First you’ll notice a new design to the blog. The other one didn’t work well on my office computer. The comments link is at the top of the post.
Anyway, last night’s class was a “Willie Wonka” moment. Those of you who might remember the version with Gene Wilder might remember what I’m talking about. He’s taking the kids and their parents around the factory and says, “so much time; so little to do — no reverse that.” Well that’s the way I felt last night.
As an instructor, one of my biggest challenges is that there is so much I want to share within a limited amount of time. I have to remind myself that I’ve spent ten years directly and intensely studying this literacy stuff, and that I’m continuing to learn and develop understandings. That’s one of the reasons why I love teaching this class. I learn every time.
Last night though felt disconnected and without closure. There is so much we didn’t get to. I’m not sure how useful the activities (House, Poultry, Di Tri Berresse) were. Let me know.
Part of the problem is that the material in Kucer is pretty much just informational. In my mind there’s not a whole lot to discuss about it. It’s more a matter of pulling out what the reading processes are from his text. I thought the activity of mapping it onto the 4 reader roles would do that. We will be returning to that, because we didn’t have enough time to really do it well and more importantly to talk about it.
I felt at the end as if I was flying at a crazy speed.
We didn’t do reader’s workshop, and we also didn’t get enough time to workshop the annotations. That said, however, I’m pleased with what I’ve read so far. The annotations are showing an understanding of the texts and connections are being made. Most of my comments will be along the craft of writing. I love helping students move toward developing a strong professional voice.
I also read the comments to last week’s class. They were very helpful. I’m thrilled that so many people took the time to comment. One of the dominant themes was the power of being able to collaborate, yet some people wanted some more direct instruction. It’s always a tough line to walk. I’ll continue working on the balance.
There’s a lot to do for next week too. And we cut it down a lot! We’ve got to solidify our understandings of the literacy processes, what it has to do with student learning and where students struggle, and then take a look at specific processes through a historical lens.
So little to do, so much time — no reverse that.
September 27, 2008 at 7:55 am
As an intermediate teacher, I can empathize with you delemma (although clearly can not spell it). What I am finding about class time usage, is those students who want “it” most will find it given the materials, those who need it will ask for more help and somehow find the time to get it and those who truly feel they don’t want it or need it, there is little we can say or do to shove it into there brains. We (the teachers in my program) lose 25% teaching time to our arts intergrated program, so picking an choosing what is best to present in class is a true juggling act.
September 27, 2008 at 8:03 am
Not sure what happened – is there a word limit?
My point was, you have a class of highly motivated students who will get “it”. We -fellow green girls- found the graphic organizer great because it gave us the connections we needed and hadn’t really seen before between the texts. It was an ah-ha moment. We all agreed that we would need feedback on our individual writings to be able to correct our “errors”. I thought the class was valuable and for me what was covered was what I needed. Maybe a little extra on the reading workshop this week? Sorry it took so long to check in.
Lynn
September 27, 2008 at 2:11 pm
The balancing act between lecturing and collaborative group work is always hard, however it is very useful. I enjoy both aspects of this class because the lecture is helping me to take notes and look at it later in order to retain the information. The group work is always helpful to listen to other points of views on the readings and hear how everyone interpreted their findings. One portion of this past class that I really enjoyed were the writing exercises such as The House etc. and relating them to Kucer. It helped me to understand the material better and the reading processes through these exercises.
September 30, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I have to agree with Kendra completely. A good balance of both lecture and discussion is very helpful. Coming into class and being able to talk about the readings and hear what everyone took from them is so helpful in understanding them. At times though, I have noticed some of my group members and myself struggling wishing for perhaps a little more guidance with the readings. I know some of the activities have really helped, but maybe a better mix of our synthesizing the readings and lecture to better help us understand them would go a little farther. As was mentioned the second day of class, some of these readings are at our frustration level so often times having to figure them out and understand them on our own can increase the level of frustration. It does seem as though class time flies by but I do look forward to what each coming class has to offer!