Final Noteblog Assessment

One trend I noticed across the group was that all of us have expanded our view of what literacy is. In my new literacy post I said “While learning about all of these new literacy’s, I have gained a much broader understanding of literacy. Literacy has so many components and it is unfair to confine it to the traditional definition of “reading and writing”. I think that it is so important for students to be exposed to these new forms of literacy.” Maggie posted “I found all of the links extremely interesting and they sent me to things I’ve never seen before and showed me different perspectives.” and Emily wrote “Regarding emotional literacy, one thing that I didn’t consider before working on this project was the special consideration that girls are given over boys when dealing with emotion.”. I noticed that throughout our blog, the same ideas resonated; we all felt that we had learned valuable things about new literacies and we could not wait to apply this knowledge to our own classrooms some day.

One disagreement that we had was over the appropriate age to be using technology in the classroom. In my new literacy post, I wrote “Students will go through the book and scan the illustrations that are expressing the character’s emotions. Students will compile the images in a PowerPoint presentation.” However, Maggie thought that this type of project might be a little ambitious for my students considering their age level. She commented “Even though I'm sure our younger students spend lots of time on their computers and are familiar with various technologies - I think that their knowledge is still limited…I feel that showing our younger students the different technologies and literacies through those is beneficial, but it would take a lot of work to get through something technological without the help and constant guidance of someone older.” We both agree that it is very important for young students to be exposed to new technologies, but we have different ideas about when this new technology should be implemented in the classroom.
All of the group members agreed that race is an important aspect of any classroom and that consequently it is not something that should be ignored. I posted “I know that I should not ignore race, but at the same time I struggle with how to address it. Due to my limited background, I sometimes have a hard time finding connections with students of different backgrounds…I think that even though I struggle with how to connect with my students of different races, as long as I show them that I value them and their experiences and that I appreciate them as human beings, then I will be able to connect with them.” On the same post, Maggie said “Even in a classroom, in a small, white town with have differences among students. All people have different experiences and are from different backgrounds; therefore, teachers should never assume certain things about their students based on things like race.” Emily commented “it is extremely important for teachers to not only see color, but to embrace it. By “not seeing” race, teachers basically claim that all children are the same when the fact of the matter is, students are different and therefore have different needs. These needs need to be addressed and accommodated for if the student is going to learn and grow in a supportive learning environment”. I think that this was a topic that really resonated with each of us. All of the group members agreed that race is something not to be ignored in the classroom.

I personally feel that my group members have really contributed to my learning this semester. They often brought up different ideas and perspectives that I had not considered. In one of my posts I said that I sometimes struggled while working with diverse students because I had practically no exposure to any sort of diversity while I was growing up. However, Maggie reminded me that just because I grew up in an almost all white school, this does not mean that I don’t have any experience working with diverse individuals. She commented “Even in a classroom, in a small, white town with have differences among students. All people have different experiences and are from different backgrounds”. This comment really helped me to see that I don't have to come from a racially diverse backgroud to know about diversity. We spent most of our blog posts affirming what each other had written. I think that we really could have stretched each other’s thinking if we would have challenged/disagreed with more of each other’s ideas. I think we were probably a little afraid of offending each other, so we shied away from challenging each other or disagreeing with each other. However, I think we could have shared a lot more ideas and heard many more opinions if we hadn’t been so afraid to hurt someone else’s feelings.

I think that I should be given 9.5 points out of 10 for the noteblog. Even though I didn’t challenge ideas as much as I could have, I still think I contributed positively to the group. I always read what my group members and gave insightful comments about their posts. I also feel that I did my best to write really good initial posts so that the rest of the group would have a lot to go off of and so that no one would struggle to come up with any comments. Ideally, I should have challenge more ideas than I did, but overall I feel like I did a pretty good job on the noteblog.

Letter

Dear Parents,

I am writing to you to inform you of Jose's progress with reading and writing thus far and hope that we can all work together with him to advance his progress even further throughout the year to insure that he is successful. Also, in general, he is a quiet and shy boy so we need to do what we can to help him feel comfortable in the classroom and comfortable with reading and writing. We need to positively motivate him so that he is not afraid to make mistakes. That's when learning happens - after we've made mistakes!

I have completed a series of assessments with all of the students and Jose has shown that he is struggling. During a reading assessment, I gave him a simple book to read to me. As I listened to him read, I kept track of the words he was reading correctly and the ones that he misread. At first, it was difficult to get him to start reading and when he finally did, he was very quiet and hesitant. Nevertheless, we got through it. Through this assessment I saw that he was able to recognize many high-frequency words, but when he got to unfamiliar words he would stop reading and would say, "I don't know what that word is." He did not try to figure out what it may be and then I encouraged him to keep reading. I believe that Jose needs a lot of help and I will do this by spending time with him with guided reading. This is when I work with a small group of students who are at the same reading level. This small group is comforting for students. I choose a book that they are interested in and one that I know that they will able to read with 90% accuracy. Then I introduce the book to them and we all look at the cover, title, and author. Then I activate the student's background knowledge by going over key vocabulary. I also take them through a picture walk of the book. This is when we look at the illustrations, discuss what we see and make predictions about the story. Finally, I will review with them a few reading strategies that I will encourage them to use while they read. Finally, the students each get a copy of the book and read it independently. If the students are having trouble, then I can help them individually. For example, since Jose has trouble decoding unfamiliar words, I will ask him to look at the individual letters and tell me what sounds they make. Then he can take those sounds and put them all together to try and figure out what the word may be. For example, with the word "red", Jose can sound out each individual letter, r-e-d, and then make all the sounds flow together to figure out that the word on the page is "red". I would encourage you to do the same with him at home so that he has the opportunity to practice more in the comfortable setting of your home. I will send a few books home with him that you can work on together.

When it comes to writing, Jose is also very hesitant and usually only ends up writing his name. After various lessons, I have the students draw a picture that relates to the lesson and then I ask them to write a few words to explain their picture. To help Jose, I will use a "language experience approach". At first, I will do this in small groups to build up his comfort level and then we will transition to do this with the entire class. I will ask Jose to dictate words and sentences about an experience that relates to the lesson and I will write it down. By doing this I will model how written language works by bringing his attention to punctuation, capitalization, etc. But first I will model to him how I can help myself figure out how a word may be spelled by sounding out each letter that I hear as I say it out loud. Then I will ask him to continue writing using that strategy.

I hope that with our guidance and encouragement Jose will become more comfortable with reading and writing and be very successful. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Best,
Magdalena Kopacz

parent letter

Dear Parents,


I have been noticing that Ana has been struggling with some aspects of her reading and writing and I wanted to share these struggles with you so that you can be helping her at home and so that together we can come up with an action plan to help her improve in these vital areas.
In terms of reading, I have noticed that Ana struggles with decoding multisyllabic words and with fluency. If a word is unfamiliar, she struggles with reading figuring out what the word means. She also often skips words or repeats words when she is reading. To help her with decoding words, I propose that she is taught a procedure for decoding multisyllabic words. She will be taught to remove the prefixes and suffixes to indentify the root word and brainstorm lists of words for different root word. These activities will help Ana become more confident and successful when she tries to decode multisyllabic words. To help her with her fluency, I will work to make sure that she is reading books that are level appropriate for her. I will also encourage her to practice reading more, so she becomes more used to the process. Some strategies that I will teach her are: reading the text quietly before reading it aloud, reading familiar texts and using choral reading in small groups.
In terms of her writing I have noticed that she struggles with being too dependent on the teacher’s approval. She is constantly checking her work with the teacher and can’t go on until she has the teacher’s approval of her work. Also, her compositions often lack focus. Her ideas are not succinct and often move in many different directions. To help her with being too dependent on the teacher’s approval, I will encourage her to check her work with a classmate before she comes to the teacher. I will also set up specific times when she can come talk to me about her work when she needs to. To help Ana focus her ideas, I will have her highlight the sentences in her writing drafts that pertain to the topic and cut the sentences that do not connect to the topic. When I’m working with her individually, I will show her examples or unfocused writing and have her revise them so she gets used to revising her own papers in this way.
Ana is a great student who is very motivated to do good work. I know that if we work together to help her is some areas she struggles with, she will start excelling as a reader and writer. I look forward to the progress she will make!

Sincerely,
Miss Allie Talaski

Differentiating Instruction Letter

Dear Parents,

               I am writing to you today to discuss Shantel and my plans to help her succeed in my classroom. After having her complete a few reading and writing assessments in order to determine her reading/writing level, Shantel is reading and writing at below grade level, specifically at the third grade level. She is specifically struggling with reading fluency, sigh word recognition and vocabulary development. There are other students in the classroom who are at a similar level of development and some students who are at a fourth grade reading level or above. In order to ensure that Shantel is getting the attention and help that she needs, I intend to offer differentiated instruction in order to help her succeed. For example, at the beginning of Literacy hour, I have the students participate in independent reading where each student gets 20 minutes to read in a book that is both interesting to them and at their reading level. After the 20 minutes has passed, I will have them complete an online comprehension check in order to ensure that they are comprehending the text that they are reading. I will take the results from those checks and post them in a chart so that Shantel and other students can monitor their own growth and learning. This can help to motivate students to continue learning and improving. In addition to this, when we are reading a story as a class, I have the students who are ahead of everyone else read on their own in the reading corner while I read to the other students personally. What this does is allow the struggling students to gain a better understanding of the content of the story without having to worry about the technical aspects of reading the text.

               Another form of differentiating instruction that I have prepared to help Shantel improve her reading ability is called guided reading lessons. During this type of lesson, I will take Shantel and other students who are reading at her level and we will read a chapter or two of short chapter books that are at their reading level and reflect each students’ ability to use different reading strategies. Following that, the students will discuss those chapters and will then proceed to reread them independently or with a friend. This will allow them to develop the comprehension that they need for understanding the important aspects of the story while still giving them practice reading on their own and gaining that kind of experience. When they are reading with a friend, I will ensure that the person they are reading with is at a similar reading level so that each student can assist each other while avoiding the problem of one person dominating the reading session. As a group, we will record a list of the books that we have read and this will help the students to develop confidence in their reading ability because they will be able to see first-hand the amount of reading they have been able to accomplish. During this activity, all of the books selected for reading contain valuable and interesting information that is represented in the core standards for fourth grade curriculum. This means that what your student is reading is not only interesting to them but relevant to their learning needs.

               After the students have completed reading for the day, they will engage in a variety of activities that help to ensure comprehension and extension of the ideas presented to everyday life as well as other classroom subjects. These activities may include making venn-diagrams, writing a summary sentence, creating brochures or poster boards, writing poetry or short stories, creating concept quilt squares, etc. The important common characteristic of all of these activities is that all of them will be specially selected based on the level of development for each student. This means that students who are struggling will be working on a different, but equally as challenging and important, activity from those who are ahead of the rest of the class academically. This ensures that all students are challenged appropriately.

               Another aspect of the differentiating instruction that I have prepared to help Shantel succeed is differentiated spelling tests. Each week, the students in my classroom are given a vocabulary list of words that they need to know how to spell. I give them a pretest in order to assess their prior knowledge of the words and then the students will work on the words every day until Friday when they will take the spelling test. During the week, Shantel completes individual activities such as Making Words and Word Sorts which both focus on developing Shantel’s vocabulary and sight-word recognition. This will help to improve her spelling ability as well. Each student will be given a different set of words that matches with their individual level of development. This way, all of the students are challenged without being offered material that is too difficult and often discouraging for them. Because Shantel tends to need more time to finish the spelling tests than other students, I will be sure to allow her the time she needs to complete the test to the best of her ability. I believe that this kind of flexibility is necessary in order to ensure the success of my students.

When students are working on projects, they are often given many different choices regarding the topics of these projects, the type of information gathered, and the way in which they present the information. This means that each project is meaningful to each student because they are given choices so that they can complete the project in a way that is relevant to them. These options also allow students to showcase their individual knowledge and skills in unique ways because they are able to choose the method of presentation. For example, Shantel seems to really enjoy dramatization. She might chose to present her report by acting out the information she wishes to share.

The final area of differentiated instruction that I would like to include in my classroom is an after school club that I would like to create. This club would meet every Tuesday and Thursday right after school and would focus on developing reading and writing skills. During this club, I could help students who are still struggling in these areas in a one-on-one, personalized setting. We could do activities as a group that are fun and interesting but also help develop such skills as reading fluency, sight-word recognition, vocabulary development, writing skills, comprehension, etc. During this club, I would also like to encourage parent volunteers to come in and read and write with their students. This can help to encourage the students and developing their reading and writing skills as well as provide assistance to other students who need it. Please let me know if you would be interested in participating in this type of after school club.

I look forward to having a wonderful year with Shantel and I encourage you to contact me at any time if you wish to discuss the development of your student.

Sincerely,

Emily Rippetoe

NLP Post

*Hey guys! Just a note, I didnt realize until just now that we were supposed to post these here so I just e-mailed my post to Marjorie. Sorry its late!

Anytime that one is exploring something new and doing so in a new way, one is likely to encounter difficulties, surprises, and unexpected turn-of-events. Participating in this project was no different. One of the aspects that surprised me the most about this project was the ease at which my group was able to work together. Deciding on meeting times, presentation methods, topics etc. was surprisingly easy to do and as I have learned, this is not always the case. When we decided to further examine emotional literacy (one we have all had experiences with in the past and one that we think specifically relevant to our students), I did not expect to meet many problems. One aspect that was more difficult than expected was the many different ways that the resources we consulted addressed emotional literacy. What I mean by this is that many of the websites, videos etc. that we studied to learn more about emotional literacy described very different ways to address the topic in the classroom. Some mentioned using a gentle, back-handed approach and others suggested tackling this topic in a more direct way. After really considering the methods provided, we decided to describe both because we felt that different classrooms with different students will require different techniques for discussing emotional literacy.

 Alison suggested presenting the information in a website format. I really liked this idea because I believe that working/presenting information online allows easy access for the reader as well as for the presenter. In addition to this, using a website (when organized correctly) can provide an easy-to-read, understandable, exciting exhibit of the information that the presenters wish to present. This aside, working on a website was more difficult than expected. When we chose this design, part of its appeal was the ease at which each of us would be able to access the page without having to be together to work on it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. For whatever reason, we discovered that only one person in the group was able to access the website which meant that we would have to meet more in person that originally planned.

I would love to use this type of literacy to help the students explore their own ideas. What I mean by that is that I would select a theme (perhaps animals) and then allow them to select a category in that theme (cats, dolphins, etc.) and allow them to create a website (rather than a research paper) that displays all of the information they have gathered on the subject. Following its creation, the students would present their website to the class using either paper print out of the pages or an overhead/smart board if one is available. My objective would include that students will learn how to create a website and will use the website to display the research and information they gathered while learning about their designated topic. When considering what the students in my placement classroom would need in order to engage in this type of new literacy (websites) in a lesson plan, the first thing that comes to mind would be a lot of human technical support. Because of the attention that many of my students need when tackling any task, focusing on one that they are likely less familiar with would probably require even more assistance. In addition to this, the students would also need equipments (such as computers) that they don’t already have. It is possible that this is something that could be worked on in a computer lab due to the high quantity of computers that would be necessary for the students to work on this at the same time. I would examine the website upon completion and would be looking for creativity, completion, thoroughness of research, and the enthusiasm and skill displayed while presenting the website. This would allow them to learn the content and display it in a unique, fun, and interesting way.

Through working on this project, I have learned a lot about emotional literacy and designing websites. Regarding emotional literacy, one thing that I didn’t consider before working on this project was the special consideration that girls are given over boys when dealing with emotion. Boys tend to be told that they have to be tough and they are often given the impression that this means that you are not allowed to show emotion like girls can. This is an area that I had not considered deeply but one that I think we all need to as teachers. I believe that many of our male students are not taught how to best handle their emotions and perhaps this is why we see more physical fighting amongst boys than girls. This is not to say that girls do not have similar problems but a lot of the focus was on the male student population in these articles because of how much worse it can sometimes be for them. Many of the websites and videos that we explored also discussed the importance of addressing emotional literacy at as young an age as possible in order for students to become comfortable addressing the matter when they are older. Studies show that the older a student gets, the less comfortable they will feel with dealing with their emotions in a healthy way if they have not been given the opportunities to learn how to do so.

I have also learned a great deal about working on websites. For example, one thing I encountered is the importance (and sometimes difficulty) in filling the space of a website. We found that we had (what we thought was) a ton of information and yet, when we put the information on the website, it did not look as full as we wanted it to. Over all, I have learned a great deal about working with new literacies and I will continue to explore said literacies and new ways to teach in order to improve the literacy of my students and myself.

NLP POST

1) YOUR CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING: 
When I first began my exploration of the new literacies, I definitely looked at each one and felt as though I was pretty comfortable and familiar with each of them. Although, I found all of the links extremely interesting and they sent me to things I’ve never seen before and showed me different perspectives. I naturally gravitated to cultural literacy because it’s something that I, personally, have a passion for – especially because I feel as though many – not all - Americans are so unaware of other cultures. I want my future classrooms to be a part of the global community. Then, I was thinking about how I could teach my students to be culturally literate through a technology. After we were shown that website of different technologies, my eye immediately shot to comics. What is more fun than reading a comic? They’re short and sweet.

After I knew I was set on both of those things, I still was not satisfied. As I continued my exploration of literacies, I was drawn in by political literacy. Eventually, it all clicked and I knew I had come up with an amazing idea (I was pretty excited about it) – political comics dealing with cultural issues. As I said, comics are short and sweet, but these types of comics also hold strong messages within, simply, pictures and some text.

I decided to read all about political cartoons/comics because it may look easy, but creating one is extremely difficult. I had a few ideas and I finally made a final product. I thought that after my research of political comics and developing my ideas, I was past the hard part. I forget how difficult technology can be. I found a website that could help me create my comics easily, but that website got on my nerves quickly. It was taking forever to load and upload, I didn’t know whether it saved my work, I had to start all of multiple times. It took me hours to make three comics. Therefore, I decided to search other comic creating websites, but I soon found them to be way too complicated or I had to upgrade and pay a fee. I liked the original website I was using the best – even though it certainly can be better. It was the simplest one to use and with some “re-freshing” and learning from my mistakes with the website, I became more comfortable with it and creating my comics.
2) EFFECTIVE LITERACY INSTRUCTION:
My political cartoons are simple to read, not including the text written in different languages, but being able to read them is not enough to understand them. Background knowledge, the ability to be able to see things from different perspectives, and experience are absolutely necessary to understand them. I am in a kindergarten class and so I feel that a political comic would not be an appropriate tool to use with such young students. I am sure they could get onto paint, draw something, and type in some words with some help, but the picture and message would be literal. This technology would be more appropriate to use in older grades.

First, the kindergarten students need time to develop their brains and be able to see things from a perspective other than their own. In kindergarten, they are only just beginning to learn how to read, so they need to develop their reading, as well as, comprehension skills. Also, my students need more experiences within discussions; for example, predicting what is going on in an illustration in a picture book. They need that experience to practice articulating their thoughts and developing vocabulary. They would also need to know how to navigate the internet and webpage, how to upload and save files, etc. There’s just too much that goes into what I did with my project that a kindergarten class could handle. Knowing my students, they would be major guidance and scaffolding.

Nevertheless, if I keep it simple, I can model more simple cultural ideas through comics. I found a simple comic-making website for younger children, that I found too simple and limiting for my needs when doing this project, but here it is -http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/index.html. Something for limited and structured would be a better option for kindergarteners to start learning and practicing on.

The way in which I could integrate teaching cultural literacy and learning through comics is to show the students various, simple comics that deal with cultural ideas or issues. I can find some on the internet or I can create a few of my own simple comics. I could focus the lesson upon one specific element of culture like language.

3) LESSON PLAN: 

• Target area and rationale: A few of the students are in the classroom are ESL students and they all speak different languages. They also learn Chinese for a half hour every day. Therefore, after talking about various languages spoken in the classroom I can show the students how they can present the fact that they can be a part of many cultures, by knowing different languages, through comics would be a fun way to learn and teach each other about cultural literacy.
• Objective(s) – I want the students to understand that they can be members of more than one cultural group – specifically, by being able to speak various languages.  I would like for them to represent this through comics because I think it would be a fun activity that connects their ideas and understanding about culture and language.
• Materials and supplies needed – A few simple comics showing how different languages make up the world and various cultures of the world and the classroom they are sitting in – Smartboard, to model for the students how they can make a comic through this simple website http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/index.html - Also, paper and pencil to get them to brainstorm ideas before they get to work on creating a comic.
• Outline of key events :

1. We would begin with a discussion of the various languages the students in the classroom speak and the language they are all learning.
2. Interchangeably, I can show them a couple of comics I have created to show how they can be a part of various cultures based on what languages they speak.
3. On the Smartboard I can go to the comic creating website I’ve posted and show them, step-by-step, how they can make a comic.
4. The students will be put into small groups, so they can brainstorm together on paper and pencil – I realize lots of guidance would be necessary so I will walk around and help.
5. Because there are no laptops or computers available for each child to use – also, I believe they are too young to be responsible for working computers – I will have the class come back as a whole and we will take an idea from one of the groups and create the comic together.
6. Closing summary – I will have the students explain to me the importance of language in culture and everything we talked about during the lesson.
7. Ongoing assessment - I hope that everything we went over would lead to some interesting discussion because kindergartener’s perceptions of culture and definitely much different from an adult’s.

NL Project Reflection

I feel like my understanding of what literacy is has expanded a lot since the beginning of this class. While learning about all of these new literacy’s, I have gained a much broader understanding of literacy. Literacy has so many components and it is unfair to confine it to the traditional definition of “reading and writing”. I think that it is so important for students to be exposed to these new forms of literacy. All of the different types of new literacy were so interesting and I can see how students would benefit from being introduced to each of them. Additionally, using a new technology to learn about these new types of literacy has made the process even more enlightening. Being able to see the many different ways that my classmates used new technology to present the different types of new literacy amazed me. There is so much technology out there that is easily adaptable to be used in the classroom. When I think of a literacy lesson, I no longer think about just having students read and write. There is SO much more to literacy than this, and there is so much more that students can do with literacy than just reading and writing. I hope that when I am a teacher, I will always be looking for new literacy’s and new technologies to be using with my students.
If I were to do a project like this with my students, there are several things that they would need to be successful. In my classroom, there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students. I would put them in groups with students of all different grades. This way the older students would be able to help the younger students. In order to do a project like this, they would need to be able to fully understand the new literacy that they were researching. I think that this would mean that the teacher would have to engage them in the type of literacy beforehand, so they had some experience with it. If they were using something like a scrapblog, they would need to be familiar with the website and how it works. Once again, this probably means that the teacher would have had to do some exploring with them, showing them the basics of the site and how to make a scrapblog. It might be a little challenging at first, but I think that my students could work with making a scrapblog about emotional literacy. They could take the information that they have learned about emotional literacy and present it in the unique form of a scrapblog. This way they would be presenting what they learned about the new literacy and would be showcasing the new type of technology that they learned to use at the same time.
Lesson Plan
•Target Area and Rationale
oHaving just read the book Freedom Summer, my students will be using a slideshow to explore ideas of emotional literacy. They will be using the illustrations in the book to describe the different emotions that the characters are experiencing throughout the book.
•Objectives
oI would like my students to be successful at making a slideshow of the illustrations. I also would like them to successfully identify the different emotions that are shown through the illustrations in the story.
•Materials and Supplies
oFreedom Summer by Deborah Wiles
oComputer with PowerPoint software
oscanner
•Key Events
oStudents will go through the book and scan the illustrations that are expressing the character’s emotions
oStudents will compile the images in a PowerPoint presentation
oIn the presentation, students will describe the emotion that the character is experiencing in the illustration and why they are experiencing this emotion
oStudents will share their PowerPoint with the class
•Closing Summary
oStudents will be able to see how different groups interpreted emotions differently. This will lead to a discussion about what the characters were really feeling in the book and will expand the students’ understanding of emotional literacy.
•Ongoing Assessment
oIf I see that the students were successful at identifying the different emotions expressed in the book, I will know that they are emotionally literate.
oIf the students were able to make a PowerPoint, I will know that they have mastered this new technology.

Comprehension

To begin -- After reading Kindergarteners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers, I really need to go back to my lesson plan and change it. I assumed that they would not be able to have deeper discussion about literature, but I was wrong. I could not get my mind out of my own adult mind and understanding. The discussion kindergarteners could generate is very simple, but they are still involved in deeper-level thinking. I can see my CT's students greatly benefiting from the strategies Mrs. Hope used. In turn, I hope my CT adopts these new ideas and starts using them with her students. Whenever she reads a story to them, she does it because she can't start another activity before they have to go to gym or something. I've rarely seen my CT try to provoke discussions or use literature as a core lesson where there is a clear goal in what she wants students to get out of the text. Since I do not hear students responses to texts, I can't really comment on their reading behaviors with literature. 


Nevertheless, in another instance, my CT had a discussion about shapes. She asked the students to tell her what the differences were between a rectangle and a circle. They pointed out the obvious. The circle was yellow, thin and round; the rectangle was green and thick. What the CT was trying to get them to notice was that the rectangle had sides and points. However, they had trouble with this because they did not know how to explain without having the knowledge of the vocabulary used to describe that feature of a rectangle. If I was relating this to what a student would have trouble doing in comprehending and discussing a literary text, I could say, for example, that this student is a "Fuzzy Thinker", in regards to the reading Profiles in Comprehension. This because "fuzzy thinkers" usually have a hard time elaborating on responses because they may not have the words to explain their thinking. 


As for my own reading comprehension processes, I find that I can relate to a few of the eight profiles listed in Profiles in Comprehension, in certain aspects. The reading states that students can exhibit characteristics of more that one profile. This is important to mention because the point in the profiles is not to label the students as one particular profile, but to understand that there are all these different types of ways of thinking. Then they list various strategies to use to help the students get on track.

Supporting Different Learners

In my field placement, I have seen lots of variation between students. First of all, there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students in my classroom so I see lots of variation in age, ability and maturity level. It amazes me to see the differences between the 1st graders and the 3rd graders. For the most part, the 3rd graders are very independent and can be trusted to do their work on their own. However, the 1st graders cannot really be held accountable to finish their work at all. Someone always has to be reminding them to stay on task and to complete their assignments. There is also a lot of diversity in my classroom. There is a great mix of kids from lots of different racial and cultural backgrounds. There is also an ELL in my classroom whose family moved here from Cuba. Some students in my class have some physical challenges; one student has MS, another is legally blind. Some students have some emotional disabilities and others struggle academically. I love the children in my field placement because they are such a great diverse group of kids. With such a diverse group of students, it is hard to support all of them. What I have discovered is that it is important to distinguish the levels of support needed among students. Not all students need the same level of support, so they should not be given the same level of support. Going along with that idea, I think it is important to get to know the students in your classroom very well. If you know your students well, then you will be much better equipped to provide them with the support that they need.
As I stated earlier, there is a lot of racial diversity in my classroom. Sometimes, I feel that I don’t know how to relate to the diverse student population. I grew up in a small town that is 96% white, so I was never exposed to a lot of diversity growing up. The article I read- Seeing Color, Seeing Culture -emphasized how important it is for teachers (especially white teachers) to recognize racial differences. Many teachers claim to be “colorblind”, but this attitude “justifies inequality and exploitation by accepting the existing order of things as given” (pg 31-32). I often find myself struggling with this concept in my field placement. I know that I should not ignore race, but at the same time I struggle with how to address it. Due to my limited background, I sometimes have a hard time finding connections with students of different backgrounds. However, I thought that Joellen Maples had a good idea of how to address this issue in the piece Opening Quality Lines of Communication: Seeing My Students through the Eyes of Their Parents. In this piece, Maples had the parents of her students write an essay telling her all about their child. Through this assignment she learned SO much about her students and built a relationship of trust with the parents. I think that even though I struggle with how to connect with my students of different races, as long as I show them that I value them and their experiences and that I appreciate them as human beings, then I will be able to connect with them.

Concept Map

English Language Learners and Digital Literacy

According to the information on the Digital Denizen page, I would classify myself as a technological native. My mother got her degree in Secondary Education with a concentration in computer and business. Because of this, I have grown up in a relatively technologically advanced household and have become comfortable using most forms of technology; even new technology that I haven’t used before. I have had many experiences involving computers, the internet, T.V.s, D.V.D players, cell phones and other forms of, what our generation would consider, “basic technology”.  These experiences occurred both in school and at home. Because my school was relatively financially stable, I was exposed to technology such as Smart Boards while in elementary school. Although I have always been interested in technology and the benefits that it can offer, I am also hesitant to using technology that requires a lot of effort when learning how to use it. I also get very easily frustrated with technology when it malfunctions or I can’t understand how to fix a problem involving it. This is evidence that I still have a lot to learn in regards to digital literacy. In this way, I am an emergent digital literacy learner because just as emergent readers begin to understand the communicative purposes of reading and writing and are beginning to develop an interest in such things (p. 118), I am just learning the ins and outs of the technology that can be used in the classroom in order to enhance the learning experiences of my students.

Being technologically literate is very important as a teacher of emergent readers because technology is a great tool to help young readers develop skills in reading, writing, information searching, and many other important areas. For example, on page 108 Tompkins mentions that the third graders in Ms. McCloskey’s class have access to a listening station where they can listen to books on tape. Using this station to listen to books, especially if they have a copy of the book in front of them to follow along with, is a great way to develop the students’ listening skills and it gives them examples of word pronunciation and concepts of print. Another example found on the same page is the computer center located in Ms. McCloskey’s classroom. Children can use this form of technology to develop research skills, gain reading practice, and publish their writing. On page 118 and 119, Tompkins mentions that emergent readers and writers are beginning to develop an interest in reading and writing and learning to identify the letters of the alphabet among other things. The internet would be a great tool for developing both of these skills because the internet gives them a wide variety of texts that are easily available as well as a lot of exposure to letters. The internet is an especially great tool for English Language Learners because of the easy access to texts written in the learner’s home language that can be found on the internet.

In further regard to English Language Learners, by examining my own struggles with digital learning, I can begin to understand the types of frustrations that my English Language Learners are experiencing while trying to learn English in my classroom as well as methods to make this transition easier. For example, whenever I struggle with technology and I am able to access the information on the subject from those around me, the problem is often solved quickly and I am able to learn much through the experiences. Such is the case also for English Language Learners. Gibbons mentions on page 44, 17 and 18 about how small group work supports learning for students, especially for E.L.L. The students in the small groups are provided with the information located in each individual student’s mind and when sharing ideas, each student can bounce off of others ideas to better develop their own understanding of the concept being discussed. Another example of this comparison is, when I begin learning how to use a new form of technology, I tend to struggle with it and get frustrated. I have noticed though that the more I continue to work with the program or form of technology, the easier it becomes and the more I learn about it. Such is also the case with English Language Learners. As mentioned in both Gibbons (p. 15) and Mohr (p. 18 and 23), English Language Learners need as many opportunities as possible to participate in interactive activities and work with material that are well developed and that help the student learn how to express themselves.

Classroom Talk

This weeks readings focused on the type of discussions that are generated throughout classrooms. In chapter 10 of the Elementary Classroom Management by Weinstein and Mignano, they wrote about recitations - also known as a pattern of interaction called initiation-response-evaluation (I-R-E). I found this part of the chapter to be particularly interesting because the authors wrote about both the negative and the positive aspects of it. It has been criticized because it's teacher-centered and there is a lack of interaction between students and doesn't call for a higher or deeper level of thinking (300). On the other hand, it can be very useful in helping the students learn and talk about things they wouldn't think about. For instance, in the dialogue on pages 301-302, it shows us how the teacher is important when it comes to recitation because with her or his involvement, she/he is able to push the students' thinking by asking intellectually demanding questions. I think that no one strategy is perfect; there will always be negatives and benefits to each strategy and it just depends on what the teacher wants to accomplish with her students when deciding on which type of strategy she/he wants to use to generate classroom talk and successful learning.
The other type of classroom talk is discussion. There is a chart in Almasi's (1996) article on page 8 that shows the differences between the students' roles in a recitation and discussion. Some of the types of students' roles in discussion include: "Students ask questions in order to understand text better and to help construct meaning..., students encourage each other to participate..., students restate or try to question what others have said if it is not clear...", etc. After looking at this it sure makes the discussion look better than recitation, but will the students be able to hit every important aspect of whatever they're discussing if left to talk about it among themselves? is it alright if they don't go over the facts? I'm not sure. Nevertheless, in order for them to be able to venture off without the teacher they need to first learn how to do this by teacher scaffolding. The teacher needs to show the students how important all of their ideas are and that they can feel comfortable enough to express them to each other - each and every student. Good response-centered talk involves four things, as the McGee article states: It begins with teachers' careful planning, it's carried out in thoughtful interaction with children, it's extended by personal response activities, and it involves assessing children's responses to literature. A well planned and well-guided conversation will involve all students.
Now to finally talk about my placement classroom. I am in a kindergarten classroom and I have to say that all that I see is recitation. The CT wants to know that they know very distinct information. She wants to know that they know their numbers and alphabet and that they can follow a story line. Much interpretation and deeper thinking is not involved in this classroom. 

Literature in the Classroom

In my classroom, I have seen literature included in a couple of different ways. This fall, the class was learning about different Native American tribes. My teacher had gotten a ton of books from the library on Native Americans and the students were encouraged to look through the books to research different tribes and different aspects of Native American life. In this instance, the students were responsible for picking and reading the books on their own. In my classroom, there are 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students. I have seen instances when one of the 3rd graders would choose a book from the classroom library to read aloud to the class. The only other type of literature that I have seen included is the standard leveled reading books. I often read with the students from these books.
I think that the articles brought up some good and new ideas about how literature can be incorporated into elementary curriculums. In the piece by Hasset, the article mentioned using multimodal aspects of texts. I found this to be a very interesting idea. We did similar work in TE 350, and I had never thought that the same work would be done in an elementary classroom. However, through the examples in the article, I was able to see that elementary students are capable of taking a critical look at how the different aspects of a book work together to create meaning. I think that this approach is a great way to get students thinking about more than just what the text says. Modern children’s literature is multi-faceted and we should be teaching students to understand and appreciate this.
I also really liked the piece by Leland. I could really relate to the teacher in the article. Just like her, I think it is important to incorporate controversial literature into the classroom; but I often struggle with what this looks like. Sometimes it seems easier to just skip it all together and skip the “hassle” of using controversial literature. However, this article proved how easy and influential it is to incorporate this type of literature into an elementary classroom. I loved how the article said that this method was a great way to introduce students to controversial topics without causing a “ruckus”, which is something that I think most pre-service teachers are striving for! This article really inspired me to use controversial literature in my classroom and reap the rewards that it will bring about.

Families as a Source of Support for Diverse Learners

As is the case with any student, a large variety of support systems are needed in order for diverse learners to participate fully in the learning community. The article Building on the Strengths of Families: The Promising Readers Program focuses on one, very important, support system: the family.  In this article, the Promising Readers Program was set in a poor, rural community in the deep South where around 65% of the school’s third graders scored in the lowest quartile on the language arts and reading portions of the state wide standardized test (Brenner, page 2). Its purpose was to bring family members, students, and teachers together in order to help improve the students’ reading ability by providing the students’ with opportunities to engage in a wide variety of literacy practices such as reading a book out-loud with a family member. By encouraging family members to participate in this program, the hope was that each family member present would bring with them “household funds of knowledge” that act as “potential bridges to children’s learning proficiency” (Brenner, pages 1 and 2). Some of the benefits that came with family involvement included an increase in the personal confidence of the students in their reading ability and an increase in personal confidence in the parents and family members towards their ability to help their student improve. I believe that these benefits are very important for supporting diverse learners because without the confidence to try, the students’ wont experiencing reading on their own and the parents won’t feel comfortable enough to try to help them do so.

Based my personal experiences and what I am seeing being done in schools, programs like this are relatively rare. Out of the six schools that I have volunteered at, only one of them had a program like this instated at their school. It is my experience, though, that when these programs are established, they can be extremely beneficial to students. I believe that one of the most important support systems for diverse learners is their family members. Students need to gain as many experiences with reading and literacy as possible, and without family members’ assistance, many students don’t get the experiences they need to improve and grow outside of the school environment. Programs like this bring awareness to family members about the importance of family involvement in their student’s learning and encourage them to help their student by: modeling good reading habits, reading with their student, providing various types of texts and genres for the student to explore, etc. I also believe that they encourage family members to become more aware of and more involved in their student’s school. This provides students with an additional support system in the school that otherwise wouldn’t be there and makes it easier for parents to be better informed about the improvements and needs of their students. As was the case in this article, the school I volunteered at experienced these benefits after establishing this kind of program. It is because of these experiences with schools (those who had programs like the Promising Readers Program and those who didn’t) that I believe that family members are an important source of support for diverse learners which help them to participate fully in the learning community.