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Monday, April 11, 2011

CCSS

Being in education, I've already had the opportunity to look at the Common Core State Standards, which will be implemented within the next few years. Being certified to teach special education and English, I have very mixed feelings on what is to come. On the positive, the states that take part in this will be uniform. However, I have a feeling that there will be a push, now more than ever, of teaching to the test.

Even teaching to the ACT, right now, I noticed how much the students dread it, but it is very beneficial to their learning. In 10th grade at the high school I work at, a minimum of three days are spend on just ACT Reading Prep. Three to five days, sometimes even more, are spent on ACT Writing Prep. The students are even tested on their unit tests and final exams with questions that they would encounter on the test. On one hand, this will help them when it comes to actually take the test the next year. However, all that time teaching to the test teachers could have been teaching other beneficial material. I also feel it is causing students to see literacy as just reading and writing. It is twisting their view of what literacy can be because there is so much focus on this one test that could decide their future.

Don't get me wrong, standards are important because it gives teachers an objective for teaching the material. However, less empahsis needs to be put on teaching to the test and more emphasis needs to be placed on the quality of the material. It will be interesting to see if and how CCSS will change education and the student perspective of education.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Does technology enhance or hinder learning?

For this post, I have quite a bit to say. So, I'm going to break it into sections.

1. Cellphones in High Schools
Working at the high school for the past two years, I have seen it go from a no cell-phone policy to a "cell-phones can now be used in the school" policy. Honestly, from a teacher's standpoint, I have found it to be a hindrance to the students' learning. Many teachers don't know how to properly use this technology in the classroom, and students only half pay attention in class because they are too busy texting their friends. If teachers were to properly incorporate this piece of technology, such as a text message assignment or Twitter assignment, then maybe students would see the benefits of learning through technology. However, as of now, it is just one more thing that is pulling students away from the learning.

2. Jargon in Papers
Sometimes teachers might find themselves reading papers with text message jargon, such as "idk" or "b4." Students need to be taught to differentiate when it is the "right" time to use this jargon and the right time to use Standard English. Students with different dialects have to work with code-switching. In a way, text messaging is its own dialect. Incorporating it in the classroom could take writing to a whole new level. However, students need to understand if they write that way for the ACT/SAT or college application essay, it will most likely be frowned upon.

3. Positives of Technology in Education
As much as it may sound as if I am against incorporating technology into the classroom, I am actually a huge proponent of it. First, technology allows the students to do something they enjoy while still learning. For example, I have had my students create Facebook profiles for a character from Romeo and Juliet. Previously, they would have had to write some paragraph describing the character in detail. So, which one sounds more interesting to do? Secondly, technology allows teachers to bridge the gap. Many students do not think that teachers understand "where they are coming from." However, incorporating technology in the classroom could be a relationship builder and a community builder.

Overall, I believe, when used properly, technology has more positives then negatives. It might take a little more effort on the teacher's end to learn the technology, but in the end, teachers might see better results in the students' learning.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Technology & Writing

I have always been a huge proponent of incorporating technology into the classroom. I have also realized that students do not realize how much writing they actually do on a daily basis. From Facebook to Twitter to texting, students are doing more writing than what was done in the past. However, is this writing actually hindering their formal writing or is it benefiting it? Honestly, I do not know.

As The National Commission on Writing did an study on technology and writing, it was interesting to see that students feel they are not well prepared. Although high school students may not always actively engage or want to participate in writing activities, I was shocked that students want to be able to "write good." I understand that most students want to do well in college. I also understand that students need writing activities that are relevant, creative, and have an interesting motive/audience. So, is this where technology should come into play?

When students are improving their writing, it should be enjoyable as they are learning. Writing should not be something they dread doing. Writing should be something they learn to enjoy because writing is done multiple times throughout the day. Why not apply technology appropriately as a way to strengthen writing?

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A Little Bit of Something

As I look back at how I have used my blog, I find that I use it as a reflection tool. It allows me to take what I have read, written, or am thinking about and reflect on how it relates back to the course or topic for the week. This blog has been essential in allowing me to work through some issues or even venting (with reflection afterwards) on certain practices or assumptions. I have enjoyed using this blog, and I actually hope to keep it going on reflection of what I am reading or doing in my classroom.

Writing, to me, is the ability to take a thought that is being processed and put it down on paper or some piece of technology (phone, computer, etc.). Writing is a grocery list. Writing is a memoir. Writing is an e-mail. Writing is a research paper. Writing is a Facebook wall post. Writing is a formal letter to a friend. Writing is a memorandum. Writing is comparative analysis paper. Writing is a text message. Writing is a blog post. Ultimately, writing is almost unlimited. Without writing, how would a person be able to visually process a thought?

Monday, March 14, 2011

Just a Recap

Since this last week was spent finalizing my case study, I thought I wouldn't have much to say. Actually, originally I wasn't going to post anything, but I decided that doing a quick recap of my case study might do a little good.

Things I found that I did not expect:
1. Retrieving the information was a LONG process. I did an electronic interview. I thought it would be accessible for the people I was working with. However, it took me almost four weeks to get the needed information.

2. I thought sifting through the information was going to be a heavy task. Fortunately, many of the responses were similar.

3. I was stressing out the weekend before that I would not be able to finalize the case study (as I did not get my last response until this past Friday). However, the information was easy to work with. This made writing the actual "findings" section of the case study to be a fairly easy process.

What I learned:
1. Literacy is a complicated term.

2. Teachers of all grade levels and experiences share the basic element of literacy (reading, writing, and understanding). However, how each applies it to their classrooms differs.

3. I'm super interested in finding out how people of all subject areas view literacy. If this was just English, I wonder what literacy is for a math teacher or history teacher.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Complexities of Literacy

As I have been reading articles about literacy and how teachers define it, I have found that it is an extremely debatable topic. I partly knew this with the articles read at the beginning of the semester; however, I am beginning to realize the complexities of the term “literacy.” After reading seven different articles, ranging from elementary to postsecondary, literacy is more than just reading and writing. It is based on theory, content, curriculum, culture along with many other things.

My case study is looking at how a few English teachers at the high school level define literacy and contrasting their concept of literacy with the literacy in my classroom. The reason for reading these articles was to understand the struggles of defining literacy. I honestly don’t know if I understand the struggles, but it definitely showed that there seems to be this tug-of-war with literacy.

I decided to pull one quote from each article that I found essential and that highlight the different parts of literacy:

  • “As teachers and teacher educators, it is imperative that we understand not only our own ideology toward literacy but that of the curriculum materials and processes that are utilized and promoted in our schools.” -Karen Cadeiro-Kaplan in “Literacy Ideologies: Critically Engaging Language Arts Curriculum” on page 372-373
  • [All] students must be allowed access to literacy. Without that access, they will not have what is needed for existence in our society…Our professional responsibility demands that we see beyond the limiting and arbitrary boundaries of how we have defined the world of reading and writing.” –Perry Gilmore in “Privilege, Privation, and the Ethnography of Literacy” on page 11
  • “[We] have also learned that the way teachers shape classroom discourse can at times be limited in scope and not reflective of the diversity of student language and culture.” –Trevor H. Cairney in “The Construction of Literacy and Literacy Learners” on page 497
  • “Teaching academic literacy becomes a process of constructing academic literacy, creating it anew in each class through the interaction of the professor’s and the students’ cultural resources.” –Patricia Bizzell in “Arguing about Literacy” on page 150
  • “As English studies shifts from an Arnoldian view of literature to a more inclusive one that extends to a wider array of texts, learning about literacies can help students hone the critical skills that will enable them to become better readers and writers of academic texts and to function as effective citizens outside the academy.” –Deborah Williams Minter, Ann Ruggles Gere, and Deborah Keller-Cohen in “Learning Literacies” on page 684
  • “If we are to be successful in restructuring high schools or reforming the nature of curriculum and instruction within secondary classrooms, we must sharpen our understanding of how the subject matters to secondary school teachers.” –Pamela L. Grossman and Susan S. Stodolsky in “Content as Context: The Role of School Subjects in Secondary School Teaching” on page 5
  • “Literacy is a wonderfully ambivalent term, its meaning dependent upon the contexts in which it is used.” –Jay L. Robinson in “Literacy in the Department of English” on page 483

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Writing = Autobiography

“I do not think we should move away from personal or reflective narrative in composition courses, but closer to it; I do not think we should limit reflective narrative to a single genre; I do not think we should make sure our students write on many different subjects, but that they write and rewrite in pursuit of those few subjects which obsess them.” (Murray, 73)

All writing is autobiographical—something I have to work on fully embracing that Donald Murray addresses in his article, “All Writing is Autobiography.” Through college and now teaching high school, I never really considered how much writing is autobiographical. Most of the writing and reflecting done both in and out of the classroom requires the students to ponder their experiences or consider how they were impacted.

The question is “why am I having a hard time accepting this fact?” The truth: my brain automatically jumps to memoir writing, which is not my favorite genre to write in. However, I DO know that personal writing is not only memoirs. It is journaling, writing a poem, updating a status on Facebook, along with millions of other things. My brain just has a hard time wrapping around the idea of personal writing being more than a memoir.

As I look at my own life, I realize how much my writing is autobiographical. This piece that I am writing, right now, for this blog is autobiographical. The comment I put on my friend’s Facebook wall was autobiographical. The text I sent to my mom was autobiographical. The e-mail I sent to a professor was autobiographical. The lesson I constructed and just taught my students was autobiographical. Autobiographical does not mean telling my whole life story; it is about using a personal experience as a form of expression.

So, after having an internal (yet public) discussion regarding Donald Murray’s argument that all writing is autobiography, I have found myself agreeing. Even though it will take some time getting used to this idea, I now realize how much it applies to my life and the lives of others around me.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Procedure vs. Practice

As I was reading "Writing Processes and Practices" from The Politics of Writing by Clark Romy and Roz Ivanic, I took a moment to consider my view on writing as a procedure or writing as a practice. I will start by saying that I do agree, entirely, with the viewpoint of Romy and Ivanic. However, I really had to consider "why?"

The first thing I realized is the negative connotation of "procedure." Procedure seems so military-like to me. It's a set order or a set way to doing something. So is writing a procedure? My argument is no. There are a million and one different styles/genres of writing. If writing were a procedure, what is the point of writing as creativity or writing as enjoyment? There would be none. Writing would be just walking through a set of rules or lessons in order to get to some climatic point. The problem I find with writing as a procedure is "what's the point?"

Writing as a practice is something to which I can definitely relate. When thinking of a soccer team (or any sport in general), they are always practicing for the game. Even if they win a game or a tournament, they still practice. Practice is the ability to grow and learn. So, in writing, it is the ability to be creative. It is the ability grow as a thinker, an analyzer. Instead of just following the rules and that being the end result (procedures), practice gives the writer a new experience each time he/she sits down to write.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

"Good" Literature

What makes "good" literature? I think anything that gets a person reading could be classified as good literature. However, I look at all the books that are banned, such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which I would classify as a "good" books. So, where am I going with this?

When reading "Committee of Ten," I was quite taken back on the following statement: "to cultivate a taste for reading, to give the pupil some acquaintance with good literature" (86). Okay, I completely agree that one of the goals of teaching English is to challenge the students to read on their own. This is why many high schools do independent readings throughout the year, also known as DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). However, I wonder what classifies or who classifies literature as being "good"? Is there even such as thing as "bad" literature? I understand that sometimes there is appropriate and inappropriate literature (whether it is age, theme, etc), but even if it is inappropriate, does that mean it is bad? Even though I am not the one to have all the answers to the questions, my personal opinion is that there is no such thing as a "bad" book. So, I wonder what the people involved in the committee of ten where thinking when they placed the word "good" in that statement.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Working out Literacy

This past week, I have been thinking a lot about how I define literacy. I always thought I knew what it was, but to craft a definition is a different story. However, I have decided to approach it through the lens of what IS literacy. As I was reading Shirley Brice Heath’s article “Literacy and Social Practice” the prior definition of literacy really resonated to how I DO NOT view literacy: “literacy practices at formal institutions, such as schools and workplaces, related to—and often clashed with—those fostered within homes and local communities” (102). Before literacy was studied, how did teachers involve students in the readings, writings, etc. if personal application was not taken into consideration?

Literacy, to me, needs to apply to a student’s lifestyle. They should not be doing work in school that has nothing to do with their life outside of the school’s four walls. Even when the ninth graders read Romeo and Juliet, there needs to be a real life type of connection. So, this past semester, I had my ninth grade students complete a Facebook profile for one of the characters of their choosing. This forced them to REALLY understand the character and look at the character through a modern-day perspective. Literacy should be about connecting the work to the student’s life. Even though I am still crafting my definition of literacy, I know what is involved in my definition. It is just a matter of taking my ideas and putting it on a piece of paper…where it actually makes sense.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Literacy & Writing

"It is the ability of writing to free us from our embeddedness in the personal relations involved in oral interactions that leads to the achievements cited above: We can be detached, critical, reflective only because writing allows us to express ourselves outside of the constraints of ordinary everyday intercourse...[writing] did not simply extend the structure and uses of oral language and oral memory but altered the content and form in important ways" (Street, 35).


As Brian Street discusses literacy and writing in "The Meanings of Literacy," he brings up the point discussed by researchers Goody and Watt that the beginning of modern society was indicated by the shift from a illiterate or nonliterate society to a literate one (35). The quote above shows the importance or power seen behind the written word. This switch from a purely oral society to a written society changed how people interacted. It was no longer focused on memorization but on the availability of written record.

Sylvia Scribner, author of "Literacy in Three Metaphors," supports and expands on Street's idea of writing and literacy by saying that "the ideal literacy is simultaneously adaptive, socially empowering, and self-enhancing" (18). Also, in "Myths of Writing," Frank Smith states the two major parts of writing are "to create experiences and to explore ideas" (234). Literacy, in terms of writing, is essentially an outlet of expression that may be used to critique, reflect, or explore. However, the most important part of literacy and writing is the ability it has to empower the individuals who know how to properly and effectively implement it in their lives.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

A Love-Hate Relationship

Memoir writing-something I have become all too familiar with over the past year. I've grown accustomed to it, but I'm still not ready to admit that I actually like doing it. Just a year ago, I would have said something different. I, flat out, hated memoir writing. After having taught and graded tenth grade memoirs and read memoirs, such as Gary Paulsen or Penny Kittle, I wanted to sound like a real person...not some boring person the reader can't even picture. However, all it took was one great experience writing a memoir last semester that changed my perspective on memoirs. Not only was I pleased with my writing, I actually enjoyed writing it. 

So, for the purpose of writing another memoir, I have decided to write a memoir on writing a memoir. Sounds cheesy, right? Well, I'm actually pretty excited to write it. I really want to reflect on my writing process and why this last memoir experience was so much more enjoyable to write (and read too). I'm looking forward to using my experience when teaching my tenth graders their memoir assignment in the coming month. Here's to another enjoyable memoir experience!