I also did my New Literacies project using ScrapBlog, but I decided to focus on emotional literacy. Since the beginning of this class my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed dramatically. It has made me realize that fluency in literacy does not come easy to many people. There are many different types of literacies that need individual understanding of in order to combine and create a final appreciation for literature. The technology I explored was Emotional Literacy and this is a type of literacy that should definitely be addressed in the early grades of elementary school. Students need to learn how to properly express their emotions, not only for writing purposes, but also for their every day lives. This is a communication skill that many adults do not have because they have never been taught the proper way to express their emotions. During my research on emotional literacy I looked up many words in thesauruses to find interesting words to replace boring ones. During this research I realized I always use the same boring words over and over in my writing without even realizing it. Even though I am familiar with unique words that can replace boring ones, I am still stuck using words I feel comfortable writing on paper. It is important that children have a large vocabulary, but it is even more important they know how to properly use those words.

Before this class I did not realize how important prior knowledge is when reading literature. As college students, this is something most of us take for granted. We don’t think about how difficult reading an informational text must be for a student who has no prior knowledge on the subject. When we did the centers in class there was one center focused on idioms. I was shocked to see that many of the idioms I was not even familiar with, I could not draw a picture of the figurative language because I had no idea what it was! This made me realize how difficult the English language must be to learn for English language learners. Not only do they have to learn our crazy grammar rules, they also have to learn the phrases that make no literal sense.

Efficiently providing effective literacy instruction for diverse learners can be done in several ways. This means every individual student learns in a way which helps them succeed the most. With the vast forms of technology available now, providing unique instruction to every student is a realistic expectation for teachers. For example, if a student were to make a ScrapBlog like I did, they would have to have to be knowledgeable in several areas of technology before diving into ScrapBlog. Students must know how to access the internet, upload pictures, and be aware of copy write issues. This technology may be interesting and helpful to one student, but another student may have no interest in a ScrapBlog at all. No only does a teacher need to make sure the new technology will help the student learn, we also must make sure the student has an interest in the technology we want them to use. Technology can also be easily incorporated in curriculum. In the 5th grade a grade level expectation is to write a personal narrative. A digital story or ScrapBlog would be an excellent way for a student to write their personal narrative. They could add pictures and special effects to make the story interesting and personalized. I also believe this would make the project more interesting to read and make.

Literacy Exploration Project

For my project, I decided to use a scrapblog (www.scrapblog.net). A scrapblog is an online scrapbook creator. You can incorporate videos, audio, photos, and text into an easy to use program. Scrapblog also provides designing tools including stickers, backgrounds, and frames, and text boxes. What made this technology so easy to use, was the “grab-and-drag” technology. Everything that you wanted put onto your scrapbook page could be dragged onto the slide. Also, through scrapblog, videos could be easily uploaded directly from other websites, like youtube.com, with just the click of a button. Once you have successfully created your scrapblog, you can choose to publish it. Once published, the scrapblog can be viewed by anyone. Uploading the project onto the class wiki, was made easy because of the “share” option after saving my scrapblog. When viewing the scrapblog, the project can be watched as a slideshow, or the viewer can click arrows to move from page to page at their convenience. Anyone viewing your published work, can leave comments directly under the blog.

If my technological literacy was less developed, I think that scrapblog would have taken me a lot longer to learn. Even so, a fair amount of time was spent just learning the dynamics of the program. For example, I had to learn how to access videos, and how to share and publish my scrapblog.

Before I was accepted into the teaching school, I thought of literacy as being the ability to read and write. When I took TE 301 last fall, I realized that there was a little more to literacy than reading and writing. When I began this class, I could define literacy in one sentence, “the ability to use language to read, write, listen and speak”. My conception of literacy changed again, when I had the opportunity to explore different kinds of literacy during class, for the first part of this project. When reading about different kinds of literacy including emotional, cultural, and environmental literacy, I found that literacy can be defined in much more general terms. I can now say that my understanding of literacy is a lot more developed because from researching environmental literacy and viewing my classmate’s literacy assignments. I someone were to ask me to define literacy now, I would say literacy involves “stepping stones” in learning that enable an individual to develop knowledge and potential, and to participate fully and effectively in society. For example, an environmentally literate person will have the knowledge and skills to make decisions about environmental issues that are affecting their community. A person who is emotionally literate, can express their emotions in an appropriate way which is an important communication skill. And a person who is technologically literate may be able to gain more from their educational experiences.

I now have a better understanding of the importance to provide effective literacy instruction. Effective literacy instruction incorporates all different kinds of literacy into a curriculum. The traditional view of literacy (reading and writing) can be taught through learning of all kinds of literacy in the classroom. Effective literacy instruction results in the development of every student’s literacy knowledge. Also, multiple types of technology can be used in order to teach literacy effectively. If I were to teach scrapblog to Mrs. Tillman’s second grade classroom, I think they would be extremely motivated to use the new technology in their writing. They could make scrapblogs to teach their classmates about a book that they read, or an animal that they researched. Students would be able to revise and edit their projects online. In order to be successful with the technology I think that students will have to be able to: W.PR.02.01 set a purpose, consider audience, and begin to use styles and patterns derived from studying authors’ craft when writing a narrative or informational piece (GLCE’s). Students need to have a plan and set a purpose before they start to use scrapblog, or else their thoughts may be too unorganized. A lot of class time would have to be given to teach the students how to use scrapblog, and the students would have to learn to be very patient when learning the new technology. I think that the benefits of learning a new technology would outweigh the wasted class time, because students would be able to communicate in a new way while developing their literacy skills.

Literacy Exploration Project: Emotional Literacy & Website Technology

I feel like my conceptual understanding of literacy has changed since the beginning of TE 402. In the beginning of the semester I use to think that literacy just had to deal with writing, reading or expressing oneself on paper. Later, I realized that I was wrong. Throughout the semester I learned about book talks, classroom discussions, making connections, building upon prior knowledge, picture walks, comprehension strategies and choral reading. By reading chapters in Tompkins I learned the importance of incorporating reading, phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, literature, content-area study, oral language, writing and spelling into children’s literacy instruction in the classroom. After having the opportunity to work on a new literacy’s project for this class I have learned even more about literacy. I have learned that there are so many different types of literacy’s such as emotional, cultural, environmental, print, digital, visual, social and numeracy. Without having emotional literacy people would not be able to detect others feelings or know the proper way of expressing feelings to others. It is so important that teachers include these types of literacy’s in their classroom in order for students to become exposed and to live a healthier life.

When I first started the project, I needed to take a digital natives quiz. After taking the quiz I noticed that I was a digital immigrant and needed to force myself to learn about new technologies. The only technologies I knew about were blogs, emails, instant messenger and the use of the Internet. I decided to learn how to create a webpage as my new technology. I have always wanted to learn how to make one but previously thought it was too difficult and never tried until this assignment. It took me a while to finally figure out how to design the webpage but towards the end I felt like I had mastered it. After creating my webpage about emotional literacy I realized how important and useful a webpage could be for teachers. If teachers had their students create webpages in the classroom they would be able to share them with other students throughout the building while having fun using the computer. Technology is extremely important to integrate into the curriculum. Technology will affect the way I will teach literacy in my future classroom. It opened my eyes to using webpages, blogs, wiki, digital storytelling, powerpoints and many other literacy technologies that I can use in my classroom. If I create a classroom webpage in the future it will allow the students parents to easily become connected to literacy in the classroom.

It is so critical to provide effective literacy instruction as a teacher to a group of diverse learners in a classroom. This is important for students who all learn differently. Using multiple types of technology can introduce students to different types of literacy’s. If I were to introduce webpage designing to the second grade classroom at Elliott I am sure they would be extremely excited. They could create a class website and have each student create their own page on the website. On their own page they could post their stories that they have been working on for the past few weeks and write personal stories that are informal. This would be beneficial because all of the students in the class would be able to read everyone’s stories. This is part of the GLCE’s where student will be able to explore and use language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes (S.CN.02.03). In order to be successful the students would need to be patient because creating their own webpage can be tricky. They would also have to edit and finalize their stories before they would be able to post them on the website. Overall, this would allow student’s to create their own stories, read their peers stories and explore a new technology!

Maniac Magee- Vocabulary

As a vocabulary lesson for chapters 1-13, I would provide the students with cards containing the following words on each card:

Clamor, mirage, hallucination, emanate, phantom, hoist, stupefy, pandemonium, lumber, lurch, blemish, wobble, suffice, befuddle, scraggy, cringe, prospect, quiver, infamous, wretch

Students will work in groups of four to find the definitions of these words and write them on the back of their cards. They may use a dictionary, or the book to find the meanings. When they have finished, students will split their cards up so that each person has five different vocabulary words. One student will write a short story containing their five vocabulary words in sentences that make sense. The story can be about anything the student chooses. After the first person has written their story they pass their paper on to the next person who reads the entry and then continues the story using his/her five vocabulary words. This continues on to the next two people. The last person writes an ending to the story with their vocabulary words. Students can ask group members for help when writing their own entries. To close the lesson, students will present their stories to the class.

Vocabulary Lesson: The Gold Cadillac by Mildred D. Taylor:

As a vocabulary lesson, I would have these words in the story: duplex, shrugged, despite, lynch, lurked, strike, drowsiness and splendor.  I would have these words written on the board before reading that part of the book.  Prior to reading, I will ask the students to write out what they think the definition means.  I will have them write their predictions on paper.  After they read the part of the book that has the word, I will have them predict what they think the definition means after they are finished reading.  They may be able to figure out he definition after reading.  As an entire class, we will come together as a group and discuss the words and what we think the definitions means as a group.  I will let them know what they mean and write the definition on the board.  I will put the words on the word wall so the students can reference them and use them if needed.  

Profile in Comprehension

I read the Article, “Profile in Comprehension” by Applegate, Quinn & Applegate. This article was mainly about 8 different profiles that students fit into during reading comprehension. The 8 types of profiles are Literalists, Fuzzy thinkers, Left fielders, Quiz contestants, Politicians, Dodgers, Authors and Minimalists. I guess I didn’t really like this article because I don’t think that all students can be grouped into one category. I wouldn’t even know where to place myself because for me it depends on the subject matter. For subjects such as history I tend to be more of a literalist because I do not have a strong background in history, I just look for the correct answers. For science I tend to be more of a politician because even if I think something sounds right, it could be way off. I also did not like this article because all of the profiles were negative. There was not one profile that had a description of something positive like, “Uses prior knowledge and content in the text to create a logical answer.” The profile all had negative descriptions.

The article gave “Interventions” for each of the different profiles, but this did not help me much because half of the interventions I was not familiar with in the first place. It should have gone into deeper meaning of what a QAR, QtA and a Sketch to Stretch is and it would have made a lot more sense to me.

Comprehension

I was very surprised to see all the different tyoes of comprehension profiles sugessted by Applegate. Reading through them gave me a better understanding of how and why students are respondin to text in different ways. I could automatically relate the discriptions to the students in my placement. I also could relate the profiles to the way that I respond to text. I think that I have developed a well rounded comprehension profile since elementary school, but I recall being more of a politician profile when I was younger. I could relate to the text and pull information from it, but I felt that I needed to tell people what they wanted to hear instead of forming my own opinions of the text. I would also consider my early comprehending to be a minimalist profile. This may come from not feeling comfortable or confident with my own abilities. I feel that I sometimes still respond to text in a minimalist way, expecting other people to know what I mean without elaborating or explaining myself.
I think that it is important to make students aware of how they are comprehending text and to scaffold them into making deeper connections and being able to express their ideas. Being able to make deep connections and have meaningful conversations about text is a crucial aspect of literacy.

Comprehension

After reading Tompkins chapter 7 and Profiles in Comprehension (Applegate) article I have learned a great deal about comprehension. I never realized that there were so many different ways that someone could comprehend readings and how important background knowledge is as a prerequisite for comprehension. As we have learned, it is important that the reader makes text-to-self, text-to-world and text to text connections. Teachers also need to make inferences for students. It is also important that they guide students towards the big ideas of what they are reading. This can help them make predictions and understand the important part of the text.

I feel like the most interesting part of the reading was the Applegate article. It discussed eight different types of thinkers. It mentioned that it is important for teachers to elicit patterns of thinking that help students think about ideas, not just text details. The first profile is literalists, fuzzy thinkers, left fielders, quiz contestants, politicians, dodgers, authors and minimalists. When I was in lower elementary, I feel like I was a fuzzy thinker at times. It is when they can be confused when asked a question that involves thinking. It can be difficult to express the right words or ideas.

"Digital Natives"

I consider myself somewhat of a digital native. I could define every term that was provided, but I think there could be many more terms in the quiz that represent the growing significance of technology in our society. There are many common technologies that I still do not know. I have four brothers and one sister and I feel like I learn about new technology from them every time we are together. On the other hand, when I try to text message my mom on her cell phone, or talk to her about a blog that I did for class, she has no idea what I am talking about.


I would not consider myself to be an emergent learner for digital literacy. Emergent learners in literacy are at the very beginning phases of literacy. I think that I am familiar with enough technology to get by in school and everyday life. I would say that my digital literacy developed ever since I was a young girl. I started to play video games when I was about seven or eight and got an Atari for Christmas. Since then, schools had more and more computers as I progressed through the grades. I think instant messaging influenced the way I write and made me become faster at typing.

I am currently tutoring refugee students and adults in Lansing. I have found that, depending on where they are from and the resources that were available to them, a lot of people I tutor can be considered as emergent digital learners. This is a constant struggle for them, because not only do they have to learn English, but they have to learn how to type papers on a computer, search the internet, and use email. American teachers incorporate technology into lesson plans almost every day, so refugee students need to "catch up" when it comes to digital literacy. Tompkins talks about how emergent learners of literacy sometimes benefit form observing and imitating others. I think that this can also be true for "digital immigrants", especially ESL students.

Digital Literacy Quiz

I took the quiz and I scored myself a 4 out of 6. I know what a Blogs, Wikis, Instant Messaging and Massive Multiplayer Online games (thanks to my little brother) are. I had no idea what modding or smart mobs are. I consider myself to know quite a bit about technology, but obviously there is a lot I still need to learn. I don’t think I am a digital native or a digital immigrant; I am somewhere in between.
My WRA class at MSU was technology based and for the first time I learned to make a webpage, post on a wiki, and create a blog. If it wasn’t for this class I would not even know what these terms meant. My brother is only a sophomore in high school and does these things daily, he is helping me make a webpage for our dad’s company and I would have never been able to do that at his age. It is so interesting to see how the different generations of people are with technology. My mother just got her first e-mail address a month ago and still does not see the purpose of it and my grandpa learned how to work a mouse on a computer recently. I think we take a lot of our knowledge of technology for granted but I still wonder has it has made our lives easier, or more complicated?
I would not consider myself to be an emergent learner when it goes to digital literacy. I think I am a little further along that being emergent. Emergent literacy is concerned with the earliest phases of literacy development and therefore emergent digital literacy would also focus on the earliest phases. I don’t believe that any of us in TE401 are emergent when it come to digital literacy because hopefully we all know a lot about blogs and webpages already and we can’t be emergent because we need to teach the stuff!

Digital Natives Quiz

After taking the quiz, I feel very un-educated in technology. I only knew two out of the six terms that were given! This would confirm that I am not a digital native and I am a digital immigrant. However, I feel like I am a quick learner to new technologies and if I were introduced to them I would be able to understand and participate in them. When I heard we were going to have a noteblog for our Language Arts class I was somewhat confused because I have never heard of one before. Now, I feel like I have been exposed enough where I am able to use it to its full potential.

In digital literacy, I would have to consider myself an emergent learner. This is because I only knew two out of the six terms on the digital natives quiz online. In the emergent stage I would only know a small amount about technology. In the beginning stage I would understand three or four terms and I would consider a five or above being fluent in digital literacy.

I hope to gain more knowledge about different types of technology over time. It is extremely important that I am aware of all new technology because future and young generations are exposed to games, wiki, emails, instant messaging and other technologies which make students digital natives. In my future classroom, I plan on using technology on multiple levels to connect with individual students. This could help connect with certain students on different levels.

Choral Reading

This is the first experience that I have had with choral reading in a classroom. Many things can be taught through implementing choral reading into language arts classrooms in all grade levels. In class, we were to read a book and decide as a group how we were going read the book out loud. When making our decisions we had to think about juncture, pitch, rhythm, and tempo.

As explained in the GLCE's for eighth grade, students need to acquire certain speaking conventions such as enunciation, and stressing certain words. I think this aspect of reading is an effective way to convey meaning of a text beyond what is written. During the activity, I found that how we read the story affected how the story was "told". We decided to stress the words "Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom" and also read the words in a different pitch. This was an instructional decision made to motivate the listeners and get them engaged or "excited" about the book. By performing this activity, students learn the ability of speaking conventions to get across meaning. Also, this activity allows student to student interaction, where students are encouraged to share ideas about the meaning of the text with their group members.

In our class, we have done many exercises and activities to get to know one another. These activities or "ice breakers" has allowed us to connect to one another on a personal and academic level. Ideas are shared freely during class discussions and students are respectful to one another. I think that without these activities and group work, it would be a lot harder for some people to participate or share their ideas. Buchanan talks about book talks and the importance of students to interact with one another. I think that Kate has done a good job of getting us comfortable enough to do this. As for the GLCE's, interacting with other students in order to get meaning out of the text is an important part of language arts. I think that the choral reading activity accomplished this expectation, by requiring us to make decisions on how the text should be read.

I think that one of the most meaningful ways a teacher can learn about their role in the classroom, is by experiencing the the role as a student and learning from those experiences. Through this activity, I have learned many things about interpretive book discussions. One is that students need to know what is expected of them. Otherwise, the discussion may get off track and the choral reading that they present may not have purpose behind it. I also learned that this is a unique way for students to gain comprehension of the text by talking with others about its meaning. I think that it is important to realize how many different meanings students can get out of one text, and that ALL are valid and valued.

Choral Reading Class Activity

In class, we learned about choral reading. There are multiple ways to choral read. This is something that I was unaware of until we learned about it in class. I had the opportunity to choral read the short book with a group called, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle. In my small group of about five people we had one person read one line and the chorus read the rest. I read with the other four people as part of the chorus. The text was extremely expected and predictable while it appeared to be for a very early reader. While reading, I needed to pay attention to the tempo, rhythm, pitch and juncture.

In class, we went over Michigan’s Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) for the eighth grade level. The speaking GLCEs expected that the students will be able to use a tone of voice that will enhance meaning and influence the listener’s interpretation while reading. This was done while reading the book. When we read the book as a group, the one person who read, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” emphasized the word “brown” and the question “what do you see?” This is where they had a higher pitch. Throughout the story, the word that was a color was emphasized (such as Brown). It was important while reading that we kept track of the tempo which is how fast or slow we read the lines, juncture and rhythm.

While reading the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? I feel like everyone in my small group supported in our learning community. In the Almansi article it said, “In a discussion, the thoughts, ideas, feelings, and responses of all participants contribute to the event.” This occurred in our small group because everyone helped choral read the book. Individuals in the group also expressed their thoughts and feelings on how we should choral read the book based on the way it was written.

I feel like classroom activities such as book talks and choral reading help bring the classroom community together. As a future teacher I want to make sure that there are many opportunities for discussions in my classroom. Choral reading can even help ESL students in the classroom by allowing them to hear rhythm, tone, rhymes, repetitions and meaning. This can also help students build confidence, improve their vocabulary and reading. After learning about choral reading I feel like I will be able to integrate it into my future lesson plan.

For the past two weeks my CT has been reading “Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls. He reads 10 minutes a day out loud to them after lunch every day and then asks the students questions at the end to test their comprehension. After reading the article “Book Talk: Continuing to Rouse Minds and Heart to Life” by Triplett and Buchanan, I have realized this would be an excellent time to do a book talk; even it if was just once or twice a week. At first I thought the students were not paying attention to the story while it was being read because many of them were fidgeting or staring out the window. After reading this article I realize that asking those questions after the book is being read is not a very good assessment tool. The students in this classroom all have learning disabilities and many of them have trouble with comprehension, a book talk would be an excellent way for them to share some personal connections to the book while summarizing what has happened in the section the teacher just read.
There is a very diverse range of students in my classroom. There are only 9 students in the entire class and a couple love to share insight and shout out answers all the time, a couple are very shy and do not talk unless they are called upon, and the rest of the students are somewhere in between. The students who are shy need more scaffolding than the students who love to talk. They need more direction and often will not perform tasks or assignments until they are told step by step the exact directions. My hope is that for a response centered talk to take place that the students who talk a lot and always have great insight will motivate and inspire the students who do not talk as often. When other people tell stories it often brings back similar memorizes that you have. This is my hope for any group talk with these students. I know that the students who are on the shyer side have many stories to tell and would have great insight also; they just need to know that they are safe to express their feelings.
An example of this is when the students were writing their own personal narratives. They were a little stuck so my CT decided to write his own narrative. He wrote a short story on the overhead projector with the students and also drew pictures. It was a very personal story about his alcoholic dad who he has only met a couple times. Giving the students this story as an example sparked many memories in their heads and many of them came up with their own ideas for a story that same day. I really liked this form of scaffolding because he did not give the students a specific thing to write about, he simple wrote about his own life which sparked memories for the students.

The Learning in my CT’s Classroom

After reading the article by Triplett and Buchanan I realized how important it is to have book talks with your students. From this article I obtained that it is critical to get to know your students and their interests. Book talks are great ways of finding out this information. Studies have shown that book talks promote higher order thinking. In the reading, there was a case study on Mrs. B’s classroom. She asked her students while reading a book, if anyone knew anything about elephants? Courtney, who is one of her students blurted out a ton of information and appeared quite knowledgeable about elephants. She also told the class that she wants to become a veterinarian when she is older. This gave allowed the teacher to understand where Courtney’s interests were. Another important example that was in the reading that I found interesting was when one of Mrs. B’s students, Denny, had anger issues. On top of that, his mother was recently sent to jail. Mrs. B decided to have a book talk using the book, The Pain and the Great One. This helped give Denny socio-economical support though his classmates as they discussed feelings and anger.

Looking back into my experiences this past year in the second grade classroom at Elliott Elementary, I recall that my CT does have book talks with her students. She will sit in a chair while her students sit on the floor in front of her. She will read the students a book and periodically ask the students if they have ever felt a certain way like the character in the story did. She will also ask them to make predictions about what may happen in the story once they read ahead. I have noticed that most students participate when she asks questions. In the past, I have been in classrooms where it is always the same students who respond to questions. In this class, this problem does not occur.

After reading the Almasi article, I realized how important it is to have engaging classroom discussions. It allows students to learn how to interact with their peers, gives them confidence, helps them interpret discussions in new ways; learn about themselves and other cultures though discussions. I also learned that many times the teacher plays the role of the facilitator in the classroom. This often occurs in my CT’s classroom.

I realized that my CT occasionally scaffolds her students in the classroom. When the teacher has book talks with her students they will occasionally get off track and start talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the book. She will sometimes guide them and bring them back on track. If she asks a question on how the book has related to their personal life, the teacher would give them an example of how it relates to her personal life. I have noticed that this sometimes clears up misconceptions that students might have.

The Langer article introduced the four major stances while interpreting readings. I guess I never really realized that this was an actual process that took place. The article also discussed that in literature there is a “correct interpretation” that the reader must have. Teachers leaned students into the “right” answer and not allowing them to express and gain deeper understandings. I do not think that this takes place in my CT’s second grade classroom. I feel like my CT is always open to new ideas other than her own. This is important for the learning environment in the classroom.

Classroom Talk

While reading the three articles that I was assigned, I began to realize the importance and significance of classroom discussion. I also learned the difference between "recitation" and "discussion" in the Almasi article, and how they relate to the instruction of literature in the Langer article. Almasi talks how in recitation, students feel that they are being tested for the benefit of the teacher. In recitation the teacher is talking for the majority of the time and there is no student to student interaction. The teacher asks questions to the students expecting one right answer for the interpretation of the text. During discussion, Almasi explains that students lead the discussion and the teacher merely scaffolds the student's talk. During discussion students are responding to each other as well as the teacher and do not feel that they are being tested or that they could give a wrong answer. Langer points out that this is a major problem in the instruction of language arts. He states that most teacher will lead a literary discussion as if the text they are discussing is informative text. In this context, "Literature is generally taught in an informative manner, as if there is a point or correct interpretation that the reader must build" (pg 815). When discussions are held in this way, students opinions or interpretations are disregarded or heard only for motivation, with the discussion eventually leading to the "right" answer.

Buchanan stresses the importance of book talks for comprehension development. He talks about the many ways that book discussions are beneficial to students and teachers. In my classroom, I have only seen trite or short lived book discussions where the teacher is treating the text like content to be learned. I have been in this particular classroom (second grade) for almost five months and I have never seen a student lead conversation. Usually, the teacher will read a book and then ask the students to raise their hands if they liked it. Then she continues by asking questions about particular events and relationships in the book. Although she does encourage original thought through these questions, she also guides their answers into how she interpreted the book. I think that she does this in order to get the students to think about the text in a different light, but it may be debilitating the student's abilities to move toward a deeper understanding.

My classroom is very high energy and for the most part the students do not get a long with each other. I think that if she held discussions where there were open ended questions and students could respond to other's thought, it might aid her to build a classroom community. Also, as Buchanan suggests, it might create a means for a socio-emotional bond between the students.

In my classroom, there are only a few students who are genuinely motivated when it comes to language arts lessons. According to Buchanan, book discussions can be a great way to motivate students because it gives them a chance to discuss their personal interests and interact with other students.

I think that if the teacher were to do response centered discussions, there would have to be a lot of scaffolding for the conversation to run smoothly. This is solely because the students are not used to this type of classroom activity. Open ended questions that provide ways for them to ponder their own ideas would be useful. Also, questions that encourage student to student interaction like, "Do you agree or disagree with what Tim said and why?" Or, "Does anyone want to add to Tom's ideas?" would help to lead a meaningful discussion.

After reading through the articles, I think book talks would be very beneficial in my classroom, if not crucial to the student's comprehension development. I think that as a teacher, it will take a lot of practice to be successful at leading discussions, especially when the class needs to work on behavior. I hope to implement these ideas about discussions in my placement and future teaching experiences.

Goals For My learning in TE 402

I have never considered language arts to be one of my stronger subjects. Because of this, TE 402 will be a challenge for me. Throughout the course I hope to gain confidence in this subject area by becoming more knowledgeable about it. I hope that my unique experiences teaching language arts in the field will shape my teaching skills and practices. I would like to learn more about how to assess students in this subject area both informally and formally. I feel that I know very little about how to go about teaching an ESL student. I hope to gain knowledge on ways to teach language arts to special needs students. It is crucial to the students learning that the teacher builds a classroom community in language arts. I hope to learn about and explore different way to do this in the field. I would also like to become very familiar with the standards and benchmarks for English language arts in Michigan and ways in which to integrate them into lesson plans. I am excited about having confidence in teaching language arts to a diverse group of learners and I hope to carry what I learn to my internship year and beyond.

Goals for my learning in TE401

To be honest, I am thrilled about this course but somewhat scared at the same time. I am excited because this is my first language arts course in college and hope to learn a great deal of information about teaching. When I was in grade school, English and language arts were difficult subjects for me. I often struggled. My goal for this class is to learn how to teach students in many different ways instead of one. I want to be able to reach and effectively teach all of my future students. Are there different ways that are more affective for ESL students and learning disabled students? I also want to know how to teach children to read. Is there a specific strategy for this?

I am also extremely interested in other resources that I could use as a future teacher. It is possible that there is technology that I am unaware of that I could benefit from while teaching. Overall, I feel that this course is extremely important. I believe that it will help shape the way that I teach in the future.

My goals for this class...

I have several goals for myself upon the completion of this class, TE402 language arts. I learned a lot about teaching during TE401, but not as much as I would have liked. I hope this class gives me more ideas and fun activities that can be implemented in an elementary classroom, specifically ones for children with special needs. I realize the difficulties many of these students have with reading and writing, and these skills are the basis for almost any other subject in school. It is very important the students know the basics of language arts so they can succeed in their other classes and subjects. I would like to learn some ways that can get students engaged in reading, because from personal experience in elementary school I absolutely despised reading. Looking back on my elementary school years, I realized several reasons why I did not like to read. First, every book I was assigned to read was picked out by a teacher, they were of no interest to me and were often written before my parents were even born. I never had the opportunity to pick my own book to do a report on, it was always the teachers choice. Second, I thought of reading as a chore, not something that could be done for pleasure. I would like to know how to get students engaged in reading, and make them realize that reading can be entertaining and fun. I’m sure they’re many different activities and ways to create a positive learning environment that encourages students to read and write, but I am only familiar with a few. It will be interesting to hear the ideas of the other people in my class throughout the semester because other people often have new ideas for engaging students that I have never thought about. These are just a few of the things I hope to take out of this course.