Today's class was very interesting. For one, it was my first experience with podcasting. At first, I didn't really see its application in the classroom. All I saw was a distraction. Kids would be more interested in creating effects with their voices, intros, and exits. However, as I went through the process, I began to see the positive effects it could have in a classroom. One, students writing scripts can practice their writing skills. More importantly, writing skills that are focused on speech. This type of writing has two effects: it develops student's public speaking methods and improves students' writing voice because they are writing for speech. Also, regardless of discipline, students are working on their public speaking skills. Chances are students are going to have to present something to their employers in the virtue, and, if they can become comfortable with public speaking at a younger age, they have a greater chance for success.Really, podcasting may be a cost effective way to successfully incorporate technology into the classroom.
The second portion of class today was spent talking about classroom construction. When I say classroom construction, I mean how we construct the learning in our classrooms. We began by decoding various symbols into English to tell a story about two men on an airplane. Then we went on to discuss how video games are constructed and how that works in the classroom (I expound this idea extensively in my previous blog). Our professors a very simple, important question: "how will we incorporate these ideas about literacy and lesson construction into our classrooms?" I only have a couple of ideas, so what better place to test them then this blog? First, I was thinking about possibly having a vast amount of quizzes and essays prompts for numbers and numbers of books so that students could read almost whatever they wanted - tailoring the class to individual students (however, this seems almost impossible for teaching a class). I also thought about trying to start lunch groups where students read the same book, magazine, short story, what have you and discuss it at lunch. By allowing students to read whatever they want and discuss it in a "non-academic" atmosphere could maybe foster an enviroment similar to playing video games together?
So here I sit upon the Mast-Head contemplating the future of my classroom when I make that transition from bystander to educator. Each and every day it becomes clearer and clearer that not every teacher is successful. Ahab was unable to pilot the Pequod to safety, yet Ishmael's tale remains unfinished. What will be his fate?
You're going to anticipate every book a student in your class might possibly want to read and make up quizzes and assignments for it ahead of time? I hope that this is a hypothetical scenario in a perfect world.
ReplyDeleteOR it could maybe possibly be sort of feasible if you had a team of teachers help with it. But who would want to share their precious resources with you if its your job or theirs?
Have you ever heard high school students in England engage in public speaking? It is embarrassingly excellent...embarrassing because we Americans are such deficient speakers compared to those soccer hooligans! As English teachers, I think we need to focus more on the speech aspect of the language, not just the written word. Podcasting is a gentle intro into public speaking, though eventually the face-to-face presentation and discussion will be necessary. My own public speaking skills are woefully inadequate, and I feel that if I had worked at it from a younger age, I would be better at it. One presentation in a few classes at the end of the year is just not enough to prepare students for communicating with adults when they get out in the real world!
ReplyDeleteI stand by our conclusion about what the winking face smiley meant in the icon activity ;)
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the lunch group...I also have ambitions of one day having a book club where lovers of literature will unite and we will explore the world of words together. However, I wonder if it would just be me sitting alone at my desk reading my book.
I do agree that teaching kids to get comfortable speaking is very important. Though, I'm not quite on the podcasting bandwagon--I agree that it would help with developing student's verbal skills. Kids are used to sending a text or an e-mail and never having to actually talk to someone. On the radio the other day, I heard someone listing tips for students on how to get a part-time job. One piece of advice was to look the potential employer in the eye & introduce yourself. The woman doing the news special mentioned that kids prefer to just drop off the application and rarely ask to speak to a manager. It is sad that kids seem to be lacking basic social skills. Avoidance is easier.
Ish, I'll just say that I like what you've articulated in terms of the potential benefits that podcasting might help you to realize. We'll be talking later about the ways in which cell phones can also be put to use in this connection, especially if you find yourself, on a day-in, day-out basis, wanting to hear how your students are pronouncing words, or how their inflection might reflect their understanding of a text.
ReplyDeleteAs to your idea about coming up with questions to support engagement with a broad variety of texts, I both like your idea and worry a bit (like Lindsay) about the enormity of the task. It makes me think, however, about a slight tweaking of the task... for many books, there are discussion questions available online. Maybe students could be put in the role of evaluating those questions..."bring in two good (evocative, engaging) discussion questions that you found and tell me why they're good questions, and one that you felt was bad (superficial, facile) and tell me why you think so?" Or maybe their task should be to create what they think are good discussion questions for a given book, etc.
Here's a blogpost by Stephen Krashen, an advocate for free voluntary reading (known in schools as SSR, or sustained silent reading) as a means of engaging students in ways very harmonious with what you're envisioning.
I second Jeff's idea of Krashen as someone worth exploring. He is also passionate about useful school reform efforts.
ReplyDeleteA couple of other things to roll around in your head as you explore reading:
- the new Common Core Standards are flipping the paradigm from 80% fiction / 20% non-fiction (estimated) to requiring that students get 80% of their reading experiences with informational texts and 20% with fiction. How might that change your approach and the kinds of materials you might have available? Would sites like tweentribune.com be useful?
- I like how you are already defining texts beyond fiction with topics like magazines (hint, hint: talk to your librarian). One other question is whether you'd consider audio books, eBooks, etc., and the "new ways" of reading that these new formats require.
- You might enjoy looking at the work of Harvey Daniels on literature circles and, more recently, his collaboration with Stephanie Harvey on COMPREHENSION AND COLLABORATION: INQUIRY CIRCLES IN ACTION. I think that C&C might help you give some structure but still leave the heavy cognitive lifting to your students. (Basically, you can read ANYTHING by Harvey or Daniels and learn a TON.)
All of this is close to my own heart and areas of interest, so holler if I can help.