Kaitlyn Field: Literature in My Classroom

Describe how literature is included in the literacy curriculum in your classroom.  Based on today’s readings and your own ideas, what thoughts do you have about additional ways to incorporate literature into the curriculum?

I am in a fifth grade classroom. My teacher includes literature though having the students read aloud short stories and asks the students questions along the way to scaffold critical thinking skills. She does this out of the treasures book (http://www.abebooks.com/9780021988143/Treasures-ReadingLanguage-Arts-Program-Grade-0021988145/plp). Read the blurb about that. I think it can be really effective if the questions assigned throughout the reading to aid discussion were thought through ahead of time so the teacher knew more of what kinds of responses to repeat because they would be used later.

My teacher also has students read a book every two weeks. She has a massive collection of Newbery winner books and they are categorized in bins according to their genre. She uses this website that has a packet of comprehension questions students need to answer throughout the reading as well as other activities related to the book (cross word puzzles).  

My mentor teacher owns all of these books herself, but she gave me ideas for starting this in my own classroom eventually. Like what to coordinate with the school librarian or with my local library. I like this idea and think with proper modeling and an added element to promote student creativity these ongoing packets could be a great thing to incorporate in the classroom. 

I read the article about understanding literature and its role in your classroom and how to appropriately incorporate it into your literacy curriculum. It talked it being important to encourage higher level thinking and promote critical thinking skills, not only to teach about cultural norms and experiences. The author also stated that it was the teachers job to help the reader "make sense" of literature, helping build their understanding. It went into more detail about how to do this. She mentioned "envisionment building". This is scaffolding understanding of the text throughout the text. Asking questions about what they understand, what has changed from what they thought they understood, and what do they still want to know. 

To connect the article I read with my teacher two week reading projects, I would make sure that these packets are aiding critical thinking rather than demanding to recall rote knowledge. I think they do, but I would look over packets more and make sure they are doing that. 

Also the packets miss the critical element of discussion and dialog with others about the reading.  I would also try my best to have already read all the books my students are reading so that at any point throughout their reading they can come and discuss their concerns, excitements, findings about their book with me. Also I can approach them at any point and provoke discussion to promote "envisionment", motivation, and higher level thinking.

Valerie Kipp: Individual Blog Post 1

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but here we go...

Some goals after having read the syllabus and assigned readings for this week:

First, I'd like to learn more about creating an inclusive classroom so that students who are ELL/ESL, of different cultures, genders, interests, abilities, etc. We've touched on this topic in almost every teaching class we've had, but now hopefully we will learn specifically about literature and inclusivity.

Second, is to learn how to get kids to like literature and to be motivated and want to read and write.  Literature is learned in many ways and the classic ways of just sitting and having kids read and write are boring. I'd like to learn about ways to get kids moving, set up stations, hands on activities, group projects, etc.

Questions:
- In what type of school and community setting do you hope to teach? Right now I'm teaching in a 1st grade classroom in Okemos, a rather well off district. Once I'm graduated and in the real world, I'd like to teach in a classroom similar to my current one or in a more urban type setting.
- What do you want to learn about literacy instruction to help you reach your goals? As mentioned above, I'd like to learn about how to motivate students who are struggling or don't enjoy literature/reading/writing and how to include all types of students in my classroom, not just the literature aspect.
- How do the jigsaw articles you read for today help you think about the kind of teacher you want to be? I read the Flemmings article about urban education and it covered things we've learned before. One point that relates to me teaching in an urban setting is the quality of my education and how that can benefit the students I would be teaching. There's low quality teachers in urban education and those students get few opportunities for quality instruction in literature. Thanks to classes like this, that specialize in a specific subject matter, I'll have the skills needed to teach literature to these students.

Overall, from the syllabus and first day of class, I think this class will help me accomplish these goals along with teaching me how to include literature in other lessons such as a math lesson (like we saw in math section with the marshmallow project) or in physical education, etc.