inklings of thought

It's been ten years since I've graduated high school, so my memory is probably less than accurate, but: I can't recall specific moments where my teachers used effective questioning strategies. This could mean a few things: a) They were exceptionally skilled at starting dialogue in the classroom to the point of going unnoticed by us teenagers, b) they didn't pose meaningful questions to get us started on asking our own meaningful questions, leading to dialogue, or c) my memory is really just that terrible.  Most of the time, I think my teachers simply asked questions, and students either responded or didn't. But maybe it's because I was (am) quiet and doodling in my notebook the majority of the time (still do... sigh) and wasn't paying attention that I can't remember any mind blowing conversations that left me leaving class feeling sucker-punched (in all the best ways possible, of course). At least, not conversations that were teacher led. Actual...

I chose to share the image above because I believe showcasing the different languages in our classrooms can not only create a visual for all students to see and even participate in the creation of (if we choose to go that route with word walls, charts, et cetera), but it is also a beautiful act that inspires empathy, courage, and a greater sense of one's own power, secure in his/her identity. To share what makes us us and to celebrate those differences rather than force them out in the name of conformity and a false sense of unity (unity by erasure of history, heritage, identity)... I believe that's part of what makes translanguaging such a powerful and necessary practice in the classroom.  Translanguaging can pair well with much of what we do specifically in an ELA classroom, whether we are talking about writing, speaking, observing, and reading. Often times the fear of another language that we, the teacher, may not understand kind of stops us in our tracks, I think. ...

I dig my fingers through my hair, accidentally ripping a few strands from my scalp. Part of me considers cutting all of it off, but even without my white hair, my maji heritage would damn our family all the same. We are the people who fill the king's prisons, the people our kingdom turns into laborers. The people Orishans try to chase out of their features, outlawing our lineage as if white hair and dead magic were a societal stain. (Children of Blood and Bone, page 27) The quote above captures one of the complicated perspectives from Tomi Adeyemi's YA fantasy novel Children of Blood and Bone . Zelie is a seventeen year old girl born into a world where those with magical descent, the   "diviners", are regarded with disdain, fear, and disgust. When she was a child, the king of the land set forth a 'Raid,' a genocidal event that wiped out all practicing maji , including Zelie's mother. Having witnessed her mother be dragged away by the throat in cha...

When posed with the question "What makes a good lesson for you?" and after considering all the 'nuts and bolts' that go into creating a sound lesson (standards, objectives, materials required)... for me, it comes down to the essential questions, and deliberately breaking whatever we're reading or viewing in class open wide and connecting class material to real life by letting the information seep out.  Sometimes, the stuff we have to teach isn't all that exciting... but it has potential to be. We might find that we're teaching and reading texts we personally hated when we were in school. I think essential questions help frame texts and media in new ways, acting as launch points into discussions we never would have had if we just read the book, watched the movie, did some vocabulary sheets, and wrote a final essay about it. The EQ makes us look more critically at what the heck is actually important about xyz, even if the important thing is a bad th...

I can't speak for everyone, but most of us, at some point in this digital age, have run into the phenomena known as the meme. This is particularly true if you have an account with Facebook and Instagram, but memes are present all over the internet -- even in news articles and comment threads on forums. It's a pretty common occurrence for friends to text each other memes back and forth. I know -- I do it all the time, mainly for laughs. But it's this humorous nature of memes that can blind us to what's actually going on with the images we share and post all over the internet, and the potential damage they can do to those portrayed in the adapted images. In her article " Why are memes of black people reacting so popular online? " Ellen E. Jones comments on this and explores the underlying racism that often goes unnoticed and is ignored in our meme culture that also, in turn, ridicules so-called "politically correct social justice warriors" and tho...

In his article "What is Critical Literacy?" Ira Shor reflects that critical literacy is "words rethinking worlds, self dissenting in society," bridging "the political and the personal, the public and the private, the global and the local, the economic and the pedagogical" (282) so that a truly just society may come to pass, where none are oppressed or silenced. Shor encourages educators in particular to teach critically -- not just for their students' well-being, but out of mutuality, a shared effort to break away from the injustices of society and work toward bettering it as a whole (291). This means, then, that the lessons and materials we share with our students have implications, for better or worse. "Every educator [...] orients students towards certain values, actions, and language with implications for the kind of society and people these behaviors will produce (Shor 300). As a future ELA teacher, these words, of course, have me thinki...

Hello everyone, Jessica here. I'm using the blog I used back for 445 so if you see previous entries (full of typos and half-formed thoughts, eek) that's why. It's nice to keep this blog going though and be able to reflect on what I wrote before. For my manifesto, I decided to write a poem... not sure if that's allowed but being that a manifesto is a declaration of sorts, the poetic form worked (hopefully), at least for me and sorting through my thoughts which are often scatter-brained one-liners. "Manifesto" I am a teacher who does not seek straight-backed rows of tucked in selves and compliance, but freedom clanging like bells mirrored in my students' eyes and laughter, only their chimes are louder. Fire sharpened and kindled on the lives of one another, creating a new, better world, where love is possible, not dampened by the weight of fill-in-the-blank dots  and their own ellipses of quiet and pain. I am a teac...

(Since I accidentally skipped ahead last week and wrote about chapter three, this week I'll be backtracking and writing about chapter one. My bad.) **** Poetry levels the writing playing field (14). That Christensen chooses to open her chapter, "The Role of Poetry," with such a bold statement caught me off guard. Even though I'm somebody who writes and reads poetry regularly (poems often speaker louder than prose, working their way into the crevices in our lives, digging up emotion once displaced mistakenly or intentionally... try it, it's fun), I've never heard that poetry can build confident writers in ways that the "other areas of literacy education" Christensen references do not. Rather, I've always heard a mixture of too much pretty language , or it's all smart talk -- flies over my head , and of course the this is way too confusing. Why are the lines like this? What the heck is that word doing there? In many cases, poetry has ...

When I lived out west, there was a night where, about seventy miles north of town, a fire had gotten out of control and was storming through the wide open prairie. The people I was staying with thought if we drove far enough we could see the light from the flames on the horizon. "Your first fire," they told me, like it was a coming-of-age ceremony. So of course, we drove. We never saw the fire (it was farther away than we truly wanted to go so late at night), but we stopped on a side road and took in the stars for a few solemn moments. Fires out of hand were hardly a good thing, and last we knew, it was heading straight toward a town. One of us remarked that before people populated the west -- as it is, it's scarcely populated compared to the east and west coasts -- fires must have blazed on and on for years. "Can you imagine a thousand year fire, just going in this dry climate without anyone or anything to stop it? Can you imagine what that would have been like...

I recently (as in, moments ago) retweeted Shay Stewart Bouley , executive director of Community Change Inc., Boston, saying, "Shutting up is actually a skill that is worth practicing. If the topic isn't your lane, it's ok to be quiet." In the second half of thread, she elaborates: "The world is larger than your views." Now, this may seem totally random -- but I think in light of this week's readings, from "Coteaching" and the narrative writing section in Teaching for Joy and Justice , it's incredibly relevant.  The teachers in each of these readings seem to agree that allowing students to shape their learning is integral to their growth not only as students but as people. For example, the process of a read-around, where students share their own personal narrative writing, is in itself a student-centered activity where the teacher sits back and listens. And by encouraging students to tell their own stories, Linda Christensen found that ...

"It's about the people, as with all good things in life."       +  Troy Hicks Attending my first RI Writing Project conference was a whirlwind. I didn't expect the six hours to fly by like they did, but when you're actively engaging in new perspectives on digital learning and literacy in the classroom, I suppose that's what happens!  The number one question I came away with in mind from Troy Hicks' keynote address was: How do we help our students become not only consumers but creators of knowledge?  Hicks discussed the necessity of teaching students to not just mindlessly consume the information presented to them on a daily basis, but to become critically engaged with with, to the ends of questioning, reclaiming, and recreating. That he also challenged us, the educators and teacher candidates, to question what we knew and believed about what we consider credible evidence, what passes for "good" knowledge, and then how we exist with these a...

Last week I admitted that I struggled to find a connection with the readings. Reading Turner and Hicks for this week helped unload some of the ideas and concepts I found overwhelming, especially as somebody with little digital/technological experience such as what they describe (blog posts, social media/Twitter, Google and all that it offers, et cetera). And by little experience, I mean as somebody who uses the technology in a way that is meaningful and carefully considered, not just as a sounding board for my personal thoughts and opinions, nor as the simple PowerPoint presentation projects or "add a link here" type thinking.  I do appreciate the activities and lessons that Turner and Hicks propose as far as genuinely incorporating technology into the classroom to encourage students to become digitally aware citizens. The symbol analysis, for example, is an activity that would engage students in what they see day to day, likely stirring their interest to some degree, an...

First: I admit that I did not listen to the podcast "The Internet of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" with danah boyd and Krista Tippett. I actually printed out the transcript and read it as I would another article or essay instead. My reasoning? Podcasts are difficult as they offer no visual material to interact with, and I don't function that way as a reader or listener. Recognizing this made me go back to one of our earlier classes, where we discussed the NCTE's guidelines and how mastery of technology is a necessity in this day and age of teaching. In previous classes, ideas I've had for lessons have included creating podcast episodes or something similar. How do I expect students to 100% do this when I struggle myself with even listening to one?  I guess the reason I'm writing about this is because I actually found that I didn't have as much of a connection to this week's readings, and struggled a little at maintaining interest. This might be...

"Certainly, many would argue that culturally relevant pedagogy requires that you invite the powerful voices of those who are generally overlooked in the texts and curriculum of American education; and that is undoubtedly an important aspect. However, culturally relevant pedagogy is also about the students who show up in our classrooms daily. It welcomes students' voices, demands their reflection, and pushes them toward discovery of self [...] validates students' existence regardless of class, race, ethnicity, economic status, or academic level." (Winn & Johnson, 14).  This, and many other, passages stood out to me during this week's reading and video. I was reminded of the previous semester and questions I had then about curriculum decisions and the potential danger of reading a book with a class because of an assumption that they would enjoy it or relate because of the issues characters faced, dialogue, setting, and even race. This led me to a blog post...

When Thomas briefly compares Growth Mindset's popularity to that of policies which stress "grit" and "no excuses," it instantly made me think of Angela Duckworth, a psychologist who recently published a book titled Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance . I actually purchased this book because I found it interesting how at the beginning she detailed her life growing up in her father's shadow; he was a man who sought brilliance and expected nothing less from her. This led her on a journey to figure out, scientifically, what "grit" is -- what enables certain individuals to go above and beyond for their goals, while others seemingly display no drive?  I never ended up finishing the book, but after reading Thomas' post I'm pulled back to the question of grit. How do you "curate" a characteristic in an individual? As he points out, an issue with these philosophies and approaches to poverty-stricken students is this: they plac...

As a self-described "hesitant" writer (at least according to the sentence stem exercise we did in class last Tuesday), and as somebody who is trying to start writing for herself again, Julia Cameron's words in our reading could not have been more timely: "Kabir tells us, 'Wherever you are is the entry point,' and this is always true with writing. Wherever you are is always the right place. There is never a need to fix anything, to hitch up the bootstraps of the soul and start at some higher place. Start right where you are" (4-5). One of the greater concerns I have as a potential English teacher is passing on this hesitation of mine, which has kept me in check creatively since I graduated from URI in 2012. "Write -- but do it right," and the incessant need for perfection at first attempt, bars many from even considering writing as play. We are taught structure, that every paper must have a thesis, that there are unquestionable laws to ...