Exploring an Imaginary Dora

So this week was yet another success. I was happy to see that on Monday we had more practice with finding the direct object, verb, and subject. Barbara really broke it down for Alex and I, and showed us that if we put parantheses outside of the subject, it can really help. I finally get it! I really like how we are allowed to work with partners on everything, too. Even for simple things like scrapbooking or talking with our table members about a rule in speech, it’s nice to know that you are being helped by classmates, who might be as equally confused. I would say Monday was another success.
Wednesday was spent doing Socratic circles, this time with the whole class, which proved to be the favorite as opposed to two groups. I not only liked how we talked about it as one big class, but also, how we talked about an 11 page article, instead of four pages on rules. This allowed for more discussion, personal experiences and different ideas and opinions. I can’t say that I particularly loved Dora’s story, especially for the fact that at the beginning they said, it was an imaginative girl, but I do like how the teacher was portrayed as a helper and guide, instead of an authoritative dictator. I didn’t necessarily see the dots in between her words to be periods. I saw those as her space marks, which is okay. I think all children learn differently and at different paces, so if a child wants to put a dot there and that’s how they learn, I say go for it.
I also was pretty happy with the way our discussion went, in people relating their personal stories to what we were talking about. A story that I didn’t get to tell in class involves my now 8-year old brother, and his ways of learning. I remember helping him on his homework, and all he had to do was copy the sentence that was written, onto a lined piece of paper. So I thought this was a pretty easy task for him, considering the fact that he had to just look up to copy the sentence, but instead of copying word for word, he would mix up some of the words, and write different words altogether. One of the sentences had to do with something being great, and he decided to use the word wonderful instead. I thought this was adorable, and I didn’t know whether to correct him or not. I was hoping the teacher would see his imagination and creativity. My brother has a huge vocabulary for his age, and loves to read...but he does struggle with writing sometimes, so I think he tries to use his vocabulary to make up for that, even if he spells wonderful “w-u-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l.”
I really like the idea of Socratic circles once a week every other week. I like hearing what my classmates have to say, and taking mental notes. I think it’s a great prep for practicing teachers, to hear everyone’s voice.

My question for this week: Has the underlining of books in a paper simply been outdated? I used to do that all the time, but now I feel like it’s only italicized. Can you use them interchangeably, or is one preferred over the other?