Last night we intentionally slowed down and dug in. It was great. I’m glad we did so.
We started out by wrapping up our overview of the history of literacy research by doing the museum walk. Everybody pretty much included the same thing on their posters. Next time I’ll have them hang them on different walls though to encourage more moving around. I did quite a bit of leading conversation around the histories trying to pull out what patterns the students saw in the histories and making the links to the theories. I felt as if I was leading a bit too much. I should have asked the question before the students went to view the posters. But, I think in general the activity served its purpose. Based on the wiki postings, the students do have the gist of how reading research developed over 50 years and how it informs our current understandings of literacy acquisition and learning.
We then moved into a word sort activity. I’ve done the word sort before but differently. In the past, each small group was given a stack of words and asked to categorize. Then we’d compare what the different groups had. I didn’t want to do that since we had already done a similar thing with the museum walk. Last week Kathy had talked about doing a time line silently with cards, so I adapted that idea to the word sort. Each student was given two cards and asked to place them on the wall. They could move other cards if they needed to. They easily placed the cards related to Halliday’s functions of language (which I think we need to talk about more). The systems of language identified by Kucer were also placed easily. A few cards were troublesome though (such as deep structure and surface structure). So I talked about that a bit. Again, I felt a bit leading, but there are things I wanted to bring out. What I liked about the activity though is that it did reveal places where student understanding was still a bit shaky. What I was uncomfortable with is that at times I felt I put students on the spot. But they responded well – and honestly – so I appreciated that.
I think the class is coming together well as a community. I see a growing level of trust and comfort among the students. I’m hoping they’re feeling comfortable taking risks with their thinking.
I then gave the students 20 minutes to start their literacy artifact review project. We arranged the groups (after a few false starts) and I randomly assigned eras based on Alexander & Fox’s article. I just had them brainstorm a list of in school texts that would have been in use during that era and then apply Halliday’s functions of language and Freebody & Luke’s reader roles (just text user & text participant) to those texts. The activity was intended to just get them started. We’ll be spending more time between now and the actual date of the presentations (which Kathy Broikou and I moved back in the syllabus).
I intentionally didn’t spend any time on writing workshop this week. The annotations are developing well. It’ll be interesting to see what the batch with Olson’s article looks like. As one of the authors pointed out, when faced with a cognitively difficult task, the last skill learned is the first one lost. So, I’m wondering if the quality of the annotations will be less strong given the difficulty of the Olson text.
Which brings me to the next thing we did in class. We spent an hour discussing the readings – Olson & Kucer in particular. I had originally planned a more structured activity for the discussion, but after Kathy and I talked, I decided to back off on that and just give one guiding question along with the suggestion to use the chart handed out at the beginning of the semester to hold their thinking.
The conversation was good. The Olson reading was difficult, so I had I to do a little bit of clarification. But for the most part the students did get the gist of it. In the future, I’m going to remove the Dyson & Bloome articles and just have them read Olson & Gee. At first I wondered if the Olson article was redundant of the Kucer chapter, but after discussing it with several of the groups, I realized it’s not. They are complementary. The Olson article operates at a more abstract level and the Kucer chapter gets into the nitty-gritty. What I think will help in the future though is if I instruct the students to read the Kucer chapter first, then read the Olson article. And maybe even accompany the Olson article with a “comprehension constructor.
We prepared for next week by doing an anticipation guide. Kathy and I removed the Goodman article from next week’s assignment and moved it to October 27th. There was some confusion about when the annotation for Goodman was due. I hope I clarified that the draft annotation should be brought to class on the 27th. Same as always.
Class ended with the students writing a theoretical understanding they were gaining from this class and the connection to practice they were making on sticky notes and posting them as they left. I’m going to type those out and hand them out next week. The connections being made are great.
In overview, I was pleased with last night’s class. It was good to slow down and dig in.
October 8, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I enjoyed Monday’s class. I am finding that I look forward to coming to class each week to discuss the readings that we did for homework. During the week leading up to class, I always get a little nervous because sometimes I don’t fully understand the readings. Then I remember the discussions we have each class about the readings. It is so helpful to bounce ideas off of the professor as well as my classmates
I enjoyed the activity we did in the beginning of class where we had to place terms on note cards and arrange them silently on the board– that was hard! I liked it because it was a different way of learning vocabulary that I normally would have just glanced over in the book. I think I might use it for my kids
October 11, 2008 at 12:56 am
I also enjoyed that first activity we did in class on Monday with the index cards. It was definitely challenging to have to sort out all of those terms without talking. Not only was it difficult because we were not allowed to talk during the activity, but it was also difficult because there were so many terms, so it really forced me to try and think back to all of the readings we’ve completed and connect all of them as best I could.
I am interested to see what the Literacy Artifact project is all about. I am still confused as to what the project involves and what we’re expected to do, but I am sure we will be discussing it within the next few weeks.
Lastly, I think the activity at the end of class where we had to make a theory to practice connection was useful. I think it is necessary to make these types of connection whenever possible; theories can sometimes be difficult to break down and fully comprehend so making a real-life connection helps to better understand them. I also think it will be helpful to read how others are making connections to what we have been reading.
October 11, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Overall, I feel like I am getting a better understanding of how to write the annotations and pulling the most important information from them(for the most part. Olsen’s article did set me back a little because his text was so dense and there was so much to take from it that I found it difficult to narrow down exactly what he was trying to say. I found the discussion with my group as well as with our professor helpful in trying to break down the reading and get a better understanding of the reading. Again, I really enjoy having these meaningful discussions about the readings. I definitely find them beneficial and I like the conversations that arise from discussing the articles.
I also enjoyed the activity we did at the beginning of class. I think it is important to review vocabulary terms to ensure that we understand all the terms that are presented to us in our readings. It really made me stretch my thinking as to what terms went together and why. I think this is a great activity to do with kids too.
I feel like I am becoming more comfortable with the class and sharing out whole group. I enjoy coming to class and look forward to our continuing discussions!
October 11, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I’m really glad we were able to spend time discussing the Olsen article. When I was reading it on my own, I was able to grasp a vague understanding of the article, but was still lacking a clear idea on what it was focusing on. After discussing with my group, I noticed that they had a hard time understaning the article as well. However, the more we talked about it as a group, and with the help of our professor, we were able to come to a clear understading of what Olsen was saying.
I think that having Professor Jacobs post her notes from the readings up on blackboard will also be very beneficial to us because, after reading an article, I like to make sure that I am on the right track when writing my annotations. The notes will help with that because I’ll check my understandings with the notes and, if they are similar, I will feel more confident in writing my annotations.
Lastly, I think the vocabulary activity that we did where we posted the words on the whiteboard and grouped based on their connection was very helpful. We were able to actually use the words that we are reading about in context. It’s a way to reinforce how these words are used in literacy and their functions.
October 12, 2008 at 12:16 am
I have to say I was really glad we had the chance to talk within our color groups about the Olson article. When we were discussing Olson’s opinions on oral language and written language we were hitting roadblocks; our group really felt like there were times when he was contradicting himself. However, we had a group “light-bulb” moment and finally understand what Olson was saying. I think it’s always useful to discuss our readings to get new perspectives and real-life applications, but when we are reading more dense material like Olson, talking as a group seems to help make ideas click. I really liked the perspectives on oral and written language that Olson and Kucer both offer; I would definitely keep both readings on the syllabus!
October 13, 2008 at 9:20 am
I am so glad that we discussed the Olsen article. I sometimes feel that I have not fully understood an article and that I am completely missing the mark on my annotations. I appreciated how you came around and sat with each group to lead our discussion on the Olsen article. It really helped with my understanding (which wasn’t too far off). The idea to post your notes from the readings online will really help us students confirm that what we are pulling out of the text is what we should be. I believe that this will help me feel more confident in my interpretations of the reading.
The word sort was also a neat activity. I enjoyed discussing the different ideas for why the cards were placed in certain groups. It was fun to hear everyone’s different ideas and not just our small table group.
October 13, 2008 at 8:04 pm
The word sort was a very interesting activity. At first I was confused about where we were going with it, but after talking about where words were placed and why it did help with understanding the words a bit more. As mentioned, these words are a part of our field and they are words we are going to be hearing a lot of and are going to be expected to know very well. It is helpful to do activities like this one to relate the words to eachother as it helpful in understanding them deeper.
Having time to discuss the Olsen article was extremely helpful. Most of my group, including myself, came to class extremely confused about the article and unsure of what we were even able to pull from it. When we were able to discuss the article with professor assistance the ideas from the article became more clear and organized in our thoughts. The idea of having notes from the readings posted on blackboard is great! When i’m done reading I find myself wondering if i’m on the right track with my thinking about the articles. With these notes I can check my understanding.