Do You Want The Blog Tour?? (Take your shoes off)

 

Blog Posts of the Shame

1. I believe the most professional post I made was blog number three about AI, this was one where I engaged a lot with outside materials. Talking to my friend who has a degree in astrophysics and sitting down with him to learn more. I took in more accounts than just my own feelings on generative AI. I think it is the most professional because I include ways it has had extensive contributions to society especially in the STEM field; however, I do touch on how it responds to the ELA classroom. Being professional is not always using academic jargon and sounding like a robot. It is being honest, and I was honest about my feelings in this blog post. I wrote in a manner that you could tell my side, however I am open to having discussions with others who may differ from me.

Blog post 3: Gen AI...

2. Blog post seven was the one where I sat down and took the time to create a multimodal design that I was happy about. Every detail to even the color of the paper had a meaning. I used recycled materials and only materials I could find in my house to create a zine. I thought of every detail, and it was one of the most fun and depressing blog posts I have made. I did not want to just present information, I wanted to create images that showed the impact of what corporations are doing to the environment. This zine made me think more critically on what I wanted to add to the pages and how to best demonstrate my point. This post meant the most to me and was the most impactful.

Blog seven: Overconsumption Zine

3. Blog two of the literacy collage was the one where I was the most creative. I used to scrapbook and I forgot how much fun it is to showcase yourself with images. I put more than just a picture of myself and some books I read. I thought of music, movies, books, and authors who have changed me. Symbols, posters, quotes, books, and an image of myself were all chaotically put into the collage. I made sure every image was clearly shown and took a lot of time overlapping and mapping everything out. It was a lot, but I had a lot of fun, and it was the time I could be the most creative. You can really tell who I am from this collage and that is what I wanted people to see. The quiet person who fidgets has a lot going on in their brain, just like how this collage has a lot going on.

Blog Two: Literacy Collage

4. Blog number six was the one where I engaged the most with a civic issue. I read books, I wouldn’t have read if not for this project. I listened to podcasts and found a documentary to watch about overconsumption. I talked for a long time which I feel self-conscious about. However, this topic is important to recognize because I feel like we are all victims of treating ourselves to something. Even I do it with these little trinkets called Smiki’s. Yet, we all need to start doing our part and buying what we need. We create our wants. Wants are more than just same day shipping of a cheap shirt. This was something I touched based on when I was talking about the novel Fasionopolis, and the dangers of when we continue to buy more and more because of new trends. We are polluting our world, and I talked a lot on this issue. Ten minutes didn’t feel like enough. Due to my passion on this issue, this is why I put it as my best post for civic engagement. (Buy a want from a small business!! Support local artists!!)

Blog Six: Civic Issue

The title and blog posts are all linked!!!

Now that is over, we can stop reading my blog posts filled with grammar mistakes and my word vomit.

Hold on. You really thought I was done? I may not talk in class, but I actually have a lot to say. 

People's Choice!!

One of the most creative blogs this year that got everyone involved is The Starship: Literacy by Antonis. Hands down the most captivating, engaging, and creative blog I have seen. At the end, we all started to communicate through transmission like he was. He opened a space for creativity for all of us in class. While doing that, he strayed professional and brought up great points in each post. Hands down, he creates some of the best designs, every multimodal he has made is phenomenal. If you are in YA literature, his DnD sheets scream multimodality and creativity. Antonis thinks out of the box and that is why I nominate him to get this award. 

In loving memory of Adam Jaye. 

Blog #7 Over Consumption Zine

I am a bit familiar with copyright law already, as a paralegal, you get to know a lot of niche areas in the legal field due to the people you are working with. When you go to the wonderful website, The Wisconsin State Law Library (it saved my life when I was the office manager for the UWM legal clinic). The laws surrounding fair use do not differ in Wisconsin. In the video we watched, this is the standard, which, looking at a legal standpoint, is interesting. We can all agree on fair use copyright laws, but not human rights.... got it. I used quotes throughout my zine, due to its educational purposes, and my use of citing the author is fair use.

As I was working through my multimodal project this week. I wanted to use my hands, so I created a paper zine. I had a lot of fun working on it, and it helped me dive deep into consumption and greed, which I was discussing in my civic engagement video. This is an issue that I believe is extremely important, yet when we talk about fast fashion, it is a privilege to be able to shop elsewhere. These sites are faster and cheaper. For example, if you want to go thrift shopping, it takes a lot of time, and it is not always size-inclusive. I don't support overconsumption of natural resources, though corporations are to blame. As people stand up to these corporations or slowly stop giving them our money. Maybe, just maybe, they will listen. It is not just one person; this is something that affects all of us. The influence of the books on paper made me angrier about this issue. I am angry at the world, and the state it is in, so having an outlet to put it on made me have to sit and rethink what is appropriate to put on this. I was learning more because I wanted to include quotes and more research. I had to go out into the world and find more evidence-based articles to put in my zine. It made me sit down and think about overconsumption and how I want to show that and greed in mini pages. It helped me to engage more with the topic instead of just reading or listening to a podcast on it. I was working with my hands on this topic, which made everything feel more real as I was cutting up packages and old cards. I would have never used this as a form of teaching before this class. Now I love creating them, and even if it isn't perfect, I am engaging with the content and trying to put all of these materials and quotes into a couple of pages. I think this is extremely useful in a classroom since it will switch things around for students. It is not solely just read and write; it is read and create. For me, it was more fun and engaging this way than writing a large essay about it.

I hope you like it. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into this. (just blood, apparently, I am not great with scissors)

Everything in the zine was made from things I already had at my house. I also made it green as an homage to fast fashion companies like H&M, who started a line of "greener clothing"; certain pieces of clothing in their store are made ethically. This is called greenwashing, and I wanted to show it as best as I could. On the cover page, around the border is a list of SOME unethical companies. Now I am not saying to shop there, because I have to too. We should be aware of shopping there and limiting our purchases to what we need. In addition, I included quotes from the books I read and other sources I found. The page that angers me the most is the page I included of the world's top ten richest men in 2025. All men. These men have the chance to change the world, yet they are destroying it for more profit. No one should ever have that much money, and yet so many do. These are the people we are up against; money can't stop a brick (I promise I am kidding. I need to laugh or I will spiral thinking about this). Enjoy. If you hate it, please don't tell me. Ignorance is bliss in that case.

If you want to hear about fast fashion more, my favorite podcast made an episode on it. Sounds Like A Cult

Here are the sources I used in addition to the readings I used last week: 

- The Wump World

- Fusionopolis 

- Amazon packages labeled recyclable? They go to the landfill - Los Angeles Times

- The Forbes 400 List 2025 - The Richest People in America Ranked

- Deforestation Statistics You Need To Know In 2026

Civic Issue: Overconsumption

 Overconsumption in the 21st Century

This week I wanted to talk about something that I have been trying to work on for years and try to teach my friends about. Overconsumption. Whether that be with clothes, wrapping paper, in general things that we could make. It is a privilege to be able to grow your own food, buy reusable materials, and make your own things. However, we need to be discussing this issue because even little things we can do can help change the world and our impact on the environment. 

I read: 

Common Ground: The Water, Earth, and Air We Share

The Wump World

Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes

Sorry it is so long. I got carried away and am passionate about this topic and the environment. 

Book Talk

Here is the YouTube link <3

Don't Worry I Won't Make You Worry About Your Feedback

   I am on my Sabrina Carpentar kick again. Here is the song that helped me with the title. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/21IVPfi81m6ywNgOvqTj1i?si=5d105155dbc04aef

  It has been an amazing journey so far being a writing coach. It is my first time; I am used to helping middle schoolers with homework when I was interning at a middle school a couple of years ago. Yet, this is my first time I am officially a writing coach and not just an intern who had to take on many roles. An aspect that I believe student writers need with feedback is praise, when we focus on the negativity. Their drive, creativity, and confidence go down. How would we like it if we just got constantly diminished for not having everything perfect? Teachers should never only give negative feedback, having students we look at certain spots, and come up with their own conclusions of what went wrong in a part of their writing. May help build their confidence and their critical thinking skills, since they are taking out the time to assess their own work. Negative feedback does offer growth, but it needs to be balanced and constructive. We can help students grow without diminishing their spirit.

     With peers, we should build a respectful classroom. Having friends to ask questions in the class has always helped me, it has also made class more fun to know I have someone in the class. Having peer review sessions is a great resource. It may be nerve wracking to some because their peers are reading their work, and writing can be a vulnerable state. However, everyone is reading someone’s in their class. They are all on the same level, and kids have a different language they use together than we have as adults. When we grade and give feedback it seems more official, with peer review feedback it is more neutral. When I was in school, I hated it because I didn’t want others to view my work. However, I was happy I was also reading someone else’s in my class. We were kind of all in this same boat, and it helped me from tipping the boat over. 

    I think the negativity all of us share responsibility in that area. If peers, teachers, and coaches don't notice the growth or their skills, then how will they grow? Students will only think of their work as something that needs to change. Praise offers that confidence to keep going. There is a hierarchy when it comes to feedback, it is teachers, coaches, and peers. Sometimes peers and coaches can switch. Teachers have the final say with feedback. They are the ones who sit down and grade the paper. They make take the students or the coaches feedback into consideration or view it as not relevant. With this hierarchy there is a power imbalance when it comes to giving feedback and how it is looked at. Students may see a post it notes from a writing coach and disregard it because we are not their teacher. We are not the ones at the end of the day giving them their grade. In addition, giving feedback looks different for each student as we travel back to week three when talking about giving feedback. The article A Writer’s Guide to Giving Feedback helped me understand not tearing down someone’s paper with negativity and highlighting all of the wrong parts. If a student gets a paper back with red all over it, you slaughtered their work. There should be statements of what they are doing good in there as well. For me giving feedback has helped me when we got introduced the glow and grow model. 

There are students who don’t turn anything in or students who go above and beyond. We shouldn’t give them different treatment. Whenever we are assigned to give feedback, I go in with no expectations of who did it. Having that mindset I believe creates this podium in the classroom of this student is better than this one. How is that going to help students? Everyone is at a different stage, As Rebecca Segel states, “each piece you edit will be at a different stage in the writing process, and each author will want different types of feedback at varying stages of the writing process” (Segel, pg. 1). Students are all different, no one is the same. We shouldn’t expect the same from everyone’s writings. Some may be more advanced and that is great, while others may be working on answering the initial questions which is also great in a different sense. Students who are putting in effort and trying are doing great because they are doing their best. I know I have this pit in my stomach from years of living with a father who drilled grades into my head. That if you are not performing perfectly, you are behind and need to be better. Though it is not that extreme, this pit in me wants all of the students to be on the same field playing the same game. Though that isn’t going to happen, and that’s okay. No one needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. As a writing coach, this has helped me get out of that mindset, which I know is awful (I can’t even get into the awful assumptions I have now due to just living with my dad) though I think I needed this to better myself in my everyday life and in my professional career. I did make this about me, I am also a little narcissistic (again, thanks to my father). 

When I think of giving feedback, I think of a quote from the Pitt. (I am rewatching it, and that is why it is on my mind again)

“Where does it say that shaming, belittling, and insulting are effective teaching tools? Harassment has zero educational value.” - Robby

PS: My dad and I are actually best friends, and I love him even though I have trauma with him. (is that Stockholm syndrome, comment down below). Proof that we actually love each other.

Multimodal Composing; Blog Post #4

  

Multimodal Composing

 I wish I could say I have so much experience. I don’t. I have the ideas in my head, yet no execution of it. For past projects, I have worked with an artist and drew large posters for trans rights and depicted many visual elements of the struggles of being queer for my classes. I made a dress out of queer banned books for my YA Queer Literature class. I have sung for projects, and I have written and acted out scripts. (I promise it is not as cheesy as it sounds, hopefully). I have two new media genres that spark something in me as a creator and writer. I have never made a music video before, but the image I have in my mind for one fuel this creative part in me. Also, digital storytelling, though with poetry instead of vlogging. In my wildest dreams I would put everything I write and have in my head out to the world. Alas, I don’t have the time, money, experience, or self-esteem to do that. I wish different media genres were offered to me when I was in high school. I may have more confidence to put my art out there.

Not a Smiling Friends picture, am I doing, okay? (I think Inside from Bo Burnham is what plays in my head when I want to make anything)

I'm lying, I totally know how to use Tik Tok. I was a dancer/singer/actor. I ran the sound board; I know what I am doing. I just don't think it is good enough. A ton of my work for class was having to sing, even during Covid. Recording my projects, one could say that it is multimodal. Even though we were forced to do it. Maybe, I am creative, I'm just liar who has no energy. Oh well, trust me there are things out there from projects. I am not going to ever show you. (unless you ask very nicely) I guess I can show a little bit. One of my jobs in college was working at the Women's Resource Center on campus. (12/10) They have free mensutral hygeine products, safe sex supplies, a libarary, free coffee, and so much more. An amazing space, and I am so lucky I got to work there. The social media coordinator would nufge me a lot to take pictures and make Tik Toks (that would never get posted because they were not great). 

Notice my long hair and lack of tattoos. This was almost three years ago?

     As an educator in an age where technology basically runs the world, offering students an outlet to be creative on a platform they are comfortable with may better increase their engagement. Although straying from comfortability ensure critical thinking, and deeper thinking. I like the idea of using comics and drawings in classrooms. In the reading, “Comics, Collage, and Other Things,” the use of images changed the students, and helped them identity with themselves, “images have power” (Thomsen, pg 55). Students have the ability to connect with themselves and their peers. Images, whether that be from drawings or collages, are able to construct their view of themselves. They don’t have to listen to external factors of who they should be or how they should look/act. This reading goes on to describe how images help build agency. Though intellectual engagement is important as well. I feel like agency is ripped away for a lot of children or adults who speak for them. Everyone deserves to have their voice heard. Everyone deserves to feel like they are their own person and not walking in someone else’s shoes. I want that for my students, when you have confidence, especially in the classroom. You are more likely to answer questions, make mistakes, and engage with materials. Not only does it help with a student's confidence, but it also allows for students to actively be a part of a bigger conversation. They can see their peers identities and recognize the differences between themselves and others. This engagement in society allows students to understand that everyone has a different lived reality. This connection will help them outside of the classroom when working with others. Instead of always having a mirror with reading or writing, it offers a sliding door where they can step out and view other identities and be able to see connections and their own privilege. This is something we need to start doing at a young age, so we don’t repeat history. Our future depends on this generation we need to give them the opportunity for them to grow as individuals with recognition of others and build their own confidence.

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    Another form that I see youth connecting to the most out of the new media genres is book trailers. It allows students to engage with the reading and take out the important parts they would want to make in a video. It can be a cheesy, fun action trailer that describes the book. Students have this creative outlet that they wouldn't be able to express if I were just assigning a written book report. Working with technology for a project, “provides students with multiple tools that they can use to mediate their thinking about concepts” (Chrisholm and Trent, pg 314). Having this ability to connect to the readings because they know they get to do something fun afterwards allows for deeper thinking about concepts in the book. They are engaged because they may want to make the best book trailer. It allows for those images to come onto the screen and voice overs, they can play around with it. Which, in the end, makes students learn from the readings because they will be putting what they read into that trailer. It may seem simple, yet it engages and connects students to a myriad of tools to develop more reading comprehension skills. Building their confidence with images and their critical thinking skills with trailers is something I would like to practice in my classroom. Open up the floor to see what students would want. I don’t want to have an authoritarian stance; students have a voice and should be able to share what they think is best for their learning. Not only does it help them better engage, but it is also more accessible to students who may struggle with writing. Giving more outlets allows all students to grow and complete projects to the best of their abilities.

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    I want to empower my students. I may not always know what I am doing. I probably fail a lot, and I think I am ready for it. I won’t change the world. Yet, if I can have one student walk away with more confidence, growth, and engagement with others, then I did something right. I won’t stop even when I fail, if I do. Why go into the classroom? You can’t be good at everything, all of the time. One step forward every day, that is all I can do. Even though I prefer pen to paper. Why would you deprive your students of accessibility and engagement because you enjoy something more? They are the ones showing up every day and learning. As educators, we need to do our best to help students.

GenAI...

     GenAI in the Classroom

My feelings on GenAI, even throughout these readings, have changed only slightly. I do believe we should teach it in classrooms, in the reading by Vee there was a quote that stood out to me that changed my thinking. “we will let our own decisions about AI govern yours. It’s a fundamentally authoritative stance: I know what’s good for you” (Vee, pg. 1).  I do not want to walk into my classroom for the first time and have this mindset. This dismantles the safe space I want to work towards. I don’t feel comfortable using AI; however, I want to teach the students the good and the bad. They are individuals, and at the end of the day, they make their own choices. I do not want to strip away their agency because I disagree. If they need help writing or checking their grammar, then I can not stop them from using AI. It is everywhere. I will not grade a copy-and-paste AI essay. I will let them know that when we have these open discussions about AI. In addition, the Estep article aligned with my views. I have never thought of compassionate teaching with the use of AI. This opened my eyes to the labels I have set for people who use AI. When you think of a student who uses AI, you may jump to saying that they are lazy. Yet this reading dives deep into dismantling those thoughts and having compassion. Which brought me to the idea that a student may be using AI because they are scared to ask for help, are exhausted from their life, or have too much going on to sit and write. We need to teach with compassion so that students understand they are safe in the classroom. Weaving this in with AI, having those set rules in the beginning of how students will use AI in the classroom. They may check for grammar mistakes and use it for research that will make them critically think about what is true or false. 

I used ChatGPT to help me with my papers in college before I knew the damage AI was doing, because it was easy. My life is chaotic at times. I am transparent with my mental health and my insecurities. I don’t have a lot of self-esteem in general, but mainly in education. I don’t feel qualified or smart enough. During my first BA, I was doing a lot of research for many different classes. I couldn’t keep up, and those thoughts were creeping in. Instead of asking for help or taking a break, I used AI. It helped me finish on time, and even though I look back, I hate that I did that. I can’t take it back. I needed it then, so who am I to judge if a student needs to use it for research because they are too tired, overwhelmed, or don’t understand? Instead of punishing the student, I want to work with them. I wish my professors worked with me more since we were all so close in the Women’s and Gender Studies department.

The reading that departed from my views the most was the choice reading that I chose by Li, Cyborg Composing with AI. I did not agree with the human AI hybrid and making poems with ChatGPT. With what I know about the environment and the dangers, this is dangerous. It is purely for joy now. A joy that is killing the earth, and I can’t stand by that in the slightest. This is where GenAI starts to leave for me. From this article, I do not believe AI should have been made public, if people are using it to make poems that wouldn't have taken them long to just prove how AI works? How far will they go in a classroom? I can't sit in a classroom, and have my students make a poem with AI knowing I am causing harm to the environment. There is a time and place for AI, making whole assignments out of it, is not something I agree with. 

AI has been used for decades in science, and astrophysicists have been using it for years. However, they call it machine knowledge. When a telescope takes a picture of space and captures hundreds of galaxies. Are they going to hire thousands of astrophysicists to study and classify each one? They can not afford that, and it will never get done. It will take longer to manually classify them than we have time on the planet. Machine knowledge helps aid in the process of this science. Though it is machine knowledge because they have to double-check the work. There is still a team to help classify and ensure everything is accurate. We can’t trust AI, no matter how much human interaction we try with it. Just because it was built by humans doesn’t mean it is good. Cigarettes were made by humans and plants, and look at the death toll for lung cancer. We can’t trust something that is harming us and the planet we are on.  

Without AI, how are we supposed to tell the flat earthers that they are wrong? Machine knowledge has helped us prove many people wrong. We need it in some capacities, in the scientific world, it needs to be used. In the classroom, that is where I have doubts.

Thank you to my best friend who majored in astrophysics at UMN for having an extremely long discussion about galaxies, stellar collapse, and telescopes for me to understand AI in one aspect of the scientific world. 

Blog Post #2

Hi! So, you're back for more. I'm not one to judge, but why? No matter if you are being forced, you get the chance to learn who I am. As I step away from the office, I am going to be starting as a writing coach for 6th graders. Crazy, right? As I venture into the unknown, here is my actual introduction I use when I step into a classroom.

I am studying English Education (4th-12th grade), and I want to teach in a middle school. I will graduate from school in the spring of 2027. Though this is not my first degree, I graduated in the spring of 2024 with a degree in Women's and Gender Studies. This degree carries a lot of weight in political activism, feminist thought, and on-the-groundwork with different communities. I minored in criminal justice and got a certificate in LGBT Studies. I earned many certificates during my schooling because I love learning, and I hope to share some of that love with you all. I coach Girls on the Run at my old middle school in Milwaukee. We are long-distance runners training for a marathon at the end of the year. It is a lot of fun, and I never knew I would find so much joy in running. Sometimes you just have to try new things; you might end up loving it.

Literacy Collage:

I love a collage, so I went a little crazy with this one. I will try to tell you everything that I have put in this.

Books: I have a lot of favorite books; I kept it at a minimum. We have My Husband, Bunny, The Handmaid's Tale, and my favorite book growing up The Name of This Book is Secret. Technically you can throw Gone Girl and Twilight in that list as well. They are in the list of my favorite movies. I read The Handmaid's Tale in high school, right when season 2 came out. I felt seen with the main character. I never went through what she went through. Though I did fight in court and I stood up and gave my statement in a room ten feet away from the guy I never wanted to see again. I didn't run away, I fought and I am still fighting. I saw her bravery and connected it with mine. If someone else could have their body ripped away and still fight, I thought I could too. I also did not find it appropriate to put the banned books that I enjoy reading, so I put a little sticker, because it is a big part of who I am.

Media: Gone Girl, Twilight, Stranger Things (I have a bat inspired tattoo from the demo bats in season four), Tangled, and Coraline (another fun fact, I have the button key tattooed as a dragonfly on my arm).

While You Were Sleeping is by far my favorite movie. My mother used to make me watch it all of the time growing up. Now whenever I am sad or happy or confused or on a date, I will watch Bill Pullman and Sandra Bullock in the 90's fall in love with each other. I connect to this movie in a sad way, that I won't get into.

I put Mamma Mia! up there because it is a fantastic movie and let me state this now. Colin Firth can sing, and he is amazing in all of his projects. This is the first musical I saw as a kid; this made me fall in love with theatre. I did it for a decade, and I miss the stage almost every day of my life.

People you should listen to:

Sabrina Carpenter of course, sometimes you need a good pop song to get through the day.

Ricky Montgomery they are an indie artist, and if you watched my introduction video, I have two posters from the concerts I went to of theirs. I also have two tattoos of my favorite songs from them. Please listen to this one to understand me more: Sorry For Me

Flight of the Concords is a weird indie comedy band from New Zealand. They had an HBO show for a while. It all feels like a fever dream. I have also seen them in concert. Now you make think you have not heard of them. You have. Jermaine one of the singers, is the crab in Moana and also made the original What We Do in The Shadows movie. Bret (my favorite) composed the song Am I Man or a Muppet? He won an award for that. If you want to listen to them, here is one of my favorites: Carol Brown

Until next time: <3