out into space, blank and expressionless. Eyes squinted, glared, rolled, blinked, widened, and darkened under frowns. They flashed blues, browns, greens, grays and hazels. They looked at the turtle.

Eyes peered out from behind glasses, some clear and others spotted with white fragments of fingerprints. They measured, evaluated, questioned, and smiled, while others revealed boredom. They look at me and back again. They look at the turtle.

            Their hands feel the textures of the desks. Their hands are flat against their heads, propping them up with support. Their hands are perched on white papers, holding them in place like a spider’s legs on a prey. Their hold pens, twisting them, tapping them, holding them with their teeth, turning the erasers, turning them over, using the tip as a pointer to follow the text on the paper. Their hands rub their temples. Their hands are locked together. Their hands scratch and scratch a second time. Their hands rise into the air. Their hands find the desk again. They look at the turtle.

            The papers are on the desks in front of them. Some are straight while others are angled to one side or the other, facing the dominant hand. Some are covered with a piece of paper or notebook, concealing the answers from neighbors and revealing how many questions have been completed. Some papers have curled edges from pinching fingers. Some of the papers are lined up in precise arrangements, while others are scattered about like the wind blown leaves outside the window. One paper is snatched up and quickly stuffed into a notebook. It displayed a cartoon of a face drawn from the numbers 2003. It was drawn to share with a neighbor. Papers are picked up, turned over and back again, doubled checked and back over again, then down on the desk. Papers are erased, brushed off and rewritten. Papers are slid back and forth to the perfect position underneath the pen. Papers are out in the open view in front of upright postures. Others are covered by close inspecting eyes. Papers are turned over and slapped with a pen in a concluding gesture. Papers are picked up, handed over, flipped, turned, shuffled, adjusted and arranged into a growing pile. Papers are squeezed firmly together with a red, over-sized paper clip, and then placed gently on a reserved spot in the corner of the teacher’s desk. Eyes dart back and forth quickly. They look at the teacher. They glance at each other and back again. They look at me and back again. They look at the turtle.

Twenty-seven students finished their Friday morning spelling test.

Learning to Write

Origins of Words

            The class of sixth-grader came through the library door with their arms loaded with books and binders. They quickly deposited their burdens on the library tables and hurried to the back corner, where twenty-five silent computers waited. “Why did we come to the library for English class today?” “What’s this lesson going to be about?” A cheerful “Good Morning Mr. Ponterio” would have been a more welcomed greeting, but their curiosity pleased me. “Please sit at a computer and log on, if anyone has trouble logging on, raise your hand and we will help you” I announced. As the last few students dribbled back to the computers, I repeated the instructions and gave them a preview of the lesson. I read I’d Never Eat a Beet by Jack Prelutsky, a poem that celebrates the unconditional stubbornness of a child’s eating habits. “Have you ever refused to try a certain kind of food when you were young?” I asked. “Yes, I hate asparagus!” came the loudest reply from a boy with a scrunched up face. “Did you finally try a food you didn’t like and find that it wasn’t so bad after all?” I questioned. Mixed in with a handful of “No” replies, some students mentioned a variety of foods they learned to like. “Tomatoes” “Carrots” Broccoli” My final question, “What are some of the biggest problems you face when you outright refuse to try something new?” was answered with “You may not like the way it looks but you like the way it tastes.” and “You find out your tastes change and you end up liking it.”

            The one-page worksheet I handed out contained a Web site URL address with instructions on one side and a table of twenty-four words on the back. “Type the web address into the computer as soon as you get the worksheet, then look on the back of the worksheet. You will find four highlighted words under one of three categories. On the Web site click on the category and you will be linked to a page with illustrations. Click on the pictures of your highlighted words and you will see a drop box with information about the word, its original language, the original word and its meaning. Record this information in the cells of your worksheet.

            For the next half hour, the students busied themselves collecting the information. We walked back to the classroom to begin the second half of the lesson on common English words with foreign origins. The students had to write a two-paragraph essay about the origins of these words. Their essays were to answer the question, “How do foreign languages contribute to the English language?”

            “I was very surprised that the word tulip was Turkish and it meant turban. I guess I never really thought about the word tulip, and where the word originated from, but it really stunned me to find out about its meaning.”

“I knew that the name Ukulele came from Hawaii, but I never imaged it meant jumping flea.” “I thought skates would be Turkish and tulip would be Dutch, but I guess I was wrong.”

“It’s amazing that banana never changed, unlike orange. Orange came from arabic, and the arabic word was narang. Arab traders changed it to naranj, and brought it to Spain. The French changed it to Orange before moving it to english.”

“I thought skates would be Turkish and tulip would be Dutch, but I guess I was wrong.” “I was surprised at all these words because I thought they were all English!” “With every word I did, I was shocked at either the meaning, original word or where it came from.”

“My reactions to all these words are different. My reaction to the word Chair was that the original word is cathedral/cathedra. I was surprised of how they changed the word cathedral/cathedra to chair.”

Learning to Work Together

A Roll of the Dice

After learning the science process skills, the teacher asks students to design a simple experiment. They are asked to formulate a question, come up with a hypothesis, and then a procedure for carrying out their experiment. They collect and organize data using charts and graphs. They answer their question and report the results. The teacher tells students to use three multi-colored dice, which are rolled to get information. The students have to think of a question that their experiment will answer. For example, “How many times will the blue die roll the highest number when the three dice are rolled twenty times?” or “If the dice are rolled twenty times, how many times will the sum of the dice be greater than twelve?” Students use their science notebooks to record the experiment. Teacher passes out shallow box tops and three multi-colored dice. The students brainstorm science questions for their experiments for a few minutes before working in pairs to conduct their experiment.

There was a mummer of small voices mixed with the shuffling of notebook pages. They asked each other questions, looked into their partner’s eyes for approval. They reached an agreement, and then scribbled their question into the notebook. They looked back at each other and tried to decide who would roll the dice.

The first roll: Tension in their faces, hands clinched into fists. Their eyes are riveted to the falling dice, bouncing, twisting, turning. The dice slowed and settled. Eyes inched forward waiting for the first results. The data is revealed. A few pairs shared the task of rolling the dice while others elected to have only one roller. Two pairs of eyes closely examined the results of each roll. Two hands wrote numbers in the notebooks. Different charts started to take shape.

The second roll: One rolled, both observed, both recorded results. They inspected each other’s notebooks, compared and contrasted. Some decided to record the data in the same way, other pairs were comfortable with their differences. When the pen was lifted from the notebook, their eyes returned to the dice and back again. Checking to be sure they recorded the right numbers, they continued.

The third roll: “I’m in charge, we’ll do it my way!” Unspoken but expressed, pairs of students worked as differently as their clothing choices. Pairs cooperated, with questions and answers, making joint decisions. Pairs competed with requests and refusals. One imposed his will, and the other complied. The one grabbed the dice and rolled. He ignored his partner, except to see when his last number was recorded. He snatched up the dice and cradled them in his closed hand. He didn’t reply to the request. He didn’t let him see the dice. He moved his hand further out of sight. He refused to take part in the argument. The other asked for inclusion and then retreated into a secondary role. He wrote too slowly. He couldn’t keep up. He lagged behind. He couldn’t win the argument. He couldn’t be a leader; he had to be a follower.

            Another roll: Pairs were smiling, laughing, talking, joking, and giggling. They moved between the dice and their notebooks with energy, waiting for the next roll to reveal new data. They quickly scribbled their results and came back for more. The last roll of the dice brought disappointed expressions to their faces. The next step, organizing the data, was more like work than play.

            Another roll: Their facial expressions were serious. They meant business. Their postures revealed a sense of work. They looked at every roll of the dice with intense stares. They didn’t smile; voices were serious. Their arms and hands moved deliberately between rolls of the dice and writing data in their notebooks. They doubled checked each other’s work, careful not to make an error. Their science was serious. Their science was work. Their science was not a game. They proceeded through a careful step-by-step process. They observed each other, like they observed the dice. Did we do this right?

            Another roll: They rolled the dice, recorded the data, rolled the dice, recorded the date, rolled the dice, and recorded the data. They went through the process, step by step. Their faces were plain, they worked quietly, a head was propped up with hand. They looked tired, worked slowly, picked their pens up, scribbled numbers and dropped their pens back to the desk. They looked at the clock, as time passed slowly.

            Another roll: They rolled the dice and snapped to attention. Something different, something exciting, something unexpected. They were caught off guard; one grabbed her head with her hands. They raised their voices. “Wow”, ” Look at that”, ” Neat!” Their eyes widened, they looked at each other, and they looked again at the dice. They picked up their pens and wrote quickly. They grabbed the dice and roll again.

            Another roll: They organized their data step by step. They made charts and graphs, drew lines carefully, checked their notes and drew again. They transformed data into a new picture. They looked at their graphs and back at their notebooks. Two faces brightened when they saw their experiment transformed into a new picture. They altered one thing into another. They pointed to the page and wrote more. They wrote the answers to their questions. They had finished the experiment.

Global Address

Today’s small group instruction was a practical application of using Global Addresses or global plotting co-ordinates using latitude and longitude. The students were introduced to this concept with a lecture, using a globe to illustrate the terminology. They also read a couple of pages from their textbooks and copied two pages of notes in their science notebooks. Students in my group were assigned four sets of global co-ordinates. They had to locate the latitude and longitude co-ordinates to find the point of intersection, which was a major city. They recorded the city and country for each of the four co-ordinates. Finally, they had to find the latitude and longitude of their hometown, Binghamton, New York.

            A sixteen-inch colored globe was brought to a group of five students and placed in the middle of their desks. Nearly all of the ten hands were placed on the globe, each trying to spin and tilt it so they could see something specific. There was a chorus of comments. “Let me…, I was first…, Just a minute…., I only want to…”. So went the negotiations. One girl decided to take charge and addressed the group. “We have to get this done. What is the first co-ordinate?” With this call to task, other students abandoned the globe to look at the blackboard for the first set of co-ordinates. Others wrote in their notebooks and recorded the same information. Two students rotated the globe and began to search for the first location. “35 degrees north”, said the first student. There was a difference of opinion about how to proceed. The first girl had her finger on the equator at 35 degrees east longitude while the other had her finger on the opposite side of the world. They were far apart, on the globe and in their co-operation. Each of them was insisting to the other that they were right and tried to explain why. They were not listening to each other. Another student joined the debate. One girl offered the idea of locating the longitude first. She turned the globe to find her point, while the other two girls tried to keep their fingers on the points they had already located. This brought the other two students to the globe, trying to offer their help. As quickly as they had come together in co-operation, they diverged in chaos. They all understood the mechanics of plotting the point on a flat Cartesian graph; after all they all had done this before in math classes. First, find the X value on the x-axis and they find the Y value on the y-axis, and then find the intersection. This was not a flat graph, it was a round globe. This didn’t have an x-axis or y-axis. There was confusion about the latitude and longitude scale of degrees. Some students read the latitude co-ordinate (30 degrees N.) and used the longitude scale instead.

I decided to intervene and told them to use the co-ordinate directions of N, E, S, and W as clues to double-check the scale they were using. The N. co-ordinate should indicate a location in the Northern Hemisphere. The suggestion helped them find the correct hemisphere. I asked them to find the scale that went from the equator to the North Pole. They were back on track again. “I told you so!” said one from the group. She moved her finger in between the printed lines of 30 degrees N. and 45 degrees N. They all noticed there was no line for 35 degrees N. They each tried to suggest an estimate for the proper location in between the two printed latitude lines. Estimating the distances between meridian lines was difficult for them. Some guessed at a point in the middle, others tried to calculate the distance. They all were uncomfortable about the lack of references. Locating 35 degrees North was estimation of the distance between the printed lines of 30 degrees North and 45 degrees North. They were trying to understand the proportional distance of one number between a range of two other numbers. I decided to intervene again. “Since 35 represents one third of the numeric distance between 30 and 45, you have to estimate one third of the distance between the printed latitude lines of 30 degrees N. and 45 degrees N. Five fingers crowded the tiny space on the globe while the debate went back and forth. With a little practice, they got better at this task. After agreeing on the location, one finger remained on the spot, while the other students began locating the longitude co-ordinate. From the Prime Meridian, some went east and other went west. Another debate. One student recalled finding the correct hemisphere. Since the longitude was 75 degrees west, she claimed that it had to be in the western hemisphere. The debate was over. They located 75 degrees on the equator and then moved their fingers together in a straight line until they met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There was a problem. Why didn’t this work? One girl said that the two lines had to intersect and suggested using the way they plotted a point on the flat graph. They located their points again, moved horizontally and vertically, and arrived in Atlanta, Georgia.

Ropes Course

            They had never done this before. Those with older siblings had heard the tales of excitement, courage, and danger. Were these tall tales? Was this going to be safe? Did hundreds of older students do this without getting hurt? Stories were told and retold by those with older brothers and sisters. The eyes of the audience widened over whispers of self-doubt. “I’m afraid of heights!” “Why do we have to do this anyway?” After all, what is the point of sixth-graders strapping on a harness over their legs and shoulders, attaching themselves with a silvery metal D clip to a rope and pulley over sixty feet in the air, which is secured by two fellow classmates who had never done this before? They were not rock climbers trying to scale Everest. What would their classmates think if they chicken out? What was the point?

            As the day approached, their anticipation grew with their curiosity. There was a buzz of excitement on the short hike to the course. The cool crisp October morning had brought bright sunshine overhead and crackling leaves beneath their feet. The smell of autumn hung in the air marking this time of transition. Would their courage fade like the leaves as they gazed up at ropes strung between the trees? When they arrived at the ropes course, in the woods behind the school, all eyes focused overhead. They looked like a tour group seeing skyscrapers for the first time. A web of black ropes criss-crossed through the trees overhead, like the handy work of a monstrous spider. Comments murmured through the crowd. “They’ve got to be kidding!” “No way!”

The instructors gathered the group, peppering them with instructions for the simple warm up activity. Under a net, held tight by their classmates, they would balance themselves as they traversed the incline of a twelve-foot rope ladder. The presence of a net and the short drop to the ground appeared to distract them from the ropes overhead.

The group walked further into the woods and gathered by a weathered picnic table. One of the instructors selected a royal blue harness from a box on the table. “I am going to show you how to put on these harnesses, you must pay attention and get this right!” He demonstrated the step-by-step process with a student volunteer. His instructions were clear and precise. On his command, the group flocked around the box, selected their harnesses and unraveled the puzzle. Everyone’s harness was double-checked. Three helmets were strapped in place. He demonstrated how the D clip locked on the harness and took the slack out of the rope. The first girl who volunteered was strung to the pulley overhead. Two more volunteers secured the other end of the rope. They learned how to weave it through their arms, so it would not slip away. The trio of students exchanged a signal and reply to confirm everyone was ready. The first climber approached the tree and firmly grasped the U-shape steel handle that had been hammered into the tree trunk. These handles, which doubled as foot rests, were pounded into alternate sides of the trunk providing access to a small wooden platform thirty-five feet off the ground. As the climber ascended, the ground crew took up the slack, keeping the rope tight as she rose. The climber bent and twisted her body as her hands tightly grasped the wooden brackets that supported the platform. As though navigating monkey bars, she had arrived at the top. A tight rope stretched before her, extending fifty feet to the next tree. White guide ropes dangled from overhead to help the climbers keep their balance. The placement of the guide ropes were at intervals that required the climbers to hold the rope behind them and stretch out to reach the next rope in front of them. As she inched her way across the tight rope, her facial expression changed with every slide of her feet. She looked worried and unsure as she let the rope behind her slide through her hand. She looked awkward and clumsy as she lost her balance and smiled briefly when she regained it. She looked determined and sure as she stretched out to reach for the next guide rope. She looked confident, when she grasped the next rope firmly in hand. When she reached the fifth guide rope, the instructor told her it was time to come down. He told her to let go of the guide ropes and lean to the right side of the tight rope and her classmates would lower her to the ground. With a little hesitation, she did what she was told. Her face exploded with a scream and then a smile as she dropped off the tight rope and found herself suspended thirty feet in the air, dangling safety. Her classmates lowered her slowly to the ground, greeted by cheers from the class.

In the next clearing, a fifty-five foot climbing wall loomed like a silent giant. Ropes hung from pulleys at the top. The D clip was attached to a girl in a bright yellow jacket. She tightened the strap of her helmet and turned to the harnessed students who secured the opposite end of the rope. The climber ascended an eight-foot ladder to reach the bottom of the climbing wall. Her outstretched hand reached the first handle then she pulled herself up to the next handle. She was on her way to the top, sometimes backing down to reposition her climb using a different group of handles. She paused on occasions to look down at her friends on the ground, and then focused upward to the rest of her climb. Before long she had reached the top of the wall. The instructor shouted directions from below, “Lean back and keep your feet against the wall, we’ll lower you down.”

The next climber waited eagerly at the bottom for her chance to climb the wall. When her turn came, the instructor attached the D clip to her harness and she climbed the ladder. This climber appeared to be more cautious than the first. Her face showed doubt and her voice lacked confidence. She grabbed the first handle on the wall, trying to pull herself up, she back down to the ladder and turned her head downward. “I can’t do this!” she shouted to the instructor. With a few words of encouragement, he prodded her to continue. She tried again. She pulled herself up to the first handle and tried the second. She climbed five feet up the wall and decided to call it quits. Her voice was shaky when she announced that she was coming down. She knew she could not do this and did not want to try. With her feet firmly on the ground, a look of relief came over her face. She hurried to unhook the D clip from her harness and rejoin her friends.

The last activity of the day was the Zip rope. The class walked to the crest of a hill and looked down at the ravine below. A cable stretched from top of the hill to a tree two hundred and twenty feet below. In order to hook themselves to the cable, the students had to climb another wooden ladder and scale a set of U shaped handles to reach a platform just under the cable. Once they reached the platform, one of the instructors fastened them to the cable. Pairs of students clutched each other tightly when they descended the steep cable, two at a time. Mouths dropped open when the class saw how fast the first pair flew down the cable. At the bottom of the hill a second instructor waited to set up a ladder under the low point of the cable. Once the pair had finished see sawing back and forth and came to rest, the ladder was placed under the students for their safe return to the ground. The class organized itself into pairs and waited for their turn. The sudden drop off the platform and the speed of the descent, added great tension to this exercise. The pairs of students hugged each other tightly on top of the platform and didn’t let go until they were ready to descend the ladder. They screamed wildly when they stepped off the platform. As each pair climbed back up the hill, questions were shouted out from the waiting crowd. “How was it?” “Were you scared?” Their excited replies came back through smiles. “I want to go again.” “We had a blast.” “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” “We should do this more often.”

Interpretation

Learning to See

Penny Observation

            During this tutoring session with an 11 year old, learning disabled student, I attempted to make the concept of proper note taking and scientific observation concrete. The student was unfamiliar with the proper procedure for using the Cornell method of note taking. Several days after the teacher’s lecture, the student participated in a mini-workshop review of the note taking procedure. After examining her own notebook, the student realized there was a significant difference between her notebook and the class notebook. (The class notebook was maintained by visiting graduate students to model proper note taking.) She arranged to work with me after school to improve her notes on the penny observation lesson. Using the class science notebook as a model of the end product, the student was able to make a direct comparison between her work and the work from the model. In realizing the difference, the student examines her own schemes and operation, compares them to the modeled example and successfully resolves the sociocognitive conflict (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 142-162). She noticed observations listed in the class notebook indicated whether it was made on the front or back of the penny. Her decision, to include this detail in her own notebook, illustrates individual constructivism (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 158).          

Scaffolding was an important part of her guided participation session (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 169). Direct observation of the penny’s small details was difficult. The suggestion to use a magnifying glass allowed the student to discover using a tool would yield better results. At first, the student placed the magnifying glass directly on top of the penny to make her observation. I suggested she raise the magnifying glass off the penny in order for her to discover the proper use of the glass. She demonstrated adaptation, in this mediated learning experience, by routinely moving the glass back and forth over the penny, focusing on the greatest enlargement (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 142-168). Likewise, the use of guided questions encouraged her to make more detailed observations. When she recorded her observation, “In god we trust”, I asked where it was written on the penny. When she added, written over the head of Lincoln, I asked if it was written in a straight line. She responded, “No, its written around the rim. The guided questions help the student to improve her written observations from, “In God we Trust”, to a more detailed observation, “In God We Trust, written above the head of Lincoln, around the rim.” This cognitive apprenticeship activity assisted the student to gain a higher level of potential development (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 166-170).

Scaffolding is a teacher skill learned over time and with much practice. It requires careful observation of the student’s dialogue, tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and even handwriting. All of the information from these observations can contribute to your analysis of the student’s learning process. Parenting has made the greatest contribution to my understanding of scaffolding. As I witnessed my children grow through their developmental stages, I learned to offer assistance in order to help them progress to the next level of achievement. It is extremely important for parents to understand that offering assistance to a child is not the same as doing it for them. Many parents make this mistake. In an effort to help their child succeed, they deny them the learning experience. The outcome of this over protective parenting behavior may be a dependent child. It is challenging for parents to allow their children to make mistakes. We have been taught, from an early age, that mistakes are bad and should be avoided. Constructivism has taught us that children learn better when they build their own knowledge. Making mistakes is part of that building process; it guides future efforts by eliminating choices in the trial and error process, thereby, building schemas and scripts (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 195). E

Expanding on this concept, McDevitt & Ormrod (2004, p. 228) state: “Information processing theorists point out that cognitive development involves the acquisition of increasingly effective and efficient cognitive strategies”. In order for teachers to help students acquire these strategies, they must find the right moment to intervene. Teachers are pressured into an efficient use of their time and may be tempted to intervene when they know a student’s strategy will result in a mistake. They must learn to be patient for the sake of the student’s self-discovery. Asking the right inquiry question may help the student reevaluate their strategies and consider alternatives. In that way, the student redirects his/her own thinking, not the teacher. Asking questions and giving advice may condition students’ cognitive process unconsciously, by redirecting thinking and getting them to dig a little deeper. In the same way giving compliments may reinforce the feeling that their thinking is on the right track. In addition to guided questions, teachers must learn to give support when needed. In the penny observation session, Lynn was struggling to see the small details on the penny. This was an appropriate time to introduce the magnifying glass for two reasons. First, it would help accommodate her task. Second, it introduced the concept that tools are used in science to extend our senses and aid our observations. Support requires careful observation of your students’ needs; it can be something a simple as cleaning a pair of dirty eyeglasses for a student trying to read. In most cases, support should be for something the students will not think to do for themselves.

            According to Piaget, this 11 year-old science student is in a transitional stage between the Concrete Operational Stage and the Formal Operation stage. She demonstrates competence in many aspects of Concrete Operations: such as differentiating her own perspective on making observations from the perspective of others (adults) in the class notebook; multiple classifications such as different pennies being shiny or dirty, a variety of dates on different pennies, greater surface wear on older pennies. She finds Formal Operation tasks more difficult. This may be due, in part, to her learning disability. Hypothesizing about different observations and understanding the reasons for those differences, is one example of her difficulty (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 150-152).

There was a great deal of self-talk as she worked on each of the observations. According to Vygotsky, the specific purpose of self-talk allows students to modify their behaviors to navigate difficult or complex tasks the way adults have suggested (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 165). Through this mediated learning experience, the student was able to improve her science observation skills beyond her actual development level to a level of potential development. (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, pp. 166). The student’s authentic activity enable her to perform observations on her own that she was previously unable to do by herself (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 176).

Similarities between Piaget and Vygotsky can be defined in terms of the challenge the student faced in the mediated learning experience. She knew her work was