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.