I would have to say that the amount of writing instruction I see in my placement classroom in minimal. In all of my time there this year, I can only recall a couple times in which the students were engaged in writing workshop, as defined by Tompkins. According to this format, the teacher gives a short mini-lesson at the beginning of the session, and then for the rest of the time, the students are allowed to work on their writings. I have noticed that during these sessions, the teacher keeps track of his students' progress in lists on the whiteboard, much like we discussed in class. One list is for drafting, the other editing, and then the final one was publishing. This way, as we discussed, the teacher can keep track of the students progress, and assess at a glance if some students are stalled in their writing process. Also, during this time, the teacher is available for conferencing. The three writing workshop instruction foci that I have seen this year have included narratives, compare and contrast papers, along with biographies, which the students are currently working on. Most students seem rather motivated while working independently, while others noticeably struggle and put off publishing. Many times, the teacher had to prompt them to continue working.
When I was in school, I remember my writing instruction to be much more extensive. We were constantly reading and writing responses, in the early grades, and in the later grades in elementary school, we were constantly writing in different genres. Additionally, a great deal of our writing instruction included grammar as well as stylistic instruction. This is one area that I do not see in the Language Arts Curriculum, explicit grammar. Although I have noticed that many teachers try to shy away from using explicit grammar instruction in the classroom, for fear of boring students, I think it is important for students to know grammatical terms, because this will help to enhance their writings. For example, when I was doing a mini-lesson on adjectives, my four students did not know what an adjective or a noun was. Therefore, I think it would be difficult for a teacher to tell the students that their writing doesn't have correct subject-verb agreement, if the students didn't know what the subject and verb were. Because of this need to have a common vocabulary when talking about grammatical elements within writing, I was very grateful to have had extension explicit grammar instruction in school. Additionally, when I had writing instruction in school, most of our work time was devoted to homework time. Every once in a while, we would have sometime to work on our writings during class, but many times, the teacher had us take our work home, work on it, and then bring the drafts in for editing. This is a large departure from the writing workshop activities I see in my placement school.
On a final note, there are definitely some areas of writing instruction I would tweak from my placement school to better suit my style as a teacher. As previously stated, I would most definitely use some explicit grammar instruction integrated within writing. This would help students work on their meta-linguistic skills while simultaneously giving them a chance to employ, as Cambourne suggests, their writing skills. For example, we might do a mini-lesson about subject-verb agreement, and then I would assign the students to write a narrative. I would tell them that they would need to focus on subject-verb agreement while working on their narratives. This type of grammatical emphasis could also be accomplished by instructing students on the use of adverbs and instructing them to write an action story and to use at least ten adverbs. I would also want my writing instruction to be more integrated across the curriculum and to be more structured. For example, we would have certain days for self-editing, peer-to-peer editing, turning into the teacher, and then final self edits. This way, the students would learn how they can perfect their writings of styles. Additionally, I would have students write reports in their science class as well as social studies. This way, they can see the value of their writing, and that it is important across curriculum and genre. Basically, there are many different ideas I have with writing instruction, and I am very excited to start!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
New Literacies Reflection Post
At the beginning of this class, I had many questions about what it means to be literate. I really did not have any firm idea of the definition of literacy, except to mention that it was a broad one. For example, the definition I first cited as encompassing literacy was "the ability to adequately use, produce, communicate, and interpret the written word in all of its forms." Although I think this is a fairly good definition of literacy, I now know that literacy encompasses a multitude of other areas of our lives outside of the written word. For example, from my specific New Literacies Project, I know that understanding culture is a type of literacy. Additionally, being able to adequately use technology is a form of literacy too. As confusing as it sounds then, my idea and definition of literacy has become more exact as it has broadened. Literacy is an extremely dynamic and abstract concept. My official definition, as of now, for literacy is the various ranges and strengths of abilities and understandings in any subject. I now understand literacy to be a range of abilities from the Tompkins readings, because within those pages, specifically on page 91, Tompkins discusses individual traits that characterize the different stages of literacy from emergent to proficient. Furthermore, in class discussions, especially during out first discussion of the meaning of literacy, my idea of literacy was expanded to encompass the various means of communication for people who are unable to communicate in mainstream ways, such as those with visual or audio impairments.
Finally, the last majorly impacting reading for my idea of literacy was the Culligan online article. Within this article, Culligan mentioned how today technology is continually advancing and changing. This, along with my actual work on the New Literacies project enlightened me to the dynamic nature of literacy, especially new literacies like technological literacy. I noticed the need to develop literacy in technology while I was working on my project. When you take into account all of the various vocabulary such as .jpeg, .doc, and power point, along with techniques such as uploading files, it is no wonder that technology is considered a form of literacy. On a final note, of my exploration of my New Literacy project, I noticed how literacy is not only dynamic across time, but also, across culture. As I was trying to pull resources together to define mainstream cultural literacy in the United States, I realized how many different literacies one would need to master for other subcultures, such as big city versus rural district, or ethnic district versus Caucasian.
On a similar note, during my first post about the definition of literacy, I posed a question asking if it was possible to call cultures that didn't have the written word illiterate. I now believe that those cultures have their own respective forms of literacy that they are proficient in which we would not be proficient in. For example, some of those cultures without the written word know how to effectively hunt their surrounding wildlife, herd cattle, and the culture ins and outs of trading with surrounding tribes. These are aspects of environment, cultural, and social literacy that I would be deemed as illiterate in, within these cultures. So even though some may say that these distant cultures are illiterate by our US definition of literacy, we must also be able to concede that we are illiterate in their cultural, environmental, and social literacy as well, unless we have spent some time to live among these people.
Therefore, as future educators, we must be willing not only to educate our students on the various dynamic forms of literacy, but also, we must be willing to become literate ourselves within the needs of our students. For example, one could easily argue that getting to know the personalities and interactions of the students inside and outside of the classroom is an extremely dynamic form of literacy. Teachers must become proficient in understanding their students' needs and levels of ability as soon as possible.
Additionally, as teachers are becoming more literate by getting to know their students, they must also be able to provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learners. Effective literacy instructions is one that is differentiated to suite the needs of students of differing abilities and backgrounds, while also focusing on the acquisition of literacy as outlined by Cambourne. Cambourne mentions that instruction should, among other ideas, be engaging and allow students time to employ what they have learned. Also an example of differentiating for different cultures of our students includes taking into account their "funds of knowledge," as detailed in our math section's reading of Rosebery. The article discusses taking students' prior knowledge and activating it in a meaningful way in the classroom. This includes choosing literature for the students to read that is relevant. For example, in an urban classroom, it would be highly irrelevant to choose a book such as Dick and Jane to read to the students.
In order to teach my technological literacy of the website I used in an effective way, the students would first need a foundation in reading, writing, communicating, and typing. A GLCE that I found would be important while discussing websites would be within the vocabulary section R.WS.04.07, which states “in context, determine the meaning of words and phrases including similes, metaphors, content vocabulary, and literary terms using strategies and resources including context clues, semantic feature analysis, and a thesaurus.” Therefore, a good introduction to websites, for my class, would be to create a website that includes ways for children to access vocabulary necessary to make a website or general vocabulary necessary to know from lessons. In essence, the website would be an interactive word wall for students. This way, when we progress into students making their own websites, via Google sites, later in the year, they would already be familiar with the basic vocabulary we would use to construct the website. Additionally, the students would need to work on their keyboarding proficiency in order to construct the website in a somewhat efficient time. I was surprised that I did not find a specific ELA GLEC that would cover this need to teach typing. Therefore, in order to do this, I would create a keyboarding center in my classroom, where students could play games like “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” or “Mario Teaches Typing” to better their skills.
Along with using the website to help students create their own websites, I could also use websites throughout the year as a way for my children to find valuable resources about lessons we are doing or as a way for parents to access what is going on in the class. This would create a strong community of learners within my classroom, and simultaneously make instruction have a stronger foundation with parental involvement. Furthermore, the website I constructed, in my project, can be used to help immigrant families, and children, become accustomed to mainstream culture, and thus improve their own cultural literacy. By using websites to enhance instruction and to add another technological literacy to my students’ understanding, I would also be engaging a variety of learners on a whole new level of literacy. This would help students who learn visually and kinesthetically, because they could both see and interact with the screen. Also, it would help students from a variety of backgrounds, because it would be easy to cater the content we are learning for my own student population. Finally, it would give students the chance to employ their own reading and writing skills by not only accessing the websites I would create for my students, but also, allowing them to go to other websites that stress literacy, which we talked about in class, such as Starfall.com. I have seen this interaction with websites in my ESL placement, especially with Starfall.com, but unfortunately, I have not seen my CT use websites within my TE 402 placement. I think it would greatly benefit those students reading literacy and technological literacy especially since they have the technology available within the classroom. In conclusion, using websites throughout my curriculum, correctly, would be a way to promote effective literacy instruction to diverse learners in my classroom.
Finally, the last majorly impacting reading for my idea of literacy was the Culligan online article. Within this article, Culligan mentioned how today technology is continually advancing and changing. This, along with my actual work on the New Literacies project enlightened me to the dynamic nature of literacy, especially new literacies like technological literacy. I noticed the need to develop literacy in technology while I was working on my project. When you take into account all of the various vocabulary such as .jpeg, .doc, and power point, along with techniques such as uploading files, it is no wonder that technology is considered a form of literacy. On a final note, of my exploration of my New Literacy project, I noticed how literacy is not only dynamic across time, but also, across culture. As I was trying to pull resources together to define mainstream cultural literacy in the United States, I realized how many different literacies one would need to master for other subcultures, such as big city versus rural district, or ethnic district versus Caucasian.
On a similar note, during my first post about the definition of literacy, I posed a question asking if it was possible to call cultures that didn't have the written word illiterate. I now believe that those cultures have their own respective forms of literacy that they are proficient in which we would not be proficient in. For example, some of those cultures without the written word know how to effectively hunt their surrounding wildlife, herd cattle, and the culture ins and outs of trading with surrounding tribes. These are aspects of environment, cultural, and social literacy that I would be deemed as illiterate in, within these cultures. So even though some may say that these distant cultures are illiterate by our US definition of literacy, we must also be able to concede that we are illiterate in their cultural, environmental, and social literacy as well, unless we have spent some time to live among these people.
Therefore, as future educators, we must be willing not only to educate our students on the various dynamic forms of literacy, but also, we must be willing to become literate ourselves within the needs of our students. For example, one could easily argue that getting to know the personalities and interactions of the students inside and outside of the classroom is an extremely dynamic form of literacy. Teachers must become proficient in understanding their students' needs and levels of ability as soon as possible.
Additionally, as teachers are becoming more literate by getting to know their students, they must also be able to provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learners. Effective literacy instructions is one that is differentiated to suite the needs of students of differing abilities and backgrounds, while also focusing on the acquisition of literacy as outlined by Cambourne. Cambourne mentions that instruction should, among other ideas, be engaging and allow students time to employ what they have learned. Also an example of differentiating for different cultures of our students includes taking into account their "funds of knowledge," as detailed in our math section's reading of Rosebery. The article discusses taking students' prior knowledge and activating it in a meaningful way in the classroom. This includes choosing literature for the students to read that is relevant. For example, in an urban classroom, it would be highly irrelevant to choose a book such as Dick and Jane to read to the students.
In order to teach my technological literacy of the website I used in an effective way, the students would first need a foundation in reading, writing, communicating, and typing. A GLCE that I found would be important while discussing websites would be within the vocabulary section R.WS.04.07, which states “in context, determine the meaning of words and phrases including similes, metaphors, content vocabulary, and literary terms using strategies and resources including context clues, semantic feature analysis, and a thesaurus.” Therefore, a good introduction to websites, for my class, would be to create a website that includes ways for children to access vocabulary necessary to make a website or general vocabulary necessary to know from lessons. In essence, the website would be an interactive word wall for students. This way, when we progress into students making their own websites, via Google sites, later in the year, they would already be familiar with the basic vocabulary we would use to construct the website. Additionally, the students would need to work on their keyboarding proficiency in order to construct the website in a somewhat efficient time. I was surprised that I did not find a specific ELA GLEC that would cover this need to teach typing. Therefore, in order to do this, I would create a keyboarding center in my classroom, where students could play games like “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” or “Mario Teaches Typing” to better their skills.
Along with using the website to help students create their own websites, I could also use websites throughout the year as a way for my children to find valuable resources about lessons we are doing or as a way for parents to access what is going on in the class. This would create a strong community of learners within my classroom, and simultaneously make instruction have a stronger foundation with parental involvement. Furthermore, the website I constructed, in my project, can be used to help immigrant families, and children, become accustomed to mainstream culture, and thus improve their own cultural literacy. By using websites to enhance instruction and to add another technological literacy to my students’ understanding, I would also be engaging a variety of learners on a whole new level of literacy. This would help students who learn visually and kinesthetically, because they could both see and interact with the screen. Also, it would help students from a variety of backgrounds, because it would be easy to cater the content we are learning for my own student population. Finally, it would give students the chance to employ their own reading and writing skills by not only accessing the websites I would create for my students, but also, allowing them to go to other websites that stress literacy, which we talked about in class, such as Starfall.com. I have seen this interaction with websites in my ESL placement, especially with Starfall.com, but unfortunately, I have not seen my CT use websites within my TE 402 placement. I think it would greatly benefit those students reading literacy and technological literacy especially since they have the technology available within the classroom. In conclusion, using websites throughout my curriculum, correctly, would be a way to promote effective literacy instruction to diverse learners in my classroom.
I think that my understanding of literacy has definitely improved throughout the semester. Originally, I thought that literacy strictly dealt with reading and writing. However, with the introduction of New Literacies and Technologies, I can see that literacy definitely encompasses much more. The variety of literacies that my classmates and I have explored, show how there are many different stances on how to teach literacy. I think after looking at my peers' projects, I realize that I do not want to take one stance in particular, rather, I would like to implement them all into my teaching---because I think that they all present ways to learn, while making my students informed citizens. I think this will ultimately make my students want to interact more in their community, and even be a better student/friend/peer at school.
I have also learned a lot about technology and how much this affects teaching literacy. Kids are so intelligent when it comes to technology--always downloading a new computer game, playing a new type of gaming system, etc. I'm sad to say that many times when I am babysitting, I count on the kids to get these things all set up. This project has really taught me the importance of keeping up with technology, because as it improves, students evolve with it. Therefore, the boring old pencil and paper route of learning will not engage my students. Thus, I realize that to keep my students' attention, I need to teach them in a way that they enjoy learning. I chose to talk about my literacy in a scrapblog format, and I can see exactly why my students would like learning this way--it's visually appealing for my visual learners, and it just makes learning look more interesting. A scrapblog is similar to a blog, in that you can add information, however, it looks very similar to a scrapbook, as you can add stickers, different backgrounds, shapes, etc. This product was new to me, therefore, I had to play around with it quite a bit, to truly understand how to use it.
I can also see why something like a blog would also be fun for students. Students these days are so educated in using the internet, therefore, using something like this to learn would seem more like playing a game--i.e. clicking on the different links, seeing where they take you--than sitting and hearing a lecture.
I think in order to provide "effective literacy instruction," one must keep up with the times--so that they can see what students like doing, and how this affects the way the want to learn. I think this can relate in many ways to my technology, a scrapblog. One of the actual "themes" for the scrapblog was High School Musical. While I did not chose this theme, I think that students would be excited in general if they saw they were learning something that included their favorite movie. On the scrapblog, one is able to add speech bubbles, so I could have had Zach Effron saying something about Cultural Literacy, and thus my students would probably think this was cool--since Zach said so.
If I had to chose one of my GLCEs that my ELA lesson focused on, and could also be used in a new literacy, it would be: S.CN.02.02 explore and use language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes including questions and answers, discussions, and social interactions. Many of these new technologies are on social networks, and therefore, students would be interacting with one another. For example, if I chose to use a blog in my classroom, I could implement a center in which the students blogged on anything they had learned in ELA that day--i.e. reading a books, writing a story, etc. Students who follow could then add their own blog, or respond to one of their peers' blogs--i.e. I liked that story too, because....
I feel that the scrapblog may be a little to advanced for my students--I had to find pictures online, search pretty hard for information, and the program could be somewhat difficult to understand. Therefore, I would use this program to teach, but not necessarily have my students make this technology. However, in order to help my students become more acquainted with the internet, I could set aside ELA time to work on using search engines to find information, as well as, teaching students how to determine whether or not the source is reliable.
I feel that it is extremely important to teach students about technology in school, because in order to keep up with the times, and be successful, one needs to know how to use technology. Therefore, I feel that following GLCEs on technology are important, because I will not only be teaching my students in a way they enjoy, but also helping them be a digital native for the future.
I have also learned a lot about technology and how much this affects teaching literacy. Kids are so intelligent when it comes to technology--always downloading a new computer game, playing a new type of gaming system, etc. I'm sad to say that many times when I am babysitting, I count on the kids to get these things all set up. This project has really taught me the importance of keeping up with technology, because as it improves, students evolve with it. Therefore, the boring old pencil and paper route of learning will not engage my students. Thus, I realize that to keep my students' attention, I need to teach them in a way that they enjoy learning. I chose to talk about my literacy in a scrapblog format, and I can see exactly why my students would like learning this way--it's visually appealing for my visual learners, and it just makes learning look more interesting. A scrapblog is similar to a blog, in that you can add information, however, it looks very similar to a scrapbook, as you can add stickers, different backgrounds, shapes, etc. This product was new to me, therefore, I had to play around with it quite a bit, to truly understand how to use it.
I can also see why something like a blog would also be fun for students. Students these days are so educated in using the internet, therefore, using something like this to learn would seem more like playing a game--i.e. clicking on the different links, seeing where they take you--than sitting and hearing a lecture.
I think in order to provide "effective literacy instruction," one must keep up with the times--so that they can see what students like doing, and how this affects the way the want to learn. I think this can relate in many ways to my technology, a scrapblog. One of the actual "themes" for the scrapblog was High School Musical. While I did not chose this theme, I think that students would be excited in general if they saw they were learning something that included their favorite movie. On the scrapblog, one is able to add speech bubbles, so I could have had Zach Effron saying something about Cultural Literacy, and thus my students would probably think this was cool--since Zach said so.
If I had to chose one of my GLCEs that my ELA lesson focused on, and could also be used in a new literacy, it would be: S.CN.02.02 explore and use language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes including questions and answers, discussions, and social interactions. Many of these new technologies are on social networks, and therefore, students would be interacting with one another. For example, if I chose to use a blog in my classroom, I could implement a center in which the students blogged on anything they had learned in ELA that day--i.e. reading a books, writing a story, etc. Students who follow could then add their own blog, or respond to one of their peers' blogs--i.e. I liked that story too, because....
I feel that the scrapblog may be a little to advanced for my students--I had to find pictures online, search pretty hard for information, and the program could be somewhat difficult to understand. Therefore, I would use this program to teach, but not necessarily have my students make this technology. However, in order to help my students become more acquainted with the internet, I could set aside ELA time to work on using search engines to find information, as well as, teaching students how to determine whether or not the source is reliable.
I feel that it is extremely important to teach students about technology in school, because in order to keep up with the times, and be successful, one needs to know how to use technology. Therefore, I feel that following GLCEs on technology are important, because I will not only be teaching my students in a way they enjoy, but also helping them be a digital native for the future.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
New Literacies Post
Providing effective literacy instruction requires teachers to provide instruction that appeals to students with various learning styles, levels of background knowledge, and interests. While differentiation sounds like an easy ideal to achieve, teachers must always be making a conscious effort to conduct formative assessments and get to know students' learning interests and styles, then adapt lessons accordingly. Related to the technology I explored, blogging, there are two main ways in which I see blogs as being able to enhance classroom learning, when either the teacher or students write in a blog. I used my New Literacies blog to record my thoughts, learning, and external resources as I learned more about a new topic. Unlike my experiences using blogs like this one, I tried to incorporate aspects other than just text entries, such as embedded youtube videos, external links, and polls. If I wrote a similar blog for my students to read and follow, it would require them to practice comprehending written text, providing personal responses or writing their answers to a specific question, and critically viewing and analyzing information presented in a video format.
As a teacher, I could provide my students access to a blog written by me that might provide additional instruction in literacy (or other content areas) with the option of including multimedia files and links to other websites and resources. Such a blog might allow students to practice their reading comprehension skills by providing them with an additional source of print information while also (hopefully) encouraging their enthusiasm for reading on their own. Since many students enjoy spending time on the computer, they may be more willing to read on the computer, especially if the blog contains pictures, videos, or if its topic is based on students' interests. On such a blog, I might ask students to post comments responding to a specific question or have them share something that they learned from the post or from their own research...this would get students writing and responding to text and would provide me with some feedback about their understanding of the topic and incorporate some accountability.
Alternatively, I could have students create their own blogs to follow their own research of a topic and possibly have it structured as a type of annotated bibliography, have them write their personal reflections in a journal/traditional blog format, or have them work collaboratively in blog groups using a jigsaw or another format. This would give students a greater degree of autonomy and would engage them in more writing activities than the teacher-written blog. These assignments are not too drastically different from traditional assignments that might appear in a classroom, but blogging provides a new, interactive, and interesting way to present information.
My current view of blogging is that it might be able to engage reluctant readers and writers in literacy-based activities using a tool that is more often associated with fun games (the computer) as opposed to traditional worksheets or journals. (And, blogs can include fun widgets including polls and games to make them a bit more interesting!) Furthermore, blogs are able to incorporate additional media and collaboration in ways that traditional pencil and paper cannot. Although computer skills are often overlooked or considered an "after thought" in classroom instruction, part of the process of having students become literate citizens requires that they have basic knowledge of computers including typing, using internet browsers, and navigating different sites to search for information. Depending upon the age and background knowledge of the students, these skills might develop over the course of weeks or months as students become accustomed to an unfamiliar technology, or might be an easy task for students who already have a lot of experience with the internet and word processing software. These skills are no longer optional and students must learn how to operate computers and use internet applications, which reflects the broader definition of literacy reflected in Tompkins and our class discussion.
While I thought I had discussed a fairly comprehensive definition of literacy in my second blog post, in the case of digital literacy, the definition given in Tompkins seems more appropriate when she discusses the IRA and NCTE definition that includes the "competence 'to carry out the complex tasks using reading and writing related to the world of work and to life outside the school'" (11). Although technological literacy likely won't be the primary focus in my classroom, I definitely think that it is an integral part of an elementary classroom. Throughout this semester, I have had the opportunity to access sample lesson plans through Tompkins and in our class, and have been able to observe effective, standards-based lessons in my field placement that have provided me with a more complete view of what literacy instruction must include. Often, my CT thinks aloud as he is reading and models sample responses to questions that he asks of the students. At the beginning of the semester, I noticed these habits and thought they were interesting and useful methods to use in the classroom, but as we continued learning about these and other strategies in class, I realized that these were very purposeful instructional decisions and really do tend to help students think critically about a text. The lessons I observe in the placement are very standards-based and do not use basal readers at all; observing these lessons has helped me to envision structuring my own current (and future) lesson plans with high quality literature, while still meeting the necessary standards.
As a teacher, I could provide my students access to a blog written by me that might provide additional instruction in literacy (or other content areas) with the option of including multimedia files and links to other websites and resources. Such a blog might allow students to practice their reading comprehension skills by providing them with an additional source of print information while also (hopefully) encouraging their enthusiasm for reading on their own. Since many students enjoy spending time on the computer, they may be more willing to read on the computer, especially if the blog contains pictures, videos, or if its topic is based on students' interests. On such a blog, I might ask students to post comments responding to a specific question or have them share something that they learned from the post or from their own research...this would get students writing and responding to text and would provide me with some feedback about their understanding of the topic and incorporate some accountability.
Alternatively, I could have students create their own blogs to follow their own research of a topic and possibly have it structured as a type of annotated bibliography, have them write their personal reflections in a journal/traditional blog format, or have them work collaboratively in blog groups using a jigsaw or another format. This would give students a greater degree of autonomy and would engage them in more writing activities than the teacher-written blog. These assignments are not too drastically different from traditional assignments that might appear in a classroom, but blogging provides a new, interactive, and interesting way to present information.
My current view of blogging is that it might be able to engage reluctant readers and writers in literacy-based activities using a tool that is more often associated with fun games (the computer) as opposed to traditional worksheets or journals. (And, blogs can include fun widgets including polls and games to make them a bit more interesting!) Furthermore, blogs are able to incorporate additional media and collaboration in ways that traditional pencil and paper cannot. Although computer skills are often overlooked or considered an "after thought" in classroom instruction, part of the process of having students become literate citizens requires that they have basic knowledge of computers including typing, using internet browsers, and navigating different sites to search for information. Depending upon the age and background knowledge of the students, these skills might develop over the course of weeks or months as students become accustomed to an unfamiliar technology, or might be an easy task for students who already have a lot of experience with the internet and word processing software. These skills are no longer optional and students must learn how to operate computers and use internet applications, which reflects the broader definition of literacy reflected in Tompkins and our class discussion.
While I thought I had discussed a fairly comprehensive definition of literacy in my second blog post, in the case of digital literacy, the definition given in Tompkins seems more appropriate when she discusses the IRA and NCTE definition that includes the "competence 'to carry out the complex tasks using reading and writing related to the world of work and to life outside the school'" (11). Although technological literacy likely won't be the primary focus in my classroom, I definitely think that it is an integral part of an elementary classroom. Throughout this semester, I have had the opportunity to access sample lesson plans through Tompkins and in our class, and have been able to observe effective, standards-based lessons in my field placement that have provided me with a more complete view of what literacy instruction must include. Often, my CT thinks aloud as he is reading and models sample responses to questions that he asks of the students. At the beginning of the semester, I noticed these habits and thought they were interesting and useful methods to use in the classroom, but as we continued learning about these and other strategies in class, I realized that these were very purposeful instructional decisions and really do tend to help students think critically about a text. The lessons I observe in the placement are very standards-based and do not use basal readers at all; observing these lessons has helped me to envision structuring my own current (and future) lesson plans with high quality literature, while still meeting the necessary standards.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Writing
Although we don't usually see writing instruction often in our field placement (it's usually reading or math), I have noticed that our CT does use the writing workshop structure and we observed one lesson in which students were working independently and at different stages in the writing process. He took informal polls to see who was at the publishing stage and would conference with students once they thought they were ready to publish. This fits my CT's more laid back style of teaching, but I'm sure that if I were to use writing workshop, I would use some of the strategies mentioned in the Tompkins to create visual charts or at least a master list to keep track of students' progress. This information would help me to hold students accountable and make sure that students are progressing...one thing I noticed about the day we observed writing was that a couple students were continually off-task. Our CT does incorporate writing into his reading lessons by having students reflect on books that they read aloud and to themselves while focusing on specific skills that have been discussed in class. We don't usually get a chance to see their work completed, but the students have grown accustomed to this format and likely are beginning to see reading and writing as connected processes. (Although, I know that as a student, I would have still wanted to have some reading just for enjoyment and not "have" to do associated writing...I think this type of reading should still have a place in the classroom.)
In my own classroom, I would like to try to incorporate a somewhat structured writing workshop and know that direct instruction in the writing process will be necessary. I really like the idea of using "editing checklists" (like the example in Tompkins, pg. 67) for students so that BOTH the author and the editor know what exactly they are looking for AND they sign it and feel accountable for their work. In my high school expository writing class, we used a peer editing structure similar to the "stars and wishes" that Erin mentioned in class, where we were required to give at least three pieces of positive feedback and constructive criticism to improve the paper. I would definitely love to use that same structure with my students, I know it really helped me to learn to read papers more critically because you knew that you'd have to form both positive and negative opinions of the work. I also like the idea of structuring writing assignments by focusing on one or two skills, such as those outlined in the six traits. In my own elementary classrooms, we usually participated in writing assignments that either had a fixed topic or were "hot pencil time" and I don't recall ever focusing on specific skills as units. Because this is unfamiliar to me, it will probably require even more planning than usual, but I am excited to be able to integrate reading and writing units together, as Erin modeled in class. I was an avid reader starting in kindergarten and I know that I often mimicked the structures and tone that I had read in books in my own writing. So, from my own experience, as well as being exposed to the research supporting it, I look forward to being able to use reading and writing to reinforce each other.
In my own classroom, I would like to try to incorporate a somewhat structured writing workshop and know that direct instruction in the writing process will be necessary. I really like the idea of using "editing checklists" (like the example in Tompkins, pg. 67) for students so that BOTH the author and the editor know what exactly they are looking for AND they sign it and feel accountable for their work. In my high school expository writing class, we used a peer editing structure similar to the "stars and wishes" that Erin mentioned in class, where we were required to give at least three pieces of positive feedback and constructive criticism to improve the paper. I would definitely love to use that same structure with my students, I know it really helped me to learn to read papers more critically because you knew that you'd have to form both positive and negative opinions of the work. I also like the idea of structuring writing assignments by focusing on one or two skills, such as those outlined in the six traits. In my own elementary classrooms, we usually participated in writing assignments that either had a fixed topic or were "hot pencil time" and I don't recall ever focusing on specific skills as units. Because this is unfamiliar to me, it will probably require even more planning than usual, but I am excited to be able to integrate reading and writing units together, as Erin modeled in class. I was an avid reader starting in kindergarten and I know that I often mimicked the structures and tone that I had read in books in my own writing. So, from my own experience, as well as being exposed to the research supporting it, I look forward to being able to use reading and writing to reinforce each other.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Comprehension
This week's reading and discussion definitely made me think more about my own comprehension strategies/styles and the way in which I will teach these strategies. The Applegate (et al.) piece provided a really great way to organize and differentiate between the types of comprehension troubles students have. In the field and in my own experiences as a student, I've observed just about all of the categories of comprehension problems outlined, as well as a lot of the strategies the piece mentioned, but I never really organized my own thoughts on this enough to fully understand which strategies would help which students. From my observations in the field, I know that I would be most thrown off by left-fielders and I admittedly spent more time thinking about how to gracefully bring a class discussion back on-topic than exactly which strategies would prevent the problem from happening in the first place. For my own learning, I definitely recognized myself as having literalist tendencies, at least until my sophomore year of high school when it seemed like the only question my teacher would ask was, "what is the significance of ____?" In later classes as well, we spent a lot of time discussing higher-order questions and I began to move away from this comprehension profile.
I found the Neufeld article extremely helpful when considering what types of questions and models I should be providing for my students. Unlike Erin's experience that she shared in class, although I have always been a good student, I'm not very metacognitively aware. While I do go through many of these processes (establishing a purpose, summarizing, questioning) it is probably not as deliberate as it should be, and I don't do a lot of pre-reading. Knowing this, it is that much more important for me to study these strategies and effective ways to model them for my students. Piper discussed the way in which our CT models these strategies for his students, and we saw a couple of lessons on inferences that stick out in my mind. Our CT often activates prior knowledge by summarizing the strategy, then models the strategy by making his own inference and explaining his thought process ("I think Bradley Chalkers is beginning to trust Carla because..."). I am curious though if he is providing enough scaffolding for the students to really think through the process on their own. He seems to include aspects of most of the instruction strategies discussed in Neufeld (direct instruction on the strategies, modeling, guided practice, independent practice) but I don't really think that they are prepared to use it as a helpful strategy on their own for the purpose of comprehension. The student responses I have often heard are not always very accurate (ex. predictions rather than inferences) and I think that some of his directions don't always make it clear that this is supposed to be a strategy used in reading, rather than an assignment. (He may stop at one point in the book and instruct the students to "make an inference" which, if done accurately, does provide insight into the book, but it isn't always presented that way.) While I plan to continue examining the depth of student responses during reading workshop, I do think I have gotten a lot out of being able to observe this modeling technique...I feel more prepared to use it in my own classroom in a very deliberate way.
Reading Comprehension-Christina
How do today's readings and discussion help you understand your own reading comprehension processes? What are you seeing in the field related to comprehension processes and literacy instruction? Make sure to reference the readings and our class discussions.
I definitely feel as if I can really see which reading comprehension profiles I matched with as a child. I do think that I was a literalist as Applegate explains-that all answers will be found in the text. I used to be certain that everything I could need to know about a book, came straight out of the book, however, I now know that is not necessarily the case. For example, when I am going to teach my ELA lesson, The Story of Ruby Bridges, not everything is clearly stated in this book. It never once says why people discriminate, and it never once goes into depth about the past ideas of segregation. My students will have to come to some conclusions on their own--why the people discriminated against Ruby, why schools were much different in the past. Coming from a literalist past, I will need to work with my students that display these same qualities, so they look much deeper and beyond the text. One way to go about this as Applegate explains, is to do pre-reading activities on the theme that one is about to explore. For example, if I was teaching The Story of Ruby Bridges to my classroom, I might consider teaching a unit on discrimination, or even racism, within my social studies lessons.
Another comprehension profile I felt like I could relate to was the dodger. Sometimes when I didn't like a question, I would think of something somewhat similar, but not exactly the same, in order to satisfy what I felt like was worth answering. When working with Dodgers, I can use strategies such as List-Group-Label, Teacher Predictions, etc.
Within my field I am seeing many different profiles in my students. There are plenty of literalists that look only at the text for answers, fuzzy thinkers that provide vague answers, left fielders that give ideas I, myself, have never considered, and dogders that dodge questions completely. In order to adapt to the many levels of thinkers, as well as their different profiles, it will be important for me in the future to implement a variety of different comprehension activities, so that students are looking deeper into their understandings, so that they can truly comprehend the texts.
I definitely feel as if I can really see which reading comprehension profiles I matched with as a child. I do think that I was a literalist as Applegate explains-that all answers will be found in the text. I used to be certain that everything I could need to know about a book, came straight out of the book, however, I now know that is not necessarily the case. For example, when I am going to teach my ELA lesson, The Story of Ruby Bridges, not everything is clearly stated in this book. It never once says why people discriminate, and it never once goes into depth about the past ideas of segregation. My students will have to come to some conclusions on their own--why the people discriminated against Ruby, why schools were much different in the past. Coming from a literalist past, I will need to work with my students that display these same qualities, so they look much deeper and beyond the text. One way to go about this as Applegate explains, is to do pre-reading activities on the theme that one is about to explore. For example, if I was teaching The Story of Ruby Bridges to my classroom, I might consider teaching a unit on discrimination, or even racism, within my social studies lessons.
Another comprehension profile I felt like I could relate to was the dodger. Sometimes when I didn't like a question, I would think of something somewhat similar, but not exactly the same, in order to satisfy what I felt like was worth answering. When working with Dodgers, I can use strategies such as List-Group-Label, Teacher Predictions, etc.
Within my field I am seeing many different profiles in my students. There are plenty of literalists that look only at the text for answers, fuzzy thinkers that provide vague answers, left fielders that give ideas I, myself, have never considered, and dogders that dodge questions completely. In order to adapt to the many levels of thinkers, as well as their different profiles, it will be important for me in the future to implement a variety of different comprehension activities, so that students are looking deeper into their understandings, so that they can truly comprehend the texts.
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