11/5 Blog Post

This week's Buehl reading focused on the reading and comprehension of complex texts and much

of this text focused on personal approaches to learning and school work. This involves the ideas of students who are organized vs. students who are good studying and so on. This section of the reading reminded me a lot of my brother. My brother often struggled in school from the age of kindergarten through senior year of high school. He almost always understood the information and applied himself but his organization skills were lacking and that translated into him doing poorly in

his classes. Since then, I have often wondered if he had teachers who were more invested in helping him comprehend these complex texts would he have done better? The specific concepts highlighted in this reading also made me think of my brother, especially the note taking section. Buehl highlighted the issues regarding note taking in this week's writing and what he highlighted is important. A lot of his writing on note taking focuses on students' lack of will to do it and the problem with leaning the responsibility on students. When note taking is required to understand a complex text, that leans the focus of the work on students and their comprehension stems from their own notes usually rather than the text itself. This can inhibit student learning  because if their original note-taking lacks sufficient information, then their continued learning will fail as well. What kind of strategies do you think should be done to counteract this problem?

The readings for this week also focused on the Common Core standards for our disciplines, of which mine is History. The standards set out for History seem mostly reasonable. They offer standards of how interaction with complex texts can lead to further exploration. Based on looking at these standards what do the rest of you think? Do you see your common core standards applying well to your discipline?

The ILA standards set out other interesting guidelines but one that specifically stuck out to me is the concept that language exists as a living organism. I think this concept is really interesting and parallels a lot of what we've learned this semester. For example, organisms are nuanced and constantly changing and language follows suit. Depending on your area of the country, race, and

other actors language can change quickly. In order to understand organisms, one must also work actively in a multitude of different ways and language also applies in this way. What do you guys think of this analogy offered? Do you think it's accurate and how can we apply this to our teaching?

It is an era when technology increasingly develop and cultural increasingly participatory. So we need to bring digital literacies into our classroom (Alvermann, 2010; Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999; Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel, Clinton, & Robison, 2009; Paris, 2010; Rance-Roney, 2010; Robin, 2008), which offer students more opportunity to learn knowledge outside the classroom.

                                   (Why digital literacy matters)

The question is how we can monitor the students’ learning procedure and how we protect our students from bad things on the internet. Besides, engaging with learners in digital activities result in a constant shifting of the position of expect at the apex. It is true that traditional teachers in China, especially those in primary and secondary education, give students less opportunity to express their own ideas in order to emphasize teachers’ power. Under this kind of guidance and education, some Chinese students just recite and repeat what they have learned which leads to their ability viewing an issue critically gradually weakening.

So how to maintain teachers' authority without sacrificing students’ critical thinking ability? You know, teachers make the  need to students in middle school or even high school are easy to lose control.

As a educator, on the one hand, we have to develop students thinking in critical way. “Critical digital literacies, then are those skills and practices that lead to the creation of digital texts that interrogate the world; they also allow and foster the interrogation of digital, multimedia texts.” (p.3) On the other hand, we should keep pace with the time and be continuous to study in order to make the content and method of teaching advance with time.

There are many digital media can be applied into teaching, including the use of blogs (Nygard), iPod and mobile media (Garcia), videos (Lewis, Doerr-Stevens, Dockter Tierney, & Scharber; Schmier) and digital storytelling (Nixon; Salter; Smith & Hull). I think the blog what we are constructing now is a good example. Every week, I can further understand the required article be blog posts and responses.

Develop socially just subject-matter instruction, particularly in secondary school settings. On the one hand, we have to provide equitable learning opportunities. Equity is not a stable function whose parameters can be decided a priori but is rather a function of what people bring to an activity and the kinds of resources the activity can provide. That is so say, we have realize students’ diversity, including their backgrounds, skills and interests. It reminds me an educational philosophy put forward by Confucius that “teaching students in accordance of their(original text: 因材施教).” The following is the concept map of his educational philosophy draw by myself.

On the other hand, educators teach students not only knowledge but also how to critique knowledge. The intricacies of learning to encode and decode, interpret and apply, and comprehend and critique specialized symbol systems demand particular attention in subject-matter instruction.

10/29 Blog Post

    This week first reading is Traveling, textual authority and transformation—An introduction to critical digital literacies. As we all know that technology and digital literacies have made it possible to travel farther and faster than ever before, and we can communicate virtually with fellow travelers in real time, the human soul is now transported in virtual non-linear worlds.Additionally, digital literacies have changed who is consider literate and what counts as text.In the passage, the author use the familiar view of literacy as traveling to examine more novel implementations of critical and digital literacies, and to explore ramifications for the development of critical and digital literacies curricula across educational contexts. I agree with the idea that critical literacies provide skills and tools to address social and educational inequalities and assist us in continuing to read the world, a world that is increasingly digital. In the current moment, we see critical literacies as engagement with language that requires consumers and designers of texts not only to decode, encode, and make meaning from texts, but also to interrogate them(Berghoff, Egawa, Harste, & Hoonan, 2000; Boran & Comber, 2001; Comber &Simpson, 2001; Dozier, Johnston, & Rogers, 2006; Janks, 2010; Lewison, Leland,& Harste, 2008; Misson & Morgan, 2006; Muspratt, Luke, & Freebody, 1997;Stevens & Bean, 2007).

    In our daily life it is very common to see that the digital literacies are around our study and life all the time. Think it is really convenient than traditional literacies. Traditional literacies are very limited and have less to read. What people see are out of date. However, with digital literacies came out, people can see the current literacies as soon as possible. Critical digital literacies should appeal to a variety of educators, they offer alternative methods of teaching, learning, production, and assessment that have the ability to disrupt traditional banking systems of education. Moreover, critical digital literacies offer chances for students and teachers to become designers, instead of only customers , of powerful texts. However, there will be some problems when students reading digital literacies, how we deal with that? Do you have the purpose of literacy? How we educators do to help students build up a sense of purpose of literacy? 

    The second reading is Developing Socially Just Subject-Matter Instruction: A Review of the Literature on Disciplinary Literacy Teaching. In this paper the author talks about conflicts between the intellectual work of teaching content concepts and the moral work of teaching those content concepts to human beings, that is, to people with varying perspectives on the value of the content, varying skill sets and ways of knowing that they brought to their learning, and rich and full lives that might or might not intersect with the content under study.

    The concept of socially just pedagogy covers a vast territory to which the author does not able to do justice in this review. Teaching in socially just ways and in ways that produce social justice requires the recognition that learners need access to the knowledge deemed valuable by the content domains, even as the knowledge they bring to their learning must not only be recognized but valued.From a social justice perspective, opportunities to learn must not only provide access to mainstream knowledge and practices but also provide opportunities to question, challenge, and reconstruct knowledge (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995).Social justice pedagogy should, in other words, offer possibilities for transformation, not only of the learner but also of the social and political contexts in which learning and other social action take place (Saunders, 2006). Both socially just and social justice pedagogies require that teachers provide all students with equitable opportunities to engage currently valued forms of disciplinary knowledge (Moses & Cobb, 2001).
    Here is a video about social justice pedagogies in literature classrooms. What's your opinion upon the socially just and social justice pedagogies?  https://youtu.be/vnPSxnSjveI
    Besides, in the part culturally responsive pedagogy, I agree that teaching also recognizes that needs and interests are always mediated by memberships in many different groups of people and by activities engaged in many different times, spaces, and relationships. However, the cultural knowledge and practices of some students—most often, students of color, English language learners and recent arrivals to the United States, or students from low-income homes and communities— are often unrecognized or dismissed in teaching practice, especially at the secondary level (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005; Heath, 1983; Ladson-Billings, 1994; C. D. Lee & Majors, 2003; Moll & Gonzalez, 1994; Nieto, 1994; Valdes, 1998; Valenzuela, 1999). As a member of English language learner and a teacher to English language learners in the future, I think it is important for both educators and students to play a role of language, cognition, and culture in disciplinary literacy pedagogy no matter what kind of color or relation they are.However, there are still many problems in this progress. What's your opinion about this?

10/29 Blog Post

               The readings for this week concern how we reconcile digital literacies in a critical manner in the classroom and how to teach in a way that pairs discipline literacy with socially just content. We teach students in a different manner than what I remember growing up. As we’ve advanced up in academia, our access to technology has expanded our access to information and literacies. Also, we’ve seen a shift in focus on socially and culturally liberal views that emphasize “justness.” Both the implementation of critical digital literacies and socially just content are important, although there are challenges associated with both.

When I was reading the first reading for the weak, there was one quote that stood out to me. “Critical digital literacies offer chances for students and teachers to become designers (Kress, 2010), instead of only consumers of powerful texts (Gounari, 2009; Janks, 2010) – one of its ultimate goals.” There may be hesitation on the part of administrators to implement critical digital literacies because they are often under pressure to get results. And if not properly administered or overseen, then critical digital literacies can go in a number of different directions. I think one of the biggest reasons why critical digital literacies aren’t utilized in classes is because they challenge the traditional relationships in the classroom, the identity of the classroom, and the type of instruction. Education can be very resistive to change. Another factor to take into account is that digital literacies can expand access to education to underrepresented communities who have traditionally lacked access. The problem, however, is that digital literacies can be more expensive than traditional literacies.

Critical pedagogy looks at the relationship between the educator and the students and the power the educator has over the student. Digital literacies blur this relationship and this power. Research has shown that in critical digital literacies the learner will actually outpace the teacher or even have more background knowledge of the content (Avila & Pandya 2013). Naturally, it makes sense for us to expand digital literacies to all students. One of the ways that educators have done this is through blogs. So, our class is already doing something right. I was fortunate enough to go to school in well-funded school districts that had the money and resources to acquire the technology necessary for these digital literacies. It wasn’t until high school that they were used in a critical manner. We need to teach students from an early age to question things and not wait until high school. On the other hand, students in underfunded school districts face the opposite. So how do educators handle this challenge when digital literacies are more beneficial, but can be inaccessible to them?

One thing that stood out to me from the Moje reading was the following.

“Such teaching (culturally responsive teaching) also recognizes that needs and interests are always mediated by memberships in many different groups of people and by activities engaged in many different times, spaces, and relationships. However, the cultural knowledge and practices of some students—most often, students of color, English language learners and recent arrivals to the United States, or students from low-income homes and communities— are often unrecognized or dismissed in 

teaching practice.”

We’re going to be dealing with a diverse group of students when we become teachers. Not everyone is going to get that well-paying job in the suburbs where many of the students are white. We want to teach culturally responsive curriculum, but not everyone is the focus of our attention. As the quote says, minority students and ESL students and poorer students are overlooked. That makes me think that the target for culturally responsive teaching is white students. While it’s good that they receive culturally responsive teaching, it’s at the expense of other groups of students, yet another inequality of the education system. Should we focus our efforts on one groups of students who need more help or all students who may not need the help?  

10/29 Blog Post

This week, we read about developing socially just subject-matter into our instruction as well as the importance of critical digital literacies. Avila and Pandya discuss the effect critical digital literacies have on students in which they become critical thinkers that are able to question the world around them. Moje argues that to teach in a manner that produces social justice as well as to teach in socially just manners, the subjects deemed valuable by the students must be acknowledged as well as valued, through this, students can learn the importance of each subject as well as they develop the tools to be successful in those domains.

As technology has advanced, so has its influence in the classroom. Schools are using learning management systems like Blackboard, Schoology, and Google Classroom to name a few. There are also different ways to present lessons: Powerpoint, Pear Deck, Prezi, etc. Tablets and laptops are a popular thing now too. All of these are gateways to digital instruction that also lead to engaging and exposing students to critical digital literacies. These new created gateways are able to reach a larger range of learners too. Avila and Padya mention that “critical digital literacies have the potential to reach learners who might be otherwise reluctant to engage in print-based critical literacies work” (pg. 3). Now visual and kinesthetic learners have videos, pictures, and interactive applications they can manipulate. In class, we’ve also been discussing different literary texts where these digital literacies help expand that as well. Also, these critical digital literacies open up the doors for students to become more creative and take charge of their learning. This then breaks that divide between teacher and student, and levels the playing field. Avila and Padya write, “educations and learners often share the roles of experts and teachers, and when students lead, they define participation itself.”

Because technology is advancing quickly, it can be hard to keep up with, but that doesn’t mean we should be afraid of it. I’ve gone to a professional development where I was introduced to different technologies that can be used in the classroom such as online programs for assessing like Socrative and Kahoot, extensions like Screencastify, add-ons like Flubaroo and Doctopus. I also met teachers there who even use something as simple as creating videos that are posted on their class website or youtube. Living in a digital world where even my 9 year old brother knows how to navigate tech more easily than I can, goes to show that we can’t shy away from utilizing tech in the classroom. It’s something we need to embrace.

As for Moje, I want to pay special attention to the following: “culturally responsive, or socially just/social justice, subject-matter pedagogy could be thought of in three—not mutually exclusive—ways: (a) as a bridge from everyday knowledge and practice to conventional content learning, (b) as a way to teach skills for navigating cultural and discursive communities, and (c) as a way to teach students how to challenge and reshape the academic content knowledge of the curriculum” (pg. 5). I think through these ways, you’re creating an environment of learning in which students question, challenge, and reconstruct their own knowledge as well as the new information they are being presented with. We’ve discussed the importance of not teaching students to “be historians/mathematicians/scientists, etc” but to teach them the value and skills to be successful in those domains. Ultimately, teaching them culturally responsive subject-matter pedagogy based off of the students interests, you’re engaging the students as well as teaching them the value in their learning.

Furthermore, taking subject-matter pedagogy and combining it with critical digital literacy can be a powerful thing. By creating a curriculum that is centered around the students as well as using digital literacies, you’re creating an environment in which the students are the leaders of their learning. Isn’t that the point? Don’t we want our students to be critical of their environment and grab the bull by the horns, so to speak?

Digital Literacies

https://www.tolerance.org/frameworks/digital-literacy

This week’s readings focused on the implementation of critical digital literacies and socially just subject-matter instruction (Avila, Pandia, 2013 & Moje, 2007). Moje (2007) discusses the importance of students' background knowledge as well as the need for students to access content knowledge. Avila and Pandia (2013) discuss the importance of students getting access to literacies that guide them to become critical thinkers. As technology takes over and students find themselves using digital media to access an array of content, shouldn’t we take advantage of this practice to engage them in literacies that evoke them to question and critique the world around them--literacies that help them obtain knowledge and connect class-content with social issues which they are part of?

As we work toward empowering and legitimizing all of our students' rights, we have to be willing to adopt tools that can help us accomplish those goals. Avila and Pandia (2013) suggest that implementing critical digital literacies help reach and engage certain learners whom would not have been able to do so in the past. In addition, digital literacies go in line with the standards which ask students to produce knowledge and critically analyze all types of text. In addition, digital literacies can make valuable content accessible to the students. They can learn from different sources and learn others view the world.

Going back to our discussion for this week of “Supporting Critical Approaches to Literacy that Engage in Social Justice Work." I believe that digital literacies are a great tool to do that. Through digital literacies students can question social justice issues that pertain to them, build knowledge on those issues, and eventually contribute to the development of a better society. Ultimately, they can learn to defend their rights and dignity. Educators should not take their role and power in the classroom for granted and allow for the use of tools that will help students succeed. 

10-29 Blog Post

     This week's reading is based largely on the integration of technology and the creation of digital literacies in the classroom. In the past decade, technology has completely changed the way we, as students, teachers, and humans, live our lives. The addition of digital literacies in the classroom has  "called into question our understanding of acquisition and development" (TTAT pg. 3). We see that schools that expand their academic horizons by getting electronic devices that aid in the student's education is fundamentally helpful in the way that the students learn and process information.

     Digital literacy in the classroom helps the students learn by allowing them to become the creator of texts instead of being the receiver of texts. The only problem that we see in integrating technology into the classroom is that there will not only be resistance to the idea of it, but also the fact that teachers may not be able to keep up with the ever-advancing technology that we see.
An explanation from the text of this is that some teachers may not want to "give up" their position of teacher in order for the students to teach them technology. Ideally, being able to step back and learn with the classroom should be a rewarding process that helps build the confidence of the students and also creates a productive learning environment. It does not matter if we do not know how to implement digital literacies into our classrooms, because the whole idea of bringing the internet into the classroom is for everyone to learn. It expands our reach as teachers as well in a way that we can communicate with teachers all across the country that need help or have figured out the ways of implementing digital literacy practices into the critical literacies that we teach. It's called the world wide web for a reason, we need to use those connections to help us as educators. We need to get rid of the idea that we are supposed to be the "experts" in educating the students and be open to new ways that work. Teachers are used to communicating with there department, so why not expand the departments to include as many schools in as many states as possible.

     The ways that we use technology in the classroom need to be helpful. Using technology for the sake of using technology does not help students in any way according to the research cited in the text. If we as educators are using I-Pads to go to a pdf that the students write on and that's all they do, then it doesn't help them any more than just writing with a paper and pencil. We need to use the facets of the internet to our advantage like how Nygard in the text used Blogs similar to the ones used in this class in order to increase the classes' "sense of community, [...] motivat[ion], and, perhaps most importantly, saw blogging in class as a serious and meaningful technology of thought" (TTAT pg. 9). There are plentiful means of using technology in order to increase the overall digital literacy as well as make it meaningful to the classroom lessons. We've already shown in this class how we can use blogs as a way of assessing student understanding of the texts as well as comments in order to give a voice to students that, in the classroom, would otherwise not speak. Technology allows for the classroom to be extended to everyone and allows for disenfranchised students to succeed in ways that go past just the written word. Students can use technology to speak their thoughts verbally through recordings, scripturally through drawings or writings, and makes the learning experience overall less one dimensional and gives options as to the ways of assessing understanding.

10/22

I further know Chicago by reading Literacies and Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Chicago. Chicago is a multicultural and multilingual metropolitan with a large immigrant population. The ethnic diversity in Chicago implies linguistic diversity in both oral and written form. (Farr, 2010, p.278) I think it this kind of diversity make a city colorful and vibrant. However, it seems that we always pay great attention to the languages of majority rather than those of minority. And sometime language related to class. I think every type of language is considered to have the same dignity, not something to mock or seen as something less. Language is a tool rather than a goal of learning. The video following talks about language related to class.

It also reminds me that my little cousin is unable to understand the dialect said by her relatives. I feel so pity and upset because it is not only language loss (Schonewise & Klingner, 2012, p.55) but also a type of culture. Although local government has created a dialect TV show, the TV program is just popular with some generations who grew around with the dialect.

So do you think should the dialects learning be added into primary or secondary curriculum?

Since our students from the diverse group, as a teacher, we have to realize the diversity of English language learners, including their background knowledge, prior-school experience, in other word, they have various level of literacy ability. And during the learning process of these students, teachers play as asset and make the whole class students-centered. It reminds me an old saying in Chinese that “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime (original text: 授人以鱼不如授人以渔).”

So when teaching, we shouldn’t focus to much on the outcome of learning then simplified the text itself or tell students what they are going to learn in advance of reading. If we just tell answers to students directly, it will let them memorize things like robots. We should help them think independently and draw the conclusion by themselves. By this way, students will have deep understanding of some knowledge and can draw inferences about other cases from one instance. I remember at undergraduate university that I remember few what I have learned after the final exam because of the cramming-leaning way. The learning process matters, so the Els may be well served by opportunities to explore—justify—their own “textual hypotheses”. (Bunch, Kibler & Pimentel, 2012, p.5)

According to Bunch, Kibler & Pimentel (2012, p.7) , it suggests that teachers can “allow Els to collaborate in their home language as they work on tasks to be completed in English.” It is a good way by which children can most easily acquire fluency in a second language by first acquiring fluency in their native language. But I was just wondering if I teach my Chinese students whose first language is mandarin, would it influence the speed of expression in long-term, because they will experience code-switching when expressing their ideas. Is it better that develop the way of thinking in English? (though I have no idea of the specific methods)

There are two types of instruction introduced in language art related article which I think I can learn a lot from them.

1)  Sheltered English instruction. Some philosophy, I think, can be adapt to all disciplines. For example, increase “wait time” before calling students to answer questions in order to all sufficient time for them to think and frame their response and allow students more time to speak, and they focus on the content of students’ responses rather than any speech or linguistic errors they might make. (Schonewise & Klingner, 2012, p.61) The point is, making student not afraid of making mistakes. And we can also give students more opportunities to revise their answers. But according to Razfar & Joseph (2014, p.191), under this kind of struction, student who struggle with that language are pulled out for specific instruction in the language they are learning. This often results in students miss valuable class time learning content areas such as mathematics and science.

                              (other types of instruction according to  Razfar & Joseph, 2014, p.191 )

2) Vocabulary instruction. Vocabulary development is an integral part of every language teacher’s activity. When teaching vocabulary, teachers can teach vocabulary by reading a short and engaging text with selected academic vocabulary words. Besides, the teaching procedure should step by step. Look at the frame following,

In the staircase view of development, as one moves counter-clockwise from quadrant A to quadrant D, the level of the language in difficulty. Therefore, it requires “simplified” speech in early stages of development：elongated pauses and the use of non-verbal cues.

                      

Reference:

Razfar, A. & Rumenapp, J.C. (2014) Applying Linguistics in The Classroom: A Sociocultural Approach. New York: Routledge.

10/22 Post

As an English Language learner myself, I have a deep understanding of what the articles say. I have been studied English as a curriculum since I was in 3rd grade. But to be honest, I don’t think that I’m a good English learner. Because I still make many mistakes today. Sometimes I was kind of afraid of speaking English because of making mistakes. I think this situation can happen in many Chinese students. For example, many of you must heard about TOEFL test. There are four sections of the examination. Most of Chinese students can get high scores on reading, listening and writing. But when it comes to speaking, it becomes the weakest link of the examination. And this is due to the design and purpose of English course in China. When I was in school like 5 years ago or longer, the teachers are more focus on grammars more than others. We almost never get a chance to speak English. We were encouraged more study hard on reading and writing rather than speaking, that can help us get a high English score during the examination. But in my opinion, speaking is the most important part in English learning. By learning speaking English, students can practice their sense of English language and encourage them to do more study. And I think this is not only for English but also every language learning should pay more attention on oral languages.

        I like that “ Culturally responsive instruction focuses on help students access and connect with their prior knowledge, tap into their interests, and use all of this to connect concepts they are learning in school to their everyday lives ( Klingner & Soltero-Gonzalez,2009 )”I think the part of culture in one language is ignored by some teachers. Each language has its own culture inside the core of it. I think it is an implicit part of languages. Many teachers are more engage with language itself and not to dig things inside the language. I think being a culturally responsive teacher would help more in students’ study on language. “Culturally responsive teachers facilitate achievement by making learning relevant for students. They are adept at using students’ experiences and interests as the basis for curricular connections (Ladson-billings,1994) “ Actually, I’m taking a course of CI 574 named Foundations Curriculum Studies. It is a difficult but educational course. It required us to be curriculum planner and design our own curriculum. What I was think exactly is a curriculum that using cultural elements to help Chinese students learning English. Cultural elements can arouse students' study interest and evoke students to think more. What I want to do is to make students not only focus on English linguistics, but also learning English by experiencing the language.

        After reading the articles of this week, what I think most is the thing I should do as an English teacher in the future. What should I do in my class to help Students more engaged in learning English. Actually, those content made me think of an article that I read before. It is about if English teachers have the responsibilities to teach students standard English and incorrect every mistake that students made. From my point of view, as a language teacher, what I should do is more than just teach students how to read or write. I want they can be interested in the language that they are learning and not just to get a high score. 

        Here is a question: What would you do if you become a language teacher in the future or when you teach students who are not English speakers within your field? I would really want to hear opinions from everyone. I think that can help me a lot.

10/22

 While doing my observation hours for SPED 410, I observed a classroom that used the Wilson program to teach students how to read. There were English Learners in the classroom and this was the first time I saw how much of a struggle some students are having to grasp the English language. After observing the class, it made me wonder how much are they struggling in their other classes because of the language barriers? These students are still smart and are full of potential but their education is diminishing since they are at a disadvantage. For example, how are students learning the material in their history class if the teacher assigned a chapter for homework and assumes all students had read and understood the book then proceeds with the lesson plan while a student is falling behind? 

  

I believe that the standards presented by the common core are an important asset to education. “Engaging with complex texts; using evidence in writing and research; speaking and listening in order to work collaboratively and present ideas; and developing the language to do all of the above effectively.” Teacher need to assure students are achieving at the first level of engaging with complex text and build up to achieve effectiveness.  These standards are extremely essential to teach EL students because learning to speak another language might be easy for some but mastering a language to a complex level takes years. EL students are struggling to learn English and without these standards they start to fall in between the cracks and lose their chance of access to a valuable education. Additionally, I agree with the article when it stated the literacy instruction falls on the responsibility to all teachers in every discipline. A EL student might be receiving help in English class but is struggling in math because they require two different types of literacy knowledge that must be taught to them. However, its also a struggle for the teacher to help their students achieve these standards but through educating the educator and through experience, teacher can learn strategies to support their students’ needs. 

I know when I was reading a text in another language I was focusing too much on trying to translate the individual words in my head and not comprehending the complexity behind the text. I can only assume the level of difficulty for a EL student must overcome when trying to read a text in a particular subject and be able to learn the knowledge behind the text. Therefore, engaging with the complex text definitely should be the first standard because without this step, a student cannot build to the next level or writing and research. If a student is not comprehending the context they will start to get frustrated, shut down or even acted up. Some of these signs might be over looked by teachers as simply acting out but these are signs that a student needs help. 

10/22 Supporting English Language Learners

This weeks readings had important implications for how I will conduct myself as an educator. My career as a student was significantly influenced by the fact that English is my first language and I need to take into account that every student is affected by their linguistic and literacy background. Furthermore, I believe that most teachers' conduct when leading a classroom is in some way influenced by their own experiences as students in the classroom. If this is the case, then I may be suseptible to treating my students as if they had the same background as I did when I was a student. As a waitress, I am constantly communicating with people who's first language is not English and I have a good understanding of the fact that Chicago is an intersection of many different cultures and languages. However, before these readings I had not profoundly considered how I would address ELs in my classroom.

The reading Literacies and Ethnolinguistic Diversity: Chicago, by Marcia Farr is important and daunting for an aspiring teacher. Not only does Farr emphasize the myriad of different literacies in Chicago that one can expect to encounter, she also asserts that her list and knowledge of literacies is incomplete. She explains that literacies intersect with other literacies and these intersections create new literacies. This is an important point to acknowledge, because every student is exposed to more than one language and style of communication at some point. Thus, I would argue that no one can fully understand all of the different literacies of students in Chicago and as an educator I will be encountering different languages, styles and mixing of these languages that I am unfarmiliar with. It is easy and common for educators to mark students wrong when they do not understand their form of communication. However, this is something I want to be keen to avoid when leading my own classroom. Penalizing students for having a different background from my own or from the dominant culture is not only unfair, but perpetuates the alienation some students can feel from the school environment.

          Furthermore, the reading, The Grammar of History: Enhancing Content-Based Instruction Through a Functional Focus on Language by Schleppefrell, Achugar and Oteíza gave me useful tools with which I can begin to develop activities that challenge, include and facilitate the learning of ELs. While the reading gave me ways to approach texts that would be useful for an EL student and teacher, I wish that there had been more inclusion of how these activities would be beneficial to native English speakers. The authors may be implicitly arguing that the types of activities they presented may not be applicable to non-EL students. However, the authors gave the underlying impression that their methods could be used for Native English speakers. I feel that dissection of history texts could be helpful to any student who finds history textbooks boring, overwhelming or too fact-heavy. The text may not have included extensive discussion on this topic because the application of methods is individual to each classroom, requiring a holistic understanding of one's students.

Furthermore, the reading has important implications for how educators approach the difficulty of texts assigned to EL students. In my own experience observing teachers and EL students, the teaching of English and the content-specific instruction are completely separate. When students are being taught English, the content is often far less complex than the content-specific texts being given to students in other classes. However, the reading argues that students are learning English in every class and that they can handle the more difficult texts with scaffolding from the teachers of that discipline, in my case as a history teacher.

          The above video argues my final point, that students can handle this more difficult content, as long as it is properly scaffolded and teachers are given the tools to adequately do so. Schleppefrell, Achugar and Oteíza argue that "rather than making the content less difficult, we suggest that a functional text analysis can provide tools for helping students work with grade-level textbook material and at the same time develop critical language awareness” (p. 70.) I believe this sentiment to be somewhat revolutionary in that it can completely alter the way that EL students are treated and serve to better integrate them into the general education setting. However, students may feel overwhelmed if, as in the above video, they are given the same content as their peers without any modification for their needs. Modifying for students needs can go too far in the other direction when, is I witnessed during my years in elementary, middle and secondary school, EL students were segregated from the rest of the students. I think that treating the EL students as a seperate body of students, not capable handling the complex content other students are given is damaging to those students. Furthermore, this type of thinking is picked up by the rest of the class and may  facilitate less interaction which does not aid language acquisition. 

10/22 - Supporting Readers

This writing shows off several kinds of interesting diversity in Chicago. Historical, ethnic and in particular- linguistic. Being able to appreciate the nature and flavor of the varying languages around you is a boon for everyone and especially that of teachers. Spanish is an important language in Chicago, approximately 25% of the population speaks it, but there are many dialects within it, as well as ongoing hybridizations and creolizations. (Creolization is a relatively sudden emergence of a hybrid language, possessing a full vocabulary and containing a full set of grammatical rules.) Appreciating and responding positively toward others who may seem at first to “speak funny or badly” is critical for a someone in the role of a teacher.

English itself has had a long and varied history. There is a reason why English possesses Latin words and structure, including French and Celtic as well. This was true even before the voracious adoption of foreign words from the 16th century and on. When the Normans (a French speaking people) took control of the British isles back in 11th century, names of animals were primarily English derived- “Cows”, “Pigs”, “Lambs”, “Deer”, and so forth, but by the time the animal was cooked and placed upon the dinning tables of the Norman aristocracy they had changed into their old french names of “Beef”, “Pork”, “Mutton”, and “Venison”.

African American English, or sometimes referred to as Black Vernacular, is also not homogenous, it comes with influences from many different languages in Africa. There is an African creole language that is still natively spoken on some islands off the coast of the Carolinas. Gullah. It historically had greatly influenced Black Vernacula. To help appreciate it you need to understand one of the limitations in standard English. We do not have verb forms that can differentiate between several time duration cases, like when describing an action that began in the past and ended in the past, and an action that began in the past and will end at some time in the future. Gullah does have verb forms that differentiate this (and more), which has been passed on in part to portions of Black Vernacular.

Here is an example: “She sick.” (Began in the past, ended in the past.) “She be sick.” (Began in the past, will end in the future.) Though those two phrases sound ungrammatical to standard English, they are not a sign of low education or low ability, they are both meaningful and proper sentences from a different English dialect.

While the goal will most likely be to help students be able to read and write in standard and formal English, understanding language more broadly like this will help us appreciate students and respectfully help them achieve a greater level of literary ability.



Common core standards are an attempt to not only raise the bar of academic achievement of K-12, but to help colleges understand with more clarity what their incoming freshman know (or ideally should know). A key idea in the article is that it is incumbent on all teachers to be teaching literacy to their students. Gaining expertise with literacy is a skill that takes more than a dozen years to learn, and all teachers need to contribute to help students accomplish this daunting task. It is important for each teacher to be asking themselves what their contribution should be for their given students. Common core standards are a means to assist with this and gives a shared list of goals for all teachers to look upon.

As for the specific recommendations and focuses of the common core, I personally have my doubts. I am not standing opposed to any of the individual standards outlined as of yet, but I am not fully convinced that they are exactly as they should be, either. For example the shift from assigning less fiction and replacing it with non-fiction.

“The Standards require that 50% of the complex texts read by students at the elementary level be informational in character—shifting to 75% in high school—reflecting the role of texts in building students’ knowledge across K-12 disciplines and after high school.”

Like all attempts at making policy, policy-makers (should) try to understand the broad and far reaching effects of their policies. Looking at general shifts and large scale averages. They want kids to be “college ready” and in college a lot of textbook reading is assigned. It would be natural to seem that by having K-12 students do more “informational” text reading in primary and secondary school it will help them be ready for this. However, I have doubts that their rationale works as straightforward as they hope it does.

It is my belief that there is tremendous value in reading fiction. Narratives are almost always more natural in fiction than non-fiction and narratives have a privileged importance in our memory and understanding according to cognitive science. (“Cognition: The Thinking Animal”, 3rd Ed, 2006). Narratives allow us to juggle and handle more pieces of information at once, and gives us greater practice in understanding deeper abstract structures. Plot, theme, foreshadowing, to name a few of these structures. Fiction teachers emotional intelligence, it helps us to explore unfamiliar social viewpoints, it helps us improve our command of our own language and means to communicate which directly improves our own ability to handle more complex ideas. In short it makes us more intelligent. Fiction is usually more enjoyable and gives us a greater chance to find a love of reading and learning in general. The importance of reading fiction is not trivial, so the primary shift from fiction to non-ficition should not be done lightly if it should be done at all. What do you think?




There is a tricky balance between erroneously expecting students to think like scientists simply by telling them to do so, and providing encouraging activities and opportunities for them to practice scientific practices and inquiry. One of the fantastic things about this article is how much they emphasis that numerous examples are needed for students, but it also provides a lot of examples about how to teach science literacy.

Here is an example of them giving examples of how to give examples.

On obtaining, evaluating and communicating Information- “Students need multiple opportunities to write after they have been guided in examining examples of the type of writing that is required. For example, if students are to be asked to regularly use journals to develop and express their own understanding and to engage in metacognition about it, they need to see examples of such writing. Similarly, before they are expected to give oral presentations and written reports that demonstrate what they have understood or to describe an investigation or design project, they should be given examples of such presentations and reports.”


Other than being deliciously recursive, I think it makes explicit the importance of examples, which I wholeheartedly agree with. A majority of the advice in this article is talking about how important it is to reiterate and provide lots of pathways for understanding material. Science literacy is fairly rarefied but is certainly more important today than any point in history, and the trend of increasing importance is likely to continue. More and more means of communication and manipulation are coming out of our technology. Fake news and improved algorithms with the ability to swap faces onto speakers in videos is going to demand our citizens be scientifically literate to safeguard our democracy and freedom.

Blog 10/22: Gained in Translation?

This weeks’ readings discussed Chicago’s history as a complexly multilingual city and outlined strategies for developing disciplinary literacy with English language learners. I’d like to focus on the former, because I’m fascinated by multilingualism in society and its implications for schools, and I’d love to get a conversation going about it with you guys.

While we hear a lot about the effects of increasing globalism, it’s important to remember that the multicultural and multilingual identity of Chicago is not a recent thing. As Marcia Farr points out, even from its beginning as a crossroad of Miami and Illinois indigenous populations, it has been marked by the convergence and blending of languages. Something that I found particularly valuable about Farr’s piece is her embrace of the layers of complexity that are lost in the labels frequently assigned to ethnic and racial identity. While the demographic data we’re used to seeing may tell us that Chicago’s racial composition is 5.5% “Asian,” that gives an incredibly vague picture until it’s broken down into more detail, such as country of origin, and then into several more subgroups.

Just like these cultures don’t fall into neat buckets, neither do their languages. Farr explains that the standardized versions of languages have rarely been used by immigrants to Chicago (Farr, 272), leading to unique blends of multiple dialects of the same language family as well as these new blends meeting other languages. The map below shows census blocks color-coded by most-spoken language beside Spanish or English. Even this simplified (I say simplified because Chinese is not broken down into dialects, and some categories remain as wide as “Scandinavian languages”) graphic is busy and complex. You can read about the methods used to create this map at this blog: http://nihilnovijournal.org/post/87980253531/minority-languages-in-chicago

This identity building of languages (and vice versa) is where I’d like to focus our discussion and get your input.

While right-wing politicians have for decades used scare tactics of “foreign” language, frightening white suburban voters with thoughts of their children having to hear *gasp* Spanish in their school, this tactic hilariously backfired when co-founder of Latinos for Trump, Marco Gutierrez, warned that continued immigration from Mexico would lead to taco trucks on every corner. The hashtag #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner exploded with people who all seemed to agree that it sounded like a utopia, and “Taco trucks on every corner” briefly became the closest thing that the Democratic Party had to a rallying cry.

Parents would be thrilled if their child excelled at tap dancing, but might not be quite so excited if they came home speaking a blend of the Igbo and Irish languages. We seem to have no problem embracing the meeting of cultures when it comes to things like music, food, and dance, so why are new languages met with such a different level of resistance? What is it that makes people so nervous about the introduction of a new language?

From these examples, we might wonder if language is the most deeply tied of all cultural facets to identity. Sure enough, a quick look at history can tell us that colonizing forces first try to stamp out a language to eliminate a culture. The US government forced many Native American children (including, ironically, most of the children who would go on to become military Code Talkers as adults) to attend boarding schools where they were forced to speak only English.

I’ll reference the Irish language again, not because I think there’s anything special about it, but because I can speak of its case with more confidence than other language histories. During England’s colonization in Ireland during the 1700s, laws were passed prohibiting the speaking of Irish in schools and other settings. Some regions that were too inhospitable to be colonizable retained the language, but it basically died out everywhere else in favor of English, until a revival movement in the late 1800s. At that point, as an assertion of cultural identity, adults were hitting the books to try to learn the native language of their own country in which they had lived their whole lives.

Today, people in the Republic of Ireland are able to agree on what their culture should look like; aside from small regional variations in food and music, the Irish-Catholic majority is overwhelmingly homogenous. But when the issue of language is introduced, as we’ve seen with other discussions of multilingual cultures, things get much more complicated. The sign below might look normal at first glance, but look closer and you’ll see that the word “Dingle” has been spray-painted on. Several years ago, a law was passed requiring that roadsigns for Gaeltachtaí (regions in which Irish is dominantly spoken) towns could only display the town’s name in Irish, even if the sign is located in an English-speaking area. Seemingly overnight, green tapes plastered over the English names for Gaeltacht towns. In the case of towns such as An Daingean (which has already been simplified from its full name, Daingean Uí Chúis) , the English name was subsequently spray-painted back on. In some parts of the countryside, you can find signs that have undergone hundreds of rounds of this cycle. 

For a closer-to-home example of identity ascribed through language, we can listen to Chicago’s own Gina Rodriguez, star of Jane the Virgin, talk about her self-described “Selena moment.” Much like Selena did, she faces criticism from people who claim she isn’t really Latina because she doesn’t speak Spanish fluently. About the use of language as the ultimate identity signifier, she says, “It’s like telling me I’m not a woman enough because my breasts aren’t a certain size… I am as Latina as they come, and I am not defined by anybody’s definition of Latina. I don’t sit in a definition. I walk in my world, happily and confidently.”

So, what’s the point of all this? As future educators, we should strive to understand as much as we can about the rich intersections of culture and language our students bring to the classroom, as well as the way those intersections might make their identities vulnerable to attacks. I’m interested in hearing from you about why you think language is held up as the most important pillar of cultural identity. 

Furthermore, given our exploration into the way a threat to language is a threat to culture, are right-wing “patriots” coming from a place of genuine concern when they defend the supremacy of English in American schools? In Suzanne Talhouk’s TEDx talk, “Don’t Kill Your Language” (watch here: https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_talhouk_don_t_kill_your_language/discussion), she discusses the importance of protecting her language (Arabic) from dying out. Here are her words: “It’s often said that if you want to kill a nation, the only way to kill a nation, is to kill its language. This is a reality that developed societies are aware of. The Germans, French, Japanese and Chinese, all these nations are aware of this. That’s why they legislate to protect their language. They make it sacred.”

I don’t have answers to the questions I’ve raised, but I’d love to start a conversation about them.