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Week 8 Prompt

When researching the hashtag of #picturebooks on Instagram, I came across an abundance of posts to scroll through. Through these posts, people were provided with the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions about particular picture storybooks with others, all around the world. The hashtag, #picturebooks, however, is significantly broad, and therefore, may not provide people with the specific posts in which they are seeking. In order to be provided with posts that are more specific, it would be beneficial to use more explicit hashtags. For example, if I was seeking a picture storybook about sustainability, it would be more advantageous for me to search for #sustainabilitypicturebooks or #picturebooksaboutsustainability.

 I believe that the use of the hashtag is a viable alternative to everyday, online modes of research, including websites found through Google. Incorporation of the hashtag provides students with the opportunity to further extend in their methods of research, and in addition, has the ability to influence and encourage students to partake in the process of researching, through the utilization of the modern-day hashtag.  

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Week 7 Prompt

In conducting research on the hashtag #picturebooks, I came across the quote from Mac Barnett (reblogged below). He explains that an effective picture storybook presents students with opportunities to deeply engage with the story, through the relationship between pictures and words. ‘Good’ storybooks enable students to develop an understanding of the story through, in accordance with the illustrations provided, their own interpretations and visualisations of the words. This means that the illustrations do not simply provide students with what it is exactly that they should be visualising. I believe that it is important for students to understand and comprehend sets of words, and from this, provide themselves with a visual. In order to meet this need in my future teaching, I will ensure that throughout reading, I provide students with opportunities to close their eyes, listen to the text, and in turn, create their own visuals. Students can then communicate their visualisations, and a discussion about the reasons for different visualisations can occur. This will incorporate students’ prior learning and experiences. Through researching the hashtag of #picturebooks and locating this quote, I believe I formed a new understanding in the aspects of a ‘good’ picture storybook.

[abcofreading]

Picture books are stories told with image and text, and the best books exploit that relationship to engage the reader, emotionally or intellectually. In a bad book, the pictures just illustrate what the text is already telling you. “Johnny woke up early,” the first page will say, next to a picture of a boy stretching as the sun rises outside his window. That’s redundant. But when the pictures amplify the text, or contradict the text, or tell a story the text doesn’t address—that’s how you make narrative magic. You can tell rich, complex—but still comprehensible—narratives in picture books; and really the form sort of demands that you do.

Mac Barnett (via abcofreading)

Week 7 Prompt In conducting research on the hashtag #picturebooks, I came across this quote from Mac Barnett. He explains that an effective picture storybook presents students with opportunities to deeply engage with the story, through the relationship between pictures and words. ‘Good’ storybooks enable students to develop an understanding of the story through, in accordance with the illustrations provided, their own interpretations and visualisations of the words. This means that the illustrations do not simply provide students with what it is exactly that they should be visualising. I believe that it is important for students to understand and comprehend sets of words, and from this, provide themselves with a visual. In order to meet this need in my future teaching, I will ensure that throughout reading, I provide students with opportunities to close their eyes, listen to the text, and in turn, create their own visuals. Students can then communicate their visualisations, and a discussion about the reasons for different visualisations can occur. This will incorporate students’ prior learning and experiences. Through researching the hashtag of #picturebooks and locating this quote, I believe I formed a new understanding in the aspects of a ‘good’ picture storybook.

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Week 6 Prompt

The video that I watched on ABC Splash was Dancing the Torres Strait winds to life: Kuki. This video incorporated the natural environment, and through dance,  demonstrated the wet season experienced by Torres Straight Islanders, occurring from January to April. Before I read students a story about the weather seasons experienced by Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples, they are required to, in groups, represent our experiences in regards to the change of seasons throughout the year. This being from summer, to autumn, to winter and, finally, to spring. Students are to effectively represent this through the incorporation of multimodal forms, including singing and dancing.

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Week 5 Prompt

Sentence using the Wordle... “Those who died on the cold night felt transparent; they lived in silence, they were hollow inside, and were left alone with no food and no strength.” Sentence for the Image... “They took a blind eye, and went about their daily lives...” Before reading DUST to my students, I will begin with a frontloading activity. I will show students the front cover of the book, and open a discussion about it. Then I will read the blurb aloud. We will then discuss and brainstorm the DIFFERENCES between us, as people living in Australia, in comparison to people living in poorer countries. Following this, we will discuss the SIMILARITIES between us. This may prove to be more difficult for students to comprehend and grasp, and if this is the case, I will prompt the students with questions in order to get them thinking. This frontloading activity will encourage students to consider those in poorer countries, and to be aware that although we may have many differences, we also share similarities, and for that reason, it is important that we help those in need.

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Week 4 Prompt

In order to effectively teach writing, the school, in which I was placed at, utilized V.C.O.P. which strongly focuses on Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation. Each week, students, in every year level, were involved in a hour reading session that focused on V.C.O.P. The session differed each week and could either be a ‘Warm Write’, ‘Cold Write’ or ‘Free Write’. A ‘Warm Write’ meant that students were provided with a prompt the day before their writing session, and therefore, had time to plan or brainstorm ideas before writing. A ‘Cold Write’ meant that students were not provided with a prompt before their writing session and were only told of the prompt at the beginning of the one-hour writing session, meaning that they had the hour to plan AND develop a piece of writing. A ‘Free Write’ meant that students were not provided with any form of prompt, and could choose to write about anything they wanted to, using a text type of their choice. It was evident that students most preferred Warm Writes as they were given the prompt the day before the writing session, and had time to plan and develop their ideas. After each writing session, students were then required to edit their work by highlighting all V.C.O.P. areas in their specific colour. For example, all complex vocabulary (WOW words, or describing words) were highlighted in yellow; all connectives were highlighted in pink; all openers were highlighted in blue; and all punctuation were highlighted in green. Editing their work using this method allowed students to clearly see what aspects they were including in their writing, and what aspects they needed to include more of. Students then created their own goal, in regards to one of the aspects, wrote it on a sticky-note and placed it under the relevant heading. In turn, this goal would be the focus of the student's writing for the next week. I thought V.C.O.P. was an extremely effective strategy to utilize in the classroom, as it explicitly provided students with guidance in improving their writing.

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Week 3 Prompt

Without even realising or thinking about it, I have made meaning from text many times throughout the past week. I have spent a lot of time reading large amounts of academic material, read and responded to text messages and emails, read posts on social media forums, such as Facebook and Instagram, read posts and discussions on CloudDeakin, read a number of articles online, read lesson plans and school timetables in preparation for placement, and read classroom displays in the placement classroom that I will be going into. In addition to this, I am in the process of planning a holiday overseas. Therefore, I have conducted a lot of research online about the countries I am visiting, the things I must see and must do in each country, the most preferred places to stay and flight times and prices. In turn, I have made a lot of meaning from text in the past week!

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Week 2 Prompt

Winch and Holliday (2014) refer to predicting as, “the reader’s ability to consider what might happen in a text: the decoding of a word and what it means; what might come next in a sentence; what a text might be about by looking at the cover etc.” (p. 92). I believe that, in order to effectively develop a student’s comprehension levels, the strategy of prediction must be explicitly taught. In response to the front cover of Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Goth, I think it would be extremely interesting to hear the diversity in students’ predictions. I would begin the prediction process by only displaying the cover to each individual student for three seconds. When the three seconds is over, the student must write down whatever it was that came to mind when they saw the cover, and from this, what they predict the text will be about, or what will happen within the text. When every student has done this, they will share their results with one another. We will then discuss HOW and WHY they came to think of their prediction. During those three seconds, did the student focus on the title of the text, the visual, or both? Through discussion, it will be interesting to see the variety of ways that students interpreted the front cover, and how it affected their predictions. I will then provide the students with the opportunity to analyse the front cover in more depth, paying attention to the title and the visuals provided. Students will be able to discuss whether their initial interpretation of the text, and prediction of the expectations of the text, has changed or remained the same.

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Week 1 Prompt

It was not until I moved schools in grade two that I noticed myself becoming more and more interested in books and reading. At my new school, every class had an hour library session each week. This session was held by the assistant principal, who had the ability to engross every student in whatever text that she was reading. She captured her students through her expression and enthusiasm, enabling us to feel as if we were the characters in the story. I remember being so absorbed in ‘The Witches’ by Roald Dahl and genuinely believed every word in the book, therefore I was convinced that witches were real. As well as library sessions, my new classroom teacher also impacted on my increasing interest in reading. Mrs K read to us every day, usually after lunch or at the end of the day. Something that Mrs K did that I loved was, each day, allowed one student to bring in a picture storybook of their choice. I specifically remember the day that it was my turn! I took my favourite book (at the time) to school with me, and felt so happy and proud when Mrs K read it to the class. In turn, I will definitely carry this on into my future classroom. Reading aloud to my students will play a vital part in my teaching as I believe it is extremely valuable and beneficial, and most importantly, the children love it!