My Definition of Literacy

On page 32, Au starts off his paragraph saying, "As part of culturally responsive instruction, teachers my explore with their classes the way in which students and their families use literacy at home and in the community. Students may use literacy in sophisticated ways which are not necessarily familiar to teachers from mainstream backgrounds."

This quote speaks strongly to me because it reminds me of a class that I took as an undergrad. It was about teaching African American students and studying their culture in American. My professor told us a story about her first years of teaching high school, she didn't understand why the African American students would be sitting at the back of her class everyday in which she would catch them talking and passing notes during silent reading. One day she had the courage and to walk over to two students that were passing notes and grab it from them. She didn't read it out loud in front of the class, but read it after school. She was surprised of what they wrote as she assumed that she was going to find a statement saying something immature. Instead she realized that students were passing notes of what they were reading about. She was ecstatic that her students did care about class, but realized that she needed to do something to connect to the other student or she feared the worse, that her student couldn't read. She spoke to one of her colleagues and he asked her what his culture or family dynamics were like. After much research and speaking to this student she came to the conclusion that the student would only read if the article or book pertained or associated with his life situations.

The moral of her lecture was it depends on the student if they want to take in any reading, writings, or any other form of literacy. It is a choice. As an educator it is up to us to find literature that will connect to all students.

Assessment

“Less ranking, more evaluating.” Reading Elbow’s paper made me realize in a deeper sense how important and complicated assessment is. In reading Elbow’s article I could feel his passionate attempt to have his readers focus more on evaluation. In the first pages of his article he stated the three problems of ranking; it is unreliable, it does not give substantive feedback, and creating a negative notion and atmosphere for teaching and learning. Further on he provides examples of how to grade without giving a letter grade or ranking.
Elbow also mentions different ways and examples of how to else a teacher and assess. When reading these examples, it reminds me of all my courses in this program and how my professors grade. Instead of grading a test we are assigned projects, portfolios, blogs, and work to share with our classmates. It is through this work that we are evaluated by content and quality as opposed to just looking for the one correct answer. When assessing a project, profolio, etc. it is highly possible that grading on a rubric, or evaluation rubric. Routman sends a disclaimer of how rubrics are like checklists "can disrupt the flow of teaching and learning." page 242.
As an educator I will keep in mind how emotional and sensitive grading can be. Through my undergrad years I remember writing my papers and answering questions that would cater to the teacher’s preferences. In my own classroom I will try to keep an open mind and accept all points of view, and if I question the answers of a student I would ask them one-on-one what their intent was. Perhaps if they did not understand I should not see that as their failure, but take responsibility and realize that I may be partly at fault.
I remember my 4th grade teacher did that with one of my friends. She had trouble putting her thoughts on paper as well as other classmates. My teacher gave the option of talking to her to justify your answers. At the end of the week we would have silent work time, where students had the opportunity to meet with her one-on-one. During this time we were allowed to talk to her about our grades and discuss with her why we did not deserve the grades that we received. I loved having this option as we all felt that she really did care about us and our thoughts.
No matter how we grade our students the one of the most important issues that we have to remember are encouraging students to do their best and to keep them motivate. It is our goal, as teachers to do so.

6 traits

I decided to write about 6 traits after class because I wanted to see what other people thought about it. I was relieved when I found out that there are some people that felt the same way I do. I had a hard time reading the article as I had horrible memories of my 4th grade teacher as she drilled these traits (and more) into our minds, and that we would be good writers is if we had followed all the traits when writing a paper. It was a rubric, we would only be graded on how it flowed according to the 6 traits. However her teaching method was the complete opposite from my 5th grade teacher who only cared about grammar, spelling, and punctuation, making it hard for me to write, especially since I had lost my voice. My junior high years were a mess as I was uncertain how to write, do I follow what my 4th or 5th grade teacher had taught? What ever happened to just writing?
It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that I felt I had a teacher that understood my writing and how hard it was for me to express myself on paper. He could tell that I was confused especially after the second paper that I wrote in his class and told me that it was too dry. That he could tell that I only paid attention to grammar and writing and that he wanted more “personality” or voice in it. He approached me and stated that he was worried about me and my future. I told him about my confusion and he insisted that it was okay to break the rules, write fragment sentences and to always include who I am in my paper because that always makes a paper more fascinating.

Brown's article

Brown’s article was not only entertaining to read, but made me understand the optimal learning model that was stated in Routman, a bit more. I especially was thrilled to see examples of Brenda and Linda’s work with Travis, Shamika, and Patrick. As I was reading each description of each child I could easily imagine a student from both my main placement and dyad. With each student I will share an observation or interaction between that student and my master teacher or myself.

Travis: Linda began using simple predictable books during small group time in which Travis was in. Before Linda reads the book she has them look through the book and make predictions, then explains to them that they will encounter several important high-frequency words. Than she reads the book aloud and models how to track the print and stopping to ask student what they had learned. Than she had the students to share the readings as she demonstrated and lastly, working on their own time with reading. What Linda had done in this case reminds me of what I will be doing for my observation. I will be reading with a small group of students (who have learning disabilities), and first I will start reading, then take turns with another student, than finally have the students read to each other with myself as the facilitator and asking questions to assess comprehension, then work independently in by either reading the story again silently or working in their packets if they feel that they understand the story. I have also observed my dyad teacher perform the same technique.

Shamika: I have a student like her in my main placement, one that seems far advance for her age, and since she is new to the school it is hard to find records of files of her growth and notes from last year. Although I don’t remember my master teaching “breaking the code” for this student I do remember my master teacher teaching some of her students on blending sounds, and once she proved that she had mastered that stage she moved to chucking and identifying spelling patterns when reading unfamiliar words, as Brown calls it, decoding by analogy. One day the class was learning words in the –in family. One of the examples on the board was the word chin, many of the students assumed that it was pronounced, /c/ /h/ /in/ sounding out the first two letters, however the student similar to Shamika, knew better she knew that ch made a /ch/ sound therefore she came up with the correct answer. When she was asked how she knew that she indicated that she just broke the word, or chucked it.

Patrick: Patrick actually reminds me of a girl in my dyad placement, the one that loves to do everything but read, however she above the line of an average reader. I was surprised that when it came to choice time, all her of her friends would choose to silent read while she would rather draw or paint by herself. I always wondered how to reel the students that seemed uninterested in reading to realize their potential to develop to become better students. It wasn’t that this student know what she was reading, she just did not have the desire to read. So my master teacher looked for books that could be characterized as easy reader texts, specifically the Arthur books, challenging as it has more texts than others but at the same time engages the student with sight words that students are assumed to know.

Travis, Shamika, and Patrick are obviously not on the same page when it comes to reading and text, but it is through Brenda and Linda’s scaffolding procedures they are able to learn how to read at their own pace, not face, not slow, just right. In the past weeks I was unsure if I had seen the Optimal Model in use during my class periods, but after reading Brown's examples I have concluded that not only have I noticed it in class, I will be doing the same thing concept in my dyad observation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCvyl_Sb2Z0

Writing Essentials part 2

Routman's chapter four, "Raise Your Expectations" was and enjoyable read. It made me think and rethink about how I work in the classroom with students. On page 56, Routman writes, "I never give up on a child; it is never okay for a student not to write or not participate- no matter what the child's background. It is also not okay to rely on scripted, one-size-fits-all programs in our poorest schools while more affluent ones can choose the best materials and strategies to teach their students." In my dyad I observed my master teacher working with an uncooperative student. The assignment was to write about their ideal monster, but since the teacher knows his students pretty well he knew that the real problem was that she hated to write. She refused to write and sat down in the corner. My master teacher went over there after he let her calm down and asked what the problem was. He listened and advised her write about something else such as what she was going to be for Halloween or her favorite hero and she liked that idea better. He did not want her to give up on working on an assignment therefore picked a different topic for her to write about. I asked him why he let her do that and not just let her give in. He informed me that if he gave in and let her slide than he would have felt that he had given up on her. "I just wanted her to write, even if it was not about the same topic that everyone else was working on." I did also like to discuss about the optimal learning model however I did have a hard time understanding what it was therefore I waited to write this portion of my blog after class. From what I got from group discussion was that it was similar to direct instruction, where the teacher talks about the lesson, teacher demonstrates, has students work with the teacher, than the teacher lets them work independently. For example learning to write numbers. The teacher tells the students that they will learn writing numbers, teacher demonstrates how to write the number "1" on the board, students copy, then the students work independently on the writing the next with the numbers. I hope I understood that right.

Writing Essentials

Writing has never been one of my fortes but I have to say that I wish that I had this list when I was younger or wished that my teachers would emphasize oh each writing essential, especially with a couple of them. I think that all teachers should have this check list somewhere in their classroom because all these points are important and it’s nice to have this resource to look as a refresher on all the main ideas of writing. I was excited to read this list as it brought me back to my childhood and also made me think about how I write. In elementary school I remember how my teachers would emphasize that five paragraph paper, starting with the introduction, three bodies, and the conclusion where the thesis was the last sentence of the introduction and the first in the conclusion. Another activity that I learned when I was younger that I still used today is the brain storming chart using a circle map. The main topic is in the middle branching out the minor details that I would want to write about.

One essential that I see is powerful is the embrace of language. Playing with words is not only fun to do and read, but encourages the reader to experience other types of writings which will hopefully will have the student explore other different types of genres. For example reading poetry could lead to reading Shakespeare and learning how he wrote and use their creative minds to create their own style.

Another essential that I also liked was the authentic voice. Yes it is important to have a piece of writing understandable, clear, and powerful, but sometimes in doing so the writer could get bored. When I write, I want the reader to know my voice and have it sound like me and not be dull because I associate dull with boring.

The only one that I see as somewhat problematic is, “read widely and deeply – and with a writer’s perspective.” Some students simply don’t enjoy reading while others don’t read as well as others for example ELL students. I’m not saying that all ELL students will have a difficult time adjusting to different genres but a story that uses a lot of figurative language, that they may not get it. But as teachers we can expose them to these different types of writings, however not everyone will see this point as effective.

The Wonderful World of Phonics

Fox Chapter 1:
Last Friday I was at my main placement where I had a chance to closely observe first graders writing and drawing for an alphabet book they are making for their class. While they were writing many of them did not know how to spell certain words such as long, queen, and butterfly. Many of them immediately asked for either my help or my master teacher but we had encouraged to try their best and not to worry about the spelling for now. Many of the students used the synthetic approach or "sounding out" each letter. For example for the word long, the student had a hard time trying to figure out the “ng” sound but were able to tell by just sounding it out that it started with an l followed by an o. She is a wiz kid so she did figure out that –ing make the “-ing” sound that possibly the spelling was “loing.” Another student was trying to figure out the word thin. He knew that it ended with the letter –in as he figured that it rhymed with fin and tin but was not sure about the “th” sound. Due to the analogy-based instruction he was about to recognize that the word was in the –in family and just needed to come up with the first part which he had problems with.

During my September Experience I had the opportunity to see my master teacher take the analytic approach where the students already knew the words but had to break them into parts. She would sit with group of five students and would start of with simple sight words that they should have known such as rat, chat, and ended in the week with story words such as happy or play a game before each reading block and practice phonics on the students’ names.

My master teacher has taught the analytic way, encourages the synthetic approach, and began the school year with teaching word families and moving onto a new family every three days or so, or when she feels that the students are ready. Depending on the student, and if they are writing or reading, some use the analogy-based method where they recognize the word family and work off of that, where many of them are still using the explicit method.

Fox Chapter 2:
This coming Friday I will be visiting my main placement to read to class "Good Night Owl" by Pat Hutchins. I had chosen this book to read with the help of my master teacher as the class is learning about nocturnal animals in science class. Attached is a video of the book being read. Although I have not read this book in front of the class yet, after listening to the reader from the Youtube video I conclude that with the numerous amount of onomatopeias, will help promote sound awareness. Children do like make up words but I have also noticed that they like animals sounds as well. As for this story, I could use the "Roll Call" or "Secret Name" activity when chosing children to answer the questions, for example "If your secret name is Dim (Jim) please answer the following question. Although it might not be a complement to the book, it could be an interesting way of calling their names.



Fox Chapter 3:
After reading chapter 3 I can conclude that "invented spelling" helps young readers not only reading but with expressing who they are. Last week was teacher parent conference and one of the parents asked my master teacher "what should I do when my daughter asks me how to spell a word? Should I tell her to sound it out or should I spell it for her?" My master teacher stated that it was important for her students to sound it out as that is what we do in the classroom. Sometimes it takes trial and error for a student to recognize if they are spelling a word or saying a workd incorrectly. It also helps students focus on the content of what they are writing as opposed to stressing on the if they are spelling a word right.

Literacy journal response for Class 2

Emergent Literacy: New Perspectives

I have a to admit after reading this article I couldn't feel but overwhelmed as I didn't realize how much thought and effort went into reading, at the same time excited as I had just witnessed half of the examples described in the article, in my main placement. Of course I always knew that reading was important that students should start reading as early childhood, but there was one sentence that struck me. "Rather than teaching reading and writing in an early childhood program, our focus should be on teaching children to read and write." (page 6 & 7) This statement reminded me of a time in my September Experience, as I witnessed a teacher become easily upset and started putting blame on at the child's early education teacher and the student’s parents. After watching the other teacher create a scene, my teacher pulled me over and stated to never put blame on anyone and to just teach, don’t think about their skills coming in but to focus what you want them to accomplish when they leave in June.

Another concept that I enjoyed in this article was on advice how a classroom should be set up for independent reading. My master teacher has nailed all four topics as her main focal point is the library books in the back next to the open-faced book shelves with all different types of books. During reading group she breaks down the students into small groups of 5, where all students are reading the same story but in different ways. In one group she has the students read to her, one by one. In the other she has either chosen vocab words or word families that the students must practice writing on white boards. In another section she has students drawing an activity that has to deal with the reading and writing down what they are doing. And in the last station, students are listening to the story on tape.

And the last topic I would like to discuss is the idea behind “The Morning Message” where a message is written on the board, recited by the teacher, and then repeated by both the teacher and the students. I didn’t realize why my teacher did that until now. I did honestly assume that it was either filler time or another way of teaching calendar. Either way I did not put in much thought on how important that these little sentences. Now I know.

Council on Interracial Books:

Growing up I remember a book that was read aloud to my class that we all just loved. It was first introduced to me when a substitute teacher, Ms. Flynn, and because we always enjoyed this book and she seemed to be sub until grade 6 we would be beg her to read it every time we saw her. That book is called Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel. We loved that book because she made reading aloud fun. I’ll never forget the way that she would pronounced his name and how she used her voice and facial expressions when something exciting was going to happen. And I remember the moral of the story was, Chinese people do not have long names because for what happened to Tikki Tikki Tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo falling down the well, and how his brother Chang had wasted so much time on saying his name that the villagers could have gotten to his brother in quicker amount of time if Tikki Tikki Tembo had a shorter name.

It wasn’t until college and learning about Asian culture that now I find this book to be stereotypical as it reinforces that Chinese people use random syllables as names and how funny each one sounds. Although I did enjoy that book, I am still torn if it is a book that I will read to my class. Hopefully I’ll have made a decision by the end of this quarter.