For my New Literacies project I chose to create an online comic on Environmental Literacy. At first I chose the new technology of an online comic because it looked completely different from what I was used to doing. It was not until I began the project that I realized that I needed to also practice the technology of websites and digital photos. First I downloaded a free 60 day trial of this program called Comic Life where you are able to turn your digital photos into a comic strip and alter the photos to look like a comic. That was a simple program to understand but I needed to get even more creative than that because digital photos are fine and dandy but how was I supposed to have people in them talking with thought bubbles? That's when I thought that I needed a narrator for my project and my Dwight Schrute bobble-head sitting on my desk looked like the perfect person for the job. I spent a few hours one day walking around campus taking photos of Dwight Schrute in various locations so it looked as if he was telling a story. I also had done the same thing previously with a "gift" for someone last summer so I had a ton of Dwight photos still on my computer from the previous summer sitting in trees and swing sets. After I had the comic up and running I needed to post it to a website, so to showcase my assignment I thought to just attach it to my website I had already created as a web portfolio. This was difficult to do because I did not want it to be confusing when you clicked on the hyperlink. It actually took a while to configure the comic to the page so it was easy for people to click on the first page and read the online comic.
I felt that the technology I chose fit my personality so well because I was able to be as creative as I could possibly be without the hindrance of HTML rules or website restrictions. I was able to let my personality take over my project in all its glory. This feeling of boundless possibilities gets me excited to think that if I made an assignment like this for upper elementary grades that the projects that I would receive back would be so unique and original! If I had a blast taking my Dwight Schrute bobble-head around taking pictures with it, I can only imagine how the students would feel if they got the same chance to do what I did.
However, I cannot say that this would be the case in the future when I teach. Who knows what kinds of households my students will come from and resources my students will have in the future. What I have is an ideal situation. Many projects using technology will have to be put to the side due to lack of funds and resources. Every teacher needs to teach to the group of students he or she has in the classroom. If the school has the resources and allows the students to borrow the supplies, perhaps my online comic could be something my future students could be able to implement as an assignment. Otherwise, other technologies would have to be used to ensure that each child has a chance to complete the assignment successfully.
I chose to study environmental literacy because that topic interests me the most and will have the most direct influence on my teaching if I gain a position as a 6-8 science teacher in the upcoming years. The research of environmental literacy is what interests me the most. Especially since I have read the book, Last Child In The Woods, by Richard Louv. This books defines exactly what I want to do as a teacher when it comes to the subject of science. The main purpose of his book and the main purpose of the Campaign For Environmental Literacy is to alert citizens that their actions affect the world around them. Richard Louv, primarily speaks about the research done on children who do not get the exposure to the outdoors as they grow up. Louv links this lack of nature to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.
What this project has pushed me to do in the future is get the kids outdoors. I know that when I think about taking kids outdoors for a walk around the school (even if it was in the confines of the school property) the first thing that comes to mind is that they will go wild and not pay attention whatsoever. But just like any other classroom management, wouldn't one have to teach and model to the students the correct way to be "scientists" in the outdoors? Especially if you made this time a part of the natural weekly routine the students will begin to take this time learning outdoors seriously. I know it can be done with high school students because I was in a class junior year that went on ecology hikes once a week and we learned our native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers in all seasons and were assessed on how to identify them. If my teacher at the time could have us behave while learning outdoors, I can too create scientists out of my students as well. In my mind I know what I would want to do if I had the chance to make outdoor learning a part of my bi-weekly or even weekly routine, it just depends on how it would be taken by those above me in the school hierarchy. It would never be used in a way to keep the kids from going out of control like I have memories from, from elementary school. I would be providing environmental literacy to my students.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
New Literacy Reflection
For my New Literacies Exploration project, I chose to create an informational website about Visual Literacy. Working first hand with this new literacy concept while using a new technology really changed my understanding of literacy even more than it has already evolved since the beginning of the semester.
On February 3rd, I made a blog post about Literacy, attempting to define it in what I thought were new terms. I first reflected on my previous conceptions of literacy as developed throughout my experiences in TE 150, 250, 301, and 401: “Literacy, for me, was the end goal of a step-by-step process of learning how to read. This included pronouncing phonemes, recognizing letters, concepts of print, and all these other pieces of the literacy process. After our discussion on 'What is Literacy?' and the readings concerning Literacy, though, I have come to realize that it is much more than that.” I went on to describe my ‘new’ conceptions of literacy. In reflection on this blog post, though I see that these ‘new’ conceptions still defined literacy as the ability to read, whether it was in terms of social functions or simply as a student reading in the classroom. Since then, however, I have grown and developed my definition of Literacy even further, especially after completing the New Literacies project. Because the literacy I learned about and reported on, Visual Literacy, is quite the opposite of reading words, I began to view Literacy with a much more broad perspective. As far as Visual Literacy is concerned, being literate is the ability to understand the world through images. These images can either be as simple as signs and symbols we use to navigate through our everyday lives, such as street signs, restroom signs, recycling symbols, map and map symbols, etc. Images can also be complex pictures, photographs, paintings and other works that have been specifically composed to convey a purpose or meaning that can be interpreted by a visually literate person. Finally, students can use visual literacy to communicate knowledge or meaning through drawings, thought webs, paintings, photographs, and more. After taking some time to explore some of my fellow colleagues’ new literacy projects, I now see that being literate is being able to understand the world in a fluent way, whether through reading, deciphering signs and pictures, understanding the needs of a healthy environment, social and political system or even communicating through use of emotions. All of these forms of literacy are relevant and can be used in critical ways in the classroom.
Another important aspect of literacy that I have come to understand through this project is being able to effectively communicate ideas, knowledge and understandings of the world around us. In the past, this meant by writing or drawing only, but now I view a wide range of technologies – such as blogs, scrapblogs, comics, and more - as modes of communicating ideas. As technology increasingly advances, the means by which students will be expected to fluently communicate and express themselves become more innovative and interactive. Students can use the technologies my colleagues and I explored to make their communication more interesting. Even posting in this blog has taught me a new way to express my opinions in a thoughtful and reflective way.
For me, learning how to create a website was a fun and exciting way to express my understanding of Visual Literacy. I chose to create a website because it was something I had never tried before and I had always been intimidated by the concept of using HTML. Fortunately, I found a great resource called ‘Weebly’ that allowed me to create and edit my webpage with a minimal use of HTML coding. In fact, I only used HTML to upload one thing on the site and even that was quite manageable. I felt so accomplished after having learned a new technology and having successfully created my own website. In order to use this technology, I needed to develop specific knowledge, capacity and commitment goals. I needed to know how to organize the information into different pages within my website. This required knowledge about how informational websites are usually structured and the ability to model mine accordingly. I had to understand what content was appropriate for which categories – i.e. what information belongs on the “About” page, and what information fits better in the “Importance” page. I also had to learn processes like how to upload this information, as well as pictures and videoclips to my website. It was very important that I understood how to cite the many sources I used in researching Visual Literacy. Finally, I needed to develop an optimistic and caring attitude about my Weebly site so I could make it look aesthetically pleasing, while being very informative, yet not overwhelming for me in the creating process.
As it relates to use in a K-8 classroom, this specific technology would require similar knowledge, objective and capacity goals as I found necessary in creating my own website. On a more basic level, though, students would need to know how to research and organize information before they even began to create an informational website. These are necessary processes for completing any sort of research-based report, but especially for using an advanced technology to communicate the information. If, for example, I required my first grade students to produce a website in order to demonstrate learning of the language arts lesson my teaching partner and I developed, students would have to be able to organize their thoughts first. Briefly, our lesson explored a text about the friendship between historical figures Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt. Students were encouraged to make text-to-self connections in order to complete the instructed activity in which they each created their own friendship books. I think creating a website could enhance my students’ understanding of both the text and a new technology. One particular GLCE that we used in our lesson planning that would fit nicely into creating a website based on the lesson is: R.CM.01.03 compare and contrast relationships among characters, events, and key ideas within and across texts to create a deeper understanding by mapping story elements, graphically representing key ideas and details, and asking questions as they read. Students could feasibly create a website that introduces themselves on the homepage, and includes other tabbed pages such as, “About the Book,” “Characters,” “My Friendship Story,” and “About the Author.” A project like this may be more involved than what we had planned, but would require the same knowledge, capacity and commitment goals, as well as those previously discussed that are necessary for creating a web page.
In the future, I can absolutely imagine using website creation to not only inform my students but also to allow them to express their own thoughts, ideas, knowledge and understandings. This project has really opened my mind to a more comprehensive idea of what ‘Literacy’ means as well as how to teach all kinds of literacy in my classroom using a range of new technologies. I look forward to using mine and my colleagues’ projects as models from which I can formulate ideas for new lesson plans in my future classroom.
On February 3rd, I made a blog post about Literacy, attempting to define it in what I thought were new terms. I first reflected on my previous conceptions of literacy as developed throughout my experiences in TE 150, 250, 301, and 401: “Literacy, for me, was the end goal of a step-by-step process of learning how to read. This included pronouncing phonemes, recognizing letters, concepts of print, and all these other pieces of the literacy process. After our discussion on 'What is Literacy?' and the readings concerning Literacy, though, I have come to realize that it is much more than that.” I went on to describe my ‘new’ conceptions of literacy. In reflection on this blog post, though I see that these ‘new’ conceptions still defined literacy as the ability to read, whether it was in terms of social functions or simply as a student reading in the classroom. Since then, however, I have grown and developed my definition of Literacy even further, especially after completing the New Literacies project. Because the literacy I learned about and reported on, Visual Literacy, is quite the opposite of reading words, I began to view Literacy with a much more broad perspective. As far as Visual Literacy is concerned, being literate is the ability to understand the world through images. These images can either be as simple as signs and symbols we use to navigate through our everyday lives, such as street signs, restroom signs, recycling symbols, map and map symbols, etc. Images can also be complex pictures, photographs, paintings and other works that have been specifically composed to convey a purpose or meaning that can be interpreted by a visually literate person. Finally, students can use visual literacy to communicate knowledge or meaning through drawings, thought webs, paintings, photographs, and more. After taking some time to explore some of my fellow colleagues’ new literacy projects, I now see that being literate is being able to understand the world in a fluent way, whether through reading, deciphering signs and pictures, understanding the needs of a healthy environment, social and political system or even communicating through use of emotions. All of these forms of literacy are relevant and can be used in critical ways in the classroom.
Another important aspect of literacy that I have come to understand through this project is being able to effectively communicate ideas, knowledge and understandings of the world around us. In the past, this meant by writing or drawing only, but now I view a wide range of technologies – such as blogs, scrapblogs, comics, and more - as modes of communicating ideas. As technology increasingly advances, the means by which students will be expected to fluently communicate and express themselves become more innovative and interactive. Students can use the technologies my colleagues and I explored to make their communication more interesting. Even posting in this blog has taught me a new way to express my opinions in a thoughtful and reflective way.
For me, learning how to create a website was a fun and exciting way to express my understanding of Visual Literacy. I chose to create a website because it was something I had never tried before and I had always been intimidated by the concept of using HTML. Fortunately, I found a great resource called ‘Weebly’ that allowed me to create and edit my webpage with a minimal use of HTML coding. In fact, I only used HTML to upload one thing on the site and even that was quite manageable. I felt so accomplished after having learned a new technology and having successfully created my own website. In order to use this technology, I needed to develop specific knowledge, capacity and commitment goals. I needed to know how to organize the information into different pages within my website. This required knowledge about how informational websites are usually structured and the ability to model mine accordingly. I had to understand what content was appropriate for which categories – i.e. what information belongs on the “About” page, and what information fits better in the “Importance” page. I also had to learn processes like how to upload this information, as well as pictures and videoclips to my website. It was very important that I understood how to cite the many sources I used in researching Visual Literacy. Finally, I needed to develop an optimistic and caring attitude about my Weebly site so I could make it look aesthetically pleasing, while being very informative, yet not overwhelming for me in the creating process.
As it relates to use in a K-8 classroom, this specific technology would require similar knowledge, objective and capacity goals as I found necessary in creating my own website. On a more basic level, though, students would need to know how to research and organize information before they even began to create an informational website. These are necessary processes for completing any sort of research-based report, but especially for using an advanced technology to communicate the information. If, for example, I required my first grade students to produce a website in order to demonstrate learning of the language arts lesson my teaching partner and I developed, students would have to be able to organize their thoughts first. Briefly, our lesson explored a text about the friendship between historical figures Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt. Students were encouraged to make text-to-self connections in order to complete the instructed activity in which they each created their own friendship books. I think creating a website could enhance my students’ understanding of both the text and a new technology. One particular GLCE that we used in our lesson planning that would fit nicely into creating a website based on the lesson is: R.CM.01.03 compare and contrast relationships among characters, events, and key ideas within and across texts to create a deeper understanding by mapping story elements, graphically representing key ideas and details, and asking questions as they read. Students could feasibly create a website that introduces themselves on the homepage, and includes other tabbed pages such as, “About the Book,” “Characters,” “My Friendship Story,” and “About the Author.” A project like this may be more involved than what we had planned, but would require the same knowledge, capacity and commitment goals, as well as those previously discussed that are necessary for creating a web page.
In the future, I can absolutely imagine using website creation to not only inform my students but also to allow them to express their own thoughts, ideas, knowledge and understandings. This project has really opened my mind to a more comprehensive idea of what ‘Literacy’ means as well as how to teach all kinds of literacy in my classroom using a range of new technologies. I look forward to using mine and my colleagues’ projects as models from which I can formulate ideas for new lesson plans in my future classroom.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
New Literacies Reflection
I chose was a scrap blog. I chose this technology because it is one of the only ones I had not worked with yet. I ended up really enjoying working with this technology. It let me use creative aspects to create a presentation that actually meant something. I really liked the backgrounds and pictures it provided and it also left a lot of room to add your own as well. I chose to do social literacy with this technology because I wanted to learn more about social literacy myself. I felt that a scrap blog was a good way to show this type of literacy because it gave me a way to show several examples of social literacy and well as present ways to use it in the class room. I thought about creating a social account on a site like blogger, or making a wiki, but I had already done these technologies before and I wanted to use something where I could show multiple examples. I really liked the way my presentation turned out. I think it show a lot of social literacy examples and it gave teachers a lot of tips to use in the classroom. I think using this type of technology in the classroom would be a lot of fun for students. It would let them show their thoughts about a subject with a lot of creativity. I like it a lot better than similar programs like power point. There are a lot more graphics to choose from and a lot more fonts and backgrounds. Overall I learned that this technology is very good to put together presentations with. It presents informative material in a fun and interesting way.
At the beginning of the semester I thought of literacy as just reading and writing. However, after our class on the definition of literacy, I began to think about it a little more. I think one main reading we did that made me broaden my thinking about literacy was the Critical Literacy article. I really liked how the teacher made a point of sharing different kinds of books with her students. She read books from all different cultures so her students got to learn a little more about people around the world. Another thing that also really changed my view on the definition of literacy was our class discussion. Our group started thinking about it and we decided that there is a whole range of possibilities about literacy. It could be reading and writing or it could be speaking and body language. As we explored new literacies further, I started thinking about how much we do on the internet and how we rely on that as a means of communication and knowledge so that is a form of literacy too. It is probably one of the fastest growing avenues of literacy and students are always searching online for something. Many teachers hesitate to bring the internet into the classroom, but I think it is a valuable resource and a important form of literacy that students should learn from. My thinking from the start of the semester has changed a great deal. I not only think of literacy as reading and writing. Now I think of literacy as any way people use to communicate or to gather knowledge. After researching social literacy, I think literacy is a forever expanding concept. Since we have all of this new technology today we are expanding our literacy into it. This is what I liked the most about social literacy. It is understanding all of those social networking and group editing sites we use online now. It is incorporating new technology into literacy. I do not think anyone can put a set definition on literacy. Everyone interprets literacy in their own way.
If I were to teach the technology I used in my current classroom, I think the students would first need to know a little more about computers. The students in my class do not use computers a lot so to jump into a program like this would be very intimidating for them. Also they would have to work on their spelling and writing on the computer. However I think with a little guidance they could put together a simple presentation. I think if I were to use this in the lesson I just taught it would have been really cool. They could have done something like made a couple of slides about feelings and how the characters in our story felt and maybe what they would do in a hurricane. They could use a template provided and just add in the text and some extra stickers out of the graphics. I think this type of technology would be amazing to use in higher grades like 3-7 because students in those grades really have more writing and computer skills and they would probably be able to put together a pretty nice presentation based on a book they were reading. To create a presentation like the one I created students would have to know how to upload pictures and to research information online. Upper elementary and middle school students already are doing this for fun at home so it would be good to input this into lessons. Having them create something they can put online and share with the class would be very beneficial for them. They would be learning about what they are presenting by having to look up information to put it into the scrapblog. For instance, if the class just read a novel like Number the Stars which is about the holocaust, the students could create a little presentation using scrapblog that tells about the holocaust and the characters in the book. This would make them think about the book more and really reflect on what they are reading. They would also be learning technology. I think technology is important in the classroom which is why I chose social literacy. Having the student make blogs and wikis allows them to express their thoughts with each other and others around the world. Part of the literacy assignment could be to post a blog about the book and then put a link to the blog into the scrapblog. This will allow the students to learn a little bit about the holocaust and then see what other members of their class think about the book. New technology is affecting so much in literacy it is important that students get the chance to use and learn from it to teach literacy effectively.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
New Literacy Project Reflection
My new technology was a website. Although I currently have a personal / professional website that I created last semester, I had never used a website to provide information about something other than myself. There were many applications that I was unable to explore when doing my professional website and therefore it was nice to have a bit more creative freedom through this project. I feel that this website gave me the ability to open a discussion about cultural literacy with regards to GLBTQ. I had never thought of using a website as a way of communicating with other teachers and sharing ideas about different literacies. I had also never recognized the purpose of what I was doing until I was forced to consider it for this project. I realized how beneficial I felt it was to have a purpose for myself therefore giving me a desire to have clear purposes for my students in the future. In order to create this webpage successfully and how I envision it I needed to gather information and spend time exploring the various layouts my webpage could appear. Because I was familiar with the technology I was confident that my webpage will succeed in accomplishing open minds about cultural literacy as well as GLBTQ issues, specifically regarding children’s literature. I feel that students K-8 are required to work with technology as a disconnected aspect of their learning. I do not feel that the GLCEs aim to integrate it into their literacy learning but rather as something they must know in order to "get by" in our world today. I would like students to understand the benefits of technology and be able to use it in order to make positive changes in their lives or to engage them in information that otherwise would not have been as engaging to them. In order to do this I feel authentic activities need to be made integrating technology into lesson plans that can enhance learning. For me, technology is a way of enhancing a "regular" lesson or activity and making it extraordinary for students. When students feel that their is a purpose in learning how to create a website or another use of technology, they will be more likely to find the purposes in several other technologies and begin using them for the betterment of their lives and learning.
In the beginning of this semester I never thought of literacy in all of the various ways such as cultural, mathematical, environmental, emotional, etc. Although I think I believed in these types of literacies and their importance for student's learning, I did not know to identify using these terms. I have always felt that it is important for teachers to use literature and forms of literacy (oral, audio, visual, etc) to infuse their student's minds with more than just words on a page. During the completion of this project, I realized my passion to teach students, even from a young age, about their culture and the cultures of others. I think one of my major goals of teaching is to understand my students on personal levels and individually. Therefore I must know about their cultures. In addition, I want my my classroom to be a safe community and in order to accomplish this I need to have my students understand the cultures of the students around them and the cultures of people all across the world. I never realized how easy this all would be to overlook in a classroom with all of the other curriculum requirements. However, I recognize now that integrating this particular type of literacy as well as many others is necessary and will produce more intelligent and accepting human beings. I use to think that cultural literacy would just happen in my classroom and now I understand that it is a concious choice that I need to make to incorporate it. I also think I was scared to truely delve into this type of literacy because it is something that I will never have all the answers to. I realized from this project that it is okay to learn alongside your students and will actually create an environment where students feel that it is okay to not have all the answers either. I find that much of my growth relates to the Cambourne conditions and that cultural literacy has been an avenue for me to see how these conditions might work. For example, Cambourne discusses engagement as a condition and we defined this as having students understand the purpose of what they are doing. I want my students to understand the purpose of their literacy. It is not only to read and write but also to gain meaning about cultures and about issues that might be important to them. Through this project I learned that students can be engaged most effectively when they excited and actively involved in their learning. Cultural literacy is a wonderful way to have students excited and feel that they can be actively involved in their own learning because it has a meaningful purpose. This was the reason for my "tying it together" page on my website. It provides a purpose to cultural literacy (speciafically for the cultural group GLBTQ) for teachers and parents and if they understand the purpose and importance of cultural literacy then students might "catch the bug" too. The other Cambourne condition that I feel I grew in understanding of was employment. I feel that cultural literacy will provide students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge of literacy to daily life. Hopefully by immersing them with literacy that has cultural meanings, they will become openminded individuals who apply their knowledge outside the classroom. The main take away that I have from this project is that if students are learning literacy with a purpose and can apply that knowledge into their daily lives then they will become more active and educated participants of society, continuously growing in their thoughts and literacy skills.
I do not feel that there is only one way that students can obtain effective literacy instruction from their teachers. However, I think one way that diverse learners can gain effective literacy instruction is through learning about culture. In the diverse environment in which we live, students need to have diverse literature and resources that provide purpose and meaning to their literacy skills. Without this type of instruction, that provides opportunities for rich discussions and high level thinking, students are not able to gain the overarching goal of literacy, which in my opinion is to be a literate individual of the world around you. My website is geared for parents and teachers, however, it provides purposes for these adults which will hopefully reflect onto their students and children. In addition, I think it would be extremely beneficial and engaging if students created a classroom webpage that discussed their cultures. This is a way to integrate cultural literacy with my technology. Each student would be able to access the website and keep in mind that where everyone comes from is important in the way our classroom operates. It also provides personal connections amoung students and teachers. Assignments like the "where i'm from" poem would be awesome links to a classroom website and would allow students to understand that they are valued as people by their peers, teacher, and other adults. Students would need a great deal of guidance to create this classroom website and some background knowledge. They would need to know how to use the computer, write about themselves and be creative with their pages, read and comment on other students' pages, listen to each student share if a presentation of each students' page was given, speak in front of their peers if presentations were given, etc. They would gain so many important literacy skills while also building life skills and opening their minds to the differences in people. I think about my own field placement and the Flat Stanley Project that they completed. I think it would be increadably effective if students were able to post their projects onto a classroom website. This technology allows students to see each others work outside the classroom and provides a space for them to share their culture with others. In addition, I think it would have made for an excellent extension and allow students to know that literacy comes in many different forms, not just reading books and writing on writers workshop paper.
In the beginning of this semester I never thought of literacy in all of the various ways such as cultural, mathematical, environmental, emotional, etc. Although I think I believed in these types of literacies and their importance for student's learning, I did not know to identify using these terms. I have always felt that it is important for teachers to use literature and forms of literacy (oral, audio, visual, etc) to infuse their student's minds with more than just words on a page. During the completion of this project, I realized my passion to teach students, even from a young age, about their culture and the cultures of others. I think one of my major goals of teaching is to understand my students on personal levels and individually. Therefore I must know about their cultures. In addition, I want my my classroom to be a safe community and in order to accomplish this I need to have my students understand the cultures of the students around them and the cultures of people all across the world. I never realized how easy this all would be to overlook in a classroom with all of the other curriculum requirements. However, I recognize now that integrating this particular type of literacy as well as many others is necessary and will produce more intelligent and accepting human beings. I use to think that cultural literacy would just happen in my classroom and now I understand that it is a concious choice that I need to make to incorporate it. I also think I was scared to truely delve into this type of literacy because it is something that I will never have all the answers to. I realized from this project that it is okay to learn alongside your students and will actually create an environment where students feel that it is okay to not have all the answers either. I find that much of my growth relates to the Cambourne conditions and that cultural literacy has been an avenue for me to see how these conditions might work. For example, Cambourne discusses engagement as a condition and we defined this as having students understand the purpose of what they are doing. I want my students to understand the purpose of their literacy. It is not only to read and write but also to gain meaning about cultures and about issues that might be important to them. Through this project I learned that students can be engaged most effectively when they excited and actively involved in their learning. Cultural literacy is a wonderful way to have students excited and feel that they can be actively involved in their own learning because it has a meaningful purpose. This was the reason for my "tying it together" page on my website. It provides a purpose to cultural literacy (speciafically for the cultural group GLBTQ) for teachers and parents and if they understand the purpose and importance of cultural literacy then students might "catch the bug" too. The other Cambourne condition that I feel I grew in understanding of was employment. I feel that cultural literacy will provide students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge of literacy to daily life. Hopefully by immersing them with literacy that has cultural meanings, they will become openminded individuals who apply their knowledge outside the classroom. The main take away that I have from this project is that if students are learning literacy with a purpose and can apply that knowledge into their daily lives then they will become more active and educated participants of society, continuously growing in their thoughts and literacy skills.
I do not feel that there is only one way that students can obtain effective literacy instruction from their teachers. However, I think one way that diverse learners can gain effective literacy instruction is through learning about culture. In the diverse environment in which we live, students need to have diverse literature and resources that provide purpose and meaning to their literacy skills. Without this type of instruction, that provides opportunities for rich discussions and high level thinking, students are not able to gain the overarching goal of literacy, which in my opinion is to be a literate individual of the world around you. My website is geared for parents and teachers, however, it provides purposes for these adults which will hopefully reflect onto their students and children. In addition, I think it would be extremely beneficial and engaging if students created a classroom webpage that discussed their cultures. This is a way to integrate cultural literacy with my technology. Each student would be able to access the website and keep in mind that where everyone comes from is important in the way our classroom operates. It also provides personal connections amoung students and teachers. Assignments like the "where i'm from" poem would be awesome links to a classroom website and would allow students to understand that they are valued as people by their peers, teacher, and other adults. Students would need a great deal of guidance to create this classroom website and some background knowledge. They would need to know how to use the computer, write about themselves and be creative with their pages, read and comment on other students' pages, listen to each student share if a presentation of each students' page was given, speak in front of their peers if presentations were given, etc. They would gain so many important literacy skills while also building life skills and opening their minds to the differences in people. I think about my own field placement and the Flat Stanley Project that they completed. I think it would be increadably effective if students were able to post their projects onto a classroom website. This technology allows students to see each others work outside the classroom and provides a space for them to share their culture with others. In addition, I think it would have made for an excellent extension and allow students to know that literacy comes in many different forms, not just reading books and writing on writers workshop paper.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Comprehension Instruction in the Classroom
When I think about the students in my CT's classroom as comprehenders in relation to the classifications provided by Applegate in the article, Profiles in Comprehension, I would say that I see mostly 'Left-Fielders'. As is often in the first grade, many of these students provide seemingly unrelated or incoherent answers to comprehension questions. It can seem as if none of the students are paying attention to the story because of their tendency to be so off topic. It also seems as though students raise their hands to share and provide input for the sake of simply talking and being the center of attention. To address this need for attention, Applegate suggests some "small group discussion activit[ies]" (53) that would allow students to share their thoughts and feel like a valued member of the classroom community. The one I liked the most was Induced Imagery. I think the students in my CT's classroom would respond very well to this activity because one of the strategies that I see my CT already implementing as she reads a story is to think aloud or pause to ask her students questions about the text as she is reading instead of afterwards when they may have already lost some of the information. Induced Imagery incorporates this think aloud/modeling strategy with making text-to-self connections. I think these connections are extremely important for easily distracted readers who may disregard seemingly irrelevant information. Induced Imagery also allows for students to share aloud, getting the attention they need. In this strategy, "teachers first model the use of mental imagery in response to descriptive text. Afterward, they ask their students to generate their own images and share and discuss them with others."(53)
Although I would consider many of the students in my CT's classroom to be 'Left-Fielders', there are a few that stick out in my mind that I would classify as 'Minimalist Quiz Contestants'. This is a combination of two of Applegate's profiles. The quiz contestant is a student who may "respond to questions about text by searching their memory banks for an explanation that will serve as a plausible response."(53) I have facilitated a few Read Alouds in this classroom and I have noticed about three students who continually make intertextual connections when I ask questions during or post-reading. This is so impressive to me, but I have difficulty getting these students to elaborate on their responses. This is why I chose to include 'Minimalist' in describing these students as comprehenders. These students are "usually reluctant to elucidate their responses or explain their thinking." (55) Of the two types of Minimalists, I would consider these three students to be type b - the ones who have a fear of failure. I think their lack of confidence falls more in line with social concerns than academic abilities. For this reason, I really liked the idea of having students keep journals. Applegate suggests that "student journals can often draw out of Minimalists what we will never hear from their lips." (56) Journals would encourage these students to elaborate on their responses in a way that they feel safe and comfortable to explain their reasoning.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Comprehension
At the beginning of the year, I had not seen a lot of comprehension taught in my classroom. I saw more of our CT teaching decoding skills and stressing more of learning what the text actually says. However, lately our CT has been really stressing comprehension. The last couple of weeks in class there has been a passage read out loud to the class where the students have to then look at the big ideas and practice their note taking skills or they have a venn diagram type of assignment. I have seen them do a lot of QAR type of readings and currently this is actually one of their centers. They have different levels of cards they have to read a passage from and then answer questions based on the passage. I think that reading together as a group and then discussing the passage and what the big ideas are is more effective than the reading and answering they do on worksheets in their centers. We have a lot of literalists in our classroom who look for the exact words in the passage that were in the question to find their answer. I feel that this is not helping them comprehend the reading, it is more like a word search and they are not getting much out of it. However, when they work together as a whole group to discuss a story, I feel like the students get really into it and what to participate and help our CT find the big ideas. I think the students actually learn more from this and I wish I saw more of it in our class.
We do a lot of work in centers in our class, which I feel is good most of the time because it is allowing the class to work in small groups. However, when they read and answer in their one center they tend to get more off task because the teacher is not supervising and guiding them. Therefore, I think it is a good idea in our classroom to use small groups for skill work and independent reading, but I have seen the students get more out of large group for comprehension. When I work independently with students on comprehension I feel like the student really gets a lot out of it, but it is very difficult to have time to work with each student one on one all the time.
I remember in class this week we talked about how in the younger grades the students can often be left fielders. Well, we have a lot of those in our class in second grade as well. Sometimes they pull stuff from the most random places. I also feel like we have a lot of minimalists in our class. they will give and answer to the question but won't extend on their answer. A lot of the more confident readers are literalists they look at what the text says and that's the answer. I feel like a lot of them are still pretty young to find deeper meaning on their own, but I am excited to see more comprehension strategies being taught in our classroom.
We do a lot of work in centers in our class, which I feel is good most of the time because it is allowing the class to work in small groups. However, when they read and answer in their one center they tend to get more off task because the teacher is not supervising and guiding them. Therefore, I think it is a good idea in our classroom to use small groups for skill work and independent reading, but I have seen the students get more out of large group for comprehension. When I work independently with students on comprehension I feel like the student really gets a lot out of it, but it is very difficult to have time to work with each student one on one all the time.
I remember in class this week we talked about how in the younger grades the students can often be left fielders. Well, we have a lot of those in our class in second grade as well. Sometimes they pull stuff from the most random places. I also feel like we have a lot of minimalists in our class. they will give and answer to the question but won't extend on their answer. A lot of the more confident readers are literalists they look at what the text says and that's the answer. I feel like a lot of them are still pretty young to find deeper meaning on their own, but I am excited to see more comprehension strategies being taught in our classroom.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Comprehension
When I first begin thinking about the different methods our CT uses I cannot think of many right off the bat because most interaction in my Kindergarten classroom is recitation. It is not probable that we could ever get our group of Kindergartners to discuss an idea. Recitation takes up most of the afternoon, after lunch. Our CT asks questions about the book he has read and the students answer. This is similar to the QAR method. However, many of the responses are only text-to-self. Some times there may be a text-to-world connection, but very few; and never any text-to-text connections. Sometimes there are so many student that want to share their story that he has them partner up and share their stories with a partner. This could begin instigating some discussion about a certain topic, but there is no way to asses it.
Throughout all of the morning, our class has centers. Many of the activities that they perform require what they have learned by rote learning. Numbers on a number line, the alphabet, etc. The center time lasts the whole morning. Most of the class is still unable to read simple books yet, this hinders them from reading to comprehend. The majority of their comprehension has to come from what they see on the page (illustrations) and what they hear. Many students are able to pull ideas from a story audibly because that is how they have been comprehending whenever they read with another person.
Only once this year have I seen our CT use a Venn Diagram as a comprehension strategy. He used it to compare how baby animals and baby humans are alike and different. I am unsure if this was useful for their comprehension at a Kindergarten level, however, it exposes them to the strategy when they use it again in higher grades.
Many in our class are left fielders, however, one in particular can never answer a question. He always has his hand raised, but when called on he stares at us blankly. After a whole year I would have guessed that he would change and begin to have an answer when he raised his hand. He has never answered a question in class, yet. It troubles me because I have no idea how to go about retrieving an answer from him. Applegate suggest modeling as an intervention to begin showing him how to begin listening to a story for understanding. If I was to work one on one with this focus student I would show him how I would begin reading a book and what I would be listening for as I listened to our CT read the story. Perhaps these methods would help him begin picking main ideas from the story.
Throughout all of the morning, our class has centers. Many of the activities that they perform require what they have learned by rote learning. Numbers on a number line, the alphabet, etc. The center time lasts the whole morning. Most of the class is still unable to read simple books yet, this hinders them from reading to comprehend. The majority of their comprehension has to come from what they see on the page (illustrations) and what they hear. Many students are able to pull ideas from a story audibly because that is how they have been comprehending whenever they read with another person.
Only once this year have I seen our CT use a Venn Diagram as a comprehension strategy. He used it to compare how baby animals and baby humans are alike and different. I am unsure if this was useful for their comprehension at a Kindergarten level, however, it exposes them to the strategy when they use it again in higher grades.
Many in our class are left fielders, however, one in particular can never answer a question. He always has his hand raised, but when called on he stares at us blankly. After a whole year I would have guessed that he would change and begin to have an answer when he raised his hand. He has never answered a question in class, yet. It troubles me because I have no idea how to go about retrieving an answer from him. Applegate suggest modeling as an intervention to begin showing him how to begin listening to a story for understanding. If I was to work one on one with this focus student I would show him how I would begin reading a book and what I would be listening for as I listened to our CT read the story. Perhaps these methods would help him begin picking main ideas from the story.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Comprehension
I see comprehension taught in my classroom in several different forms. First it is taught through QAR methods. Often, students are read a story by my CT as a whole class and as the story is being read they are asked questions and are expected to respond to them. These questions vary from asking them to describe character emotions, their own emotions, plot lines, themes, take away messages, predictions, etc. Comprehension is also taught during writers workshop. It is more of an assessment of their comprehension, usually of a book that they read earlier that day. Students have been asked to write an ulternative ending to a book, write like a character in the book, or write about an experience they had that was similar to the experience of the character(s) in the book. This seems to be an effective way for my CT to see if students understood the plot of the story, the way characters were feeling, and often the theme or message of the story. These are the two main ways that I see comprehension taught in my classroom and they prove to be pretty successful because I would characterize most of my readers as strong comprehenders. Although we have many struggling readers in my classroom who are still decoding words at a sluggish pace, they seem to still comprehend the overall meanings of books. However, I think that they are in general stronger at listening comprehension. Most students respond very well to the QAR style when my CT reads aloud and their writing seems to reflect understanding. I find that the struggling readers are especially benefitting from this style because they are able to hear the book aloud read fluently, which is what they struggle with as readers. Without their own reading fluency I notice that they sometimes struggle to understand what they just read, even in simple directions. However, some of the more advanced readers have an equal amount of comprehension when they read themselves, especially students who read with punctuation and inflection in their voices. They seem to understand the books they read and have an easy time talking about them with friends or with my CT.
Although I feel my students are rather strong comprehenders, many times during QAR or recitation style comprehension methods during language arts, students tend to fit one of Applegate's profiles. This profile is left fielders. Students often have responses that are rather unpredictable and seem to come out of nowhere. I think part of this is because students at this young age readily express whatever thought comes to their minds. Often these thoughts do not correspond to the text we are discussing and seem random and unpredictable. However, often times I feel that students are trying to make text to self connections but say them in the form of stories. Students often fail to explain why their story connects to the text making it difficult to see the relationship they are making. In addition, I feel that many students could be categorized as fuzzy thinkers much of the time. They often make vague and imprecise comments, especially with regards to character descriptions. My CT will ask students how they think a specific character was feeling when something happened and they will respond with the words sad or happy. Although I think students are still comprehending the emotions that the character might have, they are still often using very vague language that does not provide much support or confidence in their statements. Therefore I think it would be beneficial for my CT to include more map work and modeling in order to increase their levels of comprehension.
Although I feel my students are rather strong comprehenders, many times during QAR or recitation style comprehension methods during language arts, students tend to fit one of Applegate's profiles. This profile is left fielders. Students often have responses that are rather unpredictable and seem to come out of nowhere. I think part of this is because students at this young age readily express whatever thought comes to their minds. Often these thoughts do not correspond to the text we are discussing and seem random and unpredictable. However, often times I feel that students are trying to make text to self connections but say them in the form of stories. Students often fail to explain why their story connects to the text making it difficult to see the relationship they are making. In addition, I feel that many students could be categorized as fuzzy thinkers much of the time. They often make vague and imprecise comments, especially with regards to character descriptions. My CT will ask students how they think a specific character was feeling when something happened and they will respond with the words sad or happy. Although I think students are still comprehending the emotions that the character might have, they are still often using very vague language that does not provide much support or confidence in their statements. Therefore I think it would be beneficial for my CT to include more map work and modeling in order to increase their levels of comprehension.
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