I’m not happy with the way class went tonight. The first half hour the students discussed the readings using a venn diagram I created intended to review the four different literacy perspectives discussed in the Larson & Marsh book. The other class then joined us and we watched the documentary “A Life Outside.” We asked the students to freewrite to capture their thoughts about the movie. Following break we watched the 7 minute video Lynn’s kids had created called “Lunch is Gross” as an example of critical literacy in action. I then asked the students if they wanted more discussion time, but got minimal response. The general feeling was that they wanted the rest of the time to work on their literacy artifact review. I felt it was important to have some kind of discussion that tied things together, so I tried to lead the students in sharing what they had discussed at the beginning of class and making the connections.
That flopped.
I’m fearful that discussion wasn’t deep tonight because the texts aren’t being read as closely as they were at the beginning of the semester. I’m not collecting the annotations anymore, so I’m fearful that the readings are getting short shrift – especially the harder ones like Lankshear & Knobel. I understand the temptation to skim, especially as things heat up in other classes, in jobs, etc., but these are important readings that will move thinking forward. 21st century literacies and skills is where all the professional discussion is.
Now, I’ve come to realize there were some problems in the assignments.
One thing I’ve decided is that the Larson & Marsh chapter on the New Literacies has to go earlier in the semester. Either when reading the Heath piece or when reading about sociocultural theory.
The other thing is, I’m having mixed feelings about the literacy artifact review. I think the assignment needs to be severely rewritten. The way it’s written does not meet my instructional objectives.
Next week we’re going to revisit the Lankshear & Knobel article. I took out chapter 3 from L&K’s book because it is closely related to the ELearning article, so I don’t feel badly about revisiting it.
Why is L&K 2007 so important? It’s the difference between Web1.0 and Web2.0 ethos. The idea that the new literacies afford different ways of thinking about the world and being in the world. It is a shift in our way of thinking about literacy and how the changing nature of literacy impacts teaching and learning. Yes – we need to spend some quality time with that article.
The other thing with the L&K article: I realized that Mr. Zogby’s use of iPods is an example of L&K call “old wine in new bottles.” He’s really not doing anything new or different in terms of instruction – he’s just delivering it with new technology. What I need to do is find someone who really is doing something new in terms of instruction. Really engaging kids in new ways of thinking that tap into participatory culture. That’s hard to do in the era of NCLB. I’m going to sound cynical here, but I think that the constraints put on teaching by NCLB etc. ensure that the haves stay haves and the have nots remain have nots. If teachers across the board were consistently supported in their efforts to develop critical thinkers, participatory thinkers, web 2.0 thinkers we could have a revolution on our hands (an intellectual revolution – not a violent one). It would upset the status quo, and the job of schools is really to maintain and perpetuate the status quo. Yes, a pessimistic view of things.
This is the germ of an article I want to write. I’m not quite ready yet. I have to immerse myself in the literature before I write.
I’m also concerned that the understanding of critical literacy isn’t developed enough. We’ve got to revisit that too. I need to find better readings on it. I’ve got a new book on order that focuses on critical literacy, so hopefully that will help. I know Dr. Maples focuses on critlit in 652, so I know some people understand it, but those students in 652 are in the minority.
I had been struggling with Larson & Marsh’s separation of the NLS from sociocultural/historical theory. Megan B.’s annotation clarified it for me. NLS explicitly reminds us that literacy practices occur outside the walls of the classroom – which is what Gatto does a great deal of. Sociocultural theory does not explicitly address that, although it is implicit when you understand that learning is a social act.
That’s why essay 2 isn’t going to be a “cut and paste” from essay 1 because it’s going to address expanding definitions of literacy. If the essay just repeats what was discussed in the first essay, the students haven’t progressed. We’ve done a lot of reading since midterm and the ways of thinking about literacy should be expanding. What was discussed at midterm is just the foundation. The rest of the semester takes us into the present and future.
So, next week is going to be the literacy artifact review, and essay prep, but we need to also review the readings in depth. I think it’s time for a short lecture.
November 18, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I agree with some of the points made about Monday’s class. I think everyone is at the point in the semester where we are just in “survival” mode- we are doing what needs to get done but not necessarily in the best way. I’ll admit that my tendency to “skim” readings has reared its ugly head the last couple of weeks due to other demands in my life. I do believe it would be beneficial to have a discussion about the previous readings because the final paper is here and we need to acknowledge what we have learned since the midterm.
In regards to the literacy artifact, the rubric is somewhat over-whelming when you break it down. Dr. Jacobs keeps reassurring us that this presentation is not as big of a deal as we are making it but that is a hard concept to grasp when we have a rubric that demands such detail. I agree with Dr. Jacobs that if she does not want such pressures to be put on the assignment then a review of the rubric and the overall project is definitely needed.
November 18, 2008 at 10:33 pm
It seems I missed an interesting class. The frustrations of the semester are rearing their ugly heads with all of us. The important thing to remember is to take a deep breath, realax, and realize we are in the home stretch. This time of the semester was tough in undergrad, so I’m not sure why I expected it to be different in Grad school, but I did. I think part of my own frustration is that the readings are extensive and difficult. I always thought I learned best by reading, but now I don’t really think that is the case. I struggle to get through the readings, and when I am finished, I am often left trying to figure out what I read. I can admit that I haven’t been as thorough in my own readings, partially because the annotations are not collected, partially because the demands of my job have been really heavy lately. This is not an excuse though, just a reality. There are only so many hours in the day, and sometimes, something has to give in order for me to make it through the day with my sanity. Hang in there, the end is almost here, and we will be better for having gone through this experience.
November 19, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I have a little bit of a different perspective of class this week. I think that, at least in my group, we were able to cover most of our readings in-depth (granted my group was only two people.) I think we had enough time and I really liked the Venn Diagram, it put the theories into perspective. It made me realize how all of these theories are interconnected and not compartmentalized; I liked the way we brought all of our weeks of reading together. I enjoyed watching the movie about Lynn Gatto but I wish we had time to discuss that more and talk about how it relates to the theories we’ve been reading about. I also think that the literacy artifact review was looming over everyone’s head and we were all eager to meet with our groups after the movie to finalize our presentations. I think that was a big contributor to why I didn’t feel I wanted to discuss the readings further. Maybe, if we had done our week time at the beginning and then watched the movie and talked about the readings there would have been more discussion-just a thought.
November 19, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Although I wasn’t in class Monday night, I still feel that I can comment on Dr. Jacobs’s reflection and thoughts. It is certainly tempting to skim some of the readings, especially at this point in the semester with just two weeks left of classes. I do have a hard time concentrating on and fighting my way through the more extensive texts that are very difficult to dissect. I agree with Sarah that I feel that I would greatly benefit if we had a whole-class discussion/mini-lecture on some of the readings we have done since the mid-term. Although we discuss in our groups, which is helpful, I really feel that lectures are sometimes necessary, especially when dealing with complex texts that I have a hard time understanding. I know lectures aren’t very stimulating much of the time, but I feel that given some of the texts we are reading, it may be necessary and will certainly be helpful to go over the readings with our professor, just to make sure we’re on the right track with how we’re interpreting them/understanding them.
In regards to the Literacy Artifact Review, I do not feel like I know what is really expected of us; what is on the syllabus and what is on the separate handout we received differ from one another – although on some points they overlap, it is not clear which one we should be following more closely and how in-depth we should be answering the questions/points provided for us. I also feel like I would be more comfortable with the project if we had a more in-depth discussion about it as an entire group prior to starting it. I hope the Literacy Artifact Review project goes smoothly on Monday.
November 22, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I agree with the previous blogs in the fact that a group discussion about the project and what is expected would be helpful. It was confusing in regards to what exactly is expected of us. I also think lecture on the harder texts would be appreciated by the entire class. Or even a whole-class discussion in order to decipher the text and main points of the article. I do think the reason some of the discussion flopped was due to the project hanging over our heads, and knowing the more computer time we received the more time we could work on it together as a group instead of individually at home and collaborating through email.
November 23, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Last class was an interesting one. I know that everyone is feeling very overwhelmed and at the point of the semester where we are as others stated in “Survival mode.” I don’t know if we were not very talkative about the readings due to not putting as much effort into them as in the beginning, but I do feel as much as Dr. Jacobs has tried to relieve the pressure of the literacy artifact review, we all had that on our brain first and foremost. Therefore, when it came time to discuss even more, we were more interested in having the time to work on the artifact review as some of us were still nervous about it. I definitely agree that revising this assignment would be very beneficial to future students. In addition, I believe this coming week spending time on discussing the reading’s we’ve done since mid-semester in a more lecture style format will help in understanding and synthesizing what more we have gained since the mid term paper. Discussing the readings and how they apply to the final question will definitely put a lot of minds at ease.
November 23, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I think it’s important to read each reading because each, though they seem to express a similar concept, have different or expanded information that we haven’t yet researched or discussed yet. I do appreciate the group work that we do because my group members also provide me with further insight on the readings that I may have not noticed without their comments.
I definitely enjoyed the video because it put the readings that we did in full, real perspective and showed that it’s not just a theory put in words; but actions as well. However, in all honesty, it made me feel like an inadequate teacher because I’m not yet at her level of teaching and i don’t know if I will ever be able to be that proficient!
The literacy artifact is upsetting me because, even though I want to enjoy doing the project, I keep looking back and saying: Did we include enough of this? Did we touch on that? In all reality, I just want to explore it and see what information we are able to discover and apply to our theories. I hope it works out!
November 24, 2008 at 12:38 pm
These comments have been incredibly helpful to me. I like Natalie’s penultimate sentence, “I just want to explore it and see what information we are able to discover and apply to our theories.” That is exactly what I want too. If you’re able to do that – you’ve got it.