Holly's Response to "Literate Arts..."

At first this article caused me a bit of concern.  I was wondering how the website referenced was monitored.  Since these children and teens were accepting "friends" from all over the world who they had never met, I was concerned that the students may be at risk for online predators or other problems.  However, when I went to the website, I was pleasantly surprised to see how it was set up.  I could not get on as I was not a registered user and when users go to register, they have to be approved by their teacher.  I felt comforted that we were not putting our students at risk in this manner.

After I got over that concern, I enjoyed the article.  I really like the idea of incorporating technology into classrooms and enjoyed reading about how that fostered communication among the students.  I thought it was interesting how the students managed conflict and negotiated conversation on the website.  Technology is an important part of our world now and I enjoyed reading about how students are being prepared to navigate that world. 

Ryan Fries’ Response to “Fighting Back: Assessing the Assessments

In his article, Hillocks focuses on the problems related to student assessment, specifically in writing. Is too much time being focused on testing and do we start testing at too early of an age? As a teacher, I have heard this issue brought up on multiple occasions. Are we teaching to the test or teaching critical skills that will give students mastery in key areas of literacy? I have never taught specifically for a test that I plan to give. My experience may be different than most teachers as I’ve usually developed my own tests after the unit or semester materials have been covered.

But Hillocks appears to be bringing up the issue because of its relationship to government funding when he says, “States that do not comply with the demand for testing will fail to receive federal money”, meaning that if states fail to raise their current standards of education, monitor progress, determine results, and dismiss teachers that are ineffective they would be unable to function under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) guidelines.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the ideals that are pointed out in NCLB, certainly not given that we lag behind many other countries in the areas of science and math education.  Whether or not the assessments are effective or accurate enough is the issue Hillocks is focused on.  However, in his critique he aims to either improve or, which I found strange, eliminate some testing practices altogether.  Eliminating the testing shouldn’t be the goal but improvement should.

Hillocks cites an essay given the highest score on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and discredits the merits of its assessment.  He claims that in the exemplary sample essay on the subject of taking an exam to pass high school fails to support the student fails to provide accurate support of the claim that such a test shouldn’t exist.  I think Hillocks’ expectations regarding  a high school student’s ability to qualify his/her claims is slightly grandiose. The aim of the test and writing testing in general according to NCLB is primarily to satisfy grammar and organization/structure requirement. Perhaps in focusing his attention on criticizing the Illinois assessment he negates the general goals that assessment achieves in relation to NCLB.

I’m also skeptical of Hillock’s claim that standard writing assessments may not be comprehensive because they exclude ‘advertising, poetry, drama,’ and of course ‘jokes’. Hillock’s stresses the teaching of critical thinking skills because it is such a ‘crucial time in American democracy’ but I would be interested to see the data regarding how many high school students share the same concerns. Basically, many educators complain that students aren’t able to produce grammatically correct essays. So to focus on the critical skills of explanation, evidence and example to support a persuasive essay is rather ambitious. More often, those skills are developed and fine-tuned at the post-secondary/university level.

Holly's response to "Why is everyone talking about..."

You'll have to excuse this post if it doesn't make too much sense.  My city has now tested the tornado sirens about five or so times and it's making it very difficult to form a coherent thought.

Onto the article though...

I thought the authors made some interesting points in this article.  The first being that literacy needs to be incorporated into content specific instruction.  I think that many times we may be adequate in the literacy of one content area but in another we are in helplessly over our heads.  In high school I would have been fairly competent in the literacy of history, but in science I was lost most of the time.  I think this is especially critical as you get into the high school years and have more in depth instruction in different content areas.

I also thought the point that the authors made about literacy instruction happening not only in the classroom was interesting as well.  Having a support system outside of the schools makes sense also.  It seems we never have enough time in the classroom and while we should be the first to offer instruction and support in literacy, it is also helpful to have the outside support and I think students can really benefit from the additional instruction.

Mitra's Response to "Why Is Everyone Talking About Adolescent Lit..."

Snow and Moje make the argument that the inoculation fallacy- “the fallacy that an early vaccination of reading instruction protects permanently against reading failure” (66) - is failing, as proved by the increased demand for adolescent literacy instruction. What I believe further complicates this failure is the vast range in literacy skills presented by students beyond elementary school. For struggling readers, for example, comprehension strategies including previewing, predicting, monitoring, questioning, and summarizing may be effective. But Snow and Moje make the claim that proficient readers already do these things, and that “making them aware of skills they automatically employ or strategies they don’t need may actually interfere with comprehension” (67). 

I appreciate the authors’ emphasis on reading instruction across the curriculum, and professional development that supports this instruction. I particularly like the approach of making apparent to students the differences in structure, language conventions, vocabularies, and criteria for comprehension that the text of each content area includes. Snow and Moje write, “While these differences may be obvious to skilled adults, adolescents benefit from being let in on the secret” (67). In the same way that writing instruction focuses on the differences in genres, reading instruction needs to acknowledge that not all reading is done the same, for the same reasons and purposes , or according to the same rules.

I was confused by the last point about literacy across multiple domains and media. Snow and Moje write, “Digital texts tend to be approached laterally, with ideas running across different chunks of text, whereas paper texts present ideas embedded in a hierarchical structure within a single text and need to be read linearly” (68). I have never heard of reading “laterally” versus “linearly” and am unsure what it means.

Goldie's response to:Fighting Back: Assessing the Assessment

Hillocks asks the question about assessment:  “But will simple complaints be adequate to make any change in the testing system?” His answer, “. . . testing has become the official driving force to reform education” (63).

He notes that teachers do whine about all the testing that has to occur.  However, he advises that in order for the complaints to be affective and to have an impact on school administers and state legislators, educators “they will have to rise above whining” (63).  In other words, they will have to prove their case.  He suggests that a research study in terms of analysis.  Teachers must take note as to how the testing is driving or not driving their teaching and assessment.  As I work on my final research project, I want to know why so many people are against testing and standardize testing.  I would like to be in that group who would collect and analyze data to prove that certain testing may or may not prove to be beneficial.  I don’t want to say that a particular test is not necessary, but rather to prove my case.

In order for me and other educators to prove our case, Hillocks maps out four assessment questions to pursue along with helpful follow-up questions for each question (subheading).

·         Questions about Learning Standards:

·         What are the learning standards upon which particular tests and test items are based?  You will need to discover what the standard writers really mean by their phrases about supporting ideas and critical thinking.  On Sunday, I asked my grandson about his homework.  He said that the teacher wanted them to work on their critical thinking assignment.  I wanted to ask him about his teacher’s definition of critical thinking.  Unfortunately, at that moment, I did not have a copy of state standard’s definition of critical thinking for comparison. That’s a definition that I will have to explore:

·         Questions about the Theory of Writing: To what extent do they hold up to careful scrutiny?

·         Questions about Test Items and Prompts: For this question, Hillocks wants us to “examine the test times and writing prompts to see if they reflect the language of the standards” (64)?  He clues us in by highlighting that “while the standards reflect some concern for critical thinking, the test items and prompts do not” (64).  Could the previous sentence be the answer to my research study question?  I not going to make that a flat out yes at this moment.

·         Questions about Scoring Criteria: For this question, Hillocks informs us that “more and more tests are including constructed responses” (64).  He recommends that we examine the scoring criteria for test.  This question may also help me to examine why some people do not like standardize testing.

·         Questions about Benchmark responses or compositions:

Who are we fighting?

Hillcocks presents a rant on the many murky features of "standardized tests" around the U.S.  Overall, his argument is that there is a huge disconnect between the pedagogical theory being taught in the classroom with what is being expected on "these tests."  Teachers are speaking a different language, using different processes, and coming to the classrooms with different assumptions about demonstrating knowledge.

Hillcocks especially argues that the constructed response required on a standardized test forces a student to abandon the framework of understanding taught by her or his teachers.  There's only so much time to write.  A student cannot go through a meaningful process of learning in writing without time to reflect, revise, and confer.  I agree that there are some policy decisions that need to be addressed, but critical eyes are always on the other side.

Here's a question we need to consider: Who's making the decisions in Lansing?  Educators fight back in various forms.  Hillcocks is challenging people to stop quaking in their books and speak out about concerns.  There is a vital piece missing to his arguement, in my opinion, and that is the solution to these problems.  If teachers want to be a voice for reform, there needs to be solutions that can start conversations.  Overall, I agree with the problems presented, but what is he proposing we do about these challenges? 

Mitra's Response to "Fighting Back"

It was funny to read NCLB described as the new federal education act (63). However, it immediately called my attention to the date of this article and how much may have changed. In particular, I wonder if teachers are not doing more to fight back.

I feel better armed now to discuss the negative implications of standardized testing after reading this article. Hillocks’ argument regarding writing prompts was enlightening. In made clear to me that far too complex tasks are being asked of children.

Hilocks writes, “…when students have been subjected to this instruction for eight to ten years, they come to see the five paragraph theme and the shoddy thinking that goes with it as the solution to any writing problem” (70). Hilocks continues by saying that this type of writing instruction “shuts down thinking” and makes college level writing even more challenging. So not only are teachers teaching to a bad test, the instructions they do deliver has no further use and, in fact, hinders learning.

Goldie's Response to: Invited Commentary:New Tools for Teaching Writing

As a read this article by Mark Warschauer, he states that "four new tools (blogs, wikis, automated writing evaluation, and open-source netbook computers) are needed for the teaching and learning of writing" (3).  For my response, I want to comment only on the blog in terms of learning a new language.  He writes, “The value of online communication in second language learning has been attributed to how it combines the interactivity of speech with the permanence of writing” (3).  When I was learning a new language, one of the drawbacks was not having someone to practice with on a daily basis.  However, when I started emailing, doing Instant Messaging, and blogging, I began to get a better understanding of the language and its construction.  For example, there were times when I was not sure about the placement of an adjective with certain nouns or when to use certain pronouns.  Through blogging/online communication, the person on the other end would correct my sentence structure.  And in return, I would correct his English sentence structure because that person was trying to learn English.

I found this blogging tool or method to be very rich and rewarding.  I had the opportunity to  get online assistance in learning a new language and to be able to socialize online in a way that benifited me and the person on the other end of the line.  In other words, both of us were able to practice  our language on daily basis without having to search for someone who may or may not have the time to practice with us.

Therefore, as for me, I agree with Warschauer's statement, “Blogs represent a particularly effective tool to combine the publishing and discussion of the student writing in a single medium” (4).

Holly's Response

As I read the article "Fighting Back", I was hoping for some ideas on how to fight back.  However, it seems that the author just gives us more information to fuel our complaints.  He doesn't seem to offer us a way to change things so the complaints stop all together.  Instead, he gives us more ammunition.

I did like his comment on page 63 that if an educated adult could not write a reasonable, well-thought out response to a prompt in the allotted time it is unreasonable to ask a student to do the same.  I think that at times we ask students to do what we would consider to be an unreasonable request.

While I felt this article gave teachers more ammunition to complain with, without actually offering ideas on a solution, I did enjoy reading it just to better understand what goes into an assessment. It's been several years since I took any sort of assessment test, and even then I have never taken a writing assessment test (at least one that is standardized...I did an essay for my Composition 1 class and my Composition 2 class in college, but it wasn't anything like these tests the authors described). In reading the article, I was informed about what these tests look like and what some of the problems with them may be.

When reading the Core Standards, I came across this line which I thought was interesting, "The Standards must therefore be complemented by a well-developed, content-rich curriculum consistent with the expectations laid out in this document" (6). As someone who doesn't teach and has never taught, I was slightly taken aback by this comment because the question that popped into my head as I perused the 66 page document was, WHEN are the teachers supposed to complement any of this material?  It seems there's an enormous amount of material the core standards want you to cover, but as Hillocks stated in his article, some high school teachers see their English students for only 135 hours a year.  That doesn't seem to be a lot of time to cover all of this material in addition to complementing it with other material.  And it might just be my ignorance showing, perhaps you all know how to implement this.  But as somewhat of an outsider, it seems to be an overabundance of material to cover.

Holly's Response on Mulitmodal Literacy

I really enjoyed reading about using technology in the classroom.  I thought the article made several interesting points.  The first being that "The majority of students were not reading books for leisure" (217).  I thought it was interesting that students aren't reading for fun.  It surprises me a little since I read for leisure so much, that students aren't reading in that manner.  I do wonder why they aren't reading. If it's just as the author said because they are more interested in technology or if there is another reason that students are not reading for non academic purposes.  I know that during the semesters, when I'm busy studying, I rarely read for fun.  I spend so much time reading for class that I often either don't have time or can't make my eyes focus on text any longer.  I wonder if students have the same feelings when it comes to reading outside of class for fun.

The other thought I found interesting was that the social networking and using of technology in the classroom was engaging the students and motivating them to write more (225).  That thought made me wonder why that was the case.  Is it because many students spend quite a bit of time using social networking sites and find this style of writing to be more comfortable? Or is there another reason students are responding so well to this type of writing?  I think this would be something interesting to explore.  However, I would also then wonder that if this seems to be working well, then how can we implement this in the schools?  This seems like it could be fairly expensive and I wonder if this would be a hindrance to implementing this in the classroom.

Travis Dalsis—A Response to “The ‘textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts”

One of the main arguments stated is that just as there is a sophisticated cognitive interaction between print texts and an individual; likewise a similar sophisticated interface occurs when reading visual texts and hypertext.  Proficient readers of print text unconsciously utilize an array of cognitive functions to infer meaning and build understanding of a print text.  Walsh argues that reading involves “decoding, responding and comprehending at affective and cognitive levels, critiquing and analyzing” (25) that requires dynamic interaction (not static) with a text.  Additionally, Walsh emphasizes that we make similar transactions when reading visually or interactively on a website.  These new literacies require different strategies to decode the information.  As a reader enters an informational Internet site, he/she must understand the non-linear pathways that access information.  Reading is no longer left to right, up and down, but also contains multiple pathways through hyperlinks.  Students don’t chunk information sequentially as the writer intended.  One student may learn about a specific fact related to wolves using one hyperlink, while another will learn and experience a different fact from a different hyperlink simultaneously.  It’s interesting to posit the hypothesis that multimodal texts give more autonomy to the reader to control their own literary experience. 

Additionally, it’s interesting to notice that students who are asked to create cross-text connections have different mechanisms (internal and external) to do so.  Students who are using print texts are confined to their own cognitive schema and that of their peers (i.e. in literature groups).  However, if a student has access to the Internet to make cross-text connections, the community of available resources broadens astronomically!  Collaboration becomes instantaneous—the reader collaborates with technology the same way a print text reader may collaborate solely with a peer or their own previous experiences in reading print texts.

Overall, this article provided interesting insight and made visible some of the invisible processes that take place when reading multi-modal texts.  New literacies are shaping the educational landscape and to understand how we process information on different platforms positions educators to possess more agency.  The use of technology: projectors, Smart boards, laptops, digital e-book readers, and mp3 players has done something to education.  Educators have seen the cultural landscape and reacted to the ubiquitous forms of technological interactions that take place regularly.  Instead of calling them irrelevant to the learning process, we, as Walsh concludes, need to take our knee-jerk reactions as symptoms of our lack of understanding and add to our knowledge base analysis of multi-modal texts.

Ryan Fries' response to Vetter's, Positioning Students

Vetter’s observation of Gina’s classroom

In this article, Vetter begins with an observation of Gina’s 11^th Grade English class. She notices that Gina has a unique and valuable ability to improvise and change the classroom discussion when students become disengaged. Her approach to classroom interaction was to call upon cultural resources to facilitate identity. She uses open-ended questions and suggestions for becoming readers and writers for a purpose and to imitate what they read in their own writing in order to become better. Gina is concerned with her students’ identities because many of those students have already determined what position they will be in life and have preconceived conceptions of their limitations. Gina teaches in a school of Latino and African-American students.

Vetter looks at to key factors in the facilitation of learning: Identity Process and Positioning Theory

Initially, I didn’t see much difference between the two as both theories draw on the notion that cultural, social, and historical aspects of students create the type of readers and writers they will become. Their experiences in reading, writing, and learning are viewed by them as a process of becoming the individual that fits within these constructs.

Positioning theory takes this concept a step further by identifying that students actually value learning more depending on the position they are given within a learning environment. For example if a teacher uses encouraging language to position a student they may give constructive criticism from an inclusive approach that positions the student as a member of the classroom community. She may say, “This is good and I like your writing here. But remember we also talked about using imagery to paint a picture in our story.” This juxtaposed with more humiliating forms of criticism, “No, this isn’t what I told you to do.” Humiliation leads to the alienation of students from the classroom community and can lead to their rejection of educational norms in general.

Ryan Fries’ response to Thein, Beach, and Parks’, Perspective-Taking…Teaching Multicultural Literature to White Students

Ryan Fries’ response to Thein, Beach, and Parks’, Perspective-Taking…Teaching Multicultural Literature to White Students

In the article, authors Thein, Beach, and Parks discuss the process of using literature as a means of changing students’ cultural perspectives and how this process is often rejected by white students because they assume it implicates them as vicegerents of institutionalized racism.

The article observes Daryl’s classroom with the following racial breakdown:

Race White Asian-American African Latino

Number of Students 8 4 1 1

After a semester of multicultural literature that often challenged and allowed students to become engaged with each other, the assumption was made that the effect of such an approach resulted in a shift in white students’ perceptions of discrimination, oppression, and social class. Although the white students claimed that the class changed their perceptions, the actual effect was perceived to be minimal at best.

But Thein, Beach, and Parks argue that even if the change wasn’t as dynamic or fundamental as they would have predicted it did allow white students to “try on” new perspectives which could be considered a major shift toward a change in their perceptions. Just the process alone of challenging previously held biases and beliefs creates tension and this often results in authentic discourse within the classroom. It is a process not aimed at changing the student fundamentally, but rather to instill value in the perspectives of others coming from different racial, ethnic, and SES’s. Multicultural literacy also leads students to be skeptical of majority opinions and beliefs within in the text which can lead to skepticism and critical thinking outside literary examples.

Ryan Fries’ response to Eckert’s, Bridging the Pedagogical Gap, Literacy...Reading Theories

Ryan Fries’ response to Eckert’s, Bridging the Pedagogical Gap

In this article, Eckert makes a distinction between two interpretations of reading.

First, is the theoretical reading or performing a reading of a text. This is the noun form of the word reading and brings with it connotations of literacy in the form of critical analysis. That is to say a reading of the text should comprise of advanced reading strategies to interpret nuanced meaning, symbolism, foreshadowing, and other skills required in secondary and postsecondary educational settings. Eckert argues, that students are able but are often ill-prepared to analyze literary works in such a manner and opt to leave such explanations to teachers.

In its verb form reading is, “[…]relegated to a lower, less scholarly, cognitive activity in which the reader has little agency in constructing meaning from text.”(112) This form does not encompass a critical interpretive approach to reading comprehension but is the action in itself. Eckert is concerned with the significance of the former. However, she argues that they are not separate entities entirely and that when taken from a pedagogical approach of “intersection” between the two, especially at the elementary level and continually thereon, literary interpretation “not only builds on students’ prior knowledge of textual situations but also encourages them to expand their repertoire of reading strategies[…]”(113)

Eckert specifically accredits scholars Iser and Goodman in the field of literacy theory. Iser’s approach considers the reader’s expectations in relation to words written in the text and as a result there exists an aspect of individual comprehension unique to each reader. Goodman’s approach may seem familiar because it deals with miscues in the reader’s predictions of a text. We often see this approach to literary theory in secondary education, when students are asked mid-text to predict what will happen next. Goodman argues that their answers reflect, “not what the eye has seen but what the brain has generated for the mouth to report.”(115)

Mitra's Response to "Multimodal Literacy: What does it mean for Classroom Practice?"

I think I may have experienced heart palpations while reading this. I realize that I often respond to articles on the teaching of English/language arts in this way, with anxiety for the teacher, and may sound a bit like a broken record. (A record player- how’s that for an outdated simile in response to an article on multimodal literacy?)  However, when Walsh writes that the “…'new' of the future is constantly replacing the 'new' of now” (212), I can’t help but wonder how a teacher is supposed to keep pace. Some of the technologies given as examples in this article, written in 2008, would already be outdated in a classroom today, and they were relatively new then.

Two things struck me most while reading this. First is that teachers and students are being expected to learn and work with multimodal and digital texts. Yet they continue to be assessed through print based material. In this way, there is an even greater need to disrupt curricular instruction to “teach to the test.” In other words, teachers will have to break from what the students find engaging and personally relevant, multimodal instruction and digital texts for example, to teach them how to perform on a standardized test.

Secondly, I wonder what this emphasis on digital technology means for students already disadvantaged at school, namely students from low-income homes. They have less access to technology and less ability to update the technology they do have to compete with their peers. There is no “public library” of technology for them to access, and if there was, it would not compare to what some students have access to from their own bedrooms.

GOLDIE GIBSON’s response to 2008 NCTE Presidential Address: The Impulse to Compose and the Age of Composition

Kathleen Blake Yancey begins this article with the history of writing beginning in 1776.  She discusses how writing has changed over the last century, how it is changing in the current moment, and for consideration of what this history and current practice mean for the teaching of composition in the twenty-first century.  She breaks these considerations into four quartets.

                        Quartet One: An Impulse to Compose Tested

Quartet Two: An impulse to Compose Scaled and Experienced

Quartet Three: An Impulse to Compose Processed

Quartet Four:  An Impulse to Compose Electrified, Networked, Transformed

I will only concentrate on two of the themes in Quartet One.  In theme one, she brings to our attention that “Writing has never been accorded the cultural respect or the support that reading has enjoyed. . .” (318).”  I never quite thought of writing in that respect.  For many people, sometimes reading is easier than writing.  With reading, you take someone else’s work, read it and comment on it and then you are done.  With writing, it is work, a job.  One must use any and all parts of the brain to try and get something down on paper.  The content must be coherent.  If the content is not coherent and easily understood, then the reader or listener may not want to read or listen to the rest of your work(s). 

Theme two: Reading brought the family together with the “feelings of intimacy and warmth, while writing. . . was associated with unpleasantness. . . and episodes of despair. . .” (318).

These words are so true.  I remember as a child that I wanted my sister to read “The Night Before Christmas” in the middle of July.  On the other hand, I recall my mother saying to me, “Goldie, sit down and practice writing your name and then find a book to read.”  The writing was grueling, but the reading was very enjoyable and relaxing.  Even Donald Graves (one of the article contributors) made a similar remark:

“Handwriting was one of those early school experiences I have tried to repress.

. . . Recollections of endless circles, precise spacing, and comments about my untidiness take away my energy. I had no idea that handwriting was for writing. . .” (319).   

Overall, I seem to keep reading great articles that support the claim that we need to find ways to make writing as much of a pleasure as reading.  We as educators must find ways to take the grueling out of writing and show our students that writing can be just as relaxing as reading.

GOLDIE GIBSON's response to: What is Happening in the Teaching of Writing?

The title intrigued me.  I do want to know more about what is happening in the teaching of writing.

Before reading this article, I wondered if was going to give me some eye-opening information that would make me say, “OH WOW!”  The article did not disappoint me.  My first  pre-thought was how writing stacked up against science and math.  When I listen to the media and how it seems to promote math and sciences as compared to reading and writing, I see that math and science appear to rank number one.  Even when someone asks you your profession, math and science category seems to get a louder WOW than the English teacher profession.  To my surprise, Applebee and Langer confirm that I was somewhat right.  On page 24, Kathleen Kennedy Manzo writes, “. . . although there is a rush to bolster math and science, there is reason for concern that reading and writing . . . will be left out of the mix. . . the analyses of NAEP data reported here suggest that writing may already be dropping from attention.” 

For my second thought, I wondered that if this article would reveal that there may be a serious problem in in the teaching of writing and what it would suggest that English educators do to resolve the problem.  The answer to this question does not surprise me.  The NAEP results indicate that teachers across the nation should “enter into professional discussions about the writing skills and knowledge students will need to do well at school, in higher education, and on the job” (27). 

My third and final thought was on professional development.  I wanted to know how professional development helped teachers become more focused on fulfilling the core standards and supporting their student’s writing.  I did not get the exact answer that I was looking for.  However, I did get a partial answer.  On page 25, the data findings are . . .”teachers of English language arts are by and large aware of the potential usefulness of standards and respond positively to professional development experiences that help them support their students’ reading and writing processes.”

Holly's Response

I really enjoyed this article.  Particularly, I enjoyed the portion on current composition and how technology has affected the process of composition.  Perhaps it's the computer geek in me, but I love to use technology in writing and composing and I think that our students are using it more and more too.  And, a good majority of the time, it's not forced.  Rarely do you have to force a high schooler to use facebook or some other social networking site.  In fact, you usually have to force them to stay off a site like that and get to work on their homework.

The examples the speaker/author gave in this article of how students have used technology for composition showed how creative our students can be.  I think with all the tools that we have available to us now, students have many more opportunities to compose than they used to.  I think this could be an interesting tool to use with students to encourage composing in general.  Use twitter, use facebook, use a blog.  I think all of these can (and will) encourage students to put forth their thoughts.  Which I think is one of the main things we want students to do.

In the "Beyond Strategies" article, I enjoyed the comparison of the two teachers.  After reading about their classrooms, I know which I prefer, but I wonder what the students preferred?  Which helped the students become more effective writers?  I really enjoyed the ways that Ms. Barrera structured her class and gave the students more responsibility for their writing.  While this may have driven me slightly crazy when I was school (I like things to be very spelled out for me), I appreciate the freedom and flexibility she had with teaching writing.  I also enjoyed the way she used peer review and the way she modeled writing for the class.  Ms. Gonzales seemed to be the opposite in many ways.  From my personal opinion, she was much too rigid.  However, perhaps this worked for her students.  I've never tried to teach 5th graders how to write, so maybe I'm wrong.  However, at this time I prefer Ms. Barrera's style of teaching.

Mitra's Response to "2008 NCTE Presidential Address..."

I would have loved to have heard this speech in person. I was so inspired by the comparison of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence to Barack Obama, and I really enjoyed the history lesson this speech provided.

"Writing has never been accorded the cultural respect or support that reading has enjoyed..." (p. 318). This seems so obvious, but I have never thought of writing in this way.

When I was teaching, I used to talk to parents about the things we do, as parents and even some teachers, to take the joy and pleasure out of reading and writing and turn them into "jobs." Some examples include forcing students to write a certain number of pages, read a certain number of minutes, or stick with a book they are not enjoying. As a teacher, I instituted a thirty page rule for all independent reading, meaning students could give up on a book if it didn't capture their interest after thirty pages. If we want students to enjoy reading as entertainment, we have to give them the option to turn away from reading that fails to entertain them. A parent would not be likely to force a child to watch a television show that was not entertaining.

Of course, there are exceptions. And times when students have to stick with texts that don't engage them. But the foundation of reading for pleasure and entertainment should be in place first.

Reading this speech made me realize how often I feel as I am writing, that my writing is going to be judged or assessed. I almost never feel that way with reading. Even in responding to these articles, I am not worried that someone is going to tell me that I am got it "wrong"- but I do worry that my writing style, form, grammar, or voice may be subject to criticism. I joked to my husband that no one writes "for pleasure" or curls up with a good laptop before bed the way we do with books.

As described in the speech, I too am a victim of bad handwriting instruction. "Handwriting" was the only class I ever failed in elementary and middle school. I had to stay after every day in Mrs. Lucas's sixth grade class to practice my handwriting. As a result, I now have the handwriting of an architect and worry if even my grocery list is sloppy. Perhaps it is this early that we start to take the joy out of writing?

Travis Dalsis—Response to “What’s Happening in the Teaching of Writing?”

This article provides an assortment of quantitative data that is helpful for grasping a picture of how writing in the U.S. has developed over the past thirty years.  The big questions this article seeks to answer are: 1) Where is the emphasis on writing and how does our emphasis within the framework of our curriculum affect standardized test results?  2) Since 1971, what has happened in terms of proficiency in writing?  3) Has there been an increase in frequency, length, and types of writing students are asked to do since NAEP’s initial study?

This article read like a statistical report card emphasizing that writing has been curtailed by reading and high stakes tests.  An interesting point made is that there is a disparity between high stakes on-demand writing forms of assessment and the process oriented take your time to construction meaning model of teaching of writing.  How can we expect students to create a meaningful piece of work that can be scored at a high level when the focus in our classroom instruction is NOT on demand writing?  Classes are geared towards collaboration and process that takes time, thought, and revisiting which leads to revising of a piece of writing.  I am frustrated with the obvious (I think it’s obvious) dichotomy here!

One more interesting argument made is also what students say they do and what they actually do on standardized writing assessments.  It’s not an excuse for NOT teaching writing, but how can teachers be held accountable for student laziness on assessments?  I’ve noticed this with my students as seventh graders last school year when they were taking the MEAP test.  Many of them wanted to just write instead of using a strategy to plan ideas and use the blank space in the test booklet to plan and draft.  Unfortunately, I cannot go into my students’ body and MAKE them do what they are supposed to do.  The only plausible answer in my mind is to look at the assumptions I make about teaching not only strategies but the importance of them in writing.  Students need to develop a value for planning and drafting.  They need to know that these are integral steps to creating an acceptable piece of writing.  Perhaps more professional conversations need to be geared towards the overarching theme of autonomy and ownership in education.

Travis Dalsis—Response to “Beyond Strategies: Teacher Practice, Writing Process, and the Influence of Inquiry”

This article opened up with a huge mental bang in my mind.  Being an educator for only a few short years, I’ve never second guessed the way in which I teach writing as a process.  Why do I teach writing in steps?  How should students write and think about their writing?  I’ve assumed, and wrongly so, that writing has always been viewed as an organic activity in which the writer undergoes a process of self-discovery and cognitive expansion.  The National Writing Project, teacher-research, and professional developments has aided in the paradigm shift that I’ve assumed as truthful and questionable.  Additionally, this article opens up new perspective that we can say that we are teaching the writing process, but in fact there are many models and forms of implementation—some effective and others not.  What model of writing am I teaching and is my pedagogical schema of writing process as accurate as I think?  These questions I ask myself as a challenge to explore deeper.

Another interesting point this article makes is for teaching and professional development to be inquiry based.  How often do teachers challenge their assumptions of what they’re doing?  Why do I ask my students to prewrite using a graphic organizer or a quick-write about a topic?  What does this do for the learning and writing process?  Assumptions need to be challenged for deeper growth.  Blau states, “making problematic their own knowledge and practice” which indicates that we must challenge our positions, take them off, examine their validity, and make course corrections based on our understanding of the flaws found.

The case studies presented show that Ms. Gonzales and Ms. Buerra, both taught the processes of writing, but in different ways.  Ms. Gonzales was characterized as rigid in her approach, while Ms. Buerra fluid.  Buel argues that Gonzales build a community of writers by providing room for collaboration across the writing process—not just for editing.  Additionally, Buerra positioned students as authors and their peers, not the teacher, as the primary audience.  Students were empowered to give affirmation to students when they shared their word. 

Buerra’s approach to writing being a process also allowed for students to be at various places in their writing projects.  I was encouraged with this point because often times I see myself as being the rigid task master where students must be done with each step.  The idea that writing is recusive and students engage in writing at various degrees of speech is important keep in mind.      

Options and choices is also a predominant theme in Buerra’s teaching of writing.  Students are given tools for becoming independent writers as apposed to students being required to use a specific set of strategies.  I think that teaching students explicitly to use strategies is important, but when students are given an assignment, using a strategy that is appropriate to the student and his or her peers in a collaborative group will produce more thinking.

One last point that I found exceptional in this piece was the idea of keeping portfolios.  Students in Buerra’s class used writing portfolios as an aid instead of a museum.  Gonzales implied that students and parents were irresponsible to keep the word they’ve produced and in a sense she suspended ownership of their authorship.  Buerra helped students to realize that their ideas are worth sharing.  Buerra’s idea of portfolio took on a dual purpose: 1) to be used for future creation and 2) as a way to present growth during parent-teacher conferences.  Overall, Buerra’s model of portfolio use adds a deeper dimension to the purpose of having them.

This article was very insightful.  How am I teaching writing?  Am I telling students what to write or how to write?  I have some room for growth—especially when it relates to collaboration and seeing writing as a process that students will navigate, with my help, at varying speeds.  I see some Gonzales and Buerra in my teaching.  Gonzales doesn’t assume certain skills her students have or don’t have, but she also stifles learning by keeping too much control in her own hand.  Buerra holds a different model of teaching where she gives more autonomy in writing and teaches her students that they too are teachers, audience members, authors, and collaborators.

Verrinda's response to "Looking Back as We Look Forward"

Yancey's article, "Looking Back as We Look Forward: Historicizing Writing Assessment as a Rhetorical Act", raised many concerns for me. Yancey discussed the earlier trends of assessment writing which were: objective test (1950 - 1970), holistically scored essays (1970 - 1986) and portfolio / programmatic assessment (1986 - present). She pointed out how writing assessments came into play because of the changing demographics of the student body and with these changes questions were raised concerning the diverse student climate. Questions such as: "(1) where to put students, (2) how and what to teach them, and (3) how to be sure that they learned what they needed." (pg 485 Yancey) These questions were left to the educators to decide. I do not feel that this was a wise choice. If educators did not come together as a team to collaborate about the criteria they are using to educate students on writing, then there will be discrepancies during assessments. There should be uniformity in all the English classes when it comes to writing. It appears that Yancey's greatest concern in this article was how to evaluate writing. Yancey stated: "What roles have validity and reliability in writing assessment? Who is authorized and who has the appropriate expertise to make the best judgment about writing assessment issues? Who is best suited to orchestrate these questions, design an assessment based on the answers, and implement that design? In other words, who will wield this power? What, after all, is the overall purpose of writing assessment in an educational situation?" (pg 487 Yancey) These questions raise some very great concerns. Currently, a vast majority of high schools are patterning their writing curriculum after college entrance exams commonly known as the ACT and SAT. Many school districts believe that since this is what students need to pass in order to be admitted into college, then this must be the basis of a high school writing curriculum. However, if you take a careful look at the scoring rubric for the ACT and the SAT, they are looking for more of a structured piece of writing that follows persuasive format. Points are not deducted for incorrect grammar usage and spelling. So, it is little to no wonder that many college professors are baffled by an incoming freshman's usage of grammar. If a student is not held accountable for these mistakes on a college entrance exam, many teachers are not going to concentrate on that area.

Verrinda's response to: "What is Happening in the Teaching of Writing?"

Appleebee and Langer article looks into the instruction of  writing due to the heavy emphasis that the NCLB placed upon reading and literacy. It appears with the majority of the focus being placed upon reading,  while writing seems to be taking a back seat to things. When NAEP conducted their research they found that a higher percentage of students were basic writers in middle school, but as they progressed to high school, the number of basic writers decreased, and the number of proficient writers decreased drastically. The NAEP also found that African American students became better writers the older they became, while Hispanic students did not. Through my years of teaching experience, I had the opposite occur. The middle school students were better writers than my high school students. In middle school there is a heavy emphasis upon grammar, and essay writing. By the time students reach high school, teachers expect them to have already acquired this knowledge, so they do not continue with grammar and essay lessons. As a matter of fact, the content expectations does not focus largely upon grammar and the process of essay writing. It is expected that the student is to write research papers and essays without the teacher taking the time to instruct students on grammar and essay writing.

The article also discussed the trend of writing across the curriculum, writing with standardized tests, and applying technology to writing. The theory is that by doubling the time that a student writes and having a student write in every subject enables them to become a better writer. A better or proficient writer is described as a student that by their 12th grade year is able to: "produce an effectively organized and fully developed response within the time allowed (the specific amount of allotted time has varied in recent years from 15 to 50 minutes) that uses analytical, evaluative, or creative thinking. Their writing should include details that support and develop the main idea of the piece, and it should show that these students are able to use precise language and variety in sentence structure to engage the audience they are expected to address." (pg 19, Applebee and Langer) I agree and disagree with the belief that doubling the time that a student writes and having them write across the curriculum helps them to become better writers. If there is not a rubric set in place for writing across the curriculum and proper instruction in each subject concerning this, I do not believe students will become better writers. If students are not receiving immediate feedback on their writing and provided with proper assessments their writing skills will not increase. A student can continuously use the same grammar errors, incorrect sentence, paragraph, and essay structure if it is not caught in enough time before they start their next writing piece. Another conflict that surfaces here is appointing a teacher to be responsible for correcting the writing pieces. If the responsibility is placed upon the student's English teacher, that English teacher has his or her workload tripled.

Verrinda's response to "Bullshit in Academic Writing"

The article, "Bullshit in Academic Writing: A Protocol Analysis of a High School Senior's Process of Interpreting Much Ado About Nothing." by Peter Smagorinsky, Cindy O'Donnel - Allen, and Susan Bynum, raised many questions for me. Smagorinsky discussed how the teacher distributed an assignment sheet with topics and questions for the essay, but I do not recall reading about the teacher distributing a rubric sheet for the essay assignment. I believe Susan would have felt a lot more confident with the essay if she had a rubric to adhere to. Smagorinsky stated: "Susan dedicated nearly half of the aggregated protocols to generating and refining her thesis statement. She began this process by saying, The main points of this - I guess that is what I want to start off with because that would be the easiest to do my thesis statement." (pg. 383, Smagorinsky) This statement clearly displays that Susan is not clear about the format of the paper. It appears that the teacher wants the students to follow a persuasive essay format due to the tone of the essay question: "Discuss how the song captures the spirit of the entire play." So it appears as if the teacher wants her students to persuade the audience how the song that Beatrice sings applies not just at the moment she recites it, but throughout the whole play. However, before Susan can begin writing her thesis statement, she needs to understand what the song actually means. I believe the teacher assumed that Susan could interpret the song because of her honors background. I also believe that over estimated Susan knowledge on essay formats and essay types. It is clear that Susan did not understand what type of essay she should apply for her topic nor the format for it. Before assigning this type of assignment, the teacher should have did a line by line open discussion with her class for the translation and meanings of the song. The next thing the teacher should have done was assess her students' knowledge of the song and then introduce the essay. While introducing this essay, she should have: (1) explained the type of essay she wants them to use, (2) go over the format of the essay, (3) have the students hand in a thesis statement that must be approved by her before they could begin writing their essay, (4) have the students write down three valid examples from the play that must be approved by her, and then (5) review the format she wants them to use, MLA or APA. This was the first time the students had an assignment of this element, so as a teacher, she should of walked them through this process. The next time around she should not walk them through if her intent is to still give them exposure to college content essays. Susan bull shitted her way through the essay because she honestly did not know how to do the essay. However, all the blame does not all lye with the teacher. Susan waited until the night before the rough draft was due to begin writing it and she left the assignment sheet at school. The teacher wanted to expose her students to a college essay, it is ironic that Susan reacted like the typical college freshman and some upper class men would have regarding this essay.

Goldie Gibson's Response to Performance Literacy: The Habits of Mind of Highly Literate Readers

Before reading this article, I had a predefined definition of literate and literacy which were simply the ability to read and write.  From my early elementary years to my college years, I’ve heard the terms used only in the context of making sure people could read and write. 

After reading the first paragraph, I learned that there are five conceptions of literacy that have changed from the colonial times to the present.  Of these five concepts of literacy, the fifth one-critical literacy-really stands out for me.  Whenever I have a student to read a text, I always ask a set of questions.  For example, if they are reading the story of the Three Little Pigs, I would ask them such questions as who the main characters are, what are they trying to build, choose the best material for building a home, and identify the climax of the story, etc.  Although this may appear to be a simple story, my goal is to find out if the students can write about what they have just read.  Blau states, . . .”when students fail to give close, sustained attention to texts, their complaint of not understanding the text is often interpreted as an inability to comprehend” (19.).  One way to help them understand the reading is to ask for written responses.  As an educator I may learn how they interpret the text in their world.  Maybe “straw” was the best material to use for building a home.
 

Continuing on, Blau ends the article with the subheading Fostering Performative Literacy in Classrooms.  He writes, “Performance literacy can be developed in students when literature is taught in a way that recognizes that reading, like writing, is a process of text construction. . .” (21).  As I read this article and countless other books and articles, I also combine reading with writing by taking notes, highlighting, putting little stickies on the pages, restating the words, having dialogue with the text or writing blogs about what I’ve just read.

Travis Dalsis--Response to Pespective-Taking as Transformative Practice in Multicultural Literature to White Students

Disequilibrium when it relates to beliefs and perspectives that are extremely personal and invested into is a difficult process to undergo.  I remember one time during my undergraduate studies at UM-D, a professor challenged my own beliefs and perspectives on gender issues.  It was difficult totally accept the perspective being presented, but through what this articles calls, “trying on” new perspectives, I was able to temporarily suspend my own biases about the world and understand a different point of view.  Since then, my opinions and viewpoints on gender have change dramatically.  In my homogenous people group comments are made that I immediately recognize as inconsistent with the knowledge base I acquired during my stint in the professor’s care.  Overall, trying on new perspectives for me didn’t totally change my beliefs, but rather enriched them and allowed me to see from other points of interest.  How can this be valuable in the middle school education level?

            I was very impressed with the narrative told of how the high school teacher used several powerful strategies to help students engage in trying on new perspectives.  One technique that I found most helpful and plan to implement is the letter writing.  Students in this article were given a powerful opportunity to consider the motivations and past experiences that created a human condition for one person.  During our reading of “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, I am going to practice this strategy.  Overall, the practical techniques of how to help students experience multicultural texts along with the reasonable expectations for subtle changes, even if they are momentarily, provide another resource to help students become critical readers.

Travis Dalsis--Response to Positioning Students as Readers and Writers through Talk in a High School English Classroom

Vetter’s article is intriguing to me because of the positioning theory that she employs in her collaborative research project.  Students and the teacher are invited to become active constructors of knowledge and understanding.  Vetter raises a few very insightful points about teacher research.  One, positioning students is ongoing through verbal and non-verbal interactions.  Students that are positioned as trouble makers do not become active learners, but rather follow that self-fulfilling prophecy and get into more trouble.  Likewise, when students are treated and positioned as capable learners, they react in those ways.  I’ve seen myself make many mistakes by targeted certain students out of frustration.  Those students, by my own ignorance and frustration, were positioned in a way that resulted in very little positive outcome.

            Another insightful component to Vetter’s work was her detailed explanation and prescription for conducting her research.  In my own research study on autonomy, I plan to use many of the methods employed in this study such as painting portraits from a positioning theoretical framework using a micro-ethnographic lens.  Additionally, her explanation of valuable data collection consisted of field notes and interviews.  I also plan on using surveys and work samples in my own personal research.  Lastly, Vetter described how she made sense of the work completed.  She discussed the triangulation of data between the students and teacher involved in the study and her own initial understanding of the data.  Overall, examining Vetter’s methods of teacher-research has given me a more solidified grasp of how I plan to conduct my research in the first mini-project.

            A final point raised in Vetter’s article was about how one characterizes the style of teaching during a teacher-research study.  Vetter uses several phrases to describe her work which made me think about how I would characterize mine.  Three ideas were raised in reading.  One, I would want my teaching to lead to student agency in the selection of texts.  Secondly, students would be given autonomy in deciding the method of demonstration of working through their texts, and lastly created a valued shared response through journals and class discussion.  Overall, Vetter’s positioning of students to become active readers and writers has been most inspirational and preparatory in my own teacher-research.

Travis Dalsis--Response to Performative Literacy: The Habits of the Mind of Highly Literate Readers

One of the major points that peaked my interest in this article is that our public education has been evolving ever since its inception (Pre-Revolutionary War).  Blau posits the interesting notion that what a period in our nation’s history called literacy then is ever increasing and mutating to something more complex and possessive.  Readers in today’s environment, Buau states, are called to do what the literary elite of every culture  have always been doing.  She states that critical literacy, the new literacy, is to be an “active, responsible, and responsive reader” who does not take a literary work and digest it at face value, but rather ruminates over the written piece.

            Another interesting point Buel makes is that the new literacy, performative literacy, requires “a capacity for sustained focused attention.”  Is this a current challenge in education today?  Yes!  I’ve found it incredibly difficult to select texts that require deep concentration because I know that students will struggle with focusing.  This bias has been my biggest mistake.  Buel’s point reminds me of a simple analogy.  As in the gym one gains physical strength to lift heavy weights for a sustained period of time, so in the classroom one gains mental strength to take on difficult texts for a sustained period of time.  Overall, there is a great need to address this task of sustained focus during reading.  Blaming culture is a hot-button issue.  Ipods, laptops, cell phones, and even televisions create a culture of sound bite information.  In Neil Postman’s, Amusing Ourselves to Death, he addresses the death of a critical thought process when sustained thinking and reading cannot be found in a sea of mass information.

            Yet a third very powerful point Buel makes about students growing in performative literacy is the notion that texts are hard and students MUST be willing to fight with a text.  She uses the phrase, will versus wit.  Most of my difficulties with teaching texts lies in this point right after the first one made.  Students don’t have the will to work out the understanding of a text.  Does this change when students pick their own reading selections?  Will they even venture to choose a “less safe” text that they may have to struggle with?  These questions are interesting in relation to my research in autonomy over the selection of texts.  In the past, I’ve seen students choose the paths of least resistance and this often times lead to selecting lower leveled, easier texts that don’t challenge my students’ mental faculties or even engage them.

            One area of skepticism that I have, and it may just be in the phrasing that Buel makes, is about readers needing a tolerance for literary ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.  Buel makes a claim that people who have seemingly simplified versions or morality, even to complex situations, are not expert readers.  I see this as a value judgment on values.  Buel cannot assume that a person’s morals and interpretation of a text based on a moralistic lens means that there is an ignorance.  This message seems overly simplified in the discussion of complexity.

            Overall, I think that Buel has some great points in this article that are very helpful in understanding the demands for this new literacy, critical literacy with an emphasis on performative literacy.  Her points are intriguing.  She lists several components to literacy and the issues of teaching literacy that I see affected regularly in my practice as a teacher.

Holly's response for "Textual Shift"

In "The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, I found I had questions that the article didn't really address. However, that may be because my questions really didn't follow what the article's primary purpose was.  What caught my attention in the article was the mention of decoding.  I think many students decode and think they're reading, but the words never really make it past their eyes.  For instance, when my sister was in high school and working on a history assignment (answering questions about what she read), she just could not remember the answers from her reading.  She literally had no idea what the reading was about.  My mom was trying to help her (and becoming slightly frustrated) when she finally said to my sister, "I thought you said you read this!!" My sister's reply was very telling, "My eyes read it, but it didn't make it to my brain."

I would guess that happens a lot with high school (and college students), especially in subjects they don't like or are unfamiliar with.  My question (that the article didn't really seem to address) is how do we move students past just decoding, and into thinking about what they read and reading critically?  How do we get students to understand that "Reading is not static, it is a constant interaction between reader and text"?  While it's important to understand the benefits from reading different types of texts and how students read those, I would wager that perhaps we have students who don't know how to get past decoding.  And I think that's a question we need to be asking more of: How do we move or help students move towards a more critical  reading strategy?

Mitra's Response to Reading for October 12, 2011

The reading for this week left me feeling completely overwhelmed. And I am not even teaching right now! It seems to me that too much is being asked of teachers of English/language arts.

I read Sheridan Blau's "Performative Literacy..." first, and I was diagnosing myself the whole time. Do I have what it takes to be performatively literate? Then I started to wonder how you would ever assess performative literacy in a classroom. Some of the traits constitutive of performative literacy seem measurable; a capacity for sustained focused attention and a willingness to take risks. But Blau writes, "As any attentive teacher knows...a major difference between strong and weak readers has to do with the way strong readers monitor the progress of their understanding as they move through a text, self-correcting as necessary and recognizing when they need to re-read or re-focus their attention or take some other step to assist themselves in understanding what they are reading" (p. 21). I consider myself an "attentive teacher," but come on. How are we to know this about the 150 different students we encounter each day, while also teaching them to write, spell, organize, think critically, and not bully one another? I believe in performative literacy as a goal for teachers to reach with their students, but I have no idea how I would get it done.

Blau's condensation of the history of literacy from "signature literacy" to "recitational literacy' and then to "analytic literacy" made clear to me the origins of the cannon we know find ourselves rebelling against (p. 18). The origins of literacy take root in comprehending and reciting the writing of white men of power, and like Dr. Staunton talked about in class, not enough has happened to change that.

I found myself overwhelmed again reading "Perspective Taking as Transformative Practice in Teaching Multicultural Literature to White Students." The authors believe it is the job of English/language arts teachers to "teach for change" (p. 54). They state, "....teaching multicultural literature must somehow be about changing students' cultural perspectives..." (p. 54). But they also write, "...teachers may do a disservice to students by leaving them with the impression that they can authentically understand situations that they haven't and may never fully experience” (p. 54). I believe the purpose of teaching multicultural literature to white students, or any students, should be to expose them to a broader world than what they might otherwise know. In contrast to what the authors' suggest, I tried to make space for students' values and beliefs while introducing them to different values and beliefs, but change was not the goal.

Mitra's Response to "Bridging the Pedagogical Gap..."

Reading this made me thankful to be a middle school teacher! I felt successful as a teacher of eighth graders balancing the teaching of reading through introduction and practice with reading strategies and what the author calls "critically engaging with textural material and assuming an interpretive stance" (p. 111). To ignore one would be to ignore many students because their ability levels were so varied. In middle school, (which may not be the case in high school) no one assumes all kids can "read." Many students struggle to decode while others are able to interact with the text in meaningful ways.
The author makes the case for reading across the curriculum in the way the writing across the curriculum has become more prevalent in middle school classrooms. It can no longer be only English/language arts teacher introducing students to analysis and interpretation skills. I agree that developmental reading instruction and interpretative reading instruction should be linked in all core curricular courses.
I disagree with what literary theorist Eagleton (1996) described as the "state of reading ...as one of intense attention...a state in which the text works on us, not we on it" (32). Not all reading is the same. And some reading does not require our "work." This is particularly true for students asked to read multiple texts for multiple reasons. Some of the reading they do requires them to be more active than other reading.

Holly's Response to "Globalizing English through Intercultural Critical Literacy"

I found this article interesting for a couple of reasons.  The first being the use of technology.  I love the idea of partnering with another school in a different culture and using a discussion board to facilitate conversations about literacy and culture. I found it interesting that the author stated that "These differences [cultural differences] tend to remain silent in face-to-face discussions, but they might surface more easily in online discussions where students have time to reflect and compose their responses and inquiries about the cultural values and beliefs that shape their ideas" (p.167).  I think that this is an interesting thought.  I know that I often have a hard time processing how I feel about something or coming up with questions on the spot, but when I am given time to think about it and write, I can usually figure out what I'm thinking and how I feel about a topic.  I think that it's interesting that the authors noted this difference even in high school students.  I am wondering if this might even be true for younger students.  And why is it true?  Why is an online written form of communication more effective than an in person discussion?

Another idea that I found thought provoking was the when the authors quoted Scribner and Cole on page 152: "Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write a particular script but applying this knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use."  It makes me wonder if this is how we are teaching students today.  Are we only teaching them how to read and write in order to get into college or pass a test, which have to be done, or are we also teaching them how to apply that knowledge in other areas of life that will last them much longer than a college entrance essay or a standardized test?  Are we teaching our students that it's more important to know this information because it's on the test, or are we teaching them the information is important because you can apply it here, here and here? And are we teaching them the correct contexts for use?  That quote brought out some questions for me, as I'm sure you can see.  I don't think these questions have easy answers either.  The answers will take time and may be very complicated, but there are answers.