Posts

Creating Spaces for Black Adolescent...-Ashley Heath

Image
Creating Spaces for Black Adolescent Girls to “Write It Out!” What is this? There was a 5-week writing institute course created specifically for black adolescent girls ranging from ages 11-17. The institute took 16 participants based on their unique perspectives of growing up as black young females within society. This idea of these literacy writing groups is based all the way back to the 1800s. They were made to improve and advance literacy development through individuals who differ in identities’, experiences, and literary abilities. This 5-week writing institute’s goals was to give these girls a voice and allow them the ability to find their own self-identity. A wider goal in which the institute aimed to achieve was to benefit and shift the conditions of our society.  What happened during the Course?   One of the girls, Iris, was focused on greatly during the course. Before the course, she wrote the following: “I have so many issues with it [identity] and I feel
27 comments
Read more

Noticing the World

Image
  Let's Talk about Writing! When I think about my writing experiences up to blocks, I think about writing research papers, responses to questions I don't care to answer, and writing whatever will make my English teacher happy. That's all writing was for us in the eyes of the teachers I had. Nothing about it was social or political. We never kept writing journals or observed the world around us with a critical eye. From conversations we have had in class, I feel like most us experienced similar things regarding writing.  That's where us as future teachers come in! We get to make a shift in writing!  The first step we can make is giving each our of students a writers notebook. And encouraging use out of them. Encourage them to write about issues they see and critically think about it. Encourage them to take it home with them and write what they see at the park on the weekends. Encourage them to take it to lunch and recess. But, how can we motivate our stu
23 comments
Read more

Encouraging critical writing in students

Image
On page 123-127 in For a Better World: Reading and Writing for Social Action, the author discusses a writing project where students were encouraged to identify an issue they cared about. They were allowed to utilize any form of writing they thought was appropriate for the project and purpose they chose. Examples could include petitions, letters, posters, pamphlets, poems, or any other form of writing. Students were told to decide whether they wanted their goal to be to spread awareness about a certain issue, or wanted a specific action to be taken regarding the issue (Bomer, R., & Bomer, K, 2001). I don’t remember doing any projects similar to this throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I’m wishing we had been assigned a project like this, because all our assignments were always structured, and we weren’t often left to explore our own values as far as activism, or brainstorm ideas on how to apply writing in cases where we want social change to occur. I think many o
47 comments
Read more

What Encompasses Culturally-Relevant Writing?

Image
A Recap of this Semester Throughout the entirety of our teaching blocks, the foundation of our curriculum has been rooted in creating and sustaining cultural pedagogy. We are very familiar with hearing most of the terms that will be outlined in this article at this point, but it's always important to maintain an awareness of cultural relevance and relaying content back to the students' upbringings, identities, and interests. What makes up a culturally-relevant writing curriculum? *link to their website is at the bottom of my blog post The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is an EXCELLENT resource where you can find dozens of testimonials, collaborative efforts, and scholarly expertise to aid you in maintaining a lesson plan that is culturally relevant, but still hits all of the points that you need to cover in teaching your curriculum. Delving into writing, the NCTE defines writing as "the act of creating composed knowledge&qu
37 comments
Read more

Building a Deomocratic Classroom environment

Image
                                                                                                                                Having students voices be heard:                                             “Reading and writing for social action” Chapter 6                                         A democratic environment: A place to foster public voices      I’m sure that all of us have been in a position were we feel as if we don’t have a voice. That our contributions are not wanted nor appreciated. Within the reading  this week the chapter focused on building a democratic environment within our classroom. Throughout this post I will focus on the 7 main points and aspects we need to include in order to help children build voices and feel confident in what they have to offer in and out of the classroom.         Intention:  Children need to be able to develop their own intentions in their education, they do this by being able to make choices in what they lea
5 comments
Read more

Removing Barriers to Voluntary Reading for Reluctant Readers

Image
Removing Barriers to Voluntary Reading for Reluctant Readers: The Role of School and Classroom Libraries Mayson Hoene I wanted to start off this blog by a question for you to ponder... Do you like reading?  If you answered yes to the answer above, then what has made you enjoy reading? If you said no, then what has made you reluctant to reading? If your experience is anything like mine, then you might slightly enjoy reading but felt like you never got the chance to read anything that you wanted to read. You may have felt like you never had a choice.  Reading is a huge part of education and is something you will use your entire lifetime, but why are so many students so reluctant to read? As stated in the article, by the time students get to middle school/high school their interest in reading declines. But why?? The reading points out three main issues that connected to children's attitudes towards reading.   1. choice 2. opportunity 3. access Most student&#
27 comments
Read more