Becka Reed

[rmr5255-blog]

Wohlwend-Chapter 4

Toys as text

toys represent a special kind of child-oriented text specifically designed to enable children to easily recognize the ways they can be used in play

Disney Princess toys inspire children to replay remembered plots and recite memorized scripts, providing canned narratives that shape children's play

Disney Princess dolls=damsels in distress

hourglass figure

common set of feminine beauty norms

Femininities

princess pretense exemplifies they ways that children consume gendered identity texts and take up feminine cultural norms as they play and write fairy tales

during princess play, girls focused on achieving beauty ideals and rejected play scenarios that stretched stereotypical male/female roles

girls as objects of display and boys as subjects with power

dolls, action figures, and stuffed animals are particularly meaning-laden texts that invite identity transformation as children animate the materials and project play identities through them

approximating print to write represents the range of ways in which children can negotiate the tension between their personal inventions and cultural conventions for language

when children play together, they assign, negotiate, and maintain pretended meanings for objects that are consistent with the imagined setting

play actions that are consistent with children's agreed upon text/context sustain players' shared meanings, whereas play actions that are incongruous with imagined characters or contexts challenge or alter the direction of play

children frequently talked while writing to advise each other and to impose their individual recollections and interpretations of the familiar princess storylines

children's writing enhanced writing and writing enhanced play

plays provided opportunities for actors to challenge animator's direction

when a play group valued a particular object, it became prized in peer culture so that an ordinary toy, book, or storyboard was transformed into material cultural capital with potential for changing power relations

play allows children to "makeover" what they don't like

permeable curricula heighten the need for critical readings of gender messages in children's identity texts across forms, whether commercially manufactured texts in media toys, embodied texts in play roles, or written texts published through writing workshop

This chapter talked a lot about how children see Disney Princesses and how they might incorporate it into the school. I thought it was interesting that when children are playing they "makeover" what they don't like. For example, if they don't like a certain personality trait they can act differently. This shows that the children are able to alter literary characters. Incorporating plays will also be beneficial. Plays allow the students to work together to act out certain scenes and characters. There is usually a clear leader, but it is more structured than most play. Lastly, I thought it was really interesting that children are able to recognize the gender roles in Disney Princess stories. The children revolved their writing and play around the damsels in distress and the strong men who were going to save them. Gender roles and stereotypes exist everywhere, and the children in this chapter weren't afraid to change them.

[rmr5255-blog]

Routman-Chapter 8

Keep in mind

establish a genuine purpose and audience for all writing

start by demonstrating (writing aloud, shared writing, sharing exemplary writing)

gradually release responsibility to students (a small group or partners conversing before writing or writing together, sustained writing with your guidance)

celebrate, respond, evaluate, teach and move forward (have conferences with students)

writing requires a daily commitment

students need to be able to choose most of their writing topics

prepare students by having them:

brainstorm writing ideas (orally or in a list)

talk about these ideas with you or with a classmate (scaffolded conversation)

state their intention for writing--purpose and audience (can be themselves)

submit a written plan (mandatory for a large project)

immerse themselves in the form or genre (read and study exemplars)

practice writing in the genre with your guidance (through a class exploration of poetry, fiction, whatever)

do more freewrites

limit use of graphic organizers

do more demonstration writing

have more conversations about writing

talk about their writing, before they write, while they are writing, after they write

teach students a variety of genres (short writing, letters, poetry, etc.)

This chapter will be very helpful in the future. Writing workshops are important for students' development, but it is crucial that the teacher proctors them correctly and daily. This chapter provides teachers with tips and examples that they should keep in mind. The main thing that stuck out to me was giving the students the ability to choose what they write about. I do no remember ever getting that freedom to choose because my teachers always told me what to write about. This has negative effects on the writing because if the student isn't passionate about the topic, then they will not be intrinsically motivated to learn. It is okay for teachers to give the students a broad topic, but they should not tell the students exactly what they have to write about

[rmr5255-blog]

Boldt: Kyle & the Basilisk

"the ability to playfully and creatively use objects to shape the outcome of play gives children confidence in their ability to shape their emotional experiences with the world and the outcomes of their actions in the world." (4)

"the spectator role ultimately encourages humans to take responsibility for the world they live in because it is a world they can affect" (6)

"the central goals are for children to both learn and respect from their own voices, desires, and meanings and be responsive to the voices and positions of others" (7)

"spontaneous writing can give rise to discoveries, allowing us to make sense of what is going on around us" (8)

[rmr5255-blog]

Miscue Analysis

Cueing systems:

semantic (meaning)-accessing the story background, illustrations, and meaning in a sentence to solve unknown words

syntactic (structure)-accessing often unconscious knowledge of the "rules" of grammatical patterns to solve unknown words

graphophonic (visual)-using the visual features (graph-) features of words and letters along with the ways words sound (phon-) to solve unknown words

[kaitlynfelty]

[katieverbitsky]

Markings for Miscue Analysis

[melissazuccarini-blog]

[rmr5255-blog]

Crafton - Inquiry & the Iditerod

Reading Strategies:

Read aloud from the on-line copy each day while students follow along on their individual sheets (students highlight important sections)

pair readers with more experienced peers or older students

use reader-selected miscues

scanning strategies

3 Important foci: 

Process

Attitude

Sharing Knowledge

Lists of musts:

learning MUST be child-centered

learning MUST include time for reading, writing interaction and reflection

she MUST assume multiple roles to make the learning work

Key Standards:

Students read a range of pint and nonprint texts

Students apply a range of strategies

Students adapt conventions to communicate effectively

Students use knowledge of language structure, language convention, media techniques, and genre

Students research issues and interests

Students use technological and informational resources

Students participate in a variety of literacy communities

Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purpose

[rmr5255-blog]

Miller- Chapter 5 and 7

Chapter 5: Schema

Thanks alouds:

"Proper planning prevents poor performance!"

authenticity matters

use precise language

thinking about what you already know is called using your schema

text-to-self connections

text-to-text connectios

text-to-world connections

This chapter provides teachers with a lot of useful tips. I think the most important is to be prepared for think alouds. It is not something that you can just wing. Teachers should plan what they want to say and what they want the children to do. I also thought it was a good idea to display the children's connections because it makes them feel special and that they contributed. Building schema will help the children as they go through schooling, and with the help of the teacher, the students can build their own schema.

Chapter 7: Digging Deeper

listen actively and respond thoughtfully

Options for responses:

sticky notes

notebook entries

two-column notes

venn diagrams

webs

story maps

observe children playing

Teachers can aid their students to think deeper. This chapter mentions many ways teachers can do this. I think that it is very important that the students are being challenged because is makes them work harder and think harder. After reading, it is important that they discuss what they read with their peers and then with the whole class. This will give them an opportunity to work with others and listen to other ideas they might have not thought of.

[jsouthmayd-blog]

Topics for mini lessons:

Procedures for the workshop time: how to read with a partner, how to access materials

Aspects of the reading process: how to choose a book, previewing a text

Elements of literature: plot, character traits, sequence, problem-solution

What good readers do: ask…

[rmr5255-blog]

Wohlwend-Chapter 3

"boy problem"= boys interests are incompatible with school, need popular media to hold their interests

through play, any object can be transformed to create a new sign (example: marker=light saber)

motivated sign-a sign designed to exploit the physical properties and cultural meanings of materials to further the sign-maker's social interest

students can construct artifacts by:

separating and cutting

arranging and layering

combining and affixing

rolling and folding

mulitmodality makes the playing/designing nexus an action-intensive space, dense with modes of production and a prime site for meaning and identity transformation

"Marshall's play with scissors and tape enabled exploration and the discovery of new uses for tools that he could use to impress his peers."

just for practice suggests an aimlessness that protects children's living space by deflecting instructional attempts to infuse print literacy into play activity

rethinking children's designed artifacts as texts with sedimented modes, practices, and identities recognizes the meanings communicated through drawings, crafts, and art projects--even those just for practice

group cohesion

I really liked how Wohlwend talked about using materials for play. Children can take any object and find another use or meaning for it when they are playing. This is definitely something teachers should keep in mind, especially those who lack toys in their classroom. This really shows how children can use their imagination for everything. They can be more creative than we would think.

[rmr5255-blog]

Five & Egawa- Reading and Egawa

This article mentioned a lot of things that we have been discussing in class. I have learned the importance of incorporating reading and writing workshops into the classroom. I can use these workshops to monitor the students' progress and comprehension of the topic. The article mentioned some helpful tips to keep in mind when planning a workshop, like time, routine, ownership and choice, and response opportunities. I think that it is very important for the teacher to allow the children to make their own choices during the workshop. This will allow the children to use their imagination and choose what interests them. I really like that the workshops allow the children to work independently and it a group. It provides them with a variety of options and settings which can really get their ideas flowing. Reading and writing workshops are definitely something every teacher should incorporate in their classroom. I enjoyed reading this article! 

[rmr5255-blog]

The Reading Workshop

affordances of workshop model:

time

space

choice

components:

mini-lesson (demonstrating and thinking aloud)

              -Purposes:

                    1. modeling and identifying of reading behaviors

                    2. learning expectations and procedures

                    3. modeling reading strategies

guided practice

independent reading

sharing

[melissazuccarini-blog]

[rmr5255-blog]

Differentiation and Decentration

Differentiation-kids take a big idea and break it into small parts

learners start with whole or bigger concepts (like marks on a page that tell a story) and then begin to move towards a specific understanding of how it works (i.e. letters create words that tell a story)

could start with picture

then put letter with parts of picture

learn that words are usually under the picture

combine all letters under picture in one strip of letters

then might start putting spaces in between letters or words

Decentration-kids realize they have an audience and writings become more conventional

learners begin to understand that in order for a wider audience to understand their writing, there is a need for shared conventions

example: invented spelling

[melissazuccarini-blog]

Helpful Website

animated-literacy.com

[mariashevchik-blog]

Teachers need to find out what children already know about written language in order to tell where effective instruction can start.”

-show them that you CARE, and get to know each one of your students in order for them to have the most beneficial learning experiences (via mariashevchik)

[rmr5255-blog]

Class Notes- 2/5

4 Participatory Stages for Children's Reading:

Mumble-in attempts to read along child repeats by mumbling

Cooperative-read certain words at the same time

Completion- reader pauses at various points in the story and the child completes the sentence

Echo-children repeat the phrase of sentence after it is read by the teacher, could be spontaneous or prompted

Shared Reading Experience

-Role of teacher

demonstrate the experience

-Role of student

copy and live out the experience

Play/reading Nexus

create moments, rich with ways to read, to do school

mediated encounters with print

situated in "third space"