Literacy Moves On Chap 6-10

Toys are always targeting the youth market. We know students are interested in such things so why not bring them into the classroom for literacy purposes. I think the invitation we did with McDonald's toys would be a good idea to use in our future classrooms as well. Rereading and rewriting the students' local neighborhood was an interesting chapter. I love all the ideas this book gives for future invitations. I especially liked the making of the alphabet using different things in the neighborhood. This was also the first time I have ever heard about a curiosity kit. I don't really get why they were directed owards just getting boys and males at home to read and not girls and females at home since anyone could be interested in nonfiction books. Additionally, bringing in fantasy whether by reading material or having writing of their own, the students get to use their imagination. Overall, text is not just written word anymore. Teachers need to turn to other options, such as reading a local neighborhood and toys and video games, etc. to be able to really get to the full potential of the students.

Literacy Moves Chapter 1-5

I like the idea of using multimodal texts. I think using a combination of writing, images, and possibly sound can make the meaning more rich for students, or just hold their attention better. Allowing the students to respond to readings using their own multimodal ways of doing so is also great. I thought about the "sketch-to-stretch" concept that seems to be introduced in most of these reading/writing courses. Additionally, the chapter about moving stories was interesting. The concept it great. However, as future teachers we are constantly taught ways to incorporate technology in the classroom and encouraged to do so. The reality is that there are lots of schools that just do not have such means of doing stuff like this. I think it is possible to have the students create "frames" or a movie type thing through paper and drawing tools just as easily. Finally, the idea of incorporating types of literacy that are used everyday, such as signs, billboard sayings, newspapers, etc. seems like a good one. My question though is what are some ways to work with these "everyday texts" to help promote literacy and/or meet curriculum or state standards?

MGRP

1.Newsletter from teacher-to-parents:
I created a newsletter to inform parents and guardians about how and why I construct read-alouds in our classroom. It was supposed to be Issue 3, as in the 3rd week of school. The secondary headline of the newsletter was inviting parents and guardians to become involved by signing up to come in and read-aloud to the class. Therefore, I also created a sign-up sheet asking for names and availability.

I felt this genre was important because it connected the research I found about read-alouds to being able to share it with parents and guardians.

2.Award to author:
I designed an award to present to two authors of an article I used as a resource. The concept of the idea “Text Talk” by these authors was used in my research paper.

I personally liked their idea and therefore decided making an award to them would be appropriate. Having it displayed for presentation brought up questions by other classmates and allowed me to explain the idea to others.

3.Letter from parent to teacher with a response back from teacher:
The parents of a student in my class wrote to me asking me to inform them more on the “Text Talk” concept since I only mentioned it briefly in the newsletter. I responded back with research found. Therefore, this genre is also connected to the above two genres.

Since parents do play a big role in the classroom, I wanted to create something that demonstrated positive communication between the parents and teacher.

4.Poetry:
I created a poem using R-E-A-D-A-L-O-U-D as first words of every thought. I made “read-aloud” seem like an actual person and listed roles it takes on.

I chose to do this, because I wanted to move away from the “Text Talk” theme and be creative in a different way.

5.Bumper sticker:
I designed a bumper sticker It had different things like “buy expensive learning toys, play Mozart to your babies, and limit television” all with a symbol indicating “NO, DO NOT DO THESE” next to each one. The statement “Read to your children!” was in bold underneath them.

I wanted to do this to sum up my overall point I wanted my paper to make, which is reading to your children is what is most important for reading and writing development.

FINAL RESPONSE/THOUGHTS:
I dreaded writing a research paper since I have not done so since high school. However, I chose a topic that I had interest in, which made it easier. I found a lot of interesting articles with valuable information to take into account later as a teacher of y own classroom someday. A multigenre research project was a concept I had never heard of before. I actually enjoyed creating the different genres I chose. I think if I teach 4th or 5th grade, this is something I would love to incorporate into the curriculum.

MGRP Chap 5 & 7; Seedfolks chapter; Van Sluys chapter

MGRP Chapter 5 & 7:
A single character or multiple characters are good topics for students to write about, especially a quick write. Students can work on "showing" not just telling a physical description of characters or can learn to write from different perspectives. I think students will learn to enjoy writing more if it is emphasized that he or she can add his or her own personal touch to it. Being able to express individuality in pieces of writing allows students to feel more proud ownership of it. Should writing assignments be more open for students to add personality or should they be given exactly what needs to be included in their writing assignment? (such as a topic sentence with 3 supporting sentences after it)

Seedfolks Chapter (Virgil):
Virgil just finished the 5th grade, but would have to do hard work in the summer as well. He was helping his father build a garden of lettuce to hopefully make money. Virgil hated doing it and was upset that bad things kept occurring, such as bugs eating the lettuce and eventually watching the lettuce die. He is somewhat mature because even though he was mad at his father for having them plant the lettuce in the summer time instead of in spring of fall, Virgil also felt sorry for his father. He found a locket when they were tilling the land for the garden and the one quote in the chapter comes at the end when Virgil opens up the locket and whispers, "Save our lettuce," to the girl inside it. Did I miss any important quotes by Virgil throughout the rest of the book?

Van Sluys:
The main thing I took away from this chapter was to always plan correctly when doing invitations so that time is not an issue. It is possible that students will dig deeper in the invitation and get more out of it through further exploration or discussion and the teacher should not cut them off.

Van Sluys invitations article

I do not see any major difference between an invitation and center. If you are providing a specific thing for students to have to do..it seems just like a center to me. Maybe they are just more open ended instead of having a specific product that is supposed to be created? The book that this article came from has tons of invitation ideas, so it is a good resource for our own classrooms someday if needing ideas sometime.

MGRP Chap 4

I have had positive and negative experiences with poetry in the classroom as a student. In 4th grade, we did a huge poetry. We did so many different types of poems and the teacher had them made into a little book. We had our parents come in for an open house type deal to read them all. I can remember everyone being exciting for poetry writing time. I cannot remember exactly HOW he had went about making us so enthused about it, but he definitely did something right. Then in high school A.P. English, the teacher had us analyze poetry allllll the time by just putting a poem on the overhead and going line by line to what we thought it meant. It got extremely old and uninteresting.

I do plan on using poetry as part of my own MGRP, although am unsure exactly what type of poem I want to use yet. This chapter gave some great ideas.

MGRP Chap. 1-3, 6

Well...I know I definitely did not have the most positive attitude towards doing this research paper. I believe it is mostly due to negative experiences with research papers throughout the school years, with tons of note cards and taking so much time and such. Even writing this paper, I still did not grasp what the heck a multigenre research actually meant. I obviously should have began reading this book before starting...but that's ok. Seeing an example of a completed paper really helped me understand. I didn't enjoy the research aspect-maybe I should have thought longer about a topic I was more passionate to find information about. However, I do look forward to the different genres part of the paper. It allows a lot more freedom and isn't "traditional" research paper work I feel like.

Additionally, I liked that chapter 2 had a week by week schedule idea of how to go about such a project with a classroom. I think students would never feel overwhelmed with how it is set up.

Are multigenre research papers appropriate at any grade level?

Crafting Writer's Chapter 10-12; Dilemmas & Discourses

The information provided in the text in regards to how to set up, run, and successfully complete a conference is great. I am not quite sure I understand the "teaching a next step" part though. It seemed like the "teaching a strength" and "teaching a next step" were the same thing in some of the tables. Actually, the the example where it writes out the teacher's voice and the student's voice helps make it more clear. Are documented conferences required as a teacher? or just encouraged for the benefit of the student?

My biggest concern is not being able to have enough time to do individual conferences all the time, so I liked reading about the concept of group conferring. It seems like this would be similar to doing a mini lesson with the whole class.

The two ideas I loved from Hale is having students decorate their notebooks as well as having a special spot students can go to during writing time. I just think students can associate writing as a positive experience by doing little things like this.

As far as assessment goes, are rubrics included sometimes in textbooks being used or does the teacher make-up a rubric for everything?

Crafting Writer's Chap 7-9, Appendix F

While doing my field experience on Monday, I was giving a 2nd grade student an assessment. It required me to tell the student to "write down as many words as you know," and I was to stop him after it had been 3 minutes. Although he knew words, it was hard for him to just do it on the spot like that without being given some kind of prompt. I eventually had to be like "do you know how to spell any types of animals, colors, etc..." Chapter 7 mentions this same concept with writing. It can't usually just happen on its own if telling a child to write. The child will have to know something about actually writing. I like that the idea of mini lessons were also introduced...that helped answer some questions I had after reading some previous chapters in this book.

Additionally, I liked reading the story about Jonathon in Chapter 8. I know as a future teacher I will make it a point to point out the strengths in the children's writing. I just feel like if teachers at the primary level are constantly wanting to make corrections to the students writings, that the kids will dislike writing and shy away from it more.

I think this book is a great resource to hold on to when I have my own classroom.

Crafting Writers Chap. 4 & 5

Personal experience has shown me that having a love for reading, or reading for enjoyment not just for school, improves writing. My sister is 8 years older than me and has loved reading since she began school. She began to love writing just as much and always said "it came easy to her." She actually went on to become a journalism major in college and writes for a living now, as well as having an entire library room in her house.

Then there is me.

I never read outside of school and still do not now. Writing is still something I 100% dread doing as well.

I do not feel like it necessarily affects how well one does in assessments and grades in school though.

All the specific crafts listed in the reading are great dealing with adding detail and punctuation. My only concern I had when reading it is when and how do you introduce these crafts in class? Is it best to only work with one or two crafts at a time or to let the students see many of them at once?

Coffee Shop Literacy Dig

My part in the observation process was to observe the physical enviornment-draw a map, notice signs, describe the surroundings, and bring back artifacts. The drawing consisted of the lay-out of tables and booths, front dorr and kitchen door locations, register and counter location, and also where menus and food were displayed. Signs consisted of many different menus as well as a "communication" like bulletin board with community news on it. The coffee shop was located right downtown bloomington on the swuare, surrounded by other small shops. It is a place easy for people to walk to when going to class or work.

Interpretation: I think the activity reflects the writing process of students or any learner. We noticed people saying specific things, or could tell what a person was thinking by expression, and noticed things were placed in a specific way.

Make Connections: I think individual writers have his or own style by saying things in a specific way, setting a particular mood by choice of words or lots of description, and put sentences in a particular order as well.I have learned the writing process through schooling and also just by just having expereince writing before, I was able to make some sort of interpretation of the activity.

Crafting Writers Chap. 1-3,6

I haven't taken the time to really think about how to start to teach writing as a future teacher yet...until I started reading this book. Although I know I need to teach specific basic rules, I feel like I do not know where to begin. Chapters 2 and 3 really helped me to understand "specific crafts" and how to go about identifying them in writing.

I have had plenty of teachers at all grade levels be very general with comments left on my graded writing papers. (such as "needs to be more descriptive") I don't think I ever really learned ways to improve the area the teaching was referring to. The point made in the reading about it being essential to make specific suggestions is something I definitely want to take into consideration when I become an educator. Giving examples, or simply teaching, all kinds of specific crafts will help the students better their writing, as well as asking questions to get them to bring out more details of what they are writing about.

Additionally, I think teaching writing seems difficult at this point in my education career. I am probably most nervous about how to handle those students who are below and above the level they are supposed to be.

In chapter 6, the concept of having students make connections by drawing with their writing is discussed, and I feel it is a great idea to bring into the classroom. I can remember doing such a thing, and even creating whole books, in the first grade. It seemed to make me more enthusiastic about writing, and I hope my students will feel the same way. I would have never thought about specific crafts of drawing until I read the chart on page 84, which I think will be incredibly useful to teach these techniques to students. All the strategies can be turned into better writing.

Overall, I look forward to begin to learn more strategies to teach writing to the best of my ability in my own classroom someday. I think Elizabeth Hale's Crafting Writing K-6 will be a great resource to help me start my first few years of teaching.

Online Blogging vs. Paper and Pencil Writing

It is important to appeal to the interest of students in the classroom. In the case with "The Talkback Project" in Shelbi Witte's article "That's online writing not boring school writing," students were not putting their best efforts into their writing when being assigned the typical paper and pencil writing assignments. Interaction with online blogs; however, was the way students felt they could express their writing and actually enjoyed it.

Personally, I prefer to write with pencil and paper. I think this is because that was the only way I wrote growing up through school, so it seems more comfortable. I have never considered myself very good with technology in general so I tend to not have much interest in it. However, I understand that technology has advanced so much and the new generations of students are more likely to see blogging online as more natural to them.

Incorporating both styles is what I would like to do in my own classroom. Hopefully schools continue to work on bringing in technology into their systems. By being able to provide online writing blogs for students, schools will be providing more opportunity for students to develop technological skills. I feel it is important for students to always have traditional writing skills though as well.