Life is only right now, what happened before now and what will happen after only exist in my head. That is why I loved when Lamott (Bird by Bird, 1994), described something she was going to write after a meaningful experience for her at the Special Olympics. She said, "And I could see that it was about tragedy transformed over the years into joy. it was about the beauty of sheer effort" (p. 42).
I was reading the first three chapters of Routman's Writing Essentials (2005) a little ahead of the Lamott reading, and I couldn't help but be struck with the feeling that so much of what Routman was describing as what teachers should do to encourage their students, by being writers and readers ourselves, by writing all the time, but starting with truly rough drafts, etc., is what Lamott was modeling through her book. As if Routman told Lamott how to encourage writing in her classroom of students, or, that Routman modeled her ideas for teaching writing after what Lamott actually does. Through my own effort of assimilating these books into my own understandings I made-up this connection between Lamott and Routman, and even if it is a connection that doesn't make sense to other people or zillions of others made the connection before me, I think it is great because I did it. And, I didn't even realize how good I felt about making this connection until it spilled out in my writing right here. The good feeling made through thinking and using writing to notice the world is something that wouldn't surprise either Routman or Lamott. Maybe it is joy.
Joy is something Routman emphasizes a lot in her book, and I feel it emphasized in Literacy class as well. It was bothering me quite a bit as I read Lamott that however much it seemed to demonstrate almost exactly what I understood Routman to be saying about writing, I thought it was lacking the most important part, the joy. Lamott seemed to spend a lot of time describing a lot of unhappiness connected to writing however much she also included things like "one short assignment" just like Routman's "snapshots", both really short, quickly written pieces of writing that writers can start with. It wasn't until the chapter "Polaroids" that Lamott brought in the element of joy in writing. That tragedy and joy can coexist in the present world and in writing seems affirming.
"Joy" I equated to "beauty" from "The beauty of sheer effort", and "effort" I feel fell in line with Lamott's "polaroid' idea and Routman's "snapshot", that they are what is happening right now, to just do something short right now because right now is short and who knows where it's leading but it could be very interesting. maybe it doesn't even have to lead anywhere, maybe it is very interesting anyway. And this is great, the present is great and writing is a strong way to conscious of it, that both the effort of writing and the effort of living are amazing.
Finally, on p. 47 Routman writes, "Just as important, such overplanning creates unnecessary work for the teacher. Use that time instead to enrich your life - visit a friend, take a walk, read a book, cook a favorite dish. These activities will leave you with more energy and enthusiasm for the hard work of teaching". Too often I am an overplanner, and like the "perfectionism" Lamott describes in her Perfectionism chapter, it does inhibit me from the joy/beauty of the effort. I need to be conscious of that for myself and students.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Phonics
The first three chapters of Word Identification Strategies (Fox, 2008) were interesting to me because I wasn't completely sure before I read them what early reading strategies were, especially phonics. Phonics stands out to me because it is something I remember my dad talking about, how in elementary school his teachers only taught with phonics and it just didn't work for him, and I didn't know enough about the subject to ask him questions about it. Now I want to ask because as I was reading I wondered how anyone could learn to read without phonics, connecting speaking sounds to how they are expressed in writing.
I asked my husband how he was taught reading and writing because from a young age he was being formally taught at least two different languages at once, English and Arabic, and for both he was taught the alphabet letters and their corresponding sounds and how to put those letters and sounds together to make words, or, pull apart the words into their letter sounds to figure out what the word is. So it made sense to me how phonics would naturally be how to learn reading because it is just the link between the audio sounds and the visual symbols. Then it hit me like a brick: phonics would a crazy way to teach reading to a student that was deaf, and, my dad is very hard of hearing and probably was from a young age without anyone really noticing. Now I understand why phonics is an important tool, and, absolutely must be used in conjunction with all of the other early reading strategies described in the book, because not every tool does work for everyone, ever, but probably something of everything helps almost everyone.
It was a little fun reading through the chapters and thinking about where some of the first and second graders in my main placement are at and where my kindergarten buddy is. I think my kindergarten buddy is a "prealphabetic word learner and precommunicative speller", she is inconsistent with white spaces, her letters are sometimes turned a different way, pictures are prominent, her writing wanders on the page, and she was writing the same two letters over and over the other day (ERERERER). That is very exciting because that is where the book says a lot of kindergarteners are at and then I know that some of the first graders I see are "partial alphabetic word learners and semiphonetic spellers" at various levels. I appreciated a lot how the book emphasized that being able to identify the different stages and understand how they are and can progress to the next helps aware teachers encourage students to their advancing stages.
As I understand it, it is in these early stages of learning a first language that students are cementing what they already identify objects as in spoken words to their written words, so that now the concept of a tree is a real tree tied to being able to say it, read it, and write it. When a student is learning a second language how does the new way to say, read, and write it tie to the real tree idea? In my own experience all of them get all tied together and it almost makes learning a new written word for tree harder if I already know a way. Or, maybe it makes it easier that I already have multiple ways of "knowing" tree, so my brain already has some nice pathways. So do people who speak multiple languages eventually get a stronger separation between the languages or a really strong intertwining of all? Is this very different for children who are learning more than one "first" language?
I hope I remember more about my own learning as I think about it more.
The METACOGNITION aspects were really interesting to me. This video talks about it some, but doesn't quite do the amazing process justice. Maybe it needs some of the rhyming strategies described in the book to pick up the energy a little bit.
I asked my husband how he was taught reading and writing because from a young age he was being formally taught at least two different languages at once, English and Arabic, and for both he was taught the alphabet letters and their corresponding sounds and how to put those letters and sounds together to make words, or, pull apart the words into their letter sounds to figure out what the word is. So it made sense to me how phonics would naturally be how to learn reading because it is just the link between the audio sounds and the visual symbols. Then it hit me like a brick: phonics would a crazy way to teach reading to a student that was deaf, and, my dad is very hard of hearing and probably was from a young age without anyone really noticing. Now I understand why phonics is an important tool, and, absolutely must be used in conjunction with all of the other early reading strategies described in the book, because not every tool does work for everyone, ever, but probably something of everything helps almost everyone.
It was a little fun reading through the chapters and thinking about where some of the first and second graders in my main placement are at and where my kindergarten buddy is. I think my kindergarten buddy is a "prealphabetic word learner and precommunicative speller", she is inconsistent with white spaces, her letters are sometimes turned a different way, pictures are prominent, her writing wanders on the page, and she was writing the same two letters over and over the other day (ERERERER). That is very exciting because that is where the book says a lot of kindergarteners are at and then I know that some of the first graders I see are "partial alphabetic word learners and semiphonetic spellers" at various levels. I appreciated a lot how the book emphasized that being able to identify the different stages and understand how they are and can progress to the next helps aware teachers encourage students to their advancing stages.
As I understand it, it is in these early stages of learning a first language that students are cementing what they already identify objects as in spoken words to their written words, so that now the concept of a tree is a real tree tied to being able to say it, read it, and write it. When a student is learning a second language how does the new way to say, read, and write it tie to the real tree idea? In my own experience all of them get all tied together and it almost makes learning a new written word for tree harder if I already know a way. Or, maybe it makes it easier that I already have multiple ways of "knowing" tree, so my brain already has some nice pathways. So do people who speak multiple languages eventually get a stronger separation between the languages or a really strong intertwining of all? Is this very different for children who are learning more than one "first" language?
I hope I remember more about my own learning as I think about it more.
The METACOGNITION aspects were really interesting to me. This video talks about it some, but doesn't quite do the amazing process justice. Maybe it needs some of the rhyming strategies described in the book to pick up the energy a little bit.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Literacy Tools
"Literacy is not regarded as simply a cognitive skill to be learned, but as a complex sociophsycholinguistic activity" (Teale & Seulzby. 1989, p. 2). It was not long after reading this that I was reading material for the mathematics methods course ("Mathematics" or "Mathematizing", p.11), and it was explaining how math "symbols were initially developed to represent mathematical ideas, they become tools, mental images, to think with." And, this mathematical concept to understand how students learn math was explained with, "Initially, language represents ideas and actions; it is a representation of thought...Eventually it serves as a tool for thought," (p. 11). Now my understanding of math symbols and language is that they begin and continue to be idea representations that as development progresses, additionally become tools to aid in thinking. For me, this is helpful in understanding how people learn, especially how people who haven't mastered literacy tools yet, learn. I really appreciated the paper's holistic perspective on learning, that learning literacy encompasses so many different avenues, and all of those avenues can be utilized in the classroom to help students learn and even function in their everyday lives.
The paper, "Teaching for Equity and Justice" by Rethinking Schools, reminded me of something I read William Ayers discuss. He had his students analyze books themselves for racism and sexism, and I thought that was such a fantastic idea. It would be a strong way to bring in critically-conscious multiculturalism. Even for young students, if a book can be compared and contrasted to their reality as well as their sense of justice, for example, I believe it could be a powerful learning experience. It is a little concerning to me to think back at all of the books I have read myself and not be able to clearly identify what may have confirmed injustices. Being able to effectively analyze books for racism and sexism is something I would like to be skilled in because I think that if I could identify those injustices better I could better address them.
Finally, I did get excited when I read Albright's "Bringing the Ice maiden to life: Engaging adolescents in learning through picture book read-alouds in content areas" (2002). The paper brought out multiple points why this can be such an effective learning tool, and one that I thought could be added to the idea of it being a discussion generating tool is that I think it would make students feel they had much more space sharing in a discussion with each other and their teacher. For example, if teacher just tells the students some information I know that I personally feel that the teacher has a big agenda that I would be worried any comment I would want to contribute might not fall in-line, or be "wrong". Through a read-aloud the teacher can show that discussing the information of the book isn't about the validity of the teacher's thoughts, or that the teacher wants the discussion to go a certain exact way.
Also, a read-aloud takes the pressure off of reading skill and onto the big ideas of the learning. Reading skills are still being encouraged, but more through example and experience instead of public test, such as being asked to do a dense reading during a specified amount of time in class. All students, no matter what their reading speed or reading comprehension level, can participate in their own way of speaking. And, the added bonus of picture books is that even students who are having trouble comprehending spoken words will have the pictures to aid them and be able to participate in the whole learning-community's literacy experience.
The paper, "Teaching for Equity and Justice" by Rethinking Schools, reminded me of something I read William Ayers discuss. He had his students analyze books themselves for racism and sexism, and I thought that was such a fantastic idea. It would be a strong way to bring in critically-conscious multiculturalism. Even for young students, if a book can be compared and contrasted to their reality as well as their sense of justice, for example, I believe it could be a powerful learning experience. It is a little concerning to me to think back at all of the books I have read myself and not be able to clearly identify what may have confirmed injustices. Being able to effectively analyze books for racism and sexism is something I would like to be skilled in because I think that if I could identify those injustices better I could better address them.
Finally, I did get excited when I read Albright's "Bringing the Ice maiden to life: Engaging adolescents in learning through picture book read-alouds in content areas" (2002). The paper brought out multiple points why this can be such an effective learning tool, and one that I thought could be added to the idea of it being a discussion generating tool is that I think it would make students feel they had much more space sharing in a discussion with each other and their teacher. For example, if teacher just tells the students some information I know that I personally feel that the teacher has a big agenda that I would be worried any comment I would want to contribute might not fall in-line, or be "wrong". Through a read-aloud the teacher can show that discussing the information of the book isn't about the validity of the teacher's thoughts, or that the teacher wants the discussion to go a certain exact way.
Also, a read-aloud takes the pressure off of reading skill and onto the big ideas of the learning. Reading skills are still being encouraged, but more through example and experience instead of public test, such as being asked to do a dense reading during a specified amount of time in class. All students, no matter what their reading speed or reading comprehension level, can participate in their own way of speaking. And, the added bonus of picture books is that even students who are having trouble comprehending spoken words will have the pictures to aid them and be able to participate in the whole learning-community's literacy experience.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Initial Thoughts on Blogging
After reading Why Blog and watching the video Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us, I have big thoughts of relief and excitement that this avenue of connecting and enhancing learning isn't going to be entirely missed out on because of my own ignorance (which it too easily could have been). The vast amounts of potential for professionally improving teaching using reflection simultaneously with collaboration makes me think that not participating would be a disservice to students and myself in making school an effective learning experience.
I know that taking the time to write my thoughts and reflections helps make them more clear and concrete for myself. I appreciate the blog's potential for being a venue to share my teaching with other professionals for constructive feedback as well a motivator to continue the practice written reflection.
The Web 2.0's point that we are the web and that we are going to have to rethink some things, such as identity, ethics, privacy, governance, commerce, love, family, etc., made me think that if I am not consciously an active participant in this as a teacher, I am a block to it for students. When such big powers in life are being rethought everyone needs to be aware and participating, necessarily including every student.
I know that taking the time to write my thoughts and reflections helps make them more clear and concrete for myself. I appreciate the blog's potential for being a venue to share my teaching with other professionals for constructive feedback as well a motivator to continue the practice written reflection.
The Web 2.0's point that we are the web and that we are going to have to rethink some things, such as identity, ethics, privacy, governance, commerce, love, family, etc., made me think that if I am not consciously an active participant in this as a teacher, I am a block to it for students. When such big powers in life are being rethought everyone needs to be aware and participating, necessarily including every student.
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