Blog #4

Wow! That is the first thought that comes to my mind when I think about how much I have learned from the materials that we read this past week. I, like so many of the readers Hade talks about in his article, gave rarely any thought to the deep, underlying meaning behind so many texts.  I truly only read for face value and now that I realize how many deep messages there are hidden behind texts used so commonly in the classroom, it makes me want to go back and read every one again to see my thoughts about it and how thinking critically has changed what I get from the story.

When Hade started his article with talking about the underlying message in The Lion King, my thinking really began. I had never really paid any attention to how there was a deep rooted message behind the fluffy Disney story of The Lion King. I realized that unless you think critically, so many key messages just pass you by. In my Culturally Diverse Lit. class, we discussed in class about stereotypes and a lot of those issues discussed reminded me of this. For example we talked about shows such as Hey Arnold that portrayed stereotypical images of characters. For example, Gerald is portrayed with the stereotypical afro and having a boom box with him all the time. I never really thought that I was thinking stereotypically when I watched this show, but now looking back on it I just assumed that was the “normal” traits that could be connected with African Americans. We also talked about how even in the media, with commercials, those stereotypical gender issues arise such as how many commercials relating to girls have the play kitchens and household items associated with them and the boys commercials deal with electronic cars, etc. So we truly are teaching these stereotypes to children from the time they are little and as the article pointed out, “reading isn’t natural, it’s learned”. (Hade 238). We need to learn how to teach to be more accepting and open to others and their views.

“Reading is inherently social and is dominated by culture. And the meanings we hold about race, class, and gender (many of which may be stereotypes) mediate how we interpret text”. (Hade 235). This quote goes to show that what students were brought up learning about beliefs is what they will ultimately bring to the text. Because of all the different backgrounds that students have, I think it is especially important that as a teacher we express the fact that not just one answer is correct. Students should feel comfortable enough to share their views on a subject and everyone in the classroom will be able to learn from each other’s views. I think being open to everyone’s ideas will help lead to more open thinking on issues. I also think that I need to step back and really think and analyze about what I will be bringing into the classroom from my background on these issues and I need to make sure that my views don’t override any other students. I want my classroom to be open to all ideas and not one overruling thought.

I completely agree with Hade when he states that “pedagogy must accommodate learning how to read race, class, and gender” (Hade 238). I think that in schools we discuss how these issues appear in our society but we never really go any deeper than that and actually teach about it, which I think needs to happen. I liked his suggestion of choosing novels in which these topics are not forced, but rather are integrated into understanding the story. Like anything, I think if you constantly push a certain idea and nothing else, students will get bored and ignore the point that you are trying to get across. The most effective way seems to discuss the issues and slowly bring more novels and materials that integrate these meanings into them.

I really liked how Hade talked about the importance of comparing two books and how this can help to better show the hidden messages in some novels. I think that comparing books is a great practice to incorporate into the classroom and that many projects and assessments besides the typical tests and quizzes can stem from that. Going with this idea, I learned a lot about the underlying meaning of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein just by reading this article and how he compared it to another novel. I never saw the gender issue behind this story until Hade compared it to another novel. I thought that was amazing! I also liked how Hade talked about how many teachers express doubt about children being able to pick up on gender themes in a story. I often feel this way and wonder how my students will be able to pick up on issues of this complexity when I pass them by so often. After reading more of the article however and seeing how the students actually picked up on this issue and had a discussion about it when they compared the two novels, I was surprised! I think that I don’t give enough credit to the students sometimes and really learned that often they can handle a lot more than I think!!

Overall I learned a lot about this article and found it very interesting. I think one quote that summed up this issue of multiculturalism for me was “It isn’t a month or week of focused study on a particular group. Multiculturalism is a perspective we take on and struggle to understand, a stance we take to our reading that race, class, and gender matter in the way we interpret stories” (Hade 241). I think this expresses the issue completely. Also the statement “This is not an easy or safe pedagogy” (Hade 252) was important to me. Even though these issues may be uncomfortable to bring up and teach in the classroom because it is so different from the “normal” way of teaching and how we were brought up, we need to step outside the everyday box and think in new ways to make learning even more powerful for students. Like we discussed in class, sometimes pushing yourself to be a little uncomfortable can help you learn and ultimately become a better teacher. Isn’t that what we truly want?

In “A Class Divided” by Jane Elliot a powerful lesson on racism was taught which I really thought was neat, especially since it was so interactive with students and they didn’t even realize at first the power of what they were learning. The lesson really helped teach students a real life message that they still remembered years down the road which is what I would like my students to have. I want to be able to teach them information that they will remember and find useful! It was amazing to see that how after just a few days of being treated as the superiors or the inferiors, the students really took these roles on, which is how it works in society. It showed me that beliefs really are learned and it showed me how powerful learning is. This lesson really showed the power that racism plays in the world. I think that by doing an activity such as this one and pairing it with some novels that deal with the issues of race, you could create a successful teaching unit.

The novel To Kill A Mockingbird would be one example of a great novel to incorporate with teaching about any of the three issues of gender, race, and class. All three issues are clearly seen throughout the novel and you could create a lot of great activities with the story. The issues of class arise just by looking at the setting of the story. Taking place in Alabama in the 1930s in a small town, the novel talks about how in the town you are treated all depending on whom your parents are, who knows you since it is such a small town and how long you have lived there. This shows how class played a role. For teaching, you could even connect this back to the early times and how important class was then and maybe ask students if they think that class plays as big of a role in today’s society as it did back then. The issue of gender arises with Scout’s character. She is seen as more of a tomboy. She seems to face a constant struggle about who she really is. Though her Dad accepts her for herself, her brother Jem makes fun of her when she does act like a girl, so she is in a constant battle to find her place in the world. I think that a lot of teaching opportunities could come from this, especially since she is the narrator of the story. Students could write responses based on what they would do if they were in the characters shoes or it might be interesting to have students compose a letter to the character giving her advice on what she should do or connect with the character about a time that they experienced a similar event or feeling. Also, showing media clips dealing with gender issues like I talked about earlier would be a great real-world connection. Lastly, the issue of race is very prevalently seen. The main issue of the novel comes about when Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, represents Tom Robinson, a black man, on trial for raping and beating a white woman. The children face many racial slurs and torments because of their father’s role in the trial. For teaching, you could teach about racial issues seen today and incorporate other novels dealing with similar issues. I think it is very important to make students aware of these issues and show them how they are still very present in today’s world. If we have students think critically about these issues, maybe their future will be a more accepting and open one.

Blog #3

               With all of the diversity and variety seen among student’s in today’s world, I think it is time to bring this diversity to the classroom as well. That is a key point I discovered from the two articles read this week. In the “Conventions of Comics” article, I learned a lot about graphic novels that I would have passed by before. I read this article in Shannon’s Intro. To Culturally Diverse Literature class and it was neat to get to read it again and pick up on things that I missed previously. I really like the part that discusses the panel about multimodel analysis. The author explains how she had her students begin with what they saw, which incorporated visual meaning. They then went into auditory meaning, spatial meaning, linguistic meaning, and gestural meaning. I think it’s important that all senses of a reader are engaged when reading, which this panel clearly focuses on. I also like how this activity allowed for each student’s opinion and reactions to be heard without being considered wrong, since there is not one correct way to interpret the panel. The quote, “a pedagogy that embraces multiple literacy’s then is one that considers the multicultural and diverse society that we all live in and broadens our understanding of “literature” to include multimedia and visual forms of literacy,” really showed me the importance once again of incorporating new technologies. This will help keep students interested and make them want to learn. If you really think about it, would you want to do the same thing again and again? Neither do our students!

                In the second article, I liked how the author pointed out that when teachers attempted to start conversations about the works students were interested in, such as graphic novels, students tended to be very hesitant to talk about them. As the teachers looked into these different types of novels that so many students were interested in reading and saw how they allowed students to read and respond to detailed meanings while reading about subject matter they could relate too, they knew they had to incorporate this somehow into their teaching. I think that this shows effective teaching based on the fact that they took their students interests to heart and adapted their teaching to meet the student’s needs. I hope to be able to do this! I liked the large variety of teaching techniques the teachers used. I liked the “shades of meaning” lesson because it taught a basic concept but in a unique way and progress was seen among students from this type of learning. This really showed me that you can teach in a way that is different from the “normal” way and still be successful in your classroom. I really enjoyed the culminating project that the students used in which they used photographs for an about the author page, and continued describing fictitious events to go along with the photographs. I thought this was a great idea and a really neat project for students to get involved in. It allowed them to have fun with learning and they incorporated the real world into their writing which I think is wonderful. I would like to use a project like this in my classroom! In the conclusion of the article, I found the sentence, “having begun with the idea that graphic novels were comic books at best and a waste of time at worst, we now realize the power they have for engaging students in authentic writing” very important and it reminded me of a specific experience I had in an observation. In an 8^th grade classroom, students were required to choose a book of their choice to do a book report on. As the teacher went around the classroom checking to see what novels the students chose and writing down the titles he came to one very quiet student who had chosen a graphic novel. His response to this student was that it was not a book and that he must choose another book with words. I was appalled at this comment by the teacher and the rest of the class laughed at the student for choosing this type of book. Did the teacher really think that reacting in this way would make the student ever want to read again? This experience was traumatizing for myself to watch so I just wonder the effect it truly had on the student. I will never forget that moment and I think that that will really help me be a better teacher by experiencing that situation.

                In Chapter 5 of You Gotta Be the Book, Wilhelm really focuses on expressing the importance of visual information for students in order for them to truly understand a story. “Visual imaging encourages students to access and apply their prior knowledge as they read, increases comprehension, and improves the ability to predict, infer, and remember what has been read” (Wilhelm 158). This quote really showed me just how powerful visual information plays a role in a student truly understanding the background of a story. I believe that as a teacher you must use whatever techniques you have to help get this visual message across to students, whether they need it by visual, tactile, or auditory information. It is the teacher’s job to adapt their teaching to each individual student’s learning style. That is why I believe variety plays such a key role in the classroom!

                “I just have to wonder if school conveys a very limited view of literature that does not include picture books and comics, and if this limited view of literature contributes to how bummed out and distanced many of my student readers become from literature and the literary experience”. I really like this quote and think that it conveys an important message. I was only introduced to graphic novels in college, so the fact that the literature viewed in grade school is so confined is a big issue! I believe more students may find a love of reading when they see how much variety is truly offered. I also enjoyed the fact that Wilhelm noted that he read a comic book in a foreign language and learned how much easier it was to figure out words from the context and follow the actual story. I think actually putting yourself in the students place can really open your eyes up and reveal a lot! Also, by going about books in different ways, you can show students that there is not always a right or wrong way to show your ideas.

                Not only does having a visual image of a story help with comprehension, but it also allows the student to remember things much more. If you think about it, aren’t the lessons that clearly stand out to you from school the ones that you can actually picture in your mind? Mine sure are! Drawing pictures often really helps with visualization and this can be adapted so that all students can enjoy something even if they aren’t very artistic. I was that way in school. Whenever an assignment required drawing, you would hear the biggest sigh come out of my mouth. I like how Wilhelm explained that you could have students cut and paste pictures instead of drawing. I like how he gives students  a choice and offers variety. I think this makes students feel that their opinions matter.

                To sum it all up, there were a lot of benefits to incorporating art in the classroom noted by Wilhelm. As he explained, it helped his students take better notes for other classes, which shows that they can apply their best learning strategies to other areas which is a very good skill to have and helps them make intertextual connections. Also, it helped students to understand the “bigger picture” behind a story, which also helps with overall meaning. By using artistic responses, it helps give the students a voice as well and not just the teacher, which is drawing away from the bottom-up method. Perhaps you could have students take turns teaching about what they got from the reading and explain what ways they chose to express themselves and why.  I learned about so many benefits from incorporating visual artwork into reading that I never knew of and would have never guessed. I can now truly appreciate and understand the quote “Reading IS seeing and you do have to BE the book”!

Blog #2

                Just from reading the first 3 chapters of “You Gotta Be the Book”, I have gained so much knowledge about the profession of teaching and what it truly takes to be a successful teacher and role model for your students. From just the introduction, I saw how much of a struggle it can truly be to get students to be motivated and interested in reading and school itself. This is something that I feel I will struggle with when I first begin teaching. The thought of the first day where you enter your own classroom with all the students looking to you as a role model and educator and you ultimately affect their learning and who they will become in the future, is a lot of pressure but I love the thought of being that influential. I really liked how after Wilhelm got to know his students and saw that the methods he was currently using to teach weren’t being successful, he revamped his teaching style and decided that reading stories together as a class might be an effective method to use. I also really liked how he used a survival simulation in the classroom. I think these types of activities really help engage and motivate students and helps get them out of the typical everyday school routine. I think it makes them want to see what they might be able to discover and makes them want to learn! Another aspect that I enjoyed was the use of attitude inventories at the start of the school year. I like how this can give you some background knowledge about your students and their interests, which can really help you out a lot in choosing novels possibly at the beginning of the year before you really know your students. I would really like to incorporate something like this into my classroom to help me get better acquainted with students and to show them that I am really interested in their lives not only in the classroom but outside of it as well.

                When talking about teaching approaches used in the classroom, my personal view on what teaching style I think would be effective and that I would most like to use in my classroom was further confirmed. I had heard about these different types of approaches, such as bottom-up, top-down, and interactive, in my Reading in the Elementary School class that I took last semester. When I first learned about this, I was overwhelmed with information about them and wasn’t really sure what made up each approach, but after reading the chapter dealing with this, I learned even more about each method which really helped me build on the previous knowledge I had. I can say that I would most like to use the interactive teaching method in my classroom, but for most of my schooling I would say I was taught in a bottom-up method, which was ultimately “emphasized on rightness of literary interpretation” (Wilhelm 21). Every novel we seemed to read was just used to answer comprehension questions and we only gained one meaning of what the book was trying to say. I believe that since students bring so much different personal background knowledge to the table, everyone may gain a different type of understanding. By sharing all these different interpretations as a class, I believe some students may learn even better. Even for classic literature that’s studied, I believe that the teacher can still stress and emphasize the “correct” meaning of the text without disregarding other points that students might have gained from reading it. I believe that often times we are able to learn more from our students than anything else which is another reason as to why I think this discussion and sharing of everyone’s ideas is a good concept to add into the classroom. The reason as to why I really would like to have an interactive teaching method in my classroom is because I like the fact that reading is not seen as just a skill, but that it shows there is really meaning to it and I love the fact that students bring their prior knowledge to the story. Though this is how I ultimately would like to teach, I know it will be a struggle since I was brought up the bottom-up way. I really hope that I don’t revert back to this method since research shows you usually teach the way you were taught, so I hope that by reflecting and journaling about my experiences in the classroom I will be able to stay an effective teacher not only for my sake but for the students as well. One thing I do worry about however with using this interactive method is that by allowing students to work in groups and pairs to discuss, it will be harder to make sure they are being challenged and that they are learning different perspectives about the text. I need to make sure that I balance my lecturing, group work, and discussions so that students are learning from not only each other, but from myself as well.

                One point that really stuck out to me was in Chapter 1, when Wilhelm discusses the popularity of reading at this grade level. Students “did not want it pointed out that they like to read” (Wilhelm 28). I could relate to this because I think I had this type of attitude as a student in the middle school grades. It wasn’t the “cool” thing to do and at that age level being “cool” is the ultimate goal of many. I want to be able to make reading a popular aspect of school to students and make it something that students like to engage and converse about. The more students engage in reading, the better learners they will become which will help them out in the real world. I agree completely with Wilhelm when he mentions about “focusing on the process of reading, instead of solely on what was read” (Wilhelm 29) for my classroom. I think that knowing how a student processes the information read will allow myself to gain a better understanding of what they are bringing to the story and help them each with their own individual strategies. Overall, I think that you must have variety in your classroom and teaching practices to make students want to pay attention and you must show the student that you make mistakes as well, which in the end help you to learn. I believe that this will help them to relate better and trust me more which will help get more accomplished.

                I also connected with Wilhelm on the belief that sharing stories about reading and life with students whenever a chance arises is important. I think that this goes to show how you use reading as a useful part of your daily life and shows them that reading can be something that is seen as fun to do outside of purely the school environment. An issue was pointed out in Chapter 2 however about how one should help motivate those students that simply refuse to read? This is a question that I have thought about a lot and still wonder what the best strategy to use would be. I want to be able to create a meaningful learning space for all students even though not all show the interest in learning. I really think that learning some techniques on what to do with students who refuse to read and who lack interest would be a beneficial thing for myself.

                Wilhelm also mentions how he often saw the types of literature read by the students as not having deep meaning behind them and believing that they were mostly easy reads until he immersed himself in these types of novels. I could strongly relate to this from my experience in Culturally Diverse Literature with Shannon. In this class, it was the first time I had ever even heard or seen a graphic novel. I admit that at first glance I thought that it would be an easy read with little meaning too it, but my initial thought quickly changed. Throughout the course, I learned how to break down the meanings of these novels and realized that they often had very strong meanings behind them and led to important messages that we learn from today’s most “common” literature stories. I learned that just because a text might look easy it isn’t always necessarily the case which I think is important to know when thinking about children’s literature. The same goes with the new media literacy that we talked about in class and how many students use online forums and gaming as a type of literature. I personally would have never viewed this as relating to literacy until we discussed how in today’s world it can be seen as a type of literacy as long as it’s not the only type of reading being done. Speaking of reading not being done, I was shocked when I read how experts estimated that the “average child spends less than 5 minutes a day reading” (Wilhelm 52). This must be changed!!

                From Chapter 3, I gained a lot of ideas that might be good to incorporate into my future classroom. I liked the idea of literary letters. This would allow students to practice their writing skills as well as summarizing and telling me about how they read and what they liked. I think that it combines a lot of useful literacy skills together. It also talked about using SRI or the “Symbolic Representation Interview”. This initial concept sort of confused me and I’m not sure if I would be able to use it effectively in my classroom even though it helps with scaffolding a lesson. I think other ways may be more effective to present to my own students that I feel more passionate about. I also found it interesting that girls showed a tendency for perspective-taking, whereas boys were more for visualizing. I think this shows that it is very important to use variety in your teaching methods so that all students have a chance to learn material in their best learning style.

                There were many more ideas that I would love to bring to the classroom that I gained from just reading about the specific student’s responses to certain literature that they read. I liked the comment made by the student Joanne where she explained how in her mind she would write letters of advice to the character. I think that this could be a great writing assignment in which students could get a chance to interact with the characters of their book and gain a better understanding as well. Along these lines of writing, I also like the idea of making a creative writing prompt and having students respond to what they would do if they faced a situation similar to that of one of the characters in their novel which would require them to really put thought into the story. Also, I really like the idea of having students create their own ending to a story. I often was required to do this in my younger days, and it was fun to be creative. It felt like you had control over something important. Besides writing, I think that there are some effective ways to make reading seem not boring that I would like to try. One thing was role playing. I never enjoyed this in school but many students do. When I observed in an 8^th grade language arts classroom, they often did role playing of different key parts of chapters in the story and they were always thrilled to do this! It made them get excited and really think about what is happening in the story so I think that incorporating this into my classroom at times could be effective for many students and help bring other students out of their shells, which I think is what I needed. One of the biggest things that I would like to try though would be to turn my classroom into a visual scene of whatever story we are reading at the time. I think that this visual could create excitement among the classroom and interest students of all levels to really get into the story line. It could also help the lower level reading students gain an understanding of what the setting of the story really is, which could ultimately help them better understand the whole story. There are so many different ideas and strategies that I would love to try in a classroom and I can’t wait to get the chance! I know not all will be successful, but learning from my mistakes and seeing what really works will be half the fun!

Blog #1: Literacy Profile

              As I look back and reflect on my own literary practices that I’ve used as a student and reader in general, I have discovered a lot not only about myself as a student in general, but also some of the reasons as to why being a teacher of Language Arts/Reading is the right career pathway for me! If one would have asked me during my elementary school days if I considered myself a reader or enjoyed reading, I would have exclaimed of course I am! Fast forward a few years to  middle school days to ask me the same question, and I’m sure the answer you would get from myself is no. As a young student, I always enjoyed read aloud time and being able to choose any book I wanted from the huge library to read. Once I got into middle school however, it seemed like that wasn’t the “cool” thing anymore. I think this type of attitude that many of my peers had rubbed off on me. Also, my mom would also try and insist I read some more since I rarely did, and at that age I think I enjoyed being so stubborn. Once I got into high school however, I had a few really excellent teachers that got me interested in literature once again. I think the biggest thing that drew me back into reading, was hearing stories that I could relate to and being able to form connections and discuss how everyday life could tie into the story. This personal aspect got me interested and made me realize that reading isn’t just about being able to answer comprehension questions, like what I learned in middle school, but that literature can actually be fun!

            Nowadays, I would surely consider myself a reader. There are many things that I love about reading. One thing is that I love the feeling of being able to connect with another person and know that they have felt things similar to what I have. I also love when a book is able to draw me into the story and I feel as if I’m a part of it and I would love to be able to motivate students to feel that at least once when they read a story. When I first began reading, it was such an exciting time for me! I remember as a young child going around the house and reading all the stories that I could find. It seemed to find it relaxing. My parents strongly pushed me to read and as a child they constantly read stories to me which I enjoyed and it also brought us closer together which I really enjoyed. This is something that I think is lacking in a lot of households today and one of my biggest goals as a teacher is to motivate parents to read with their children because not only will this help with their children’s literacy skills but also I want students to be able to feel that excitement and happiness that I did when I was reading with my parents.

            I don’t remember exact titles of what I read as an adolescent but I know I enjoyed reading all different types. Mysteries and mostly fiction novels were the genres that I was generally drawn too. I really enjoyed reading stories about characters going through hard times and growing up, because I really felt like I could connect with them and enjoyed that aspect. In regards to the literature taught in my middle school classrooms, I found much of it boring. Many of my teachers at this grade level only taught what they had to out of the book and never motivated the students. I felt as if we just read stories to answer questions, meet the curriculum and then we would move on. In my high school, it seemed as if some of my teachers would choose books based on our interest levels instead and this is what helped me gain a love of reading. In middle school, reading felt like boring assignments and not a fun adventure, which is the way I feel reading should be for students. I believe that they should feel as if they are immersed in the story line!!

            I would consider myself today somewhere between being a motivated reader and a reluctant one. I think often times I am not motivated to pick up a book myself and start it unless I hear that is very good or have too, but once I find a story I really enjoy or an author I really like, I will go out on my own to find other stories similar to them because I can’t get enough! I hope to inspire my students to value reading and literacy by being able to show them that they can relate to others and that others go through the same types of things in life that they do and that they are not alone. I hope to inspire students by doing read alouds and incorporating literature in every aspect of my classroom that I can. I also hope that my love of reading and excitement for different stories will inspire many students to find the same enjoyment. I want them to view literature as a fun, relaxing thing to do and not look at it as always just reading for an assignment. I know this will be tough but I hope that through my love of reading, my students will get to that level someday as well.

            Lastly, I do believe that literacy extends beyond traditional reading practices. I think that traditional reading practices help to build up a person’s literacy. Also, the more reading that is done will help literacy become stronger, which will lead to further enjoyment of novels for students. In the end, I hope to inspire, be a strong motivator and role model for my students and that they will ultimately learn to have a love for Language Arts and reading as I do!