I was struck by the variety of literacy activities you all engage in, particularly those activities you engage in online and on your cell phones. Short messaging service (SMS), or texting, was a huge part of your literacy lives - definitely a change from students in years past. I was also struck by the use of Facebook - many of you had written that you checked it at least once a day. Having thought about our own literacy habits and looking at others', we constructed the following chart reflecting our understandings of literacy:
We've broken literacy into separate purposes: information, communication, and entertainment and went even further to list activities that fall into each of those categories. It is interesting that Facebook is thought of as a literacy activity that encompasses each of the purposes - is this the case for all technology?Given all this work we've done surrounding the idea of literacy, what would you define literacy as? That is the topic of exploration of this first draft of the Beliefs and Understandings paper. Engaging in the Literacy Snapshot assignment has prepared you to write about your own literacy practices - feel free to bring your own schooling experiences into this narrative. The second section of the paper is to outline what literacy will look like in your own classroom, paying special attention to how you will engage kiddos in literacy. Feel free to think out of the box here, thinking of your own literacy practices, as you create classrooms where kiddos emerge ready to engage in the literacy practices of the 21st century.
You will find a rubric for the Beliefs and Understandings here.
As always, comment with questions.
13 comments:
Is the Beliefs and Understandings paper suppose to be double spaced or single spaced?
Thanks,
Kristin
What reading homework do we have for Monday?
I have been working on the Beliefs and Understandings paper, and I really enjoyed writing the first section. It was really interesting thinking about the literacy in my life and how it has impacted me. It made me remember a lot of reading experiences that I had forgotten about!
-Carly
I also have been having fun writing the Beliefs and Understandings paper just to see how much I have grown and changed. Before I never really read anything and hated Language Arts but now I've found a passion for it, especially children's lit. I love the children's section of the public library!
I have also started my Beliefs and Understandings paper and it is not that bad. At first I thought it would take forever but once I started writing things just started to flow. I found it interesting to learn about how much I use technology on a daily bases. I spend way too much time on the computer.
When I wrote my Beliefs and Understandings paper it really forced me to look at the importance of literacy. Even though I have never been a strong reader or writer, literacy surrounds me. The paper has also made me think of the way my elementary teachers taught literacy. Thier teaching methods have caused me to have mixed feelings about reading...I often rarely think of reading a book as enjoyable, and this may be because I was forced to read books I disliked in school. I hope to use this experiences to make myself a better future educator, and to create more positive experiences for students than I had when I was a child.
-Lauren
When writing the Beliefs and Understandings paper I was shocked to see how much I use literacy throughout my everyday life. I always knew I used it a lot, but I never really thought about how much. How hard would life be if I were unable to read? Yikes.
After starting on the paper I have also realized just how important literacy is in all of our lives. Also from looking at everyones literacy snapshot I gained a better grasp on how different literacy is used everyday, and in some ways that I never even thought of. It is something so important yet easily overlooked each day. Good luck on the rest of your papers everyone!!!
-Ashley
The Beliefs and Understandings paper has been interesting to write. I think that the second part about a teacher's beliefs has really made me reflect about how learning to read was approached in my school. I am excited to see how my views evolve through the semester.
After working on the literacy snapshot assignment and the Beliefs and Understanding paper, it has really made me take notice how literacy affects my daily life. The literacy snapshot made me realize that most of the literacy we come in contact with today is mostly for communication and information while there are a few things like facebook which falls into all three categories of communication, information, and entertainment. The Beliefs and Understanding paper allowed me to really reflect on how different types of literacy throughout the years has shaped me into the reader and writer that I am today.
When working on the Beliefs and understandings paper I really got to reflect on my growths in literacy. It was very interesting to see how much my opinions have changed over the years. It was a very interesting and fun paper to write.
I wrote the Beliefs and Understanding paper and I think it is very interesting and makes me think back at the way i learned things and how I was impacted. Like Carly said i also had forgotten about a lot.
Brooke Stauffer
I really enjoyed writing my beliefs and understandings paper because it helped me to realize my strengths and weaknesses and how I have come to that point.
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