This is it: the last blog entry of the semester! I thought I would be thrilled to finally reach this point of the semester, yet I find myself reflecting on all the discussions that have been held on these boards and realizing that I have done an awful lot of growing over the past few months, on both a personal and a professional level. For example, I don't think that I would have ever argued for assigning reading material at a lower reading level than that of most of my students, and yet here I am, about to argue just that. The reading in Chapters 11 & 12 expanded upon problems that I think most preservice teachers are already well aware of- that many students struggle with reading, and that a lack of comprehension of any assigned reading will lead to frustration and resignation among students. However, the chapters also offered clear, well-articulated strategies for teachers to undertake in order to address this serious problem affecting schools across the nation. I have always placed particular importance on the relationship between teachers and students, having directly benefitted by positive relationships with some of my educators growing up, but even I didn't appreciate the enormous importance between student literacy and something as simple as student confidence. If kids FEEL smart, they will WANT to learn and to succeed, and it's important for us as teachers to create an environment where kids can feel comfortable with making mistakes while still "feeling" smart. We need to create an environment in which they feel included, and introducing reading material that may seem "too easy" for certain students allow others to finally be including in classroom-wide discussions of material. Introducing actual strategies for students to tackle test, such as note-taking, pair discussion, and class-wide activities are also crucial, and I appreciated the ample number of sources the text provided us to take a look at for additional information. I am excited to see what everyone else has to say.
I also never associated student literacy with student confidence. I really liked that you said that if students feel smart, they will have a desire to learn and succeed. In all my times planning and imagining what my future classroom would look like, I don't ever think I thought of students' confidence. And thats a big deal! If that means lowering the level of difficulty for a students reading material so everyone can comprehend the material and be included in a discussion, than so be it. I have always said I wanted to create a safe, collaborative, and judgement free environment. But now I realize in order to do that, I need to make sure my students feel as though they can be successful and I need to provide them with the opportunities to do so.
Chapter 11 touched on a topic that I have to admit has entered my mind several times, but the teacher cited gave the opposite thought that I have had. The comment the teacher made was “I’m a physics teacher, not a reading teacher.” The further my education goes toward becoming a teacher, the less and less I feel like my content is the important part of what I do. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, let me explain what I mean. With the State of Rhode Island not having common core standards, every time I have to apply a lesson I wrote to some set of standards it turns out to be a reading and/or writing standard based in Language Arts. So, I feel like I’m going to be sitting on the opposite side of the fence that the above teacher is on. While I’m relatively sure I won’t be working in RI, there are plenty of states that don’t have common core requirements in place in Social Studies or History. So what is the important part of the job in this case? The more I think about it, the less I believe that my administration will care that the students learned the difference in ideology from MLK to Malcolm X. Rather, they will be more interested in essay structure and reading comprehension, as those are actual testable skills that mean so much to every district in the common core. I have to admit, this is kind of a stark reality check. I’m interested in helping my students in all areas of their education, and life for that matter, but my content is my passion! Without standards I think I just became a glorified reading/writing teacher, or at least that is my fear. I’m not trying to sound negative, but I started to wonder about this in 406, and it’s actually become this dark thought in my head that I can’t escape. Is anyone else struggling with this idea?
I find it interesting that you've reached such a pessimistic conclusion about this, because I've also reached a similar conclusion- that our jobs will be as much about literacy as they will be about content- and I find myself embracing it. I love social studies; it has been my passion since I was a student, and I love learning about it. I find the subject and the topics incorporated underneath it absolutely fascinating, and I think competency in the subject is essential for students to become tolerant, literate, and informed participants in a democratic society. But should students have to be able to name the specifics? I think our personal experiences tell us no, they don't; most people aren't experts in our subjects, and yet most people continue to live satisfactory lives within our society. What do people need to take away from our course then? I argue the central themes and ideas- they might not need to know every amendment, but people should know that they can change the constitution, or why the Bill of Rights is so important. How do we best transfer this knowledge, or give students the tools to find these themes within contemporary issues or the problems they will inherit in the future? Reading. Writing. These essential tools will serve them more than knowing who Thomas Jefferson's vice president was. Is content unimportant then? Absolutely not, as we need it to set the background for the transfer of these vital ideas and themes. However, at least for me personally, the details and nuances of the content is a means to an end rather than the focal point of my class. Reading and writing are the essential tools these kids will need to grasp the ideas I want them to have so that they can succeed in life and be better people, so I am happy to help with my students' literacy.
Matt, I also have had that dark thought in the back of my head, but as the semester has gone on, it really isn't as scary for me anymore. I used to dread thinking about teaching 'literacy' in my classroom, and I will even say that before this semester began I was even naive enough to think that this was the ELA teachers' job (I would like to clearly state now that I do not think this anymore!). I think that teaching the content is still of top priority, but now I think I see the class as more of a well-sounded picture. I like that Chris explains he thinks students should take away the central themes and ideas from a certain content, which we can only hope for. I think by focusing on those, and explaining to our students why they need to know those, it will provide more direct focus for the student and teacher. We are molding students to become members of society, one that relies on reading and writing. So I think we need to promote a classroom in which they feel as though they can become successful. But like Dr. Horwitz said, everything we do must have a purpose. So if writing that essay gives meaning or explains the ideologies of MLK and Malcolm X, then great. But if we are just assigning reading and writing topics to help teach them this and get them ready for a test, then I think thats where we go wrong. I think the biggest struggle many people have when trying to incorporate so much writing and reading into their content is (and I could be wrong) finding a balance; one where there is instruction on the skills necessary on how to be a life-long reader and learner, and that of the content and why it is important and why it matters today. I think in time, we will all learn how to balance these and we will see that content and literacy go hand in hand.
I've thought about this too, and it is scary. Teaching how to read and write is much harder than teaching content, but I feel that we need to teach them in equal parts. As we go along in our units and lessons, we do have to teach reading and writing, but I think the key to doing so is teaching these skills through our content. Continuing the example of MLK and Malcolm X, let's say we have an assignment where students have to write an essay, and we can teach them good writing and researching skills but the topic they're focusing on is MLK and Malcolm X, so through this essay, they learn the skills and the content. In this way, I think that students become mini-historians because they begin to do the things real historians do.
Throughout the book, the authors talk about teaching students how to read and that this is a job shared by all teachers, and not just the ELA teacher. I found chapter 11 especially helpful because it brings everything together and illustrates how we can help those students who are poor readers how to become better. A part that stuck out to me was the self-monitoring part, because it was something I struggled with. I remember reading a piece of the Communist Manifesto in 10th grade, and we were supposed to write down all the words and look them up, and then the next class we had a vocab quiz on a lot of those words. I, however, did not write down a lot of those words because I skipped over them and didn’t realize that I didn’t know them because I became used to reading like that. It was after that assignment that I realized that I was missing a lot when I was reading. If I was taught how to read, this may not have become a problem for me. The other thing that stuck out to me in chapter 11 was the steps we can use to change students’ outlooks on reading. For the most part, poor readers don’t like reading, and who would? Most people don’t like doing the things they are not good at. However, if we can change how students feel about reading by telling them that we believe in them or just by listening to them and telling them that it’s okay to fail as long as you don’t give up, then we can build their confidence and build this skill that they’ll need for the rest of their lives as well as engage them in our classrooms so that they view school and learning as an enjoyable experience instead of a stressful one.
It's the reason why gyms are filled with people who are already in shape- people like doing stuff they know they are good at, and reading is no exception. We want all our students to feel as confident about reading as that one guy at the gym in a spaghetti strap shirt, army boots, MMA snapback, and a gallon of water feels about slamming weights to the floor. Something as simple as receiving positive feedback on a consistent basis is sometimes all a student needs to feel like they CAN do it, and that's half the battle right there. The instructional strategies are what come next, and I agree with you when you say they aren't articulated well enough in classrooms. I hope this is something I avoid in my own classes.
Every student comes to class with a backpack full of stuff that we as the teacher have to unpack to get to know our students. We have to first understand the reading process in which they know and actively participate in. Then we need to find a way to teach the method we want them to use in class, which is different from their other six classes most likely. As a teacher, we need to be mindful of that, and I think that’s why it is important to teach a variety of methods. I like that the text gave a variety of examples for active reading and note taking. I think the biggest thing we can do is model for our students what we do. I personally know that this will be extremely hard, as we tend to just do these things automatically now. But if we can model how we read, it may give one student or many students an example of reading that may work for them. We all know there will be many different types of learners in our classrooms. I think if we show them various ways and allow them to experiment and find what works best for them, we will see a greater amount of comprehension from our students. On page 279, it says “…to help students understand and learn from the tasks we assign them, we must work with their reading process.” Reading is a process, and it can be done in so many ways. I think we need to be open and share as many ways as we can. We need to give opportunities for our students to become independent learners and this is one of the best ways, with a skill they can use for the rest of their reading lives.
Just like we need to provide and find different reading and note-taking methods, I think it is also important to provide different levels of material. There is no purpose behind assigning a reading assignment that half the class can’t read and comprehend. Why would I assign something that will frustrate and hurt my students, when I keep preaching about a safe, judgment free environment? I want my students to be and feel successful and I don’t think assigning them something that doesn’t encourage that is worth it. Wouldn’t it be better to just assign a lower level reading, and have everyone understand and be able to engage with the material? I personally think it is. Allowing all students to be able to read the material could produce a greater class discussion, participation, engagement or even curiosity about the content. Not only that, but it will allow students to feel more comfortable with their abilities and the class as a whole, while promoting success in the class and in the future.
Actions speak louder than words. You're right, we can talk about having a safe, judgement free environment, but we have to actually do it. We have to do things like assigning an easier reading so that our students can understand it. We want to teach everyone, not just the student who gets it on the first try. Therefore, we have to remember these things about differentiating the reading levels and sharing our processes of reading and note-taking, so that we can do them in the classroom and help all of our students to the best of our ability.
This is it: the last blog entry of the semester! I thought I would be thrilled to finally reach this point of the semester, yet I find myself reflecting on all the discussions that have been held on these boards and realizing that I have done an awful lot of growing over the past few months, on both a personal and a professional level. For example, I don't think that I would have ever argued for assigning reading material at a lower reading level than that of most of my students, and yet here I am, about to argue just that. The reading in Chapters 11 & 12 expanded upon problems that I think most preservice teachers are already well aware of- that many students struggle with reading, and that a lack of comprehension of any assigned reading will lead to frustration and resignation among students. However, the chapters also offered clear, well-articulated strategies for teachers to undertake in order to address this serious problem affecting schools across the nation. I have always placed particular importance on the relationship between teachers and students, having directly benefitted by positive relationships with some of my educators growing up, but even I didn't appreciate the enormous importance between student literacy and something as simple as student confidence. If kids FEEL smart, they will WANT to learn and to succeed, and it's important for us as teachers to create an environment where kids can feel comfortable with making mistakes while still "feeling" smart. We need to create an environment in which they feel included, and introducing reading material that may seem "too easy" for certain students allow others to finally be including in classroom-wide discussions of material. Introducing actual strategies for students to tackle test, such as note-taking, pair discussion, and class-wide activities are also crucial, and I appreciated the ample number of sources the text provided us to take a look at for additional information. I am excited to see what everyone else has to say.
ReplyDeleteI also never associated student literacy with student confidence. I really liked that you said that if students feel smart, they will have a desire to learn and succeed. In all my times planning and imagining what my future classroom would look like, I don't ever think I thought of students' confidence. And thats a big deal! If that means lowering the level of difficulty for a students reading material so everyone can comprehend the material and be included in a discussion, than so be it. I have always said I wanted to create a safe, collaborative, and judgement free environment. But now I realize in order to do that, I need to make sure my students feel as though they can be successful and I need to provide them with the opportunities to do so.
DeleteChapter 11 touched on a topic that I have to admit has entered my mind several times, but the teacher cited gave the opposite thought that I have had. The comment the teacher made was “I’m a physics teacher, not a reading teacher.” The further my education goes toward becoming a teacher, the less and less I feel like my content is the important part of what I do. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, or a bad thing, let me explain what I mean. With the State of Rhode Island not having common core standards, every time I have to apply a lesson I wrote to some set of standards it turns out to be a reading and/or writing standard based in Language Arts. So, I feel like I’m going to be sitting on the opposite side of the fence that the above teacher is on. While I’m relatively sure I won’t be working in RI, there are plenty of states that don’t have common core requirements in place in Social Studies or History. So what is the important part of the job in this case? The more I think about it, the less I believe that my administration will care that the students learned the difference in ideology from MLK to Malcolm X. Rather, they will be more interested in essay structure and reading comprehension, as those are actual testable skills that mean so much to every district in the common core. I have to admit, this is kind of a stark reality check. I’m interested in helping my students in all areas of their education, and life for that matter, but my content is my passion! Without standards I think I just became a glorified reading/writing teacher, or at least that is my fear. I’m not trying to sound negative, but I started to wonder about this in 406, and it’s actually become this dark thought in my head that I can’t escape. Is anyone else struggling with this idea?
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that you've reached such a pessimistic conclusion about this, because I've also reached a similar conclusion- that our jobs will be as much about literacy as they will be about content- and I find myself embracing it. I love social studies; it has been my passion since I was a student, and I love learning about it. I find the subject and the topics incorporated underneath it absolutely fascinating, and I think competency in the subject is essential for students to become tolerant, literate, and informed participants in a democratic society. But should students have to be able to name the specifics? I think our personal experiences tell us no, they don't; most people aren't experts in our subjects, and yet most people continue to live satisfactory lives within our society. What do people need to take away from our course then? I argue the central themes and ideas- they might not need to know every amendment, but people should know that they can change the constitution, or why the Bill of Rights is so important. How do we best transfer this knowledge, or give students the tools to find these themes within contemporary issues or the problems they will inherit in the future? Reading. Writing. These essential tools will serve them more than knowing who Thomas Jefferson's vice president was. Is content unimportant then? Absolutely not, as we need it to set the background for the transfer of these vital ideas and themes. However, at least for me personally, the details and nuances of the content is a means to an end rather than the focal point of my class. Reading and writing are the essential tools these kids will need to grasp the ideas I want them to have so that they can succeed in life and be better people, so I am happy to help with my students' literacy.
DeleteMatt, I also have had that dark thought in the back of my head, but as the semester has gone on, it really isn't as scary for me anymore. I used to dread thinking about teaching 'literacy' in my classroom, and I will even say that before this semester began I was even naive enough to think that this was the ELA teachers' job (I would like to clearly state now that I do not think this anymore!). I think that teaching the content is still of top priority, but now I think I see the class as more of a well-sounded picture. I like that Chris explains he thinks students should take away the central themes and ideas from a certain content, which we can only hope for. I think by focusing on those, and explaining to our students why they need to know those, it will provide more direct focus for the student and teacher. We are molding students to become members of society, one that relies on reading and writing. So I think we need to promote a classroom in which they feel as though they can become successful. But like Dr. Horwitz said, everything we do must have a purpose. So if writing that essay gives meaning or explains the ideologies of MLK and Malcolm X, then great. But if we are just assigning reading and writing topics to help teach them this and get them ready for a test, then I think thats where we go wrong. I think the biggest struggle many people have when trying to incorporate so much writing and reading into their content is (and I could be wrong) finding a balance; one where there is instruction on the skills necessary on how to be a life-long reader and learner, and that of the content and why it is important and why it matters today. I think in time, we will all learn how to balance these and we will see that content and literacy go hand in hand.
DeleteI've thought about this too, and it is scary. Teaching how to read and write is much harder than teaching content, but I feel that we need to teach them in equal parts. As we go along in our units and lessons, we do have to teach reading and writing, but I think the key to doing so is teaching these skills through our content. Continuing the example of MLK and Malcolm X, let's say we have an assignment where students have to write an essay, and we can teach them good writing and researching skills but the topic they're focusing on is MLK and Malcolm X, so through this essay, they learn the skills and the content. In this way, I think that students become mini-historians because they begin to do the things real historians do.
DeleteThroughout the book, the authors talk about teaching students how to read and that this is a job shared by all teachers, and not just the ELA teacher. I found chapter 11 especially helpful because it brings everything together and illustrates how we can help those students who are poor readers how to become better. A part that stuck out to me was the self-monitoring part, because it was something I struggled with. I remember reading a piece of the Communist Manifesto in 10th grade, and we were supposed to write down all the words and look them up, and then the next class we had a vocab quiz on a lot of those words. I, however, did not write down a lot of those words because I skipped over them and didn’t realize that I didn’t know them because I became used to reading like that. It was after that assignment that I realized that I was missing a lot when I was reading. If I was taught how to read, this may not have become a problem for me.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that stuck out to me in chapter 11 was the steps we can use to change students’ outlooks on reading. For the most part, poor readers don’t like reading, and who would? Most people don’t like doing the things they are not good at. However, if we can change how students feel about reading by telling them that we believe in them or just by listening to them and telling them that it’s okay to fail as long as you don’t give up, then we can build their confidence and build this skill that they’ll need for the rest of their lives as well as engage them in our classrooms so that they view school and learning as an enjoyable experience instead of a stressful one.
It's the reason why gyms are filled with people who are already in shape- people like doing stuff they know they are good at, and reading is no exception. We want all our students to feel as confident about reading as that one guy at the gym in a spaghetti strap shirt, army boots, MMA snapback, and a gallon of water feels about slamming weights to the floor. Something as simple as receiving positive feedback on a consistent basis is sometimes all a student needs to feel like they CAN do it, and that's half the battle right there. The instructional strategies are what come next, and I agree with you when you say they aren't articulated well enough in classrooms. I hope this is something I avoid in my own classes.
Delete
ReplyDeleteEvery student comes to class with a backpack full of stuff that we as the teacher have to unpack to get to know our students. We have to first understand the reading process in which they know and actively participate in. Then we need to find a way to teach the method we want them to use in class, which is different from their other six classes most likely. As a teacher, we need to be mindful of that, and I think that’s why it is important to teach a variety of methods. I like that the text gave a variety of examples for active reading and note taking. I think the biggest thing we can do is model for our students what we do. I personally know that this will be extremely hard, as we tend to just do these things automatically now. But if we can model how we read, it may give one student or many students an example of reading that may work for them. We all know there will be many different types of learners in our classrooms. I think if we show them various ways and allow them to experiment and find what works best for them, we will see a greater amount of comprehension from our students. On page 279, it says “…to help students understand and learn from the tasks we assign them, we must work with their reading process.” Reading is a process, and it can be done in so many ways. I think we need to be open and share as many ways as we can. We need to give opportunities for our students to become independent learners and this is one of the best ways, with a skill they can use for the rest of their reading lives.
Just like we need to provide and find different reading and note-taking methods, I think it is also important to provide different levels of material. There is no purpose behind assigning a reading assignment that half the class can’t read and comprehend. Why would I assign something that will frustrate and hurt my students, when I keep preaching about a safe, judgment free environment? I want my students to be and feel successful and I don’t think assigning them something that doesn’t encourage that is worth it. Wouldn’t it be better to just assign a lower level reading, and have everyone understand and be able to engage with the material? I personally think it is. Allowing all students to be able to read the material could produce a greater class discussion, participation, engagement or even curiosity about the content. Not only that, but it will allow students to feel more comfortable with their abilities and the class as a whole, while promoting success in the class and in the future.
Actions speak louder than words. You're right, we can talk about having a safe, judgement free environment, but we have to actually do it. We have to do things like assigning an easier reading so that our students can understand it. We want to teach everyone, not just the student who gets it on the first try. Therefore, we have to remember these things about differentiating the reading levels and sharing our processes of reading and note-taking, so that we can do them in the classroom and help all of our students to the best of our ability.
Delete