“Boundaries preclude the small and surprising moments that are beyond our expectations of children’s abilities.”(p.354, Ghiso, 2011).
After reviewing and reflecting on the Integrated Resource Package (IRP), our text “Constructing Meaning” and the various articles and activities we have done in class, I can’t help but feel that the question for me is not what I think is important to teach students about writing and representing, but how I teach writing and representing. By law, students in British Columbia will have to learn the features of writing such as “a period marks the end of a sentence” (BC IRP Grade One – PLO C10 p. 54) or “correct noun-pronoun agreement,” (Gr. 4, PLO C11 p. 72) but in today’s classroom, the emphasis has shifted from learning language through conventions, to learning language for the purposes of communication and then developing strategies to meet these purposes. For me, the measure of an excellent writing teacher in today’s classroom lies in how effectively you can identify what is meaningful for the individuals in your class to communicate, and inspire them to explore these ideas through the varied purposes of writing and representing.
A case study entitled “Writing that Matters: Collaborative Inquiry and Authoring Practices in the First Grade” illustrates how a teacher was able to engage students by creating a writing environment where learning was inquiry based and student-directed. The article states that “structuring a writing time around the unplanned, around what matters to students, de-centers the teacher as the most knowledgeable member of the writing community, and offers opportunities for students to take the lead as they follow unexpected avenues in their inquiries.”(p. 354, Ghiso, 2011) This approach, where the teacher got to know her audience and followed their lead, supports my philosophy of writing instruction and is evidenced in the IRP under the heading of ‘Addressing Local Needs’ where “student choice”, “flexibility,” “examples that are relevant to their [the students] local context and to the particular interests of their students” (BC IRP, p.11) are encouraged.
The aforementioned case study continues by noting that “rather than leaving their stories and worlds outside of the classroom, students could use the writing time to ‘make their stories the work.’ This pedagogical decision built both writing and community.”(p. 347, Ghiso, 2011) The study then took the writer’s workshop one step further by finding common themes within class writing and using these themes to do a collaborative inquiry into social transformation. Moving from “individualistic descriptions of the way one’s world is” to opening “critical dialogue that questions such a world and envisions alternatives.” (p. 353, Ghiso, 2011) I found it rather amazing that grade one students would be capable of this sort of writing project, but framed in the right context, the teacher was able to use what many would consider obstacles with an underprivileged urban class, to student-led sources of insight and exploration, all while meeting numerous PLO’s, such as, “using writing and representing to extend their [the students] thinking.”(p. 54, BC IRP Gr. 1 – C8)
Creating a comfortable, supportive classroom community and a sense of connectedness to the subject matter seem to be the keys in any effective piece of writing. Pieces that are written from a place of familiarity, experience or genuine interest are where you will see young writers develop an authentic voice and a sense of ownership and pride in their work, versus perhaps the more contrived voice that would emerge from a more rigidly structured assignment. The student achievement section of the IRP supports the notion of ‘crafting an authentic voice’ as one of the twelve steps to ‘writing essentials for all grades.’ Reggie Routman suggests students “write in a style that illuminates the writer’s personality – this may include dialogue, humour, point of view, a unique form.”(p. 112, BC IRP) I feel that this point applies to teachers as well. The best lectures I have heard are on topics the presenter is passionate about, familiar with and has personally experienced. I particularly enjoyed the writer’s notebook exercise we did in class, identifying experiences that were memorable in our lives in order to generate a knowledge bank to draw from when authoring fictional work. As a teacher, you have a responsibility to model writing, be empathetic to the process, and help students identify and tap into their sources of knowledge so they will want to write, to communicate, and to explore their interests further. The challenge will be asking the right questions, and giving students the tools to formulate their own questions.
In Sharon Creech’s book “Love That Dog,” the main character, a young boy named Jack, was able to create a very powerful piece of poetry based on the emotional and personal experience of losing his dog. The fictional teacher in this story did an excellent job of facilitating Jack’s writing by exposing him to various authors, allowing him the space to explore his ideas and find different purposes for his writing, such as writing a letter to Walter Dean Myers, without pre-planning and structuring every writing opportunity. I loved that the journal was spread out over the year and allowed room for Jack to write at his own pace and without the pressure of always being assessed. This way, he was able to really find his voice, his style, what he like and didn’t like, and created some wonderful writing in the process. The authors of “Constructing Meaning” similarly advise that “in their instruction and assessment of student writing, teachers show respect for the idiosyncratic nature of the writing process and value both the written products and the writing processes of individual students.” (p. 345, Bainbridge, Heydon, Malicky, 2009) Another important aspect of respecting the writing process and creating a trusting relationship that was highlighted in “Love That Dog” was that Jack was able to display his work anonymously. By allowing anonymity, young authors will be more likely to take more risks with their writing, and therefore have a greater potential for improvement.
One of the suggestions in the article entitled “Structure and Freedom” was that “teachers should provide a regular time for writing.” (p. 68, Casey & Hemenway, 2001) While I partially agree with this suggestion, something that I appreciated about the Montessori teaching approach was that children had freedom in the daily structure of their work. I know that sometimes when I have a writing block, it is frustrating to be forced to sit and try to come up with something during a specified time period, while other times I can hardly write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. As a teacher, I think you need to provide structure and freedom not only in the genre, subject and style of writing, but within class work time. On the other hand, I agree that “freedom to learn and grow does not occur in the absence of structure…true freedom occurs when choices are made within a structure that is stable, reliable, protected from distraction; focussed on the fulfillment ‘of activities we deem important and of people we know are unique.’” (p. 11, Marmé Thompson, 1995)
How then am I going to teach writing and representing? From what I have learned so far, the most successful approaches seem to be listening to what is meaningful to students, getting to know my audience, trying to provide a balance between choice and structure, creating a supportive environment and emphasizing purpose over conventions. As an educator, I feel that I will have a responsibility to expose students to as many different varieties of writing as possible, so that they can develop their own taste from a broad spectrum of resources. Ultimately, I want every author in my class to find their own voice, their own process and their own inspiration to express themselves through writing – while instilling some proper spelling, grammar, and revision skills along the way.
Sources
Bainbridge, J., Heydon, R., Malicky, G. (2009). Constructing meaning: Balancing elementary language arts, 4th Ed. Nelson: Toronto, ON.
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2006). English language arts k to 7: Integrated resource package. Victoria, BC: Author.
URL: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/irp_ela.htm
Casey, Mara & Hemenway, Stephen I. (July, 2001). Structure and Freedom: Achieving a Balanced Writing Curriculum. English Journal, pp. 68-75.
Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Ghiso, M. (2011) Writing That Matters: Collaborative Inquiry and Authoring Practices in a First Grade Class. Language Arts.
URL:http://www.ncte.org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/LA/0885-may2011/LA0885Writing.pdf
Marmé Thompson, Christine. (September, 1995). What should I draw today? Sketchbooks in Early Childhood. Art Education, pp. 6-11.
Sunday 13 November 2011
Monday 17 October 2011
This week for English Language Arts we are considering how podcasts can assist students in their learning.
Before this lesson on podcasts, I have to admit that I really didn’t know anything about podcasting. From our class discussion, and the little exploration I have done on my own, podcasts seem like an amazing way to incorporate technology and English language arts in the classroom. I imagine that it would not only assist in student learning, but also parent learning and community involvement. I loved the idea of posting podcasts online for student’s family members to be able to listen in, as well as the idea of having students interview a community ‘expert’ and make a podcast of it.
As a new teacher, I am excited to find ways to use technology to make lessons more memorable and engaging for students. Accessing technology in the classroom will undoubtedly make lessons more relatable for learners in the twenty-first century so why not capitalize on this potential? Since so many youth are already experts in today’s technology by the time they arrive in the classroom, I’m sure I will learn a few things from students in doing activities such as podcasts and voicethreads.
Before this lesson on podcasts, I have to admit that I really didn’t know anything about podcasting. From our class discussion, and the little exploration I have done on my own, podcasts seem like an amazing way to incorporate technology and English language arts in the classroom. I imagine that it would not only assist in student learning, but also parent learning and community involvement. I loved the idea of posting podcasts online for student’s family members to be able to listen in, as well as the idea of having students interview a community ‘expert’ and make a podcast of it.
Voice threads are also an innovative way for students to participate in language arts through readings, discussions, etc. In particular, I thought the “2nd Grader Play I-Spy” on voicethread.com was a creative way of getting students to do representation, reading, writing, speaking and listening. This voice thread was modelled after the “I-Spy” book series where they took a picture with ten or more objects and added a few rhyming “I-Spy” lines correlating to their picture. The end result was a class compilation where each student had their own image, text and voice recording.
It would be fun to have a class get into groups and do research assignments, for example, each group could choose a different author and make a pod cast ‘lesson’ of their findings to share with the rest of the class. Many of the basic strands of language arts could be easily incorporated. Students could first write a report, take turns reading and recording their report, and listening to the finished product as well as other classmates projects. Allowing students to experiment and make suggestions about podcasts they are interested in would aid in making classroom learning more meaningful and student-directed. Students who are shy or have a difficult time reading aloud may also feel more comfortable if they know they can rehearse their recording a few times and play it back before sharing it with other learners. If students are unfamiliar with podcasting, the novelty of hearing themselves on a recording would probably create excitement around the lesson and allow them to share their learning with their family.
On a school website from Virginia
The only drawback to podcasting seems to be the issue of confidentiality. As a teacher you have a responsibility to proceed with caution, and parents would definitely need to be consulted prior to making any posts online. Perhaps a class-confidentiality agreement could be drawn up to ensure that students are aware of how to protect their identities online.
As a new teacher, I am excited to find ways to use technology to make lessons more memorable and engaging for students. Accessing technology in the classroom will undoubtedly make lessons more relatable for learners in the twenty-first century so why not capitalize on this potential? Since so many youth are already experts in today’s technology by the time they arrive in the classroom, I’m sure I will learn a few things from students in doing activities such as podcasts and voicethreads.
Sources
Canadian Podcasts – organized by subject, each has a brief description and a link: http://canadapodcasts.ca/
Thursday 6 October 2011
The IRP According to Me...
Navigating the Curriculum as a Beginning Teacher – Is the Integrated Resource Package a Help or a Hindrance?
As a beginning teacher, I would compare the Integrated Resources Package (IRP) to a newly built house. Professionals have constructed the framework based on experience, research, accepted practice and theory, but until a teacher brings it to life with their personal touch, the input of the class, the community and the culture of the school, it is not yet a ‘home.’
“Regie Routman counsels us to think of curriculum more as a ‘dialogue’ than a ‘document.’" (Constructing Meaning p. 12) This analogy is helpful, as is the notion of looking into what ‘funds of knowledge’ you bring as a teacher, and what your students bring to your class. By identifying the specific areas of ‘expertise’ each person brings, the task of teaching language arts becomes less daunting, and lessons will likely become more relatable. In turn, this will hopefully allow students to have greater confidence in their abilities and more intrinsic motivation to practice language arts throughout their lives.
Thinking back to my elementary years, hundreds of hours were spent in the classroom, but only a few things stand out to me now – and for the most part, those are projects that integrated several subjects and skills and were student driven. The discussion on inquiry based learning in the IRP and the “KWL” (know, want to know, learned) cards created in class were useful as they outlined the teacher’s role in this approach. As an example, it states that “the foundation of inquiry is the asking of thoughtful questions. Teachers help students pose questions and design tasks for seeking answers to their questions. This builds literacy skills in action and simultaneously deepens a student’s thinking process and ability to find solutions.” (IRP p. 18) In an article from American Educational Research by Jacobs, Goldberg and Bennett, the hypothesis was that it was much more powerful to teach through art, rather than to teach art as a separate subject. The same principle appears true in language arts since its six main curriculum organizers are described as “inter-related and inter-dependent”(IRP p. 15) and fall at the heart of all curricular learning, thinking and day-to-day life.
The hindrance of the IRP comes with the fact that teachers are essentially working ‘backwards’ in starting from an idea for a lesson and then having to find the prescribed learning outcomes that fit, rather than using the IRP as a starting point. For example, a prescribed learning outcome (PLO) is to “ask questions to construct and clarify meaning.” The outcome itself doesn’t lend itself to an engaging lesson plan; it is much easier to start with an idea or resource. Clearly, a method of provincial standardization is necessary to ensure that students and teachers can have a baseline, but perhaps a little more specificity as far as content would be helpful for new teachers in order to align the intentions of the IRP with the product delivered in the classroom.
Who are Today’s English Language Arts Students ?
Today’s English Language Arts students are a reflection of their surrounding community. Diverse in culture, language and socioeconomic status their needs vary by gender, learning style, interests and previous experience. On a smaller scale, the IRP notes that “family is the primary educator in the development of students’ attitudes and values,” but perhaps the level of the family is still too broad of a classification. Students are individuals. They may not hold the same values and attitudes as their siblings, parents or grandparents, which is why the IRP makes several suggestions to this regard. Under the category of ‘Developing Oral Language’, examples are give such as “build[ing] a personal relationship with each student,” “interact[ing] regularly on a one-to-one basis with each student,” and “create[ing] a safe climate of respectful listening.” The personal nature of a one-on-one relationship allows for a different dynamic than the class group offers. Provided a teacher is willing to put in the time and effort to develop and nurture a one-to-one relationship (and demonstrates a caring and respectful attitude), who students are and what they need to prosper in the classroom environment will become apparent, despite differences in background, ethnicity etc.
How Do They Learn?
Being new to the field of education, articles such as Robert Probst and Ruth Shagourny’s “Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking” and “The Need to Write, The Need to Listen” aid in visualizing the different forms that language arts can take on and be learned in a meaningful way in the classroom. Using varied mediums to access the potential of ‘children-at-promise,’ is vital for engagement and the development of skills such as critical literacy, active listening and independent, quality dialogue.
As diversity continues to increase in the classroom, reverting to methods that are comfortable and familiar to us as teachers won’t necessarily maximize the learning potential for today’s technologically savvy students. We need to ask not only how they learn, but how we as teachers learn and adapt to an ever-changing field. How can we increase student comprehension, retention and motivation through our communication strategies and our methods of lesson delivery? Are we checking for understanding and reflecting upon our practice? Learning alongside our students must be embraced, and while theoretical models such as Cambourne’s Conditions for Literacy Learning may continue to be useful tools, in teaching language arts, finding ways to make content relevant and accessible to students may be more of a challenge.
The best advice seems to be simplest. Ask the class. Offer choices. Be open-minded. What do they want? How do they want to learn it? As Vygotsky’s social constructivist model points out, “children’s agency is significant and it will affect curriculum.”(Constructing Meaning, p. 6) An in depth analysis to discover learning methods in elementary children is probably not necessary, since the joy of young children is that they are quite often blatantly honest when asked a question. While you will need to be flexible and creative in implementing their suggestions, by using their suggestions, it will likely create a far more meaningful and literate classroom environment.
Sources
BC Integrated Resource Package, K-7 English Language Arts,
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2006ela_k7.pdf
Joyce Bainbridge, Rachel Heydon, Grace Malicky. Constructing Meaning: Balancing Elementary Language Arts. 4th Ed. 2009. Nelson Education.
Ruth Shagoury. The Need to Write, The Need to Listen. Lessons Learned.
Robert E. Probst. Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking.
Victoria R. Jacobs, Merryl R. Goldberg, Tom L. Bennett. Teaching Core Curriculum Content Through Arts. American Educational Research Annual Meeting. 1999. Montreal, Canada.
http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED445984.pdf.
As a beginning teacher, I would compare the Integrated Resources Package (IRP) to a newly built house. Professionals have constructed the framework based on experience, research, accepted practice and theory, but until a teacher brings it to life with their personal touch, the input of the class, the community and the culture of the school, it is not yet a ‘home.’
“Regie Routman counsels us to think of curriculum more as a ‘dialogue’ than a ‘document.’" (Constructing Meaning p. 12) This analogy is helpful, as is the notion of looking into what ‘funds of knowledge’ you bring as a teacher, and what your students bring to your class. By identifying the specific areas of ‘expertise’ each person brings, the task of teaching language arts becomes less daunting, and lessons will likely become more relatable. In turn, this will hopefully allow students to have greater confidence in their abilities and more intrinsic motivation to practice language arts throughout their lives.
Thinking back to my elementary years, hundreds of hours were spent in the classroom, but only a few things stand out to me now – and for the most part, those are projects that integrated several subjects and skills and were student driven. The discussion on inquiry based learning in the IRP and the “KWL” (know, want to know, learned) cards created in class were useful as they outlined the teacher’s role in this approach. As an example, it states that “the foundation of inquiry is the asking of thoughtful questions. Teachers help students pose questions and design tasks for seeking answers to their questions. This builds literacy skills in action and simultaneously deepens a student’s thinking process and ability to find solutions.” (IRP p. 18) In an article from American Educational Research by Jacobs, Goldberg and Bennett, the hypothesis was that it was much more powerful to teach through art, rather than to teach art as a separate subject. The same principle appears true in language arts since its six main curriculum organizers are described as “inter-related and inter-dependent”(IRP p. 15) and fall at the heart of all curricular learning, thinking and day-to-day life.
The hindrance of the IRP comes with the fact that teachers are essentially working ‘backwards’ in starting from an idea for a lesson and then having to find the prescribed learning outcomes that fit, rather than using the IRP as a starting point. For example, a prescribed learning outcome (PLO) is to “ask questions to construct and clarify meaning.” The outcome itself doesn’t lend itself to an engaging lesson plan; it is much easier to start with an idea or resource. Clearly, a method of provincial standardization is necessary to ensure that students and teachers can have a baseline, but perhaps a little more specificity as far as content would be helpful for new teachers in order to align the intentions of the IRP with the product delivered in the classroom.
As we gain experience and become increasingly familiar with this document, I feel that we will begin to truly understand its highlights and pitfalls. At this point, it serves as good reference material and I enjoy the sections which give concrete examples, however the principles will not be fully solidified for me until I have some experience with a classroom audience, after which I will be able to relate and reflect more deeply on the content.
Who are Today’s English Language Arts Students ?
Today’s English Language Arts students are a reflection of their surrounding community. Diverse in culture, language and socioeconomic status their needs vary by gender, learning style, interests and previous experience. On a smaller scale, the IRP notes that “family is the primary educator in the development of students’ attitudes and values,” but perhaps the level of the family is still too broad of a classification. Students are individuals. They may not hold the same values and attitudes as their siblings, parents or grandparents, which is why the IRP makes several suggestions to this regard. Under the category of ‘Developing Oral Language’, examples are give such as “build[ing] a personal relationship with each student,” “interact[ing] regularly on a one-to-one basis with each student,” and “create[ing] a safe climate of respectful listening.” The personal nature of a one-on-one relationship allows for a different dynamic than the class group offers. Provided a teacher is willing to put in the time and effort to develop and nurture a one-to-one relationship (and demonstrates a caring and respectful attitude), who students are and what they need to prosper in the classroom environment will become apparent, despite differences in background, ethnicity etc.
How Do They Learn?
Being new to the field of education, articles such as Robert Probst and Ruth Shagourny’s “Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking” and “The Need to Write, The Need to Listen” aid in visualizing the different forms that language arts can take on and be learned in a meaningful way in the classroom. Using varied mediums to access the potential of ‘children-at-promise,’ is vital for engagement and the development of skills such as critical literacy, active listening and independent, quality dialogue.
As diversity continues to increase in the classroom, reverting to methods that are comfortable and familiar to us as teachers won’t necessarily maximize the learning potential for today’s technologically savvy students. We need to ask not only how they learn, but how we as teachers learn and adapt to an ever-changing field. How can we increase student comprehension, retention and motivation through our communication strategies and our methods of lesson delivery? Are we checking for understanding and reflecting upon our practice? Learning alongside our students must be embraced, and while theoretical models such as Cambourne’s Conditions for Literacy Learning may continue to be useful tools, in teaching language arts, finding ways to make content relevant and accessible to students may be more of a challenge.
The best advice seems to be simplest. Ask the class. Offer choices. Be open-minded. What do they want? How do they want to learn it? As Vygotsky’s social constructivist model points out, “children’s agency is significant and it will affect curriculum.”(Constructing Meaning, p. 6) An in depth analysis to discover learning methods in elementary children is probably not necessary, since the joy of young children is that they are quite often blatantly honest when asked a question. While you will need to be flexible and creative in implementing their suggestions, by using their suggestions, it will likely create a far more meaningful and literate classroom environment.
Sources
BC Integrated Resource Package, K-7 English Language Arts,
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2006ela_k7.pdf
Joyce Bainbridge, Rachel Heydon, Grace Malicky. Constructing Meaning: Balancing Elementary Language Arts. 4th Ed. 2009. Nelson Education.
Ruth Shagoury. The Need to Write, The Need to Listen. Lessons Learned.
Robert E. Probst. Tom Sawyer, Teaching and Talking.
Victoria R. Jacobs, Merryl R. Goldberg, Tom L. Bennett. Teaching Core Curriculum Content Through Arts. American Educational Research Annual Meeting. 1999. Montreal, Canada.
http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED445984.pdf.
Monday 19 September 2011
Initial Thoughts on the Language Arts Classroom...
At the moment, I am thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet of my house. I feel like I’m in a similar, somewhat frazzled, state to what I might feel like after a day in an elementary classroom, so perhaps this is a good time for some reflection on what might make an engaging elementary language arts classroom. My niece and nephew who are three and five have just gone home after spending the day with my husband and I, and besides the amazing amount of energy that children have, what strikes me is their incredible imagination and creativity. Since I don’t have many toys at my house, while making supper, my nephew grabbed two yams off the counter and happily played with them as spaceships for about fifteen minutes.
One of the things I really look forward to in teaching language arts is finding ways to capture children’s imagination and ideas through creative writing, representing, reading etc. I always enjoyed the language arts as a young student whether through creative writing projects, reading novels, or even learning cursive writing. I distinctly remember my grade 5 teacher challenging me and a few of the other eager ELA students to writing a ‘novel.’ I think that now, she stands out to me as one of the best teacher’s I ever had because she recognized that all of the students in the class were unique and she found ways to engage all of the learners in the class.
After just returning from spending three years in Quebec
I am excited to learn ways to encourage my future students to appreciate and enjoy the language arts, and since I can’t say I have a lot of experience in the classroom I will be taking a more varied approach on the age groups. Like many of my other elementary education classmates, this is my first blog, so I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out ~ but fortunately it seems a little less daunting than I had anticipated, and hopefully it will get easier with practice. J
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