I sincerely mean it when I say that this has been my favorite course I have ever taken at Chico State.  I’ve known for quite some time that I want to be an English teacher, however, all of the previous classes I have taken have been a total bore, until this one.  Kim, I cannot thank you enough for creating this class and teaching it in a way that nurtures, yet challenges us students as we begin our journey into teachers ourselves.  When I heard there wouldn’t be any grades or tests, I thought this class would be a joke, yet somehow this class became the one that I put all my effort into and saw the most results.  I’m an outgoing and funny person, but I have always been more introverted during class discussions, but this class changed it all.  I finally felt my opinion and thoughts being valued for once in a college setting, and for that, I am forever grateful.  To all of my fellow classmates, thank you for listening and for creating such great discussions that allowed us all to develop and grow as future teachers.

In the terms of literacy, being someone who is so interested in ESL and ELD students, I learned so much about what literacy really means and how we can help others attain it.  Until I stepped foot into this classroom I had never thought about sponsors, or pedagogy, or multiliteracies, but after I learned how all of these tie into literacy, it became so obvious to me why I want to be a teacher.  I want to be that bilingual teacher that can help her students develop literacy in maybe not only one language, but two.  After my article group, where I read Just Girls by Margaret J. Flinders, I was able to see how literacy can be used as a form of power, and then being able to research that topic more in my keywords assignment, I realized how regardless of where I’m teaching, or what age group I’m teaching, literacy will always been seen as power.  I hope to break down the walls that so many students build up, and be a teacher like Rafe Esquith in the Hobart Shakespeareans who turns literacy into a beautiful means of power.

I was lucky enough to intern in Cindy Duchala’s class at Chico Junior High School for over 4.5 months, and I learned more than I would have ever imagined.  Although I was not actively teaching, I was observing, grading papers, tutoring, and even putting my Spanish skills to use.  I felt so at home in her ESL/ELD class because I was working with my dream students.  Cindy conducts her classroom in such a positive manner that it makes all of the slower learners WANT to try because they want to understand and be able to move on into regular English 7 or English 8 classes with their friends.  Cindy does this interactive reading that I will definitely implement into my classroom someday, and because of it, her students comprehension levels have sky rocked and Cindy won ESL Teacher of the Year for the district.  However, my favorite part was working one on one with two boys, Angel and Valentine.  They both just moved to the United States two years ago, and they are both still developing their English skills.  In the beginning, Cindy would force them to come work with me, but in my last month of interning, Valentine would ask to come back and work with me because he enjoyed getting my help.  Cindy said that Valentine knew he could do better, but “with your help and patience, he is finally putting his skills to use, and he should graduate from ELD next year.”  I can not explain the love I have for students, but I sure can tell you that I cannot wait to start teaching.

THANK YOU ENGL 332 for an incredible class experience, I’ll miss you all!

 

I honestly had a blast working with my article group.  When I chose Hip Hop for the presentation I was a little nervous because although I do listen to a lot of hip hop music, I am not very up to date on hip hop pop culture, or even how hip hop could be used in teaching literacy.  However, when I started working with my group and reading through some of the dense material we had, I learned so much more than I expected.  One of my favorite things I learned from my entire work within article groups was how hip hop freestyle affects the brain.  My favorite activity was having the class try the freestyle rap and then try the collective, memorized work.  I am someone who wants to teach in a diverse school because of the fact that I know it will be a challenge, yet come with so many rewards.  I think that learning about how so many teachers and professors around the world use hip hop and rap to communicate with students is an incredible resource to have because as we saw in the video “Watson and Crick,” students are stimulating their brains and working hard to learn about an otherwise mundane subject through the practice of hip hop.  I was very skeptical about leading my own workshop, but I really think that a lot of people took away important information from out presentation, and I know that I hope to someday incorporate some of those practices into my own classroom.

http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/a-pedagogy-for-cross-cultural-digital-learning-environments/

As I’m sure you all have been able to tell from my various blog posts, I am really here to become a teacher that changes the way in which, as educators, we approach the teaching of ESL students, or a culturally diverse classroom in general.  This article written by Bernardo Trejos examines and seeks to explore solutions for how online education across multiple languages and cultures can become more effective and useful.  I think that no matter where one lives in the world, education should always be an option.  I highly agree with Trejos that there is not one superior language over another, and there is not one superior country over another.  My serious love and devotion to the Spanish language has made me realize that as much as I love being an English major, I love being a Spanish minor just as much.  I find it appalling that so many professors from English speaking countries do not feel as though it is worth their time to teach online courses to diverse groups of students.

This article has some very interesting points that we have discussed in class quite a bit.  For example, when we examine literacy as power, how do we decide who gets to draw the line between being  “literate” and “illiterate”?  Trejos presents the same question, only more in a sense of how we are going to make online education across cultures something that all countries and nations want to be apart of in order to make it so that every person on this planet has the opportunity and resources to become that “literate” human being they want to be.  One of the most interesting parts of this article to me was the translation of a paragraph in Mandarin Chinese to western linear-style English.  When the analysts broke down the way in which the Chinese was written, there were only 2 full stops and 10 pauses, and in the English translation there were 8 full stops, 2 semicolons, and 7 pauses.  Because the actual way in which different cultures write and produce their thoughts onto paper, it is difficult to internationally find a solution to how we are going to make online education accessible to all.  The fact of the matter is that as we have discussed how Twitter and Tumblr and YouTube are changing our literacy practices, the way in which we actually write and read and think is so different from other cultures that at times it seems like we are going too fast for others to catch up.

My keyword was “Literacy as Power” and when watching Hobart Shakespeareans, I could only think about Margaret Finder’s book Just Girls and how literacy plays an enormous role in the lives of developing adolescents.  Although, in Finder’s book literacy was seen as power in a more negative light because it was used to separate and define groups of girls in means of their literacy practices.  I feel as though this can be a negative or a positive thing, but when literacy practices lead to the making of different groups based on how “cool” or “relevant” their literacy practices are, I think that leads to a negative impact on how certain kids view literacy.  If the Tough Cookies don’t participate in the note passing that the Social Queens do, then they are not considered cool enough to be in their crowd.

In the Hobart Shakespeareans, literacy was seen and practiced in the most positive light.  The teacher at Hobart Elementary, Rafe, only wants the best for his students in terms of learning and expanding their knowledge of their country and its history.  I think that everything Rafe does in his classroom: the money system, practicing music, reading aloud, reading often, and most importantly, practicing and recreating Shakespeare, are all things that help developing students create their own literacy practices for life.  Because Rafe offers such diverse options of learning in his classroom, I think that students are more likely to find at least one aspect of his teaching that really connects to them and therefore pushes them in all aspects of his class.  Rafe uses literacy as a form of power to push students past their limits, especially in breaking down the stereotypes of “Latin” or “foreign” in his classroom, and prove that all students are equal in their ability to learn and grow, especially in his practice of Shakespeare.