week 11

New Literacy Notes
*I am assigning a biome and having students search for pictures on the internet and create a comic strip using comic life*
1. What am I learning about my new literacy?
a. Visual Literacy includes diagrams, maps, tables, time lines and story boards. In my case, visual literacy will also include a comic strip.
b. In regards to traditional literacy, visual literacy is closely related. If one is not able to comprehend it would be difficult to understand what a time line would mean. Also, most time lines, tables, maps etc are labeled and not knowing how to read text would make understanding visual literacy merely impossible.
c. Visual literacy, like the traditional literacy is very diverse. Visual literacy expands beyond pictures and diagrams. I would not think of a time line to be part of visual literacy but I have learned this is actually very common. Also, there are the broad names (diagram, map, story board) but then there are TONS of different types of diagrams or maps expanding the use of visual literacy even more.
d. Visual literacy can be used across all subjects, but it is necessary to be clear and concise. Also, label whenever appropriate. For example, a map is pointless without a legend and a graph is irrelevant without the labeling of the x and y axis.
e. I am surprised how broad visual literacy is. Like traditional literacy, there are many different definitions and beliefs of what visual literacy entails.
f. In my placement, my students mostly have visual literacy. Although many of them cannot read, they make graphs with pictures, color in charts for the weather which are both uses of visual literacy. I think in the kindergarten level, visual literacy is crucial.
2. What am I learning about my new technology?
a. I find myself reading the tutorials a lot to familiarize myself with comic life. It is a complex program, but very useful once I become fluent.
b. It is hard to remember what all the buttons mean and how to format pictures. This will become easier as I practice more.
c. Comic Life is not like a lot of other technologies I have worked with. I do not know how to crop pictures and reformat. However, much like using a website, Comic Life requires navigation. I have found myself “lost” and not knowing how to get back to the area I was working in.
d. One thing I have noticed is that Comic Life is pretty common sense developed. Whenever I wonder where something is or how to do something, I usually only have to try a few times. I do not know if this is because I have some sort of technological fluency or if it is due to the simplicity of how the program was developed.
e. Students in my placement would not use Comic Life. I could do my initial idea with the use of magazines and have the students make a collage that is relevant to their specific topic.

Week 10

Vocabulary can be taught in book club in many different ways. Tompkins talked about how vocabulary during book club is more meaningful than simply learning words on their own. This is because when you learn new words, but can associate them with meaning and text, the words are more likely to become part of your vocabulary rather than a memorized word for a quiz or test. This is a great idea. I hated learning new vocab words because I looked at it as "busy work". However, learning new words with relation to a book I am reading, or a subject I am interested in makes a lot more sense. Using this technique, for a vocab lesson on ROTHMC I would have each student in the book club choose a word from the book they are unfamiliar with. From here, the students would have to define their word, find a synanom for their word and come up with a picture or symbol that relates to their word. This would help other students to not only hear the new vocabulary, but make sense of the words through the text as well as see an object or picture that is relevant. All three of these methods will help students to build vocabulary but also make meaningful connections. 

Week 9

This weeks readings were very interesting to me. I am curious about assessments as I still suffer from test anxiety. I am constantly looking for and thinking about other ways to assess students so as not to make them feel anxious. Tompkins had a lot of great ideas. 

Tompkins also talked about the word wall and high frequency words. I see this in my placement everyday. At the kindergarten level, they are constantly working on literacy. They have literacy centers for an hour and a half every day. This is a great way to build fluency. There are different stations that all work on different things. THis idea of centers can be taken into book club as well. The different centers could just be different activities of the week. For example, there is a center that works on ending sound matching. THere are pictures and the students have to draw a line to match the pictures up that end with the same sound. This could be done to work on fluency at the kindergarten level in book club. 

I work with a small group of students on tuesdays on high frequency words. These words are words that are in everyday language a lot but are hard to sound out phonetically. It is great to see these students learn these words because it is increasing their fluency and reading abilities. 

For my mini lesson, in regards to Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, I would have the students design a cereal box. THis would be more of an ending assessment. THey would have to create their own vision of the story on the front of the box. On the back of the box I want a self written synopsis and what the reader ranked this book as far as stars and why. On one side panel, will be a self written description of the main characters. On the other side panel would be a word search with definitions. 

Week 11: Teaching Reading Skills & Strategies with the basal

I thought that the readings on the basal reading program this week were very interesting and I can see them becoming very useful to me as a beginning teacher within the next couple years. The basal reading program is effective because it gives teachers a strict outline for what needs to be covered in classroom instruction in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing development. On the other hand, it doesn't leave very much room for creativity on the part of a teacher because it does stress so many specific things to be done in one school year. In my opinion I think it is going to be very useful to be just to use as a guideline to follow especially throughout my first few years of teaching, but as I gain more hands-on experience I will try to become more creative and open to risk-taking in my teaching.
Balanced literacy instruction is another topic that is very important in the classroom. For my New Literacies Project I have chosen to focus on cultural literacy because I think that is something that many students need to understand. The United States is becoming more and more diverse and so are its schools, so I think that it would be very beneficial if not a requirement to make sure that students are aware of other cultures and other people's traditions because they are going to come in contact with students that are very different than them. Here is my write-up for my progress in the New Literacies Project thus far:
I have learned many things so far while doing my New Literacy Project. For my project, I have chosen to teach about cultural literacy through a website and also while incorporating a digital story. The reason I chose to do this topic is because I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to many countries around the world over the past five years and each time I travel my eyes are opened to the vast differences among cultures that are present. In each experience I have had to learn about all aspects of each culture and work diligently to try to form my style of living to that culture as well. Even though I feel that each person should not alter his or her own culture toward someone else’s and rather sustains their own unique culture, I do think that it Is crucial to be knowledgeable about the differences that exist and appreciate them. This is something that I have realized through research is not typically a focus in elementary classrooms.
One of the main things that I have learned about thus far in my research and website creation is about E.D. Hirsch, who is the main creator and supporter of cultural literacy teaching in classrooms. I have researched his findings a great deal and realize that he has many valid points about students’ learning. I have decided to include some of his research on my website. Something else that I have learned is that everyone has a very different opinion of what cultural literacy is. Some people think that it is just understanding what another cultural says and does in certain instances, while others believe that it is much deeper than that and includes actually practicing those differences to truly appreciate.
Over the past few weeks I have been researching this concept and also working with various website creation sites to try to determine which would be the best for me to use in order to best represent my learning about this new literacy. The website creator I think I am going to use is Weebly because I have already once started creating a website using Google Sites and I think that Weebly has a much sharper appearance. Through my learning of the navigation of Weebly, though, I have had many difficulties because it is much more difficult to do simple tasks on than Google Sites. I am hoping that I will be able to continue learning how to effectively use Weebly so that my project looks how I want it to. In addition to this, I will continue to research cultural literacy and different activities that can be used to reinforce its importance and exploration in the classroom.

Week 8

Book Club is a way for students to talk about a book and gain deeper understanding. We are using book club in TE 402 to talk about the plot in depth along with share ideas about characters and their feelings and characteristics. Book club can be done in a variety of ways, but I think the main part needs to be that the students read PRIOR to coming to class. Comprehension can be taught through book clubs using a variety of ways. In our class we had three pages of ideas to choose from. Some of the ideas that I think can teach comprehension very well is doing a character analysis, relating the story to something that reminds you of your own life and predicting what will happen next. These three activities encourage students to not only think about what happened in the story but also think about the "WHYS" which always encourages comprehension. 

Knowing how the text is structurised is important. It helps to know how to read the text. People read a text book differently than they read a graphic novel and knowing what type of text you are reading before beginning to read is helpful in comprehension. 

Helping English Language Learners develop reading comprehension can be difficult. One thing the Gibbons article really pointed out was breaking down the story at various points in the reading. I think this is where the graphic organizer can be beneficial. Organizing the story on paper and in your own words can help the student to understand what is happening. Also making a sketch of the characters and their personality traits would be helpful while reading. An ELL could have this sheet out as a reference and if there is any confusion they could look at the sheet and keep them on track with the characters. 

Call of Thunder

After doing some research online, I found a list of words from Call of Thunder that children might not know. I thought it would be fun for the children to create crossword puzzles. I would like to divide the words up into groups that relate to the chapters they are found in, and then give each group to a group of students. I would have each group work togethor to create a crossword puzzle. I would then make copies of the crossword puzzle for the whole class, and have the class complete them. I would have the children complete the puzzle that corresponds to the chapter as we read each chapter. In this way, children would get practice with one group of words at they created the puzzle, and then another as they completed the puzzles generated by their classmates. Also, children would first be exposted to the words when they made the puzzles, so they would be familiar when the encountered them in the text. We could point out the words as we encounter them in the text, and then discuss how the definition applies to how the therm is used in the text. Finally, the children would get practice with the words again when they complete the puzzle. This way the children are working with the words, and then identifying them in the text, and then working with them again. They will feel important and valued when other students complete the puzzles that they made.

See response for word list.

Week 10 (March 23)

I really liked how this chapter outlined the goals for vocabulary instruction. In always viewed vocabulary lessons as looking up words, and then writing them in sentences. However this chapter pointed hot how children really learn vocabulary in a meaningful way. I was excited to read about how connecting words to background knowledge. It made snese to me that learning words in isolation is not effective, but I feel that that is alot of how I was taught. It makes sense from what I am learning in my other classes that connecting words to what children already know will help them learn and remember more words. I couldn't beleive that children need to read, write, or say a word 8 to 10 tiems before they recognize it. This really impacted me. I now realize that vocabulary must really be incorporated into my classroom and what we are working on. Simply showing them a list or haveing them define a word once will not help. It is just a waste of time for everyone. I also liked that the book emphasized higher level word knowledge. Again, it means that students must work with words and own them, instead of simply memorizing them. I never thought about how learning bocabulary would also help the children learn stratagies that would help them learn words on their own later in life. This is really valuable because it helps them to become competent members of society. Finally, by involving the students in word activities, it again enforces that children really need to work with words and not just memorize them. I loved that this chapter enforced in many ways the importance of working with words, an offered suggestions as to how a teacher can successfully teach vocabulary.