Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Philosophy

I know that knowledge is the catalyst for success. How do I know this? I am a product of this philosophy. My education, experiences and personal exploration of the teaching profession have provided me with the knowledge to succeed daily in my teaching career. How do I define a successful teacher? I define a successful teacher as one who is passionately committed to the importance of her subject area and its specific pedagogy. Successful teachers have authentic, joyful and professional relationships with their colleagues and students. Successful teachers incorporate intentional daily reflection on their teaching, bringing forth invaluable awareness. A successful teacher facilitates student achievement and mastery through honoring high academic expectations. A successful teacher facilitates student achievement and mastery through carefully planned, engaging and research based teaching strategies. Successful teachers also nurture an advantageous, safe classroom environment for students to rigorously learn, grow, and achieve.

I believe that much of my students’ growth and success is dependent upon the environment of my classroom; therefore, my first goal is to create a community of learners. This community is participatory, supportive, inclusive, responsive, committed and always authentic. All of my students will experience an organized and positive community of learning on a daily basis. Students can depend upon my commitment to them and my belief in their ability to succeed, given the right tools. I acknowledge the fact that many of my students are not equipped with models of how cooperative and productive environments operate. Therefore, one of my main goals as an educator is to prepare and model for my students what successful learning behavior looks like. I have a thorough classroom management plan and set of procedures to help students help themselves and learn new skills. To help students learn, I honor the importance of written reflection and oral discussion, and frequent opportunities for feedback and conferencing. I also offer up explicit directions and rubrics on all assignments and classroom procedures. Students can depend on a consistent and reliable learning environment when they walk into my classroom. I am supported in my beliefs on learning communities and how those are implemented by the works and research of Jim Burke, Janet Emig, Doug Lemov and Lucy Calkins.

Students will be actively engaged in writing, reading and mechanics mastery daily.  Through my research and experience with the National Writing Project, I am equipped with teaching/learning strategies that engage students in the content through authentic, rigorous and enjoyable ways of learning. I believe in the power of writer’s workshop, scaffolding writing instruction, conferencing, embedded grammar instruction, enlightening literature and authentic, relevant assignments. My rationale for using these strategies is that they enable and empower students to write and connect to text, while giving them structure to facilitate growth and build upon previously mastered skills. These teaching/learning strategies are reinforced by the research of James Moffett, James Britton, Janet Emig, the NAEP facts report, Linda Flower, John Hayes, Nancy Sommers, Sheryl Lain, Nancy Atwell, and Julia S. Falk.

Organization is an important element to me as an individual as well as in my classroom. I need organization to succeed in the world. I strive in having structure, and planned, intentional focus. I wasn’t always so highly organized. Therefore, I recognize that some students may need help in organizing themselves. I commiserate and understand entirely. I demonstrate organization in my lesson planning, unit cohesiveness and daily procedures. I believe that if I am intentional and organized about goals, objectives and procedures, I am more able to be more flexible and creative in areas that are useful and productive. An example of this would be if I am organized and intentional with class time, and students honor the objectives, we have more time to expand our knowledge and delve into some even more interesting discussions, projects and skills. Doug Lemov’s classroom model and research validates my belief on the topic of organization and intentional lesson planning.

I believe that learning is exciting and enjoyable. I am joyful and enthusiastic by nature and I am, consequently, always energetic and enthused in my delivery and facilitation of my daily lessons. I commiserate and understand my students and love to laugh with them often. I model what the joy of learning looks like everyday and rejoice to see students join in. I am aware of myself and aware that my own person is as functional an asset or tool for learning as theory and pedagogy. Parker J. Palmer wrote an entire book, The Courage to Teach, on a healthy approach to being at ease with yourself, your strengths, even weaknesses, and how they can come together harmoniously in the classroom. I embrace this philosophy wholeheartedly.

I firmly believe that it is within my power, responsibility, and will to be prepared, knowledgeable, patient and committed to student success. As I daily model this with my own actions and relationships, I also expect students to take responsibility for their actions, respect each other and to put forth their best effort each day. 

One Liner

Banana-
People make such horrible noises when they eat you.

Bananas and Biology

Nestled

Happy safe

Tangled tightly, made from within

Formed in the rippled womb

Its divisions are a trilogy

Intentional imprints of god’s design

Monkeys eat it this way

Why do we open them backwards?

They say it’s all biology

Slimy

Grainy green and yellow leaf, not from here

Bitter

Thickly protected, yet delicate to the touch

Babies gumming on its end

Melts and squishes

Between my tongue and

Strange roof of mouth

Book Review: "Writing With Power" by Peter Elbow

Book Review

Writing with Power: Techniques for mastering the Writing Process

By Peter Elbow

Abstract on this review:

For those of you who teach High School composition/English, this book is a must-read. If you are a Teacher-Writer, or aspire to be one, this book is essential. Peter Elbow’s honesty is uproariously provocative and hilarious. He brings in his own experiences as a student, teacher and especially as a writer to compile his philosophy on the writing process. My own teaching philosophy has been significantly shaped by Elbow’s approach to writing and teaching writing.

Peter Elbow is passionately interested in the writing process. He interweaves three themes throughout this powerful book. The first theme he addresses is that writing calls upon two conflicting skills: the ability to create and the ability to criticize. While these two can harmoniously help create a powerful piece of writing, they can also leave us paralyzed. It is important to separate these two skills purposefully. These skills should be employed always in relation to one another, but never simultaneously…or maybe just sometimes. Elbow emphasizes the importance of having a duplicitous relationship with our writing: that of connected creator one minute, and then that of detached and uninvested critic the next. “For it turns out, paradoxically, that you increase your creativity by working on critical thinking. What prevents most people from being inventive and creative is fear of looking foolish…But when you know that this creativity is just the first of two stages, and that you are getting more critical in the second stage, you feel safer writing freely, tapping intuitions, and going out on limbs”(10).

 The second theme is the theme of comparison. Elbow warns us not to think that others are blessed with a certain easy and available faculty with words. We must embrace the belief that almost everyone has the ability to rise to a certain occasion, usually prompted by personal importance or an urgent circumstance, and express a thought or event with eloquence if they are given the right opportunities and connections.

The third theme is to not give in to the helpless feelings we so often encounter when we right, but also be forgiving as we revise and see room for improvement. When Peter Elbow discusses revision, he is convicted and obviously has struggled through some difficult processes through his own writing journey. Elbow suggests that the most honorable aim for revising is the “desire to make things work on readers…I didn’t get to productive revising till I insisted on being heard”(122). Elbow approaches this topic of painful stage in writing, revision, with much insight and possible variations to aid in our quest for effective revision. Elbow insists on the importance of audience and how our revision processes and feedback should always be in accordance with our concrete purpose and audience.

Peter Elbow snarkingly pokes fun at himself, saying that he probably is talking to too many people when addressing the issue of audience and his book on writing. He specifies further that his audience is really “that person inside everyone who has ever written or tried to write: that someone who has wrestled with words, who seeks power in words, who has gotten discouraged, but who also senses the possibility of achieving real writing power”(6).  His audience is anyone who has attempted to write and found it in the least bit painful and cumbersome. I love this. He unites us all based upon the principle that nobody is perfect and that we are all striving to understand this craft. He creates a sense of community and understanding between fellow writers and teachers of writing. His audience is intentionally broad, for being a writer encompasses all of us, to a certain capacity.

On the issue of audience, Elbow possesses an excellent framing question for writers: Whom do I want to serve? We should know whom our writing is serving. It can serve our selves, or the search for truth; it can serve that board of trustees, the dissertation panel, or the editor of Seventeen Magazine. It’s all about knowing who will be reading it and why they will be reading it.  Audience is not an afterthought; it is an intentional focus. Elbow writes “most people struggle along as they are writing something in an effort to make it ‘good writing in general’ instead of thinking carefully or precisely about ‘good for what effect on what reader’”(226).

“Writing for Teachers” was one of my favorite chapters. “As adolescents, especially, we are subject to the tyranny of the crowd. Worse than being caught with your pants down is being caught caring deeply, being corny, vulnerable, pure. But a special teacher gives us permission to care about honor or Dostoyevsky or relativity or irony—not just gags or girls or cars. A good teacher understands us. A good teacher can hear beyond our insecure hesitation or faddish slang to the authentic voice and reach in and help us use it”(217).  I took this chapter as a necessary challenge to become that “special teacher.” I was inspired and equipped with much advice on how to help students become better writers. How we assign papers, and especially how we give feedback to our students can be indicative to their legitimate investment in the craft or not. This is serious business, teaching writing.

After reading Writing with Power, I feel well acquainted with the philosophies and personality of the college professor I never had, but always desperately needed and wanted. Elbow infuses the pages with knowledge, wit, understanding and conviction. I treasured this book and its presentation of a writer’s mind, soul and heart. He balances practicality alongside creativity. Blending them in the form of hilarious anecdotes, and handbook-like excerpts and advice. I suggest this book unreservedly for any writer, or writer-wanna-be, out there.

"What's Right with Writing" by Linda Rief

Response to Linda Rief’s article What’s Right with Writing

What have we learned about writing and the teaching of writing?

1.     Writing is thinking. Writing is for many a way of working through our thought processes in a more tangible way. Writing is an way to communicate thoughts, understandings, opinions, if we are given enough time, choice, models and responses to do so.

2.     There is no one process that defines the way all writers write. Writing is a recursive process. Although there are many great strategies that we may teach, our students and even our own writing process may vary based upon the form, audience and purpose of that particular piece of writing.

3.     We learn to write by reading extensively and writing for real audiences. This is to emphasize the interest factor, and authenticity. It is hard enough to get our thoughts out on paper most days, and trying to shape our argument to fit a make-believe audience can seem pointless and convoluted.

4.     Writers need constructive criticism. Specific comments help writers cling onto as strengths as a driving force. Specific comments also help students focus in on key elements to be improved. We can’t point out EVERY error in their paper and then expect them to want to revise and go through the demoralizing time and time again.

5.     Evaluation of writing should highlight the strengths of process, content, and conventions, and give the writer the tools and techniques to strengthen the weaknesses.

6.     Writing is reading.

Why does writing matter?

            Writing matters because it is the very act of committing our thoughts to paper that will help us build conviction, authenticity and have accountability to our thoughts. Writing is the place where idea origination, creation, and verbal constructions are collected. The act of writing is creating thoughts on a medium separate from own skull walls. We can separate ourselves from our thoughts and approach them critically, analytically, however we need or want to. Writing can shape our thinking and help develop it fully, while also allowing us to see it in a new light.

What do our students need to help them write well?

1.     Time . I will commit a generous amount of time so that my students can engage in writing daily. I want to provide them with time to process and think. They will not be writing alone. I will be writing with my students to demonstrate that I value and honor the act of writing daily, and for my own writer’s soul and health. I acknowledge, however, that quantity does NOT equate to quality of writing. Daily writing will be supplemented with models, samples and an abundance of literature to help students establish a strong sense of what good writing can look like. (There is a lot out there!)

2.     Choice. Ownership is essential for authentic writing, growth, and motivation in the subject. If students have an interest to start off with in their writing they are more likely to delve into it from a more intrinsic interest, building a love of learning. I hope that students grow more comfortable with using writing as a way to explore their interests and express their thoughts. Writing is another way to instill a love of learning and the joy of exploring the world around them.

3.     Models. Another way to look at reading and writing and their relationship is to compare it to the relationship of “sense and grasshopper.” The sense guides the grasshopper to mastery through shared experiences, listening, observing and apprenticing the ways and habits of the sense. Students should look to well-written essays, literature, and poetry as their sense. They serve as the ultimate and most knowledgeable mentors to the craft students are attempting to improve on each day. Students need an example of what they are striving for. They need to know where they fit into the mix among all the red corrections on their paper. They need to establish in their minds what are some examples of good writing.

4.     Response. As educators we need to create a safe place for students to fail, achieve, and take risk. We need to respond to them and their writing in a way that speaks to their strengths, some weaknesses, and validates their heart and soul they have just displayed for you on the page. Give them something constructive to cling to, and something to change.

What stands in the way of powerful writing instruction?

1.     Me

2.     My school’s administration

3.     Testing anxieties

4.     Testing

5.     But, mainly it’s me. I must hold myself accountable to these statements and implement them reflectively and ardently because I believe in them completely. 

Digital Story "Where I'm From"

Top 10 Thoughts on Revision

Top 10 revision thoughts

I think that...

1. Writers need room to make mistakes and learn from them, but especially they need an opportunity that fosters such an environment of safe community and growth.

2. Revision means experiments in form, voice, and perspectives. This means being able to revise an idea to fit a form/genre.

3.     Giving students the time and tools to brainstorm and pre-write is essential to scaffolding their skills and developing their ideas.
4.     Revising has almost everything to do with asking the right questions.
5.     Revising is being able to focus in critically, and then step away and write creatively.
6.     Revision is paired with effective conferences. The writer, not the teacher, should lead Conferencing. BUT asking a student repeatedly “what do you think” is not ok. You are the teacher. It’s their writing so they should have a focus and goal, but you should be able to provide them with insights and tools about how they can improve. (Tisk tisk Barry Lane.)
7.     Revision isn’t a concrete step in the writing process necessarily.. There is no perfect writing process. Equipping students with many approaches to the process of writing and revision is the key objective. Revision can be steps 1 through 500, but the focus needs to be that writing is in a constant state of revision.
8.     REVISE.REVISE. REVISE. REVISE. REVISE. REVISE. REVISE.
9.     Revision is not the same as editing. Grammar, punctuation and other mechanics are important but should be considered after you have the content “under control”.
10. Revision should help writers stay true to their purpose and their audience. 

I am from

I am from photographs and leather bound books

From dark and faded faces and all their jewelry that doesn’t latch

I am from the deserted Dakota plains from homesteads, and the bustling dirty streets of London.

I am from the wheat stalk and the wind beaten heather, a fair garden rose

Whose manicured limbs, mildly threatening thorns exposed,

I know as if they were my own.

I’m from infectious laughter and reading bed-time stories

I’m from Julie, Sheila, Charlotte and Hettie

I’m from daydreaming and discontent

And all of us are from blissful kisses from the wind on naked cheeks.

I’m from “I’ve had it with you” and “I don’t want you to go”

And you can sleep when you’re dead.

I’m from Eugene and England, Minnesota and South Dakota.

I'm from goulash and sweet corn to lefse and zucchini bread.

I'm from Charlotte’s five marriages, her uproarious temper,

That picture of my young Salsa, or those brass elephant earrings

Held in the trunk that screeches when I open it, and the smell of

Musky ancestry and home comes pouring out.  

-copy changed from the National Hispanic Cultural Center poem "I am from"

"What She Could Do"

What she could do

Maneuver with delicacy

a chainsaw or CAT.

Toil with trim and curse at

crown-moldings.

Recite every line of Pride and Prejudice.

Render exquisite caramel, fine confitures

in her French copper pot,

bake apples in cinnamon—sipping

on a glass of hot orange water.

Work her industrious hands to start an IV,

wipe away hot tears, repeat the loops of another

“Goddess bracelet”. Be the still beanstalk

safe in her garden, or the electric summer storm.

Walk strong. Laugh till she cried. Kick-out

her foot, with a sassy hand on her high hip.

--

With special thanks to Elizabeth Holmes 

Random observation...

I never thought I would see so many Giant Post-It Notes!!! :)

Jigsaw Blog

Jigsaw: NAEP Facts

NAEP Facts

“Can Students Benefit From Process Writing?” Vol. 1, No. 3

This article is a prime example of transactional writing. There is definite focus, goal and specific audience in mind. The NAEP =National Assessment of Educational Progress

Summary:

Highest average writing scores were associated with teachers who implemented process writing and pre-writing activities. These said pre-writing and process writing activities are collectively referred to as “process-oriented instruction.”

The article discusses the Recursive Process. This process is described as

1.) Planning 2.) writing 3.) review

First draft.

4.) More planning 5.) More ideas 6.) More writing

Second draft.

Studies show that more planning and reviewing a student does, the better their writing will be. 

This assessment only evaluates the first round of the process. This may explain why most of the scores equated to only a 50%, because only half of the process was carried out. This assessment asks students to embrace their recursive processes, and asks teachers to expose their students to as many different processes and prewriting activities as possible, and yet, doesn’t assess these fully. Even professional writers may not perform so well on an assessment such as this one, for this is not how they write. Although the NAEP has done research showing that the more pre-writing and planning activities done prior to writing the better the score, they are still testing the same. This assessment doesn’t take into account the process that they state needs to be carried out in order to write well. All the NAEP does to advocate the writing process is provide the student with a blank page to doodle, outline, or draft upon. Participants of this test have to write in a vacuum, with no time to  engage others and fully revise their essays. They can however demonstrate their abilities to plan and outline a paper. Our group was slightly confused as to whether the usage of this blank paper earned points, or legitimately helped students write a better paper. A lot of our questions were geared towards how the NAEP assessed good writing. What is the criterion for getting a score of 500 of this test? What does a “500” essay look like?

If these questions were answered, our “take-away” may be different…but for now, here is what we took away from this article’s findings.

The take away:

The emphasis is placed upon teachers. It is our responsibility to expose students to a wide variety of process writing strategies.  Teachers need to expose students to a range of possibilities that they can think and process their own writing. There is not exactly a correct process, but there is strength in the presence of a process.  The earlier we expose students to these processes and writing strategies, the more equipped they will be to write a better essay…or one that the NAEP will give a higher score to? I personally am still a bit confused by the connections made in this article. I want to know what the NAEP is looking for exactly and that would help me understand. 

Here is a quote from the article that supports our “take away.”

“Students of teachers who always encourage particular elements of process writing, such as planning and defining purpose and audience, were found to be generally better writers than students of teachers who reportedly never encourage theses activities. Similarly, average writing ability is higher among students whose teachers emphasize more than one process writing strategy”(pg.5).  

Emig Blog

Emig

Janet Emig draws our attention to the different sources and various research that supports the claim that writing is a natural process. Writing is something that human beings are naturally inclined to take-up…as a result of our physiology and our societal tendencies. We lead each other by example; we learn by observing and doing.

I have been educated thus far to embrace magical thinking. I am sorely disappointed. Reading this article helped me to embrace an entirely different view of “teaching writing.” It is not to be taught necessarily. Writing is an experience. Writing is more like a journey, and the writing teacher is more like a helpful guide interjecting facts and tid-bits along the way.

My role as a writing “teacher” is mainly to provide my students with the most enabling environment for writing as possible. I must provide frequent feedback and opportunities for students to implement my advice and their understanding of it. Making these adjustments is contradictory to what state legislature and test preps demand, while research begs for these adjustments be implemented.

Writing is not only natural, but it is also recursive. There is no “right” way to write. The only pattern to be expected is the erratic and unpredictable kind. How does one “teach” this type of process? By exposing students to as many different forms, processes as possible, with as much practice in each as possible.

My role as a teacher is then further focused in helping students through these unpredictable and various patterns. There are indeed ways to monitor student growth and that is through the type of risks they take, and the type of mistakes they make. There is beauty and growth in the mistakes. In order to become a better writer, we must make mistakes, and make them often. Writing teachers should be veterans of making writing mistakes and learning how to understand these mistakes so that they may grow as a writer. Writing teachers should be well versed in a variety of ways to start, mess-up, revise, freeze-up and explore a piece of writing… for their students will be going through similar ordeals.

Britton Blog

Britton:

1.     Does writing always begin as written down speech?  I wonder if we were to look at how students visualize language first. Would there be a difference in writing patterns between students who learned phonics vs. whole language? How do students come to understand speech as something visual on the paper? How does speech become dialogue that becomes a story? I think that is the natural progression. Students first write down what they are most thinking of. Is there a specific thought they are trying to express, or the running commentary that Britton refers to, or is there a certain social interchange that shows a thought that they are trying to express? Whichever the child is more experienced with will most likely influence the style and focus of their novice writing.

I am interested in the idea of questioning and how that impacts a student’s ability to transfer sustained speech onto the page. Are these questions that teachers ask are what help train students on how to think about what they will say or write next. Do these questions help them anticipate what we readers/listeners are looking for in a story? Will these questions help students sustain their own discourse, or will it breed a dependence upon such prompts?

2.     Throughout the article, Britton asks us to visualize in graphic organizers how students develop their written language. Britton states that as students build their repertoire of different forms of writing, they will begin to apply those forms to their own writing. This seems similar to when a child hears an adult use new word. The child begins to employ that new word in his own vocabulary. Sometimes he misuses the word, but he learns quickly through trial and error in what specific contexts and for what purposes the word is used. This same principle applies to written language.

The visual I get from this article is something like this:...well, this diagram I created didn't post, so...?

 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The bottom line represents the base of student expose to different forms of written language. The upper line represents a students growing expose to different forms of the written language. This line keeps growing upward after it has been through the different forms. This represents the student’s growth after being exposed to different forms of the written language. We all have a starting point…and it is only an incomplete understanding of one form. In order to develop, we must see examples and learn from these examples by doing.

3.) I think that in order for students to respond to what this article suggests, they need a balance of time, freedom to explore, and explicit instruction to supplement their exposure to the new forms of written language.

4.) The way that Britton classifies the different types of writing was a bit difficult to grasp at first. After breaking out in our groups and discussing what we each understood about expressive, transactional and poetic writing. I don’t think that using this jargon with my students would be the most accessible way to instruct different genres. I think that classifying written language as such is useful to me as a teacher. I plan on taking my understanding of each of these three types of writing and making these more tangible to students. Maybe talking about the characteristics of each and giving examples that align with the curriculum, or having students read examples of each would help them understand the different purposes for writing.

Doing so would expose them to new forms and reinforce the importance of purpose and audience in their writing…over time, of course.

1. Expressive= focus on getting basic thoughts out…audience is less important

2. Transactional= specific goal and focus…audience is EVERYTHING.

3. Poetic= writing exists for itself, it is an extended discourse that fits into its own descriptive or poetic form…audience is broad and various for different elements of the piece. 

Moffett Blog

Moffett asks us to take an experience and think about it. He then asks us to take that same experience and to think about it in a different way. This different way of looking at our experience could look like a different relationship to time. Maybe before, the experience was happening in the past, but now, in our new perspective, it is happening in the present. Perhaps we spin this same experience again and we are now a different character observing the experience, maybe we are participating in the experience. Then Moffett asks us to ask some more questions. Who are we telling our experience to? Why are we telling this particular audience our experience?

Moffett wants us to be able to stretch an experience and be able to make it tangible to others through different predictable forms and structures. Becoming well versed in many different forms and structures of writing, enables us to reach a greater audience, and enables us to portray our intent most effectively. This exposure doesn’t happen overnight. Different constructs can have huge impact on why we write what we write, or how we write it.

Moffett’s article is shaping my teaching philosophy into an inquisitive study of the teaching world around me. I want to see this approach in action and aspire to have his research and theory supporting not only my demo-workshop, but also my classroom and how I approach writing instruction for the rest of my teaching career. 

Coeur d'Alene Restaurants

Sushi:

***Syringa: (208) 664-2718. 1401 N 4th St, Coeur D'Alene, ID. Best sushi, adorable place, clean, and priced just right. (I know I have Jake’s vote on this one!)

Bonsai Bistro: More Asian fusion than sushi, but its there! 

Takara: (208) 765-8014. 309 E Lakeside Ave, Coeur D'Alene, ID

Fisherman’s Market and Grill: It’s a restaurant and fish market. They have wonderful sushi and fried fish and chips here. Great people work here and they make quality, tasty food. Fisherman’s is more north…probably a 10-minute drive from campus?

Other Asian:

**Pau Pau’s Kitchen: Order take-out. Total hole in the wall, but the best Chinese food around. It’s VERY clean, and the owner, June, is a total Gem! June will emphasize the importance of “cash or local check ONLY!” Too cute.

Dragon House: closer to downtown. Great orange chicken.

Thai Bamboo: Massive purple pagoda building. My parents enjoyed this restaurant…haven’t been here yet.

American Grill

*Hudson’s Hamburgers: (208) 664-5444. 207 E Sherman Ave, Coeur D'Alene, ID. One of Coeur d’Alene’s greatest…our own little burger legend J In my opinion, Hudson’s serves up an exquisitely average burger, and chips or pie as your side options the last time I checked. At Hudson’s, it’s more about the experience. (Moontime is more about the burger ;).

O’Shays: Great lil Irish pub. It’s the perfect spot if you are in the mood to gobble some “bobble and squeak” and a hearty Guinness.

**Capone’s- Always a good crowd here. Huge beer selection, great greasy grill food and many distracting objects on the wall to gander at…just an observation.

Crickets: (208) 765-1990. 424 E Sherman Ave, Coeur D'Alene, ID- American grill food again, normally hoppin’ in the weekend evenings with a live band and a crowd that likes a bit of a party.

Red Robin: Typical chain “All-American” burger joint.

Applebee’s: Not even going to go there. You can get yourself some cheap appetizers…or expensive laxatives…again, just an observation.

Outback Steakhouse: Aussie steaks in Idaho. Always fun.

Texas Roadhouse: Becky works here! Let’s go visit her and have a delicious steak! (you can throw peanuts on the ground here…totally worth it!)

Dockside: Amazing “Gooey” desserts! The sad Coeur d’Alene joke is that Dockside feels like, and often tastes like “Denny’s on the lake”…although wallets may feel differently about this.

The Beachouse:?

Bistro on Spruce:?

South of the border:

***Café Carambola: Absolutely love this place. It is VERY close to where we meet for class. Just down Northwest Blvd a bit. A family run café with healthy, tasty, affordable grub. Their quinoa salad is delicious, as well as their chicken sandwiches. I believe they are only open for lunch…

Las Palmitas: (208) 664-0581. 201 N 3rd St, Coeur D'Alene, ID

Mexican Food factory: (208) 664-0079. 1032 N 4th St, Coeur D'Alene, ID. A local favorite. MMMmmm.

Azteca: Mexican Chain

The grille from Ipanema: Brazilian grill and steakhouse

Italian:

Tomato Street: (208) 667-5000: 221 W Appleway Ave, Coeur D'Alene, ID.

Tito Macaroni’s

Angelo’s Ristorante

Olive Garden

**Ciao Mambo: Nice place to stop and get a cocktail…not the best service in the world, but a cute place to enjoy good company and a low maintenance fare.

***Moontime- Public house. Downtown off North Sherman Avenue. This place is one of my all time favorite restaurants. Go here on Thursday night…$1 draft, live music, and as always, their amazing corn pasta salad and scrumptious moon burger!  A must!

***The Porch- Public house. Same owners as Moontime…just more family oriented and located in North Hayden Lake between Avondale golf course and Hayden Lake country club. The have a fantastic patio that looks out on the golf course and the staff is impeccable. (Tell them Ashley sent you!)

*Daanen’s Deli- Good beer, sandwiches, cheeses, and daily specials. Sometimes live music on Fridays.

*Bardenay- Great place for drinks and an appetizer. Not 5 star service to be sure. This place is quite popular though, so maybe I’ve missed out? Tell me what you think…

Greenbriar Inn

***The wine cellar: (208) 664-9463. 313 E Sherman Ave, Coeur D'Alene, ID.- Moontime and The Wine Cellar…hmmm. Depends on my mood. The Wine Cellar is fantastic. Dim lighting, delicious garlicky food, huge wine selection, knowledgeable servers, and great music, typically jazz.

***The white house-Greek and Garlic! Love this place…although expect garlic to be leaking from your pores for about two days. The owner is adorable. You can’t leave without him telling you he loves you.

The oval office

**Barrel Room- Good wine, great artichoke dip J Questionable music?

**Scratch-Very spendy but very good. All from scratch…hence the name.

***Fleur de Sel-Best French cuisine in the region. A bit spendy, but its worth every penny. Patricia and Laurent are beyond wonderful and know how to treat a customer.

**Beverly’s: 208) 765-4000. 115 S 2nd St, Coeur D'Alene, ID.

 meh…if you want a fancy, five-forker, overpriced meal BUT with a great view, Beverly’s is for you. (Personally, Fleur de Sel blows them out of the water and for less)

Coffee:

**Bakery by the Lake:  One of my favorite spots to sip some brew and get to work…or you can just relax sitting on the patio looking out over the parks and admire the new public library across the street.

***Java: Best café around. They are now open late and serve beer and wine. Great live music at night, crowds with laptops and books during the day. You must try the blended bowl of soul…wow, soul good!

**Calypsos: A bit less busy than Java, with a ton of space to work and stretch out. There is a conference room here and works as a great spot to meet up with someone.

*Starbucks

*Kootenai Coffee

Bella Rose café

Bars:

The Mill

The Beacon: Great for lunch too!

The Moose: Always a great chill crowd here. Pool tables, usually live music or some entertainment going on.

Rusty’s

The Iron Horse: This bar has cleaned up its act a bit. Still a massive throng of bikers, dirty dancers and lots of cigarettes…there is a certain frame of mind required to enter. Not good, not bad. Just stating my observations.

Breakfast:

Michael D’s: Cute and quaint. At the end of Sherman Ave. The breakfast potatoes are so scrumptious! They make a perfect all egg-white omelet as well.

Breakfast Nook: Good ole bacon, eggs and black coffee here. Inexpensive and consistently, greasily delicious.

Nosworthy’s:  This place has been here forever for a reason! Great for lunch or breakfast. Massive omelets, red beers and yummy breakfast fries. Just prepare yourself for, uh, generous portions.

***The Garnet Café: If you can beat the early-birdies or squeeze just before the hangover crowd, you are in for a treat. This is an environmentally friendly, hippy-centered, organic, chic breakfast experience. Feel very good about what you are eating, well, for the most part.

The Blue Plate: Hayden’s finest breakfast. The crowd of regulars, with an array of early risen fishermen, families fresh from church, or just a hungry straggler like me, this place is a fun place to observe and eat some hearty biscuits and gravy.

Rustler’s Roost: Market spice tea and Rustler’s French toast = spicy sweet goodness! 

"The Courage to Teach"

After reading “The Courage to Teach” I am taking away a new confidence in myself as a person. I feel encouraged and ready to embrace my own quirks and tendencies, especially within the classroom setting.  I feel that I am aware of myself and aware that my own person is as functional an asset or tool as theory and pedagogy. Attempting to become my mentor and ignoring my own teaching style is something that can be detrimental to my wellbeing and even the effectiveness of my classroom. After having read “The Courage to Teach” I am taking away a new kind of patience…Palmer is long-winded and a bit redundant, but I have been encouraged to be myself.