Chapter 9

Reflecting on reading.

I feel like I remember a lot of whole-class discussions when I was going through school. A lot of my schooling we either focused completely on the teacher as they taught, we focused by ourselves and we worked independently, or we focused as a class when we discussed. I did not get a chance for a lot of small group discussions. I feel they can be the most beneficial too, so that is a bit sad to think I missed out on that. I will take advantage of that as a teacher one day though. I do understand that small group work takes a bit more to keep the students on task without direct supervision, but it has to be more beneficial for the students overall. I know that I was one of the students who was not afraid to speak out and who was always called on. Looking back I can see how intimidating that is for those who may have something to say but are afraid to speak up. I know it is not fair for them and that teachers will also start neglecting those students sometimes. I am all for small group discussions, especially when it comes to discussing something the class has read. I also know how much harder it is to speak out in a math classroom, which I hope to one day teach. No one wants to look stupid in front of the whole class.

            I like the ownership that comes along with peer-led circles. It still can be hard to incorporate everyone and leaders will start to rise up. This can be turned into a positive experience for everyone when monitored and led correctly.

            Reaction guides were used in my 9^th grade honor’s lit class from what I remember. She definitely challenged our understanding of the stories through her use of them. They can also be used as a great guide for later discussion as a model for the conversation.

            Being a very visual person and a math person, I really like graphs and charts. They can really help me organize ideas and thoughts. I would definitely use the discussion web whenever I saw a topic would allow for this type of organizational discussion.

            I am nervous of how to deal with actual debates in a middle school classroom, but I would love to work on it. I am a big fan of having debates. It would be fun to teach students to come up with valid arguments based on reading or research to have an organized discussion/debate on the topic. I like the guidelines for the argument found in this chapter. I would love to combine that with the idea of putting on different “hats” depending on the situation. Students could learn to utilize these skills based on the “hat” they were wearing. This could help them choose sides and debate based on their “hat” and what they bring to the table based on their experience.

            Any way that I could find to engage students at any level on what they are reading I would consider. Several approaches were discussed in this chapter and I would like to give them all a try one day to see what works best for me. This could also change depending on the students or the reading as well though.

Week 8

            This semester has really helped me open my eyes to the world of literacy. It has also helped me broaden my idea of literacy as well as my definition of literacy. Literacy seems to be a field that is ever progressing and changing. What I found so interesting was how literacy, much like so many other things, had to fight to keep up with technology in our every progressing world. Technology has also helped expand the definition of literacy and created its’ own field of literacy.

            The idea of literacy outside the area of English was foreign to me before this semester. I understood it to be reading and writing. Even when I threw in the idea of comprehension, literacy was still a concept related to reading and writing within an English classroom. I now understand that reading, writing, and comprehension can be related to so many subjects, concepts, and ideas outside of the English classroom or traditional classroom in general. An example would actual be computers. I may throw around terms such as java, C++, HTML5, hexadecimal, encryption, and other computer jargon to someone who is not computer literate, which would make someone say, “It’s all Greek to me.” I may understand computer talk, but I would not understand two doctors or lawyers talking to each other in their “language.”

            This all being said, I found it very interesting to start thinking about what this all means to the greater idea of literacy around us and what it would mean to me as a teacher in a middle school classroom. Something I have learned from class, reading, and some videos I have watched is that it all starts with language and comes down to these words. A student must be introduced to necessary vocabulary and taught the words meaning in order to start applying it to the subject and start comprehending the material based on this vocabulary. I also took this idea from my teacher interview. She mentioned how introduction lessons in units end up being heavy vocabulary days. The students must first learn this vocabulary before they can start applying it to the problems. We even start using this vocabulary intuitively later on with the assumption that students have learned it earlier in education. An algebra teacher would be confident to start throwing around works like variable, equation, slope and other concepts that should have been introduced in the previous course. We sometimes take this for granted. Sometimes students do not have a great grasp on these words, which affects their further learning of new material. It would be like walking into an English class that was already diagramming sentences and you were not even really sure how to define a subject and a verb.

            My book used for the book review and lesson plan furthered this idea. I have just continually seen where vocabulary can be a hindrance to learning if time is not spent to develop it. This seems to be common in any area that contains some level of literacy. It would be true in any of the above examples I mentioned and certainly in every academic subject. This was not a topic that was necessarily covered as a core concept in class, but it has been continually brought to my attention through readings, videos, and personal experience. I do feel that it is something that is important and something to take in consideration when planning new material for a class. The bottom line is that vocabulary is foundational to any form of literacy and should be an area of high focus.

No Chapter this time...

...just articles

Rosenblatt:

            First of all, this article has a ton of high vocabulary. It was not an easy read at parts. I have been fighting being sick the past several days too, and we all know how much harder it is to think and comprehend when your mind is foggy. I feel this way this week, so this was bad timing for this reading. I feel like I had a few quotes along the way that helped me get at the writers point I think.

            “At any point during the reading, we have already noted, awareness includes also reactions, emotional and intellectual, to the very ideas, events, characters, situations being experienced as the evocation. During a reading event, there can be a certain back-and-forth fluctuation of stances.”

            Notice that this quote does not have tons of SAT words. That may be why I could use this sentence as a summary for a section. It reminds me that there are a lot of different ways a reader can approach a text and that this approach even shifts during the reading. Different parts of text can trigger the reader to flow from one way of thinking to another way of thinking. This next quote I feel helped make more sense of that concept and made more sense to me than a lot of what I had read so far.

            “The reading process, then, should be thought of as encompassing a flow of fluid states of mind emerging into the focus of attention, shaped by reader, text, and context—a series of momentary changing, synthesized patterns, organized as the evocation that is constituted for the memory as that work and that is accompanied throughout by concurrent strands of thought and feeling.”

            I know the author was saying a lot more than this during this long 30 plus page article, but I am quoting and discussing what I got out of it. I am sure I would get more out of it if my mind was not so foggy. Much like the other article, it reminds me that reading, comprehending, and responding is far from a simple, linear concept. There is so much going on between the author, the text, the reader, and the context. There are many ways a reader can approach and deal with a text. There are many external and internal variables that affect the way readers experience text. When you put all of this information together, it seems there are truly countless ways that can affect and alter readers responses to text.

Sipe:

This article focused on four areas of interest surrounding children’s literary responses. The author of this article has done their research. There were two plus pages of references. They discussed so many different authors research on this topic along with their personal experience and research. There was a lot in this article that I am not sure I have ever thought about. There is just so much to think about when it comes to a student dealing with literature. It can seem overwhelming to think about it all.

            The author just touched on every topic that they discussed, but they touched on every topic. They explained the research that has been done and seemed to end by saying they hope research would continue on this topic. Responding to literature is not a simple task even for young readers. So many different variables are a play when a student takes on a piece of literature. All of these variables need to be remembered when assigning a reading individually or to a class. Just as the author of the text brings so much to the table that explains their writing, readers bring so much to the table that explains their responses.

            I think the culture and gender discussions were the most interesting to me. I would love to know how much of the gender response is truly instinctual and how much of it is learned from our surroundings. I also found the culture discussion interesting because I have worked in the inner city with a lot of African American and I know that if I were to teach back in my hometown that I would be dealing with a lot of Hispanics. It would be interesting to see how their take on certain pieces of literature various from that of a White student. I even thought pop culture was an interesting discussion point. I feel like children these days are surrounded by this cultural phenomenon so much that we should find ways to use it to our advantage in the classroom. I feel the same way about technology. Why not meet students where they are. I would have fun incorporating pop culture into literature if I were ever given the change. This article was again a reminder that there is so much to think about when being a teacher and dealing with students. This allows me once again to feel a little overwhelmed at the task of teaching that is before me.