The New Synagogue, Berlin, Germany Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The New Synagogue, Berlin, Germany - Essay Example The building has defied time, having been constructed in early 20th century, following its demolition in the Second World War. Otto Von Bismark, the Prime Minister of Prussia by then, opened the building in 1866. It is one of the few synagogues that survived Kristallnatch-a revenge attack that involved the Nazi youths. The current building is a reconstruction of the former building. Its street frontage was ruined and the current building is a renovated version of the older building. The entrance has a new outlook; the domes and the towers have been repainted and redesigned, perhaps using the newest architectural designs, this time round blending modern designs and architecture with the mediaeval Roman architecture used before the demolition (Simms 43). Only some few rooms were left behind. The synagogue was meant to serve the growing Jewish population in Germany, especially the immigrants who came from the East. The building had a capacity to house 3000 worshipers in one sitting. The building was also used for public concerts; the most notable being the violin concert featuring Albert Eistein in 1930. The religious services included organ and choir, reflecting liberal developments among the Jewish community then. The building was set ablaze in the infamous Kristallnatch on November, 1938, in the e vent that saw the Torah scrolls debased, furniture destroyed, and combustible property within the building set ablaze (Simms 98). A brave police officer, Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt, arrived on 10th Nov, the following day and ordered the Nazi mob to disperse, arguing that the building was a historical landmark that was protected. He upheld the law to protect the synagogue from further damage by the Nazi youths. Therefore, the fire was distinguished before it could spread to other parts of the buildings. The New Synagogue remained intact and was rebuilt by the congregation who used the building up until 1940. Apart from prayers, the

Globalization Study Greece Economic Crisis Essay Example for Free

Globalization Study Greece Economic Crisis Essay However, besides Greece, there are other European countries also belonging to European Union; face a similar problem, such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain. Therefore, Greece’s debt crisis also triggers a European crisis. As the three companies lowered Greece’s credit rating the cost of their debt was on an upward trend. Consequently, Greece initiated an austerity program, the austerity measure resulted mass demonstrations. Background It all started in 2001, when Greece joined the European Union, Greece’s deficit at the time was higher than 3%, the standard of European Union. An American company named Goldman Sachs â€Å"helped Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the countrys already bloated deficit. †(http://translate. google. com/? sl=en#en/zh-CN/) In comparison to other EU countries, Greece’s economic situation was relatively weak. Tourism being the main source of income for Greece was affected by the global economic crisis in 2007 which reduced the number of tourists form all over the world. This had a strong impact on Greece, as their imports were higher than exports; it caused the outflow of capital. Other factors that added to their crisis were high government spending, tax evasion and corruption. The bailout from European Union European Union and IMF provide 110bn Euros for the first bailout and 130bn Euros for the second bailout to help Greek government pay its creditors. At the same time, the vast majority of Greece’s private-sector creditors agreed to wipe off some of the debts, and also agreed to lower the present interest but this was not enough for Greece. Consequence of Greece’s economy -Austerity measure Increase of taxes, decrease wages What should Greece do in order to change its situation? Greece should implement budget cuts, higher taxes, improve labor market, lower pension reform. What can European Union do in order to protect Eurozone ST-GREEK : Similar to ST-stock (special treatment stock is a stock continues to have a loss for three years and has a risk to leave stock market) For example, European Union can give Greece some special treatment such as: 5% of financial deficits and fewer than 90% of public debt to gross domestic product; change the name of Greece in EU to ST-Greek; Audit Greece’s expenditure twice a year. European Union can also do same thing to Portugal, Italy, Ireland ; Spain. Hidden International Competition. The speed development of capitalist economies after World War 2 resulted between control and anti-control of America and Europe. The frequent trade between European countries helped economic union. U. S and Soviet Union’s situation had threatened the development of European countries. It was impossible for any single country to deal with that kind of threat, unless they stay together. That’s why the EU was formed. It was not a big deal for America at first, until EU had mentioned Eurozone. It suffered a drastic disagreement from London’s financial hub as it threatened the position of the U. S dollar. To split EU they supported the eastward enlargement of EU. When Germany and France succeeded, they already lost the advantage of EU. There’s a big economic difference between east Europe and west Europe and they were not trading frequently. If wolves stare at the most weak sheep, the sheep’s result is certain. Surely, wolves can not be satisfied for just one sheep, they wanted to eat all of the sheep, but a smart wolf would give sheep a chance to breed. After Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain may have risk of being eaten by the wolf. So, France and Germany face a difficult problem, if they help Greece, their citizens are not happy and the countries they help are not grateful for their bailout, they keep asking for more. If they don’t help those countries, they will leave EU subsequently making EU weaker. So, we can fairly say that it is the main purpose of London’s financial hub to make the dollar’s situation safe now as it will be a long time before EU can challenge the US dollar. In my opinion, every great change in this world is controlled by the super powers, to become more powerful they make other countries weak. After Japan, Southeast Asia and Europe, who will be next? The wolf will find different ways to weaken other countries in order to empower themselves. I think the simplest way is to observe what wolf does next. Further global implication and specifically Canada â€Å"Canada and Greece have been enjoying good trade relations for many years. Bilateral merchandise trade reached $256. 3 million in 2011. Canadian exports totaled $88. million, led by furs, vegetables and pharmaceutical products to Greece. Canadian imports from Greece totaled $168. 2 million in 2011, led by preserved food, fats and oil (mainly olive oil) and articles of iron and steel. † (http://www. canadainternational. gc. ca/greece-grece/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/index. aspx? lang=eng) Greece have to control their imports in order to pay for the debt, so their may decrease the import of Bilateral merchandise and furs, vegetables and pharmaceutical from Canada. It will have adverse effect on Canadian economy. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

Selecting sanitary landfill site location and its factors that are suitable for the place

Selecting sanitary landfill site location and its factors that are suitable for the place CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction This chapter describes research that had been undertaken on selecting sanitary landfill site location and its factors that are suitable for the place. This literatures also included the models that can be used to predict the best location and also about the relation between and models and the GIS application. 2.2 Solid waste Solid wastes are all the wastes arising from human and animal activities that are normally solid and are discarded as useless or unwanted (Tchobanoglous et al., 1993). Solid waste also is the term to describe non-liquid waste materials from the public (Nair et al., 2007). Solid waste is one of the three major environmental problems in Malaysia and it plays a significant role in the ability of Nature to sustain life within its capacity (http://www.gecnet.info, 2002). Currently, over 23,000 tonnes of waste is produced each day in Malaysia. However, this amount is expected to rise to 30,000 tonnes by the year 2020 (Manaf et al., 2009). From that amount, only less than 5% of the waste is being recycled (http://www.gecnet.info, 2002). Based on study from Manaf et al., (2009) in Malaysia, there were three major categories of solid waste and each category is under the responsibility of a different government department. For municipal solid waste, it is the responsibility under Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHLG). Department of Environmennt (DOE) will arranged the schedule or hazardous waste and the clinical waste is under the Ministry of Health (MOH). 2.3 Sanitary Landfill Landfill selection in an urban area is a critical issue in the urban planning process because of its enormous impact on the economy, ecology and the environmental health of the region (Akbari et al., 2008). As day from day, the growths of urbanization as well as the desire to live in cities, larger amount of wastes are produced and unfortunately the solid waste management problem became bigger (Akbari et al., 2008). Land filling has been used for many years as the most common method for the disposal of solid waste generated by different communities (Komilis et al., 1999). As Zyma (1990) mentioned that numerous factors have to be evaluated in order to place a landfill and then this adequate landfill should have minimum environmental impacts and social acceptance. Besides, an adequate landfill should be in accordance with the respective regulations (Zyma 1990). Yesilnacar and Cetin (2005) studies that the site selection procedure, however, should make maximum use of the available information and ensure that the outcome of the process is acceptable to most stakeholders. The planning and design of a solid waste landfill management system involves selection of treatment and disposal facilities, allocation of solid wastes and waste residues from the generator to the treatment and disposal sites, and selection of transportation routes (Yesilnacar and Cetin, 2005). Furthermore, many potential criteria, such as distance from residential areas, distance from main roads, investment costs, availability of solid waste, and land slope must be considered in the selection procedure of a landfill location . Landfill sitting also is a difficult and complex process requiring evaluation of many different criteria (Chang et al. 2007) since it has to combine environmental, economic and social factors. Environmental factors are very important because the landfill may affect the environment and the ecology of the surrounding area (Siddiqui et al. 1996; Kontos et al. 2003; Erkut and Moran 1991). Consideration of economic factors for landfills, it includes the costs development, operation of the site and also transportation of the waste (Delgado et al. 2008; Erkut and Moran 1991; Kontos et al. 2003). Social and political opposition to landfill siting have been indicated as the greatest obstacle for successfully locating waste disposal facilities (Lober 1995). The Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) and Not In Anyones Backyard (NIABY) phenomena (Chang et al. 2008; Kao and Lin 1996; Erkut and Moran 1991; Kontos et al. 2003; Lin and Kao 2005) are becoming popular nowadays because it create big problem to de cision maker to choose the suitable place for sanitary landfill while nowadays is encounter insufficient of suitable land. It is evident that many factors must be consider in making decision for sanitary landfill sitting and geographic information systems (GIS) is an ideal tools for this kind of preliminary studies due to their ability to manage large volumes of spatial data from a variety of sources (Sener et al. 2006). 2.4 Geographical Information System Geographic information system (GIS) is a computerize database management system that designed to manage large volumes of spatially distributed data from a variety of sources (Charnpratheep et al., 1997). They are ideal for advanced site-selection studies because they efficiently store, retrieve, analyze, and display information according to user-defined specifications (Kao et al., 1997). GIS has been extensively used to facilitate and lower the cost of the landfill site-selection process (Sener et al., 2006). GIS often been employed for the siting and placement of facilities (Church, 2002). GIS has emerged as a very important tool for land use suitability analysis (Malczewski, 2004). GIS also can recognize, correlate and analyze the spatial relationship between mapped phenomena, thereby enabling policy-makers to link disparate sources of information, perform sophisticated analysis, visualize trends, project outcomes and strategize long-term planning goals (Malczewski, 2004). GIS as a box of tools for handling geographical data is very useful, however, the list of tools provided by GIS although impressive is not complete. For example in most GIS packages spatial analytical functionality, lies mainly in the ability to perform deterministic overlay and buffer functions (Carver, 1991). Such abilities whilst ideal for performing spatial searches based on nominally mapped criteria, are of limited use when multiple criteria and targets, such as in the case of landfills selection, are applied (Jeff and Baxter, 1996). The integration of GIS with analytical techniques will be a valuable addition in GIS toolbox. Progress in this area is inevitable and future developments will continue to place increasing emphasis upon the analytical capabilities of GIS (Fotheringham and Rogerson, 1994). GIS have the capability to handle and simulate the necessary economic, environmental, social, technical, and political constraints. Many of the attributes involved in the process of selection of sanitary landfill sites have a spatial representation, which in the last few years has motivated the predominance of geographical approaches that allow for the integration of multiple attributes using geographic information systems (Kontos et al. 2003; Sarptas et al. 2005; Sener et al. 2006; Gomez-Delgado and Tarantola 2006; Delgado et al. 2008; Chang et al. 2008). Site selection procedures can benefit from the appropriate use of GIS. Common benefits of GIS include its ability to: (a) capture, store, and manage spatially referenced data; (b) provide massive amounts of spatially referenced input data and perform analysis of the data; (c) perform sensitivity and optimization analysis easily; and (d) communicate model results (Vatalis and Manoliadis 2002). GIS also provides a spatial framework to land use analysis and it has been recognized as a useful decision support technology. The role of GIS is to generate a set of feasible solutions representing the relative land suitability with respect to any given map layers and to display it. Nevertheless, it does not provide means to deal with multiple decision factors. There has been a recent trend to integrate GIS with other software for better decision making in planning. 2.5 Previous Study on GIS in Sanitary Landfill Site Selection 2.5.1 Case Study in Iran (Akbari et al., 2008) According to Akbari et al., (2008) a good waste disposal area has few characteristics such as it should be away from the place which has the history of flooding. From previous study done by Allen et al., (2001), landuse, road and other environmental factor must be considered in selecting the suitable waste disposal area. In this study, raster-based and vector-based is used to identify potential waste sites based on suitability of topography and proximity to geographic features (Kier et al.,1993). In locating the suitable waste disposal area, this study was concern about public health. According to first stage, Akbari et al. (2008) in considering the high rate of urbanization, one should take the long term land use planning of suburbs into consideration to locate the disposal area. In this study also, Akbari et al. (2008) use the combining method. In the first stage, GIS used as the method to predict some of the unacceptable area based on criteria. Then, the study continues the analyzing by using fuzzy multicriteria decision making (Zadeh, 1965). For the parameter in this study, most of the criteria that has been used follow the previous study such as proper heigt and slope, faults, surface water sources, water wells, urban and rural area, agriculture area, road networks and coastal zone (Kamariah, 1998; Halvadakis, 1993; Vassiloglou, 2001) Result for this study as almost based on the second stage which is using Fuzzy Multicriteria Decision Making (Zadeh, 1965). FMCDM method is therefore chosen for ranking different landfill sites based on decisions given by a group of experts (Chang et al., 2007). 2.5.2 Case Study in China (Wang et al., 2008) GIS used as the main system in designing the suitable places for the sanitary landfill site. GIS has been extensively used to facilitate and lower the cost of the sanitary landfill site-selection process (Charnpratheep et al., 1997). Some of the siting technique combine GIS with the multiple criteria analysis (Kao and Lin, 1996; Lin and Kao, 1998) and for this case study, Wang et al., (2008) choose to use Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a decision making technique. Actually, AHP is often used to compare the relative suitability of a small number of alternatives concerning the overall goal (Wang et al., 2008). In this study, the criteria that been used is based on the relevant International literature (Kontos et al., 2005; Al-Jarrah and Abu-Qdais, 2006; Sener et al., 2006) and also regulation in China. For the criteria, Wang et al., (2008) split into two groups which is environmental criteria that limit to geographical areas. The second group is about economic factors. As mention in journal, the criteria that has been used for selecting suitable site are residential area, surface water bodies, ground waters, airport areas, land uses, slopes of land surface and roads. Wang et al., (2008) use the price of the land as the economic factor in selecting suitable site. Other criterion for the economic factor is the cost for the transportation. They lower the transportation cost by deciding the waste production center should be 500m from the main road. According to Wang et al., (2008) economic factor is important for developing countries and should be considered for solid waste landfill. From the overall study, integration of GIS with the multi criteria evaluation technique, AHP can be the best method for completing in selecting suitable site for the sanitary landfill. AHP gives some advantage for the user because it can provide large and many data in selecting suitable site (Charnpratheep et al., 1997; Chang et al., 2008). AHP also provided great flexibility in the aggregation procedure (Wang et al., 2008). 2.5.3 Case Study in India (Sumathi, 2005) In this case study, Sumathi et al, (2005) use the combination of GIS method and also MCDA or Multi Criteria Decision Method. A GIS-based MCDA integrates and transforms spatial and aspatial data into a decision. It involves the utilization of geographical data, the decision makers preferences and the manipulation of data and preferences to arrive at uni-dimensional values of alternatives (Sumathi et al., 2005). Consequently, it may be considered as a rather complex multi-criteria decision making process involving numerous stakeholders and public interest groups. Hipel (1982) proposed an earlier version of multi-criteria modeling incorporating fuzzy set theory to solve solid waste disposal problems in Canada. MCDA have primarily been employed to solve site selection problems in solid waste management (Vuk et al., 1991; Pereira and Duckstein, 1993; Hokkanen and Salminen, 1994, 1997). Kontos et al. (2005) described a methodology which comprises several methods from different scientific fields such as multiple criteria analysis, geographic information systems, spatial analysis and spatial statistics to evaluate the suitability of the study region in order to optimally site a landfill. Padmaja et al. (2006) identified a solid waste disposal site in Hyderabad city using an analytical hierarchy process and GIS. The criteria that has been used in this case study are, lake and ponds, rivers, water supply sources, groundwater table, groundwater quality, infiltration, air quality index, geology, fault line, elevation, land use, habitation, highways and sensitive sites. 2.5.4 Case Study in Sabah, Malaysia (Lunkapis, 2004) Study in Sabah by Lunkapis (2004) is using Geographical Information System (GIS) as decision support tool for landfills siting. Using only GIS as a tool for selecting landfill site still can give the ideal sites. From this study, the criteria used for this study is determine by following the guidelines produced by the Ministry of Environment Malaysia in 1995 and also the collaboration with the Sandakan Spatial Planning Working Group. In this study also, Lunkapis (2004) used the two major criteria which are constraints and factor that has been used for an ideal siting of landfills. The constraints were related to roads, open water, protected areas, urban, rural residential areas, soil permeability and soil type, land use and distance to transportation routes (Lunkapis, 2004). In this project, there were some problems regarding management issue and budget allocation. On one hand the advocate proposed that the existing landfill should be maintained due to the lack of funding to open a new one (Lunkapis, 2004). Lunkapis (2004) also said that the existing dumping site were large enough to cater for many years to come and the only requirement was the budget must be allocated for better management and maintainance. 2.6 Combining GIS with other method 2.6.1 GIS with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Siddiqui et al. (1996) were the first to combine geographic information system (GIS) and AHP procedure to aid in site selection. Similarly, Charnpratheep et al. (1997) utilized fuzzy set theory with GIS for the screening of landfill sites in Thailand. Chang et al. (2008) combined GIS and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making for landfill siting in the suburban area of the City of Harlingen. Nema and Gupta (1999) proposed an improved formulation based on a multi-objective integer programming approach to reach the optimal configuration of a regional hazardous waste management system. Ishizaka and Tanaka (2003) discussed the risk for the waste disposal system in Japan, is considering public conflict in the site selection process. Recently, several publications have tackled landfill siting problems using GIS and multi-criteria analysis or intelligent system approaches in Greece, Turkey, and Jordan (Vatalis and Manoliadis, 2002; Kontos et al., 2005; Al-Jarrah and Abu-Qdais, 2005; Sener et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2008). 2.6.2 GIS with Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) is used to deal with the difficulties that decision makers encounter in handling large amounts of complex information. The principle of the method is to divide the decision problems into more smaller understandable parts, analyze each part separately, and then integrate the parts in a logical manner (Malczewski 1997). The integration of GIS and MCE is a powerful tool to solve the landfill site selection problem because GIS provide efficient manipulation and presentation of the data and MCE supplies consistent ranking of the potential landfill areas based on a variety of criteria (Sener et al. 2006). Higgs (2006) reported the potential of integrating multi-criteria techniques with GIS in waste facility location and documented through a review of the existing literature to highlight the opportunities and challenges facing decision makers at different stages of the waste facility management process. Vatalis and Manoliadis (2002) used GIS digital map overlay techniques in order to find the suitable landfill sites in Western Macedonia, Greece. Differing siting constraints were considered, and numerical and qualitative criteria were applied in their investigation. The resulting alternative sites were also evaluated using multi-criteria evaluation models. Lin and Kao (1998) developed a model which was applicable for vector-based data. Integrated with a GIS, the model was capable of processing digital spatial data to facilitate landfill siting analysis. Leao et al. (2001) described a method to quantify the relationship between the demand and supply of suitable land for waste disposal over time, using GIS and modeling techniques. Allen et al. (2003) have studied the development of a GIS model for locating landfill sites, an Interreg IIC funded by EU research project and conducted by a team of Irish and Portuguese engineering geologists, civil engineers, and GIS experts from universiti es and local government. The primary objective of the project has been reported so as to establish a transferable, trans-national GIS site selection framework that could be applicable throughout the European Union, thus creating a GIS landfill model for the location of new landfill sites over the next few years. 2.6.3 GIS with System Simulation Model (SSM) A performance-based design approach can provide more efficient and cost-effective solutions. Selection of landfill design components satisfying some predefined performance criteria is possible using geographic information systems (GIS) and system simulation models (SSM). Recently, with the help of new developments in the area of software technologies, integration of GIS and SSM technologies into expert systems or decision support systems has become important for landfill design applications (Lukasheh et al. 2001). GIS can efficiently handle databases and perform queries to analyze geographic data to be classified geologically and hydrogeologically, which can help landfill site selection (Lukasheh et al. 2001; Dorhofer and Siebert 1998). SSM like hydrogeologic evaluation of landfill performance (HELP) were developed to assist in the design of landfill elements. The integration of GIS and SSM in one unified system is stated to provide an interface for data storage, database access, and data display using the GIS and allow a single designer to accomplish a complete design and evaluation and provide with a predictive tool using SSMs (Lukasheh et al. 2001). 2.7 Chapter summary Based on this chapter, the most method that has been used by previous research is combining Geographical Information System (GIS) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Basically, using only GIS software is enough to predict suitable places for sanitary landfill site. But to get more exact value for prediction, combining with the AHP is better. This is because AHP can combine many criteria in one time. More than that, using AHP can make the criteria that been use for prediction more flexibility depends on the scaling weighting. Combing GIS with AHP also is a better method because if use GIS only, the raw data may only came from map, but AHP can join map and also other data such as economic factor as the scaling weighting.

We Have the Right to Choose Euthanasia :: Assisted Suicide

We Have the Right to Choose Euthanasia Euthanasia is the term for opting to die under circumstances, which lead to it being a gentle and easy death. Euthanasia should be an option for the suffering patient, although certain conditions and laws should be implemented on this issue so that both for and against arguments are considered. My opinion leans toward euthanasia being legal although I can understand the critical issues in relation to this practice that cause conflict within the community. The decision for life is entirely up to the suffering individual. Only under a qualified psychiatrist should there be any influence on an individuals ability to make that decision. Reasons behind questioning the patient s ability to make this decision should relate to their mental or physical status. The psychiatrist s choice should be in the best interests of the patient after considering their health. In many circumstances, euthanasia should be seen as understandable and humane, especially if a patient has a life threatening disease such as cancer or Aids. The following state the current laws for euthanasia in the Northern Territory but only recently these laws have been overturned by the Commonwealth government. These laws include; (a) A patient had to make a request, (b) Cooling off period, (c) 3 independent doctors had to agree being: (1) patient s doctor, (2) psychiatrist, if not suffering from any mental disease, (3) Specialist in the area of disease suffered by the patient e.g.: oncologist (cancer specialist), neurologist (nerve specialist being able to deal with paralysis). The laws determining the act of euthanasia must not be open to abuse, they must be precise and sensitive to the community issues but also be unbiase to the individual. If a patient is not seen to recover at any stage and, after all treatment possible, still remains incurable, then they should have the choice of euthanasia. Euthanasia would be a blessing to the critically ill patients and their families. However, under the above conditions I still can see where much abuse could occur resulting in euthanasia being seen as inhumane. If a patient who was depressed due to a feeling of pressure from home/friends/family the individual s choice for euthanasia would not be rational because there are treatments available to help deal with depression such as regular visits to a psychiatrist or the anti-depressants available from a medical practitioner. People must consider that euthanasia must be reasoned and not used as a temporary pain relief of something easily cured, but still what must be considered is what influence their can be on an individuals choice, example; pressure from family or feeling a burden.

Elementary Education Essay

Reading Comprehension -The student uses a variety of strategies to comprehend grade level text; Strand: Reading Process Listening and Speaking – The student effectively applies listening and speaking strategies. Informative – The student develops and demonstrates technical writing that provides information related to real-world tasks. Benchmark: LA. 2. 1. 7. 3. The student will summarize information in text, including but not limited to main idea, supporting details, and connections between texts; LA. 2. 5. 2. 4. The student will listen politely to oral presentations by classmates. LA. 2. 3. 1. 1. The student will prewrite by generating ideas from multiple sources (e. g. , text, brainstorming, webbing, drawing, writer’s notebook, group discussion, other activities); LA. 4. 4. 2. 5. The student will write simple directions to familiar locations using cardinal directions, landmarks, and distances, and create an accompanying map. Grade Level: Grade 2 Objectives: 1. Using the book The Trumpet of the Swan, the class will understand the main idea of the story by reading, listening and students discussion. 2. Basing on the journals of Louis in the Trumpet of the Swan, the class will come up with their very own journal writing. 3. Using the given information in the book The Trumpet of the Swan, the class will make a map of the main character’s travels and adventures. Activities: Before reading: 1. Ask the class if they know what a journal is and if they have ever written one. 2. Tell the class you are going to read them a story entitle The Trumpet of the Swan. During reading: 3. Read the Trumpet of the Swan. 4. Show a map of Canada and point important spots that are mentioned in the Trumpet of the Swan. 5. Show a sample journal and explain how to write and what to write. After reading: 6. Ask the class to read Sam’s poem and summarize the text and identify the main idea of the poem (Reading). 7. Ask the class to write a journal about nature (Writing). 8. Have the class make a map of Louis’ travels and adventures including all the important spots in Canada, Montana and the Northeast (Visually Representing). 9. Have the class discuss the book by having them share their favorite part and ask questions like the following: How to behave in the woods if you want to appreciate nature, what are their stand on the ethics of Louis’ father, why is there a need for Serena to hear the beautiful song of her mate, does anyone identify with Applegate Skinner? Or have someone recite a part of Sam’s poem (Talking/Speaking). 10. Ask the class to listen when a classmate recites a poem and identify the main idea of the poem (Listening). Assessment of Writing Development: The 2 ways of assessing a student’s writing development are Rubrics and Portfolio assessment. ? â€Å"Rubrics are tools teachers and students use to evaluate and classify writing, whether individual pieces or portfolios. They identify and articulate what is being evaluated in the writing, and offer â€Å"descriptors† to classify writing into certain categories (1-5, for instance, or A-F). Narrative rubrics and chart rubrics are the two most common forms† (UNL|FLWI, 2008). ? Portfolio assessment is the collection of students’ work over time reflecting their progress, efforts and achievements and teachers based it on the following items: â€Å"students’ Projects, surveys, reports and units from reading and writing Favorite poems, songs, letters, and comments, Interesting thoughts to remember, Finished samples that illustrate wide writing, Examples of writing across the curriculum, Literature extensions, Student record of books read and attempted, Audio tape of reading, Writing responses to literary components, Writing that shows growth in usage of traits, Samples in which ideas are modified from first draft to final product, Unedited first draft, Revised first draft, Evidence of effort, Self-evaluations, Writing that illustrates evidence of topic generation† (Hurst, 2009). Assessment of Grammar Skills: You can informally assess children’s grammar skills by: ? Reviewing children’s work on relevant pages in their Student Books, handwriting sentences they copied during Daily Routines, and especially their own independent Quick Writing. ? Another method is by â€Å"formal graded assessments such as quizzes, selected homework activities, and in-class tests† (Porter and vanDommelen, 2005). Assessment of Spelling Skills: The two ways of assessing the students’ spelling skills are observation and analysis of the work samples. ? Observation can be done in the classroom by observing the students as they write and as they try to use words that are beyond their ability level. It is important that observation be supplemented later with the students’ work samples and it should be done in a systematic way. ? Analysis of the work samples is an assessment of students’ â€Å"spelling ability from examination of samples of their unaided writing† (Westwood, 2008). These â€Å"samples can be taken from students’ exercise books, test papers, and language arts portfolios† (Fiderer as cited in Westwood, 2008). THE SPELLING PATTERNS: 1. Blends: are 2 or 3 letters combined to form a distinct spelling sound. Examples are : -br- in brown and break and -fr- in fry and freeze 2. Digraph: A group of two successive letters whose phonetic value is a single sound. For example, EA in BREAD, CH in CHAT, or NG in SING. 3. Diphthong: the union of two vowels, pronounced by a single impulse of the voice; as, ea in beat, ou in sound. 4. R-controlled vowels: When a vowel is followed by an r, it makes a special sound. These are called r-controlled vowels, or r-colored vowels. Examples are /ar/ sound as in car, /er/ sound as in butter. 5. Long vowel: a sound which is the same as, or very similar to the letter name of one of the vowels. Examples are /a/ as in gate, /e/ as in need. 6. Short vowel: Are vowels of shorter duration. Examples are short /a/ as in bat, short /e/ as in bet. 7. Contraction: is a word made up from a verb and another word where an apostrophe takes the place of any letters that are left out. It can be positive contraction or negative contraction. Examples are: aren’t – are not and here’s – here is. CUING SYSTEM: 1. Semantics — the study of the development and changes of the meanings of speech forms. Semantics is also a study of the process by which meaning is derived from symbols, signs, text, and other meaning-bearing forms. 2. Syntax — the conventions and rules for assembling words into meaningful sentences; syntax varies across languages. 3. Graphophonic — Refers to the sound relationship between the orthography (symbols) and phonology (sounds) of a language. 4. Phonological awareness — The understanding that speech is composed of sub-parts — sentences are comprised of words, words are comprised of syllables, syllables are comprised of onsets and rimes, and can be further broken down to phonemes. Cuing Strategies â€Å"Used by effective readers to figure out unfamiliar words and to make meaning, cuing strategies include knowledge of syntax, semantics, words and word meaning, and graphophonics (letter/sound associations). Teachers can guide students to use cuing strategies by reminding them to ask themselves, did it sound right? Did it make sense? Did the word look right? † (Teacher Resources, 2002). References † Advice for Teachers: Assessing Student Writing. † UNL | FLWI. 2008. 03 Apr. 2009 . Porter, Patricia, and Deborah VanDommelen. â€Å"Integrating Assessment with Grammar-for-Writing Instruction. † CATESOL: California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. 2005. 03 Apr. 2009 . Hurst, Carol Otis. â€Å"Portfolio Assessment in the Reading-Writing Classroom. † Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site – Reviews and teaching ideas for kids’ books. 03 Apr. 2009 . Westwood, Peter. What Teachers Need to Know about Spelling. Aust Council for Ed Research, 2008. â€Å"Teaching Reading: Lens on Literacy. † Teacher Professional Development and Teacher Resources by Annenberg Media. 2002. .

Grad essays

Grad essays 1. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." Pg. 112 2. "If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks." Pg. 30 3. "It is not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place; folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language." Pg. 126 4. "As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash." Pg. 220 5. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." (p.33) I chose the title Reality for my essay because many people are faced with issues like racism and acceptance. All these quotes have to deal with subjects that everyone can relate to. Everybody has the right to be treated fairly and with respect. No one has to right to be disrespected; everyone should be treated equally. These are one of the many aspects of todays society that everyone has to deal with. Many of the characters in the novel are not what they truly seem to be. Most would think of Boo Radley as an isolated madman, Miss Dubose as a mean spirited old woman, and Dolphous Raymond as a social abnormal. These people are hated by most, but these are not f ...