It’s amazing how quickly moods can shift. I’ve been in a cranky mood for several days. Just exhausted and uninspired. Then, tonight, the students presented their literacy artifact reviews and engaged in wonderful discussion about the articles and I feel refreshed and renewed and hopeful again. The literacy artifact reviews were so much fun. I greatly enjoyed the imagination and thought that went into constructing them. The artifacts the students brought in or targeted were fantastic. Their analyses of the different artifacts were well done as was the overview of the era they were responsible for exploring. I’m just so pleased. Plus, my intent for them to engage in the new literacies – the web 2.0 ethos – I think had some level of success. I know it was uncomfortable for them not to know exactly what to do, but they stepped up to the challenge and really came up with some great stuff. It totally changed my mood. The handouts were awesome too because they showed solid thinking and analysis. Happy, happy me.
We then spent time discussing the articles. Fantastic. I listened in on some of the conversations and they were insightful and enthusiastic. They dug into the articles and “got them.” It was really fun and exciting to talk with different groups about the articles.
I went over the essay outline and expectations and asked the students to bring in a rough draft – however far they get – so we can workshop it next week. When we workshop it, we can also use the graphic organizer to think about content.
Class ended with a bit of a lecture from me going over the different theories. I got as far as the new literacies. Next week I’ll dig into that some more. I asked the students for questions, and most of the questions had to do with Lankshear & Knobel’s work. Their stuff is intense and dense, but of all the readings we’ve done these past few weeks, I believe it to be the most theoretically important. I keep alluding to it in my discussions, so I’ll be making it more explicit.
In all, it was a great class. I know there are natural swings to the energy of a class, and last week’s was on the downswing. This week was an upswing. And I’m loving it. I knew the students had it in them. It’s just so cool to see.
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.
I’ve been tardy getting this post written. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write.
The first hour of class was a presentation by Bob Zogby about the use of iPods in the classroom. I had mixed feelings about what he had to offer and I was glad the students did too. I’m thinking his presentation belongs more in a methods class. There are actually so many other things with tech that I’d love to have the students look at and think about. The problem is lack of time. Dr. Ikpeze had a technology piece added to this course that Dr. Broikou and I took out. I just don’t know how she managed to squeeze it in. We’re trying to integrate tech stuff into each course, but I think we need a whole course on it.
I enjoyed the reading assignments for the week. The Baron article is interesting and accessible. He makes important points. However, it’s important to remember that he wrote that article before the Web 2.0 world, so some of what he says is already dated. That’s the problem with anything about technology. It’s a moving target. My instant messaging research was hot in 2004, but now it’s old news. On to the next big thing. dana boyd (no capitalization) really hit it big in scholarship with her work on social networking. That’s still hot, but we don’t know for how long. Dan Perkle’s stuff on “cut and paste” literacies is important. And these are all things we haven’t the time to get to in this course. It’s so frustrating. We’re barely scratching the surface in this course.
But that’s what I have to keep reminding myself – this really is a survey course. Hopefully something within the course will pique students’ interest and they will carry that interest with them through out their program and into their teaching. They can then pursue it further in their capstone and in their practice. I have to keep reminding myself, I can’t do everything.
But the thing with literacy and technology that I really want the students to get is that literacy is itself a technology and that the technology mediates or changes the ways we interact with the world – and that we change the literate form as well. The Larson & Marsh chapter was the weakest of the readings. I’m thinking I might leave that one out in the future and find something else. I love Colin & Michele’s work on literacy and technology, but I’m thinking there might be a better article than the chapter they read. Or maybe skip that chapter and just go to chapter 3. But L&K’s overview of the history of literacy is important. Maybe that belongs earlier in the semester – when we’re doing the history piece. Heck, Baron could fit there too.
The students discussed the readings and I think they got the gist of the readings. That’s why I like reading the notes on the wiki. It really gives me a sense of what meanings are being made. So far, this group of students has been impressive. They are able to extract the important points and make good connections. If I wasn’t seeing it, we’d have to do a lot more revisiting of the readings.
I gave the students the last half hour of class to work on their literacy artifact reviews. I’m really stressing that they are to just play and figure it out and come up with something. I wish there wasn’t a rubric attached to it. I know it’s hard for the students to “wing it.” They’ve been socialized to a particular way of thinking and acting that has afforded them success in education. I want at least in this little bit of the course for them to experience the potential of the new literacies to subvert and transform school as usual.
We’ll continue with the new literacies this week and then on to classroom implications. I’m still trying to figure out what readings to cut. All of them are important. Maybe we can do a jigsaw with them. Yeah, I like that idea.
Last night’s topic was critical literacy and media literacy. It’s a juicy topic I love, but I’m not quite sure the students feel the same way.
We started off by doing a little writer’s workshop. I wanted the students to share their learning from writing the essay and to identify elements of what makes a good essay. Interestingly, the students identified the issues that I found were the potholes students struck in their writing. That was reassuring. I’m working from memory here. The elements identified were transitions, clear thesis, authorial voice, and appropriate/professional language. The thing I want to stress, and I didn’t talk about it last night, is that these issues of form are integral to content. It’s impossible to separate form from content. Gaining control of these elements also helps one gain control of the content. By using transitions, one is showing the connection between ideas, by using professional language appropriately, one is demonstrating an understanding of that language. And of course, being to write a clear thesis demonstrates an understanding of how all the multiple pieces in an essay are linked together. It’s what makes a piece of writing cohesive. In an academic piece of writing, the thesis is explicit whereas in a literary piece it may very well be implicit. So understanding the genre is part of the picture as well. The thing that really strikes me is that by writing the essay, the students are also engaging in the theory as explicated by Olson.
We also spent some time talking about the texts. I gave some guiding questions, but I’m not sure they were effective. The discussions I listened in on weren’t as deep as previous discussions. The whole group discussion however was quite interesting. I admit, I kind of took over, but as I explained to the class this is a topic I feel passionately about.
I find it interesting how introducing critical literacy brings up the concern of “fitting it into the curriculum” even though we’ve just spent 8 weeks talking about the role of oral language in literacy acquisition and the difference between acquisition and learning, and sociocultural theory and how learning is through participation. Yet, when we come to critical literacy, resistance and fear and mandates appear. It shows me that even though theories can be talked about, it’s not integrated into the ways of thinking yet. But it’s developmental. At least the ideas and questions and struggles are out there. I was really serious when I said, baby steps. It takes time to be the kind of teacher we want to be and there are so many forces pushing back at us. I get those pressures too. But rather than giving in to the pressures, critical literacy gives us a way to respond to and push back. It’s a way to subvert the system.
Again, I didn’t talk about it last night (I can only say so much), but as a former English teacher, I believe that any text can and should be taught critically. So even though I’m no fan of the western canon of literature, if I were “forced” to teach it, I would do so critically. The question I would ask is, why do we read these pieces of literature? Whose voices and experiences are represented in this literature? What perspectives on life do these pieces of literature lead us to? What responses can we give to these pieces of literature? These types of questions all support the ELA standards and by engaging in these questions the students would be well prepared for the ELA exam – yet we would be engaging in important questions. Heck, we could even analyze the ELA exam critically as part of test prep. Hmmm, maybe it would be fun to get back into English education.
Granted, critical theory is scary. It may bring up things that people don’t necessarily like to talk about. It forces us to uncover our own assumptions and believes let alone what the text says (or doesn’t say). The same with media literacy. Frankly, the term media literacy bugs me. I didn’t talk about that either. It’s a dated term. If we have an expanded definition of literacy, then “media” or multimodalities is automatically part of that. It’s something to think about in terms of updating the syllabus.
We spent the last half of class on the literacy artifact review. I gave an overview of what the institutional (read NCATE) requirements are for the assignment, but then let the students go. My intent is for the students to begin to build an understanding of the new literacies and critical literacy through engagement in the literacies. It goes back to the acquisition versus learning thing. We can talk and read about it, but to really understand it and know it, you have to experience it. I know it makes a lot of the students concerned/scared/confused because there aren’t strict guidelines and directions. But that’s the thing with the new literacies – the rules are being formed and the rules are being formed by social interaction. It’s Jenkins and Lankshear & Knobel and…
I’ve got midsemesteritis too. I’m discouraged and frustrated by the institution of school. I love teaching and learning, but I hate the institutionalization of those processes. We’ve lost the joy and the excitment of discovery. I want it back. I’m hoping some of that will be found as students create their literacy artifact review.
MR came to visit and talked about her practice. I like having her come to class the day essays are due. The students are so stressed from the essay that having her here creates a nice low key atmosphere. My hope is that her talk about her practice will help make real all the things they’ve been reading about. Plus the chapter on socio-cultural historical theory really pulls together the readings they’ve done to date. All wrapped up in it are things like phonics and word study and fluency and discourse and community and collaborative responsive teaching. It’s all there in MR’s practice and Joanne’s chapter on her ties it together.
We didn’t get that much time to discuss the readings, but I think it was enough in that it really was a review. What we didn’t get to do was spend any time getting started on the literacy artifact review. But, we will definitely spend time next week on it. I have the computer lab blocked out for half the class.
I just started reading the essays and hope to be done by next class. It takes time. I can’t do more than a few a day, otherwise they all start blurring together. I insist on giving each essay full attention. I refuse to devolve into the type of reading we did when I was an ELA teacher evaluating a 300 ELA 11 exams in an afternoon. The students put so much energy into their writing, I need to honor that writing with my attention and quality feedback. And that takes time and energy.
I have so much to do this week. I feel as if things are spinning out of control again. Time to rein things in.
I really hate test prep, and to a large extent I feel as if that’s what we did on Monday night. The students were stressed about the upcoming essay. I wish I could be tough like many other professors and say, too bad, here’s the question, figure it out. But as a teacher educator, I feel compelled to model good instruction – or at least as good I can be. So we spent the whole class taking apart the essay question, reviewing the past readings, and thinking and talking about how those readings fit into the essay question.
The reason I did this was to provide a way in to talking about the last two sets of reading we did as well as provide support for the essay. After all, two of the subquestions really were intensively linked to the last two sets of reading.
I gave the students a heuristic for thinking about the essay question. It was an outline that broke down the essay questions and provided a strategy for using the texts for attacking that question. I was of two minds regarding that heuristic. It felt in many respects too prescriptive, yet I realize that this is the first graduate class for many of my students and they have not yet developed the skills for tackling a dense question like this. I have to remind myself that in many respects I am still dealing with undergraduate type of thinking. It is a tough balance between providing support and being an enabler. After all, I can’t write the essay for them.
The essay serves as a formative assessment to see if there are still gaps in the students’ understandings, but it is also a writing to learn activity. By writing this essay the students are really forced to think through these ideas and to make connections. They come out on the other side with a much deeper understanding of the issues than they had before writing the essay. But it is a painful experience.
It’s painful for me too because I feel as if no matter how much support I give, it’s never enough.
One thing I’m going to do next time not give the students the heuristic all at once. They tended to focus on the first subquestion and had to be prompted to move on to the second and third subquestions. But was important for them to do so, because that’s where they would be talking about the new readings. So next time I’m going to do this almost as a progressive problem based learning activity. I’ll give them the first subquestion, then after a set period of time, give them the second, and so on.
During the second half of class I did a minilecture where I just recapped the readings we’ve done thus far. Nothing exciting, but hopefully it served to remind the students of the different texts.
We ended with writers’ workshop. I provided a model for how to synthesize readings and then had them work in groups to create a synthesis of some of the readings. Each group was able to create a synthesis, so I’m hoping to see that in the paper.
I need to continue reminding myself that this is an induction course and that I’m trying to move them toward thinking as literacy professionals. Yes, the content is important, but more than anything it’s the ways of thinking I want to see developed.
It was an odd night. We started out with the literacy orientation (gotta come up with a better name) in which we introduced the literacy faculty to all the 620 students and went over the expectations for the program and answered questions. We went much longer than we usually do, but I believe it’s time well spent. Grad school is stressful and students carry a lot of worries and questions. Having a forum for everyone to hear the same message is important. I think it’s good to know that the faculty is there to support the students as well.
After the orientation, we did a brief intro activity to the movie. We brainstormed aspects of our own dialects. It was fun, but I’m not sure it was a good use of time. I’m unclear as to what the learning outcome was for that activity. We then watched the movie American Tongues. Unfortunately we didn’t really have time to discuss the movie. There are things said in there that really need to be discussed in some depth. We need to explore the attitudes and belief systems that are embedded in the way we view different accents and dialects. We did start doing that after the movie when we had everyone revisit their anticipation guide and discuss any shifting ideas, but then we moved into discussing the midterm paper (which is stressing people out).
We began working on the midterm paper by breaking down the question and asking students to begin brainstorming which authors they could use to answer each section of the paper.
Then it was on to the prereading for next week.
Once again we got caught in rushing through the material.
So next week, I promise, we’ll be spending lots of time discussing the readings and the movie. The two classes really go together – one is about linguistic variation and one is about cultural variation – but you really can’t separate the two. So I’m ok with the fact that we’ll discuss the two together. AND for those of you stressing about the essay, these two weeks of readings (and the movie) will help you answer big sections of the essay. Which leads me to the next promise. We’ll be spending lots of time in class workshopping the essay.
I also want to make it really clear that the essay is a FORMATIVE assessment. I use it to see if there are areas that we need to revisit. If an essay reveals that a student is missing an key understanding, we’ll revisit it and the student will have the opportunity to rewrite the essay (see the syllabus for details).
Also, I’m really pleased with the way the annotations have developed. They also serve as a formative assessment, but it’s also a learning tool. As we write an annotation, it forces us to really distill the article to it’s most essential pieces. And that brings about clarity of understanding. So it’s writing to learn. They really are what Bean calls “microthemes.” I’m also seeing the annotations as a way to develop professional voice as well. Strong annotations carry an authoritative voice. They say “I know what I’m talking about.” I want my students to have that confidence. It’s wonderful to see it come about.
One last thing. I know people are also stressing about the literacy artifact review presentation. We’re setting that aside for the time being in order to focus on the essay. I don’t like doing too many things at once. I’ve learned that when I do that, the quality of learning suffers. So we’ll return to it in a few weeks and will really concentrate on it. There will be class time devoted to it. Please, just hang on to your notes and don’t worry.
Thanks also for the comments last week. They are really helpful. I’m so glad that the Olson piece made sense after discussion. I will definitely keep it as a reading next time I teach the class. I’m also thrilled that everyone is coming to see themselves as able to take on a difficult reading and not give up.
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.
Before I begin, I need to note that I just read an article about teacher use of blogging in US News & World Report. This article points out the difficulties that are inherent in blogging about one’s job. The writer, the article suggests, always needs to be cognizant of where the line is and to not cross it. So true. As such, I use this blog to reflect on my teaching and the events of the class. We bloggers need to be constantly aware of what the purpose of our blog is and who our potential readers are.
Now onward.
The first part of class was designed to revisit last week’s readings on the readin processes, but do so in a way that connected to this week’s readings on historical perspectives on reading. We focused on four areas of reading research in particular – phonics, fluency, comprehension, word study. I selected those as the focus because those are the areas getting most attention in education (particularly childhood) because of the National Reading Panel. I struggle in part because I feel these articles are more or less “informational” and don’t require a lot of discussion to get through. I am seeking ways to engage students in the information and to apply the information to what they are doing in their other classes and in their teaching. I don’t think we got there yet. That’s something we need to return to next week.
After moving through a series of questions I set up to move through the readings, we spent some time workshopping the annotations. I showed two annotations that I thought were particularly well done. There are several approaches to teaching writing. One is showing examples that are imperfect and then doing the revising. Another is showing exemplary work and talking about what makes them exemplary. I chose the latter. What was nice is that I was able to use student work. I have some strong writers in this class.
That took pretty much half the class. I let time get away from me a little bit because I allowed myself to become engaged in conversation with a few students. I need to keep a better watch on time and to move the groups along in a timely fashion. I like talking with my students, hearing their concerns, questions, and just learning who they are as people. It helps me as a teacher. But at the same time, whilst I’m conversing with one or two students, I don’t want the other’s languishing. I’m very aware of that.
During the second half of class, I had the students spend time in their expert groups discussing their chapters, and then we moved into jigsaw groups to teach one another about the chapters and to put together a timeline. We weren’t able to finish that activity, so that’s going to be the first thing we do next week. We also need to spend time discussing how the research we read relates to the other classes and to our teaching. I also plan to do an activity to reinforce the learning about the specific reading processes that are discussed in the readings.
For me, the class flew by. I hope it did for the students as well. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a survey class and the best we can do is introduce the students to these concepts and hope that they’ll be able to dig into them more deeply in their methods classes as a way to make sense of why it is that they do what they do.
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.
