You read a lot.....you learned a lot....what do you want to talk about? Don't try to cover it all. Use the space below to really dig into your most important learnings/ questions from the 3 readings.
I will admit that throughout my k-12 years, I hated writing. I always thought that I was bad at it, and I never believed that I would be able to become anything more than a mediocre writer. Part of that was due to the fact that I was never taught how to write. I think that, like reading, we just stop teaching writing at some point and assume that students will pick it up on their own. It wasn’t until my last two years of high school that I gained more confidence in my writing because someone finally decided to teach it, and it was at that point that I began to have a greater purpose to my writing.
In this way, the Darth Vader scene in the Strong chapter is, sadly, realistic. I think especially in the middle school years, writing is taught as a formula that is used to spit out information, and it’s only until high school or even college that writing is used as a tool for thinking. A lot of the essay questions were like the Reformation question given as an example in the reading, which was just describing and explaining facts. Writing is meant to take time, because it is meant to both make you think about a topic, and think about how to best communicate your thoughts, and it is an important tool in this way.
Writing can be used in a variety of ways. It can be informal, where students can give their personal insights, like this blog, or it can ask students a question that requires them to research, think deeper into a topic, and/or take a stance. Using RAFT, or CRAFT, allows for this deeper thinking. RAFT gives purpose to writing, and therefore helps students see the importance of writing, and I think that using RAFT would make it easier to teach how to write as well as I would design the task and I could walk my students through it. I don’t want my students feeling the way I did about writing; that I would never be a good writer, just a mediocre one.
My only question would be how well could RAFT be used for a research paper? All of the examples are for letters or brochures or proposals and other writing outlets, which are important and definitely under-used, but what about research papers?
My history teacher in 11th grade had us write. A lot. It used to make me nauseated to even contemplate attending class on exam days, because I knew what was in store for me; two essay questions that I would have to thoughtfully respond to, because he was the type of educator who would see right through a BS answer. I'm a better writer for it, and I thank him for never taking the easy way out and letting me get away with anything less than my very best. I cringe just imagining the amount of reading that man must have had to do when it was time to grade, and I realize now how lucky I was to have been his student. I want to be this teacher for my students, because you need to be a literate person in today's world who can write well in a professional environment. Many people I know continue to struggle with their writing- it's up there alongside math as the thing most people I know despised doing in school- and this is a huge failure on the part of educators all across the state. Not every student should like writing, but every student should recognize its important and be able to do so effectively.
I think your right Emma. At some point in those k-12 years, writing isn't being taught anymore, and that's a problem. I think many content area teachers like to assume that ELA is taking care of that, but in reality every content area should address it. There is writing in every subject and pretty much everything you do in school. So it should continuously be taught, and across every subject. I do not think that every student will excel at writing if this were the case, but they should feel more comfortable in it.
I don't remember being taught to write in high school either. Once I think about it, I was actually taught to write a bunch of different styles but I didn't understand what they were doing at the time. I had to write an autobiography as a senior. I also remember having to re-write Dante's Inferno, while rhyming as much as possible no less. However, I'm still not sure that anybody taught me how to write a research paper until I was in college. I know that I did write them, I'm just pretty sure they weren't any good. I don't remember anyone pointing out "introduction, body, conclusion" until I was in college.
The first thing that stood out to me in the readings this week was the concept of SQ3R. This is exactly how I was taught to deal with text book in social studies class as long as I can remember. I don’t think they ever told me what this design was called, but it most certainly sounds exactly like my teacher’s instructions for reading our social studies text in 7th grade. Then, the selected readings left me shaking my head with disbelief at one concept I encountered. During the reading on Jigsawing, which I believe was in chapter 6 of our text, there was mention of this method not being possible due to teachers being expected to be on the same page as their colleagues for the entire school year. Is this really true of some districts? To me, that entire structure is impending doom to a faculty. Why on earth would anyone want to “cookie cutter” the curriculum in this fashion? What happens if you get sick for a week? I never knew this was a common practice in some districts, and I can’t imagine I would last too long in that setting. Another thing I took from the reading was that they took a look at the exact textbook I borrowed from the library, The Americans. Daniels and Zemelman noticed the same thing that I did, its bright and vibrant, almost distractingly so, it’s crammed with information in the margins, and it weighs about 15 pounds! My question that pops up for my real world experience when I’m done with this program, is how I know what is considered ok to gloss over. That particular book has a whole chapter on culture of the 1950’s, for both, black and white. First off, there is no mention of what life is like for the Native American or Latino/a in this chapter. My question is simple: why would anyone want to waste a student’s time making them read this chapter when you could probably show 5 minutes of Leave it to Beaver, and a 5 minute clip from Malcolm X or The Hurricane and provide a vivid, visual concept of what life was like in America during that period. Too often I think text is the most time consuming form of education imaginable. I suppose it’s the same problem I have when I look at common core math, why would we want to teach kids the longest possible way to do math, or anything? I think too often teachers don’t understand the time commitment they ask of their students.
I believe the Providence school district is very structured where multiple schools and classrooms need to "on the same page," and one of the reasons they state for doing this is that students move around a lot throughout the city so they should be able to move in and out of classrooms with relative ease, but I absolutely agree with you, I don't know how I could succeed in truly teaching in a structured environment like that. Also, as I was looking through my textbook, I found myself asking the same question about what is okay to gloss over, and sometimes it seems like an easy decision, and other times I'm just not sure. Different people will inevitably say different things, but it seems that there must be some definite things that need to be taught and some left up to the teacher's own philosophy as they can work toward those essential questions we keep talking about.
I think the principle of allowing students to enter a classroom and be on the "same page" no matter where they go is one of those things that sounds really nice on paper. It's the type of talk that makes parents happy, so politicians keep reiterating these same ideas and imposing those ideas on educators despite having no in-depth, professional knowledge of the profession. Awesome, Kyle can switch schools and not even need a new book! But what about Emily, who's exceptionally bright and is now suffocating in a learning environment moving at a snail's pace? Or the thousands of kids like her in Providence schools alone experiencing the same problem? Or the teachers who are too terrified to stray away from the textbook to provide the types of supplemental material that weaker students absolutely need to grasp material? What sounds nice on paper doesn't always pan out in real life, which is the perfect metaphor for this situation.
I agree that trying to be on the same page of a textbook as the entire district/state/ect. is a very daunting task, and it may seem impossible. But do you think that has to do with the generation we are being brought up in? In all our education classes thus far, we are continuously taught to supplement materials and only use the textbook as a guide, etc. But there are teachers who have been in this profession much longer than us, and they consistently use the textbook and maybe they like it. I do not know what their professional education was like, or their methods/visions for their classrooms, but it seems like the way we are educated to become educators is changing. And if thats the case, maybe the plans districts have for teachers need to change as well.
Politics, politics, politics. Where does the madness end? How deep does the rabbit hole go? After reading Feynman's account of dealing with textbook publishers and the sheer volume of bureaucratic BS that occurs when committees select textbooks, I found myself struggling to find the word that best described how I felt. Disgust? It did leave a bad taste in my mouth, that's for sure. Angry? In some ways, yes. Angry that, once again in American life, private back room dealings held more sway than they should. However, I think what I was feeling, more than anything else, was disappointment. Not even for our children, who we so often take so much pride in, can the politics and greed be set aside for just a moment. My face must've looked something like this after I finished reading Feynman's article: I agree with D &Z when they talk about how textbooks are here to stay; personally, I think that a "good" textbook is a wonderful supplement to our students' reading, serving as a glossary and an excellent way of getting a preliminary, shallow understanding of a given topic (although I recognize now how thorough one must be when determining what constitutes a "good" textbook). This only serves to further frustrate me when I read that these sources that teachers lean upon (some more than other's, depending on personal opinions and state requirements) to structure their course are often not up to scratch, not because of a lack of money, but because of both a lack of effort and a lack of integrity. I agree with you, Bob Craig (mentioned on page 57)- how do you have 86,000 errors in your textbooks? The number sounds so absurd when said aloud, and yet that is the reality of the textbook industry that teachers and students alike must face when stepping into the classroom. I'm thankful to have been provided an idea of how bad the problem really is before setting out into my professional career. Although I had never seen myself being a "by-the-book" educator, I am now more wary than ever about the many pit falls of our nation's textbooks, and I will be a better teacher for being aware of it.
I think it was in Oklahoma last year that they were banning AP History classes because the courses were including the more negative aspects of American history in greater detail. They wanted their students to be pro-American instead of well-informed. Sometimes I just feel like people want to use history as propaganda instead of teaching it as it is, with all of its dark times, because that is what creates a more informed society. I agree that politics gets into the classroom too much, and disgust and anger are the perfect words. I also realize that sometimes the textbooks we use come out of these politics, and I want to make sure that the politics is not the message that comes across to my future students. It's all about finding that "good" textbook.
I could go with disgust Chris, but the honest truth is that I'm not sure that it's all about politics. I think two other factors are at play when you start to read the articles. The first, which is based on our founding fathers desire, is pure capitalism. The almighty dollar. Unfortunately it isn't just text books and how they are selected where this becomes a factor. I think by now we've all seen the hedge fund manager who purchased an AIDS medication (currently sold for $.66/ea in the UK) and jacked the price to $750. Everything seems to come down to dollars and cents in this country. Second, is human nature. It is human nature to want to help your friends, just as it is human nature to pick and choose what's important. If you don't find something important, than human nature takes over again, this time in the form of apathy, lethargy, or straight out laziness.
Throughout high school, I wrote more essays than I care to remember. My teachers constantly had students writing in class and for homework, and they expected quality, lengthy answers. But I never felt like a strong writer. I think this is because none of my teachers really taught us how to write or what they expected from us. I don’t know if they just simply expected us to already know certain things, or were assuming that we strictly learned those techniques in ELA, but either way I feel many students and even essays turned in suffered. Another problem I have with the writings I did in high school were that we were never told why we were writing. Many times it felt as though we were writing essays to fill time or even just because the teacher didn’t have a more creative assessment. Looking back, some classes felt like the Darth Vader scenario. My eleventh grade history teacher was one of the few who made it a point to explain why we had to write something and what purpose it would hold in the class and grading. I think it honestly motivated some students; we have learned that there needs to be a purpose for everything we do in classrooms, and I think it benefits the students to know why they are putting in the effort and writing something.
Just like with writing, I think there needs to be a purpose behind the textbook we use, and what we use it for. I do not think reading the textbook page by page is effective, however some textbooks are very well written and informative. I think if the school is lucky enough to have a good textbook (or one that I like), I would use it to the best of its/my ability. I think by adding supplemental materials it can enrich the learning experience and make it much more powerful though, and should be a front-runner compared to the standardized book. But boy, the crap you have to go through to make and find a good textbook is honestly sickening and I do not think I would ever want to be a part of that. Before reading this, I guess I was naïve to the fact that textbooks do contain errors, a lot of them. I was completely floored to read that one had 86,000 errors (how is that even possible!), and I think it definitely made me more aware about the kinds and types of textbooks I want to use in my classroom.
I cannot state how much I loved the strong chapter. It started of with a sort-of narrative that is metaphorical in nature. Then it goes straight to examples and real-world connections. I love this style and I think it is much more effective as dispensing information than more typical styles of non-fiction. The character of Darth Vader is used to show the wrongs done in the way writing is typically taught and used in schools. Strong used Darth Vader in a loose narrative structure through which he showed both the wrongs schools were doing and the negative effects they are having.
The idea of using writing as punishment is something that has upset me for some time now. When a teacher does that one teaches the student to hate writing, something which as a teacher one will want the student to due on regular basis. If nothing else it seems completely counter-intuitive. Of course in addition to that it just seems plain harmfully. Writing is something most people will have to due at least some of for the rest of there lives, it something people can use as an effective tool, to teach students to hate it seems damaging.
I also rather liked the “writing is a laser” metaphor. If a student gains a strong ability to write they have tool for expanding their own thoughts and share their thoughts with others. They can be an informed citizen.
I also really liked the CRAFT. The CRAFT seems like a very good idea, and I loved the unique way Strong came up with for teacher comments for improve.
I will admit that throughout my k-12 years, I hated writing. I always thought that I was bad at it, and I never believed that I would be able to become anything more than a mediocre writer. Part of that was due to the fact that I was never taught how to write. I think that, like reading, we just stop teaching writing at some point and assume that students will pick it up on their own. It wasn’t until my last two years of high school that I gained more confidence in my writing because someone finally decided to teach it, and it was at that point that I began to have a greater purpose to my writing.
ReplyDeleteIn this way, the Darth Vader scene in the Strong chapter is, sadly, realistic. I think especially in the middle school years, writing is taught as a formula that is used to spit out information, and it’s only until high school or even college that writing is used as a tool for thinking. A lot of the essay questions were like the Reformation question given as an example in the reading, which was just describing and explaining facts. Writing is meant to take time, because it is meant to both make you think about a topic, and think about how to best communicate your thoughts, and it is an important tool in this way.
Writing can be used in a variety of ways. It can be informal, where students can give their personal insights, like this blog, or it can ask students a question that requires them to research, think deeper into a topic, and/or take a stance. Using RAFT, or CRAFT, allows for this deeper thinking. RAFT gives purpose to writing, and therefore helps students see the importance of writing, and I think that using RAFT would make it easier to teach how to write as well as I would design the task and I could walk my students through it. I don’t want my students feeling the way I did about writing; that I would never be a good writer, just a mediocre one.
My only question would be how well could RAFT be used for a research paper? All of the examples are for letters or brochures or proposals and other writing outlets, which are important and definitely under-used, but what about research papers?
My history teacher in 11th grade had us write. A lot. It used to make me nauseated to even contemplate attending class on exam days, because I knew what was in store for me; two essay questions that I would have to thoughtfully respond to, because he was the type of educator who would see right through a BS answer. I'm a better writer for it, and I thank him for never taking the easy way out and letting me get away with anything less than my very best. I cringe just imagining the amount of reading that man must have had to do when it was time to grade, and I realize now how lucky I was to have been his student. I want to be this teacher for my students, because you need to be a literate person in today's world who can write well in a professional environment. Many people I know continue to struggle with their writing- it's up there alongside math as the thing most people I know despised doing in school- and this is a huge failure on the part of educators all across the state. Not every student should like writing, but every student should recognize its important and be able to do so effectively.
DeleteI think your right Emma. At some point in those k-12 years, writing isn't being taught anymore, and that's a problem. I think many content area teachers like to assume that ELA is taking care of that, but in reality every content area should address it. There is writing in every subject and pretty much everything you do in school. So it should continuously be taught, and across every subject. I do not think that every student will excel at writing if this were the case, but they should feel more comfortable in it.
DeleteI don't remember being taught to write in high school either. Once I think about it, I was actually taught to write a bunch of different styles but I didn't understand what they were doing at the time. I had to write an autobiography as a senior. I also remember having to re-write Dante's Inferno, while rhyming as much as possible no less. However, I'm still not sure that anybody taught me how to write a research paper until I was in college. I know that I did write them, I'm just pretty sure they weren't any good. I don't remember anyone pointing out "introduction, body, conclusion" until I was in college.
DeleteThe first thing that stood out to me in the readings this week was the concept of SQ3R. This is exactly how I was taught to deal with text book in social studies class as long as I can remember. I don’t think they ever told me what this design was called, but it most certainly sounds exactly like my teacher’s instructions for reading our social studies text in 7th grade. Then, the selected readings left me shaking my head with disbelief at one concept I encountered. During the reading on Jigsawing, which I believe was in chapter 6 of our text, there was mention of this method not being possible due to teachers being expected to be on the same page as their colleagues for the entire school year. Is this really true of some districts? To me, that entire structure is impending doom to a faculty. Why on earth would anyone want to “cookie cutter” the curriculum in this fashion? What happens if you get sick for a week? I never knew this was a common practice in some districts, and I can’t imagine I would last too long in that setting.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I took from the reading was that they took a look at the exact textbook I borrowed from the library, The Americans. Daniels and Zemelman noticed the same thing that I did, its bright and vibrant, almost distractingly so, it’s crammed with information in the margins, and it weighs about 15 pounds! My question that pops up for my real world experience when I’m done with this program, is how I know what is considered ok to gloss over. That particular book has a whole chapter on culture of the 1950’s, for both, black and white. First off, there is no mention of what life is like for the Native American or Latino/a in this chapter. My question is simple: why would anyone want to waste a student’s time making them read this chapter when you could probably show 5 minutes of Leave it to Beaver, and a 5 minute clip from Malcolm X or The Hurricane and provide a vivid, visual concept of what life was like in America during that period. Too often I think text is the most time consuming form of education imaginable. I suppose it’s the same problem I have when I look at common core math, why would we want to teach kids the longest possible way to do math, or anything? I think too often teachers don’t understand the time commitment they ask of their students.
I believe the Providence school district is very structured where multiple schools and classrooms need to "on the same page," and one of the reasons they state for doing this is that students move around a lot throughout the city so they should be able to move in and out of classrooms with relative ease, but I absolutely agree with you, I don't know how I could succeed in truly teaching in a structured environment like that. Also, as I was looking through my textbook, I found myself asking the same question about what is okay to gloss over, and sometimes it seems like an easy decision, and other times I'm just not sure. Different people will inevitably say different things, but it seems that there must be some definite things that need to be taught and some left up to the teacher's own philosophy as they can work toward those essential questions we keep talking about.
DeleteI think the principle of allowing students to enter a classroom and be on the "same page" no matter where they go is one of those things that sounds really nice on paper. It's the type of talk that makes parents happy, so politicians keep reiterating these same ideas and imposing those ideas on educators despite having no in-depth, professional knowledge of the profession. Awesome, Kyle can switch schools and not even need a new book! But what about Emily, who's exceptionally bright and is now suffocating in a learning environment moving at a snail's pace? Or the thousands of kids like her in Providence schools alone experiencing the same problem? Or the teachers who are too terrified to stray away from the textbook to provide the types of supplemental material that weaker students absolutely need to grasp material? What sounds nice on paper doesn't always pan out in real life, which is the perfect metaphor for this situation.
DeleteI agree that trying to be on the same page of a textbook as the entire district/state/ect. is a very daunting task, and it may seem impossible. But do you think that has to do with the generation we are being brought up in? In all our education classes thus far, we are continuously taught to supplement materials and only use the textbook as a guide, etc. But there are teachers who have been in this profession much longer than us, and they consistently use the textbook and maybe they like it. I do not know what their professional education was like, or their methods/visions for their classrooms, but it seems like the way we are educated to become educators is changing. And if thats the case, maybe the plans districts have for teachers need to change as well.
DeletePolitics, politics, politics. Where does the madness end? How deep does the rabbit hole go? After reading Feynman's account of dealing with textbook publishers and the sheer volume of bureaucratic BS that occurs when committees select textbooks, I found myself struggling to find the word that best described how I felt. Disgust? It did leave a bad taste in my mouth, that's for sure. Angry? In some ways, yes. Angry that, once again in American life, private back room dealings held more sway than they should. However, I think what I was feeling, more than anything else, was disappointment. Not even for our children, who we so often take so much pride in, can the politics and greed be set aside for just a moment. My face must've looked something like this after I finished reading Feynman's article:
ReplyDeleteI agree with D &Z when they talk about how textbooks are here to stay; personally, I think that a "good" textbook is a wonderful supplement to our students' reading, serving as a glossary and an excellent way of getting a preliminary, shallow understanding of a given topic (although I recognize now how thorough one must be when determining what constitutes a "good" textbook). This only serves to further frustrate me when I read that these sources that teachers lean upon (some more than other's, depending on personal opinions and state requirements) to structure their course are often not up to scratch, not because of a lack of money, but because of both a lack of effort and a lack of integrity. I agree with you, Bob Craig (mentioned on page 57)- how do you have 86,000 errors in your textbooks? The number sounds so absurd when said aloud, and yet that is the reality of the textbook industry that teachers and students alike must face when stepping into the classroom. I'm thankful to have been provided an idea of how bad the problem really is before setting out into my professional career. Although I had never seen myself being a "by-the-book" educator, I am now more wary than ever about the many pit falls of our nation's textbooks, and I will be a better teacher for being aware of it.
I think it was in Oklahoma last year that they were banning AP History classes because the courses were including the more negative aspects of American history in greater detail. They wanted their students to be pro-American instead of well-informed. Sometimes I just feel like people want to use history as propaganda instead of teaching it as it is, with all of its dark times, because that is what creates a more informed society. I agree that politics gets into the classroom too much, and disgust and anger are the perfect words. I also realize that sometimes the textbooks we use come out of these politics, and I want to make sure that the politics is not the message that comes across to my future students. It's all about finding that "good" textbook.
DeleteI could go with disgust Chris, but the honest truth is that I'm not sure that it's all about politics. I think two other factors are at play when you start to read the articles. The first, which is based on our founding fathers desire, is pure capitalism. The almighty dollar. Unfortunately it isn't just text books and how they are selected where this becomes a factor. I think by now we've all seen the hedge fund manager who purchased an AIDS medication (currently sold for $.66/ea in the UK) and jacked the price to $750. Everything seems to come down to dollars and cents in this country. Second, is human nature. It is human nature to want to help your friends, just as it is human nature to pick and choose what's important. If you don't find something important, than human nature takes over again, this time in the form of apathy, lethargy, or straight out laziness.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThroughout high school, I wrote more essays than I care to remember. My teachers constantly had students writing in class and for homework, and they expected quality, lengthy answers. But I never felt like a strong writer. I think this is because none of my teachers really taught us how to write or what they expected from us. I don’t know if they just simply expected us to already know certain things, or were assuming that we strictly learned those techniques in ELA, but either way I feel many students and even essays turned in suffered. Another problem I have with the writings I did in high school were that we were never told why we were writing. Many times it felt as though we were writing essays to fill time or even just because the teacher didn’t have a more creative assessment. Looking back, some classes felt like the Darth Vader scenario. My eleventh grade history teacher was one of the few who made it a point to explain why we had to write something and what purpose it would hold in the class and grading. I think it honestly motivated some students; we have learned that there needs to be a purpose for everything we do in classrooms, and I think it benefits the students to know why they are putting in the effort and writing something.
ReplyDeleteJust like with writing, I think there needs to be a purpose behind the textbook we use, and what we use it for. I do not think reading the textbook page by page is effective, however some textbooks are very well written and informative. I think if the school is lucky enough to have a good textbook (or one that I like), I would use it to the best of its/my ability. I think by adding supplemental materials it can enrich the learning experience and make it much more powerful though, and should be a front-runner compared to the standardized book. But boy, the crap you have to go through to make and find a good textbook is honestly sickening and I do not think I would ever want to be a part of that. Before reading this, I guess I was naïve to the fact that textbooks do contain errors, a lot of them. I was completely floored to read that one had 86,000 errors (how is that even possible!), and I think it definitely made me more aware about the kinds and types of textbooks I want to use in my classroom.
I cannot state how much I loved the strong chapter. It started of with a sort-of narrative that is metaphorical in nature. Then it goes straight to examples and real-world connections. I love this style and I think it is much more effective as dispensing information than more typical styles of non-fiction. The character of Darth Vader is used to show the wrongs done in the way writing is typically taught and used in schools. Strong used Darth Vader in a loose narrative structure through which he showed both the wrongs schools were doing and the negative effects they are having.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of using writing as punishment is something that has upset me for some time now. When a teacher does that one teaches the student to hate writing, something which as a teacher one will want the student to due on regular basis. If nothing else it seems completely counter-intuitive. Of course in addition to that it just seems plain harmfully. Writing is something most people will have to due at least some of for the rest of there lives, it something people can use as an effective tool, to teach students to hate it seems damaging.
I also rather liked the “writing is a laser” metaphor. If a student gains a strong ability to write they have tool for expanding their own thoughts and share their thoughts with others. They can be an informed citizen.
I also really liked the CRAFT. The CRAFT seems like a very good idea, and I loved the unique way Strong came up with for teacher comments for improve.