To help get the conversation about literacy started, please also read one of the following articles:
-Gabriel & Wenz
After reading, please write your response in a comment below.
- One quote from each text that intrigued you, explain why
- One connection to your teaching
- One question you have about the process of Photovoice, the different ideas about literacy, etc
These will be due for our first class on Aug. 25. Please read your classmates' responses as they will inform our discussion in class.
Hi everybody! Looking forward to seeing you all Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI chose to read the Cullen article this week. Here's the quote I pulled that felt relevant to me: "One troubling aspect raised by Shanahan (2012) about the way science is taught in some schools is when teachers completely avoid the use of science texts because teachers believe that the texts are too difficult for students to understand. As an alternative, teachers may choose to present content using other means, such as orally or by facilitating discussions. A danger to this approach is that students may never become skilled at reading and interpreting science texts if they do not have opportunities to engage in reading about science."
I chose this quote because I am very guilty of this! I am so concerned about the various reading and comprehension abilities of my students that I tend to avoid lengthy readings or readings I find challenging - especially if my special ed support will not be with me on these days. I know reading well is critical across disciplines, but this reading made me wonder if I am doing students a disservice by avoiding these texts in my classroom.
There are many connections to my teaching in this article, but I am certainly familiar with culturally responsive teaching. It is a pillar of my current school and something I try to practice regularly. I just spend the day planning with my team about how we will introduce social justice and social action projects to the students in an authentic way. Definitely trying to be culturally responsive!
I have a lot of questions about best practice for teaching/modeling reading difficult scientific texts in my classroom. I don't know very much about teaching literacy to older students. Is it appropriate to do a whole-group read aloud? Is it beneficial? Excited to explore these topics together.
Meagan
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/learning/our-2018-19-student-contest-calendar.html?emc=edit_ln_20180823&nl=learning-network&nlid=6964541820180823&te=1
ReplyDeleteDon’t know if the above address will link but the first challenge reminded me of photovoice!
I hope everyone had great summer!
ReplyDeleteI chose quotes from both the Wang and Cullen articles that I thought were interesting.
Wang article: "However, one premise of photovoice is that everyone has the right to portray his or her life in a creative way regardless of age or station in life." (Wang, 1999, p. 191)
-While thinking about current students and their interests and how this article could relate to them I thought about social media and how students are already often taking pictures and videos of things that they are seeing and encountering and posting them online for each other to see. Although this article is about women and their health and work realities, it could also be about our students and learning more about their experiences in and out of the classroom.
Cullen article: "Teaching students about various modes of expression in the arts and other disciplines does not mean unnecessarily restricting their response patterns but involves helping them understand what their response patterns mean within each discipline."
-This quote stuck out to me most because it made me think of the dreaded "explain your thinking" that is common in most math classes. Often in math students will solve a problem or answer a question but have limited understanding about what their answer means or why they followed certain steps to reach a final answer. By explaining themselves in writing or just in dialogue with a teacher or peers, students may be able to gain a new perspective or understanding of subject matter.
Beginning a new position with a very diverse population of students becoming a culturally responsive teacher is among my biggest concerns. I am excited to get to know my students and learn more about them and how I can meet their needs. As stated by Cullen: “A primary goal of culturally responsive teaching is to ensure that students from diverse backgrounds have meaningful opportunities to experience quality instruction that consistently incorporates cultural components to support learning.”
A question that I have based off of Cullen’s article is how can I truly get to know my students in a way that will make me able to reach them? I am interested in new ideas about how I can incorporate culture and personalization in my teaching when math is generally a more cut and dry subject.
Also, I watched a video in one of my classes called "Born Into Brothels" about children in India that have a teacher who gives them cameras and it is very similar to photovoice and I think you would all really like it. Here is a link to the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ehz3doE56A
Hello Friends and were back at it!
ReplyDeleteMy first quote comes from Wang’s article:
“Images contribute to how we see ourselves, how we define and relate to the world and what we perceive as significant or different” (Wang, 1999, p. 186)
I thought it to be the most intriguing because I agree with it. You see a photo with no caption or story and you interpret it your own way. Using your own stories or experiences you give a meaning to that photo. Give that same photo to someone else and they will come up with their own different interpretation. With Photovoice as the name suggests, the narrator is giving the photo a voice and its own story (never a single story of course.) Photos are not just there, they have a story behind it, we need to discovered it.
I chose my second quote from Cullen’s article:
“Despite evidence that teaching students to use these more generalizable comprehension strategies is beneficial, many content area teachers have been reluctant to teach the strategies or even cue students to use them (O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995). According to O’Brien et al., many content area teachers do not believe that teaching reading strategies is part of their role and that this sort of teaching is better left to English language arts or English teachers.”
I do not want to be in this category of teachers who thinks like that but a small part of me does. In science, I try to enforce what they learned in ELA about reading and how to find information to keep it consistent for them as they go from class to class but I will not spend a large amount on it. I even recall saying to my class “Oh, you will learn that in ELA” I also would not want change anything that my co-worker plans to do with our students. In math, I find that the only time literacy is incorporated is when we go over new vocabulary and definitions they need to know for the unit.
In my classroom, I try to emphasize on visuals. For example, a drawing to represent the method in solving a two-step inequalities problem and how to graph it or multiple pictures displaying the process of how mold grows. Pictures tell the story. If I show a picture to my students of a bird’s nest in the “a” of Shaw’s supermarket logo, they would want to know more. How did it get there? What did they use to build it? Why is it there? Is it still there? Their young minds craving for the answers to the How, What, Why. Even though Photovoice is used to address health issue or other health concerns. I can the potential it has as a learning tool for many topics help give the answer to the question about the image.
I suppose one of my questions about Photovoice is, has this process been in use in a classroom? Are students creating Photovoice projects? I can see this being used to spark creative writing. How can I incorporate more literacy in math that my students can find useful?
One more thing I’d like to share is, I have a teammate on my soccer team who writes poetry. Something I did not know until I became friends with him on instagram. He was having a hard time getting his poems noticed. “Nobody reads anymore” he says. So he took up photography recently. Taking photos so he can write his poems in the comments. The photo catches your eye but you stay for the poem. Reading these articles made me realize even more how powerful images and the text paired with the image are, to share information, stories, concerns and much more.
Here's to another successful school year!
ReplyDeleteIn term's of photo voice, I am a fan. Historically, journalists have been doing this sort of work for years. In the late 1800's, some of these journalists promoted social reform.
“So, rather than drawing from a general toolbox of literacy skills to apply across disciplines, the goal of disciplinary literacy instruction from this perspective is for adolescents to develop multiple sets of highly specialized literacy tools that allow them to “read like a historian” or “write like a scientist” (Gabriel and Wenz, 2017).
This quote caught my attention for a couple of reasons, I do believe that students need to feel the authenticity of the content, in my case would be thinking, reading, writing and or processing like a historian. However, I disagree with the downplaying of drawing from a general toolbox of literacy skills and agree with the stance that we need to model what “good readers” do, and this is done as Gabriel and Wenz suggest by teaching generic strategies that can apply across the content areas and then students can learn critical skills for reading.
In regards to both ideas presented, I would like to blend both approaches developing strategies that would help equip my students with all the skills and strategies it takes to become strong readers.
In my classroom, I do use content specific vocabulary as well as tools to aid comprehension. I wonder if I intentionally and explicitly explain and teach strategies and content specific vocabulary,if it would help my students understand different types of texts.
How do I find the right balance between content authenticity while determining which strategies would best assist my students in becoming stronger critical readers?
I wanted to add one of the journalists, Jacob Riis he documented life in tenement housing.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Riis