Assessment

We talked in class the other day about the differences between assessment, evaluation and grading. Ben and I are collaborating on a reading/writing unit plan centered around the coming of age theme. I am focusing more on the writing component.

Students will be assessed on their writing every day. Some assignments will simply be checked to make sure they are completed it while other times I will walk around the classroom while they are working to discuss their writing with them one on one. Writing activities are a great way for students to assess their own writing and can be taken into account when I begin to evaluate how much they have learned.

The culminating project will be a written narrative about the student's own "coming of age" story. Students will complete self-evaluation based on a rubric. The students will exposed to this rubric throughout the entire writing process, and will therefore have a guide for quality work. Following this self-evaluation, I will perform my own evaluation, and one-on-one conferences will be scheduled to talk about the student's work.

The Unit Plan

The time is approaching to explore and create a unit plan to be used in a mid-level classroom. I will not be student teaching until Fall 2012, so this unit plan will be more theoretical until I will be able to put it to future use. Five lessons are to be fully created within the context of an entire unit.

I constantly go back to the first day of our Language Arts Pedagogy class and our carousel of defining an "adolescent." I was disturbed by the stereotyping and broad classification that we instinctually agreed upon.  We looked at a website, then, of adolescents using their artistic talents to create a voice for themselves - a unique, original, individual voice. These students are individuals, with unique stories to tell. What's more, they have a voice that they want to use - a voice with more power than they might even realize.

Coming of Age stories are common and popular in literature. Students today, I feel, want to "grow up" faster than ever before; however, it is difficult for them to find their voice and escape the realm of childhood that adults continually place them in. Yes, they are still children, but they have more potential and talent than I think we give them credit for. It is for this reason that I plan to incorporate the "coming of age" theme into my unit plan. Using short stories (and/or perhaps a text?), we will explore this theme and incorporate what we learn into our own writing. This transition from childhood into adulthood happens at different ages for everyone, so no two stories will be alike. Perhaps many students will still be anticipating the shift into adulthood. This lesson plan will be created for 8th graders to teach them to analyze and understand a recurring theme in literature and in an effort to explore their experiences and empower them to use their potential.

I will give more detail as more details work themselves out.

Watch and Learn

Writing is both deeply personal and meant to be shared. It is tiring and rejuvenating. It takes effort, but the reward is well worth it. Do students in the classroom today view themselves as writers? Is writing something that they engage in outside the context of nightly homework assignments? The possibilities of writing are endless, but I do not remember being introduced to these endless possibilities in school. I remember learning the 6 traits of writing and applying them to essays and research papers. This writing was completely separate and non-associated with the writing that I did for pleasure: journaling. Hence, I never took what I learned about writing (6 traits, writing process, etc.) to any writing outside of the curriculum.

When it comes to writing, there is not THE process, but A process to guide you. Good writers make this process their own and produce writing that they feel proud to take ownership of. When asked to reflect on my writing process, I was surprised to realize that I had never genuinely reflected on it before. Good writers know their self and their writing preferences; they know what works best for them. To learn good writing, what better way is there to look at how good writers write? Fortunately, writing is not something that the fortunate are just born with and the unfortunate will never be able to attain to. Good writing is something that is learned and developed through observation and practice.


A great place to begin teaching students good writing is by showing them good writing. Students need examples of good writing and need to be taught how to look at others' writing in such a way that influences their own writing. This can be done in mini lessons, giving the students plenty of time to practice and manipulate the methods in an effort to make them their own. Writing should not be a product of a machine. Good writing is compatible with human emotions and reflects the author behind the work. Students need to know who that person is before they can create the writing that reflects that.

Calling for Media Literacy!

Media pervades every aspect of our students' lives. Awareness of this fact is the first goal of media literacy. Spend 24 hours keeping track of the ways that you come into contact with the media and you will be amazed at what you find. The scary thing is, even though students encounter the media consistently throughout their day they are ill-prepared to evaluate it. This is the second aspect to media literacy: we must teach our students to recognize what values the media conveys and how these values and ideaologies are constructed.

Our relationship with the media is recursive. The media shapes us and we shape the media - which came first is anybody's guess. Media representations have the capacity to influence the viewer's attitudes and beliefs about the real world. Our students need to be prepared to analyze the message it is carrying in order to make an accurate evaluation.

Engaging with media can be both motivating and engaging for our students who have grown up around technology their whole lives. Most students will feel compelled to interact with the lesson because it is dealing with something that they understand and spend a good portion of their lives around. Students who do not do well with reading and writing have an opporunity to find success with the media...and the options available with the media are endless. Giving students a chance to find their voice through media outlets, while utilizing the critical elements that they have learned, can be exciting and inspiring. For a media literacy hub of information about literacy, I reccommend checking out Gateway Media Literacy Partners.

Advertising in Schools?

There are currently 52 million children in the United States today, and it is estimated that they influence over 700 billion dollars spent each year. This means that adults make consumer decision based on the wants and needs of their children. From the car that parents buy to where the family goes on vacation, the child's demands and interests influence consumer spending. Thus, children have become the number one market that advertisers want to appeal to. Their motto? Get them in the cradle and you will have them until the grave. Hook kids while they are young and they will be loyal to your product for life.

This is a naturally savvy move on the end of the advertisers, but it raises many ethical questions, such as how far can advertisers go to study the wants and needs of children? Some have gone as far as to follow them into bathrooms to observe how they wash their hair, play in the tub, etc - all so that they can make their product more appealing. With more and more ads being centered around food and drink, recent years have seen a dramatic increase in childhood obesity. The question I want to raise today is, should advertising be allowed to enter the schools?

It is a typical response that parents should be held responsible for the advertisements that reach their children. Parents, however, are not always with their children, particularly during school hours. While their children are at school, parents have no influence over what reaches their child's ears and grabs their attention. There are many types of advertising that takes place in schools: direct advertising is found on school buses, in textbooks, on the football field or in the cafeteria (usually via a poster or traditional ad). Some schools, however, air Channel One on 90% of school days in 80% of the classrooms. Channel One is a 10 minute "informational" newscast that designates 2 minutes to advertising. Schools sign a contract with Channel One, promising to deliver them a "captive audience"in exchange for a satellite dish, VCRs and TV sets.

But it doesn't stop there - advertisements come in all sorts of forms within a school. Public relation materials are designed to look like classroom activities and contests, samples and incentive programs offer advertisers a way to subtly promote their product to their valued customers. Some companies go so far as to host "slumber parties" where a child is supposed to invite his or her friends and subtly promote a product and gather information on that demographic. Schools are in need of more funds and sponsorships through programs may seem like a smart move. However, when it comes down to it, profit, not education, is the advertiser's priority. Should it be allowed to continue? If so, where should the line be drawn?

Professional Learning Networks

Blogs, RSS Feeds, Twitter - these are the PLNs we have worked with this semester, and there are still so many more out there! Last week I attended a session at the Minnesota Education Conference titled "Becoming a Web 2.0 Leader." I was amazed by how much technology has developed and how advantageous it can be when used wisely. It even goes beyond tools for teachers to those that students can take advantage of, such as Googledocs, Ning, Screentoaster, Diigo and Bibme.

When used wisely. Professional Learning Networks are tools that can be very advantageous. Unfortunately, for those who have not grown up around technology, these new tools can look very intimidating. I have grown up with technology and I am still challenged by discovering everything that these tools have to offer. It is important for educators to know that these are out there! They can offer a lot, but time must be invested in learning how to use them efficiently.

I have found blogs and twitter very useful; I only wish I had more time to explore them. I try to balance all the interesting information I have at my disposal with the responsibilities I need to complete in my day. With more time, I might be able to use these tools for the purposes that they were intended, but at the moment my life is consumed with seemingly more immediate realities. One of these days, when I can take the time to adequately learn what these tools have to offer, I hope I will be able to efficiently apply them and integrate them into my life.

The blogs I am subscribing to are:
1. Free Technology for Teachers: this blog is useful to keep up to date with ways to bring technology into your classroom
2. Two Writing Teachers: Two teachers collaborating to bring attention to writing as a passion and an art
3. Write Out Loud: A teacher giving writing prompts to his students - interesting and sparks ideas
4. The Scholastic Scribe
5. The Book Whisperer: Author of "The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child"

Critical Literacy

Critical literacy initiates a discussion between the author and the reader and focuses on the power relation between the two. No longer is the author the sole authority of the text, for the reader is invited to question, examine or dispute what the author puts forth.  Critical literacy transforms the passive reader into the active reader, inviting him to reflect on what is missing from the work of literature and to take action to transform the inequalities.

Critical literacy appeals to me because it engages the reader in a discussion and holds the reader accountable for the meaning that is derived. It calls the reader into action to confront the text, ask hard questions and argue the topics that are percieved as the norm. Critical literacy "disrupts the commonplace" - it challenges and has the ability to transform ideas into radically new ways of thinking! It's exciting! For the reader to hold the power to actively engage in a written text adds a whole new layer to the possiblities of reading! To teach critical literacy is to teach students to actively participate in the development of their world perception. It places power and authority in the hands of students.



Critical literacy involves active participation. It is challenging and requires an effort to be put forth. For the already active student, critical literacy will be like a splash of cold water, waking them up to the possibilities that lie hidden in the text, waiting to be uncovered. For a low-achieving or uninterested student, critical literacy might be huge obstacle to climb after they already feel drained from the hill they've been climbing. I am confident that the teacher can present critical literacy in a way that excites students, but the particulars of this are not clear. How can we teach critical literacy in such a way that students feel challenged but also completely capable? This is an overarching question, as well as a specific one. How do we teach our students to feel so confident in their abilities that they are willing to try new things?