Emergent Lit final

A poem I wrote for my final project for Emergent Lit. The two guidelines for our final project said 1. it needed the be creative and 2. it needed to demonstrate we understand the concepts from this year. Here is my creative project for the class, a poem.

Teaching Emergent Literacy

It isn’t easy to teach literacy.

No, it isn’t easy as you can see.

Just how can you teach those ABCs

Extremely quickly and extremely effectively?

Literacy is more than just letters you know!

It’s how to say them and where in spelling they go.

It’s interacting with words as we travel to and fro.

It’s reading, writing, speaking, and listening also.

Kids learn in many ways each year.

Phonological awareness is what they hear.

With children, they may fail at it they fear,

But once they master literacy, you will hear them cheer!

To help kids become literate there are many ways

You can teach many things in just a few days.

Give kids the option of many kinds of play:

Dramatic or block or active activities each day.

And whatever you do, don’t forget to read books—

Out loud, in small groups, or wherever you look.

Kids can read silently or in pairs in a special book nook.

Often, you can use circle time as an interesting hook.

Don’t forget to connect learning at school with learning at home, too.

Literacy is a skill students will want to pursue.

Though they might sometimes moan and complain they are blue,

Keep teaching, and one day, you’ll see a breakthrough!

As teachers, we must be our classroom’s guide.

And teach kids to take both success and failure in stride.

At the end of the year we’ll look back with pride

As we match educational goals and practices side by side.

It isn’t easy to teach literacy.

No, it isn’t easy as you can see.

But it’s about as rewarding as it can be

To give emergent learners the gift of literacy!

If William Shakespeare Ran the Fed

As I was studying for my epic economics final, I came across this lovely article "highlight" in my textbook. Naturally, I decided to transcribe it so all could bask in the glory. Enjoy.

"Suppose William Shakespeare gave up his job as a playwright to become the chair of the Federal Reserve System. In all likelihood, both the principles and practices of the FED and banking systems would be dramatically different.

Imagine Shakespeare writing his first position paper. His instruction to all banks would probably begin with: "Neither a borrower or a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulleth the edge of husbandry." Doesn't leave banks much room for creating loans, does it?

.....(blah blah blah, a bunch of math/formula stuff).....

With a reserve requirement of 100%, the bank has no excess reserves. It can make no loans. Without the ability to make loans on the strengths of its deposits, the banking system's money creation process grinds to a halt. And that's precisely what Shakespeare intended.

Shakespeare's 100% reserve requirement idea would probably not be the most ppular idea to hit the banking community....WHat would a Shakespere-run FED advise? Probably that would-be-borrowers should rely on their own savings, because using other people's money--borrowing from banks--"dulleth the edge of husbandry." Does such a FED option sound reasonable to you?

And even if most business people are prudent, regardless of whose money is involved, borrowing can end up being riskier than imagined. Shakespeare tells the story about Antonio, a Venetian merchant, who borrowed 3,000 ducats for 3 months from the moneylender Shylock. Unable to repay the loan because his own business ventures went awry--4 laden ships were lost at sea--Antonio would have forfeited his life were it not for a prejudicial court that, violating the spirit of the loan contract, ruled in his favor against Shylock....

...Shakespeare's FED presented the trade-off: monetary stability versus monetary creation--or in real terms, less GDP but less fluctuation in GDP."

The end.