mes of the era are also researched. Students read multiple sources, including biogra phies, autobiographies, and letters. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is con sulted to reveal memorable quote
It is important to allow students to read multiple sources.
nd interesting events in his or her life. Other introductory ac tivities include interviewing parents and local actors who portray famous individuals.
This is something that I did in school and it was very useful for me.
only been reading for a few years! Therefore, the initial unit activi ties familiarize students with as many notable persons as possible.
This is great because it gives students background knowledge and help them learn about different important people in history.
The spontaneous, natural discussion ema nates from the students' research of their subjects' leadership qualities and experiences. At the same time, mem bers of the class might study the topic of leadership to supplement this unit
Natural discussion is so important! I also think biographies are great supplements to different units.
. To "become" those persons in the discus sion, the children were encouraged to discover critical information about them, including their achievements, early influences, reactions to issues of their day, and so on.
This is great because it allows students to delve deep into learning about important people in history.
Dear Winston," said the writing scrawl, "You have helped me a lot in facing my goals. Now I can know that I don't hav
This is a perfect example of why I think it is so important to include biographies in the classroom. It helps teach students life lessons and give them encouragement that they can achieve goals like the people they are reading about.
alternate graphic organizer for the traditional story map, which promotes inferential comprehension through the consid-eration of stories via the lenses of opposing characters.
This is great because it combines the two.
ommon instructional tool for story comprehension, the story map, depicts comprehension as a sequence of esca-lating plot events with little attention to characters’ thoughts and feelings
As teachers, we need to focus more on character development rather than just focusing on plot.
However, to gain social understand-ing from fiction, we must consider characters’ internal experiences in addi-tion to plot because “just as in real life, the worlds of literary fiction are replete with complicated individuals whose inner lives are rarely easily discerned but warrant exploration”
Great lessons on character development can come out of this.
literature teaches readers about the social world and how to navigate through difficult emotions and inevitable conflicts.
This is why it is so important! Through literature, we can teach students about the world around them and about things they may not have ever experienced or been exposed to before.
This empathy with Max, which transcended gender, ethnicity, and real-ity, was likely affirming for her self- concept. She also gained understanding about how her teacher experienced a similar situation.
It is important for children to be able to connect to books and see themselves in them. This is exactly what happened with Belinda. As teachers, it is also important to show our students that even we can make connections to literature.
The reader engages with and per-ceives the text based on varying personal backgrounds and reading experiences, which shape the young reader ’ s assessment of text difficulty.
This is one reason why knowing your students well is important.
Difficulty points to the involvement of the reader (the read-er ’ s perceptions of the text, judgments, etc.), while text complexity is better suited to represent the nature of the text (sentence structure, vocabulary, etc.).
Difficulty is much different than complexity.
isual information such as the expressions of the characters and the details in the environment will stimulate readers to go deeper in their interpretation.
This helps children understand the story better and also encourages them to keep reading.
The skills required for engaging with this kind of complexity move students cognitively from simply enjoying and doing their reading work to examining both image and text as integral parts of their literacy.
This allows teachers to assess how children are using images to add to their knowledge of the text or to help them understand it better.
Lastly, a high level of complexity associated with knowledge demands refers to texts on themes that are not part of common experiences—for example, those that are culture- specific or distant in time—or texts that reference or allude to other texts to communicate meaning
These are the types of culturally specific texts that we should be including in our classrooms. Although they may be complex, it allows children to see through another lens and learn more about their classmates and cultures around them.
simple structure is a level of text organization that is predict-able and chronological. Conversely, a text structure that is complex relies on unpredictability and shifts both in chro-nology and point of view. Illustrations that are part of complex structure (see also the notion of interdependent storytelling on p. 8) are “essential to understanding the text and may pro-vide information that is not otherwise
Structure is very important to consider when choosing texts. Different types of structures can be confusing to some children.
The quantitative dimension, which considers text factors such as word length/frequency and sentence length, can be measured by computer algorithms. In contrast, the qualitative aspect of text selection relies on teachers’ professional judgment
Both are important to consider.
We sug-gest that in order for teachers to select complex texts for their students, teachers must first understand the meaning of complexity in language arts texts and be able to distinguish challenging from complex, includ-ing the interplay between text, illustration, and reader engagement in K–3 picture books, ultimately focusing on reader/task connections.
Picking texts for students is so important because if chosen well, they can greatly benefit students. You need to know your students as well as the texts you are choosing.
u might not see much difference between Jordan's first and second poems, but I could al ready see changes in Jordan. Even though he still focused on using repetition and frequent mention of various holidays, he had started to think of him self as a writer. He had also begun to think beyond himself and try out new ideas in his poems. A
Looking at different poems and different poets allows children to be motivated to try new things in their writing and gain confidence to do so.
s audience a backhanded apology while recog nizing the power of using simple words full of im agery. I believe my students' writing illustrates Butler's (2002) contention that "Using the writing of others to teach writing can yield effective and long-lasting benefits that give students confidence to write convincingly on their own
When students read poetry, they may get scared to write their own pieces because they may not know a lot of big words or how to use them like the poets that they read about did. It is important for them to understand that they do not need to use these complex words to get their message across. Even simple words can be full of meaning and imagery.
hat they do not simply explain what a particular text should mean to students
You should not tell students how they should feel or what the poem should mean to them, but rather encourage them to question what it means to themselves and share that.
med poetry can be quite difficult to create, and, often, young stu dents' rhymed poems end up sounding stale or trite.
When children learn that their poetry does not have to rhyme, it allows them to be more creative and express themselves through poetry that they write.
ome teachers even provide their students with fill-in-the-blank poems in which the meter and rhyming couplets are already laid out. All the student has to do is provide particular parts of speech to complete the poem, much in the style of a rebus or Mad Lib. Thi
This is not engaging at all, and it also does not help kids learn poetry. They do not have to think when they do this, but with poetry, students need to be able to think about it at a deeper level and it should be creative.
nstructor asked me to voice my opinion about the meaning of a particular poem. Even
Voicing your opinion in class can be scary to begin with, and when students are asked to voice their opinion on something so complex, often they are nervous that they will say the wrong thing. However, we need to teach students that poetry is subjective and most times, there is no right or wrong answer.
No matter what our personal feelings about po etry are, as teachers we must endeavor to teach po etry to our students.
As teachers, it is our job to make it less scary, and find the good in it. Whether we like it or not, it is important to teach it to our students.
at is it about teaching poetry that teach ers find so threatening? Is
Students find it threatening as well. In my own experience, I hated when we did poetry units in school.
6. Discussing the text.
This is so important because this is where teachers can check for understanding and students can make meaningful connections.
5. Animation and expression
This makes the read-aloud fun and engaging. Students want to listen and participate.
4. Fluent reading modeled.
This is important for developing readers so that they understand what fluent reading looks and sounds like. Teachers model this for them so that it will give them a better idea of what fluency is.
. Clear purpose established
The text will not make sense to kids if there is no purpose behind it. Begin the lesson with the purpose so that they understand the importance of the text and see its significance.
. Previewed and practiced
Teachers need to be prepared otherwise it will be confusing and ineffective for the students. If you show confusion, then they will too.
. Text selecti
This is so important because you should be selecting books that are based on what your children are interested in and their needs. Without this, students will be lost.
Specifically, they found that choice was a motivating factor for reading and that the choices children made were often related to the teacher read-aloud
They should be motivating students to read, and if they are not doing this i your classroom, then it is important to change what you are doing and how you are doing it.
(Morrow, 2003) while developing their vocabular ies, experiential backgrounds, and concepts of print and story. Through a read-aloud, teachers can mod el reading strategies and demonstrate the ways in which the language of the book is different from spoken language (Hedrick & Pearish, 20
Teachers are able to demonstrate so much and teach students so much through read-alouds.
hile most educators agree that teachers should read aloud to their students on a regular ba sis, the specifics of how to conduct the read-aloud are less clea
I feel like this varies from teacher to teacher, and you really need to try to meet the needs of your students. Focus them around what your students are interested in.
e single most important activity for building knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children"
They help them gain knowledge in a fun and engaging way.
en Artley (1975) asked teachers what they remembered most from their elementary school ex periences, they consistently reported that teacher read-alouds were among their favorite memorie
Read-alouds should be fun and children should see them as a positive thing.
o motivate their students to read and to build their topical knowledge about a specific subje
These should be focused so that children are learning something, but also motivate them to read. They should be engaging and fun.
hildren who make such responses seem to view stories as invitations to participate or perform.
It is not seen as a chore, but rather a reward and something fun.
. Taking over. The last type of expressive engagement is taking over the text and manipu lating it for one's own purposes. In this type of response, anything goes because children aban don any attempt at interpretation or understand ing and treat the story as a launching pad for the expression of their own creativity. T
This allows the children to be creative and make the story theirs. It helps them interpret the story in a way that makes sense and is meaningful to them.
he children assume the role of story characters, or shove their classmates into the story in some way. F
This helps them understand the characters and the story better. By putting themselves in that position, they begin to think like that character.
r) has created with words and visual images. 3. Critiquing/controlling. In this third cate gory of expressive engagement, children suggest alternatives in plots, characters, or settings
This shows how deeply students are thinking about the text.
he first type of expressive engagement is dramatizing the story spontaneously?in nonverbal and verbal ways
This makes reading so much fun and super engaging. It encourages children to participate and engage with the text.
iterary response may also include art, music, writing, sociodramatic play, and planned drama (
It is important to understand that this does not need to be oral, but instead can include engaging, meaningful activities.
Immediately after the teacher reads this, Charles starts to sing the theme song of the U.S. televi sion program Cops: "Bad boys, Bad boys, what ya gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys!
It is important for students to make these connections with text.
use the assessment portfolios to evaluate the children's progress and to share with parents. The weekly writing samples give tangible, and often dra matic, evidence of what the children can actually do. They also document each child's growing control of writing mechanics and craft over time.
This is a great way to show growth and improvement for students, and it also can help you as a teacher fix or build upon strategies that seemed like they did or did not work.
ll children are expected to write during this time, but I also al low quiet on-task talk between class members as needed. This helps to de velop the notion that the class is a com munity of writers.
Conversing with each other during this time is crucial to literacy development in a variety of ways. It helps them build relationships with their classmates, feel comfortable sharing their writing and thoughts with each other, and it also exposes them to different ideas and viewpoints that they may not have thought of before.
I add these new ideas to the class topics chart, which displays a cu mulative record of possible writing top ics.
This is important and super helpful for students. Not only does it encompass a range of topics that the class is interested in, but it also gives struggling students ideas of what to write about. Coming up with a topic is difficult for many kids, so this helps alleviate some of the stress that they may encounter.
ps children elaborate in their writing. When to teach a given minilesson de pends upon what I observe the children doing as they write. If I believe several children could profit from a given mini lesson, it is time to teach it to the class. I repeat the content of most minilessons several times throughout the year, so if a child does not pick up on what is taught initially, there will be other op portunities to learn.
This is GREAT. Teaching should be tailored to each student and their needs. Every child is different and learns differently. If you are teaching something that will not benefit your students, it is pointless. Observing children is important here in order to understand exactly how they are learning and what strategies will work best.
he third category of minilessons, writer's craft, deals with aspects that contribute to the effectiveness of a piece of writing.
Students need to understand that they are writing for a purpose and that it needs to include certain elements in order for their message/writing to be effective.
I encourage children to practice their phonemic segmentation skills as they pronounce words slowly to hear the phonemes in the words and to associate them
It is important to learn and reinforce these skills so that kids can use it in context and see the importance of it.
e journal writing workshop described was suc cessfully implemented in a first-grade classroom, in which the children be came an enthusiastic and effective community of writers
This is great and very important because your classroom should be a place where children can share their thoughts without fear of being bullied. They should be able to freely share their opinions and talent.
is recom mended by many authorities in the field that children avoid simply summarizing their daily readings, but rather react to what they have read (Parsons, 1990).
Reacting to what they have read rather than just summarizing is an important and crucial skill to learn. If children are not understanding what they are reading at a level where they can give opinions and state their thoughts about it, then they need to go back and relearn (or teachers need to reteach) this again. This is why conversation in the classroom is crucial because it lets students hear other opinions and viewpoints that they would not have thought of otherwise.
hese activities are intended to assist students in drawing upon past experiences or schemata before reading in order to enhance comprehension. Hav
It is important for students to make these connections because it helps them comprehend the text and understand it better/on a deeper level.
econd, with basal programs children are al most always placed into ability groups for reading instruction, a practice which can be detrimental to self-esteem and reading devel opment. Mini-lessons offer a wonderful way out of this dilemma
I hate the use of these ability groups. Children are smart, and it does not take long for them to figure out who the "smart" kids are, and if they are not in that group, it negatively affects how they learn and perform in the classroom. I think mini lessons are a good remedy for this because kids do not need to be placed in these discriminatory groups.
he initial block of sharing time in the RW is a time when teachers can share new discoveries they have made in literature
This encourages students to make discoveries themselves. By seeing their teacher do this, they realize that they can do this when they are reading too. It opens them up to a possibility that they may not have thought about before.
The five main components of the RW structure are: (1) Sharing time, (2) the Mini lesson, (3) State-of-the-class, (4) Self-selected reading and response, and (5) Sharing time.
Again, this is important because it makes it engaging and fun for students. They have multiple ways to express their thoughts about reading and practice/develop different skills in different components.
cond, the classroom environment and daily routine must encourage reading as a pri mary activity integrated with other language modes, i.e., writing, speaking, and listenin
This makes it diverse and engaging for students. They do not just sit there and do the same thing every time they read, but it is different, and they can engage with text in so many different and fun ways that they may not have been able to before.
st, students should have own ership of their time (Atwell, 1987). This im plies that students be given opportunities to make choices about how they will spend their reading time. B
By giving children a choice, you are allowing them to engage in text that is meaningful to them. By giving them this opportunity, they can truly appreciate reading instead of seeing it as a chore. It becomes fun for them rather than something their teacher is forcing them to do. This leads to more success and more literate children.
hildren spend up to 70% of allocated reading instructional time engaged in completing worksheets and workbook pages (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkin son,
Children should spend more time engaging in text than this much time on worksheets. These do not help kids learn, and it also does not get them excited for reading either.
n the Becoming a Nation of Readers report, various research studies in dicated that children in typical primary grade classrooms read independently only 7 to 8 minutes per day;
I think it is crazy that children spend so little time reading independently. As teachers, it is important for us to incorporate a block of time for students to read. We cannot assume that they are reading at home.
1) a lack of time spent reading, and 2) the use of worksheets
Kids need to be reading in order to learn. Worksheets are busy work and do not help children become literate. They benefit more from doing meaningful activities and actively engaging in text.
. Literature on theme studies and inquiry cycles Language Arts, Vol. 82 No. 5, March 2005 (Fisher, 1998; Gamberg, Kwak, Hutchings, 8t Altheim, 1988; Short 8t Burke, 1991) helped me transform my curriculum from themes about teddy bears and applesauce to in- quiry cycles where the children asked questions pertinent to their worlds. Questions surfaced about the house that was being demol- ished and rebuilt across from the school. When spring came, it rained and rained and eventually caused major flooding. Nature gave us in- credible reasons to investigate our world
Connecting lessons and concepts to concrete things that children are familiar with helps them understand it better. It goes from feeling foreign to feeling understandable and important.
On the following day during writing workshop, I pull my chair up along- side Aaron, and we decide to write a story together about our experience. When we share our story with the rest of the class, many more chil- dren are prompted to share stories from their worlds- stories of Sandra's next-door neighbor who raises 200 birds and of Manuel's grandma who had a runaway tamale!
Students sharing their stories in the classroom is so important. It helps build a sense of community of learners who care about one another on a deeper level than just being classmates. They can understand what their life outside of school is like, and it expands their view of the world. It not only helps them get to know their classmates better, but it helps them learn about certain things that they may not even know were happening or existed. Not only this, but it provides students with an environment in which they feel safe and comfortable to share these stories about their life with everyone.
"He is doomed to failure."
This, as well as the others before it, is a phrase that should never be said about a student. No student is ever doomed to failure. Even if their home life is not perfect, they can still excel. If teachers have this mindset, then of course their students will not do well. They need to provide an environment for students where phrases like this do not exist. Aaron was demonstrating great literacy skills that his teacher did not even realize he had, so it is not fair to say that this home environment he was in makes him doomed to failure.
Aaron comes over and whispers to me that it is a good thing that I am teaching him to read because they need him to read a lot here at the bar.
Although she saw him as a struggling reader, in his environment, he is great at it. This is because he is able to apply it to things he knows. He is using reading in a way that he believes is useful and helpful, so it comes easily for him there. As teachers, we need to implement this in our classroom. We need to integrate their home life and community in our classroom.
hat every child who comes through the classroom door becomes our tea
This is so important! Teachers should learn from their students just as much as they learn from us. This is important for students to understand as well. Learning is a two way relationship.
Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently
use multiple sources to find evidence find insightful evidence that supports your opinion locate an answer to a question in a timely manner solve problems effectively
nterpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears
interpret information from various platforms explain how info helps you understand text
Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).
when, where, why, how- what they mean and how to find them
key events
Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur)
use information/evidence examine and interpret illustrations use evidence from text demonstrate understanding of text
Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
use information/evidence from illustrations and words read print and digital text demonstrate understanding of literary elements
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
definitions of character, setting, and event differentiation between story elements
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events
use illustrations use details in a story describe characters describe setting describe events
With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts)
describe relationships between illustrations and stories
Through dialogue, open-ended questions, and consensus building, youth from all backgrounds are invited to exercise theirrights as engaged citizens to help create community responses to inequality.
A classroom truly is a democracy, and the voices of all students are important. Through engaging in dialogue and open-ended questions, students are able to express their opinions and create a safe community that makes everyone feel comfortable. They can combat these hard conversations about inequality.
In our examination of culturally relevant practices in writing classrooms, Latrise and I foundthat many classroom teachers were familiar with culturally relevant pedagogy and could evendefine it, yet struggled how to operationalize their definitions.
I feel as though this is something that teachers still struggle with today. They have a hard time demonstrating this culturally relevant pedagogy and teaching it to students in a way that they could relate to or understand.
Poppa Joe’s “Power Writers,” or student poets in his Power Writing class, were culturally, lin-guistically, and socially diverse, representing the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Columbia,Belize, and the United States. These student poets used the Power Writing circle to build com-munity while reading original compositions aloud in an open mic format, much like the venuesI observed in Northern California, and engaging in giving and receiving feedback
There was a diversity among his students, just like classrooms today are. I liked that they all still had a sense of community and came together as this community to give each other feedback. This is so important to have in classrooms because it gives students confidence to share opinions and share their writing and thoughts.
I could use this knowledge to reimagine the literacy classroom as an engaging and compellingspace for all students. Through community nominations, I learned about the work with two class-room teachers, Poppa Joe and Mama C, who invited secondary school students to use poetry asa tool to tell their stories, define themselves, and explore their histories, as well as their presentselves
When teaching and thinking about literacy, it is important to remember that it should be engaging. Honestly, I believe this is how students learn best: through engagement. I think it is very interesting that one way Winn believed this could happen was through poetry.
s literacy orliterary-centered events outside of school and work communities that combined oral, aural, andwritten traditions through an exchange of words, sounds, and movements that privileged a Blackaesthetic
I find it very interesting that literacy can be defined/practiced through an exchange of sounds and movements. It is interesting to think of it outside just words.
However young people’s livesare not static, nor do their lives have to be predetermined by poverty and miseducation.
All children are equal and should all receive an equal education. Their potential in school should not be predetermined based on where they come from. It should not define them.
youth prepare for a “performance of possibilities”(Madison,2005) as they share their writing publicly; that is, they use classroom forums, micro-phones, and stages as a way to (re)present themselves to the world. Although the “official world”of writing for the youth I have gotten to know through my work has been the world of publicschools and classrooms, they along with conscientious teachers have forged a collective “thirdspace” to present their literate selves and cultivate their literate identities.
Children have many different ways in which they can share their writing and represent themselves through it. As teachers, it is important to help them do this and model it.