New Literacy Personal Reflection

The first time I heard the term "visual literacy" I truly thought it had mostly to do with using your eyes to read printed text, or something similar to that. I hadn't put too much thought into the fact that yes, eyes do play a part in visual literacy, but that is no where near the end of the road. Visual literacy encompasses so much more than that (hence the title of my web page). I had always thought about sign language in terms of a literacy, but I wasn't sure which literacy it would fall into. I now think that it is definitely a part of visual literacy, but that it also fits deeply into many other literacies. Due to this one example, I now believe that trying to put one label on any topic or concept is kind of impossible.

In regards to new techonologies. WoW. That's really all I can say. I've peeked around at some of the other projects and I am blown away by how many different technologies there are out there. Even though I have taken the CEP 416 class about education and technology and the iTECs displayed some, I am still kind of intimidated. I think one way that I can use my students' knowledge and understanding of these technologies in my class would be to have them teach me how they use it and then make some sort of a project in class for others. This would require individual time and commitment from both myself and the students. I also think it is going to take commitment from myself to continue to develop and grow with the new technologies and ever changing definitions of literacy.

The new technology I used was a web page which is a document shared via the World Wide Web on which any person with internet access can view. In my experience, it was only within the past few years that just anyone could create a web page. I typically thought that you had to pay someone with a web design degree to create such things for you. I had some experience from last semester working with web pages for two different classes. I found google to be the easiest for me to use to convey my overall messages. However, every experience I have had in creating something with a new technology has been completely different. Part of this is the purpose of using the specific tech. For instance, if I am truly trying to convey a message or if I am just trying to get acquainted with the tech. One variation from a traditional literacy was that I was able to incorporate moving images on my page, which one would not normally get if using a typical book.It allowed me to provide more images at once that did not overwhelm the viewer.

When I created this web page, it took a great deal of trial and error and accessing my prior knowledge of web pages. I had to really think about how to lay this out, and I am still not satisfied completely with it. I think that it is easy to access, although I think that the viewer has to scroll a bit too much, but I didn't want to separate it all onto different pages since the info I was giving went in a chronological order. I think I might actually play with this more this summer when I am not so pressed for time. One thing I discovered while working through the creation of the page was how much I was using my own visual literacy skills. All of the tools that google offers the page creators are in icon form for the most part, sometimes if you let your mouse hover it will show a word or two, but that still does not really tell you what the icon is going to do if you click it. I had to use what I knew of the icons and their purposes before I could put everything together. Thank goodness for "ctrl+z" or else my page would have been in a world of mess. It actually excited me when I was able to get it to do exactly what I wanted it to do. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I hope to pass on to my students in all of their learning. I hope to also pass along the ability to take risks in exploring new things and in learning in general. If we don't take some risk and step into unknown territory then we won't really progress forward ideally.

I am not sure that my overall definition of literacy from my initial post has changed much. I said "I will define literacy as the ability to understand, create, and effectively use messages in ample contexts through various means and tools to participate fully, efficiently, and positively in the ever changing multicultural global community." I still think this is accurate, however, I now have a much clearer understanding of one form of literacy and the tools used within it. I also think that it is hard to have just one ultimate definition of literacy with its every changing and expanding nature. I think that the only thing the works, but is clearly ambiguous, would be to define literacy as 'everything.' I don't plan on using such a definition, but I wanted to illustrate how difficult it is to provide such an enormous definition.

I don't think that I can say that one thing or course of readings has brought me directly to this point in my thinking and understanding of literacy and technology. I think that by being present in this TE 402 class, both math and LA, and making the effort to keep my eyes open to the various literacies and technologies out there this semester has brought me to my new understanding as primarily defined on my web page.

For my Language Arts lesson, the students were not the ones using this new technology, I was. I see how to connect my searching on the internet with skills that they also need to develop. I had to understand which sites had trusted content and were applicable to what I was trying to do. This is not something that just develops naturally but needs to be explicitly instructed about. My lesson used a play script that I found on the internet and it took my several searches to find exactly what I was looking for. I was actually talking about this literacy project with a friend's mother who is a specialist in the Grand Rapids area who works mostly in the school libraries a few weeks ago and she shared with me the amazement she has that so many of the 8th graders that she sees on a regular basis have not idea how to use a search engine or find information on the internet. She has observed them typing in entire questions rather than just using key words.

In my current 6th grade placement, I know that some students did use internet resources on their research reports, but I was unable to observe them in this process. I wonder if their parents did it for them though rather than showing them the proper way to seek out valid information on the internet. This also made me think about the location implications on students use of technology. Each student is going to enter my classroom with a different amount of accessibility to technology and understanding of literacy and technology and it is my goal to help get them all to a similar level before they leave my classroom. I hope to give them the skills to keep learning about the technology in their own rights and not just for school purposes. I believe that the literacy and technology can be integrated into every single curriculum area and hopefully I will be able to provide this for my students and even some of my colleagues. The MDE technology GLCEs state that "Technology literacy is the ability to responsibly use appropriate technology to communicate, solve problems, and access, manage, integrate, evaluate, and create information to improve learning in all subject areas and to acquire lifelong knowledge and skills in the 21st century" which correlates directly with my goals.

Also, though much of our focus was on new technologies in the digital age, I still believe that I will need to provide instruction on how to use all forms of technology and literacy tools like dictionaries, tape recorders, library catalogs that use the Dewey decimal system, and so forth. Just because the students can use a digital form of technology to get to the same end, they may not always have that access and I think it is important for them to know where the technology began to understand and appreciate where we are now. Obviously, more focus would be on how to help them with the digital parts so that they may be competitive players in the future world, but I plan not to neglect the age old versions either.

I think it is important for us as educators to be well informed of every new literacy and technology and appreciate that different students will step into our classrooms with a variety of literacy and technology experience. I akin this to the way in which we respect and utilize the prior knowledge or backgrounds of our students in every other aspect, so why not technology and the various forms of literacy too? I do think it is appropriate to plan initial lesson structures using the knowledge that your students are expected to have prior to your class based on the GLCEs, but I do not think it is appropriate to plan all learning from there. I think a great teacher must get to know her students on multiple levels to provide the best education in literacy instruction and overall learning as possible.

Writing Instruction

I have been fortunate enough to witness a good deal of writing instruction in the field. For the majority of the last few months, my students have been working on their “zoo project”. In the beginning, the students spent a lot of their time doing research on their assigned animals, and filling out packets with the information. However, more recently the class has been using their Language Arts time in a writer’s workshop type of setup. It is a very similar situation to the one that we discussed in class this week. Each student was allowed to work at their own pace, as they created a rough draft in full, complete sentences, went through the revision process with their teacher or another adult, then rewrote the entire research project in a final copy while adding illustrations. Although by the final copy, the students were getting somewhat restless at the repetitiveness and tediousness of the process, I feel that overall they really enjoyed being able to work so independently. My class also has reflective journals that they use to communicate with their teacher. After they have finished reading a book on their own, they write my CT a letter in the journal, telling her about the story (what they liked and didn’t like, about the characters, and what they would change about the story if they could), my CT then reads the journals and writes back to the students. It’s a good way for them to communicate with her, while also practicing writing without much of a prompt; they are able to use their creativity.
I don’t remember experiencing writing instruction with as much excitement or diversity as my current students do. The main thing that I remember in the earlier years of elementary school was drawing a picture, or a scene, and then describing it through writing. In first grade, the thing I remember the most was, if your writing was too messy, our teacher would make us rewrite it, taking our time and making it neater. I feel that this tactic discouraged many of my classmates and me, because instead of our teacher showing excitement at our accomplishment of writing, she deterred us from writing in some ways by making us redo the work that we had spent time and effort on. In later elementary grades, I enjoyed writing much more. I remember having the opportunity to write in a journal a lot, and also creating stories depending on which genre we were working with.
I envision teaching writing in a variety of ways. I want my students to enjoy the process and I want them to become passionate about writing. I really liked a lot of the small ideas that we talked about this semester in class. For example, having stations around the room with different writing ideas like the post office where the students would have the opportunity to write a letter to someone, or a journal similar to the ones my students use to communicate back and forth me with. I want my students to have the opportunity to write about things that interest them, so they are able to use their creativity. I always enjoyed working with different genres when I was in school, so I would like to focus a lot of my instruction around various activities with that. Although I don’t think it would be a good idea to use everyday in the classroom, I also really enjoy the idea of the writer’s workshop, mostly because students are able to work at their own pace, and are really in charge of the work they produce.

Reflection of New Literacies

For my New Literacies project, I chose to focus on cultural literacy, exploring the technology of ScrapBlog. ScrapBlog is exactly what its name states: it is a combination of a blog like form, while incorporating aspects of scrapbooking. It allows you to choose from an extensive amount of photographs, stickers, themes, etc. to showcase your ideas, but you can also use text boxes to include information or research on your chosen topic. It was very exciting to explore ScrapBlog for the first time. I was not used to being able to be so creative with artistic factors when it came to writing a ‘paper’ or completing a project.
As I looked back on my definition of literacy from the beginning of this semester, I noticed that my knowledge on this topic has grown significantly. At that time, I had written, “the ability to read, write, listen, comprehend, speak, problem solve, and communicate, in order to participate in a multicultural, technological, and ever-changing society.” I had spent some time formulating this definition with a group in the beginning of the semester, so I still think that it is an adequate explanation of literacy. However, after completing this project, I have come away with the understanding that literacy includes many other aspects. As I looked deeper into cultural literacy, I discovered that incorporating diverse literature into your classroom is not only important, it is vital. It helped me to understand that there are children all over the world that learn to read and write in different ways and using different techniques. If students in our country are never exposed to literature dealing with other areas of the world, their viewpoints will remain very sheltered. Using literature that allows students to see characters that are unlike themselves, will help them to open their eyes and break away from any prejudices that they may have.
With that being said, I feel as though our Tompkins text has really helped my conceptual understanding of literacy throughout this semester. As I was skimming back over some of my notes, I came across a statement that I really enjoyed. It said, “Motivation is intrinsic, the innate curiosity within each of us that makes us want to figure things out.” This ties in very well with the idea of cultural literacy. Children are the group of people that contain the most curiosity within them. By exposing them to diverse literature, you are answering some of their built up questions that they may have formed.
Tying in technology to literacy practices seems like an excellent and beneficial idea. After experimenting with ScrapBlog, I am confident that students in the third grade and above would be able to navigate the technology. One of the most important aspects that an individual would need in order to be successful with ScrapBlog would be patience, in my opinion. It takes time to test out different ideas and themes, and to relocate them until you are satisfied. It students could learn to take their time, and experiment with different methods, I think that any individual would be capable. Using ScrapBlog would also be good practice for student’s typing and research skills, seeing as you are responsible for creating your own text. The Michigan GLCE’s for technology state that by the end of fifth grade, students will know proper keyboarding positions and touch-typing techniques, identify search strategies for locating needed information on the internet, and discuss ways technology has changed life at school and at home. All three of these goals can be accomplished through work with ScrapBlog. A number of authentic exercises could also be accomplished by work with this technology. It could be used whether you wanted students to use the collage format for a research project, genre work, practice with spelling, or as place to keep their own personal electronic journal.
Even though I really enjoyed working with ScrapBlog and exploring a new tool, I do not feel as though this technology helped my current conceptual understanding of literacy. It was interesting and fun to use the various tools that it had and I liked the availability of all the photographs and designs you had to choose from. However, my new found knowledge of cultural literacy came from the research that I did on the topic. I put together my information about the literacy with ScrapBlog, but I could have used the technology for any subject matter and for any project, it was definitely not limited to the idea of literature.
In my opinion, effective literacy instruction is going to look different in every classroom, and be different in regards to each individual student. I feel that one of the most important characteristics that a teacher needs to have in order to teach literature effectively is enthusiasm and passion. If a teacher does not seem interested in literacy, I think their attitudes are likely to be passed along to their students. Since each classroom will be filled with diverse learning styles, the ways in which you teach literacy needs to be diverse as well. I think that literature instruction should look somewhat different everyday (writer’s workshop, centers, whole group instruction, reading groups, etc.) and be incorporated into every subject matter that you teach. To be effective in your teaching, I feel that every teacher needs to know their students on a deeper level in order to help them reach their highest potential. Since you will have English language learners, mixed in with gifted students, an equal balance needs to be created to challenge those students who need it, and to provide additional guidance to those who are struggling with reading or writing. Most importantly, after completing this New Literacies project, I firmly believe that the literature you introduce to your students needs to be diverse, engaging, and with content that will stretch their thinking and expose them to new ideas, cultures, and ways of life.

Writing Instruction

In my field placement, I do not see a lot of explicit writing instruction. Writing is definitely there, it’s just that generally it is not very intentional. If the students read from the basal, sometimes my CT will ask them to write a summary of what they read. Another time, she wanted them to learn how to write letters to the editor, so she read aloud a few examples of these from the Lansing State Journal that had to do with public works in Michigan. She then had them write their own letter to editor about how they think Michigan needs to be improved. In most cases, my CT does not provide direction instruction or much modeling in the type of writing she wants them to do (the most modeling I have seen was the read aloud of the letters to the editor), and so students end up very confused and unsure of what to do and how to start. Then, she will finally provide a model on the board using students’ input, but then the students just copy down the model, so they do not engage in their own authentic writing.

My most vivid memory of writing in elementary school was in second grade. My teacher used the Writer’s Workshop instructional format, and I absolutely loved it (I love writing in general, though). There was a degree of guidance in my teacher’s approach; the first piece of writing she had us do was about a fun vacation or trip we had been on. I got to write about the trip to Disney World I had taken the year before, and I loved the whole process because I got to write about something that was important and exciting to me. I also remember learning the conventions of paragraphs (topic sentences and supporting details), the five paragraph essay format (which I used all through middle and high school, and had a hard time kicking the habit in college), and writing my first “research” paper in middle school. I think I had good writing experiences, and to this day I still love writing (but at this point I’m a little burned out from all these college papers ).

I envision using the Writer’s Workshop instructional format, as well. I loved doing it when I was in school, and I was equally excited about this approach as I read the research behind it in Tompkins and an article titled “Welcome to the Writer’s Workshop” by Steve Peha. I would definitely err more on the side of some teacher guidance, depending on how much guidance and scaffolding my students actually need. For example, I can see myself planning units around the Writer’s Workshop format, perhaps units that are 3-5 weeks long. I really liked what Erin talked about in class today – perhaps focusing units on a type of genre, then including mini-lessons on appropriate and relevant topics as far as genre characteristics, literary devices, the six traits, and grammar. These would depend on what I notice my students need help with, much like the activity we did in class today. I also want pair reading and writing workshops, as well as incorporate writing into the other content areas (math, science, social studies). I think it’s important for students to see that writing (and reading!) permeates so much of the things we do in school (and in life). This also provides students opportunities to write in different genres, use different writing styles, and practice writing for different audiences and purposes.

New Literacies Reflection

For the New Literacies Exploration, I choose to explore emotional literacy and Blurb, which is an online book making company. To create your own book, you download Blurb’s free book making software -- BookSmart – to your computer. This software includes many different books sizes, themes, page layouts, and fonts. Once your book is finished, you publish it to the Blurb website, where you and others can order hard copies of the book.

I do not think that there can be one all-encompassing definition of literacy. Literacy is not a small, constant, single concept. Literacy includes a wide range of abilities and concepts, and it is complex and constantly changing, particularly now as our society is experiencing so many changes in technology. Before beginning this exploration, my definition of literacy would have been the ability to use reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills to construct and convey meaning, to interact with people, and to participate fully in one’s society and environment. While I still think that this definition of literacy is “good,” I now see that the skills and participation I had in mind before was more about reading and writing print. I failed to realize just how much we do with multiple medias these days. I also think that I left out some important verbs in my definition, which Erin includes in hers – viewing, creating, and communicating. To participate fully in U.S. society, one must not only be able to read and write print, but be able to use the internet, computers, photographs, and other digital media to view, create, and communicate meaning. I truly began to realize this during the class in which one of the itecs came in and we had the opportunity to explore the new technologies. I was astounded by how many new technologies are actually out there, and how so many of them can be used to develop literacy in the classroom. When I was younger, I would never have imagined using digital storytelling, podcasting, or blogging to construct and convey meaning, nor did I realize that the skills associated with these technologies would be considered part of literacy. However, this exploration of new literacies and new technologies, particularly using Blurb, has shown me just how much more vast, rich, and complex literacy actually is.

I think providing “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners needs to be broken up into two parts. The first part, providing effective literacy instruction, means that we must have a wholistic view and approach to teaching literacy. We must understand that literacy is so much more than reading and writing – it encompasses all the things I mentioned above, and probably more! It is not enough to teach reading and writing, but we must incorporate all aspects of literacy into our instruction. I realize that this may be practically impossible – every day I feel like I learn something new about literacy, so to say that we must teach all aspects of literacy is exhausting and overwhelming. That said, I think we must strive to include as many aspects of literacy as we can into our literacy instruction in order for it to be effective. Now, to address the second part of that statement: to diverse learners. Effective literacy instruction will not look the same for every student – we will have students with special learning needs, students who are English language learners, gifted students, and students from different cultures and family backgrounds. Every child will bring a unique schema to our classrooms, and we must be ready to activate and use that schema to teach literacy. Our instruction cannot be effective for just one student, it must be effective for all of them, and the only way we can be sure of this is to truly know our students. We must know where they come from, what they know, how they learn, think, feel, and interact with people. We must adapt and differentiate instruction, design units, plan lessons, and give work that is appropriate for each of our students. In terms of using new technologies in literacy instruction, we must be prepared to teach students how to use these technologies effectively and appropriately. Not all of our students will be comfortable with or have the necessary skills to type, use computers to compose books, or have their voices recorded. We need to be able to activate prior knowledge and provide students with the background knowledge necessary to use technologies, such as Blurb. I had a hard time using it at first, and I would say that I am fairly computer literate. Using a technology like Blurb with elementary school students would require much explicit instruction and scaffolding. In terms of knowledge and capacities, to use Blurb students must be familiar with computers and computer layouts, such as graphic boxes and text boxes, and using different font sizes and styles. Students need to be able to type, organize their thoughts into “pages,” use computer layouts, and access digital photographs. In terms of commitments, students must be willing to learn something new, because chances are most students will not have used Blurb before. They must be willing to take risks, because trying something new is always risky. Students should be excited about their own writing and the fact that they get to create books for publication – I think that is pretty exciting, and I’m sure students will, too. Blurb is not the easiest tool to use, and it is far too time-consuming to use on a daily or even a weekly basis. However, I do think it has a place in the classroom. I plan to structure writing time using the Writer’s Workshop approach, and I think that Blurb could fit in well with this type of instruction. Students could use Blurb to publish the writing and illustrations they create. Students could type of their stories and scan in their drawings, take photographs and upload them to the computer, or use a website like flickr.com to get photographs to illustrate their books. Books could be printed and published – students and their families could purchase copies for themselves, or teachers could purchase copies to put in the classroom library. Since Blurb does have a page minimum for printing books (20 pages), it could also be a great way to publish books that have been created as a class. Books could then be put on display in the classroom and students could read and enjoy them throughout the year. Overall, I think Blurb is a fun and exciting tool for publishing books and engaging students in literacy, and it can fit into many language arts curriculums with appropriate instruction and scaffolding.

Plant Parts and Characteristics.

Comprehension Processes

Before this week, I had not really considered all the processes and strategies that go into comprehending a text. I can read and I can read for understanding, but until doing these readings and talking in class about comprehension processes, I didn't realize how many processes and strategies I use when I read. I think I just assumed that the more people read, the more they pick up and develop their own strategies and processes for comprehension, such as using schema, predicting what will come next, analyzing characters, and questioning the author. I now realize how complex these strategies are, and surely along the way I received instruction on how to read using strategies like these, but it has become so natural and internalized for me that I didn't stop to think about it before. This new awareness forces me as a teacher to make sure that I am providing instruction and modeling in not only decoding, but in comprehension. These are things that can be taught, modeled, and practiced during read alouds (thinking aloud and modeling as Miller demonstrates for us in Chapter 5: Schema), guided reading, and even centers.

Additionally, I had never thought about different types, or profiles, of comprehension as Applegate, Quinn, and Applegate discuss in "Profiles in Comprehension." As we have been discussing all throughout this course, knowing our students is crucial to understanding who they are, why they do what they do, and how they learn. Learning about students' comprehension profiles allows us another peek into the minds of our students -- how they understand and make sense of what they read. It is essential that we figure out how our students comprehend text, but it cannot end there. We must then use this information to differentiate instruction to meet the vast needs of our students. Applegate, Quinn, and Applegate sum it up well by saying, "Our ultimate objective in considering profiles is to identify the student's view of reading, or what that student thinks reading is supposed to be, and then to provide instruction that helps them to adjust that view when necessary," (Applegate, p. 50). I think the key words here are "helps them to adjust that view when necessary." Some students may have a "right" view of reading, but others may come into our classrooms missing what reading is all about. It is not just decoding words because the teacher says to, it is about decoding words while constructing meaning, interacting with the text, making connections, and appreciating an art form. Helping students to understand that reading is a rich and rewarding experience will set them on a path for future success in comprehension and literacy as a whole.

In the field, I do see some of these processes at work. After reading groups, Mrs. Tillman (or whoever is facilitating the group) has the students summarize what they read to see if they understand. During read alouds, Mrs. Tillman asks guiding questions, points out text features and illustrations that enrich the reading experience, and asks for predictions about what will happen next. I do wish that the comprehension instruction I see was slightly more focused on the why in addition to the how. Mrs. Tillman gives the students good and practical strategies for students to use as they read and make sense of a text, but they are missing the why factor, the point of reading. I think if students understood the beauty of written language, the truth that it is an art and a craft, something that can be built up in our imaginations and broken down to find meaning, then the students in my class would become more engaged and thoughtful readers. Then they may be more interested in reading for reading's sake, rather than reading because they have to in order to get by in school.

Comprehension

It is interesting to sit down and think about your own comprehension processes. Before I began the readings for this week, I had considered myself to comprehend texts similar to any one of my peers at the collegiate level. However, I was very unaware by how many different ‘reader roles’ exist. While thinking about my past with reading, I realized that reading has always been considered an enjoyment in my life and I, therefore, have many experiences with different author styles, genres, themes, characters, etc. I feel that because of this, I seem to fall into what Gibbons refers to be a “reader as a text participant”. This type of reader connects the text with their own background knowledge. Even though I am a Caucasian white female, and my actual viewpoint may be limited, I am aware of many other cultures and groups that may be present within a text. If I should come across a book that addresses a group of people I am unfamiliar with, I take the opportunity to learn about that culture, and perhaps think of myself in their position. As Gibbons states, “Being at text participant, means having the resources to match text with appropriate content and cultural knowledge.”
Looking a bit deeper into the ways that I comprehend literature, I realized that my task is much easier since I fall into the unilingual sense of things. I am able to draw on all three kinds of knowledge (semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic) simultaneously when I read a text. Compared to the new ESL students in my classroom, I feel as though I (along with the other English-born speakers) must have a much easier time when it comes to analyzing and comprehending a book. Gibbons explains that “when you are unable to bring personal knowledge and understanding of a topic to a text, you are effectively robbed of the ability to make use of a key resource for reading: what you already know.” This statement helped me to see my ESL students in a much better light; not only may they be struggling with the knowledge of our language, but they are also uneducated about our culture and kinds of literature, which must make reading and comprehension so much more challenging. I think that this makes my ESL students that much more behind their fellow classmates, because the main Language Arts concentration for them is level by level phonics books.
As for the rest of my class, I feel that they are doing very well with comprehension for the third grade. My CT has been working on inferring with them for a few weeks now, and they really seem to be understanding the concept and applying it to the texts that they read. My CT always chooses intriguing picture books that are appropriate for the age level, while still posing interesting topics to think about and discuss. I found a remark in Tompkins’ text that I thought fit very well with my students. It said, “When students read picture books stories and novels, their writing reflects the more sophisticated language structures and literary style of these books.” I can definitely see this being true within my classroom. The students are given response journals to write in after they have read either independently, or as a group, and their writing seems to have truly benefitted from the books that they have read, or been given, by their teacher.

Emergence all around

Hi ladies.  I am with you in the "emergent" phase.  I'm not sure I will ever leave it, to some extent. It seems like as I continue to read and teach, I continue to come across new ideas, practices, and technologies that are "new" to me.  So, I guess the question I have is:  Do we remain emergent as long as we do not "know" something. Or, is emergence more an idea of positioning toward something, say, technology.  If it is more of a position toward something, than I a moving beyond emergence because I have made the effort to learn and I have added pieces of technology into my course presentations and assignments.  I also continue to wonder about the struggles and inequalities facing our students in many rural and urban schools.  Do they have the same opportunities to move out of digital emergence as those in other more technologically connected schools do?  What about teachers?  Can you teach something you don't have access to? Maybe teachers need to actively advocate for technology... hm.... I wonder if that makes you uncomfortable?  It seems like we ask teachers to do an awful lot.

Digital Immigration

According to the digital natives quiz, I am a digital immigrant. Like Jackie, I was only able to identify three out of the six terms (blog, wiki, and IM -- and wiki is a very new term for me). I am not surprised by this classification as a digital immigrant, particularly after the time we spent in class exploring new technologies. I found myself overwhelmed and unsure of podcasting, digital storytelling, bubbleply, and other new technologies. I actually wondered if I would ever be able to master these technologies enough to have my students use them, and they seemed like more work than they were worth. I know this thinking is probably wrong, and I know that new technologies have a lot to offer, I am just very intimidated by them. That said, I am hoping this new literacies project will help me to overcome my fear of these technologies.

I think that what Tompkins says in chapter 3 about emergent literacy certainly applies to my own emergent digital literacy. Tompkins mentions the beginning phases of literacy, in which children are leaning concepts about print, concepts about words, and concepts about the alphabet (pages 86-89). These are the building blocks of learning to read, write, and become literate. I feel that I am in a similar stage in my digital literacy -- I am developing the basic concepts and building blocks about new literacies and technologies so that I can in turn apply those concepts to actually use them. Soon I will be learning to use these new technologies, which is much like the emergent reading and writing that Tompkins describes on pages 89-92. Hopefully, toward the end of this class and as I continue on my journey of digital immigration, I will move through beginning digital literacy and toward fluent digital literacy.

Emergent Digital Literacy

After taking the digital natives quiz, I would have to classify myself as a digital immigrant. I was only able to identify the entire meaning of three of the terms; I also feel as though they are the most common and well known ideas of technology that were included in the quiz (Blog, Wiki, and IM). Before this semester, I thought that I had a pretty solid understanding of technology. However, now that I am being exposed to more and more ideas through our course, I’ve come to the conclusion that I still have a lot to learn. Thompson thinks of “emergent” as the first stage that young children encounter when learning to read and write. When it comes to my digital literacy that I will be completing my project on (cultural literacy), I feel that it is safe to categorize myself under the emergent category as well. Thompson explains the emergent stage as when “young children gain an understanding of the communicative purpose or print and develop an interest in reading and writing”; it is also expressed as the stage where children develop concepts and notice aspects of literacy in the environment or world around them.
Although the emergent stage within Thompson’s text is referring to the ‘emergent’ stage of reading and writing, I can very much see myself falling under this category when it comes to learning and teaching myself about cultural literacy. I know so little about that topic now, that I am at the stage where I am attempting to gain a beginning understanding and develop some concrete examples of what cultural literacy entails. I will begin to put together aspects of this idea and form my understanding, similar to how children use phonemic awareness and decoding to learn their words. As we discussed in class, students have many tools at their assistance during the emergent stage. An example of this is seen with the vowel rules, or fluency rules. I plan on replacing those methods used by younger students with research on cultural literacy in order to complete our digital literacy project.

Response-Centered Talk and My Field Placement

In my field placement, I do not see a lot of response-centered talk. Most of the talk about literature occurs in the form of recitations, often following the I-R-E model that Weinstein describes in Ch. 10. For example, if Mrs. T does a read-aloud, she asks a few questions before beginning the story, such as "Based on the cover and the title, what do you think this book might be about?" She then reads the story, pointing out some of the features of the text and illustrations and sometimes asking students to summarize what has happened in the story so far. Then, at the end of the story she asks one child to summarize the story and then calls on a few more children to fill in some details. This is understandable because lately they have been working on their summarizing skills -- they summarize what they read both verbally and in writing. Sometimes she will ask them to recall certain events, characters, or facts from their reading,which fits with what Almasi refers to as "traditional discussion" --
"The questions asked during these interactions generally require students to recall what they already know about the literature they have read," (Almasi, 4). I think students would definitely need some scaffolding for response-centered talk to take place, because I don't know that they have ever taken part in the type of discussion we have been reading about and discussing in class. As our readings said and as we talked about in class on Wednesday, this type of talk is not natural -- students must learn the "rules" of discussion, including what kind of behavior and language is appropriate (i.e. "I agree, and I would like to add..." or "I disagree, because..."). Students in my class would need scaffolding to learn how discussions work and how to participate in them, as well as guidance in terms of asking probing questions and making connections to each other, which are things that a teacher could facilitate. It would certainly take time and scaffolding, but I think my students have a lot of great ideas about what they read, and they just need a chance to develop those ideas in a social context like a discussion.

Response Centered Talk in the Classroom

I am fortunate enough to witness a lot of literacy activities and interactions at my field placement. A specific time is set aside for individual reading, research using informational texts or the internet, journal entries, group reading as a whole, and smaller group reading work with my CT. Various discussion techniques are seen throughout a normal week in this third grade classroom, but once I completed last week’s readings on talk within the classroom, I realized that not much of the interaction is “Response-Centered”. While it is obvious that my CT is interested in what they have to say in regards to a text, and often asks for their predictions throughout a story, it does not seem to me that the students pick the agenda for their discussions. The McGee article stated that response centered talk arises from children’s reasoning and problem solving and that it involves letting “just the students talk to each-other”. In order for successful response-centered talk to take place in my classroom, this would be the area where the most work would be required. Very few, if any, discussions that occur in my classroom allow the students to discuss literature amongst themselves. It is rather seen with one on one questions posed from their teacher, with a few students replying to each. (A positive point to address, however, is that almost every student will participate at least once or twice throughout at lesson.)
I am not trying to imply that all of the literature discussion that takes place within their classroom is negative. As we had discussed in class last week, sometimes regular discussion benefits certain students as well. For example, there are certain children in my classroom that seem very comfortable with their routine of discussion, and enjoy participating to the group as a whole. Almasi states that “students involved in discussions not only learn how to interact socially and develop communicative competence, but they learn to take responsibility for their own learning”. I agree with this idea; although I feel that response centered discussion is one of the most positive ways to address talk within a classroom, I feel that through whole group discussion students are still able to act as tutors to each other when interpreting. I often see this in my field placement. My class works very well together and is a very close knit community; therefore, when someone has an idea about a text or is making a prediction, they all seem to focus and actually take in and process what is being said.

Defining Literacy

I accidentally posted this on my other blog last week instead of here. :-/ I noticed when I was reading to comment on others. Sorry.

Prior to my vast experiences as MSU, I would have likely said that literacy was the ability to read and write. I think that the common phrase used for education “reading, writing, and arithmetic” may have had an influence on my initial definition. When I started at MSU, I believed that literacy was having the ability to read, write and communicate through these means. When my concepts of communication changed to encompass communications not related to the printed word such as sign language, I realized that my other definitions may change as well. I began to allow my concepts of important words like “literacy” to be fluid and open to change.

The words I jotted during our quick write were: success, connections, meaningful, messages, far-reaching, exciting, scary, natural, life-long, development, knowledge, and understanding. It surprised me that I did not write books, pencils, reading, talking, computers, phones, and so on. I seemed to have thought more about the deeper implications of literacy that just the utensils needed or developed from being literate. Though it had crossed my mind, I had never thought to define literacy primarily as a “tool” rather than a subject area to be learned. I believe that literacy is something that begins at birth and continues throughout life in every facet possible. I think that some of the words used to define literacy should also be redefined. For example, the word read should be redefined as viewing and comprehending printed text, visual images, body language, vocal and musical quality, color composition and so on. For today, I will define literacy as the ability to understand, create, and effectively use messages in ample contexts through various means and tools to participate fully, efficiently, and positively in the ever changing multicultural global community.

My ideal literacy learning environment would not be contained in just one room. I would like to see the literacy learning to happen everywhere the students are and have them share this learning with their classmates and myself. Obviously, the grade level and school I work in would have an impact on our literacy environment. I think that the wants, needs, and strengths of the students would also impact and change my literacy learning environment from year to year. Regardless of all variables, I would like to provide an environment where literacy learning can occur without it being a tedious process for the students. I would like the learning to feel natural and be a part of our unwritten classroom routine. I would like the students to desire to become literate in numerous aspects because of the real-world connections and uses and simply the excitement of learning. I will have a large library filled with books from every genre and from as many different authors as I possibly can. I will also hopefully have a variety of technology present in the classroom for the students to explore such as a computer, voice or tape recorder, and cameras. The ideal environment would also contain multiple outlets for expressing literacy such as small group conversation, large group conversation, individual presentations, written and typed documents, artistic creations, non-verbal communications such as pantomime and sign language, and digital communications such as blogs, email, podcasts, and wikis. Ideally, the environment will be colorful, fun, all encompassing, and ultimately very flexible.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

Taking into consideration the fact that I will have a diverse group of students in my classroom, I will initiate multiple and varied methods to get to know my students. I believe, like my colleagues, that every student is important and special and deserves the same amount of effort and appreciation. The best way to have a classroom that meets the needs and wants of the students is to know what they are and to do this I must know my students as learners and people and allow them to know me as well. I plan to not ask my students to do something that I wouldn't do or share with them myself.

The first way in which I would like to get to know my students is to get to know their parents and families. I believe that home visits would be a great way to do this. Discussions about home visits have been briefly present in previous TE courses, but I observed fully the power of these visits in true stories turned into movies like The Ron Clark Story and Freedom Writers. Through these movies, I saw the importance of knowing your students and their home lives regardless of what age the students were.

I realize that time and resources may hinder my making home visits, so another way in which to get to know the students at home was talked about in class. This was the idea about sending home a camera and a stuffed buddy with a student to take pictures of their home life. I totally understand using a disposable camera, but I think I would be more likely to use a digital camera with the students. It would be more applicable to the technological needs of the students and could provide another level of excitement for the students to instantly see the image. The digital image would also be easily placed into a classroom website or visual collage. I know that the age of the students might be a factor in which camera to use, but I think that if the idea of responsibility is instilled the students would be very likely to take extra good care of the equipment sent home with them.

Another way in which I would get to know my students is by drawing on their creative talents and conversational skills. I have done the following activity with my night receptionist staff so that I can get to know each of them as well as them getting to know each other. Working in partners, each student would spend about 5 minutes interviewing the other person to find out likes, dislikes, name, and so on. After each student has collected their desired information, they are to draw an image of their partner incorporating all of the things they just learned. After the portraits are complete, each student must introduce their partner and display the image they created. I kept these images and have them displayed for staff and others to see. In the classroom, we could make a portrait gallery. Another way to do this would be to give the students specific questions to ask each other.

Other great ideas that I have used in classrooms and with staffs are surveys of many kinds, spotlights or person of the week/month/pay period, rock the boat choice activities, one on one conversations over food or board games, and hidden facts games. Hidden facts games could include “two truths and a lie” as well as a guessing game in which each participant secretly writes three facts about themselves and places them into a bowl with everyone else's. Taking turns each person would select a fact from the bowl and have to guess who it belonged to. I also love the idea of “about me” or “where I'm from” poems because students would be able to do these at any age. I think that acrostic poems using each student's name would be a great incorporation of the topic of adjectives and personality traits. In the sixth grade classroom I am working in, they have all clearly taken the “what type of learner are you?” quiz and each made a graph depicting their rankings for each category. These graphs are displayed in the classroom under the title “How Smart Are You?” I can't say that I fully agree with the title, but I appreciate the reasoning.

Two other ideas I have for getting to know my diverse students also involve the students getting to know each other and appreciate their diversity. The first is a plan that I created as part of CEP 416 – Education and Technology. It is a lengthy project that involves many different technologies. Since it is a great deal to write out, here is the link to the plan, samples of student work, and other resources. The second idea happens within this plan, but could stand alone. It is the idea of having like a newscast of interviews with the students. The students could interview each other and record it on camera or on a voice recorder and these could be presented or posted for the class to see. I think this would be a great way to incorporate Erin's use of Newsday Tuesday as well.

Although knowing, understanding, and using the students' backgrounds and prior knowledge is very important in developing a positive classroom culture, I also think that sharing common experiences is important as well. For example, when we read “Martin's Big Words” in class, we were all able to discuss ideas based on the book itself even though our backgrounds surely influenced the conversation. When encouraging connections, the common experience is indispensable.

A challenge I face this semester which is different than my classmates is that I am in a completely new placement and so know little about the students and their backgrounds. Through my observations and conversations with the mentor teachers I am forming ideas about the students, but it is not as deep as I would like it to be at this point. I am not sure what effect this will have on my literacy lessons with the students this semester. I plan to ask my cooperating teachers if I could conduct a getting to know you activity with the students even though it may not be as rich as it would be at the very beginning of the year.

Ultimately, I want to use every resource I can to get to know my students so that I can create an understanding, sensitive, supportive, and challenging classroom environment. Honestly, I can totally see myself playing the song "Getting to know you" by Oscar Hammerstein to the students and sharing directly with them the importance of our mutual learning environment.

Diversity in the Classroom

I have always thought that knowing your students was an important part of every classroom community and teaching. However, after the readings from last week and our class discussions, I’ve come away with an understanding that it is much more significant than I had thought. When we had time to brainstorm in class about what we thought “classroom context” meant, I had explained that I thought it was the people that make up your classroom, not only physically, but their personalities and their methods of learning as well. As we said, I think that it is important to adjust our attitudes as teachers and adapt our lessons and approaches to our student’s needs. I feel that by putting in an extra effort to know our students’ previous experiences with literacy and information about their personal lives, it will help to create a comfortable and inviting atmosphere. One positive way of doing this that I liked was the ‘student of the week’ bulletin board, or the interest surveys for parents and students. Both of these would be resourceful in discovering your student’s backgrounds and extra pieces of information that you may not get verbally, or directly, from your students.
When you are interacting with students during literacy, I feel that this can be an opportunity to learn about the diversity in your classroom as well. As Ladson-Billings stated in chapter six, teaching should be thought of as an art. By doing so, we are pushing our students to dig deeper and come up with more meaningful responses. The real life examples and answers that your students come up with will be able to tell you a lot about where they came from, what they believe in, and hopefully what they want to learn.
Another really important aspect I think teachers need to have in order to become aware and comfortable with the diversity aspects of their classroom is equality. In order to reach out to your class and get to know them all individually, there needs to be an understanding that each child deserves your interest and attention. I really enjoyed how the teacher Ann Lewis from the readings considered one of her underachieving students as “strong and beautiful but fragile”; she knew that he would need extra help, but that didn’t discourage her from giving him 110%. In the end, there are many different ways that you can learn about the diversity in a classroom. I don’t feel that it is as important which method you chose, as long as you do so as early as possible.

Literacy Definitions

It sounds like you've all been thinking about the definition of literacy. It is so valuable to consider all of those ways in which we communicate in order to engage our students in some of those things once we have our own classrooms (especially those literacies beyond reading and writing!). One of the most important parts of teaching is constructing the environment that surrounds your students. A well-developed definition/conception of literacy will help you be purposeful about those things that you are able to surround your students with--- What I appreciate most is that each of you spoke about continuing to learn and keeping open minds when thinking about literacy.  As teachers we are truly life-long learners... and our literate environments change with technology, the identities of our students, and our own developing awareness.

Getting to Know My Students

After class this week, I have a lot more ideas for getting to know my students from multiple perspectives. I really like the Scholastic interest surveys for parents and students that were posted on Angel. I could see myself using these, or perhaps my own variation of these. I think it's important to get to know not just the students but the parents as well. A lot of times parents will have more insight into their children's lives, personalities, and behaviors than the children themselves would be able or willing to share. More than just getting to know how parents see their children, however, I would like to get to know the parents as people, too. I would probably create my own interest survey with many of the questions mirroring the Scholastic survey, but I would also include some questions to get to know the parents themselves.

To get to know the diversity of my students better -- their ethnic backgrounds, cultures, languages, gender identities, etc. -- I would like to do some sort of activity dealing with those identities during the first week. Here is one way that I thought of to do this: Students could choose which identities are important to them(example: Latino, female, Spanish-speaking) and then express in some way why their identities are important to them and how these identities affect their lives. Students could choose to express themselves in a way that is meaningful to them -- writing, drawing, dancing, verbal explanation, etc. Students could then share their identities with their classmates in a show-and-tell format. I think this activity could be risky because it deals with issues of identity, which can often be sensitive. If approached correctly, however, I think it could really teach students to appreciate the richness of the diversity in their classroom learning community. It could be a good way to set up a school year of learning from each other's identities and backgrounds, and could push students to see each other's differences as valuable learning tools. Students will also know from the very beginning of school that their identities are safe, respected, and valued in their learning community.

I also really liked some of the ideas we came up with in class, such as "star student." I think having a star student or a student of the week is a great way to get to know students on a deeper level, but as we said, the problem with this is it could take 25-30 weeks to get to know all the students. For that reason, I think it's important to have activities that allow you to get to know your students at the beginning of the year, and then star student or similar activities can help other students get to know each other, as well as give me/the teacher a better and deeper understanding of each student. I also liked the idea of having a literature show-and-tell, where students could bring in their favorite books and tell why they like that book, who read it to them, etc. This would be a great way to gauge the home environment for literacy as well as the students' interest and comfort levels with literacy.

My Definition of Literacy

Before taking any TE classes, I would have said that literacy was being able to read and write at a socially acceptable level (i.e. well enough to get a job or read adult-level books). However, after thinking more deeply and critically about what being literate means, and especially after doing the readings for this past week, I would have said (and did say in our quick write) that literacy is the ability to read various texts and construct meaning from them, the ability to write to construct and convey meaning, as well as the ability to construct and convey meaning through the spoken word. My definition of literacy again changed during the last class, after hearing what Erin, my group members, and the rest of the class had to say. My group collaborated to come up with a working definition of literacy, which is, "being able to use reading, writing, listening, speaking skills to interact with others and participate fully in society and the environment around you." I also like what some other groups mentioned as far as literacy in terms of understanding and using body language, community signs (i.e. the bathroom), and sign language. I realize that my definition of literacy will continue to change over the course of this class and during my teaching career as I encounter all kinds of new people and literacy experiences, and I'm okay with that. As we said in class, I don't think there can be one decisive, all-encompassing definition for literacy -- it is far too complex and we would only limit it if we tried.

I think my ideal literacy learning environment would look very different depending on which grade I teach. Regardless of age, I would want a large classroom library with a variety of different text. I want my library to include a lot of books dealing with social issues, much like the ones Leland discussed in her article. I think it's so important for children to be exposed to variety of texts, topics, and issues through literature. I also want my literacy learning environment to encompass all the areas of literacy that I possibly can -- reading, writing, verbal communication, computers/internet, visual literacy, etc. I want my students to be able to experiment with all kinds of literacy. That said, I think another key elements of a literacy learning environment is a feeling of safety -- students need to know that they are in a safe environment, where they are free to communicate, express opinions, be open, and make mistakes. I believe that real learning cannot take place if students feel they are unsafe or unable to do these things. My idea of an ideal literacy learning environment is also something that will change over time as I have new teaching experiences, and it will have to be adapted based on the needs of my students at any given time. Again, this is something that I'm okay with, because I am learning that literacy is something that we as teachers must be flexible with in terms of how it looks and works in our classroom, but something we cannot compromise in terms of our standards. How we view and "do" literacy may change, but the fact that every child deserves a chance to be literate cannot.

The Meaning of Literacy

When I was younger, I had the impression that literacy simply meant being able to read and write. As I grew and continued my education, I began to grasp and add more ideas to my interpretation of the word. Before discussing and completing the readings from last weeks class, I had a much different definition of literacy than I even do now. I had written down that I thought literacy was a word that included: reading, writing, understanding a text, and speaking. I had also added that by being literate, you were creating opportunities for yourself to suceed, as well as being able to function in today's society. While I still agree with my thought process at the time, I feel that my group came up with a much more rounded and complete way to explain the meaning of literacy. We decided that the best way to describe literacy is "the ability to read, write, listen, comprehend, speak, problem solve, and communicate, in order to participate in a multicultural, technological, and ever-changing society." At first I had left out various significant ways of communicating, all of which are significant with literacy in Language Arts (espicially the oral and problem solving aspects).
My ideal literacy learning environment would include a wide variety of things. First of all, I would like to think that there would be immense amounts of open communication. I feel that the first step in begin able to become a literate being is understanding a text, or idea, and discussing it with your peers or teachers. Depending on the age of the students in the classroom, a lot of reading (often if not always from topics that interest them) and writing would be happening in various ways and through different activities. If it was a lower elementary class, I would like to see a lot of work with phonetics and letters take place; story telling and role playing of different texts would also be beneficial. Overall, I think that there are many different ideas and aspects that need to be put together in order to create the most positive literacy atmosphere possible. These different aspects will have to be, for the most part, created and designed around your specific classroom of learners.

Rashel's Course Goals

My goals in the course for the semester are mainly to develop and fine tune my literacy teaching skills so that I can fully meet the needs of an extremely diverse student population. I know that this course cannot teach me everything I need to know, but can help me to develop skills and methods of learning new ideas and methods that I can use in my future classrooms. I want to be the best teacher I cane be and effective language arts instruction is crucial to this goal.
I have faced many frustrations with the Elementary Language Arts curriculum in the Teacher Education program here and I hope that this course can give me the springboard to bounce back from these frustrations and enter my internship feeling ready to teach Language Arts. My teaching major is actually Language Arts, the major was not entirely by choice as the Deaf Education program required all students to have Language Arts as their teaching major. I fully believe in the vitality of Language Arts in the school curriculum, but since it is so important I can actually admit that I was nervous when I first had to select it as my teaching major. I likely would have selected math or social studies at the time. However, I told myself that the program would be supportive and give me the LA teaching foundation. Sadly, I found that this was not the case though. Most of the required courses were college level English classes that rarely ever allowed for connections to be made to elementary language arts. When I took TE 301 it was not entirely focused on literacy like my classmates. I did find TE 348 very useful and TE 448 informative, but 348 was the only one that really helped me move towards complete comfort in language arts instruction. I am hoping that this course brings me to this comfort.
I hope that this classroom provides me with lifelong colleagues, experiences, and a toolbox of knowledge and skills to have with me throughout my career. I want to be an amazing teacher like Mr. Falker or Ron Clark. In recent times, lots of books and movies about great and inspiring teachers have come to light. Some of these include Freedom Writers and A Bronx Tale. I want to be a teacher similar to this. I want to be remembered for making a difference in my students' lives, even if it is only remembering a great lesson. I barely remember my elementary learning, particularly in language arts, and I do not want my students to feel that way. I want to take my experiences and learn from them to make me the best teacher for my students.

My Course Goals

I am really looking forward to beginning this semester and learning more about Language Arts instruction; I believe that it is truthfully one of the most important and vital subjects in an Elementary school setting. One of my main goals for this semester is to learn a variety of ways to teach students Language Arts. From my own experience as a student, and now from my experiences in the field placements, I have come to learn that every student learns differently. What may be extremely beneficial to one student, could completely confuse and frustrate another. Therefore, by learning different techniques of teaching that will include all students needs will be beneficial when I have my own classroom in the future.
I've been placed in a wide range of settings when it comes to my field placements through Michigan State. I have been at two very urban settings the past few years, and now am at a school in Okemos. With that being said, I have witnessed what a remarkably large difference exists between these two school settings. The students at my current placement seem to have such a better understanding and grasp on Language Arts concepts, compared to the urban school district children. I mostly worked with the students in those settings with literacy. However, my main priority was working with second graders on letter sounds, because thats how far behind they were. At the completion of this course, I am hoping that I will have learned other ways in which I could have challenged them, and help them to succeed. I also am interested in discovering ways to incorporate all of your students into literacy activities, when so many of them could be on completely different reading or writing levels. I am most looking foward this semester to discovering ways that I can help all students develop a passion and love of learning (just took at the little girl in Mr. Falker! :) )

Course Goals

At the most general level, what I hope to learn most from this course are methods for literacy instruction that I can take with me and tailor to fit my future classrooms and students. Going through the TE program at MSU, particularly having taken TE 301 and 348, I feel like I have all this literacy and literature knowledge floating around in my head, but I don't know how to connect it in meaningful ways and translate it into classroom instruction. Like we talked about on Wednesday, we need to know ourselves as teachers and learners, so I hope I will get to know myself, my learning styles, and my teaching styles better over the course of the semester. I also hope that I can break out and get more comfortable with teaching and learning styles that are different from my own. I know we don't have to respond to the "urban setting" part of the prompt but I will because next year I will be in an urban setting. I will be teaching somewhere in Chicago, either through the MSU Chicago internship program or through Teach for America. I am hoping that this course will help me prepare to be an ubran educator, particularly in terms of literacy instruction. I'm really excited to hear about Erin's experiences teaching in Chicago -- hopefully I can learn a thing or two from her experiences. What I want most is to be the kind of teacher Mr. Falker was (cheesy, but true) -- patient, genuine, willing to work hard for the sake of his students. I want to be the kind of teacher that not only desires to change a student's life, but one that actually can, and I'm hoping that this course will help me to become that kind of teacher. I know it's not something that will happen as a direct result of only this course, but I hope that this course will provide me with some tools and resources to help my future students with literacy, as well as help me to become a resource myself for my future students.