English Language Learning

Personally, I am extremely interested in teaching ELL's and look forward to all of the challenges and rewards that come along with it.  I admire people who are bilingual and as an English major, I understand how difficult the language can be.  I have been taking Spanish classes since I was in the 6th grade.  Interestingly, we always did a lot more writing than speaking in Spanish.  From the reading, it seemed like it is actually common for ELL's to do little to no writing, and mostly focus on simple reading and speaking exercises.  Because of the emphasis I had on writing, I feel much more confident writing in Spanish than I do speaking it.

With all of that being said, I love Fu's approach to teaching writing to ELL's.  It is unconventional, when you consider that most of the research and assumptions say ELL's should strive to think in English rather than their native language, and that their writing should reflect that.  I much prefer the concept of allowing students to write in a more scaffolded way, where they are able to write entirely in their native language, then with code-switching, then with inter-language, and finally in standard English.  I think that this approach is the epitome of the growth mindset.  Instead of focusing on students' deficits in the English language, you are able to embrace all of the advanced speaking, listening and writing skills they already possess in their native language (what he calls "funds of knowledge").  Instead of being labeled as "behind" or "bad" students, they are celebrated for being learners with the privilege of knowing and learning two languages.

I really liked the idea that it is okay for people to think in their native language.  The example he gave of the two teachers' writing was a clear indicator that allowing students to think in their native language produces stronger, more genuine writing, because you aren't limited to only the language you are proficient in.  It also saves student from the humiliation of being pulled aside to work on extremely low level activities and allows them to learn the same higher level content as their peers.


I think that the artifactual literacy would work really well with ELLs.  I am sure that many ELL students have artifacts from their native countries, or even from the US, that could help teachers gain insight into their culture.  It also relates to the idea of multiple literacies, which is important when you have a classroom of students who are not all at the same level of traditional English literacy.

The Politics of the Paragraph

I want to focus my response on the "The Politics of the Paragraph" article, because I thought that it was an extremely well written piece.  I was troubled by the opening example where Kenney describes how a student felt that she was a "crappy writer" just because her thoughts didn't fit into three clean paragraphs.  There is clearly a real problem with how we teach writing in our schools today.  Due to the added pressure of standardized testing, students' creativity and talent is stifled because teachers are forced to get all students to produce essentially the same work as everyone else to prove their "proficiency."  When I read the article I thought about how the PEAS formula seemed to get everyone to write coherently, but with little to no real substance.  In my own experience as a writer, I have never been asked to use any type of specific acronym or formula, but rather encouraged to get all my ideas out and then channel them into a structured and organized essay.  This approach is not perfect of course, but it reflects a different atmosphere, without the daunting presence of CCSS/standardized testing.
  Much like Kenney, I do believe that there are both pros and cons to using essay formulas.  It is nice to want to teach your students to be really engaged in their writing and inspire them to write authentically, but in our schools today, this isn't always possible.  Like Kenney brought up in the article, many of her colleagues want a clean, easy-to-implement solution to teaching writing, which she acknowledges as completely reasonable.  We all want students to love writing and love learning, but when faced with a standardized test, we also don't want them to fail.  It is a difficult balance, especially when it would really come down to changing the whole education system to not be so hyper-focued on test scores.  I wholeheartedly agree with Kenney that any type of formula used in writing is going to limit students' creativity.  There is a reason that writing is considered an art form, because good writing can't be boiled down to a formula or acronym.

Poetry

I really enjoyed both the Christensen chapter and the short article about poetry in the classroom.  I realized when reading these that I was never asked throughout my entire K-12 career to write a poem other than a haiku.  I can remember feeling that teachers were scared to assign poetry writing because "not everyone likes poetry."  I really wish I would have been pushed more to explore poetry writing in my own school experience.  In the Christensen chapter, poetry became therapeutic and connected the students in ways that other types of activities could not. I especially enjoyed the part of the chapter where Christensen talks about how poetry writing improved her students' grammar tremendously.  If my students were struggling with grammar, my first instinct would be to look for some handouts or worksheets to help them practice.  Using poetry is an unconventional solution to getting students to understand grammar in context, which is one of the most important and valuable tools they can have as writers and lifelong learners.

I also loved how the article described poetry as "the space between language and experience," and the example she gave of how simply telling her husband the story of the elderly couple could not accurately convey her experience.  I had never thought of thinking about poetry this way, but it really captures why poetry is so important.  Simple language does not always do a sensory experience justice, and that is where poetry comes in.  It can make a person feel something as if it happened to them using metaphors, imagery, etc.

Cyberactivism and Critical Media Literacy

These readings were pretty difficult to get through, and I responded more to the Critical Media Literacy chapter than the Cyberactivism chapter.  In the Critical Media chapter, the author talked about students who studied the 2000 Democratic National Convention and the media coverage that surrounded it.  The students' findings, that the media portrayed actively engaged youth as dangerous and violent, reminded me of the deficit ideology we studied in class.  The media's narrative on youth is structurally flawed, because if they choose to be active citizens involved in something like a presidential election (even peacefully), their media coverage focuses on weapons and violence rather than the issues they are passionate about.  On the other hand, if they are not actively engaged in the voting process, their is a media narrative that presents them as lazy, uninvolved, uneducated, and uninterested in politics.  In either case, it is impossible for them to be presented positively.  I think that is where critical media literacy comes into play.  It is important for students to learn that, when they need to gather information on a topic in the news, they should avoid mainstream media and instead look for less biased websites like those suggested in the chapter.   It becomes dangerous when students only rely on mainstream media for information, because they develop ideas about the world that are skewed, as well as ideas about themselves from certain media narratives.  As teachers, critical media literacy should be something we give as much attention to as the traditional critical literacies that we use in our classrooms every day.