inklings of thought

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...