On Tuesday, October 2, the class went down to L100 in the Library for a talk on how to best utilize the resources contained within the library.  The librarian who talked to us was very helpful and showed the class a few ways to best get the information that we will need.  She showed us that most of the books on educational subjects were down on the bottom floor with pink tags by their call numbers.  Also she showed us a website for videos called unitedstreaming.com.  This website was very informative and had some great material that we, as future teachers, can use in planning our own lessons.  After her presentation, we broke into groups.  In these content groups we selected a topic in our field and began looking for different kinds or sources that we could use to get information.

On Thursday, October 4, we spent the class down in the library again.  We were in our groups and we went about gathering different sources that we could use in teaching our subjects.  After gathering as much information as we could for most of the class, each group went up to the front and shared its findings with the rest of the class.  I thought that this activity was pretty interesting because it opened up new ways to get information to make your lessons more engaging.

For the next class we had to:

- Listen to the podcast

- Read our assigned section of Teacher Man

- Blog and comment on another classmates blog

 On Thursday, September 27, we split into our content area groups and did a mini lesson using a textbook.  We looked at a textbook and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of it.  We picked a chapter/topic and determined what strategies would be most effective in teaching it.  Each group presented to the class their textbook and the strategies they could use.  This was helpful because the class got to see various textbooks and listen to different ideas on strategies.  Throughout the class, students were doing their literacy podcasts.

We sympathized with the biology teacher who got no response from the students because they read their books, but did not comprehend.  He could have done some kind of anticipatory or explanatory activity before the reading to get a better result in that case.  As in the Cricket example, a little information, even one word, can help.

We talked about the importance of Literacy ID and how it affects the comprehension of the user of a text. Each person has their own which is based on culture, location and other factors.  Some kind of activation using the Literacy ID usually is necessary to achieve comprehension.  Mature students usually possess the ability to link up previous experience to help with context in understanding, but kids are not specifically taught how in school.  They have skills and knowledge that they could use to help, (Literacy ID) they just need practice with drawing from and using it to help them understand.

 We analyzed the McInnis piece using three colors to ID definitions, examples, and confusing or strange parts.  A pattern was found in the writing.  This would be a good activity for any age student on any printed text, to teach them how to find patterns and to do close reading for understanding.

In a discussion of language, putting oral stories into print was discussed and how language might need to be added to make up for body language, voice intonation and gestures.  Also, that you can judge but not test text.  Each person gets their own meaning so they can render an opinion.  It would, however, be difficult to test on meaning because meaning can differ to individuals depending on their literacy ID. 

We brainstormed on the nature of literacy and will write a hard copy of it by Tuesday. 

 This broader definition of literacy is very helpful.  I was just in an English class today and the teacher had the students read a Graham Greene short story to practice the elements of plot.  She just had them read the story and only her and I laughed.  She did not preface the story with an account of British prep schools that many of the students have probably seen in movies.  She also did not talk of ironic or irreverent humor and what makes it.  The piece did not make sense to the readers because it was  not put in context.  Before the second class, I made a suggestion to her to speak about humor and how stiff the prep schools are, but she didn’t seem to understand the importance.  She tried but could not make them see the humor. It is so obvious now from only the three classes and readings that we have had, how important context is to comprehension. 

On Thursday we further discussed the readings from our text books by having students writing on the smart board what resonated with us as we read and what connections we made.  We had a class discussion about our ideas.  Next we read through the McInnis piece in our table groups and underlined with different color crayons where he defined literacy, examples of literacy and interesting/confusing language he used.  We then discussed patterns in his writing as well as our ideas about the article as a class.  Lastly, we brainstormed ideas in our table groups of what we thought the nature of literacy is with examples based on the McInnis piece the texts and our own personal experiences.  This brainstorming will help us prepare for our own literacy story which is due in draft for Tuesday.  There are a few more assignments and readings as well so be sure to check the course Wiki. 

Virus possible cause of killing honeybees You’ll need a free subscription to the NY Times to access the article.

I think this article is interesting because it really captures the interconnectivity of things. First, honeybees are not indigenous to the U.S.. They are imported. They were brought into the U.S. a long time ago. The other interesting thing is that many of the foods that we take for granted are dependent upon the honey bee (such as apples). Without honeybees, our agricultural system suffers a great loss. If our agricultural system suffers, so does the whole U.S. economy. Apples and honeybees are also a huge part of national identity (think of the story of Johnny Appleseed). It’s also a example of globalization. The world is so interconnected and one thing affects another. Of course there’s also the biology aspect of it with the virus, and the science aspect: how the virus has been isolated as a possible cause. And that pulls in math. So, as you can see, in this one little article there are so many cross curricular connections. Plus, it’s current, and just plain interesting. Students might not get it at first, but with guidance and scaffolding it could become part of a lot of really interesting lessons.

Tuesday, Sept 4th
*First the professor introduced herself and than we got to know each other better.
*After that, we wrote introductory letters to bilingual students at Monroe High School.
*We were told about the professor’s expectations about our personal and class blogs and how they were going to be a type of portfolio for us. The professor is going to use wiki in place of blackboard to post homework assignements.
*After that was a class discussion along the lines of effective communication and teamwork.

Thursday, Sept 6th
*We started off class by going over the syllabus, just a reminder everyone, personal blog entries are due by 8 am every Tuesday.
*We talked about how literacy is the backbone of course content
*Later, we practiced a literacy skill that the professor modeled for us. It involved asking questions of the text which was part of the Striving Readers Act
*Towards the end of class, we came up with our own working definitions of literacy.

I think that covers what we did. Hope you enjoyed this summary, happy blogging.