Literature in the Classroom

In my Kindergarten classroom, literature is included in many different aspects of the student's day.  They start out the day reading books of their choice.  The books in my classroom are all separated in different bins by topic and then in the bookshelf are a selection of books that go along with the season (right now there are winter books out, along with Holiday books that are still out).  Multiple times throughout the day, the students are read a story by the teacher (and me too!) that comes off the bookshelf.  For example, on Tuesday the students were read a fictional story about a President because Obama had been inaugurated the day before.  In the middle of the day, the students also participate in a Read Aloud where their teacher reads a story and has questions already written to ask the students.  Whenever the students finish their work early they also are given the opportunity to read.  Lastly, my students have been practicing reading with a partner where they have to sit with a partner and read for an allotted amount of time, when they do this they read every other page.  After their partner reads, they have to do a check for understanding where they say, "I heard you read...".

In the article Out of the Box: Critical Literacy in a First-Grade Classroom by Christine H. Leland and Jerome C. Harste, the idea of reading students critical literacy is addressed.  A first-grade teacher named Kim Huber does a trial run of this idea in her classroom which ended up working great.  In most first-grade classrooms, happy ending books are read, books that don't bring up any controversy or much to talk about.  This article challenged that idea that younger students couldn't handle critical literacy, and at first, even their teacher wasn't sure if she wanted to discuss controversial topics with her students.  Throughout the article, readers are able to see what a difference it made in her classroom.  The students in her classroom became more aware of social issues but on top of that they began treating each other in a better way, with sympathy and understanding.  The students put a lot more time and thought into their written work and also the drawings they did along with that work.  Over time, the students also were able to make intertextual connections when they were reading the books, connecting to a different book that they had read in class that had a similar issue brought up. 

I learned so much from reading this article.  When I first starting reading, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to agree with this additional way of incorporating literature into the classroom.  I though that young students wouldn't be able to understand literature that was discussing issues like homelessness and race.  What I realized was what an impact reading these books had on the students and how it not only helped them in their school work but also helped them become better people, more giving and understanding of people that were different than them and of their own peers.  I would do something like this in my own classroom, I don't think I'd totally cut out those happy stories, but it would be interesting to see how my student's minds opened up to new perspectives through reading critical literature.  I think a lot of teachers get stuck in a rut just doing what is easiest in their classroom when really there are so many different, interesting, and beneficial ways to incorporate literacy in the classroom.  I look forward to learning about other new ways of incorporating literacy and also look forward using them in my classroom in the future!

Booo

Hi friends!!

Leanne Zotos First Post

Goals for TE 402: 

• Learn effective ways to teach Language Arts in the classroom
• Learn more about ESL learners and how I can help them do well in my classroom and how I can effectively teach them Language Arts even without a minor in ESL 
• Learn how to create and teach effective Language Arts lessons
•  Learn about different technologies and practices for Languages Arts 

School and Community Context: 

• I hope to be a suburban school distract close to my house in the Utica/Rochester Public School districts. 

 Literary Instruction: 

• I want to learn the most effective ways to incorportate litearcy in my classroom
• I want to learn about the different learning styles and how I can teach all of those styles Language Arts content 
• I want to learn how to do things hands-on with Language Arts
• I want to learn and be able to watch different lessons that have worked for teachers and also learn about lessons that did not work well in the classroom 
• I want to learn different ways that I can integrate technology into Language Arts and also ways that I can integrate different subjects into Language Arts

 Jigsaw Article:  

• Teaching All the Children Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting
• I learned in this article how different and difficult it can be for new teachers to teach students in an urban setting 
•  I learned that there can be many negative impacts of children living in poverty in the classroom, it makes them less ready for school and they usually do not have the time at home working on reading or being read to.  They also sometimes have to act as the adult when they are at home so being at school is the only time they can really be a kid. 
• I learned that balance is important and that I would like to be able to do this in my classroom.  I want to address my student's physical and emotional needs (as the article states) but also be able to teach them and have them learn something during the day. 
• I learned from this article that when teaching in an urban school, a teacher has to be ready to teach a range of students in the classroom, some students are going to be falling very behind and others may be ready to move on...as a teacher I need to learn how to manage that within my classroom so I'm not holding anyone back and also not moving anyone forward too quickly.
• This article made me realize that when I am a teacher I want to fully understand my students, not just how they act in school but also what their home life is like and figure out how that could influence them at school 
•  I want to know my students and their families, and because of this article I see this is important to be an effective teacher

 

Amanda Trinka- Book Club Blog Entry

·      Goals for my learning in TE 402:

o   Learn multiple ways to incorporate technology into the classroom

o   Learn classroom management techniques

o   Learn time management skills in lesson planning and class preparation

o   Learn strategies to help low English proficiency students and ESL students succeed in the classroom

o   Learn how to engage parents and/or guardians

·      School and community context:

o   Suburban school district located close to my hometown of Farmington Hills, Michigan

·      Literacy instruction:

o   I want to learn different ways to teach literacy that engages all types of student learners (naturalist, musical, mathematical, existential, interpersonal, etc.)

o   I want to learn different literacy strategies/activities that are student interest based and that reflect real-life scenarios

o   I want to learn how to integrate multiple subject areas into literacy

o   I want to learn how to incorporate “hands-on” learning in literacy

·      Jigsaw articles:

o   Hettinger & Knapp (2001) Supporting Underachieving Readers

§  I want to model that I love to read, that reading is fun, and that reading can be beneficial to you in many ways

§  I want to read with them during silent reading time, talk about my favorite books, and read aloud to my students

§  I want to encourage parents to read to their children instead of always having their children read to them

§  I want to encourage my students to join book clubs

§  I want to bring in older students to read to the younger students

§  I want to have books at all different levels of reading for students to pick from

§  I want to have comic books, graphic novels, picture books, and other special high-interest books to tempt underachieving readers

§  I want to have books by student authors (students may enjoy reading something their classmate wrote and their classmate may enjoy seeing their own published work)

§  I want to allow partner reading

o   Risko & Walker-Dalhouse (2007) Cultural Modeling

§  I want to talk with my students and their families to try and connect texts that incorporate their values, beliefs and interests

§  I want to listen to my students and analyze their writing to help build on existing strategies

§  I want to select and use texts that are relevant to my students’ experiences and that require interpretative reasoning

§  I want to analyze what my students know and their out-of-school experiences are like