Reading Literature as Exploration, first, made me reflect on my own growth as a reader and, second, my growth as a teacher. My passion for reading kind of disappeared when I hit junior high and continued on throughout high school. I always used to think it was because I didn't ever seem to like the books that my teachers chose for me to read, but now I understand that it might have, in fact, had something to do with the way literature was taught. It was a very traditional school - we completed book report summaries and took quizzes and tests, but I was never really able to connect to these texts or was expected to gain my own meaning. I simply took notes on the teacher's explanation of the deeper meaning. I remember dreading having to read in class or for homework; it was so boring! As I visit schools around the district now, I still see this type of instruction occuring in many English classrooms, although probably less frequently than in the past. I remember my first year of teaching getting caught in the same trapped thinking of, "Well, I must check to see if they read on their own, so write a summary." Not until we discussed levels of questioning as a department, did I realize how there really was not much thinking involved in this activity, and from my own experience, summarizing actually kind of distances you from what you're reading.
Additonally, many of the books we read in high school would be considered "classics". When I didn't see the beauty in these books, since I was too busy working on day-to-day assignments, I began to feel there was something wrong with me. I began to turn to wriitng as an emotional outlet and didn't really see the purpose in reading books. However, the summer of my junior year I read Of Mice and Men, not because it was required of me, but because I was bored and it was sitting on our bookshelf. It was actually the first book that ever made me cry. So, I find it interesting how I had to escape school to begin connecting and appreciating literature. The following year, my passion was alive again. I had an excellent teacher who facilitated activities and experiences in which we became the Holocaust victims and Vietnam soldiers whom we read about. I began to see and understand the humanity, or inhumanity, present in literature, as Rosenblatt discusses. This caused me to want to read more.
Wow, the power of teaching. It's kind of scary!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Just an idea.
I think I'm going to ask high-school kids what they think about all this and what ideas they have. Sometimes, I feel we leave them out of the conversation, and they actually have a lot of insight to offer; after all, they're participants. Applebee mentions a bit about how kids see the oddness of it all, but I would be interested in hearing more. Just an idea.
Curriculum as Conversation
First, let me just say I love this book, and I've made it my personal goal to one day meet Mr. Applebee and tell him so. (Randy, maybe you can make that happen!:) I've been caught in a swamp of reading lately, which has been kind of numbing, but while reading this book, I felt lightbulbs continuously going off. The first most notable realization was transforming my view of science. I never really liked science in school and wasn't very good at it. Plus, I somewhat attributed the educational standards movement to people wanting to make teaching into a rigid science and ignoring its artistic aspects. But, Applebee's discussion of Thomas Kuhn and how leading scientists "interpret old observations in new ways, and reconfigure what is considered relevant, interesting, or anomalous," really made me see science in a new way, as well as its connection to education (15).
I also was extremely intrigued with the idea of "knowledge-in-action." I've always been interested in classroom discourse and how it lends itself to the exploration of the world/society and self-discovery, but it seems that most of our assessments don't take this into consideration. (The AP test's multiple-choice section is based entirely on knowledge-out-of-context.) So, the question remains, how do we move towards more authentic assessment? I thought of maybe having an exit-interview, replacing TAKS, and allowing kids to formulate and defend their responses. This might encourage conversations in our classes rather than test practice. Any other ideas?
I also found his look into the English curriculum enlightening. While many teachers do hold on to the Canon since this is what they were taught, I also think many departments are moving towards including more recent, multicultural titles on their book lists. Doing so, from my experience, lends itself more to knowledge-in-action and conversations where students can discuss their conclusions and make their own arguments, exploring what they think and why they think that way. Last year, I ordered a ton of copies of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada, and we had amazing discussions about violence in our country. Kids who said they hated reading were actually reading at home so that they would be able to participate in our class conversations. This was after TAKS though, so just think what we could do if we didn't have the test looming over our head!
I wish we thought more about curriculum in our schools; it seems that many times in our current system we let the assessment placed on us guide our teaching practices. I think we could benefit from looking at it the other way around. What assessment will help us ensure kids who are graduating can make sense of their world? One of my favorite Applebee quotes is, "Any conception of education that strips these tools of their contexts, or focuses on their past rather than their present relevance and future potential, will be debilitating for the individual and for society as well." That said, there are still teachers who don't subscribe to this concept. I really loved what Harrison did in his classroom (44-49), having kids enter into a conversation about the Canon, where it came from, and the cultural conflicts involved. That sounds much more interesting than memorizing interpretations about symbolism.
More to come...
I also was extremely intrigued with the idea of "knowledge-in-action." I've always been interested in classroom discourse and how it lends itself to the exploration of the world/society and self-discovery, but it seems that most of our assessments don't take this into consideration. (The AP test's multiple-choice section is based entirely on knowledge-out-of-context.) So, the question remains, how do we move towards more authentic assessment? I thought of maybe having an exit-interview, replacing TAKS, and allowing kids to formulate and defend their responses. This might encourage conversations in our classes rather than test practice. Any other ideas?
I also found his look into the English curriculum enlightening. While many teachers do hold on to the Canon since this is what they were taught, I also think many departments are moving towards including more recent, multicultural titles on their book lists. Doing so, from my experience, lends itself more to knowledge-in-action and conversations where students can discuss their conclusions and make their own arguments, exploring what they think and why they think that way. Last year, I ordered a ton of copies of Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada, and we had amazing discussions about violence in our country. Kids who said they hated reading were actually reading at home so that they would be able to participate in our class conversations. This was after TAKS though, so just think what we could do if we didn't have the test looming over our head!
I wish we thought more about curriculum in our schools; it seems that many times in our current system we let the assessment placed on us guide our teaching practices. I think we could benefit from looking at it the other way around. What assessment will help us ensure kids who are graduating can make sense of their world? One of my favorite Applebee quotes is, "Any conception of education that strips these tools of their contexts, or focuses on their past rather than their present relevance and future potential, will be debilitating for the individual and for society as well." That said, there are still teachers who don't subscribe to this concept. I really loved what Harrison did in his classroom (44-49), having kids enter into a conversation about the Canon, where it came from, and the cultural conflicts involved. That sounds much more interesting than memorizing interpretations about symbolism.
More to come...
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
After Thoughts
I just wanted to let everyone know that I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday. It really helped me make sense of all the thoughts I had while reading. Instead of just concepts, I was able to see each literacy in concrete, practical terms.
I was also thinking more about New Criticism. I reflect back to the interpretations we were required to do in high school, and I think it was actually more of a recitation type of literacy we were engaged in rather than a translation/critical literacy. The teacher would tell us her interpretation in class, and on tests we received good grades if we repeated that back to her. I remember thinking early on that there was a right and wrong answer because whenever I seemed not to write what the teacher had said and instead write what I thought the meaning to be, I would get the question wrong with the assumption that I hadn't been paying attention in class. So, I think it's important to remind ourselves not to really have a predetermined response in our heads when we ask open-ended questions about interpretation.
I was also thinking more about New Criticism. I reflect back to the interpretations we were required to do in high school, and I think it was actually more of a recitation type of literacy we were engaged in rather than a translation/critical literacy. The teacher would tell us her interpretation in class, and on tests we received good grades if we repeated that back to her. I remember thinking early on that there was a right and wrong answer because whenever I seemed not to write what the teacher had said and instead write what I thought the meaning to be, I would get the question wrong with the assumption that I hadn't been paying attention in class. So, I think it's important to remind ourselves not to really have a predetermined response in our heads when we ask open-ended questions about interpretation.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Evolution of literacy
Although Myers' Changing Our Minds was extremely dense and I sometimes wondered how I was going to get through it all, it was actually pretty interesting. I struggle with synthesizing all of this information in a blog, not knowing where exactly to start, so I guess I'll just write about what struck me about the evolution of literacy.
Myers poses the question early on, “when, how, and why do people shift from one literacy to another?” (16) So, I thought I could let that guide my post to give me a little direction. First, when. Well, from what I can gather the type of literacy we teach in our public schools seems to change every 75 years, give or take a few. According to Myers, these time periods also represent a change in social needs. So, if we try to discover the pattern, we should be up for another shift around 2058. Any predictions on what society will be like then and what our needs will be?
How? I didn’t really find an answer to this question. I read from chapter to chapter following the chronological progression, but I don’t feel like Myers really let us in on HOW exactly these changes ended up taking place. Well, I mean, it’s not like one day “the powers that be” just informed all teachers that we were going to change the way we teach. It had to be gradual. So, even though some teachers may value tradition and work within the decoding/analytic model now, I think more and more of us are seeing the value of expecting higher-order thinking skills through translation/critical literacy. Nevertheless, I also agree with Myers in that, “a new form of literacy will not alone improve schools” (299). I think that the traditional structure of factory schools, introduced by Cubberly, will also need to be changed for students to truly receive the benefits of translation/critical literacy. Likewise, I feel that we must address the inequity and segregation in our school system if we are going to improve the abilities of all students and stop sorting and pushing students out of school, a shameful act of the past.
Finally, the why. Well, while Myers accredits the changes in literacy to our changing social needs, I’ve also come to the conclusion that people’s ideas of what these social needs are and what students need to succeed will always be different. Thus, views of what should be taught in our English classes will always be different. This is quite obvious in Myers’ introduction where he outlines the educational beliefs of five different groups in our society. I also thought it was interesting how Myers mentions that he doesn’t believe public rhetoric alone will create change in our public education system. He says we must connect a change to a specific social need, providing the example of our desire for a reduced class size (78). I personally think public discourse about these issues is the first step. And, I wish that simply connecting a desired change to a social need would, in fact, implement that change, but I think it’s much more complicated than that. While politicians should be listening to the public, it appears that most people are caught up in results, numbers, and standards, neglecting the educational process and the 100-year old structure that students are forced to participate in daily. So, the big question: how do we shift this public interest?
I know this is already a long post, but there is so much more to talk about – the role of culture in our literacy practices, inequity in our school system related to social class and race, literacy’s connection to power, etc. Yet, I will leave that for another time. Even though this book was a little difficult to navigate, one concept I did gain is that literacy holds a more complicated definition than to simply “read and write”.
Myers poses the question early on, “when, how, and why do people shift from one literacy to another?” (16) So, I thought I could let that guide my post to give me a little direction. First, when. Well, from what I can gather the type of literacy we teach in our public schools seems to change every 75 years, give or take a few. According to Myers, these time periods also represent a change in social needs. So, if we try to discover the pattern, we should be up for another shift around 2058. Any predictions on what society will be like then and what our needs will be?
How? I didn’t really find an answer to this question. I read from chapter to chapter following the chronological progression, but I don’t feel like Myers really let us in on HOW exactly these changes ended up taking place. Well, I mean, it’s not like one day “the powers that be” just informed all teachers that we were going to change the way we teach. It had to be gradual. So, even though some teachers may value tradition and work within the decoding/analytic model now, I think more and more of us are seeing the value of expecting higher-order thinking skills through translation/critical literacy. Nevertheless, I also agree with Myers in that, “a new form of literacy will not alone improve schools” (299). I think that the traditional structure of factory schools, introduced by Cubberly, will also need to be changed for students to truly receive the benefits of translation/critical literacy. Likewise, I feel that we must address the inequity and segregation in our school system if we are going to improve the abilities of all students and stop sorting and pushing students out of school, a shameful act of the past.
Finally, the why. Well, while Myers accredits the changes in literacy to our changing social needs, I’ve also come to the conclusion that people’s ideas of what these social needs are and what students need to succeed will always be different. Thus, views of what should be taught in our English classes will always be different. This is quite obvious in Myers’ introduction where he outlines the educational beliefs of five different groups in our society. I also thought it was interesting how Myers mentions that he doesn’t believe public rhetoric alone will create change in our public education system. He says we must connect a change to a specific social need, providing the example of our desire for a reduced class size (78). I personally think public discourse about these issues is the first step. And, I wish that simply connecting a desired change to a social need would, in fact, implement that change, but I think it’s much more complicated than that. While politicians should be listening to the public, it appears that most people are caught up in results, numbers, and standards, neglecting the educational process and the 100-year old structure that students are forced to participate in daily. So, the big question: how do we shift this public interest?
I know this is already a long post, but there is so much more to talk about – the role of culture in our literacy practices, inequity in our school system related to social class and race, literacy’s connection to power, etc. Yet, I will leave that for another time. Even though this book was a little difficult to navigate, one concept I did gain is that literacy holds a more complicated definition than to simply “read and write”.
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