Presentations for 4/11

Reading the book Nonfiction Matters taught me a lot about doing nonfiction inquiry projects.  I feel that I am prepared to implement a nonfiction inquiry research project in my classroom.  This book gave me a lot of helpful tips, examples, projects, and basically a step by step outline for what I should do and what I should have my students do.  The point of the presentation was to show my fellow classmates how to do these projects in their own classrooms.  I believe the handout we gave would be very helpful because it is a week by week breakdown of how to format a research project and also the handout was filled with tips that the book continuously referred back to.  They can use this handout; however, it would be beneficial for future teachers to read the whole book to get examples and models and learn the mistakes not to make.  

The presentation for Wondrous Words was very informative.  I felt that I knew what the book was about and by reading it I believe that I will get tips and strategies for how to inspire creativeness.  The activity they had us do is something I definitely want to use in my classroom, it was a fun and interesting way to get the point across and it seems like the students really enjoy it.

Review for Presentations

The presentation for A Note Slipped Under the Door was overall a well given presentation. However, I felt like I did not know enough about the book and they could have given a bit more information about it.  They only really talked about imagery in the book and guided their whole presentation around it.  Their activity however was very fun and would be something that I would like to bring into my classroom as a future teacher.  Their handout had a lot of information on it but it was not presented in an interesting way, it was basically just a bunch of words on paper.  The presentation for Readicide was full of information.  After the presentation I felt like I knew what the book was about.  However, I did not like their activity; I felt like they did not clearly state why we were doing what we were doing and that it did not have a meaningful purpose behind it.

Review for Presentations

The presentation for A Note Slipped Under the Door was overall a well given presentation. However, I felt like I did not know enough about the book and they could have given a bit more information about it.  They only really talked about imagery in the book and guided their whole presentation around it.  Their activity however was very fun and would be something that I would like to bring into my classroom as a future teacher.  Their handout had a lot of information on it but it was not presented in an interesting way, it was basically just a bunch of words on paper.  The presentation for Readicide was full of information.  After the presentation I felt like I knew what the book was about.  However, I did not like their activity; I felt like they did not clearly state why we were doing what we were doing and that it did not have a meaningful purpose behind it.

Genre Theory

Thwaite, Anne. Australian Journal of Language & Literacy. Jun2006, Vol. 29 Issue 2, p95-114. 20p.

This article is about genre writing in primary schools.  The research conducted was on a third grade classroom in an economically and socially disadvantaged Western Australian primary school.  There were 21 students in the class, all from a variety of different backgrounds.  The study took approximately ten weeks, which included weekly three hour long visits from the researcher.  Most of the schools in Western Australia follow a literacy program called First Steps, which includes a version of the genre theory.  “The Australian version of genre theory derives from work commenced in Sydney in the 1980’s.  Reacting to the ‘personal growth’ model of writing… it aimed to specify the linguistic features of particular types of writing in order that students could be specifically apprenticed into the writing styles they would need to master for success at school and beyond.”  The six genres most commonly used in primary and secondary schools all follow a single method and curriculum cycle.  First you prepare; decide which genres are most appropriate for each of the units you are working on and determine the student’s previous genre knowledge.  The second step is modeling; show the students models of each of the different writing styles and their schematic structures and discuss the social situations in which the text will be used.  The third step is joint construction; in either groups, partners, or the entire class, come together and write an example for that specific type of genre.  Finally is the independent construction of texts, students should be prepared to model the different types of writing on their own.  Teachers implement this curriculum cycle in many different ways.  During this case study the teacher described how she does not teach the genres separately; instead, she goes according to the theme.  She described how she teaches recount first because she believes that it is an important foundation for writing and she puts a huge emphasis on narrative writing because it allows them to explore their imagination and it gives them the opportunity to gain confidence in their writing.  The schematic structures of the genres are being implemented in the form of frameworks and plans, commonly displayed in classrooms.  According to this case study the schematic structures of the genre was the main emphasis compared to the social functions or the language feature. “Procedural aspects of writing seemed very important in this case, especially to the students. ‘Filling in the boxes’ seemed to sometimes become a goal in itself.” This article showed me that there are different ways to translate and implement the genre theory into your classroom.  After the students have mastered the schematic structure of the genre it is important for them to explore and get creative with the genre in different social contexts, etc.

Formulaic Writing

            Mark Wiley introduces The Jane Schaffer Approach to Teaching Writing as a successful method that teachers should use when teaching writing.  This approach is a nine week, step by step program that teaches students how to write a multiparagraph essay.  It is basically a formula for writing an essay.  Each paragraph follows a specific format, besides the introduction and the conclusion.  The introduction paragraph must consist of a thesis statement.  Body paragraphs include a topic sentence, two concrete details followed by two commentaries, and a concluding sentence.  The body paragraphs should be more than one hundred words in length and the introduction and conclusion paragraphs should be more than forty words.  Jane Schaffer says, “The formulaic nature of this unit does not bother us because students may leave it once they understand it.  Some students leave the format early in the process; others choose not to leave it at all because they like the structure and say it helps them know what to do with a blank page.”  This quote reminded me of high school, my teacher used a different formulaic method to teach us writing; I still use it till this day.  I found it very beneficial; however, it may not be for all students.  In Wiley’s article he mentions that some teachers did not agree with the formulaic method because it removes the need for students to judge for themselves on how to shape their essays.  This also pertains to me because I now have difficulty straying away from the formula I learned in high school.  Our formula was very specific.  The introductory paragraph consisted of a topic sentence (question, quote, anecdote, or statement), the next sentence would be to either answer the question or describe the quote, anecdote, or statement, then tag (title, author, genre), and finally the thesis statement.  The three body paragraphs used the formula say, mean, matter; in separate paragraphs you would write about what your essay says, what does it mean, and why does it matter.  The conclusion paragraph was a compilation of say, mean, matter.  In the article Wiley writes, “Teachers, while acknowledging that students must move beyond the Schaffer method if they are to continue improving, were nevertheless left wondering what to do next.”  The Schaffer method provides only a foundation for students to learn writing.  I believe all teachers should use formulaic writing when teaching students how to write an essay because I found it very beneficial; however, I never learned how to move past that.  There are benefits and non-benefits to using formulaic writing.

Why Johnny Can't Read

Molly O'Connor

Leanna Longoria

• 1955: Why Johnny Can't Read: And What You Can Do About It, by Rudolf Franz Flesch
• 1988: Why Johnny Can't Read, but Yoshio Can, by Richard Lynn
• This article is about the difference between American schools and Japanese schools. It discusses the evidence of Japan's high educational standards. It allows discusses how European children scored about halfway between the Japanese and the Americans.
• 1997: Teaching Johnny to Read
• Congress directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to increase its understanding of learning disabilities and how reading develops. The agency financed a series pf studies that have followed about 2,500 young children, some of them for as long as fourteen years.
• 2012: Why Johnny Can't Read: Redux, by Steve Nelson
• When it comes to school, we've designed an entire educational system around the assumption that children will begin to read at the same time.  Some research suggests that placing children in advanced settings for their developmental age may actually delay their mastery of reading and comprehension.

Co-Authoring Classroom Texts

            Larson introduces this article by comparing teaching writing to students and learning how to play a sport with no coach or actual play time.  In other words you can teach a child the fundamentals of writing but you can’t teach them how to be an author, just like learning how to play a sport, you can know the process of how to do something but until you actually go out and practice, you’re never going to master the sport.  This article is about authorship; instead of just teaching students how to read and write, students should interact with their classmates, teachers, and literature in order to grasp the true meaning of literacy.  Maier’s classroom is a perfect example of hand-on learning.  She has over 6000 books in her classroom as a resource for her students.  When I become a teacher I hope my collection exceeds hers.  Her students begin reading three to five books a night and at the end of the year they are reading ten to twelve books.  This surprised me because ten to twelve books seems like a hefty amount of reading for first graders.  However, some students read less depending on the difficulty of the book.  Despite the other subjects such as math or science, Maier has put a great influence on literacy.  She devotes 90 minutes of her class time on reading and writing every day.  90 minutes is a lengthy amount of time compared to the time spent on other subjects throughout the day.  The thing that surprised me the most was how Maier created a sense of community in her classrooms.  The article states that her and her students had lunch together every day, she knew their pets, their parents’ names, and they knew as much about her as she did about them.  Maier would even use her own personal stories to write narratives with the class.  As a future teacher, I hope I have a strong connection with my students.  The time and devotion Maier has for her students is incredible; she arrives an hour earlier than all her students and does not leave until four or five in the evening.  I plan on devoting all of my time as a teacher in order to benefit the students.