the "writing lady"

The first three hours that I am in my classroom is the literacy block. We do literacy activities for three hours, and I have never seen writing incorporated into this time. I know that there is a "writing lady" that comes in once a week to work with the students. They write one to two sentences in their writing journal, which I try to look at each time I am there. I think it is great that the students are able to work with her on writing, but I do not think that they should only be writing during this one hour per week.

Sometimes the students are asked to turn their papers over and write a sentence if they finish their work early. The students always feel very uncomfortable doing this, and almost every one of them complains or immediately says that they can't write a sentence. I think that if the students were asked to write more often they wouldn't be uncomfortable attempting to do so. I think it is very important, especially for this age level, that students expect writing to be a part of their daily routine. As kindergarteners, they should be encouraged to share their ideas (and do they have a lot of ideas!) on paper. Here, they can explore and tell stories, two things that they all love to do. But instead they are afraid, and most of them groan when they hear that the "writing lady" is coming. So, what is really not working as far as writing instruction in my classroom is that it is almost non-existent in their daily schedule.

What I do think is working though, is that when students are asked to write, they are encouraged to draw a picture first. This helps them to plan what their sentence (or sentences) is going to be about. A lot of kids hear that they have to write and they quickly respond that they don't know what to write down. Allowing them to brainstorm with a picture is a great way to get ideas flowing and spark imagination. From there, they can write about the idea that the drew, making it a little easier to make a concrete sentence.

Writing Evaluation in my 3rd Grade Class

I asked Yosany to write about a scary time in her life. The only thing I helped her out with was the spelling of some words. After collecting her writing sample at the end of 20 minutes, I noticed many things wrong with her short story. Yosany wrote about being scared of a cat. It took me a while, however, to figure this out from her story. Her story did not have enough detail to figure out what she was trying to write about.

Yosany’s writing lacks a clear organization. For example, Yosany did not begin her story with a creative opening. My CT had just gone over how to make the opening of a story interesting and Yosany quickly forgot about all of this when she began to write on her own. She wrote her story in a way that she felt the reader knew about her house. For example, she wrote, “I was looking for Jennifer and Jason where the plants were.” The reader has no idea where the plants are at her home, and the reader also has no idea who Jennifer and Jason are. She could have added in a couple more sentences describing this with detail.

Secondly, the paper was very hard to understand from the viewpoint of someone who does not know about Yosany’s home life. She mentioned characters without introducing them. In her paper, she talks about a cat, but the reader has no idea whose cat is it, and what really made he scared of the cat. She then jumped to a completely different topic in her paper which shows how she has a lack of cohesiveness. Yosany then writes about a girl who she was calling to get help. She did not tell anything about this girl and that left the reader very confused. Finally, the last sentence of her story ended with, “The girl helped me feel better, she said maybe he was drunk.” This sentence made me laugh but I still was very confused on why she even mentioned this in detail when she didn’t describe anything else in detail.

In terms of conventions, Yosany seemed to have a good grasp on her mechanics. She only had one spelling error, and her punctuation was all correct. She made sure she always capitalized the first letter of every sentence, and ended them with periods at the right spot. She even used commas in the right spots.

Even though Yosany’s paper was hard to follow, and lacked detail to explain her thoughts, some of her sentences were very well written. For example, she wrote, “The weather was foggy and warm from winter.” This sentence was very descriptive when talking about the conditions outside. She did not just say it was warm. She allowed the reader to picture this setting in their minds. She also wrote, “I ran in side and told the girl to come quick.” Even though the reader has no idea who she is talking about, the sentence makes the reader actually picture Yosany running for help.

Out of the 6 traits of writing, she did not complete the ideas, organization, and sentence fluency. Her ideas did not clarify the main theme and the message. Her ideas were also not written in a logical manner. Her writing was hard to follow, and her events were not logically sequenced. Many of her sentences were hard to understand because they did not flow together. However, her conventions were very good along with the description in some of her sentences. I could hear her voice throughout the paper even though it was hard to comprehend. Her word choice was not too bad, but she could have challenged herself a little bit.

When look at the stages of writing, Yosany’s paper was definitely a draft. She did not convey her ideas through the pre-writing stage, and definitely need lots of revising and editing. If she had someone helping her edit this paper, I am very confident that she would be able to write a well written story.

As a teacher I could provide scaffolding. During our brainstorming step I would ask her what she wants to write about. After she described her story to me I would repeat what she tells me she wants to write about. By repeating what she said, I can show some hesitation during the parts that I was unclear about. This would clear up some confusion because it would allow her to explain the story with more detail which she could make sure she wrote about in her paper. Then during the editing step, I would make sure to ask her questions throughout her writing when I was reading over it to make her explain things with more detail. By asking her these questions she can see that the reader is going to be confused if she does not clarify it with more detail. Finally, when she has finished editing her paper, I would read it to her. I would pause at the points I was confused and allow her to elaborate on her ideas. This was she can polish off her paper with those last missing details and form a final draft

By assisting Yosany in the writing process, I would be able to teach her what steps she can go through on her own when I cannot be there to help her. She would learn what questions to ask herself during the editing process, and realize when she needed more detail, and when to clarify her ideas. During my activity I am going to have Yosany write another short story on a picture book. I will help her through the writing process, and this way, I will compare the two writing samples and see if I notice the improvement in the sequencing of her stories.

Listeners vs Thinkers

I have had the opportunity to see a lot of writing in my classroom since it is an upper level classroom they normally have a written portion to most of their assignments. We do not have a formal structure on how to teach writing in our classroom rather it seems that the room is run by trial and error. Our teacher tells the students to get out paper and to write about the topic. Once they have written about the topic they are allowed to share their assignment, turn it in, and never look at the paper again. Recently our students have been working on this project called Calberry where they had to work through the entire writing process from outline to final product. This could have been a great learning experience had the teacher used mini lessons to help the student’s structure and learn about writing. What our teacher and sub did however was tell the students what they did wrong and fixed every mistake the student made on their paper, the students went back to their desk and went on to the next step. I do not like the style of teaching writing where the teacher makes all of the corrections for the student and hopes he/she learns by looking at the corrections, at this point we are creating listeners instead of thinkers.

What I mean when I say we are creating listeners instead of thinkers is that by telling a student what to do their entire writing career they are not thinking on their own. I can best explain this concept by using a sports analogy. (sorry for you non sports fans) When you are at hockey practice the coach of the team can show you a general concept and let the players figure out the specifics with guided help when needed. The other option is that the coach can yell, “Pass the puck to Katie, Katie pass the puck to Kelly, Kelly shoot the puck” soon the players are going to stop thinking and just listen to what the coach has to say all the time. However once you get into a stadium with 75,000 screaming fans the players on the ice no longer can hear the coach and they do not know what to do because they haven’t thought on their own before.

What I want to do as a teacher is get my students to think on their own and interject when they need help or cannot solve the problem on their own.

Writing in my First Grade Classroom

It was not really until this semester that I began to see writing instruction in my first grade classroom. Previously writing only focused on practicing handwriting and the different letters of the alphabet, but now as students have progressed my CT has moved into writing sentences. She began scaffolding writing by just having students practice writing words, then putting words together into sentences, then reinforcing capital letters at the beginning and a punctuation mark at the end. Slowly students are being asked to write more than one sentence and oftentimes these sentences are related—in this way, they are moving towards writing paragraphs. As for instruction, I haven’t necessarily seen direct instruction for sentences because I am only there once a week. But my CT does give them a lot of practice and she has even begun working with them on making rough drafts, then editing these rough drafts into a “final copy”. This is obviously less in-depth than the writing process discussed in Thompson but it is getting them more used to the idea of fixing and changing their writing so that when they start to learn the five steps of the writing process it will not be so strange for them. I think this scaffolding is really working with the students in my classroom and I feel like their writing abilities have definitely improved over the course of the semester.

One thing that I do not feel is working well in my classroom is issues with spelling. The students in my classroom get so caught up on spelling that they fail to produce any writing. I think my CT could implement or model more independence-building strategies. For example, she could reinforce to students to use the word wall when they are writing. In addition, she could model how to sound out words and even show the students that correct spelling is less important than getting our ideas out onto the paper (so modeling making mistakes in her own writing in front of the classroom). One thing I have never seen her do is use the overhead to demonstrate writing with her students. I am curious whether or not she does this when we aren’t there. However, I do think that most of the time spent on writing is teacher-directed and I feel that perhaps she should start moving into more student-directed writing (having them pick their own topic and work more on brainstorming). The students would really benefit from getting some practice with being independent learners.

New Literacies Reflection

For my New Literacies Project I chose to do a scrapblog about visual literacy. I had never used a scrapblog before and so navigating through this took a bit of time but eventually I was able to become proficient in using this technology. I had some technical difficulties and had to contact their web-help, but was able to get my blog completed. In order to use this program you need to have a basic understanding of the internet, knowledge of how to upload photos, as well as time, just to explore the technology’s many functions and applications.

As for my growth in my understanding of literacy, my knowledge has greatly expanded. I had begun with only a very basic sense of literacy (reading, writing, listening, viewing, and speaking). However after doing my own project as well as viewing others, I am now able to see and understand that literacy comes in a variety of forms and is not as limited as I had previously believed. In addition, the discussions we have had in class have also informed my new view on literacy. Literacy is everywhere and becoming literate can greatly impact a person’s daily life. For me I had always thought literacy was only something that took place inside the classroom, but learning about visual literacy helped me realized what a huge impact it has on people everyday. Where my previous definition included viewing as a part of literacy, doing research on visual literacy greatly expanded my perception of this type of literacy. It’s not just looking at pictures in a book, but it is signs, symbols, and charts, any sort of image that relays a message without using words or in conjunction with words.

Additionally, learning about a technology itself I feel is another form of literacy—“technological literacy”. There are certain skills and abilities you need to have in order to be able to navigate through a new technology. As I mentioned earlier, using a scrapblog involves knowing about the internet, how to upload photos, as well as reading and writing skills; for other technologies there may be different skills sets necessary.

If the students in my first grade classroom were learning to use the scrapblog, there are various skills and knowledge they would need to have in order to be successful. Knowledge of how to run a computer, how to use the internet and how to upload pictures are the technological skills they would need to have. They would also need to develop strong reading, writing, viewing, and listening skills in order to even navigate to the proper page, not to mention create a project using scrapblog. This technology involves typing in URLs but also typing information on a page. Furthermore it involves being able to read instructions or viewing and understanding the symbols on the webpage. This kind of learning could be incorporated into my classroom through-whole class instruction in a computer lab where we learned about the different aspects of the computer and the internet. We would also need to continue instruction in reading and writing skills, however we could practice these skills somewhat authentically be viewing other appropriate scrapblogs where students would have to practice reading and viewing images. We could then practice writing captions or short pieces of writing in order to be able to better suit the writing style associated with scrapblogs. It would take a lot of time and work but with proper and effective literacy instruction, I think students would be able to learn about and use this technology.

Reflection

This project has taught me a lot about the different types of literacy’s that are out there for students to learn about. I pictured literacy as merely the foundation for reading, writing, and learning from what we read and write. I now know that there a multiple forms of literacy that can come from emotion to politics and everything in-between. The literacy’s project has made me become more aware about the opportunities for learning from everyday items; for instance, you can ask students to express how they feel using emotional descriptive words. I think the single biggest area of growth that I experienced from doing this project was opening my mind to the thousands of opportunities you can have trough out the day to educated your students in the different literacy’s.

In order to have effective literacy instruction I believe you need to have the children experience the literacy’s in their natural environment and than place the label of the literacy to the experience. As a teacher you have to be committed to the idea that you want to teach about the literacy’s and reinforce the students when the display knowledge of a literacy. For instance if a student notices something culturally different between him/her and another individual you should ask the students what kind of literacy that would be and than further discuss the differences and how the apply to class/society. I believe that as a teacher you need to design your lesson around the GLECS that you want to cover but the manner in which you do that is where you can incorporate the different literacy and the different technologies.

In order for the students to have an effective time using technology you need to have commitments form the students that they will do the task involved because it is virtually impossible to monitor computer work if it is being done at home. I have found that the students really enjoy learning about new technology and they enjoy getting out of the typical classroom environment. The students would have to be familiar with a computer or the teacher will have to create a lesson about getting familiar with a computer which in and of itself might not be a bad idea because for some students a computer could be a new technology.

In the end I really enjoyed making a website and using all different forms of environmental literacy for this project. I really enjoy using technology and it often comes really easy to me so I can see myself using a lot of technology inside of my classroom next year.

literacIES

What I have come to realize through working on this project is that there is so much more to literacy learning than I had originally thought. Looking back on one of my first blogs, I wrote that "technically, I think literacy involves the understanding and application of the written and spoken word". I followed this statement by saying that literacy extends to the skills that students can be provided from an understanding of literacy. I read this post now and I realize that my thoughts on literacy were leaving a lot out. I had tried to think of literacy in a new way, but this resulted in still thinking of literacy in one way- in a very general way. Although my idea of what literacy was had grown from just "reading and writing" to also mentioning opportunity and responsibility, I was still only looking at the big picture.

Researching a new literacy, and looking at others' projects helped me to see that I was unaware of the importance of several different types of literacies. I wrote that literacy "opens doors for students", but how does it do this? If I was describing literacy only in terms of "phonetics, comprehension, fluency, etc", than how did I expect literacy to teach students about the world they were living in?

Now I know that literacy is comprised of many parts, and each part is equally important to the success of a student.

I learned from each of you, that as teachers, we need to promote and practice all different types of literacy in our classrooms.

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Using emotion words in our classroom will make our students successful "emotional literacy" learners, but will also help them to identify and manage their feelings- something crucial to their everyday life.

Teaching our students about the environment through writing and text will help them to become "environmentally literate", but will also help them to make decisions that could impact the future of our environment.

Through "cultural literacy", our students will not only strengthen their reading and writing skills, but will also learn about their own and other cultures. This is what makes students the open-minded people of tomorrow.

Using images in our classrooms will help our students understand the visual world that they live in. When our students are "visual literacy learners" they are better equipped to navigate their world, and make connections from what they learn to their lives.

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Put together, knowledge of these literacies make well-rounded, rich learning. Each literacy is important, and each literacy becomes more important when incorporated with another one.

Additionally, the project has allowed me to take my thinking of literacy a step further. I feel that I have a new appreciation for all that literacy is, and am beginning to think of ways that I will promote all of the literacies into my classroom. The projects gave great examples of how to do so, and will be wonderful resources to use when planning to teach literacy in a future classroom.

Literacy project reflection blog

When I walked into this literacy class I thought of literacy as reading and writing. In a classroom I always thought of teachers teaching literacy through reading to a class and having them complete a written response to assess their comprehension. I never thought about teaching literacy through the literacy topics we discussed in class. When I explored my own project on cultural literacy, I learned how I can teach my students about different cultures. I even learned that cultural literacy is more than just cultures like Asian American, Mexican American, African American, etc. Through my project I learned that it is beneficial to teach children about different cultures such as the down syndrome community and autistic community because many students will encounter a student with a disability at least one year in school.
At this point in the year I am thinking like an educator. Whenever we discuss topics in class around the idea of literacy development, I am constantly thinking of ways that I could create a lesson around that idea so my students stay engaged and motivated to learn. Through this course, and conferences I have attended this past semester, I have also learned about many new technologies that I can use in my classroom to provide additional resources in literacy development for students. Through our literacy projects I have learned about websites that allow a person to create scrapblogs, blogs, and even creating your own website. These resources allowed me to think about how I could use these in my classroom one day. Websites would be perfect for communication with students and parents at home and in school hours where you could provide links to websites that are beneficial to student learning. Scrapblogs can be used to present information in a very creative and eye catching way to students and parents. Finally, blogs can be used to communicate with parents in the community, and also with students as another resource for writing practice. There is just so much a teacher can do with literacy instruction. MSU has provided many classes to prepare me to break that just “reading and writing” barrier and incorporate so much more into literacy instruction for my future students.
To provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners means to create a lesson around the GLCES that can be modified for all learners. Since teachers need to perform around the GLCEs they can create many different types of lessons to make sure all students are learning to their full potential. For example, if a teacher needs to teach comprehension, many lessons can be made to center on testing students’ comprehension. Teachers could have students take mini quizzes after reading and fill out charts as they read to test text to text, text to self, text to world comparisons. Teachers could also have students create a visual model to represent their book to appeal to the learners who are more hands on and can show their comprehension through art. In my 3rd grade classroom I have seen my CT use many different ways to teach and assess comprehension and spelling. She always gives her students options on projects/assignments that they can choose from to complete. My CT said that this flexibility allows for her students to choose the learning style that works best for them, but creates a little more work on the teacher. She said that in order to diversify assignments teachers need to be able to bend once in a while to make sure all here students are learning to their full potential.
If students in my 3rd grade were learning to use my technology that I explored through my literacy exploration project they would have to be familiar with using computers and accessing the internet. As a teacher I would have to bring my students to the computer lab many times before sticking them into a situation where they would have to go to a webpage and navigate through the components on the webpage. Also my students would have to be familiar with the vocabulary and words on the page in order to read and comprehend the information presented on the webpage. As a teacher I would have to make sure my students have some information on the topics discussed on the webpage in order to make sure that they can understand the information on a computer screen. Computers are also very distracting to some students so as a teacher you would have to make sure you set ground rules on how to act in computer labs and what is appropriate behavior when working on a computer. I think it would be too difficult to have my 3rd graders create a website on their own. With 30 students in a classroom you would need more than 1 teacher helping the students navigate through the site. Therefore, students could benefit from a website already made, gaining the information directly on the site, and clicking around to see all the tabs and graphics displayed. As a teacher I could do some pre-assessments and provided my students with a good background to what the website I created was about, and then I could provide my students with a worksheet to fill out to keep the students on track and provide a way for assessment.
Using the website Weebly to create my website was very easy and fun! I never knew that creating a professional website could be so simple! I really enjoyed how the Weebly allowed me to organize my information in tabs to create an easy was to navigate through the website. I also liked how the Weebly provided me with set templates where all I had to do was type in my information and it was all set up for me. I also liked that I could insert and delete a text box or picture whenever I needed. I never thought of accessing information on the internet as a form of literacy development. I think I was just stuck in my old way of thinking that literacy is plainly just reading and writing from a text. I really enjoyed how this project challenged us to think of literacy all around us and how we as future educators can come up with creative ways to display information to our students. I think it is very important for student to use technology for literacy instruction. In today’s world, we are all on the internet. It is very important that students learn how to navigate the internet so that teachers can do lessons on website, blogs, etc. The more comfortable students are with using assistive technologies, the more creative teachers can be with there lesson playing and the more engaged students will be in the classroom.

kindergarten comprehenders

It is interesting to write think about my students as comprehenders this week because I just taught my literacy lesson in field. The lesson was based on comprehension, and I was shocked at how well all of the students did. I read the book The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. The book is based on the life cycle of a plant, and I thought that the fact that students had to understand a brand new science concept might stand in the way of their comprehension of the story. However, every student was called on to answer a comprehension question, and every student was able to retell a part of the story. To me, this was a great accomplishment. At the end, we had students talk about their own experiences with plants. The fact that they were able to share what happened in their own life, and then tell how it was like or unlike an event in the story showed that they were able to understand the meaning of the text. I also really liked that the book was about the life cycle, because it forced us to focus on the events in chronological order. The students able to tell me what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the text. Most surprisingly, the students made accurate predictions of what would happen next if the story continued. They were able to say that the season would be fall again, and that the seeds from the plant would turn into new plants.
I noticed a few different profiles of comprehension among the students. The majority of the students fit into the minimalist category. That is, most of them gave brief answers and only elaborated if they were pushed to. Even then, they were happier giving simple and quick answers to our questions. Other students got excited to speak, especially during the portion that asked them to reflect on their home experiences. These students went on tangents, and it sparked excitement in other students. Some of these students that volunteered were left-fielders. They got so excited to raise their hand and talk about home that they often brought up unrelated ideas. When asked to relate their experience to the text, they got confused and brought up another unrelated topic.

Struggle City

In my classroom it has been kind of difficult to see how our teacher teaches really anything since she has been out of the classroom all but two weeks. I have seen some of the ways she teaches comprehension but I have never seen her actually conduct or teach it to the students.

One of the methods she uses for comprehension is through monthly book reports. The students get to pick a book that is at their reading level or above and they have to have a one on one conference with her about the main elements of the book, plot, setting, characters, ect and anything else that interests them about the book. This activity is really hit or miss with my class either the students really enjoy doing the book reports or they do not even attempt to read a book for their reports. For the students who do read their books this is a good tool for building comprehension because it has the student recall specific points from the book.

Our substitute teacher has been teaching lessons on how to go about making flow charts that follow the progression of whatever story they happen to be reading for that week. This helps the students focus the ideas of the story and it still kind of shocks me how much students can struggle finding out the meaning of a story.

I would say that my students are mostly authors and left fielders. The majority of my classroom does not get out of a story its intended meaning rather they try to apply one or two of the story lines to their life. We have one student that if he see’s any type of sports ball he will only talk about basketball and how he wants to be a basketball player for the rest of class.

Comprehension

In my classroom comprehension is taught in many different ways. I am placed in a 3rd grade class and my teacher still uses lots of scaffolding to help her students really understand the texts they read. My teacher explained to me that she likes to use lots of variation. She does not want to bore her students with the same worksheet after they read everyday, and she also does not want to make them fill out a KWL every time they read. I really like this about my teacher because her students really never seem bored during literacy. A couple weeks ago my teacher was working on a poetry unit with her students and instead of just reading the poetry aloud as a group she created poetry groups. She split the students up into groups of 3 or four and provided them with many different techniques on how they can read poetry together as a group. She showed them how to use sticky notes to write down questions they have while they read or words that were challenging to them. She also encouraged them to create mental pictures in their minds when they read the poetry and share what the poems reminded them of in their own lives. The students loved reading Shell Silverstein because the poetry can really relate to the students’. My CT chose many authors whose poetry could relate with her third graders.

My teacher has also talked to me about how she scaffolds her students through their comprehension skills. Everyday the students have silent reading time after lunch where they pick any book in the classroom to read. I always wondered if the students were actually using their time productively because I noticed many of them reading “Where’s Waldo” books. However, today my teacher began tracking their comprehension in what they are reading everyday. My CT has her students pick from a list of different ways where they can make a T-chart or a thinking web, make text to text, text to self, text to world connections, create questions, and make mental pictures. All these techniques allow the students to follow a guide to help them monitor their own comprehension. My CT then sits with different students’ everyday to make sure they understand what there are reading and that they are using their time productively. I think that the comprehension menu that my teacher provided is a great idea for students to be able to choose what they want to focus on without forcing them to relate with something that they do not understand. I think it is also good that this menu showed the students that while you read, you can think about your own life and create pictures in your mind to test your comprehension, rather than just answering questions after reading a text.

My students are becoming better at comprehending what they are reading at this point in the year. My CT has really challenged them to stretch beyond just answering questions after they read and allowing them to be creative with their comprehending techniques. They are a lot better at comprehending when they are reading with a partner because they keep each other on task and ask each other questions. My CT is really focusing now on the independent work time where they can ask themselves their own comprehension questions. In Applegate’s text she talked about different types of learners. Many of my students are Fuzzy Thinkers and Quiz Contestants. Some of them do not report very clear observations to allow the teacher to question if they actually comprehend what they are learning. Other students are Quiz Contestants in the way that they come up with logically correct answers but they really do not make sense to what they were reading so it is hard to tell them that they are wrong. I really enjoyed Applegate’s text because I could probably relate every student in my classroom to a category she listed in her article.

Out in Left Field

My CT does a lot of think-alouds and modeling for the students in order to encourage comprehension. In addition, as she reads stories, she often makes connections to other parts of the texts or even other texts so that students can begin seeing and understanding the kind of thinking necessary for comprehension. Throughout different texts, she is always asking questions and encouraging students to become engaged in the story we are reading. My CT does not necessarily tell the students that these ways of thinking improve comprehension (at least she has never said anything about it while we are there) but I have seen some of the kids pick up on it and a few are able to make text to self and text to text connections.

Since I am in a first grade classroom and most of my students are struggling readers, I feel that the students do better with comprehension when it is a text that is either 1) read together or 2) read to the students. This way they can focus more on meaning of the text rather than on the phonological processes necessary to decode the text. However, even in our group read-alouds I was able to identify many of the different profiles that Applegate (2006) discusses in her article. Reading her article and having the discussion in class kind of brought me to an “aha” moment as I began to think about the students in my own classroom. I also found it very helpful that Applegate did not just present the different profiles but also ways to help those different students with their comprehension skills.

For the most part, I would say many of my students are left-fielders and so listening to some of the comments my classmates made about how their CT’s deal with this (i.e. making sure before you allow a student to speak that their comment/question is on topic and also giving students time right after lunch to share whatever story they want) was really helpful. I know I have always struggled with wanting to let the children share but also recognizing that their stories, while important to them, were very off-topic and were probably confusing to their classmates. Hearing ideas both from the Applegate article and from my classmates will definitely help me the next time I feel that I am struggling with keeping my students focused on the text at hand.

a, b, c's

Out of all of the student's in my kindergarten class, I would have to say that Rebecca is struggling most when it comes to reading and writing. By this time in the year, students should be reading at a level 12 according to the DRA's. This means that they should be able to read a short story, with a sentence on each page. Rebecca struggles to even recognize the letters in the alphabet. During field last week, I watched Rebecca during all of the literacy activities to try to see how (and how much) she is participating. What I realized is that every time the students are asked to do a literacy activity, they are in groups. In the morning, my CT reads a story and asks a morning message about it. During this time, the students are in a whole group at the rug. Rebecca never raises her hand to participate in the morning message. When they sing their ABC's, Rebecca looks embarrassed and does not sing along. This made me think... do I ever see Rebecca participating in front of a group?
After Mr. C reads the daily story he sends the kids into their centers. Here, they work in front of or with other students to complete literacy activities. When they go to work more closely with grandma, they are still in their center groups. Mr. C will sometimes pull kids to work with, but again, they are together.
To get a better understanding of Rebecca, I pulled her aside to talk about reading and writing one on one. I asked her if she liked to read. She said no. She also said she didn't like to write. The whole time, Rebecca looked away. I wondered why I had never noticed how shy Rebecca was before and it hit me. I never really noticed Rebecca. It is the loud, excited, and outgoing kids that catch your attention. It takes effort to really pay attention to the students who are shy and afraid to participate in front of others. I wonder if Rebecca would be more engaged with literacy if she had the opportunity to learn one on one with her teacher? But with a class of 31, I do not see many chances for that type of learning. So what else can I do?
Reading the Gibbons chapter made me think about the importance of group work. Rebecca could really benefit from working with her peers, and instead of solely focusing on how she may improve with individual attention, I think it's important to consider helping her become more comfortable in the classroom community.
Several activities stood out to me in the chapters. First, having students interview each other and fill out questionaires (although simple- putting a one word answer to a question about the other student) about their classmates would be a great way for Rebecca to get to know the other kids. There are many group activities throughout the day, but Rebecca is never challenged to participate. The students are supposed to, but expectations are not enforced. Having this activity would allow all students to learn about each other, and would challenge Rebecca to talk to and in front of others.
I really liked the Hot Seat activity, but I think it may be too complex for kindergarten. Instead, I think that if Mr. C had name sticks or some other random calling method, Rebecca would have to participate in discussion and morning message responses. She doesn't participate but knows she will never have to. If a name is called, Rebecca will get used to sharing just like everyone else. Learning to work with her peers will help build literacy skills that will hopefully translate to improved reading and writing.

Struggling Students

Kepler is a student in my class who always surprises me. He knows so much knowledge about the world because he travels so much throughout the year. His mother is a professional writer and he loves telling me all the things she writes about. He probably knows every type of train and his high vocabulary surprises me every time I am in the classroom. However, Kepler has so many ideas in his little head that struggles to convey his thoughts through writing. Whenever the students in my class are assigned to write in their journals, he always takes so long to come up with something to write about that he only has about one sentence on his paper when the rest of the students are moving on to the next activity. He is always in need of a teacher to talk him through his writing so he can come up with ideas to write about. Even when he knows what he wants to write, he writes very slowly, thinking about the spelling of every word. Kepler loves to read and always has a book to recommend to me!

Paris is another student in my class that struggles with conveying her thoughts through writing. However, she has many problems trying to understand what they are asking of her to write about. She is low-achieving in almost every subject and needs extra assistance on her assignments. Paris likes to read aloud to me, yet she skips over many words and does not read with much expression. Paris depends a lot on her peers to help her through her writing assignments, asking them what they are writing about and copying off their ideas. Paris never hesitates to ask for help.
Alan is another student in my classroom who does not like reading or writing. Whenever he is assigned either one he goofs around and distracts his peers. In order to get him to beginning writing a teacher has to sit down with him and get him started. He has an attitude like he does not care about what he is working on and the teacher basically ends up giving Alan all his ideas for his writing assignments because he never can come up with ideas on his own. I think teachers just get frustrated with him and he has learned that they will eventually help him through his entire assignments so he does not have to try on his own. Alan is an EI student and always has a parapro with him. When Alan is reading he seems to just look at the picture and not the text itself. He can read, but not very fluently and often asks how to say many of the words because he does not try to sound them out on his own.

If I was working with Alan on comprehension I would like to use the “Hot Seat” activity in the Gibbons text. Alan loves to be the center of attention and loves to make his peers laugh. Since he has trouble figuring out what he can write on paper, I believe this activity would allow him to convey his thoughts while talking to his peers through a fun activity. In this activity Alan would portray a character in from a book and then answer questions from his peers pretending to be a specific character. Alan would love to do this activity and it would allow him to shine, along with using his comprehension skills to act like the character in the story.
If I was working with Paris on being able to comprehend what she is reading along with learning from her peers rather than copying from them I would use the activity “I’m Thinking of” in the Gibbons text. This activity would allow Paris to work in a group, something she is comfortable doing, and however, it would allow her to be able to come up with her own ideas so she would not be tempted to copy off her peers. She will be able to use her previous knowledge and turn it into a game where her peers will try to guess what she is describing. This activity will also allow Paris to gain knowledge from her peers because they will be modeling for her when it is their turn.

If I was working on conveying Kepler’s thoughts on paper I would use the activity, “Journal Writing” from the Gibbons text. This is simple writing practice that will get Kepler into the routine of writing after every assignment. The more writing, the faster he will get with putting his thoughts into words on paper and keeping up with the rest of his class. This journal activity asks the question, “What did I learn.” Even though this may seem very tedious to Kepler, it allows the teacher to see not only the improvement in Kepler’s writing over time, but also it will be a good assessment for the teacher to see if Kepler understands what he is reading, and not just moving slow through his writing.

Weekly Blog

In my class we have a lot of students who are struggling to write at grade level. The students are pretty much all over the map and range from a 2nd grade writing level to a 6th grade writing level. This makes teaching quite difficult because you do not want to create hard assignments that the majority of the class can not finish but you do not want the upper edge class to be bored.

What I like to do is give the students an open-ended question that can have a multitude of answers; for instance, what would you do if you moved into the White House. This way the students who are above grade level writing can write as much as they want and be as specific as they want to be. Meanwhile the students who are struggling have a simple question where they can work on their writing and outlines. When we begin writing I try to go around and make sure that the struggling readers are working on an outline to get their ideas from their heads to the paper. I find that the majority of the problems that my students have stem when the students go to transcribe their thoughts onto the paper. I have also found that the students who excel with their writing and in other subjects some times have problems with transferring their thoughts onto the paper.

Another technique that I believe is very important for 4th and 5th graders is building their proofreading skills. The Tompkins article stats that a beginning writer should start to proofread their compositions in order to build a strong argument and make sure they are conveying the proper message. I have found that a lot of times students will not answer the question rather they will start answering the question and than go off into a tangent without knowing it. The major differences between the beginning reader and the fluent reader category is the student’s ability to be proficient in the proofreading and grammar areas, so I believe we should start them early.

One student however baffles me with how much knowledge he has and how he can connect complex ideas to other ideas. This student can tell you what anti-matter is and he can tell you the reasons why WWI happened. However this student cannot transfer the thoughts in his head to paper to save his life. The always complains about writing and how he never likes to write about his life because it is boring. He often says that he enjoys writing about fantasy but when he gets that opportunity he will only write one paragraph if that. He often wants to read me what he wrote but I always tell him that I need to read his paper, trying to get him to proofread it before he gives it to me to read. If you guys have any suggestions on how to develop his transfer ideas let me know!

Issues with Phonics

There is one boy in my class who struggles with phonics, specifically with segmenting and blending to form words. He knows his letter sounds but is unable to separate words out into their individual phonemes and then blend them together when we read a story. He does know some sight words but still struggles with many of these as well. Right now he spends his time practicing reading but I feel that he may need to back up a step or at least spend more time with just practicing how to put words together through segmenting and blending. He could really benefit from some one-on-one help.

The main concept that he needs work with then before he can move forward towards reading is probably getting some practice with segmenting and blending words. The first activity I might try with him is just focusing on beginning sounds by providing him with a word and asking him to just give me the beginning sound or the first sound he hears in that word. Then I would ask him for the middle sound and then finally the last sound. (I would make these short words such as cat, log, red, bin, etc). After that we would practice putting the word together to form a whole word. We would practice these together and then I would ask him to try a few on his own.

A second activity I might try would be one similar to the phonological awareness activities we did in class today, blending phonemes into real words. I would say the different phonemes of a word (i.e. /d/ /o/ /g/) and then ask him to tell me what the word is. Along with this activity I would include having him segment the words that I say (i.e. I give him the word “not” and he replies /n/ /o/ /t/). This would help him get some practice with segmenting and blending orally before looking at an actual word on paper and trying it on his own.

A third activity I would want to do with him would then be to do some practice with putting letters together to form words as well as rhyming. I would cut out squares that had different letters on each square. I would then segment a word out loud and ask him to find the corresponding letters to the sounds and put them together to then discover the word. For example, if I said /r/ /a/ /g/, he would have to find the letter that corresponds with each sound and put them together, then look at the word himself and blend in order to come up with the word. I would make it so that some words would have similar beginning sounds and others would have similar ending sounds (i.e. doing “rat” and “rag”, or “hat” and “sat”). This would help him start to form a better idea of how words are put together and that many words are very similar and only vary but a single letter or sound.

Through all of this I feel it would be important to just move slowly. I feel that he is being rushed through a lot of the work and is failing to grasp concepts but the rest of the class continues to move forward while he falls further and further behind. Through activities such as these I feel he could gain some valuable insight into phonics and other aspects of phonemic awareness that would be really helpful for him. In addition to these types of one-on-one activities, in whole group discussion I would spend time incorporating other activities for beginning readers as is mentioned on p. 97 of the Tompkins book, like reading charts of poems and songs using choral reading. I think that had activities such as these been incorporated into daily learning right from the start of his education then this student may not have had as many issues as he currently faces.

Elementary Discussions

In the Triplett article I read for our class jigsaw reading I learned different ways on how I can incorporate discussion into an elementary classroom. Before reading this article I thought it would be way too difficult to incorporate discussions into a classroom at the elementary level. Triplett stated, “Elementary students can have discussions that promote higher order thinking. When topics are related to children developing identities, including race, gender, and class.” Triplett also stated later in the article that, “Students reported in interviews that book discussions were the most important aspect of their motivation and comprehension.” These two statements taught me that it is very necessary that teachers involve elementary students in discussion at an early age to aid in their comprehension and open doors for students to relate what they are reading to their everyday lives.

Monday in class we also talked about recitations and discussions which also made me think about incorporating them into my classrooms. I really liked how we talked about how discussions made students aware that there are multiple answers to questions, and how both recitations and discussions are a good way to balance comprehension. We talked about how it is necessary to have multiple ways of assessment for variety and balance. Above all, I remember someone in class brought up wait time. This made me think about my current placement. During my social studies and science lessons I taught for 401, my teacher always gave me wonderful feedback. For both lessons she told me I need to improve on my wait time. She said I asked wonderful questions but I did not allow enough wait time so that all the students had time to think about what I was asking them. I feel that this component is very necessary in a classroom because every learner is different. Every learner comprehends knowledge at different levels, and we as teachers need to acknowledge this and allow enough time for students to think about the question they are being asked. If a teacher allows enough wait time, then the students will be able to have a more fruitful discussion because hopefully every student will be able to contribute.

I am excited for our Language Arts lesson because we will be able to have a discussion with our students. In science we were able to have a mini discussion with a small group of students. Through that discussion I learned that it is hard for a teacher to prepare for what will come up during the discussion so it is important for teachers not to over-prepare and allow students to bring up what is on their mind.

kids say the darndest things...

I have always imagined myself to be the type of teacher that incorporated discussion into the classroom whenever possible. I loved the classes (although there were very few of them) that allowed students to think out loud and bounce ideas off of their peers. To me, this is one of the best ways to learn. I must admit, though, that the idea of students becoming comfortable in a discussion and expressing their ideas can be a little bit scary. Not because I am afraid of what they will say, exactly, but because I have learned the importance of keeping students on task and focused throughout a lesson. From my experience in field over the past couple of years, I have seen how excited students get during a discussion. They are able to share their own experiences and make connections to their life outside of the classroom more freely when they are discussing a topic rather than being spoken to about a topic. However, students (especially in the lower grades) tend to get off task and go on rather long tangents when they become more comfortable speaking. Personally, I think that a lot of good ideas come from these "tangents", and as a facilitator of discussion, a teacher must help to point out the ideas within a student's response and help others to make connections to what their peers are saying. However, kids do say "the darndest things", and maintaining a balance between allowing students to discuss and keeping them on track is a challenge that I think will take a great deal of practice... and patience.

Reading Chapter Ten of Weinstein's Elementary Classroom Management really helped me to feel less anxious about facilitating discussions. What I found most helpful is the practical tips that were outlined for both recitations and discussions. I think that the portion on discussion tips is really relevant for lower elementary classrooms. I do not remember having any type of discussion until high school, so I want to make sure this is incorporated at an earlier age. One of the teachers mentioned in the text points out that "it takes time to learn how to participate in a discussion, and it's not easy to break out of the teacher-dominated interaction pattern so characteristic of classrooms". I think that if we start teaching students how to have an effective discussion earlier, they will be able to engage in this type of learning for a longer amount of time, which will help make meaningful connections before a high school setting.

The tips in the chapter make this seem possible. First, it mentions carefully planning a discussion question. Giving the students a jumping off point is critical to good discussion. Careful planning allows for creating subquestions in case students need a little more prompting later on in the discussion. I like how the text also points out that you should not give answers to the question if students seem stuck, and instead invite the students to tell anything they know about the question, or what it means to them. Finally, I think it is important to remember not to comment after the first student's contribution, and instead give proper wait time, which is something we discussed a lot in class. Allowing students time to think is very important and will result in better quality responses. Colleen also pointed out in class that younger students probably just need more wait time while participating in discussion. I am glad she pointed that out because I had the mindset that younger students wouldn't be able to have a meaningful discussion because they seem to be unable to make connections to what their peers are saying. I never considered the amount of wait time they are being given, and I am interested to see what happens when you allow them more time to really think about what is being said.

WAR

A discussion to me is a conversation where the students respond to a prompt and than the students shape the conversation. I led a discussion the other day in my 4th/5th grade classroom on the topics of; was war the best solution to WWI and WII?

Before I gave the students the prompt I set some of the ground rules that the students must follow in order to be involved in the discussion and to remain in the discussion. I told them that in order to participate in the discussion they had to have completed their homework from the day before (since the prompt came from the homework) and that they must follow the rules that we establish.

I told the students that they must raise their hand if they want to talk and when another student stopped talking I would point at them and they could respond. We have had some issues with students just talking over other students so I figured that would be a solid approach.

I wanted to do this discussion because it seemed that the students really wanted to talk about their different perspectives with the group but the teacher did not really allow them time to do so. McGee states, “In a group, readers share their own understandings and significant insights and must convince others of the value of their insights.” I believe that this type of skill is a necessity for survival and success in this modern day and age. In high school, college, and the job world you will not be judged for the most part about the facts you know but on how you can apply those facts and make the best possible decision.

So we started the discussion and the students talked about how the war was “going to happen” because of the events that took place. Rather than answering the question the students took it to a different level and talked about the type of things that you could go to war for. They came up with “Ideas, if people are hurting other people, and if someone bad was doing something really bad” but what we shouldn’t go to war over was “Land”

They created the discussion all on their own and everyone was really engaged in the discussion.

Before I thought about doing the discussion I had to know several things about the students as learners. I had to know how the students work with other students in a discussion type setting. I also had to know if the students could handle the discussion topic which was about the touchy subject of war.

Be Patient

The main types of talk I see occurring in my first grade classroom are I-R-E and book talks. Usually I-R-E is used during math lessons because the teacher is more focused on looking for a right or wrong answer, and book talks occur while we read from the students’ language arts textbooks when the teacher is looking to make connections to readers’ emotions and outside experiences. The book talks though, generally include my CT as the facilitator and inquirer while the students make the responses—sometimes my CT evaluates but she usually just allows students to answer or share without making any judgments. Unfortunately, really deep and meaningful discussions do not take place all that often though because, like the Triplett article stated, most book discussions are being abandoned due to the lack of time in the district’s curriculum—they are more focused on phonics first and comprehension second (64). I feel that my CT tries to incorporate discussion when she can, but there is a lot of pressure from her principal to bring students’ reading levels up and to spend more time on actually being able to read the text rather than discuss what they are reading about. I find this unfortunate because I feel that right now some of the kids are not motivated to learn how to read, but if they spent time discussing and connecting their readings to things that they find interesting in their lives then I feel their motivation and subsequently their learning would increase immensely.


In order for the children in my classroom to begin having these different ‘talks’ though, I feel that quite a bit of scaffolding would be needed. I liked the suggestions that people brought up in class today about modeling what a good or bad discussion would look like or even starting off by practicing discussions in small groups before moving to whole-class discussions. I think the main thing that I would see the students in my classroom having trouble with would be staying focused and on-topic. It would be important to remind them to stay on task and perhaps even having a central question or theme written on the board to remind them while we discussed. In addition, I feel like my students would need to be taught to listen to one another. Right now they are very self-focused and tend only to worry about their own thoughts or ideas. Therefore, modeling and explicit direction of building off of each other’s ideas would be very important. I think it is really important to remember though that students who have great discussions did not learn these skills overnight. It took time and patience from both themselves and their teachers in order to really understand and learn how to have a meaningful discussion, so I hope that we are able to keep that in mind and not get frustrated as we attempt to initiate discussion and talk in our own classrooms. Be patient...

students are people too

In the Ladson-Billings article there is a statement that reads, “When students are treated as competent they are likely to demonstrate competence” I believe this statement sums up my theory on how to treat children in the classroom in order to discover diversity among them.

I believe that the best way to get to know your students is to talk to them as adults and have meaningful conversations with your students whenever you can. A lot of kids will open up to a teacher once the feel that the teacher has respect for them and if they trust the teacher. You can build this trust and respect by treating your students like they are human rather than as an object that we call students. I do not believe that there is a set strategy out there that can explain the best way to get to know your students so you have to tailor your discussions to each child in your classroom. Once you have found out what your children enjoy and the kind of lives they lead you can expand on those principles to find out about the different experiences that each students has had. Diversity comes from the experiences that each individual has so in order to bring diversity into the classroom you have to give the children viable avenues to express themselves. (Writing, reading, stories, and group talks ECT)

It is important to get to know your students from multiple perspectives because as humans we are not 1 dimensional objects. Whenever we make a decision about anything there are hundreds of external and internal forces that influence that decision. If a student decides not to do his/her math homework and the only thing you know about that student is that he/she is not strong in math and you can easily write that off as the reason; however, if you know that he/she has no parental support, does not experience math in daily life, and the countless other factors you can create an environment where that student can become successful in math.

piaget is dead...

A lot of things stuck out to me while reading this week's articles. But the one thing that really seemed to hit home was a quote from a teacher in the Lapp article. The teacher said, "Sometimes we have to learn that the textbook gives us good method [and] good theories, but Piaget is dead. Freud is dead... these are kids of the 21st century".

I seemed to keep this quote in the back of my mind throughout the rest of the reading, as well as our classroom discussion on Monday. We are taught methods and theories as a way to understand our students and their learning process. We are asked to think about what it means to be in an urban area and how environment affects our students. Naturally, we want to use the method and theory to explain our students, and often think of what we learn in class as an end-all, or a sort of quick fix to the challenges we may face in the future. What I have realized, though, is that in order to truly look at my students from multiple perspectives, I cannot always or only rely on what I have read in textbooks.

First, I want to say that learning these methods and theories have not been bad in any way. In fact, the knowledge we have gained through all of our courses is a great tool. But it is simply not everything we will need to teach, relate to, help, and learn from our students. I thought it was interesting how Tim said that we immediately think of negative aspects of urban areas because that is what is drilled into us from the start. I think this is true. I learned in another one of my classes that as people, we often like to think of things in a "glass half full" way, with a positive lens over things. This is known as the "Pollyanna Effect", which I think is true for the most part. Because of this innate tendency to look at everything positively, when we are introduced to something negative, it sticks. This is why negative media sells, and perhaps why we only typically see "bad" news on television, and why we cannot get past the negative aspects of living in an urban area. However, this does not mean that we should not be paying careful attention to the negatives, and really thinking about their causes, and their effects. I am a firm believer that in order to change the cause of something negative, it is first imperative to recognize the effect. Talking about the effects of poverty, adult responsibility, inadequate resources, etc. is the first step to making a difference. How can we change anything if we don't analyze it as it exists? The Lapp article also touched on this, saying that one of the greatest challenges for practicing teachers had to do with "recognizing the impact of the urban context on teaching and learning in the classroom". Thankfully, our program is allowing us to do that now. Although full realization will not occur until we are experiencing it, we are at least thinking and talking about what is going on. We will be that much closer to understanding the diversity in our classrooms.

However, as I am writing this, I am still thinking back to the first quote mentioned. To really look at my classroom from multiple perspectives I will have to be able to relate to each one of my students, get to know them and what they are going through, and learn from them. The only way to reach that level is to look at every child as an individual. Piaget's theories will be helpful at times, but we can't simply apply them to every child. We can't use Freud's theories to explain every student's actions. People change, situations change, and no two student's backgrounds will be identical. We have to take what we know and expand on it, and use our student's experiences and life situations to grow as teachers, and to help every individual student learn.

Multiple Perspectives

In Ladson-Billings article titled, “The Dream Keepers” She states, “Students whose educational, economic, social, political, and cultural features are most tenuous are helped to become intellectual leaders in the classroom.” As a teacher it is our job to insure that all of our students feel comfortable and safe in their classroom community so they can reach their potential in the classroom. I believe as a teacher you could do many things to learn about the diversity in your classroom to really get to know your students while having your students get to know their classmates. You could attempt to get to know your students’ parents. You could send notes home, call homes, or even set up meetings with them to get to know who the students are going home to at night time. You could have your students introduce themselves in a journal, an informal peer to peer interview where they present to the class the interview, or even just setting up a time where you can meet at lunch with your students for a one on one interview and have informal conversation finding out anything you want about that particular student. You could also have an international day where you invite your students and their parents in to share a piece about their culture with the rest of the class.

Before a teacher considers doing any of this I think it is important for teachers to consider who the students are. If you are teaching the younger grades it would be harder for the students to convey their thoughts through writing so it would be easier to incorporate show and tell into the classroom schedule. Writing assignments in the younger grades could even be as simple as them writing a sentence about themselves and drawing a picture. In the older grades they could do more creative writing about themselves through a classroom biography book. If it is too hard to get parental support, having an international day would probably be very hard to get participation. Therefore, a teacher could just have show and tell in the classroom where the students bring in something to shares with the class about their culture.

On top of getting to know your students culturally, in class on Monday February 2nd, I realized that on top of getting to know your students culturally, it is also very important to get to know your students strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. If a student struggles in a certain subject or multiple subjects, there may be a lack of intervention services for that particular student in you classroom with special needs if the teacher does not take appropriate action. It is our jobs as teachers to respond early and make as many accommodations as we can in the General Ed classroom. It is also important that the General Ed teacher collaborates with the Special Education teacher to get new ideas for modifications for the student who is struggling by using inclusion methods as much as possible/appropriate. Finally, this would also be a good opportunity for teachers to meet with the struggling students’ parents so that the teacher can go over the goals they have for the student as well as finding out the parents’ goals for the student.

Multiple Perspectives

For me, I have always felt that in order to have a productive and enriching learning environment in your classroom, it is important to know the students who make up that learning environment. After reading the Lapp article, it reinforced this idea, which Lapp highlighted as a “Need for Deep-Level Cultural Understandings” which closely related to the ability to manage your classroom (Lapp 2004).

I think there are a variety of ways though, that teachers can begin and continue to know their students but many of these strategies depend upon the age and performance level of students. For example, younger grades may have a hard time filling out a questionnaire and would need some verbal interaction with the teacher or be given art materials in order to convey some information about themselves. Another strategy would be to invite parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles into the classroom to talk about different students' cultural backgrounds so that not only do you as the teacher have a better understanding of that student, but so does that students' peers or even the student himself. I do not feel though that this information must necessarily always be directly given from the students. Simply by watching the way that students interact with one another or how they deal with different situations that arise in the classroom can tell you something about that student. I also think that a teacher can learn a lot about his/her students through their writing. By giving students prompts that allow them to discuss what they did over the weekend or where their favorite place is, teachers are able to not only give students practice with writing, but learn more about where that student is coming from. For example, from the writing samples we looked at today with Marcus and the exemplary example, we were able to learn a lot about those students without even meeting them. Simply knowing that Marcus gets his haircut at a barbershop rather than at home gives you a clue into the other parts of Marcus’ life and can help you understand the background from which he comes.

In addition, I feel that it is important to know your students from multiple perspectives because if you only look at them in one way, then you are limiting their capabilities and potential for success. For example, if I only knew my students by how well they performed on tests, then I would find some very competent and others very incompetent. However, if I looked at them from another perspective, say from how well they did in art class, then my ideas about them would change, as would my teaching strategies towards their strengths.

Literacy

What is Literacy to me?

Before coming to class on Monday, I saw literacy through the eyes of the student I was in TE 301. Literacy in that class focused on reading and writing. I saw literacy as concepts of print, fluency, phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, etc. Going into the schools in Lansing, I worked in a classroom that focused on just literacy all morning. They worked on the students basic writing skills and they did accelerated reader on the computer to test their comprehension. Before our class on Monday, I never thought of literacy as being something that gives us the ability to function in society in the way that puts us above others who are not literate.

I have now looked at literacy in a new way. I believe that literacy is the foundation upon which all knowledge is built. Literacy to me is more than just reading and writing. Literacy is the ability to comprehend, and apply the language in everyday life. In class we talked about how literacy is something we subconsciously do everyday. We read the newspaper in the morning, drive to work reading street signs and following directions. Without knowing how to read or write, we would not be able to interview for jobs or fill out job applications. Learning literacy is as simple as the basics (knowing how to read/write) as well as a way for long term development throughout your entire life. Currently I still struggle with grammar and realize that is still a form of literacy that I need to work on.
Also in class people talked about how you can still get through life without learning how to read and write. I do agree with this because my grandmother was one of those people. However, in the world today, people compete to get into colleges to get high end jobs and being a literate person would definitely work for your advantage.

As future teachers, we have a huge responsibility to insure that our students gain as much knowledge in terms literacy. This year, when I go into the classroom, I realize how much a teacher can incorporate literacy in every lesson. My CT does a great job having her students do lots of writing during her science lessons and she always chooses wonderful picture books to read to her students during social studies. My CT even has her students create math word problems during their multiplication unit. I realize as teachers it is our job to focus on the basics as well furthering our students’ literary skills so they can achieve their goals in later life so they can go to college and get their dream job.

After reading the Cambourne article, I gained more insights on how important it is for teachers to guide students in the classroom. Cambourne stated, “inappropriate responses are incipient bad habits, and must be extinguished before they firm up an become fixed” (Cambourne, 1995). This quote showed me how important it is for teachers to intervene early their student’s literacy learning so that they can excel and not get behind. Cambourne went on to state, “Learners are too immature or underdeveloped to make decisions about their learning so the process must be directed and controlled by the teacher” (Cambourne, 1995). This quote reminded me of a time when I was in my placement last year and my teacher allowed her students to choose any book they wanted to read. Most of the students chose newspapers and picture books so they could look at the pictures rather than read the text. I believe teachers need to make sure that their students are reading a variety of genres so they can be introduced to a variety of texts in the classroom because many students do not get the exposure at home.

Literacy is something you never stop learning because it is always around you!

my idea of literacy

I thought that yesterday's discussion of literacy was really intriguing. After learning about different aspects of literacy in TE 301, I felt that I had a pretty good idea of everything that went into it. We talked a lot about phonetics, comprehension, fluency, etc. I did research on these topics and could talk about each one of them and their importance. But after reading the Cambourne article and hearing the comments of my peers in our class, I realized that there was much more to literacy than I thought I knew.

Many of our classmates' definitions started out describing literacy in a more technical way. We said what literacy was, whether we decided to look at it generally, or specifically. However, almost everyone ended their definition by hitting at a overarching outcome of what it means to be literate. These are things that I had never thought of including in my own definition. I, like some others, thought of literacy in terms of its parts. What knowledge did a student have to know in order to be literate? Now, however, I have started to look at literacy in more of a package form. Not only what constitutes literacy, but also what occurs because of it, both to the individual and the world as a whole. In addition, the Cambourne article really opened up my eyes to what literacy means to a teacher, rather than just a student, as I thought about before.

First, I like to think of my own definition as a combination of the ones we heard in class. Technically, I think literacy involves the understanding and application of the written and spoken word. This includes all of the aspects I have learned about before- phonetics, comprehension, fluency, etc. It also includes the ability to give meaning to nonverbal as well as verbal clues.

But the definition of literacy expands beyond that. To me, it also includes what a student can do, or the world that is opened up, due to literacy. Literacy gives a person power. It becomes a tool to obtaining the power to learn from others, and spread knowledge to those around the world. It is a means to reaching a goal (the goal will undoubtedly change depending on someone's situation).

Finally, my definition of literacy speaks to the responsibility and obligation of teachers to give students the opportunity to reach their goals through literacy. Looking at Cambourne's article proved to me that teachers have a lot of work when it comes to promoting literacy. The different conditions are like steps or rules that teachers must follow to ensure that their students become literate. For example, the first condition mentioned is engagement. Teachers have to hook their students from the beginning, and get them excited to read and write from an early age. They must also instill the importance of literacy in their students from the beginning. If students have a genuine understanding of what literacy is, why it is important, and all that it can do for them, then they will have more motivation and a better chance of succeeding. Each of Cambourne's conditions is sort of an instruction- what teachers could or should be doing in their classroom to promote literacy. I like how we described each condition in class by giving an example, or a situation that depicted what the condition would "look like". We wrote these in terms of what the students would be doing- learning from a teacher's model for example- but what stood out to be is that the teacher would have to be fostering that student activity. Each one of those student's behaviors are a result of what the teacher would set up in the classroom community. I hope to be able to successfully use the knowledge I have gotten from Cambourne's conditions, and my appreciation for literacy to help build strong readers, writers, and communicators within my students.

Defining Literacy

I thought today’s discussion about defining literacy was really interesting because the entire class seemed really engaged especially since there were a lot of differing viewpoints. For me, I would say that my definition of literacy has generally remained the same after today’s discussion. I still view literacy as the abilities and skill sets that include but are not limited to reading, writing, speaking, listening and comprehension. I think my own definition is more specific and focused on the skills involved in literacy, whereas many other people in class today were coming up with broader definitions for the term. The best way I think to understand the connection between my definition and the others in the class is that mine would be almost a subset within their broader, overarching definitions. In addition, I believe, the idea that literacy is necessary to function in society does not seem a viable argument since many who are considered “illiterate” are perfectly able to live their lives. What I do agree with is that literacy is a bridge or a gateway to a more enriched and fulfilled experience as a person travels through life. I also think it is possible to be partially literate and like we discussed in class, there are different levels of literacy.

After reading the Cambourne article and watching the video of the Boston kindergarten classroom, I believe my ideal literacy learning environment would be a combination of that classroom and Cambourne’s conditions for literacy learning. I felt that all eight of those conditions were necessary components in creating a literacy learning environment that would be most beneficial for my students. I also thought that the conduct and events occurring in that kindergarten classroom were incredibly remarkable and covered many of Cambourne’s conditions; I hope that I will someday be able to establish a learning environment similar to that for my own classroom where students are engaged and immersed in literacy. In addition to these things, my literacy learning environment would include a diverse range of multicultural literature in order to enrich students’ knowledge about themselves and others. This is important because it teaches students to find value in themselves as they learn literacy and can help them engage by making connections to their own lives or between themselves and others.

Literacy

Literacy to me is the ability to comprehend and apply language in all of its forms (verbal, non-verbal, written, ect) in every day life. It is also the foundation for which all knowledge is built upon.

I put this down as my definition because it encompasses a lot of information in a “to the point” sentence. I believe that there are different levels of literacy and that a person can function in society without achieving the highest level of literacy. The ability to interpret non-verbal signals is just as important as being able to convey a verbal message to a friend or acquaintance.

I also believe that without a solid foundation in literacy there is a ceiling cap on how much a person can learn/do in society. Literacy is used in almost every subject from language arts to math and literacy affects every aspect of an individual’s life from driving a car to writing the great American novel. Without that solid foundation or knowledge in this area a person is going to struggle with the more complex tasks of society. Having a solid foundation in literacy makes learning other subjects simpler if you do not have to struggle with the language aspects of that particular subject.

I do not believe the readings this week really changed my definition of literacy since we discussed what literacy is in TE 301.

Now this might sound a little crazy but I have thought quite a lot about how I want to set up a reading area in my classroom. When I was working at my church with my dad we built this massive tree house stage set. The tree has a huge upper level with 4 -5 steps which I plan on putting carpeting on and padding the wood rails with some sort of cloth. Up there will be a reading only area where children can go read books during free time or during allotted reading time. This tree also has shelves below in which I can put tons of books on and angle it in such a way that it won’t take up that much space. I measured my CT’s classroom the last two years and it has fit in both classrooms which leads me to believe that I can fit it in my classroom wherever it may be.

On top of that I want to provide the students with numerous opportunities to get involved in literacy from reading what they enjoy to creating an environment where they can communicate easily with each other and myself.

in bloom...

what does it mean for a teacher to "bloom"?

I love metaphors. Thinking of myself as a teacher in "bloom" is exciting and relieving at the same time. I entered the College of Education at MSU and thought to myself that because this is one of the best Education programs in the country, I would know it all by the time I graduated. With one semester left, I realize that is impossible. Every day in field is a completely new day. I step into the classroom and I learn something new or see something I didn't expect to see. Kids are surprising. I think that to bloom as a teacher means to take it all in, and learn from it. Each experience tells us something about ourselves as a teacher, and as a person. It is hard to say what kind of teacher I want to end up being, because I know that even that will change as I am going along. But when I think about my career as a teacher in constant "bloom", not knowing it all right now seems a lot less scary.
What I do know is that even if I don't have all the answers, I have learned a lot. I hope that this class helps to boost my confidence as a teacher, and helps to prepare me (as much as possible) for my future students. One of the most important ideas I have taken out of my education so far is the responsibility to teach for all students. To do this, I think that it is critical to incorporate diversity and multiculturalism into all aspects of the classroom. I want to learn how to better reach all learners, and foster meaningful learning with all of my students. Literature is a great way to do this, even if it may be one of the more obvious places to do so. I am happy and grateful for this class because I think it will help to develop creative ways to reach students through Language Arts, and will provide us with information that can be applied to all areas of learning.
I think back to the teaching courses I have taken in the past, and I think that the best way to bloom as a teacher is to learn from others, but also learn from our own mistakes. That is another important goal of mine this semester. The only way to become better is to self-reflect and take others feedback. That is what makes the process of becoming a teacher successful, and is something that we can definitely do during this course.

Blooming

Area 1: The classroom

I believe that as a teacher we can always learn and grow with each class that comes through our doors. I am always looking for different ways to teach different students because I believe that the more ways you can teach a subject or concept the better the students will be able to understand it. I hope that over this year and into the following years I will be able to grow and learn different strategies to teach my students. It seems to be a common concern among the TE students that we get nervous in front of the students. I do not get nervous in front of the classroom but I do want to learn how to include the children more into the discussion because I do not think I really do a good job at that aspect of teaching.

Area 2: Academics

As a teacher and just because of my personality I believe that the more informed I am on any subject and the more general knowledge I posses I will become a better teacher. I always have been fond of reading about the world and the issues that are plaguing the world; for instance, the Gaza conflict right now. I can see myself going back to school to get my masters and eventually my doctorate.

Area 3: Personal Life with Teaching

I have always been a community kind of guy; in other words, I have always been very involved in the community that I live in. I have always played on the local soccer teams and have volunteered around my home town and here at Michigan State. When I become a teacher I want to find new ways to connect with my students through extra curricular activates. I am currently taking coaching classes for soccer and hockey so I do plan on coaching sports at the high school level at some point in time.

How I Want to Bloom as a Teacher

I am really excited about this course. During my placement last semester at Marble Elementary I was able to observe and assist in my 3^rd grade class during their language arts period. For example, my students recently just had a huge poetry unit where they were able to think creatively through many different types of poetry they published. I kept thinking about different lessons I could teach my students for this course!

Throughout my 301 placement I was in Lansing Schools. However, this year, I have been placed in East Lansing Schools. It amazes me how different the schools are with just a 15 minute drive from East Lansing to Lansing. I noticed how East Lansing has many more assisted technologies than Lansing had. For example, if I was to come up with a language arts lesson at Marble, I would be able to use a SMARTBOARD, or use an ELMO as part of my lesson; however at Lansing I did not see these technologies accessible to teachers at the school. Through my experience I believe that this is one of the major differences between urban and suburban school districts. Because of the greater funding that comes into the higher SES school, these schools get more resources which allow the school creativity through lesson planning.

However, lack of resources would not stop me from wanting to work in an urban district. These students want to learn just as much as students in suburban districts and they need the teachers’ motivation and belief in them to succeed. Throughout this course I want to learn how to motivate my students to enjoy reading, because I did not enjoy reading throughout grade school. No matter if the student struggles in reading or not, I hope that this class will teach me techniques and strategies to apply to my future teaching.

I am also aware that a teacher can incorporate literacy into so many other subjects. For example, during my social studies lesson that I taught last semester, I had my students do a write-up reflecting on what they just learned which provided me with an assessment of the social studies along with allowing me to see their writing skills. I noticed that many of my 3^rd graders still struggled with grammar and spelling. I hope this class will allow us to look deep into the GLCE’s to see what students are learning in terms of language arts in all the different grade levels.

I believe that as teachers we will never stop blooming. Currently, I am defiantly nervous to have my own classroom. I am really excited for the future, but I am also relieved that we get a full year of student teaching in before we take that next step into having our own classroom. With each class I take at MSU, I feel I have bloomed. From TE250 where we learned about diversity, then TE 301 where we learned about terminology and assessments, to finally our 401/402 classes where we can start to apply what we learn into the classroom. My biggest struggle right now is classroom management. I feel I am lacking the confidence to put my foot down when a child is talking out of turn and establish rules from the start. I have really been taking notes and observing how my CT structures her classroom to get ideas on what works and what does not work. I hope this class will give me new insights on classroom management and how to structure my classroom during literacy time (centers, peer groups, free write etc.)

All in all, I love that as teachers we can continue to gain new ideas and techniques through our lesson planning with peers our entire teaching career. We will bloom forever!