“If it were possible to define generally the mission of education, one could say that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life. Literacy pedagogy is expected to play a particularly important role in fulfilling this mission.” — The New London Group

I find it difficult to write a reflection about literacy without including the entirety of my two years here at Chico State. I have had absolutely incredible instructors here in the English Department. The philosophy of these instructors is one I have taken a hold of and will be bringing into my classroom when I am finally a teacher. I think that included in the philosophy of these instructors is the fact that literacy is individual, societal, fluid, malleable, relative, social, professional, academic, personal, public, and adaptable. To try to narrow literacy down into one simple definition would be an injustice to us humans and our varying literacies. These instructors have acknowledged that we students have these varying and/or multiple literacies and they have encouraged us to explore, try new things, tap into our existing literacies, question, investigate, and participate in discussions in the classroom and also in our writing by entering the discussion of other writers.

I do believe that at the base of literacy we will find reading. But, I don’t mean reading in the traditional sense–reading a book (well, yes, reading in the traditional sense, too). I think reading has several forms. Reading is, to put it simply, just paying attention. We can read words, body language, photographs, emotions, graffiti, a teenager’s wall in their bedroom, furniture (or classroom) arrangements, and many, many other things. This is the beauty of literacy; it is in everything we all do on a daily basis even if we don’t think of it as being literacy.

While interning this semester in two different classrooms, I had a very eye opening experience. I have learned a lot about what I will NOT be doing in my classrooms. I have also learned a few things that I will be doing. From my observations, I am seeing that, currently, students do not have any kind of ownership over their education. Teaching is being done TO them rather than WITH them. They come in to the classroom, do what the teacher says, and then go to their next class. They aren’t seeing the value in the work they are doing. Honestly though, I can’t really blame them. If I had classes like that right now, I’d be feeling the exact same way. And, why should they have ownership? No one ever asks them about their education, schools, classrooms, or teachers. No one cares to ask what the students feel that they need to help them learn. Students, due to the government’s interference, are very passive about education. This is the opposite of what we should be seeing.

In order to allow the students the opportunity to take ownership over their own education, we need to let them know that mistakes are ok; it’s how we learn. Making mistakes and then correcting them is one way a person takes ownership. Keri Franklin says, “I needed to make mistakes, make corrections, and ask questions within the context of my own tweeting.” Just replace “tweeting” with writing (or anything for that matter) and this will apply to our future students. It’s important for us to remember that mistakes are ok, but even more important than that is for us to teach our students that mistakes are ok.

Recently, a student—Jeff Bliss—got fed up with his History teacher being passive in the classroom. I’ll include the url for the video at the end of this post. Everything Bliss says in the video is absolutely correct. Bliss was that one student to step out of the box and question and insist on an active education. I watched another video that was an interview of him after the scene in his classroom and something he said really stood out to me: “Don’t be afraid to stand up. Don’t be afraid to question teachers .  .  . Make sure that you’re givin’ yourself the fullest of you and strive in school to do better” (Jeff Bliss). What Bliss is telling his fellow students is to take an active role in their own education and hold the teachers accountable for creating that active atmosphere.

When it comes to my future students, I can only hope to be the kind of teacher I have had the privilege of studying under here at Chico State. I hope that my students feel as encouraged and supported as my instructors have made me feel. I hope that they understand that they can question me and what we are learning. I hope that their individuality can be expressed. I hope that their literacies are brought forth and that they learn new literacies. I hope that they explore the world around them. I hope that they take ownership and become actively engaged in their education. Most of all, I hope that they leave my classroom at the end of the year having done the best they can do and understanding that they have the power to decide their futures.

http://gawker.com/hero-student-goes-off-on-bad-teacher-after-getting-kick-496791676

I’ve really enjoyed the activities the groups have had us do. I would like to take these ideas and format them to fit each class individually when I am finally a teacher. I am very interested in not “teaching” to our students, but rather including them to take agency and ownership of their own education with my assistance. I guess you can say I’d like to “teach with” my students. I fully believe that they will teach me just as much as I will teach them. I think they need to be participants in their own education and I’m not seeing that this is happening for the most part. Of course, I may be idealizing my future as a teacher, but I’ll find out once I get there.

One activity I really enjoyed was the movie questions which earned one a word. I think this is a great way to get the students involved in learning grammar. The one thing I would add would be punctuation marks. Punctuation is something that is very confusing to people, young and old.

I plan to bookmark the sites this class has created so that I may reference them in the future.

All quotes are from this url: (http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Vlogging_Composition.html)

I found the page about student vlogging to be fascinating. This is something that I never considered bringing into the classroom. The author, Susan Gail Taylor, says, “The National Council of Teachers of English argues for literacies that are ‘multiple, dynamic, and malleable,’ literacies that involve ‘proficiency with the tools of technology’ and that include ‘build[ing] relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally.’” I think this quote is the heart of what we are learning in this class and most of my English classes here at Chico State. The statement, “literacies that are ‘multiple, dynamic, and malleable,’” is, I think, the key to what education for all grade levels should be. I am hoping it’s what education is moving toward. I think that many teachers are stuck in a rut and are over-worked and over-burdened and as a result, they are not able to take the time to learn about and to work these new literacies into their lesson plans.

I think that our students are suffering as a result of this lack of time. Thus far, what I have witnessed in my internship is that these teachers are tired. Although they are younger (early 30s), they are spending their time in class trying to keep the students on task and attentive to the lesson. However, at the same time, I believe that if these teachers were to go ahead and spend the time to create new or at least alter their lesson plans to make them more exciting to the students that the attention problems would be greatly reduced, if not disappear altogether. Of course, I’m speaking from the perspective of one who has not been teaching every day for an x amount of time. But, at the same time, I’m speaking as one who is currently a student, who currently has two children who are students, as one who has a fresh pair of eyes and a fresh perspective, and as one who has had pretty darn amazing teachers here at Chico who have emphasized the importance of technology and creating an atmosphere that induces student participation, collaboration, questioning, and exploration of ideas—even if there isn’t an answer at the end of that exploration.

Taylor says, “vlogs provide a digital means for self-awareness and reflection that Gombrich would refer to as the students’ interest in pursuing their truths and intellectual progresses.” I love this! I think that being able to verbalize one’s thoughts might be a little easier than trying to write them down. I think that there can be a lot that is lost when one merely writes things down because, as I’ve been guilty of, I can be lazy sometimes and not really write down all of my thoughts, or any at all because I simply don’t feel like it. However, if I can quickly, in a minute or two or three say what I’m thinking into a camera, I’m more likely to spew out all of my thoughts. I also love that the students can go back later to review their vlog and to actually see for themselves ideas that have emerged, thoughts that have changed as a result of their learning, and whatever way they have grown mentally since that first vlog.

I think that I’d like to use vlogging in my classroom when I can finally get a job teaching. I think it’s something new that students will be interested in participating in. I honestly think that there would be much more participation for this than just having them write. Generally speaking, people like to talk about themselves and what’s on their minds, this is just a way to use what comes naturally and apply it to the classroom.

The interesting thing, too, with vlogging is that the students will actually be doing the writing process without realizing it. This is because they will need to take a few minutes to organize their thoughts prior to speaking on camera. They will need to come up with a question and a thesis and will need to organize their thoughts in a sensible order. But, it won’t feel like writing because they are just doing this so they can say what they need to say in a minimal amount of time. I don’t want to force this “outlining” though. I will merely encourage them to organize in a manner that makes sense to them—whether it be writing full sentences to prompt them or writing a couple of words. Bottom line, they will be doing the writing process without realizing they are doing the writing process. I also think that using the vlogging as a supplement to another form of “essay writing” is most beneficial. When I say essay writing, I mean creating a photo essay, a website, a prezi, etc. etc. And, yes, even the traditional essay.

Taylor says, “As our literate environments continue to evolve, the standards according to which students will be expected to express themselves, to participate and collaborate in these environments, and to demonstrate critical thinking skills will continue to rise as well.” In regard to relating this to what we’ve discussed and read in our class, this hits the nail on the head. She says, “literate environments continue to evolve .  .  .” This is precisely what this class is all about! Literacy is alive. It grows. It changes. It evolves when new technologies are introduced. For example, we may not be drawing pictures on cave walls to our fellow cavemen anymore, but this form of literacy does still exist and has actually evolved into comics and graphic novels and cartoons—well, unless you count bathroom stalls as caves. ;)

Anyway, it’s hard for me to sit back in the classrooms that I’m interning in and not inject these ideas that I have. I am afraid to insult the teachers. I mean, really, I’m just a student who is hoping to be where they actually are. Who am I to invade their teaching process???

While I was reading through the multitude of information regarding adolescents and literacy, I concluded that at the absolute base of literacy is reading. Reading, of course, can mean different things, e.g. “reading” pictures, etc. Then, I came across an article about the downfalls of the Accelerated Reader program that has been implemented in about a zillion and two schools across America.

When my oldest child started school and began that program, there was something that I didn’t like about it, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. My son has always been very advanced at reading so it wasn’t anything I could quickly figure out as to why I wasn’t liking AR.

However, my daughter, she is not as advanced as my son so I was able to realize more quickly what it was that I didn’t like.

I did not like that she wasn’t allowed to go above her “reading level.” At her open house, she got to show me an AR quiz that is typical of what she takes for the books she reads. I noticed that these quizzes had nothing to do with reading comprehension. These questions, there are five total, are about various things that happened in the book that don’t delve into any kind of an analysis. Basically, they are memory recall questions. The other thing I did not like was that the kids were rewarded for getting an x number of AR points.

First, shouldn’t my child, and all of the other children, be encouraged to go above their reading level so that they can challenge themselves? Second, these quiz questions should actually have something to do with reading comprehension and critical thinking. Otherwise, they should stop calling it a reading comprehension quiz. Third, if the kids are reading in order to get a reward, doesn’t this defeat the entire purpose???

I have heard first hand from students that they aren’t actually reading all of these books. They will skim through, answer the questions and pass, and then get points for something they did half-assed.

So, bottom line, Accelerated Reader sucks. I am in the process of developing something better. I hope anyway. I won’t know if what I want to replace it with is better until I try it. And, I’ve got to get through credentialing school for that. lol ;)

From what I’ve been able to read thus far (chapters 1 and 2), I think that this book helps to identify and clarify social literacies. The social literacies I’ve been able to identify up to this point are: self-awareness, social belonging, and lack of social existence in regard to adult recognition. Of course, the argument can be made that these are not aspects of literacy at all, but in the context of this book, I do believe they are.

Margaret J. Finders, author of “Just Girls,” had asked the participants in her study what she should say about them when she writes about them, the answers from both groups of girls (queens, the popular girls; and cookies, the not-so-popular girls), both groups said that they are just regular girls. The Queens said that they aren’t like the “woof woofs” (the cookies) and the Cookies said they aren’t like the “popular air heads” (18). I found it interesting that both sets of girls identified themselves as just regular girls while also saying that they aren’t like those other girls. I wanted Finder to dive into this a little more. I wanted a better answer as to who those “other girls” are; what are the characteristics that would define the “other girls?” Naturally, between the two groups, the descriptions would vary, I’m sure. But, it’d still be nice to find out for certain.

This brings us to the social belonging aspect. The Cookies are not considered to be popular. They kind of just stay off on their own and are identified as “the nice girls” (16). Due to “economic constraints,” none of these girls had purchased a yearbook (36). In this context, it was incredibly evident to their fellow classmates that these girls and others like them are outsiders. They are excluded from the highly social event of yearbook signing. It’s a right of passage actually for the seventh grade students because it is their first yearbook (45). So, in this regard, these girls did not socially belong to the rest of the “society” because they did not have yearbooks.

It’s interesting to me how easily adults can forget what it was like to be that socially awkward teen who is just trying to be seen and heard. What happens to us? Finder reports, “The .  .  . principal reported the socioeconomic status of the families of the student population in the following manner: 70% professional, 15% working class, and 15% trailer parks” (7).  The staff of this school has preconceived notions of those families who live in trailer parks. Whether these notions are correct or not, fair or not is beside the point for this blog post. Based on the separation made by the principal, I’m going to continue with the understanding that the trailer park families are poor. So, with this in mind, 15% of the schools population is poor. So, why did the school only give out 10 complementary copies of the yearbook (36)? There are 531 students (36); 15% equals approximately 80 students cannot afford the yearbook. And the school handed out only 10 to unknown people–it is not clarified who received those free yearbooks.

This stood out to me because of the forcefulness with which the school advertised and the tactics that were used. Finder says, “Constant comments from Northern Hills staff that ‘Everybody gets one’ and ‘Everyone loves them’ reveal that [the Cookies]and many others were invisible to school personnel” (36). Additionally, Finder reports that teachers would make yearbook signing a reward that could be had at the end of the period if the students cooperated during class (34). Wow! So, in other words, whomever does not have a yearbook is a “no one” because “Everybody gets on e.” Then, to make matters worse, the spotlight is thrown onto the students who don’t have one at the end of each class period during that last week because the teachers turn it into some kind of a reward system.

So, what can we do with this information? I don’t really know. We can ensure that we remain cognitive of those students who are socially excluded by peers and adults and do our best to include them and make them feel important. Perhaps, when it comes time to purchase the yearbooks, there are more of those complimentary yearbooks which are then handed out to the students who cannot afford them. Or, maybe have some sort of a scholarship program. Really, I just don’t know. I’m merely typing out thoughts as they pop into my head. What do you think?