7 Ingredients Book Project

As a pre-service teacher I spend one day per week in a middle school classroom as a pre-intern. My cooperating teacher (CT) is the teacher I shadow in his/her classroom. This semester, my CT is great. I was blessed with a wonderful CT last semester as well, but this CT has the same teaching style I see myself falling into.

My CT this semester introduced me to a project she created for students to analyze books they've read, and I'm calling it The 7 Ingredients Project.  I think this project is SO AWESOME that I want to share it. 

So here it is:

Book project: 7 ingredients. Students pick a recipe with at least 7 ingredients and/or functions. Each ingredient has a specific role in the recipe (eggs bind ingredients together, preheating the oven heats ingredients up, etc). Students compare 7 ingredients and/or functions to characters and events in their book.

Example: preheating the oven may be compared to an event that moves the plot towards the climax, and eggs might be compared to a character who furthers the plot by bringing two or more characters together.

My CT has resources for her students to look up the functions of different ingredients, and I'll post those as an update to this post when I get them from her.

Too Perfect

I just started reading this book I found at the Friends of the Library Sale entitled "Too Perfect." Turns out, I have an obsessive personality. Really, I could've told you that without reading this book, but I bought it because I'm interested in psychology, I found it in the psychology section, and I thought, that's a book I'd be interested in reading!

I admit that I bought the book more as a self help book than as a psychology book, but really that's what it's meant for anyway.

So far I have been able to clearly point out the parts of the book that completely match my personality as well as the parts that don't pertain to me. Although I'm most likely over-analyzing, I'm beginning to wonder when the book will begin looking at techniques to change the unwanted behavior. I'm also beginning to realize that even though I believe I do qualify as an obsessive personality, I'm not as intensely obsessive or perfectionist as many of the examples the author is giving.

On the other hand, my obsessive personality is the main reason behind the length of time it's taken me to decide on a major...and keep to it without doubting my decision and changing my mind. It's also the fuel for my wordiness and excessive elaboration, both in writing and speech.

The author seems prominently Freudian in that he constantly blames parents' behavior towards their children at a young age for a good portion of their obsessive personality, however he does include cognitive theory and he explores the old nature vs. nurture debate, wondering if there is a genetic variable to personality types.

At any rate, I'm trying to be too perfect, and it's messing with the happiness I get out of my life, so I'll continue the book to see where it leads.