New Literacies Reflection

My New Literacies project has allowed me to broaden my conceptual understanding of what it means to be “literate”.  In today’s world people need to be transliterate across different domains in order to be a contributing member of society.  Creating a webpage about emotional literacy and exploring my colleagues webpage’s on different literacies has helped me develop a deep understanding of the importance of promoting all literacies in the classroom environment.  Through this I have learned effective instructional strategies that will help foster student’s literacy development in all domains.  Prior to starting this project my original definition of literacy stated that literacy is both a conceptual and operational idea.  Specifically, my definition was that literacy is “the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve ones goals and to develop ones knowledge and potential.”   Throughout the course of this project my view of what it means to be literate has expanded from this definition.

Originally, I thought of literacy as just reading and writing. Now when I think of literacy I understand it to be a means of communication through multiple domains.  Communication is the key word.  I learned that there are many ways in which one can communicate meaning to other by producing and interpreting different contextual symbols and/or body language. For example, this can include being able to identify, understand, and manage one’s own emotions as well as interpret other’s.  In addition I learned how understanding a specific culture is essential to being “literate” in that specific cultural context. Students need to have, at the minimum, a basic understanding of a specific cultural to understand what they are reading.

By exploring my classmate’s webpage’s I have learned about cultural, numerical, social, emotional, digital, and geographical literature. Specifically through my own research I have learned about the important of promoting emotional literature in the classroom.  Other means of communication include numbers, multimodal tools, and using pro-social behavior when interacting with others. In addition, students have to have a basic cultural understanding when communicating with others in order to be able to successfully interpret and produce contextual symbols and/or body language.  In general, to be literate in a specific domain means to be able to produce, interpret, and analyze the meaning of that communication median.

Exploring the different aspects of my literacy, emotional literacy, taught me how a literacy can be more than just written work, but can be expressed through body language and facial expressions as well.  Emotional literacy is the ability to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate (RULER) emotions. In general emotional literacy is the development of skills and competence in understanding your own emotions and other’s emotions. Emotional literacy is the way in which we are able to express and control our natural reactions to life through our emotional state. A person with strong emotional literacy skills is able to appropriately express their emotions in context and has a strong sense of empathy for others.

There are two big ideas that I take away from this project.  The first main idea is that the study of language arts correlates with all domains as students develop multi-literacy skills that allow them to interact, interpreted and appropriately communicate their ideas with the world around them. I remember working on my Literacy Reference Project from my TE 301 class where the focus was on general literature skills such as phonological awareness, word recognition, and comprehension.  As these skills are fundamental for reading and writing, there are other essential skills needed for fostering literacy in other domains such as empathy, geographic reasoning, and problem solving skills. The second main idea that I learned is that the world of literature is constantly changing with societal advancements. As discussed in the Tompkins book, the internet is cultivating literature through interactive websites, intertexuality, and multiple modalities (Tompkins, 2010).  Language arts is changing from when our parents where in school. Literature is so much more than simply the ability to read and write.

Developing a broader definition and understanding of what is means to be literate has given me insight into how to provide effective literacy instruction for all learners. Students bring to the classroom funds of knowledge they have acquired for specific literacy domains.  Depending on the context students strengths will vary based on their past experiences and prior knowledge.  Some students might have a strong sense of the world and connection between places.  Some students might have a deep cultural understanding of the context and therefore have the skills to make inferences that other students do not see.  It is important as a teacher to assess students and learn about students strengths and weaknesses in the different literacies so you can plan curriculum that will meet the needs for the diverse learners in your classroom.  If students struggle in a particle area then teachers can plan lesson that will help them develop the skills needed to be successful.  For example, if students in the classroom have poor digital literacy skills then it is important to plan lessons in which they have to navigate through and interpret multimedia sources to find information.  This can include doing a web scavenger hunt, or having the students create a blog (like we do TE), webpage, or other media sources to complete an assignment. These activities will allow students to practice skills such as typing, scrolling, and navigating using links and tabs which are unique to digit literacy.

It is important to implement activities from all literacy domains to support children in building the fundamental skills they need to become a well-rounded literate individual.  Lessons and activities used to promote emotional literacy in the classroom include reading and discussing books that focus on expressing emotions, having students keep a “feelings journal” where they have an opportunity to freely express their emotions, and having class check-ins where students can freely discuss issues that they are having and practice appropriate ways to communicate their emotions. These activities will build students competence and self-esteem. 

When working on my New Literacies project I was excited about the fact that I got to choose what technology tool I wanted to use to present my information to my colleges.  In order to do this I had to use my literacy skills to gather information, interpret it, and use this information to create my own educational website.  Throughout this process I was able to reflect on the pros and cons of different media resources available.  Originally my group planned to use a video making website call One True Media as our technology tool.  As we began to explore this website we came across a lot of challenges that limited the amount of information we could present.  This included the fact that with One True Media text was not the main source of communication but rather videos, images, and music.  In addition, having a sequenced video constrains the navigation feature of the website.  Due to these restrictions we we decided to changed our web tool to Glogster.  Gloster was a much better fit for our project allowing us to create a viewer friendly site that was engaging and interactive.  Using glogster helped build upon my own literacy development by having to pick and choose what information was most important to share with viewers.  Because space was limited it required me identify the main ideas that we learned and use other resources such as videos, and diagrams to express our ideas in a reader friendly way.  Overall, this project has opened my eyes to how our world is changing in the development of technology and the incorporation of new literacies in classroom curriculum.  As a future early childhood teacher I understand how it is important to expose children to all domains of literature at a young age.  This will support their development to be able to successfully communicate with others through multiple means.  Specifically this will help children become competent learners who are able understand and interpret multiple sources.  In my classroom I want to engage students in using multiple technology sources such as computers and ipads to teach them the necessary skills to be an efficient in the digital world.

The common core state standard that I used during my language arts lesson focused on students developing comprehension skills, such as asking and answering questions about key details in a text.  In general, the common core state standards focus on the development of “traditional literacy” skills such as reading and writing.  As a teacher is it essential to adapt lessons to meet the needs of the 21^st century.  This requires including multiple domains in language arts lessons, such as reading a book and discussing the cultural and global aspects as well as emotional and social.

My project has taught me about the positive effects for children and society through the development of strong emotional literate individuals. Children who develop strong emotionally literate skills and strategies have fewer conflicts among peers and have higher academic success. Overall, our society benefits from this by reducing crime and violence. Research shows that many of these societal problems are a consequence of individuals lacking the ability to successful express and interpret emotions in themselves and others.  As in all literacies children need to first learn the building blocks to support their further development.  For emotional literature these building blocks include labeling, understanding, and managing their own emotions. The next step is for children to be able to recognize and interpret emotions in others as they begin to develop a sense of empathy.  Successfully being able to communicate emotions is essential for students self identity and building relationships with others.  Emotions are a natural part of life and it is important to teach children strategies for dealing with extreme emotions.  As a teacher modeling appropriate ways to express emotions is very important for student development. Students are constantly picking up on how adults handle situations.  Even though we cannot control what behaviors students experience in their home environment, we can be a positive role model in the classroom. 

Emotional literacy skills are developing everyday in children and it is important to produce a classroom environment that validates children’s feelings and allows them to learn successful ways to express their feelings. As children develop they learn strategies that will help them be successful in social situations and allow them to be emotionally competent human beings.