Linda Christensen’s book, Reading, Writing, and Rising Up, exhibits the importance of empathizing with students in order to build a community. The first two chapters revolve around the aspect of community building in the classroom so students can have a safe environment to share goals, emotions, and experiences.
I really liked several of the lesson plans and ideas Christensen had to offer. She made it essential that students reflected upon their personal experiences and used them to produce narratives, poems, and collective texts. Many of her lessons were based around a “read aloud” or “sharing and talking.” Students would form a circle, share work, and positively critic each other. This let students reflect upon their own work and peers work. It was a good strategy to use because it had students positively praise others until the second half of the year where they could provide constructive criticism when needed.
Chapter 2 focused around unlearning myths and stereotypes. Students were introduced to children’s books, movies, and literature that would revolve around inequality, stereotypes, and hierarchy. I thought it benefit students to realize how trends and stereotypes are apparent throughout history and in the media. I like that fact that students kept an ongoing chart of different stereotypes and roles they came across during the text or media. This was eventually used for a writing assignment and critique. After this unit, students could envision and question the world around them. They thought about what they could do to educate others and deliver a message of respect and equality which is very important. Finally, the students wrote praise poems which spoke against any negative portrayals people had about themselves, their race, sex, culture, etc. Students wrote about and praised themselves and their aspects. I thought this was a great way to boost student’s confidence and take notice to the great qualities they each have in themselves.
Thanks for being the first to post, Michelle! Where are the others? Not posting on time may make it difficult for the Discussion Director but there is still time I suppose since you extended the deadline to midnight!
Thanks for sharing your personal reactions. What connections are you making between this (say her work on "sharing and talking") and other texts we've read (I'm thinking Probst and the SS reading).
Resist the urge to summarize here and try to embrace the spirit of a dialogue journal which is to really write about one or two aspects that really strike you, making connections with other things (experiences, texts, etc.) and raise questions that are coming up. All this helps a discussion director.
After looking through and reading/skimming the first few chapters I noticed that Reading, Writing and Rising Up by Linda Christensen reminds me of our Bomer text in our English content teach class. I also think she started out talking about creating communities, like many of our readings have mentioned. The personal stories she shares with her experiences help support the methods she provides us with. Christensen mentioned that after failing to create an environment where students were getting along and were engaged in class. She changed her technique and brought different aspects to the class that would bring in their outside lives into the classroom. As we have all said in many of our side conversations, students’ lives don’t start when they step foot in our class they bring their history and a baggage of experiences some of us will probably never be able to relate to. However, Christensen pointed out in the first chapter that it was important to bring up topics in class and allow students to write or read about them, even though some of them may seem to taboo to be in an English class. Fro instance, she mentioned that her fourth period senior class was very unengaged and so she changed her approach and asked them to start writing, reading and discussing what they know about gangs and the violence that comes with it etc. Even though most people looking into the classroom might say or think that it is inappropriate that students watch or read or write about gangs and violence, it is important to give students to the opportunity to cover issues that they face outside the school building. Pretending that the issue doesn’t exist isn’t going to make their sufferings and private issues go away and so it is important that we as English teachers provide students with a safe environment where they can discuss these issues and feelings and feel that we are trying to connect their world with our world as well as with literature. Christensen stressed that we bring our students lives in the classroom and use that as a foundation or support to get the students engage in our lessons. The techniques, lesson plans and strategies she provides in the book are very helpful and I would expect that with her vision she would have students write in many different ways for many different topics. I really liked the way in which she provided us with activity sheets and also showed us some of the students work to show where and how she was going to assess her students understanding. Christensen seems to be very for the students. I feel like she tries really hard to connect with her students as well as support and encourage them, which are valuable qualities for any teacher. One of the many writing exercises/projects she uses to encourage students is assigning students to write praise poems about themselves, their culture, other people, language, school or neighborhood etc. Although some older students might think it is cheesy to write about oneself, I know from my experience and from reading some of the papers the students in Peekskill have written, it becomes less of a project for just a grade and more of a therapeutic and helpful exercise to boost student confidence. For the students who are part of a low income urban area, these exercises allow them to appreciate the little that they have and make more of what they’ve been given. So far, I’ve enjoyed reading and going through this text, it provides some insightful ideas that I plan on using and hope to use when I start my student teaching.
Michelle, I agree with you the on going charts she gave the students was very helpful, it kind oacted as the writing notebook our Bomer texts mention. It enables students to keep going back and adding to their previous thoughts, something which would definitely help them in their writing assignments. Her approach in teaching about stereotypes made me reflect on my mini lesson that I attempted to do last semester. Hahaha. I think had I seen this book before hand I might have used some of her ideas, they would have been very helpful because I was lost in creating the short hook. Christensen appears to be more focused her students' lives and I think her activities make an English class very welcoming and safe. It builds the community all English teachers hope to have.
I posted for her since she was unable to log on for technology related reasons _______________________________
In Reading, Writing, and Rising Up, Linda Christensen begins her introduction by describing the achievement gap between white and black students. I agree that it is a barrier to equality because those who are not able to cross the gap do not have a fair opportunity in schools. This book essentially a plan to rethink how schools think and I think if these steps are followed, that we as teachers can really make a difference. I really liked how she invited students to write about violence because although it is a risky educational move, it is something that the students can relate to. By having students open up and share their fears, they developed a bond with one another. Christensen made the classroom a comfortable environment for students to share their thoughts and therefore created a place where nothing, not even violence, would be ignored or overlooked. By having them reflect on their personal experiences they not only can become connected with their classmates, but with their community and with what they are writing about. I really enjoyed the teaching strategy in the section, “To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story” because I feel like the students are really able to share their emotions through poetry without feeling “silly” or “self conscious.” I also like how she makes it clear that no one is to make critical comments towards another students’ work. By keeping comments positive, they are able to develop strong, confident writing filled with enthusiasm. I also enjoyed how she described the Childhood Narratives strategy because she was very detailed in her describing what to do in the classroom. She states, “ try to get students to see, hear, smell, taste the memory—to create a movie in their heads of the childhood memory so their writing will be more detailed (27). I think this statement is very powerful because many students in schools today just write the assignment because they have to get it done. But here, students are remembering every aspect of their memory before they write it down. It appears that after doing this exercise, their writing will be much more emotional and powerful. Overall, it is important to keep a student’s self-esteem up so that they are more active in the classroom. By giving them positive feedback and engaging them in fun activities that they can relate to, teachers are on the right path to bridging the achievement gap and increasing all students’ races and cultures abilities to learn and obtain information.
A quote from the beginning of chapter one I thought was powerful in managing and creating community in a classroom is “ I couldn’t ignore the toll the outside world was exacting on my students. Rather than pretending that I could close my door in the face of their mounting fears, I needed to use that information to reach them”. I thought this was important because it ties into a reading I did where a teacher utilized the lives of his students to form a community in the classroom. One thing I’ve noticed is that students tend to think they are alone in their everyday struggles and keep them bottled up because of those thoughts. As a teacher, I think it’s important to have students share so that the other members of the class with passively realize they aren’t alone, and their fears are shared throughout. In my coop class, many students were worried about the same problem happening in school. When we finally got one student to share it with the class, half a dozen others let out a sigh of relief and agreed that was something they were concerned with. Another part of this book that touches on something we’ve been discussing is how to read images (visual literacy) and how students use this process in their daily lives. The author had a debate with her students about how many were persuaded by advertisements and cartoon ads. Many students denied this but didn’t realize that the visual world of media was everywhere and everything. I thought this was funny because even as I was growing up, I remember making choices based off commercials and buying things because it was the “new and improved” garbage. The point of this section I felt was the author wanted students to realize how visual literacy works in their everyday lives and help them to develop their interpretation skills of images and visual media.
I just wanted to thank everyone for being so patient and willing to experiement in this first week. I am glad almost everyone got this to work for them. I think the problem was that we were invited to publish under our pace email addresses. Basically, pace email = google acct name. If there is another acct name you want to use, just let me know and I'll add that to the permissions list. Hopefully by next time we can get everything figured out completly and have no problems.
I have discovered there is a limit to how many characters can be in a post (4,096 to be exact)so I must place my response in more then one comment so I hope this does not confuse anyone. I tend to write a lot, sorry again. __________________________________________
When reading through this book I noticed many spots where key information was set aside and emphasized. One such item that caught my eye was the quoting of Frederick Douglass saying, “This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both mental and physical; but it must be a struggle,” stuck out to me (page 4). When I first read the longer blurb of a statement made by him I tried to see why the author put it in. I interpreted it into two possible meanings when I read this section discussing the violence the students face in their community and the struggle Linda Christensen had getting these students to participate in their schooling. These kids are faced with dangers and fears that we wish would not find their way into the classroom but they do. Linda needed to get the trust of these kids in order to motivate them to do any of the work she expected of them. She discussed how the students we not interested in the book she chose to read as a class and most did not even attempt the work. This for her was not only a strain on her mentally but she had physically worked to plan these lessons and activities and the students had no interest. This was her struggle, how to get her students engaged in the lessons. Being a student teacher I fear this very thing; spending hours planning lessons and having students who just disregard it completely. How can I convince them to work? What would I do if I had a student who pushed off all the work, what would I say to them? These are the questions that floor my mind and a very realistic situation that Linda had to face.
“I couldn’t ignore the toll the outside world was exacting on my students. Rather than pretending that I could close my door in the face of their mounting dears, I needed to use that information to reach them.” (page 5). I feel this statement is a realization that in order to get the classroom community to work together successfully she needed to bring the student lives into the class itself. The idea of learning about the student’s lives and using it to create a more open and functioning classroom is not a new one. Many of the articles we read on motivation and engaging students refer back to this idea. When students see you have taken an interest in their lives and want to have lessons in the classroom that relate to what they are experiencing they will want to learn more and participate because they know what it is like. I always felt that learning about the students you have in your classroom is the only way to get them to trust you and feel safe within the classroom walls. When students feel they are a part of something and have a meaningful position they will be willing to work and participate. I have seen how my mentor teacher, Pete Kennedy, at sleepy Hollow Middle School uses this tool to connect to the students. He knows what sports they play, what type of books they like to read and even knows who has siblings still attending the Sleepy Hollow middle/high school. I can see how his effort to know these kids has made them so comfortable in his room that many enjoy sharing personal work they wrote and stories about their families without hesitation.
.... Linda had to find a way to make her classroom fit more closely to that of Mr. Kennedy if she ever wanted the students to participate. “I had hoped to build a community of inquiry where we identified a common problem and worked to understand it by examining history and our lives.” (page 5). This idea of working as a unit to examine real life problems these kids were facing and using history to show how such problems existed before. This shows that the students are working together on something meaningful to their lives and maybe through the exploration in the classroom they can find solutions. Bringing history and personal lives in was definitely shown when Linda asked the students to write about their ancestors after reading some pieces on lineage. The writing piece was not limited to just immediate family but also their race, gender, and nationality. Linda gave the kids an assignment but allowed creative freedom and choice. What I loved most about taking creative writing courses and writers workshops in school was that I was given a particular task but was able to not only complete it any way I saw fit but able to be imaginative too. I know I have to teach grammar rules, proper spelling, and analysis of literature must be addressed but the technical stuff is just part of teaching students. Getting them to free their minds and let their ideas flow is very important too and Linda learned this early on. The kids in her class were feeling connections and coming to realizations that they even admitted had changed their lives. Being able to touch these kids and have such meaningful activities that bring out more important issues is a blessing.
One such activity that was featured in this book that I will try to incorporate into my own teaching was the poem where the students explore their names. Some students have a name passed down through generations, others have parents who wanted uniqueness, and still others search for names that have a deeper meaning such as Faith or Hope. What I find interesting is how the students view the names given to them compared to what it was given to them for, such as family tradition etc. I had never done a poem like this one in school but I imagine what I would have written if I did. It would probably include a line thanking my parents for having me after my sister, a first born girl who needed to be named after my Greek grandmother. Her name is Olga but when we didn’t get along as children I called her Ogre. I found out recently that she was not very fond of this nickname for some odd reason. This type of activity opens the floor up for students to write silly. heartwarming, or meaningful poems. It allows students and the teacher insight into the minds of the writer and their families. I can see many students even communicating with parents or guardians to learn more about where their names came from if they never really asked before. Inquiry is an important idea for students and questioning things to learn outside the classroom is a great thing to hear your students are doing.
.... Another activity that seems fun but a way to get students writing creatively about their histories is the “Where I Am From” poems. I had the pleasure of doing this activity a few weeks ago in my other Teach course with Professor Horgan. I had so much fun thinking back to my childhood and picturing these vivid memories to write a poem that would not only make me smile but hopefully my classmates chuckle. When we shared Professor Horgan said that now she would be able to remember our names better by associating something from our pieces, little mermaid bed set was mine. I found that this technique also helped me learn my peer’s names and I felt more connected hearing how some had similar memories or toys that meant enough to mention in their poems. Activities like these are great to begin the year with because getting to know one another is very important to creating a community like environment within the classroom. When kids feel comfortable and that they were given enough guidance then they are more willing to share and participate like stated earlier.
Part of the guidance I saw Linda giving were the sheets in which her students could refer to and know if they were missing pieces of importance in their work. For the narrative pieces the worksheet calls “Narrative Criteria Sheet” (page 36) gave the students the criteria that the teacher suggests would give their pieces more depth. It did not take away the creative voice or the pupils but let them know what things are usually seen within well written narratives. I know as a student myself that when I do not know what a teacher is expecting I always feel I did the work wrong. I never want my students to be so stressed out over an assignment that they are afraid to write or fearful they will write something I am not looking for. Allowing the students to have creative freedom with some parameters to guide them takes away the guessing game that students need to play in order to get work done. I feel Linda was always very organized with her steps her students needed to take to get to a certain outcome and this always eliminated some of the fear her students may have been feeling allowing for a more pleasantly run classroom.
One last note I would like to make is how Linda provides examples of student work within the book to show how her activities were followed through on. This is so helpful because I can see where her ideas were taken and what products can be expected from students who do such activities. Reading directions and lesson plans is helpful but seeing the finished product speaks for itself. I am more confidant borrowing ideas from Linda’s lessons if I have some substantial evidence they are successful within the classroom. So far I have enjoyed the activities she presents the students with because she always seems to relate it to they own lives in some way. ________________________________________
I feel that everyone is enjoying the nook so far. We all appreciated the activities that Linda presented to us thus far and can see incorporating them into our classrooms in the future.
Everyone has picked up on how Linda emphasize a big importance on student lives and making sure you bring this into the classroom. She focuses a lot on her student's identities because the live in a community filled with violence and danger which influences their choices in life. She wants to ease their fears and show them that others have dealt with and are dealing with the same things they are and that the classroom is a safe haven to creatively express their inner feelings. I feel that a student in Linda's classroom could definitely be able to acquire a feeling of hope after becoming part of this community. Being able to learn about their histories and themselves in the process is so important to these students finding out who they are in this world.
I want to thank Tory for being brave enough to be our tech manager on this blog since I myself do not know the first thing about using one of these. I am aware that Arianna is unable to join our group and hopefully we can sort that out tomorrow in class but I feel for our first go at this we did pretty well feeling out the blog. Now that we have faced some of the technological issues that happen with blogs I hope we can have a smoother go next book club.
I am so impressed with your writing here. I love the various connections you all are making between this text and other texts in content methods and experiences as students or in your field placement. I encourage you to keep making these kinds of text to self (Kathleen, really you didn't think your sister would feel bad being called "Ogre"?), text to text, and text to world connections in your writing on these blog - even if you find you have to post multiple times...the limitations of this blogging format. One thing I'm struck by is the comment by Arianna (or Kathleen) re: learning about students. So important! But something else to consider is the two-way dynamic of this. I find that students, especially at that age, feel they can share more about themselves if you do the same about yourselves - within reason, of course. They don't want to know every gory detail! This is certainly part of the personal and social dimension of learning that I think is so critical to all learning in all content areas but is particularly pivotal for English and literacy. How and what do you reveal about yourself through your teaching, your choices, and how does that impact the students' ability to engage in personal and social ways in your content area? I also appreciated the comments re: student work. I'm so glad this book has that for you. Looking at student work is critical in becoming a better teacher - now and even as you get in the classroom. Reading directions or ideas for lessons is one thing; seeing what it will look like enables you to envision a better way. I can't wait to see where this discussion goes tonight!
Our first book club meeting went really well. We discussed a lot of personal issues that could arise in the classroom. The main aspect that we reflected upon was addressing specific issues in the classroom and creating a safe environment for students. We noticed that Christenson focused a lot of her lessons and activities around student’s identities and feelings. We thought it was important that teachers get to know their students and create a comfort bond but not taking the relationship too far. For example, Valentina brought up the recent story in the news about a teacher writing “Loser” on a student’s paper. While the teacher stated that they were joking around with the student and that is the relationship they have in the classroom, we thought it was a little too much.
The topic of addressing different social issues was a big interest. In both suburbs and urban areas, students are experiencing drugs, bullying, violence, underage pregnancies, death, and more. While many people try to push aside these issues, we all recommended that teachers shouldn’t ignore them. Arianna and Tory discussed how in their past classes, their teachers allowed students to discuss their feelings, experiences, and pose questions when deaths tragically happened in their schools. Both assured that it was a great coping mechanism and teachers are a great example for someone students to turn to. Also, a lot of these issues can be tied into literature. Students can be exposed to problems and solutions that characters face and reflect upon themselves for the best choices and answers.
Kat imposed a final question that focused around what issues or topic is appropriate or not with sharing in the classroom. Also, she questioned if students would feel comfortable sharing and talking about these issues. We discussed that through a safe, tolerant environment students can feel open to share. Also, we related back to Christenson who makes writing an essential part of the class. If students didn’t want to share, they could write about issues or ideas. All of us have experienced a couple of productive writing activities in our other TCH class that we felt would connect to the confidential sharing experience. For example, having confident journal entries (folding page over if you don’t want the teacher do read), writing a personal experience and then translating it to the third person, and producing “anti-introductions,” to make up a different identity. We all felt that writing is one of the best ways to participate and capture your feelings.
Clayton’s Question- How and what do you reveal about yourself through your teaching, your choices, and how does that impact the students' ability to engage in personal and social ways in your content area?
Kat’s Question- Linda focuses a lot on social issues, very controversial ones at that. Do you think that you could use some of her ideas and themes in a school in the suburbs that is not located in such a dangerous neighborhood? Would it have the same value and meaning, would these kids be able to step into the shoes of students like Linda’s?
Kat’s Question- When is sharing appropriate and when is it not? When you work on such personal issues with students how can you protect them from embarrassment, or the fear of it, so they want to share with the class? __________________________________________________________________________
Didn’t Get To These:
Kat’s Question- Were there any particular lessons/activities that stuck out to you as very valuable to students, why? Would you use this in the future?
Kat’s Question- How important is visual literacy to you, how will you try and implement it in your classroom? Tory pointed out how Linda, “had a debate with her students about how many were persuaded by advertisements and cartoon ads. Many students denied this but didn’t realize that the visual world of media was everywhere and everything.” Would using advertisements and cartoons in a lesson be useful to students in English classes or do they fit more in with social studies? How might you use such images in a lesson?
Kat’s Questions- How can I convince the students to do work that they do not want to do? What would I do if I had a student who pushed off all the work, what would I say to them? How will you react if you spent all night planning a lesson you thought would be a winner but it crashed and burn? What is the importance of having back up plans handy?
Kat’s Question- How much better was it for you to see actual examples of student work as opposed to other articles we have seen that just explain the outcomes after an activity? What benefit would showing your current students the work of your previous students have?
Linda Christensen’s book, Reading, Writing, and Rising Up, exhibits the importance of empathizing with students in order to build a community. The first two chapters revolve around the aspect of community building in the classroom so students can have a safe environment to share goals, emotions, and experiences.
ReplyDeleteI really liked several of the lesson plans and ideas Christensen had to offer. She made it essential that students reflected upon their personal experiences and used them to produce narratives, poems, and collective texts. Many of her lessons were based around a “read aloud” or “sharing and talking.” Students would form a circle, share work, and positively critic each other. This let students reflect upon their own work and peers work. It was a good strategy to use because it had students positively praise others until the second half of the year where they could provide constructive criticism when needed.
Chapter 2 focused around unlearning myths and stereotypes. Students were introduced to children’s books, movies, and literature that would revolve around inequality, stereotypes, and hierarchy. I thought it benefit students to realize how trends and stereotypes are apparent throughout history and in the media. I like that fact that students kept an ongoing chart of different stereotypes and roles they came across during the text or media. This was eventually used for a writing assignment and critique. After this unit, students could envision and question the world around them. They thought about what they could do to educate others and deliver a message of respect and equality which is very important. Finally, the students wrote praise poems which spoke against any negative portrayals people had about themselves, their race, sex, culture, etc. Students wrote about and praised themselves and their aspects. I thought this was a great way to boost student’s confidence and take notice to the great qualities they each have in themselves.
Thanks for being the first to post, Michelle! Where are the others? Not posting on time may make it difficult for the Discussion Director but there is still time I suppose since you extended the deadline to midnight!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your personal reactions. What connections are you making between this (say her work on "sharing and talking") and other texts we've read (I'm thinking Probst and the SS reading).
Resist the urge to summarize here and try to embrace the spirit of a dialogue journal which is to really write about one or two aspects that really strike you, making connections with other things (experiences, texts, etc.) and raise questions that are coming up. All this helps a discussion director.
After looking through and reading/skimming the first few chapters I noticed that Reading, Writing and Rising Up by Linda Christensen reminds me of our Bomer text in our English content teach class. I also think she started out talking about creating communities, like many of our readings have mentioned. The personal stories she shares with her experiences help support the methods she provides us with. Christensen mentioned that after failing to create an environment where students were getting along and were engaged in class. She changed her technique and brought different aspects to the class that would bring in their outside lives into the classroom. As we have all said in many of our side conversations, students’ lives don’t start when they step foot in our class they bring their history and a baggage of experiences some of us will probably never be able to relate to. However, Christensen pointed out in the first chapter that it was important to bring up topics in class and allow students to write or read about them, even though some of them may seem to taboo to be in an English class. Fro instance, she mentioned that her fourth period senior class was very unengaged and so she changed her approach and asked them to start writing, reading and discussing what they know about gangs and the violence that comes with it etc. Even though most people looking into the classroom might say or think that it is inappropriate that students watch or read or write about gangs and violence, it is important to give students to the opportunity to cover issues that they face outside the school building. Pretending that the issue doesn’t exist isn’t going to make their sufferings and private issues go away and so it is important that we as English teachers provide students with a safe environment where they can discuss these issues and feelings and feel that we are trying to connect their world with our world as well as with literature. Christensen stressed that we bring our students lives in the classroom and use that as a foundation or support to get the students engage in our lessons.
ReplyDeleteThe techniques, lesson plans and strategies she provides in the book are very helpful and I would expect that with her vision she would have students write in many different ways for many different topics. I really liked the way in which she provided us with activity sheets and also showed us some of the students work to show where and how she was going to assess her students understanding. Christensen seems to be very for the students. I feel like she tries really hard to connect with her students as well as support and encourage them, which are valuable qualities for any teacher. One of the many writing exercises/projects she uses to encourage students is assigning students to write praise poems about themselves, their culture, other people, language, school or neighborhood etc. Although some older students might think it is cheesy to write about oneself, I know from my experience and from reading some of the papers the students in Peekskill have written, it becomes less of a project for just a grade and more of a therapeutic and helpful exercise to boost student confidence. For the students who are part of a low income urban area, these exercises allow them to appreciate the little that they have and make more of what they’ve been given.
So far, I’ve enjoyed reading and going through this text, it provides some insightful ideas that I plan on using and hope to use when I start my student teaching.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you the on going charts she gave the students was very helpful, it kind oacted as the writing notebook our Bomer texts mention. It enables students to keep going back and adding to their previous thoughts, something which would definitely help them in their writing assignments. Her approach in teaching about stereotypes made me reflect on my mini lesson that I attempted to do last semester. Hahaha. I think had I seen this book before hand I might have used some of her ideas, they would have been very helpful because I was lost in creating the short hook. Christensen appears to be more focused her students' lives and I think her activities make an English class very welcoming and safe. It builds the community all English teachers hope to have.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteArianna DeRiso's Response:
ReplyDeleteI posted for her since she was unable to log on for technology related reasons
_______________________________
In Reading, Writing, and Rising Up, Linda Christensen begins her introduction by describing the achievement gap between white and black students. I agree that it is a barrier to equality because those who are not able to cross the gap do not have a fair opportunity in schools. This book essentially a plan to rethink how schools think and I think if these steps are followed, that we as teachers can really make a difference.
I really liked how she invited students to write about violence because although it is a risky educational move, it is something that the students can relate to. By having students open up and share their fears, they developed a bond with one another. Christensen made the classroom a comfortable environment for students to share their thoughts and therefore created a place where nothing, not even violence, would be ignored or overlooked. By having them reflect on their personal experiences they not only can become connected with their classmates, but with their community and with what they are writing about.
I really enjoyed the teaching strategy in the section, “To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story” because I feel like the students are really able to share their emotions through poetry without feeling “silly” or “self conscious.” I also like how she makes it clear that no one is to make critical comments towards another students’ work. By keeping comments positive, they are able to develop strong, confident writing filled with enthusiasm. I also enjoyed how she described the Childhood Narratives strategy because she was very detailed in her describing what to do in the classroom. She states, “ try to get students to see, hear, smell, taste the memory—to create a movie in their heads of the childhood memory so their writing will be more detailed (27). I think this statement is very powerful because many students in schools today just write the assignment because they have to get it done. But here, students are remembering every aspect of their memory before they write it down. It appears that after doing this exercise, their writing will be much more emotional and powerful.
Overall, it is important to keep a student’s self-esteem up so that they are more active in the classroom. By giving them positive feedback and engaging them in fun activities that they can relate to, teachers are on the right path to bridging the achievement gap and increasing all students’ races and cultures abilities to learn and obtain information.
A quote from the beginning of chapter one I thought was powerful in managing and creating community in a classroom is “ I couldn’t ignore the toll the outside world was exacting on my students. Rather than pretending that I could close my door in the face of their mounting fears, I needed to use that information to reach them”. I thought this was important because it ties into a reading I did where a teacher utilized the lives of his students to form a community in the classroom. One thing I’ve noticed is that students tend to think they are alone in their everyday struggles and keep them bottled up because of those thoughts. As a teacher, I think it’s important to have students share so that the other members of the class with passively realize they aren’t alone, and their fears are shared throughout. In my coop class, many students were worried about the same problem happening in school. When we finally got one student to share it with the class, half a dozen others let out a sigh of relief and agreed that was something they were concerned with.
ReplyDeleteAnother part of this book that touches on something we’ve been discussing is how to read images (visual literacy) and how students use this process in their daily lives. The author had a debate with her students about how many were persuaded by advertisements and cartoon ads. Many students denied this but didn’t realize that the visual world of media was everywhere and everything. I thought this was funny because even as I was growing up, I remember making choices based off commercials and buying things because it was the “new and improved” garbage. The point of this section I felt was the author wanted students to realize how visual literacy works in their everyday lives and help them to develop their interpretation skills of images and visual media.
I just wanted to thank everyone for being so patient and willing to experiement in this first week. I am glad almost everyone got this to work for them. I think the problem was that we were invited to publish under our pace email addresses. Basically, pace email = google acct name. If there is another acct name you want to use, just let me know and I'll add that to the permissions list. Hopefully by next time we can get everything figured out completly and have no problems.
ReplyDeleteKathleen Siantos
ReplyDeleteI have discovered there is a limit to how many characters can be in a post (4,096 to be exact)so I must place my response in more then one comment so I hope this does not confuse anyone. I tend to write a lot, sorry again.
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When reading through this book I noticed many spots where key information was set aside and emphasized. One such item that caught my eye was the quoting of Frederick Douglass saying, “This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both mental and physical; but it must be a struggle,” stuck out to me (page 4). When I first read the longer blurb of a statement made by him I tried to see why the author put it in. I interpreted it into two possible meanings when I read this section discussing the violence the students face in their community and the struggle Linda Christensen had getting these students to participate in their schooling. These kids are faced with dangers and fears that we wish would not find their way into the classroom but they do. Linda needed to get the trust of these kids in order to motivate them to do any of the work she expected of them. She discussed how the students we not interested in the book she chose to read as a class and most did not even attempt the work. This for her was not only a strain on her mentally but she had physically worked to plan these lessons and activities and the students had no interest. This was her struggle, how to get her students engaged in the lessons. Being a student teacher I fear this very thing; spending hours planning lessons and having students who just disregard it completely. How can I convince them to work? What would I do if I had a student who pushed off all the work, what would I say to them? These are the questions that floor my mind and a very realistic situation that Linda had to face.
“I couldn’t ignore the toll the outside world was exacting on my students. Rather than pretending that I could close my door in the face of their mounting dears, I needed to use that information to reach them.” (page 5). I feel this statement is a realization that in order to get the classroom community to work together successfully she needed to bring the student lives into the class itself. The idea of learning about the student’s lives and using it to create a more open and functioning classroom is not a new one. Many of the articles we read on motivation and engaging students refer back to this idea. When students see you have taken an interest in their lives and want to have lessons in the classroom that relate to what they are experiencing they will want to learn more and participate because they know what it is like. I always felt that learning about the students you have in your classroom is the only way to get them to trust you and feel safe within the classroom walls. When students feel they are a part of something and have a meaningful position they will be willing to work and participate. I have seen how my mentor teacher, Pete Kennedy, at sleepy Hollow Middle School uses this tool to connect to the students. He knows what sports they play, what type of books they like to read and even knows who has siblings still attending the Sleepy Hollow middle/high school. I can see how his effort to know these kids has made them so comfortable in his room that many enjoy sharing personal work they wrote and stories about their families without hesitation.
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.... Linda had to find a way to make her classroom fit more closely to that of Mr. Kennedy if she ever wanted the students to participate. “I had hoped to build a community of inquiry where we identified a common problem and worked to understand it by examining history and our lives.” (page 5). This idea of working as a unit to examine real life problems these kids were facing and using history to show how such problems existed before. This shows that the students are working together on something meaningful to their lives and maybe through the exploration in the classroom they can find solutions. Bringing history and personal lives in was definitely shown when Linda asked the students to write about their ancestors after reading some pieces on lineage. The writing piece was not limited to just immediate family but also their race, gender, and nationality. Linda gave the kids an assignment but allowed creative freedom and choice. What I loved most about taking creative writing courses and writers workshops in school was that I was given a particular task but was able to not only complete it any way I saw fit but able to be imaginative too. I know I have to teach grammar rules, proper spelling, and analysis of literature must be addressed but the technical stuff is just part of teaching students. Getting them to free their minds and let their ideas flow is very important too and Linda learned this early on. The kids in her class were feeling connections and coming to realizations that they even admitted had changed their lives. Being able to touch these kids and have such meaningful activities that bring out more important issues is a blessing.
ReplyDeleteOne such activity that was featured in this book that I will try to incorporate into my own teaching was the poem where the students explore their names. Some students have a name passed down through generations, others have parents who wanted uniqueness, and still others search for names that have a deeper meaning such as Faith or Hope. What I find interesting is how the students view the names given to them compared to what it was given to them for, such as family tradition etc. I had never done a poem like this one in school but I imagine what I would have written if I did. It would probably include a line thanking my parents for having me after my sister, a first born girl who needed to be named after my Greek grandmother. Her name is Olga but when we didn’t get along as children I called her Ogre. I found out recently that she was not very fond of this nickname for some odd reason. This type of activity opens the floor up for students to write silly. heartwarming, or meaningful poems. It allows students and the teacher insight into the minds of the writer and their families. I can see many students even communicating with parents or guardians to learn more about where their names came from if they never really asked before. Inquiry is an important idea for students and questioning things to learn outside the classroom is a great thing to hear your students are doing.
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.... Another activity that seems fun but a way to get students writing creatively about their histories is the “Where I Am From” poems. I had the pleasure of doing this activity a few weeks ago in my other Teach course with Professor Horgan. I had so much fun thinking back to my childhood and picturing these vivid memories to write a poem that would not only make me smile but hopefully my classmates chuckle. When we shared Professor Horgan said that now she would be able to remember our names better by associating something from our pieces, little mermaid bed set was mine. I found that this technique also helped me learn my peer’s names and I felt more connected hearing how some had similar memories or toys that meant enough to mention in their poems. Activities like these are great to begin the year with because getting to know one another is very important to creating a community like environment within the classroom. When kids feel comfortable and that they were given enough guidance then they are more willing to share and participate like stated earlier.
ReplyDeletePart of the guidance I saw Linda giving were the sheets in which her students could refer to and know if they were missing pieces of importance in their work. For the narrative pieces the worksheet calls “Narrative Criteria Sheet” (page 36) gave the students the criteria that the teacher suggests would give their pieces more depth. It did not take away the creative voice or the pupils but let them know what things are usually seen within well written narratives. I know as a student myself that when I do not know what a teacher is expecting I always feel I did the work wrong. I never want my students to be so stressed out over an assignment that they are afraid to write or fearful they will write something I am not looking for. Allowing the students to have creative freedom with some parameters to guide them takes away the guessing game that students need to play in order to get work done. I feel Linda was always very organized with her steps her students needed to take to get to a certain outcome and this always eliminated some of the fear her students may have been feeling allowing for a more pleasantly run classroom.
One last note I would like to make is how Linda provides examples of student work within the book to show how her activities were followed through on. This is so helpful because I can see where her ideas were taken and what products can be expected from students who do such activities. Reading directions and lesson plans is helpful but seeing the finished product speaks for itself. I am more confidant borrowing ideas from Linda’s lessons if I have some substantial evidence they are successful within the classroom. So far I have enjoyed the activities she presents the students with because she always seems to relate it to they own lives in some way.
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End of Kat's incredibly long post... sorry :-)
I feel that everyone is enjoying the nook so far. We all appreciated the activities that Linda presented to us thus far and can see incorporating them into our classrooms in the future.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has picked up on how Linda emphasize a big importance on student lives and making sure you bring this into the classroom. She focuses a lot on her student's identities because the live in a community filled with violence and danger which influences their choices in life. She wants to ease their fears and show them that others have dealt with and are dealing with the same things they are and that the classroom is a safe haven to creatively express their inner feelings. I feel that a student in Linda's classroom could definitely be able to acquire a feeling of hope after becoming part of this community. Being able to learn about their histories and themselves in the process is so important to these students finding out who they are in this world.
I want to thank Tory for being brave enough to be our tech manager on this blog since I myself do not know the first thing about using one of these. I am aware that Arianna is unable to join our group and hopefully we can sort that out tomorrow in class but I feel for our first go at this we did pretty well feeling out the blog. Now that we have faced some of the technological issues that happen with blogs I hope we can have a smoother go next book club.
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed with your writing here. I love the various connections you all are making between this text and other texts in content methods and experiences as students or in your field placement. I encourage you to keep making these kinds of text to self (Kathleen, really you didn't think your sister would feel bad being called "Ogre"?), text to text, and text to world connections in your writing on these blog - even if you find you have to post multiple times...the limitations of this blogging format. One thing I'm struck by is the comment by Arianna (or Kathleen) re: learning about students. So important! But something else to consider is the two-way dynamic of this. I find that students, especially at that age, feel they can share more about themselves if you do the same about yourselves - within reason, of course. They don't want to know every gory detail! This is certainly part of the personal and social dimension of learning that I think is so critical to all learning in all content areas but is particularly pivotal for English and literacy. How and what do you reveal about yourself through your teaching, your choices, and how does that impact the students' ability to engage in personal and social ways in your content area? I also appreciated the comments re: student work. I'm so glad this book has that for you. Looking at student work is critical in becoming a better teacher - now and even as you get in the classroom. Reading directions or ideas for lessons is one thing; seeing what it will look like enables you to envision a better way. I can't wait to see where this discussion goes tonight!
ReplyDelete:) yay
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOur first book club meeting went really well. We discussed a lot of personal issues that could arise in the classroom. The main aspect that we reflected upon was addressing specific issues in the classroom and creating a safe environment for students. We noticed that Christenson focused a lot of her lessons and activities around student’s identities and feelings. We thought it was important that teachers get to know their students and create a comfort bond but not taking the relationship too far. For example, Valentina brought up the recent story in the news about a teacher writing “Loser” on a student’s paper. While the teacher stated that they were joking around with the student and that is the relationship they have in the classroom, we thought it was a little too much.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of addressing different social issues was a big interest. In both suburbs and urban areas, students are experiencing drugs, bullying, violence, underage pregnancies, death, and more. While many people try to push aside these issues, we all recommended that teachers shouldn’t ignore them. Arianna and Tory discussed how in their past classes, their teachers allowed students to discuss their feelings, experiences, and pose questions when deaths tragically happened in their schools. Both assured that it was a great coping mechanism and teachers are a great example for someone students to turn to. Also, a lot of these issues can be tied into literature. Students can be exposed to problems and solutions that characters face and reflect upon themselves for the best choices and answers.
Kat imposed a final question that focused around what issues or topic is appropriate or not with sharing in the classroom. Also, she questioned if students would feel comfortable sharing and talking about these issues. We discussed that through a safe, tolerant environment students can feel open to share. Also, we related back to Christenson who makes writing an essential part of the class. If students didn’t want to share, they could write about issues or ideas. All of us have experienced a couple of productive writing activities in our other TCH class that we felt would connect to the confidential sharing experience. For example, having confident journal entries (folding page over if you don’t want the teacher do read), writing a personal experience and then translating it to the third person, and producing “anti-introductions,” to make up a different identity. We all felt that writing is one of the best ways to participate and capture your feelings.
Discussion Director Questions:
ReplyDeleteClayton’s Question- How and what do you reveal about yourself through your teaching, your choices, and how does that impact the students' ability to engage in personal and social ways in your content area?
Kat’s Question- Linda focuses a lot on social issues, very controversial ones at that. Do you think that you could use some of her ideas and themes in a school in the suburbs that is not located in such a dangerous neighborhood? Would it have the same value and meaning, would these kids be able to step into the shoes of students like Linda’s?
Kat’s Question- When is sharing appropriate and when is it not? When you work on such personal issues with students how can you protect them from embarrassment, or the fear of it, so they want to share with the class?
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Didn’t Get To These:
Kat’s Question- Were there any particular lessons/activities that stuck out to you as very valuable to students, why? Would you use this in the future?
Kat’s Question- How important is visual literacy to you, how will you try and implement it in your classroom? Tory pointed out how Linda, “had a debate with her students about how many were persuaded by advertisements and cartoon ads. Many students denied this but didn’t realize that the visual world of media was everywhere and everything.” Would using advertisements and cartoons in a lesson be useful to students in English classes or do they fit more in with social studies? How might you use such images in a lesson?
Kat’s Questions- How can I convince the students to do work that they do not want to do? What would I do if I had a student who pushed off all the work, what would I say to them? How will you react if you spent all night planning a lesson you thought would be a winner but it crashed and burn? What is the importance of having back up plans handy?
Kat’s Question- How much better was it for you to see actual examples of student work as opposed to other articles we have seen that just explain the outcomes after an activity? What benefit would showing your current students the work of your previous students have?