Translations and Formal Writing

I found the article on translation and writing to be very interesting. The article basically showed how in the act of translating a message from one language to another, students retell the message differently depending on who they are delivering it to or what purpose they are translating it for. When we try to teach students in class the differences between writing informally to a friend or formally to a teacher, it is really important to recognize that the kids already know how to do this and know those differences because they do them all the time when translating. I think the most important thing undoubtedly is though that you get students to recognize the relationship between these two processes and feel like they are already a master at it and apply that previous knowledge to this new idea or writing formally/informally. Also, even when a student does not speak to languages or commonly translate between languages, we all relay and retell stories and messages to various people. All students probably speak or retell stories differently, either formally or informally, when they go home from school and tell their parent something versus telling their sibling. It is equally important that we get these students who are not bilingual to also notice this tendency they already have so they to can view themselves as masters of this already!

Pedagogy of Control Article

I really thought that the Pedagogy of Control article brought up a great point. I have recently been thinking a lot about the way that I want to teach, and I have decided that worksheets are not something that I want to overuse in my classroom. I can see some of their value in that they are quick to grade and can sometimes give you good insight into what your students understand or don't understand, but I think for the most part worksheets are just busy work. Teachers tend to use worksheets because it is so easy to just hand out a worksheet and tell the students to do it. You can find a worksheet about virtually anything online, so that saves a ton of time of coming up with something yourself. I think that a big part of teaching is motivating children to learn, and worksheets are not doing anything of that nature. Worksheets are boring and tedious, and often frustrating if they do not provide adequate directions. I was looking through the folder of worksheets that Lara passed around and I noticed that one of the worksheets was handwriting practice for writing lower case i's. The student had written a few i's and then had made one i with a smiley face as a dot. Personally I thought it was really funny, and although it was not technically correct, I don't think I would scold a child for doing this. The child was obviously bored of writing i's. The teacher however had written "NO" in red pen next to it. I don't think that the student actually thought that his i was written correctly, and I don't think that she had the appropriate response. I think that it would be more effective to write something like, "This is very clever but not how an i should look." Or something that would get that point across. I think worksheets like this and the way you grade them can really destroy a child's creativity, which should be something we try to develop and explore in our classrooms.

Mission to Mars Article

One thing that I really liked while reading this article was this quote:

"all children, including those we the find most demanding, “are not asking for less work, or easier work, they are asking for meaningful work""

I really liked this because it made me think of the kids I work with at my summer camp. The kids I work with have spina bifeda and with that comes a very wide range mental and physicals abilities. Most of these kids require some form of special education or instruction, and because of this their teachers and even sometimes their own parents, underestimate their abilities. Sometimes they are given too much slack and not expected to do as much as the other kids, and this frustrates me and them because they are capable of so much more. I think it is extremely important, for these kids and all kids, that teachers make instruction meaningful to their students and not just lighten the load for those who are struggling.

Mission to Mars

As a Deaf and Hard of Hearing Major I feel like I am learning so much about children with hearing loss but I am extremely interested in low vision, blind students. I feel like it would be so overwhelming to try and educate students in a way that is fair to them without training in a program like the one here at ISU. I really enjoyed this article because it gave alot of insight into what will not only help a child with low vision, but others as well. Just like so many adaptations to the world around us that benifit everyone but were put in place for those with disabilities. Things like curb cuts...law mandated they were put in for people in wheel chairs but how many of us on bikes and with strollers love curb cuts?!

Im the same way alot of the adaptations we make in a classroom for students with extra needs will benefit all of our students.

Flint, Johnston, and Class Discussion

This week I was able to apply the readings to my reading partners at the Normal Public Library. I have 3 partners and they are all the same age, but each is at a different reading level. One is at grade level, one is above, and one is below. So the readings directly applied to these students. I was able to use them to help me understand and apply the readings. In Johnston, he talked about how students that read below level tend to choose books that are too difficult for them. I have noticed this with my student who is a struggling reader. The books chosen are always above the appropriate level and I end up reading most of the story. I have also noticed that when the students choose a book that pertains to an interest of theirs, they are much more interested in the story and will often interrupt the reading to inform me of more facts about the subject of the story. This is exciting to me because they are so involved in their reading. One thing we discussed in class today was about students who struggle with reading are often immediately asked to "sound out the word". I have found myself doing this all the time with one of my students. This is the go-to response, but in this particular case, I have found that my student is unable to sound out the words, so I become stuck and just fill in the word. This is something that I will have to work on for when I become a teacher. I will need to find strategies that I will be able to use to help students who face a similar situation to this.

Flint Ch 12

I would like to focus my post this week on the Flint reading. (Ch 12)
I noticed initially the statement the "if students are unable to read and write proficiently, their acedemic performance begins to spiral downward quickly." I believe this is true and is why so many students are not identified as having learning disabilities until later grades. Our current system of education depends so much on a student's ability to read and understand as well as to be able to articulate their thoughts and knowledge using the written word.

"motivation can make the differance between learning that is temporary and superficial and learning that is permanent and internalized."
I can see the truth in this in my own academic life.  The learning that occurred in most of my Gen Ed classes where I was not highly motivated was "temporary and superficial" where as much of what I am learning now...I am highly motivated because the material interests me and I know I will need to have all of the things I am learning now in order to teach students...is "permanent and internalized."

A question I intend to pose in class is about all of the intervention programs...I would assume the school that we are teaching out chooses a program that we must follow, I wonder how that will affect us it the program is against our ideas and beliefs about how to help struggling readers develop literacy?

Article on Process Drama

I found the article this week and just the topic of process drama in general to be very interesting. It was interesting in the article that the teacher was using these activities during the literacy block time and how many of the other school authorities did not approve because they did not think that process drama fit within the realm of literacy. I agree with the article and what it points out about how such process drama activities can accomplish many of the same objectives as traditional reading and writing processes but in a more creative and interactive way that probably had even more of a possibility of engaging the student. Process drama can even go beyond what traditional practices can because many of them ask the student to consider plot lines or background stories not explicitly told in the text. I especially liked the ideas that asked students to put themselves in the place of certain characters and think or act as they might. This not only gives student more insight to the character and their role in the story, but also gives students a chance to look at multiple viewpoints and how culture and background intertwine with a character and his/her behavior.

Process Drama

I thought the drama article was very interesting. It is a new strategy that would be a great option to present to students, especially the younger elementary students. They love getting up in front of their classmates and they will have fun in their learning. This may also be a "safer" way for some students to express their real opinions of the reading-they can be a different character so it will be easier for them to express themselves. Also, it is a great assessment tool for teachers. The students will put a lot of effort into a project like this so the teacher will get a real feel for what was comprehended.

I found it helpful to try some of these techniques and connecting them with Esperanza Rising. It not only helped define what Process Drama is, but how it can be effectively used in a classroom setting. This exercise was also helpful because every group had a different idea, so we come away with multiple strategies.

Ray Ch. 6

I am glad to see that Ray is finally explaining how to go about teaching students about writing craft and "reading like a writer". The first thing that I noticed about this was that she says she reads a book over and over with her class to get to know the reading. At first I thought that this was strange, and that the students would probably get bored of hearing the same book, but then I got to thinking about reading with my parents and how we would always read the same books together (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Tacky the Penguin) and they never got old. I think you would have to pick a really great book to pull off reading the book so many times without the students getting bored.

The next thing I wondered when I was reading was what age the students are that she is teaching. It later said that the students were 4th graders. I thought this was interesting because 4th graders do not often read picture books in class (to my knowledge anyway). I'm sure 4th graders would still like being read picture books, but I wonder if they would prefer looking at novels to learn about writing craft. I also started thinking, how could you really do something like this with younger students? Would they be capable of picking out the things that writers do? I think it would be interesting to see this kind of lesson in action, because even though Ray is describing her process in chapter 6, I still would like to see how it could work. I have never been taught this way, as I'm sure none of us have, but I think that this is actually a really cool way to teach writing and to encourage creativity.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm just thinking out loud... but that's exactly what I'm doing. Let me know what you guys think!

Drama Article

I really liked this article because I think that drama can be so helpful to learning. To say that drama literature activities is not technically literature is crazy in my opinion. By ignoring drama, movement, and hands on activities you are ignoring certain children that may not learn very well when only presented with a text to read and thats it. This article reminded me of a literature/drama activity we did in my eighth grade english class. We were reading Shakespeare's The Taming of The Shrew. My teacher had us split off into groups and assigned us different scenes to rewrite in and theme or way we wanted to. As a class we shared and performed our scenes. Once we did that we voted on which theme or modernization technique we liked the best and then as a class we rewrote all the scenes with our theme of choice (we did western!). Administration read our version, The Wranglin' of the Shrew, and liked it so much they made it our spring play! The whole activity was much more enjoyable and beneficial then just simply reading the play and then moving on. I still remember that play to this day, where other things I've read over the years have fallen by the wayside.

Article/ Esperenza

I have not quite finished Esperanza but I just finished the article. I think the novel is one that you could easily implement ideas from the article. 

I find it interesting the second example used and the student and teacher's perspectives in "What the teacher didn't know." As a student and tutor now, I think many teachers and students could benefit from writting something similar to this, to gain a better understanding of each other. I think we are so quick to judge and try to make others and ourselves feel sorry for our situations. we try to convince ourselves we have it worse off than others. I believe for most of us it is quite the opposite!

It was briefly mentioned in the article but Teatro seems like a great way to develop author's craft as well. It is also a great way for students to challenge and address the status quo. "Ivonne’s testimony of how she negotiated and developed social relationships challenges the idea that the only way to fully participate in school is through mastery of the English language."

I am always worried however about how administration will react to doing things such as this. just like at the beginning of the article, when you do things out of the norm, you will often be questioned. I worry about coming out of pre-service teacher training without having enough to back up these ideas with if I try to implement them and they are questioned.  

Discussion Groups

I really liked the way we did discussion groups today! Like I said in class, I never liked the discussion groups that my teacher set up in 5th grade because it made reading such a chore. We would rotate jobs each day and there were just some jobs that I absolutely hated. I always thought that things like that got in the way of reading, because a lot of the time I actually did like the books we were reading. I especially liked when we were able to pick the book we wanted to read out of a certain number of books and we were put into groups in that way. I remember one time in particular we were to pick out of 5 books that were all about the holocaust. I ended up really enjoying that book because I got to choose the one that interested me. I think if I end up teaching one of the older grades that is something I would like to set up, only in a more open ended way. I think 4th and 5th graders especially are capable of talking about a book they read without it being completely structured. I like the idea of having them talk about the book and then looking at different questions if the conversation comes to a stop. I actually came into class today hoping that we wouldn't be talking about what a good idea discussion groups where everyone has a different job are, so I am glad that we talked about a different way that they can be run. I am really hoping to learn about more ways to teach reading in such a way that kids will really enjoy it, because reading is fun!

Flint ch 10/ Esperenza

I read the 80pages of Esperenza Rising before I read the Flint and I am glad that I did so in that order. I saw good connections between aesthetic stance discussion in the book and how Esperenza and other non fiction books fit into that stance. I liked the example conversations in the chapter, they really help make each concept concrete for me. Seeing examples from the classroom is extreamly helpful.

I can clearly see how the reader response theory applys and the transaction that occurs as a student (or anyone) reads.

One very important part for me to realize was that stance is an internal and often not visible part of literacy which makes it a little more difficult to gauge and understand but it is still an extreamly important aspect of literacy and discussion in the classroom.

Knowing Literacy

I really liked the part of the reading that was talking about improving assessment by helping teachers make rapid decisions in a more productive way. I really agree with this because there is not always time to do formal assessments and they don't always tell you what you need to know to help your students learn. Teachers have to notice their students and listen to what they are saying and make a judgement of how much they have taken in from there. Teachers have to be flexible and willing to change their plan on the spot according to what their students need to know and how far along they already are. There is not going to be time for a formal assessment for all of these situations, so helping the teacher assess in a more precise and rapid way seems like a really good idea. There is a place for formal assessment and as teachers we are going to have to provide record for parents of how well their kids are doing, but on the average day in the classroom, assessment has to be faster and more subjective to what the teacher thinks they should be covering for longer/moving on from.

Knowing Literacy

"I argue that the ability to listen is a teacher's most important assessment skill." I think Peter Johnston makes a really good point. There is so much you can learn from your students if you take the time to really listen to what they say. Having a discussion with students about literacy, whether they know it is about literacy or not, may be just as effective if not more effective than the traditional paper and pencil test. By listening to a student, you are able to better understand what they are thinking and what their understanding of a topic is. Some students have a hard time translating their thoughts onto paper, so by allowing them to talk about it you may find a deeper understanding. Johnston also states that "children have interesting things to say and that the more you listen, the more you find they have to say". It is easy to assume that because we work with young students, they do not have much to contribute to a conversation because of their age and inexperience. However, I agree with Johnston that if we take the time to actively listen to students, they have a lot to say and much of it is very interesting.

Ray Readings

I really liked how Ray included real samples of student writing in chapter 3. These examples really helped explain the points she was trying to make about writing craft and envisioning all the possibilities involved in writing. The students' final works were extremely well written, and the one that hit me the most was the one that Ray had hesitation about. She said she was disappointed when her student was going to make an alphabet book about his dreams. This piece was astounding to me, especially because of the author's young age. His dreams and the craft he used left a great impact and made him seem beyond his 11 years.

One idea that I really liked from the Ray readings this week, was her idea of a writer's "office work" or work that they must do to prepare before the actual writing process begins. This is a neat idea to think about because like Ray points out, a lot of kids just jump into writing a story without properly forming the whole idea first. She suggested that research for ideas can come from experiences and from outside the classroom or the "office". This relates to the video we watched in class where we saw a teacher taking his class on a walk around the school neighborhood. You could just see how the kids were getting ideas from things that had happened in certain spots and such. This research allows not only for better writing because of consideration for the topic, author, purpose, etc., but it makes the child so much more connected to the work that their writers craft and quality can really come through!

Ray Ch. 13

When I was reading Chapter 13 of Ray, I stumbled across something that I wasn't sure about. Ray talked about how she helped a little boy with his writing by offering him a writing craft he could use. The boy wanted to write about how there were so many feathers, and Ray told him, why don't you write like how Cynthia Rylant did when she wrote fields and fields and fields. She told him, you can write like this and say feathers and feathers and feathers. This bothered me a little bit, and here's why: I felt as if Ray was sort of writing his story for him. I like her idea of teaching children about writing craft and looking at other authors for inspiration, but I feel like she could have said something different where he would have come up with a way to describe how many feathers there were on his own. I think there is a very fine line between teaching writing and just writing something yourself, and I guess I am not sure if she crossed that line or not. I don't remember ever really being taught how to write, and I especially don't remember learning how to write creatively in elementary school, so I think it would be a really tricky thing to teach. I can really see how Ray's idea of reading like a writer would help kids to learn to be good writers, and I think as a teacher you can give advice to a certain point. I think it might have been more beneficial for her to say something like, "how do you think you could really describe how many feathers there were?" or else show him the passage she was thinking of and ask him how he could get his point across in a similar way. I'm wondering what everyone else thinks about this, because for some reason it just kind of bothered me the way she told him what he should write. Do you guys agree? disagree? (it's on page 246)

rays readings

I enjoyed these readings so much. I often feel overwhelmed with my workload and reading but I am loving learning how kids learn and developing my own ideas about how I will best be able to teach children or provide them with a space they can learn in.

I particularly love her idea about “shopping for ideas”. A seamstress has materials and just needs to decide how to put it together. Students have what they need to express themselves they just need to decide how to put it together.

I am very glad we looked through books today in class because it helped me concrete this concept of shopping for ideas.

Envisioning….what a wonderful thing to have students do. I really connected with Ray’s thought about how this can add so much energy to a student’s writing.

Class Discussion 10/18

I was glad that we discussed Ray's use of the phrase "real world writing". This was bothering me a little bit because I think children already separate what they do in the classroom and what they do at home and we as teachers should encourage our students to think of it all as one. I wouldn't want my students to not value the writing or work they do in my classroom just because it is for school. If school is not the real world when it comes to writing, that devalues a LOT of work I have done over my lifetime. Personally, I think every bit of work or writing is "real world writing". Not valuing what a student is writing in school might also damage their self esteem. Students should be proud of all work they produce, not just if they are in the "real world" being paid for their work.

Reading Strategies

As I have mentioned before, English was never my favorite subject, and once again I remember a reason why that is so. I absolutely hated when I was forced to use reading strategies whenever I was reading a book. I didn't always have something I could make a connection to, and there wasn't always something to predict. I was a good reader and most of the time I could comprehend what I was reading, but these strategies just got in the way of enjoying reading. I think one of my biggest challenges as a teacher will be coming up with other ways to check for understanding in reading that do not involve forcing reading strategies on kids just because that is how reading education has been done in the past. I love the idea of creative book reports that allow kids the freedom to demonstrate their comprehension of a book in a way that makes sense to them and is fun for them. Katie and I had such a good time making our diorama for the book we read, and I remember as a kid that was the most fun book report I ever had to do. I think it is important that we don't get stuck in doing the same kinds of assessment strategies for each book we have the kids read, because every kid has different strengths and weaknesses, and there is more than one way to show understanding of a text.

Guided Reading

I found the video on Guided Reading that we watched last week in class to be really interesting and educational. It provided some great insight into the literacy practices that teachers actually do and to see them really put into action. The video showed several teachers and their guided reading practices and what I liked about multiple perspectives was that while they were all very similar practices in structure, you could see how many skills or practices could be taught through the same practice of guided reading. One teacher was teaching vocabulary, another fluency, and another predictions. Both times that I have been to Cedar Ridge, I have been placed in two different second grade classrooms, of which both teachers were working on guided reading with small groups of children. This most recent time, the teacher was working on making inferences and asking the kids to find context clues to figure out what the author might mean by a certain line. Both this experience and the practices seen on the video, I feel have really given me a basic footing on the idea and practice of guided reading as something I can use in my classroom as an effective tool for a variety of purposes.

Understanding Text

I was intrigued to see a long list of things children do naturally when reading. Some of them I had already considered but was glad to see that children do a lot of these strategies naturally. I like the idea of teaching the strategies for further understanding but firstly basing learning of what they are already doing themselves. I agreed that forcing ideas and techniques on students is not a beneficial way to go about it. I think students get so much more out of assignments when they are open ended and leave kids room to create and imagine different ways to do the project, just like our book report projects. I loved seeing all the different ways to represent a book. I find all of these techniques much more useful and memorable than just simply writing a book report in Word.

video

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand”
(Chinese proverb)
I like this statement because I can see its accuracy within my own life.I also enjoyed the video we saw in class because I see it as the second step to the proverb: Show me and I will remeber. Us getting into the classrooms will be the understanding aspect.

Guided Reading Video

On Thursday we viewed examples of teachers leading guided reading groups. This was extremely helpful for me. I am a visual learner, so seeing a teacher perform the skills and techniques we had read about in Flint's book was very helpful. It was also helpful because we were able to observe the students involvement and how they responded to the teacher's instructions; this is not something you can do reading text. It was also nice that we were able to view different reading levels and different styles/techniques that teachers used. One teacher chose novels that he knew interested his reading group because they made a connection to a previous book they had read and enjoyed. Another teacher used the reading groups to work on making predictions. I was able to see some of these techniques in person today when we observed at Cedar Ridge. I was in Mr. Miles's first grade class and when he was reading aloud to the class he used some of the same strategies that we saw in the video.

Flint Chapter 8

One thing I really connected with in this chapter was the story in the beginning with the boys that seemed to be off task while the teacher was running reading workshops. Instead of trying to avert the boys' attention back to what they were "supposed" to be reading, she connected with them and had them explain the reading that was holding their interest. She allowed them to continue with the type of text that most excited them and allowed them to express their creativity. I thought this was a wonderful way to handle the situation. Not only were the boys using literacy skills, but they were having fun doing it and they even influenced others in the class to do the same. This is what I want for my future classroom! I want literacy to be fun and enjoyable, and something the students may not even realize they are working on.

ch 8 Flint

One thing I really connected from the text in class today during the video was about exposing children to high quality oral language texts. Its discussed on page 233. I had jotted down "Im not sure this is a great idea" next to the section. The text read "high quality literature regularly usues language that talks over students' heads but remain intresting and engaging to read."

I was thinking that is it was over their heads the students would not be able to comprehend the text and make connections, but merely be able to decode and seem like they are reading it. But after watching the video I changed my mind. I realized that it is not giving a third grader a book on a seventh grade level, but rather giving them a third grade level book that uses rich language they may not be familiar with. This makes much more sense to me now.

Flint Ch. 8

In this chapter, Flint talks a lot about developing vocabulary and one of the methods she presents is that of using graphic organizers. I really love to use graphic organizers as I know that they always really helped me when I was learning a new text. Reading and specifically reading comprehension is all about making connections, either to other ideas in the text or to experiences outside of the text. When you can make connections with the text, thats when you can really understand and make meaning in a text. Graphic organizers such as Venn diagrams, T-charts, and word webs, like Flint suggests are a way for students to visually map out their connections. In the video that we watched today in class, we saw that teacher use a graphic organizer which she called a "mind map" with her students to make connections and understand a new vocabulary word. The students all made different connections, using different clues from the text and relating them to different experiences and knowledge, but the graphic organizer allowed them all to come to an understanding of the unknown word.

Flint Ch.8

One aspect of learning words that the book talks about that I really liked was contextual vocabulary work. It reminded me of a program my school implemented called Word of the Week. The entire school had one word for every week. It was the english teachers job to teach that word, but it was focused on in all the classes. Most of the english teachers gave extra credit if you could find the word of the week in other forms of literacy. I still remember some of these words today because I worked hard to find the words in books I was reading, tv shows I watched, songs I listened to, etc. By finding the words somewhere other than the classroom text book it solidified for me their meaning. I think this shows that their are other ways of getting kids to learn something other than just here is the word and here is the definition. The book was talking about using drama and scenarios to help kids learn vocabulary. I really liked these ideas because it demonstrated a more creative way to get kids to remember words. Also, I see more value in not just having kids memorize a definition, but having them practice using the words correctly day to day.

Flint Chapter 8

I really like the introductions to each chapter of this book where she shares a story that actually happened in a classroom. I feel that they are really the only part of the book that I can really relate to for the most part, and I really liked the one that this chapter began with. I think it is so easy to imagine a group of boys huddled around something they are doing that is not what they are "supposed" to be doing and then trying to hide it. I think it is equally easy to imagine a teacher that would not even take the time to see what they are doing before completely dismissing it and telling them to get back on task. I think it is great that this teacher took an interest in what the boys were doing and deemed it valuable, because that is what the boys thought of it as. The teacher was also able to turn what they were doing into a learning experience and still allow it to be enjoyable for everyone. I would really like my classroom to look like that in the future. I think it would be great to have a classroom where the children's interests are seen as valuable and where they can have some control of their education. I think more kids would be excited to go to school if all classrooms were run this way. The teacher is showing the students that we can all learn from each other and that reading and writing doesn't have to be boring.

The information that I found most helpful that I will take out of the Flint chapter and our subsequent class discussions were the varying levels of emerging writers. It was really neat to see a child's work and development broken down into these levels. Though it seemed obvious that children's writing grows gradually, I had never thought of it in a systematic way like Flint kind of separated it into. The steps starting with random marks and progressing to consonants, and then vowels, and so on make a lot of sense when you think about them and it is really interesting to see them in form of examples. I think that in this chapter, Flint really recognized and emphasized the importance of children's writing and of allowing and encouraging them to write creatively and freely. This is a huge point for me as I completely agree. Kids can really express themselves through writing and its always fun to see what is going on in their minds! You never know! haha

Flint Chapter 6

I found the descriptions about the different levels of emergent writers to be very helpful. I did not realize that the young students went through so many phases, or that those phases had names. I think this will be helpful as a future teacher, because now I have a reference point when I am looking/critiquing my own students writing. If they are at those early stages, I will know that I don't need to correct as much as encourage them. They will get better and more advanced with practice. Just like we talked about in class today, many teachers are too quick to correct instead of guiding the students toward the higher goal. I know this is something that I will struggle with because I will want to correct my students and help them understand why it was incorrect, but I have to remember this is the learning process and they will get better with more practice.

Learning Centers

I just finished reading Flint Ch. 6 and there were a few ideas in it that I thought were really cool, and that I would actually use! I really liked the idea of the writing centers and the literacy-enriched play centers. I think that is such a fun way to incorporate reading and writing in the classroom. I really think that the writing centers use Ray's approach of reading like a writer. When children get to use whatever writing skills they have for play, they will become more confident and comfortable writing. I thought the literacy enriched play centers were a really fun idea too because kids love any props they can use to enhance their play time. Having all of these things like grocery store ads, coupons, cookbooks, etc. in a kitchen or grocery store play center sounds like a great way to get kids to try out their literacy skills as well as using their imagination. I was so excited to see this idea, because I think it is very rare that I read a textbook and see ideas and teaching methods that I could easily put into practice.

Flint Ch.6

Usually when I read Flint, I find it rather silly to separate some of the techniques and methods that they do, thinking they all could be good depending on the situation, and should probably be combined to be the most effective. The two perspectives talked about in the very beginning of the chapter are readiness perspective versus emergent literacy perspective. In the case of these two I cannot see how readiness perspective is even worth mentioning at all. It talks about learning to read, write and speak as a sequence of skills and separate from each other. The emergent literacy perspective talks instead about children developing these abilities concurrently and at different rates and methods. Children are not cookie cutter in learning anything. Every child is different and going to learn a different way and at a different pace. A set of goals or benchmarks of where a child should be at a certain time in their life is not necessarily a bad thing but when the methods used to teach are all about those benchmarks, thats when I see a problem. To think that anyone might view learning to read like this surprises me.

AR

After reading the article about AR, I realized how detrimental this program is to student reading. Not only does it discourage many students from reading, but it also teaches them that what they find interesting may not be important. This was very saddening to me, especially because I am getting an endorsement in reading. I realized that this was a very common practice in schools, and I think the program needs to stop altogether or be modified. Reading is a difficult subject to test on because every person interprets the text differently and finds different aspects important/memorable. So, when dealing with young, impressionable students, it is important that we as teachers are encouraging them in their reading interests and not subject them to tests that belittle what they find interesting.

Accelerated Reader

Prior to reading this article about Accelerated Reader, I had no knowledge of what the program was. I attended a private school my whole life and AR was never part of our curriculum so I have never had experience being in the program like many others seem to have been. From what I understand though, it is a program that includes a variety of books and the computerized multiple choice story plot questions that go along with with those certain books. The biggest problem many people seem to have is the limited book choice and the reading restrictions that this places on children who want to read about what they enjoy and have to be told that they can't because basically there is no AR computer quiz to go along with those books. Another problem that I observed from this reading about AR was that it encouraged reading a lot of books quickly and just having to know the basic and literal plot but did not seem to include any emphasis on the quality of the books and or any critical analysis beyond just the plot. Some of the most enjoyable reading I have done in my life is reading that I can really get into the story and expand upon it and think about why something happens or why someone is the way they are rather than just reading it for what its worth. For this reason, I think that AR may have been a really great idea in the beginning but as it has played out, many problems have come to the surface and if school want to continue to use programs like AR they need to address these problems and see what modifications they can make.

Really Reading

English is not my favorite subject. In fact, I might even say it is my least favorite subject. Reading articles like Schmidt's Really Reading reminds me exactly why that is. The fact is, I love reading and writing, but I absolutely hate the way it is taught in schools. If we want to encourage children to read on their own and to find books that they enjoy, programs like accelerated reader do nothing to support this. The first problem I see is that students are expected to only read the books that are on the accelerated reader list. For some this may be a good thing, because sometimes choosing a book to read is difficult, and a list gives you a place to start. On the other hand, narrowing down the options that children have can pose a huge problem. Telling kids that they can only read what is on the list devalues other books that they might have an interest in. I am a big believer that every person has the ability to love reading, and also to hate reading. Many children might not like the choices that accelerated reader has to offer, and because they are made to read books they will not enjoy, these children will decide that they hate reading. The other problem is the competition that accelerated reader puts in the classroom. The elementary classroom is not the place for competition. From a young age children start comparing themselves to others and if they are not the fastest readers, they will start to feel bad about themselves. I think that there are much better ways to get children to read, and it all starts with helping them find books that they will really enjoy.

Accelerated Reader Article

This article really spoke to me because I have experienced in my life and have also observed in classrooms the delicate use of competition to aid in learning. Before this article I had not really been aware of a way to bring competition into reading. Although this was not one of the objectives of the Accelerate Reader program, it seems that this is one of the main outcomes of program. I think sometimes teachers and parents are unaware of how observant children can be. Children measure themselves according to their peers constantly and AR just helps make this comparison even easier. It was also really disturbing to me that children were deeming books as unimportant or irrelevant just because they weren't AR books. It teaches children that books lower or higher than their tested reading level are not worth their time. I personally think that any book a child chooses to pick up is useful to their future success with reading, no matter what level the book is. It saddens me that children are loosing the enjoyment of reading for a more systematic and rushed technique.

Schmidt article

I can relate alot with this article because the grade school I attended participated in accelerated reader. On pg 204 in makes a point I love: that the program Made the definition of a good reader go from one who finds both knowledge and pleasure in reading to one who could Score 80% or more on and AR test and accumulate alot of points. The article also comments on how the program limits children on the text they will read. I know fist hand that this is true. I can remember racing to the library to at I could get to e books with the most AR points before anyone else. Our library had all of the AR books in one section and I had no idea how to use the library other than to go straight to that section. I ink that yes, AR can help students improve reading. I know I became a better reader from reading many books, however the program does little (if not making worse)to build a child's lifelong desire to read and practice literacy.

I liked that the teacher could admit that she was wrong for endorsing and working to get the program in her school. I also think that as an educator I need to have a spirit of humbleness, to be able to admit when I do not know what is best or to be able to adapt my idea of what is best after I have already set my course in one direction.

Bishop article/ Ray ch 7

One quote that stuck out to me in the article reading for this week was the following quote: "When students are exposed to literature in which they see reflections of themselves and their lives, they are miseducated to view themselves and their lives as "normal", to interpret their own culture as human nature." This perpetuates the discrimination and oppression. I agree with this one hundred percent but I was still concerned with how I would prevent this from happening in my classroom. I felt completely un-prepared to provide rich and true cultural experiences for children but this article has eased some of my worries. Bishop clearly states its not about knowing it all but about putting for the effort to try. I also was very excited to read Ch. 7 in Ray's book because now not only will I have to tool to analyze children literature, I have a large list to choose from. I am so glad I am receiving all of this. One of my biggest fears about my own classroom was building my library but I feel like I am gaining the tools to be able to create a great one!

Bishop Article - Multicultural Education

While reading the Bishop article on multicultural education, I came across a particular quote that really resonated with me! The quote was as follows, "When children are invisible in the literature sanctioned by the schools, or when the images they see are distorted or laughable or inaccurate, the effect on their self-esteem is likely to be negative. " For me, this point really sums up the main purpose I see in using multicultural literature. While multicultural literature is important for celebrating students' diversity, I think the even more important purpose for including it in your classroom is too make the students accept their own cultures and those of others in a positive attitude so they can feel proud! Quality multicultural books can show students the unique aspects about their culture that make them special and valuable.

Multicultural Literature

From reading Bishop's Selecting Literature for a Multicultural Curriculum, I found a few things that really stuck with me. The first of these is the way that people of other cultures are pictured in books. Bishop described how in many books with African American characters, they are pictured as comical, with their hair sticking out in every different direction. Bishop says that African American children who read books like this will have a lowered self esteem because the little girl who is supposed to look like her looks like something to be laughed at. I think this is a really interesting point, and that we should really look closely at how accurate our multicultural literature is when we bring books into our classroom. The other thing that really stuck with me was that multicultural texts rarely portray a current day image of a different culture. For instance, many books about African Americans are about either slavery or the civil rights movement. We should focus on finding books that children can relate to today. Also in class Leslie and I talked about how just because a person looks different does not necessarily mean they partake in a certain culture. For example, I had a friend in high school who had moved here from China when she was 8 years old. I asked her once what her favorite kind of Chinese food was, and she told me that she loves orange chicken from Panda Express. Just because she looks Chinese and even lived there for a period of time didn't mean that every piece of her old culture stayed with her. She lived with her mom and step dad, who was American. I think it is important not to assume people will act a certain way just because they look different from us, and to get to know our students and where they come from.

Bishop and Flint

After reading the Bishop article, I found that I disagreed with many of her thoughts, as well as some of what Flint has been discussing. This is all in regard to multicultural literacy. After reading the article, I felt that the "norm" students (Middle class, white, Americans) are being ignored. All the other students get to partake in literacy that discusses their own personal histories, yet the "norm" students are left behind. I feel as if there is such an emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism in the classroom that we forget to discuss the other students, many of whom have just as diverse backgrounds. I also felt that Bishop used words like "norm" that made student like myself feel as if we have nothing special or unique about our backgrounds and because we are not labeled as "different" we don't deserve any recognition. Now I know that is not what she intended, but some of her language gave me that impression. I also noticed this in Flint's work and how she has stressed the importance of validating the multiple languages of all students. I do think this is important, but I think the extent that the subject has been taken is far too much. Some students who may be labeled as "different" may not even see themselves that way, or do not want to be seen in that way and putting them in the spotlight would make them uncomfortable. I think the push on how much diversity is brought into the classroom should depend on the students themselves. Yes, there should be some multicultural texts in all classrooms because America is a very diverse country and the students should be aware of that. However, I don't feel that there should be such pressure to make sure all the texts are perfectly authentic and that every culture in the classroom is represented in a text unless the students themselves want it that way.

Bishop

I just finished reading the Bishop article and overall I can see where the author was trying to go with it, but some of what Bishop was saying I did not agree with. One part of the anticipation guide mentioned about a counter argument that teachers should be color blind. I agree with this more. I do understand the need for multicultural literature in the classroom but I do not think that books that have characters that are Everychildren should be discredited or claimed to be not as helpful. I think the best way to beat racism and stereotyping is to show the commonality between races and other groups of people. The article bashed some of the stories and claimed they were not authentic. I do not think that depicting a african american girl with braids (messy or organized) is a way to judge a books authenticity. Some african american girls do wear their hair in the type of braids described by Bishop; not all do, but some do. I think this applies to any type of children. Some will fit into this category and some into another; one thing Bishop said that I would really agree with is that not one book or perspective can represent an entire group of people. But having said this, I wonder why Bishop is so critical of texts or images she deems stereotypical or useless. I could go on and on about this, overall I guess I just believe that treating everyone equally, while still valuing everyone's cultures (even the middle class white people's) is important to creating a classroom where everyone feels safe, comfortable, and with a sense of belonging.

Home Literacy Practices

I was reading the article about the Johar family and really liked how it talked about all the different literacy practices that can be found in just one home. Although the parents encouraged work book type learning their was also a lot of the kids playing with each other and teaching each other. It mentioned different types of games that they played to help Genna and the smaller children learn different skills. I was reminded that not only the "teacher" in an environment can do the teaching. It is useful and even better to sometimes let the students lead themselves or each other. Genna's siblings helped her with many different types of literacy simply by including her and encouraging her.

Reading Blog - Week 1 Post

The common theme this week between both the Flint chapters and the Jiminez, Smith, & Teague reading was that of the need for teachers to recognize and embrace the cultural backgrounds and experiences that students bring with them to the classrooms from their outside lives. This is an important notion for teachers to recognize and it is becoming more and more vital everyday as the number of diverse students in the school system grows immensely. I absolutely agree that the literacy experiences that a student has at home or in their community can be very differential based on culture and without a doubt will affect their learning and literacy abilities within the classroom. I think that the knowledge and inclusion of the students backgrounds not only allows the teacher to better connect with and engage the students but it also serves to boost students attitudes and their own feelings about diversity and culture. If we as teachers can embrace the diversity of our students, then our students will also learn to embrace the diversity of one another and to be comfortable in their own skin to be proud of their own cultures. This in turn makes the students better able to approach many topics from many perspectives and to value the differential perspectives during classroom instruction so to gain a more complete and well-rounded knowledge base.

Jiminez, Smith & Teague Reading

Hello!

I was just in the middle of reading the Jiminez, Smith & Teague article, and something really stood out to me. It says that 12% of the entire population is foreign-born, and 20% of students have immigrant parents. That is a really big chunk of the children we will be working with! Of course some areas will have a larger immigrant population than others, but even at my high school in Wheaton, we had fairly large population of ELL students. I think it is really important that as future teachers we find a way to involve these students in the classroom and treat their history and first language as a strength rather than a weakness, and really something that we can learn from. As ELL students I think it would be very easy for them to be intimidated by going to an English speaking school, which could cause them to quit trying very early on in their education. It is our job to really include them in class activities and make sure they are comfortable here so they have the support to continue in their education. That is why I think that the authors' idea of the transnational and community literacies is a great idea. By involving their background in the classroom and allowing them to share their own experiences, the entire class can learn more about other cultures while these students are feeling more involved in the learning process and can feel safe and comfortable in the classroom.

Post 1

Something that really struck me this week was both the reading and class discussion/jigsaw activity concerning language use in the classroom. Flint discussed the many different forms of language that are used in the classroom such as Ebonics and code switching. I found our class discussion about this topic very helpful and useful. It was good to hear others opinions about how to validate the students that come from a different linguistic background while still helping them succeed in the reading and writing of "proper English". I think this will be a topic I will struggle with as a teacher so by being introduced to the topic by Flint and then furthering the discussion with others in the class, I now have a better understanding of the topic and some ways to cope with it.