Emma's Literacy Blog

  At the beginning of Tovani’s fifth chapter, she touches on her use of long term targets , student participation, and engag e men t with the world. She takes the time to list some long-term learning targets for the class she is teaching. This one assignment ties into several other goals for her students. Not only will these targets help them complete their writing assignment well, but they will also acquire the skills to continue using the writing process she has laid out for them to use. If all goes well, these tools to write well will follow them throughout their writing careers.   She also emphasizes the importance of speaking with and not to others at the conversation table. Small comments are often underestimated in the classroom. When appropriate comments are made, they can stick with students for a very long time. Often, I forget the larger themes of classes, but will remember something small that a professor or teacher said with no context or larger purpose. ...

  This chapter broke my heart! When her students tap into what they genuinely care about, magic happens. I remember in my younger schooling years when this would happen. It is so interesting that as continuous students, that we relate to all levels of learners.        The first thing that struck me from the reading was the use of photography as text for Caleb. Tapping into student interests outside of school via social media is genius! Personally, I don’t know if I would be comfortable checking out a student’s Instagram... but getting to know students on this personal level gives so much insight into what they care about. What do they want to share with the world? I feel that image is a form of text that gets overlooked often. In reality, sometimes an image can hold more meaning than a set of paragraphs. For example, when her students made connections between the Syrian refugees and the Mexican and South American asylees, image could have been anoth...

  I have been placed at West Frederick Middle School in Kristofer Roberson’s seventh grade Creative Arts class. This is a required course unless an art elective is put in its place (band/chorus, visual arts). Mr. Roberson is originally a music teacher, who somehow got stuck teaching art. But it’s not all that bad ; Creative Arts is a combination of visual art, music, and theater , two disciplines of which Roberson loves.   My observation time starts halfway through first period and ends halfway through second, so I get to see two different groups of students and the entirety of the lesson for that day. The two groups are blended together in my head, but there are students that I can pick out being in the individual class periods. On September 21 st I came into the classroom during first period ; t hey were practicing speaking rhythms as a class then moved into their independent/group work in which they practiced different rhythms to prepare for a drumming test. They ...