Kusek_ReadingLessonOverview

My Mentor Teacher was thrilled when I told her of our last assignment for the ELA portion of TE402. She is always trying to use me as much as possible when I am there, specifically to work with individual students in areas that they are struggling in. I have pulled many students out in the hall to work on their multiplication tables, as well as others to work on reading fluency. The number one concern of my MT is probably the reading comprehension of two of the students in class.

My classroom is a 3rd/4th grade Spanish immersion split class, but two students stand out against the whole class in regards to reading comprehension. My MT has DRA tested all of the students, and all but two are reading above or at least on their grade level. Louis* is a fourth grader and Trevor* is a third grader, but both are reading at about a second grade level in both Spanish and English. Their accuracy in fluency has been improving, but both students really struggle with comprehension. They cannot retell what happened in a story they just read or answer comprehension questions in much detail. My MT is concerned that they are falling even farther behind in Spanish in comparison to English. She has noticed that Louis gets really distracted easily and zones out during a reading, whether it is an all class reading or if it is reading by himself. Trevor, on the other hand, seems to be in his own world much of the time, as he rarely participates in class and seems to be in a shell of sorts.

I will be working with these two students for both of the reading lessons. We will be focusing on comprehension both times. Comprehension is an extremely important factor in literacy development. If a reader doesn't comprehend what they just read, then there is no point in reading. In addition, Thompson explains that there are many factors that go into reading comprehension. The factors he mentioned includes "background knowledge, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension strategies, comprehension skills, motivation, genres, text structures and text features" (Thompson, p259) This is a large area of literacy development to work on, so I will do the best I can in focusing in on a couple skills and strategies to help equip the boys.

While comprehension includes both reader and text factors, I will focus on reader factors. My teacher wants me to use Spanish non-fiction books. I don't have much influence on motivation or text factors here, so I will focus on a couple different comprehension strategies. The first lesson will focus on what Thompson calls a "double-entry journal" (Thompson, p256), relating to the comprehension strategy of "connecting" (p273). We will read a book together and I will have the boys fill out this journal throughout the reading. The second lesson will focus on "questioning" (p273). I will have the boys read another book and they will be required to ask questions before reading, during reading, and we will work through the answers together. I want this lesson to also have an emphasis on questioning vocabulary, since Thompson states that vocabulary comprehension is important to overall comprehension (p260). Both of these strategies have to do with responding to the text, which is something that my MT sees doesn't happen when Louis and Trevor read a book.

Bud, Not Buddy: Words to Study

Bud, Not Buddy: Words to Study

Chapter 8, pages 60-87

Tier 1 Words: sneaking, staring, blanket, critter, train, nervous, delicious, suitcase, tomorrow, worry, criminal

Tier 2 Words: figured, direction, probably, suppose, instead, finally, imagine, steady, alias, suffer

Tier 3 Words: Flint, foster home, hoodlum, Hooverville, crawdads, mission, Detroit, Chicago, orphanage, Shantytown, Commies

Learning Tier 2 words have a huge impact on building and strengthening students’ vocabulary and help them to talk about and describe things with greater accuracy.  It is for this reason that Tompkins suggests we focus on this tier when teaching.  These are words that students can use again and again, and will help them to be more precise with their language use.  However, that being said, if the goal is to help students better understand our book club novel, I would recommend focusing on the Tier 3 words instead.  Yes, Tier 2 words are still effective and beneficial, but the words in Tier 3 are ones that really help us to understand the novel; they are the words that not only provide context for the story, but they also allow us to better understand the characters and the events that they’re going through.  As Tompkins mentions, “They [Tier 3 words] aren’t used frequently enough to devote time to teaching them except as part of thematic units”, in which they “are important to understanding the big ideas”.  I think that this is exactly the case in Bud, Not Buddy.  Without these Tier 3 words, we lose our background and perspective of not only the story, but the characters as well. 

Mini-Lesson

1.      Students will be split into six groups.  (You can create more groups depending on the amount of words you would like to cover.)  Each group will receive one of the following words on a card: foster home, hoodlum, crawdads, mission, orphanage, and Hooverville. 
2.      At the front of the room on the board, the definitions of the words above will be written on a piece of paper, one for each word.
3.      The students must use tools around the classroom, such as a dictionary or computer, to find the definition of their assigned word.  They must then find the matching definition from the board and bring it back to their group area.
4.      Once they have the correct definition from the board (checked by the teacher), the group is ready to create their Word Poster.  This will consist of their word at the top, a drawing or picture of the word as the students visualize it, as well as writing the word in a sentence.
5.      Once each group has completed their poster, they share with the class.
6.      Each poster is posted on the board or somewhere in the room where they are visible to all students to look back on when needed.
7.      Read Chapter 8, paying special attention for the words from the lesson.

*Throughout reading this book, I think it would be beneficial to keep a map handy.  This way we can show students the different cities included in the story, and can trace Bud’s path as he travels.

New Literacies Reflection

Prior to my TE classes, I would have defined literacy as simply the ability to read or write - that is how I’ve always defined it.  When hearing statistics or even people talking on the street, literacy is always used in a way like, “Such and such city has a 76% literacy rate”, and it seems that no one ever questions what that means.  Even I never before took the time to think about the fact that maybe there is more to literacy than reading and writing; I just blindly accepted this common misconception and moved on.  It wasn’t until we made the concept maps in January that I really began to think about what literacy actually means, and I decided that yes, reading and writing is important, but that there’s more.  On my map, I had drawn literacy as being broken down into four pieces: reading and writing were two, but I also included speaking and listening.  But even then, I had no idea that there could be so many different types of literacies.  While making my concept map, I was still thinking of literacy as a single entity.  I believed that people and students could have different levels of literacy, and could be literate in different ways, but I was still putting all literacy into a single category.  Even the definition I posted on our wiki reflected this idea to some extent.  My definition posed two requirements for literacy.  The first was that one could read and write.  The second component dealt with an individual having some level of competency in a certain area.  So although this does incorporate and acknowledge the fact that literacy involves more than reading and writing, I still had not broken away too much from that traditional definition.  My definition of literacy really began to change when we started to research the various literacies that were provided as choices for our project.  That is when I began to see that there are different ways to be literate, or different branches of literacy.  I still believe that the four areas I had included in my literacy concept map still exist within various literacies, and that they are important skills that apply to everything that we do, but now I see them as components within literacy, rather than defining literacy themselves.

These ideas only became more evident to me while I was researching emotional literacy for the project, and in learning how to use glogster.  Emotional literacy can deal with any of those four areas I was discussing before – reading, writing, speaking, and listening – although some may be more appropriate or relevant than others, but it also deals a lot with a whole range of things that I had never even considered before as being part of literacy.  For example, emotional literacy has to do with acknowledging, interpreting, and controlling one’s emotions, along with being aware of other’s emotions as well.  We then make choices based off of all of this information that can and does affect our daily lives.  Before learning about this literacy, I would never have thought of skills such as these – acknowledging, interpreting, and managing – to be such a huge part of a type of literacy.  The same goes for my thinking about digital literacy.  Before I might have said that being digitally literate means you’re good with computers, but now I see digital literacy as the ability to not only use various technologies, but to be able to create them, navigate around them, interpret or understand the information that is being provided through them, etc.  I now see digital literacy as just as intricate and challenging a literacy as emotional literacy.

I think that providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners means to give students the tools they need to be successful when approaching various literacies, in a variety of ways.  These tools are of course not only reading, writing, speaking, and listening, but also interpretation, analysis, explanation, and others mentioned above.  Tools cans be specialized toward a particular literacy, while others are more widely used.  I believe it is important to allow students the opportunity to practice using these various tools, and to see how they relate to one another and work together to accomplish a greater goal – literacy.  As far as providing this to diverse learners, it is the teacher’s job to make the content relatable and interesting for the students.  It is also the job of the teacher to recognize the fact that each group of students will be different, with unique needs and abilities, and to consider these when creating lessons and completing day to day activities.  Learning about emotional literacy, and developing my own digital literacy, has actually reinforced these ideas for me.  Through studying emotional literacy, I have learned that each person had different emotions and reactions to various things or events, but also that we all interpret and act upon emotions and feelings.  Each person’s emotions and how they deal with them and carry them out is so individualized, so unique, that we see that there is no single “rule” we can follow for acquiring emotional literacy.  In the same way, while creating our glog, we realized that digital literacies too are very individualized, and that is one of the things that make them so great.  I can view five different glogs, or even review a technology that I am really familiar with, and still get something new out of them, because each one is so unique and different.  Even if they include similar information, the way it is set up and presented is diverse enough to allow the viewer to learn something new.  Comparing these ideas back to the classroom, there is no one correct “rule” or “way” to implement effective literacy instruction.  Although it is important to provide students with necessary tools, and to guide them, when it comes to being successful, it all depends on the teacher’s knowledge of their students, and their ability to specialize that information for their particular group of students.

After learning about emotional literacy, I believe it to be so important for students to be able to not only recognize their emotions, but to be able to label them, understand them, and also manage them.  Doing these things will help students to be aware of how they are affected by their emotions, and how we can properly control them in order to allow us to make smart choices.  There are so many issues in our society today that occur because people cannot handle their emotions – not only children and students, but adults as well.  By informing and educating children in emotional literacy from a young age, they will gain skills that they can carry with them through life, in order to help them understand and interpret themselves and others, and to make choices that will strengthen rather than deteriorate their everyday life. 

As for digital literacy, with each passing year our world is becoming more and more technology based.  This being the case, it is extremely important that we have the skills and tools to be able to navigate and understand various transformations to an increasingly digital world.  As I mentioned above, we can use skills such as interpreting and managing to help us understand various digital literacies.  But I think that the most important thing we can give our students for success in this area is practice and exposure.  By allowing them to explore, similar to what we did for this project, students are able to take their learning into their own hands and create something new and meaningful.  By becoming involved in their learning, I believe students embrace concepts better, and they can then use their new knowledge and skills gained to help them make new discoveries in the future.

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. 

New Literacies Final Reflection

            The New Literacies project has been very useful in thinking about what literacy really is and in the development of my own learning about how I will teach my students and what activities I will do to help foster their learning. In regards to my ideas of what literacy is, this project has helped me expand them greatly. My original definition of literacy was “literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups.” I liked how this definition wasn’t the traditional “literacy is reading and writing,” but I don’t think the definition encompasses enough. Literacy is more than culture and communication, as well. It is definitely incumbent upon a context, but the contexts are uncountable. A person can be literate in a million things, meaning that they have a knowledge base of a certain idea or concept and are able to apply this knowledge base and dig deep into it. My literacy, environmental literacy, helped me see that it is about way more than just reading and writing. Environmental literacy is all about experiences with the natural world and looking at the connections between that world and how humans impact it. The literacy is intended to spark action in its learners, rather than just passive knowledge intake. The literacy is much more alive and useful than my original definition; while there is reading and writing incorporated into this literacy, those are just two tools in the exploration of environmental literacy.

            Having to use a new technology to put together a presentation to explain this new literacy helped me develop my understanding of literacy even more. Not only did I have to formulate the information about environmental literacy into an understandable, concise, engaging manner, but I learned more about literacy through the actual use of the technology. Digital literacy expands the traditional definition of literacy even more. Literacy expands way beyond the paper and pencil into the digital realm. There are infinite resources and tools that computers and the Internet provide, and it is important that teachers tap into these resources, use them, and show their students how to do the same. I was learning two different kinds of literacy in one project. Environmental and digital literacy seem so different, but digital literacy was a means of my learning of environmental literacy. This helped me understand how woven and interconnected seemingly opposite types of literacy are. Using a new technology was a challenge for me, but it was also very engaging. I am a digital native, and it is probable that most of my students will be too. It was highly motivating for me to deliver the knowledge I learned about environmental literacy into a Prezi. I feel like I worked harder and longer on how to concisely explain what the literacy was all about than what I would have worked on with a paper or blog post. I learned more about how to display information visually and more interactively, using a variety of media outlets. I learned how to use design to make a project more appealing and display the literacy even in the design. I was able to use a lot more skills in putting this project together, as opposed to traditional methods of delivering information, such as a paper.

            My perspective of what literacy is and what English Language Arts is has been expanded greatly through this project. I definitely had a very narrow view of what literacy consisted of and how to deliver this information. The New Literacies project was one of the most engaging projects I have had to complete, and I know that I got a great deal out of it. Reflecting on all of the skills that I obtained through research of the actual literacy I was assigned to and in how I researched and presented the topic, through digital literacy, it is incredible to me how many skills I could pack into an assignment for students if I make it meaningful.

            The research that I did and development of digital literacy helped me get an idea of what it means to “provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learners.” I saw all of the skills that I had to use to pull information from the different sites about environmental literacy and use different forms of technology to convey my message, like a YouTube video and a Wordle. This is promising for the amount of skills I can have students practice in one assignment, but it also shows how much instruction they need in developing digital literacy. I know that most of my students will be digital natives and able to navigate through technology pretty easily, but teaching them skills to be efficient and effective, just like when they first learn to read, is essential to make them successful in using digital literacy. I will also have to keep in mind that my students will be diverse, and some may not have had the technological exposure that I got as a child or that some of my other students get. I will have to keep in mind that background and prior knowledge vary, and have lessons where I can break down different concepts of digital literacy. Not using digital literacy in my classroom would be a disservice to my students in preparing them for the real world; this isn’t an option anymore. I do need to provide support and opportunities for practice of this literacy, however.

            My concept map from the beginning of the year focused on the four traditional skills of “reading, writing, speaking and listening.” While these are essential in learning, digital skills like “navigating, scrolling, skimming, and resource-checking” are also needed for a student to have proper literacy in our technological world. Classrooms need to be enhanced to reflect our culture and globalization. The Common Core State Standards for language arts are focused on those four traditional skills, as well as “language.” There are mentions of students developing both print and digital skills within those traditional skills, however. For example, a third grade standard reads, “Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.” It is good that “digital” is included, but I still think our nation is trying to react to the technological boom and what that means for classrooms. Luckily, the CCSS gives some flexibility in how to teach the content standards, and it wouldn’t be impossible to be incorporating non-traditional methods of instruction and learning into the classroom.

            As I reflect on this project, I can’t help but think forward into what this means for my future classroom. If I think this project was one of the best that I have completed and very beneficial for my learning, I need to use this in my own classroom for my students’ benefit. It would be easy for me to follow the traditional method of teaching Language Arts and go through the motions with this in my classroom. This would be doing a disservice to my students, however. To put a little more effort into developing lessons to help students learn digital literacy skills by engaging in new technologies, giving them time to use these technologies, and providing the proper support and scaffolding so that they are effective in using them is what I want to do. In order for students to develop digital literacy, I need to provide a lot of experiences for them to do this. The best way for them to learn is hands-on experience with the literacy. I want to isolate certain skills and teach those, and in turn have students apply the skills in an experience. For example, skills such as skimming, fact checking or navigating a search engine are important to give mini-lessons on. This literacy isn’t innate, just like traditional reading, and skills and scaffolding need to be provided for successful development. In turn, experiences need to happen so that students are able to see how these skills can be used in their use of technology. Repetition and multiple experiences are necessary for students to be able to concrete these skills.

            In regards to environmental literacy, this literacy has a huge focus on experience and action. In order to teach about it, exploration has to occur and knowledge given where students are applying and making connections. This literacy is way more than a simple science lesson about nature. It is connecting our natural world, which is a huge component of life, to human systems that govern how we think about life. This is a big feat. It is digging into issues that are affecting our natural world and human-built systems, and thinking about what change needs to occur. Students need the chance to have time to research and explore the issues, to work with them in a deeper manner than just swallowing facts. They need to go beyond the classroom to have firsthand experiences. This literacy is very broad and would probably take a lifetime to become fully literate in. Nonetheless, I would want to provide my students exposure to some of the pressing issues going on, starting with the local and connecting to the global. I found so many resources that help students explore what is happening in their backyard and different organizations that would help students engage in causing change. I want to use these resources and provide time for student-led campaigns in what directions they are interested in taking. Digital literacy skills would be very important for learning environmental literacy, as well as traditional skills. It is very interesting that I was able to really dig into two different types of literacy that don’t originally seem connected. I would love to model how this project incorporated different types of literacy and skills into creating one finished product in my classroom. I think it would be very engaging and help students take ownership of their learning.

New Literacies - What am I learning?

Many of the definitions of literacy that we posted on the wiki discussed literacy as having multiple aspects – as being more than simply being able to read and write (although these skills are important as well).  I think that looking at literacy in this way, as being something so intricate and multidimensional, absolutely relates to emotional literacy.  Being emotionally literate goes far beyond the “traditional” view of literacy; in fact, literacy is almost used as an abstract term in this context, as we are dealing with feelings and emotions (which are abstract concepts) and how we control, interpret, and act on them.  However, that being said, traditional literacies play a part in emotional literacy as well, especially speaking, listening, and viewing.  Because emotional literacy deals with one’s emotions and how they are managed and perceived, as mentioned above, the interactions we have with others are extremely important.  Whether we are speaking directly to someone, listening to another person, or simply observing body language, these traditional literacies are essential to the study of emotional literacy.

There is a lot to be learned from studying emotional literacy.  I had no idea that it was so prevalent  in our everyday lives, and that it is something that applies to nearly everything we do and say, whether we are aware of it or not.  Emotional literacy is really like another language, that really takes skill and at times, conscious effort to master.  Being emotionally literate can greatly improve our daily life and our future, including improving our mood, enhancing our relationships with others, and helping us to better control our emotions that often get the better of us such as jealousy, anger, and selfishness.  As adults and teachers, it is really our responsibility to teach others to be more emotionally literate, especially our students and other young people.  Even more important, we must be role models and show them how to be emotionally literate.  Teaching by example can be most powerful, and as our students will look up to us, we must keep this in mind.  Often in schools, most of the attention is focused on academic subject areas, which seems to make sense because that is what students are tested on.  However, it is so beneficial for students to learn to be more emotionally literate, and many parents are recognizing this fact as well, although they may not know the official term.

When I began researching emotional literacy, I had absolutely no idea just how big of an influence it had on people’s lives – my own included.  I now see the huge importance of teaching and demonstrated emotional literacy to my future students, and even my students at my placement this year.  I can think of one student in particular that would really benefit from this, as he often allows his emotions to take over and lets them affect his attitude toward school and teachers, and how he approaches and handles himself during daily activities.  What I would like to learn more about is strategies of how to actually go about helping students achieve a higher level of emotional literacy.

We are creating a digital presentation using One True Media.  This technology provides a different and fun way for students to gather information; one that hopefully will capture their attention and help them to see the importance of whatever it is they might be learning about.  This technology allows us to present information in a variety of forms alongside images, video, and music, and can be edited and altered at any time.  I think students will be able to get much out of this form of technology because it is something different; it is something that stands out from the normal, everyday lesson.  Although a limitation of this technology is that it would take a considerable amount of time to put together, and could in no way be used on a regular basis, it is something that will capture students’ attention, and is something that can be saved and used time after time.  It is nice for the audience, because the presentations can be made as interactive as the creator would like.  For example, you can incorporate “slides” with questions, incorporate samples, or even demonstrate how to do a particular activity.  This technology offers the potential to feed students information in an interesting way, and hopefully in a way that makes the information relatable and dynamic.  Still, it allows us to apply the traditional forms of literacy as well.  Listening and viewing are probably most obvious to this type of literacy, as the audience will be interpreting information based on what they hear and see throughout the presentation.  However, speaking and writing can also be incorporated through making the presentation interactive, by using some of the ideas mentioned above.  These things can also be applied through follow-up activities in the form of promoting discussion or through some sort of journal or response, or perhaps even a digital presentation of their own! 

• What new content are you learning as you become more familiar with this literacy?

            I am learning so much as I read and research emotional literacy. Before doing research I thought a lot about my own experience talking about emotions in my early childhood development classes. In these classes we talked about how important it is to get young children in tune with their emotions and teach them how to properly handle their emotions. In the child development labs when working directly with children we have to reflect on their emotions so they began to understand what emotions they were feeling at different times. For example if a child hit another child for taking away their toy I may say, “You are upset because he took your toy. When you hit him that hurts his body, you can say stop I was playing with that.” The children hear adults use those reflections everyday and they slowly start to learn how to handle emotions of fear, sadness, frustration, and more.

            The reason I mentioned what I learned in child development is because while I was learning affective reflections last year I had no idea it was a part of the multiple literacies. When I heard the word ‘literacy’ I immediately thought of reading, writing, and other content areas that make up language arts. Now I am aware of the importance it has and how it should be included in the classroom and considered a part of literacy. In addition, I dug deeper into the context of emotional literacy and found out why it is important and what exactly it entails.

            After reading a variety of articles, emotional literacy is defined and the ability to express, understand, interpret, and control one’s emotions in a healthy manner (Center on the Social and Emotional Foundation for Early Learning, 2009). In other words we want children to know and be able to identify emotions they are feelings and have a way to control or act on them in a way that does not hurt others or themselves; it gives students coping mechanisms.    

            There are a variety of ways in which adults and teachers can promote or teach emotional literacy to students. First off, adults must be aware that they are being watched and children will imitate them and their actions. Therefore, it is critical that adults are positively controlling their own emotions so children follow their lead. In addition, teachers must realize that all emotions are real and children need to be constantly made aware of them.

            There are countless reasons why children in school should be learning about their emotions. For starters those who are able to control their emotions and possess emotional literacy get into fewer fights and often to better academically. In addition, they get resist behavior that is destructive (Center on the Social and Emotional Foundation for Early Learning, 2009). The reasons for being emotionally literate also extend to future issues as well. These issues are discussed below.

• What surprises have you experienced during your exploration?

            I was surprised to see the impact emotional literacy has on the future of our world. One article I read talked about how being emotionally literacy actually helps with social issues such as drug abuse and violence. In addition, another article state many benefits such as reduction of crime, better understanding among individuals, better cooperation, reduction of prejudice, and more (Zimmerman, 1999). Just seeing these few benefits assures me that I will be including emotional literacy into my classroom. I believe emotional literacy should start young that way they have the skills and the language to carry it through their education. However, it is also a literacy that should be continuously learned on a daily basis because ultimately it is a life skill.

            The second most surprising thing I read from an article titled What is Emotional Literacy. It said, “A recent poll by USA Today showed that, when asked what they most wanted to change in their children's schools, a full 75% of all parents asked for emotional literacy - though not by name” (("What is emotional," ). It is interesting to think that even parents are aware of the importance this literacy has on their children. I would think the results of a poll like that would yield more answers pertaining to academics. As a side note: I think parents are also very important for becoming emotionally literate. The children are with their parents for the majority of the day so it is also important that they model positive ways to display their behavior for their kids to model.   

 Think about the students in your field placement.  If they were exploring this new literacy, what support would they need in order to become literate in this area?  Is this type of literacy already present in the curriculum at that grade level, or would this be a new learning area for the students?

            Many of the children in my field placement are emotionally literate. Since it is a Catholic school they stress that the students act like Jesus or live the model, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do). However, this is not to say that emotional literacy practices and activities should be left out all together! I would support the children in my field placement by ensuring them that some situations they can handle on their own. In addition, I would teach them the language to handle those situations. I think this would help them to become more independent and less likely to come and “tattle” on their classmate to the teacher.

            The ways in which I have seen this literacy in the classroom is through discussions. When something bigger happens on the playground my teacher has discussions on how the issue could be resolved better in the future. During this time she does not call people out or yell at them, but asks the class their ideas. In addition, I think my teacher praises students who handle their emotions in positive ways, especially if it is something they have been working on. For example, some of the boys get anxious during carpet time. If they regulate that emotion by controlling their body and putting themselves in a ‘criss cross applesauce position’ my teacher will praise that.

• What makes this technology useful for teaching?

            The technology my group is using is called One True Media. One True Media is a movie maker in which photos, videos, and special effects can be added to make an entertaining clip. I think presenting information to students in this way would be new and exciting! I notice that when I teach a lesson the students are rather excited because my lessons are usually out of the ordinary. Therefore, I see firsthand that not doing things the same every day has great benefits. In addition I think presenting information in this way displays a new technology to them that maybe they have never seen before. It may give them the desire to learn how to use it themselves. As our world becomes more based on technology it is important that students are exposed to as many different areas of technology as the teacher can offer. I also know this technology is good for teaching because today’s students are visual learners. This technology gives them something not only to hear, but to watch as well. I went to a conference this weekend and the man speaking told the group that in 1996, 35% of students were visual learners and in 2005, 65% of students were visual learners. I can only imagine that that number is growing today!

• What do you find especially challenging and why?

            What I see that will be most difficult when teaching about emotional literacy and other concepts in my future classroom with this technology is the inability to stop the video. Unlike a PowerPoint, videos continue on unless the pause button is hit. However, I think it is harder to pause at a certain time that won’t interrupt the flow of the video. Therefore, it is critical that in future lessons I will have to make sure that everything I want the children to see is in the video or I may have to wait until it is over to discuss it.

• What else are you noticing as you work with this technology?

            I am noticing that this technology if used all the time will be very time consuming. It would definitely take a lot longer than making a PowerPoint or a handout. However, I think having videos in the class is important because they are different and exciting. Therefore, taking the time to make them every once in a while will be worth it for the students.  

References 

 Zimmerman, M. (1999). Emotional literacy education and self-knowledge. Retrieved from http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/index.shtml

What is emotional literacy?. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.feel.org/emotional_literacy.php

Center on the Social and Emotional Foundation for Early Learning. (2009, April). Fostering emotional literacy in young children: Labeling emotions. Retrieved from