Trisha's Reactions and Questions

Today we talked about ELL students and watched video clips of a Lansing Public School teacher voice her opinions and her experiences with ELL students within her classroom over the years. What I thought was most interesting about this particular discussion and video presentation was the issue of how you "label" a young student as either an ELL student or not? After working with elementary aged boys in the Lansing School District for two years now and experiencing various levels of parent involvement and language backgrounds, I have found that often times by many of the standards that have been highlighted in the readings, most of these boys would be considered ELL. I contest that when children first make the transition from home to school life, most aspects of the English language is new and has to be learned within the classroom environment, because of these circumstances I feel that lower elementary teachers should adopt strategies that are popular with those whom specialize in being teachers for ELL. It seems to me that whether a child is exposed to English within their home or not, verbal language can only get a student so far when considering assignments and academic usage and it is a learned skill when one realizes how to operate with this English classroom language.

What do you all think? I would like to know because with discussion Angela came up with an interesting point that I had not thought about when I made my original statement and I want to know if I am still missing some of the puzzle pieces. Thanks, see you all next week!

Readings, Questions and Presentations

Well group 4, this is our week to present our findings within the readings for week 5 of our Literacy discussion. Amanda and I will be splitting the Tompkins reading; Matt and Kevin, you will be splitting the Gibbons chapter. If you could all just create a brief power point and email is to Trisha so that she may compile everything by Wednesday afternoon everything should be ready to role by Thursday morning!

The guiding questions for the readings that may help when looking for the highlight-able portions are as follows and stem from the guiding title "Emergent Literacy: NCLB, Phonemic awareness, phonics & spelling":
1) How does the No Child Left Behind Act influence language arts curriculum and teaching?
2) What teaching approaches help children develop phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling?
3) What new literacies are students likely to bring to the classroom?
4) How can book clubs support language learning?

Good luck with these coming weeks of ample reading, discussion and presentations!

Week Four Readings for Thought

This week, our class was looking at Emergent Literacy and the discussion in class was based in part on the views presented in the readings and also the videos watched in class about how ELL students are incorporated into the literacy process.

The questions for thought this week are as follows:
1) What is emergent literacy?
2) How do children develop as readers and writers?
3) How do teachers prepare the environment to support literacy development for all learners?
4) How does an understanding of good discussion promote literacy learning in book club?

The readings for week four as as follows:
Tompkins, Chapter 3: Working with Emergent Readers & Writers
Gibbons, Chapter 2: Classroom Talk: Creating Context for Language Learning
Gibbons, Chapter 3: From Speaking to Writing in the Context of Classroom

Good luck this week and have a good weekend!

Trisha's Initial Response

Collectively, I thought that the readings were interesting in that they call illustrated the different aspects of the teacher-student relationship when introducing literature into an elementary classroom. The readings as a whole brought to my attention disparities that I had not originally thought about when thinking about American English language arts like how often traditional discussion is substituted for real and meaningful discussion of a classroom text. Personally I feel that offering students the chance for literary discussion or instructional conversation or what have you, is important because it offers various perspectives on a similar reading experience and conversing with people who hold different opinions concerning a common experience happens is every day life. However, I feel that this type of educational strategy is problematic in that time is of the essence in all classrooms throughout K-12 schools and at times any discussion, traditional or otherwise, is at a premium and this is a question that I held throughout the collection of readings.

I thought that the reading about response-centered talk was the most helpful and applicable within a classroom community that is already focused on student-directed learning. I like this discussion technique that best because it also allowed the teacher to interject their own personal opinions in a way that was not a singularly correct answer or interpretation and that students felt comfortable with expanding or disagreeing with an opinion. I feel that the situation of teacher transcribing is a positive method for self-reflection and professional development and more importantly, I think that by using response-centered talk for a year with students can only help the class move towards instructional conversations.

Lastly, I feel that the reading concerning instructional conversations is one that illustrates a future goal for first year teachers. Throughout the reading I felt that the approaches were definiately obtainable but on the scale of a five year goal for a first year teacher because I think at the core of the issue of instructional conversation is teacher preparation and background with a certain piece of material. I feel that if a first year teach systematically includes response-centered talk and builds upon his or her own knowledge about how students typically react to a piece of literature that a teacher can professional develop to a level where instructional conversation is possible.

Discourse and teaching for understanding literature

This week the readings for the course take a look at various types of interactions that can take place in a classroom when working with forms of literature. Please consider the following questions while reading and post your comments about interesting trends or points that where noticed throughout any or all of the texts.

1) What student and teacher roles are central to helping diverse learners make sense of language arts?
2) What role can classroom discourse place in teaching for understanding in language arts?
3) What support do learners need to participate fully in discussions and group work?
4) What language varieties do students bring to school and what do they need to learn about language?

Please post your thoughts and comments by January 24, 2008. After reading the group members' thoughts, please comment on one post by January 25, 2008. Please make sure that you label your post with the coordinating week so that it is easier to find the correct posts for comments. Happy reading to all and have a good week in your placement!

Readings for Week 3:

Almasi, A New View of Discussion; McGee, Response-Centered Talk; Langer, Understanding Literature; Goldenberg, Instructional Conversations: Promoting Comprehension through Discussion