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.