I loved the videos we watched this week. They were very informative about what we should and should not do when teaching reading lessons to our students.

First off, I LOVED the lessons about good and great readers in the first video! Kids are always striving to do their best and be the greatest they can be, so of course the students seemed to excited to learn how to be a great reader. I was captivated by the way the teacher was explaining that being a great reader is about reading what isn’t on the page, it is how you feel about the book and how it makes your head and heart feel about how the experiences relate to their own lives. She made it simple and clear about what to do and even wrote the characteristics of both readers on the board for the students to refer back to. What an incredible lesson!

I also enjoyed the lesson in the 1st grade classroom about rereading books. I liked how the teacher made them discuss why it is important to reread books and assigned them a writing exercise about their own experiences that the book discussed. My favorite part was when she brought them back as a group again to discuss why they decided to reread. This not only ingrains in their head why it is important to reread, but it gets them all thinking and participating which leads to true, meaningful learning.

I will say that I wasn’t a huge fan of how the kindergarten lesson went. I felt that it wasn’t engaging enough and the kids began to get restless. This is a very young age group and they require some sort of stimulation that the lesson wasn’t providing.

The books that my book club chose are “A Sick Day For Amos McGee” written by Philip C. Stead and illustrated by Erin E. Stead and “Click Clack Moo Cows That Type” written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Betsy Lewin.

First of all, these two books were adorable! The pictures were bright and colorful and the stories told very important lessons that are important for out elementary students to learn.

I thought that these books would be an excellent way to teach personification. These two stories revolve around animals that have human qualities, like the ability to type and sing. My group members, Jess and Mia, also thought that personification would be a great lesson through these books. We also agreed that these books teach valuable lessons such as being compassionate and standing up for what you believe in. By using animals, a familiar object that students encounter everyday (whether it be a pat at home or a squirrel running up a tree on a playground!) I believe that the children have an easier time practicing the lessons they learn from these two books. Mia also stated that these books promote creativity and abstract thinking through a familiar object. We all understand that even though we must be compassionate to animals, they aren’t going to speak or dance!

Jess had a wonderful idea, to read these books at the beginning of the school year and use them as tools to set up classroom rules and goals for the year. The books teach lessons, as previously mentioned, about standing up for yourself and what you believe in, being compassionate to others, and how to compromise. These are awesome rules and goals to follow and to start off a new year with!

#MJJLiteracy

Wow, these reading tasks were heavy this week! These are real life issues that teacher’s face in their classrooms and it has to be discussed for everyone to become more open minded and accepting.

Thrice Lessons Learned stated, “know your students’ worlds because it is through their stories that you will understand the best way to teach.” I think this is a crucial element of being a good teacher and a good human. I, a white, straight, cis female, am going to have very different experience in the world than my students who are LGBTQ+ or come from different cultures or races. I believe that we need to be open and accepting and willing to learn from our students just as much as they learn from us or teaching isn’t the profession for you.

As a future teacher, I refuse to stick to the ways lessons have always been. I am open to teaching and reading books to my students about different colored, shaped, and sized people. I want them to teach me about their families, their likes and dislikes, their culture. These modules have made me think about my future classroom and how I want to create a comfortable and open environment where student feel comfortable expressing themselves, however that looks to them, and to speak their native language. It is very important that in my classroom, my students feel welcomed and represented.

Here are images of a power point I made explaining how to teach character analysis to a third grade class.

I think these reading were very beneficial to my understanding of how to teach (and how students understand) literature.

By breaking down each aspect, as Rusul Alrubail from “Teaching Literacy Analysis” explains, literature will be easier to teach and easier for students to understand. There are 5 steps of understanding and writing literacy analysis. First, choose a topic. Second, focus your topic. Third, gather textual evidence to answer your questions. Fourth, Introduce, quote, and analyze your text. Fifth and finally, conclude you literacy analysis.

The pyramid, as taught by Traci Gardner for teaching plot structure, is also a beneficial and broken down way to teach and understand literature. It gives a clear visual representation of the structure of a text with the exposition (or introduction) at the beginning, reaching the point of the triangle for the climax, and ending at the other end of the pyramid with our denouement (or conclusion).

I believe that in order to teach our students these helpful tips for Reading for Literature, we must first create a classroom climate that allows them to do so. As teachers, we must be patient and be willing to assist our students when they encounter a problem in their reading. No student will learn if we are not there to teach them. In order for them to learn, and learn effectively, we must create an open, accepting climate where the students feel comfortable to ask their teacher and peers for help without feeling embarrassed or judged. This way, no student will be left behind and we will be laying a solid foundation for the students to enter their next grade level with.

I am going to annotate the Common Core State Standards here on this blog. The specific Reading for Literature standard I am choosing to trace across grade levels k-5 is Craft and Structure.

Kindergarten is focusing mainly on identifying words you don’t know, recognizing what form of text this is (book, poem), and identifying the role of authors and illustrators with help from the teacher.

First grade is focusing on the feelings the literature is trying to portray, identify books that give different kinds of information, and identifying who is telling the story throughout the text.

Second grade is about identifying the rhythm and meaning of the text, identifying how the beginning introduces the text and the ending concludes it, and identifying different points of views form each character.

Third grade distinguishes literal and non literal information, using vocabulary words such as stanza and chapter, and knowing their own point of view from the characters.

Fourth grade distinguishes major differences between texts, whether it be a poem, drama, or prose, and can identify the structural elements of poems and dramas. They can also compare and contrast how different stories are narrated, whether it be first or third person.

Fifth grade can identify similes and metaphors, as well as understand how a group of scenes, stanzas, or chapters work to create the structure of a story, drama, or poem. The can also describe how the character’s point of view determines how events in the story are described.

As we can see from grade levels k-5, each level relies on the previous to lay down a solid foundation to build upon for the next level of information. This is key, or students will not have the ability to further their learning.

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Here is my picture that I think defines literacy… I’ll be interested to see if this changes throughout the semester.

The readings this first week were interesting and very entertaining.

One topic through those series of videos on Youtube that really stuck out to me was computer engineer Barbie. Barbie was just a designer and needed the men to make her game real. People who bought and read this were appalled by this and decided to remake the book into a way they thought was best. Some people made it serious while others made it comical. Either way, they remixed the book. O’Bryne, one of the speakers in the series of Youtube videos, discusses the possibility of remixing and remaking literature. If we don’t want Barbie telling young children that only men can program games, just remix the book. The future is uncertain so we must leave literature in the hands of our students, not set in stone.

Beginner musicians aren’t given bass clef until they can understand treble clef. Heibert, one of the speakers in the series of videos, compares books to music, which stuck out to me. Why do we take our time with music readers but rush children when they are learning to read words in a book?

The future is uncertain and technology is only growing. We, as future teachers, must adapt and teach students how to find and use reliable sources on the internet. Not everything on the internet is true but students wont know that unless we take the time to teach them.

This leads into Brigid Alverson’s article titled Teaching with Graphic Novels. Esther Kieller states in this article that we must use graphic novels to teach our students as “images are part of today’s culture… If we aren’t educating young students about reading images, they aren’t getting a rounded education.” I could not agree with this statement more. In this “selfie” generation, we must teach students with picture books and graphic novels. After all, pictures shape a child’s understanding of the world too.

My first blog post! This is exciting!

I have many goals for this class, but mainly to understand what children’s literature is! Before this class started, I have only associated literature with words on a page in a book and nothing more. I watched Dr. Mcverry’s kickoff video and heard him speak about how toys could possibly be a form of literature, as they help the child shape and understand the world they are in. If toys aren’t considered literature, who decided that? Why did we listen to them? This concept blew my mind! Throughout this class, I would love to broaden my knowledge of what children’s literature is and, with help from my professor and peers, discover effective ways to teach it in the elementary classroom.

I feel that my goals as a writer are a little tougher to think about. I think my number one writing goal is to understand that it is okay to struggle sometimes. As a future teacher, I often think about how my future students are going to look at me. I have always wanted them to see my successes and my intelligence, because that is mostly what I remember of my old elementary school teachers. Recently, I have discovered that it is actually a good thing if your students see you work hard and struggle to accomplish a task. It not only reminds them that teachers are human too, but that just because something is difficult at first doesn’t mean that you give up. As a writer, I would like to allow myself to take breaks and cut myself some slack when my ideas aren’t playing out perfectly on paper. Through my time and dedication to my writing, everything will be accomplished.