Beyond Just Being Receivers

In all honesty, I think that "Beyond Tolerance" was my favorite article that we have read so far.  I admired Rachel Cook's ideas and viewpoints about taking a personal tragedy and usinng in education of others.  I loved how she defined education as "learning to live in a world community, about communicating and questioning and listening" (19).  I actually wrote this quote on a sticky note and placed next to my six points to be an exceptional teacher from my ELL class.

One of the teaching strageties that I liked was the photographs where she gave them pictures and had students write up responses.  I think that giving students the ability to think for themselves with guidelines makes students into learners instead of receivers.  I found it almost amusing that the students were upset with their teacher about how governments can lie through the media. These students have began to analyze and critique the written accounts with the pictures. The trasformation from being receivers to learners allows students to make these connections.

A book that I would be interested in using this specific method would be Persepolis.  I think it would be interesting to look at the novel and also read Iranian news reports from the time.  By seeing the difference between what the Iranian government was saying versus Marjane's experience would be interesting.  In addition, a teacher could also use parts of the film as another media outlet to examine. 

Also, I love how she included history with English.  The only thing I liked about my freshman English class in high school was that we did a brief Russian history unit before reading Animal Farm.  It made it more interesting to read book because I understood the references.  One of the factors on why I am an elementary education major is because I could not specialize in one subject.  I enjoy learning, discussing and teaching a variety of material.  According to Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory, people natuarly have different ways of learning and processing.  As educators, we need to make sure that students are able to function in our classes by including other subjects to play into students' abilities.  I liked how Cook was able to have her students discuss everything from economics to gay rights in her English class.

If you are unfamilar with Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory, here is a link to read more about it and how it affects education
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

Book Suggestions!

Hey! I need suggestions. Over Spring Break, I'm going on a Habitat for Humanity trip to Baltimore.  We will have about 2-3 hours down time each day, Sunday off and the car ride in/out. The Habitat center cannot promise safety of any personal electronics, so  I need a couple of books to read.  If anyone has any thoughts, let me know. Thanks!

This is my fourth Habitat trip (second one in college). I'm PUMPED to go!

Key Parts of Literature Circles

From our required reading this week, I learned how to conduct literature circles in the classroom.  The author of the book list a total of eleven key components for literature circles (Daniels 18).  I am going to focus on three parts that I defining want to include in my classroom.

Temporary book groups based on books

I strongly believe that using partnered and group work in education is really important for students. It gives students the ablity to combine ideas and learn how to work with others. These groups will have a mix of different ability levels so students can learn to understand people are different from themselves. The students pick the group based upon wanting to read the same book.  In seventh grade, my teacher did this by giving six different options (sports, historical-fiction, romance, action, fantasy/science-fiction, mystery) to the class. It was a really neat experience because I got to pick the book with my friends. We chose to do The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and I enjoyed going to reading class every day to discuss books.

Have the groups meet regularly

Daniels talks about how teachers should not need treat literature circles as "an occasional treat" (30). By having the groups met on a regular basis, it allows students to discuss and build relationships with each other.  It is also important to make sure that students have enough time to be able to fully read and discuss the different readings.  Again, my seventh grade teacher had a "Discussion Friday" which students meet for the whole period and just talked about what we were learning and what we thought about the book.  By having these sessions, I was able to go deeper into the novel and understand my fellow students thought.

Topics and group discussions from the students
As teachers, it is really tempting to write out every single question or discussion point for the group.  However, some of the questions need to be student-lead. Daniels points out that most of the time students often think of similar questions that the teacher would have thought of (22).  This allows our students to look into the reading deeper and make their own interpretations. I think this is a great idea to frequently use in the classroom. Yes, I believe that teachers should ask questions while students are reading. However, I feel that student-lead questions are equally important because I will not always be there to generate questions for students.  This is a skill that students need to cultivate on their own.

The House on Mango Street and Multiculturalism

For this week’s reading selection, I enjoyed reading The House on Mango Street because it was SO different from other things I have read.  First of all, the novel was composed of vignettes that allowed the reader to briefly look into a character, place or setting.  I will admit that I have not read many books which featured Hispanic cultures and characters.  In fact, I honestly don’t know many Hispanics because the majority of people from my hometown are Pennsylvania Dutch.  Where I am from, predominately Caucasian neighborhoods go to Middletown and predominately Hispanic or African-American neighborhoods go to Steelton-Highspire.  However, this reading assignment has inspired me to find more books for me to read and understand different cultures better. 

When I read the article about multiculturalism, I agreed with Hade when he said that he held a “tourist” view of multiculturalism (236).  I have dabbed a little here and there with reading books with multicultural themes.  I read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Sign of the Beaver and To Kill a Mockingbird in school.  Last semester, I even took Teaching English Language Learners class with Dr. Slattery and I kept my 50 Strategies for English Language Learners textbook with many suggestions and ideas about including multiculturalism in your classroom  (Cultural Reports,  Role-Playing, Visual aids, Word Walls, etc).  However, I feel like there is still so much for me to learn about using multiculturalism in the classroom. 

So, what can a teacher do to include multiculturalism into the classroom?  Hade writes about three different themes from multicultural literature that teachers should use in their classrooms.  One of the themes I can clearly see in The House on Mango Street is “to affirm and celebrate differences while also seeking to cooperate and collaborate across different types of people” (240).  The opening vignette “The House on Mango Street” was something I have not personally experience.  When I was little (and I still do), I dreamed about restoring an old Victorian house with a wraparound porch.  I would have NEVER image the idea of living in a house with one bedroom and the entire family living in it.  An activity for a I could easily see working in a middle school classroom is having the students draw a picture or describe their home and read “The House on Mango Street” vignette.  Next, I would have them use a Venn diagram to use words and phrases to describe their homes versus Esperanza’s home.  This would allow students to analyze differences and similarities about their own homes and how Esperanza’s home is. 

Here is a website that I found that has a lot of good ideas for teaching multicultural literature.

http://www.diversitycouncil.org/midActivities.shtml

Using Comics, Graphic Novels and Art in Language Arts

After reading "Using Graphic Novels, Anime, and the Internet in an Urban High School," I learned a great deal about the diversity of graphic novels. During high school, almost all of my friends were hardcore anime fans and they would try to get me to read different books. Most of the graphic novels I was exposed  featured female characters wearing next to nothing and references to Japanese culture I didn't understand.  As I was reading books that my friends Thomas and Dani suggested, I had to keep asking what did this word mean or how do you pronounce this name.  I believe one of the key componants to the success that these teachers had with graphic novels is based upon finding materials students could relate to.  Since the students live in a Title I inner city school, it makes sense that text about city life would relate to them.   

From the "Conventions of Comics" article, a feature of graphic novels that helps readers is the use of
onomatopoeia  such as BANG! ZIP! POW!  By using sounds with texts, it makes student better understand the meaning and language of a text.  In a regular text, the author might write something like "The purple lamp suddenly crashed to the floor."  However, in the graphic novel there would be a picture of a purple lamp tilting back on a desk in one slide and the next slide would have BIG, bold letters:  CRASH!  Even a non-reader (i.e. ESL student) would understand what the author is trying to communicate by using the visual clues.

In YGBB Chapter 5, Wilhelm talks about how he used art into his classroom to make shy or reluctant readers feel more comfrontable sharing.  He noticed that one of his students that would frustrated with reading enjoyed comics because there were pictures included with the story.  I loved how he included Kae's culture by letting her to do a Hmong story for a dramatic piece. I thought that this was an excellent choice on Wilhelm's part because it allowed shy Kae to explain something that she was familiar with.  By listening to his students, he was better able to understand what they needed from him as a teacher.  I agree that telling students to do something doesn't help if they don't know how to do it.

One of the biggest ways I can see utilizing graphic novels in a classroom would be working with struggling readers or non-readers.  By using pictures with words, students are more likely to comprehend meaning because they can use visual cues to better understand the text.  I also LOVE the idea of Wilhelm's SRI cutouts.  Not only does it involve character development but it can also be used as a tool to teach symbolism.  I think they would interested to use with not just graphic novels but with "traditional" reading material as well. 

You Gotta Be the Teacher (Chapter 1-3)

One of the surprising things that I realized when reading this book is how students view reading.  Throughout his years of being a teacher, the author discovered that students typically see reading as a chore.  Sadly, one of the main reasons why this attitude occurs is due to reinforcement by the education system.  I remember when teachers would start a book unit and I would receive a large packet about the book.  Each page was a list of questions from each chapter that I had to answer for homework.   Like Wilhelm discusses in his book, I was required by my teachers to answer the correct questions.  I could relate to the student who commented that teachers only care about students getting it right. As a future educator, I want to encourage my students to view reading as more than simply answering a bunch of questions correctly.  When the students are about to look deeper into the book, they will have a better understanding of the world around them. 

Another thing I thought was interesting was learning more about the reader response theory.  I first heard of this theory during my Reading in the Content Area class.  Louise Rosenblatt, the creator of the reader response theory, believes that reading is a transaction where readers and text relates to each other.  While reading, the personal background, mood and reading ability greatly impact how the reader sees the material.  As I mentioned before, the information that I learned from this book connected with me on a deeper level because I was able to access prior knowledge from my own experiences and other classes.  I feel that the reader response theory is a great tool to use while teaching.

When I become a teacher, one of the best suggestions I got from Wilhelm is to become a “teacher-researcher.”  By investing time in the reading progress of students, teachers will be able to gain more knowledge about the strengths and needs of students.  According to Wilhelm, the most important research tool is to have a teacher journal.  This journal would serve as a way for teachers to record the developments of the students, share stories from the classroom and to suggest for adaptations in the future.  This is a quick and easier way to jot down some notes from the lesson during recess, lunch or free periods.  Another of the research tools to use literacy letters.  The author and his students exchanged weekly letters where they discussed books read in class and outside of class.  What is great about this tool is that a student is able to explain in his or her own words what he or she felt while reading. 

My Literature Background

     When someone asks me about what activities I enjoy doing, reading books is always the first thing I think about.  I love to read because I love to learn and understand different perspectives.  My mom is a fourth grade teacher and she made sure that my house has always been filled with books.  Most of my Christmas and birthday presents have been books or gift cards to bookstores.

     In elementary school, my favorite genre of reading was historical fiction because I love to examine what life was like for a person in a different time and place.  Most of the historical fiction books that I read were about early American history or European history, especially in England and Ireland.  The books that got me turned on to reading were the Dear America series.  My favorite authors from this time include:  Ann Rinaldi (Girl in Blue, Coffin Quilt), Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Treehouse series), Beverly Clearly (Dear Mr. Henshaw), Karen Cushman (Midwife’s Apprentice, Catherine Called Birdy), and Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie).   I also read a non-fiction series called “Children of the World.”  Each book focused on a different kid in a different country. 

     As I transitioned to middle school, my taste in literature expanded.  I joined the Library Club which went to read to kindergarten students once a week and volunteered twice a week in the school library.  I loved working in the school library so much that I volunteered at the public library until I graduated high school.  When I volunteered at the library, I started to read a wide variety of books.  My favorite genre became fantasy because middle school was tough but escaping into a surreal world was a great for coping.  The first fantasy author that I remember reading was Tamora Pierce (Alanna and First Protector series).  I loved how her protagonists were strong young women who fought for good.  From there, I began to read authors like Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl series), Lemony Snickett (A Series of Unfortunate Events), C. S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) and J.R.R. Tolkein (Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit).  

      As I went into high school, I was able to be in Honors English classes which help me to develop a critical eye when reading books.  As a result, I began to read books with “deeper” messages.  Most of the books that I read involved the transition from youth to maturity such as John Green (Looking for Alaska), S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders), Laura Halse Anderson (Speak), and Donald Miller (Blue like Jazz).  Most of my classes focused on short stories but we read the following books:  Animal Farm (9^th), The Giver (9^th), To Kill a Mockingbird (10^th), The Catcher in the Rye (11^th), The Awakening (11^th) and Night (12^th).   On my own, I began to read “classic” literature Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), George Orwell (1984) and Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle). 

     As I look back on my education, I realize that my desire to read was self-motivated and not really connected with school.  In most of my classes, I remember that every student was required to read the same book during reading class.  Many times, I had already read the book we were reading and I would become bored.  My favorite reading class was 7^th grade when we were allowed to pick any book we wanted as long as it was at least 150 pages and developmentally appropriate .  When I become a teacher, I would like to inspire my students to value reading by allowing them to explore the different types of genres that they would be interested in.  I want my students to provide my students with lots of opportunities to read material that they would enjoy, even if I do not like that specific topic.  For example, I have not found a graphic novel that I have enjoyed.  However, I understand that my students might enjoy reading that so I will buy it for my class library provided that it is developmentally appropriate for my students.