Choral Reading

I thought that planning and performing our own choral reading was the most beneficial activity to get us thinking about the purpose of such activities in the classroom. Teachers use choral reading to develop students’ reading fluency by having them explore and experiment with the arrangement of the text. My group collaborated together to read aloud Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to the rest of the class. We decided to do a cumulative reading, where one student begins reading and after each page, another student joins in. Once everyone is reading, we reversed the process and after each page, one less student would read aloud. We continued this until the last person in the circle was reading – the same student who started reading alone.
During the activity, we were asked to focus on our tempo, rhythm, pitch, and juncture. In terms of the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, the activity required us to use enunciation and stress to emphasize key ideas and concepts when presenting. As a group, we decided that we wanted to place a lot of emphasis on “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”, so we chose one student out of the group to stress this phrase by altering the rhythm. Surrounding this phrase, we also altered the juncture of the reading by making sure there was a longer pause both preceding and following the phrase. Since the book had a lot of rhyming words, it would have been ideal if we were able to coordinate our read at a faster pace, which would have required us to use the GLCEs of pace of speaking to enhance meaning and influence interpretation when presenting. I think if our group would have had a little bit more time to practice, we would have been able to perfect our speed and ability to read in unison. We did not focus a lot on pitch when we were reading aloud.
I thought that there was a lot of support within our group during the activity. As Langer mentions in his article, during recitation, the students look to the teacher for support. For this activity, our group engaged in discussion, not recitation, and we were able to look to each other for support. Since there was not as much guidance from the teacher, we were responsible for working together and encouraging each other to share ideas. As a future teacher, I will have to remember that it is okay to challenge students with open-ended activities that force them to talk things out with each other. The great thing about this activity was since there was not a lot of guidance, every group presented something different. One thing I will remember in the future was that in these kinds of group setting, it is easy for one student to sit back and not participate. It is my role as a teacher to make sure that each group is encourage every member to contribute to discussion. This may be accomplished by assigning one student the faciliator to be responsible to prompting the shyer students to share their ideas.

Choral Reading Entry

For this entry, I decided to write about our group's awesome choral rendition of Chica Chica Boom Boom. In this reading, we met many of the Michigan GLCE's for 8th grade. Because we were speaking, I focused mainly on the speaking GLCE's. The first standard we met during our reading was "Students will use enunciation and stress to emphasize key ideas and concepts when presenting." An example of how we met this standard was how we but the stress on "Chica Chica Boom Boom" whenever it came up in the text. Since this was the most repetitive part of the book, and set the tone for the rest of the story, putting an emphasis on that phrase helps meet this content benchmark. The next content standard that we met was "Students will use tone of voice and pace of speaking to enhance meaning and influence interpretation when presenting." We met this standard by using a group rhythm to our choral effort, and we used this rhythm to create an enhanced meaning to the story we were reading. We also touched on content standards for the speaking discourse portion of the GLCEs. By planning as a group the manner in which we planned to go about our choral reading, we met the standard "Students will plan and deliver an informal presentation." In using these GLCEs, we were supported in our learning community. Evidence of this support can be seen in the readings which we did for last week. In this case, the teacher lead the discussion, by laying out the assignment, and giving some expectations for the completion of that assignment. Next, it was all up to us, the students to have a discussion about how we wanted to approach the assignment. That is saying, that our discussion was more of a discussion as opposed to a recitation, the content, and the flow of the discussion was based solely on the manner in which the students took the discussion. My own reflections on my participation in this assignment helped me think about my role as a teacher in language arts. I realize that giving the students more freedom in discussion, and breaking them up in to smaller groups will help them get more out of the discussion, as they will feel more comfortable participating with a small group, instead of the class as a whole. Doing this will also allow for many different interpretations to be brought up, and when the class meets as a whole, the students will be able to pick up on the interpretations of their peers. With this in mind, I realize that i need to focus on planning language arts discussions in small groups before having the same discussion as a whole class.

choral reading

For this post, I chose to use my own group's expierence during the choral reading activity. We decided to use cumulative reading with our chosen book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom". The first person in the group started reading the first page, and after each page the next person began reading too, until the group as a whole was reading, and then went back down the line until only the first person was reading again. In terms of using Michigan's Grade Level Content Expectations, our group used enunciation and stress to convey main ideas, and also incorporated tone of voice and pace to influence intrepretation and meaning. For example, "chicka chicka boom boom" was stressed at certain points of the book to convey the meaning and emotion at the time (the climax, when all the letters fell from the tree). Also, pace was important, since the book is read in a rhyming, song-like manner, which works best when all members read like this in unison. I do feel that there was a lot of support while doing this lesson. Our group discussed all the types of choral reading available, and worked it out together to decide which approach would be the most effective. As stated in Almasi, meaning resides in the event, and all those participating in the event should work together to discuss meaning and exchange thoughts. Our group did this very well, and the student centered discussion we had was engaging and led us to an effective way of choral reading. By sharing our thoughts and expiermenting with different approaches, our group was using the event/text to learn about a new reading strategy. Reflecting on the activity, I feel that student centered discussions in a social environment really contributes to my own learning by listening to others ideas and gaining meaning through the sharing of others knowledge and opinions. This is something I would really enjoy using as a teacher, and need to be mindful of creating a classroom community capable of these types of discussions, and also making it a point to conduct student centered discussions often.

Choral Reading (January 28, 2008)

In planning and performing our own choral reading, our group chose to read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. As a group we decided to do a cumulative reading in which one person read a page and then another person joined the first person on the next page and so on. After everyone was reading at once on a page, the next page the last person to join in stopped reading on so on until the only person reading was the one who began. We really did not have a tempo or rhythm to what we were doing. The activity required us to emphasize when we came to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom because it had had exclamation point following it. That is an example of speaking conventions. Another example of this is the use of pace in speaking because as each person joined on everyone had to make sure they were reading together because if we were not then no one would understand anything we were saying. When it comes to speaking discourse we had to plan and deliver an informal presentation to the class in which we demonstrated cumulative reading to the class. When we were listening to other presentations we had to listen to a variety of peer presentations and analyze them to what we thought they were doing such as were they doing echo reading or small group reading? This is an an example of listening and viewing conventions. When it came to listening and viewing response we had to analyze oral interpretations of the literature and the effect of the interpretations of the listener we had to listen to other groups read their books and then we had to decide on what they did and how others could figure out what we were doing. I think that Almasi's idea of discussion played a role in which I was supported in our community because we had to figure out what we were doing and there were no straight forward answers. Something that Goldenberg talked about was instructional conversation and I believed that helped us as a group to think about what we were going to do and how we would do it. We also decided to have one person personally do Chicka Chicka Boom Boom a certain way to make it more fun and interesting. I really wanted our group to work together and agree upon everything we were doing. To do this we had to have discussions about how we would do everything. I think we worked well together and accomplished what we wanted to. I think as a teacher you need to present many options for lessons because not all students are comfortable with everything. Not only did we have small group discussions but large groups too. Having the large classroom discussion, everyone gets the opportunity to share their ideas and thoughts. Something I will have to pay attention to in my language arts lesson is to make sure there is enough time for every group to do what they need to do. I felt that we had time, but not enough to fully engage in discussion. Also, I will make sure that there are options to the assignment because like I said before, not everyone is comfortable with reading in front of the class, but they may be comfortable in front of a small group. I feel like this is a good lesson to have discussion with because it is interesting to hear why each group decided to do their choral readings the way they did. With that said I would like to do a lesson similiar to ith in which it can be done all different ways to see every student's personality and ideas come out.

Readings for 23 January

After reading the Almasi article A New View of Discussion, I was intrigued by the manner in which discussions were looked at by the author. Growing up, I thought was used to what the author called the I-R-E model, that is, there is a question and then there is a right answer to that question. However further examining my past in language arts and reading this article, I realize that there is a difference between this, which is called a recitation, and an actual discussion, as the author explains. From experience, and from the article, it is obvious that the discussion is more effective in engaging students in the classroom than recitations do. With the discussion, as opposed to the recitation, all students can become involved in the class discussion, and along with the teacher, everybody takes on roles. These roles are important to the success of a good classroom discussion. For me, the roles the students take on are the most important. When the student acts as the inquisitor, it helps the teacher gain an understanding of what the students got out of the reading, and it also will help other students construct their own meanings out of this. When students act as the facilitator of interaction, students encourage other students to speak, which helps the students feel more comfortable, and allows for a wider range of students to participate in the discussion. When students act as the facilitator of interpretation, students get a chance to connect personal experiences to the context of the discussion, which will help them feel more comfortable, and again allow for more students to participate. When students act as the respondent, they are answering each others' questions, as opposed to answering the teacher's questions as they would in a recitation. Finally, students acting as an evaluator allows for students to challenge the validity of their peers' responses. This is in contrast to a recitation where students' responses are evaluated by the teacher. I hope I will be able to institute these roles in my classroom, which will allow for more of my students to enjoy language arts.

Readings 1/23/2008

After reading A New View of Discussion by Almasi it made me think about what type of discussions are happening in the classroom I am in. I am in a fifth grade classroom and there is usually recitation that is happening because Mr. J is looking for a straight answer, but then I feel that the students take it upon themselves to have a more in depth conversation. One question that Mr. J may ask usually turns into a long discussion with students giving their thoughts, ideas, and asking questions. Most of the discussions the class has involves I-R-E (Initiate-Respond-Evaluate) and this is either by the students or Mr. J. There is a lot of scaffolding going on in the classroom because the students are learning how to do different kinds of poems. Since most of the students have never done some of these poems, Mr. J has to build a foundation and build upon it until they reach their potential. The students in the classroom are not affraid to ask questions or tell it how it is. After reading Langer's article I could see some things she talked about already in the classroom. Some of the things are initial understandings, developing interpretations, reflecting on personal experiences, and elaborating and extending. I actually saw these things the first couple of weeks I was in the classroom because the students were writing personal narratives. A lot of the writing Mr. J has the students do is really about their lives or something that interests them. I think it is a good way for the students to get out emotions that they may have and for other students to understand each other.

Being in an older classroom I have noticed with a little prompt from the teacher the students can have discussions that can last a while. I see Mr. J ask questions that he is only looking for an answer to but he tries to let every student answer before moving on. He may get a right answer right away, but lets everyone answers and then goes back to the right answer. I only have seen him cut students off when they are getting off subject which is understandable. I think it is easier to have good discussions in older classroom because the students seem to have a lot more to say and they want to get their point across.

Discussion in the Classroom

After reading Almasi’s article, A New View of Discussion, it was clear that when it comes to my second grade classroom, there is a lot of recitation that goes on. When it comes time to discuss a story, there is a lot of teacher-student interaction, as opposed to student-student interaction. Mrs. Kreft asks questions that prompt students to recall what they already know from reading the story. Almasi referred to this type of discussion as the IRE (Initiate-Respond-Evaluate) participatory structure. The goal of discussion in Mrs. Kreft’s classroom is for students to better comprehend the story and the main components of literature (setting, characters, plot, theme, etc.). Scaffolding is often used by the teacher in the lower reading groups to guide student reading. However, there is not a lot of student involvement that forces the children to really engage in reflective thinking. Since the discussion in the classroom serves as an assessment for Mrs. Kreft, the students’ responses are usually shaped around what they believe the teacher would find to be a satisfactory answer.
I think that at the young age my second graders are at, when they come up with an answer that they are satisfied with, they stick to it. Their interpretation of a story does not transform and is not shaped by their peers’ thoughts and ideas. Although the students are young, I think it is possible for the teacher to encourage students to challenge each other’s ideas without putting anyone down. In a good discussion, the teacher should remain neutral and silent, unless they are guiding the students’ discussion in a particular direction to promote richer understanding. As Langer mentions in the article, Understanding Literature, teachers should ask open-ended questions and questions that help students make connections between the reading and personal experience. Although this occurs occasionally in my classroom, the teacher will often cut students off when they begin to go off on tangents about personal stories.

After going over the readings, I was really impressed at how many strategies there are in terms of promoting good literacy discussions. When it comes to my classroom though, I haven't really seen many of these discussions occur as of yet. Right now, the CT I have is on maternity leave, so there is a permanent sub. Because of this, I think there is a lot less discussion occuring, and more assignments aimed at students simply getting to work independently. When it does come to discussions, the sub uses the traditional discussion approach, where the teacher talks and uses literal questions. So through this, there is not much room for interpretations when it comes to reading as a class. The one positive aspect I noticed is when the writing teacher comes for her lesson. She conducts open discussions everytime she visits, and makes the act of reading and writing open for students interpretations, something mentioned in Langer. I also noticed that she emphasized using personal expierences and elaboration when explaining their writing or stories they have read, to make them better readers and writers themselves. She does use a lot of scaffolding too, in terms of letting the class know her expectations for response centered discussions (everyone listenes to the speaker, don't be afraid to speak your opinion, the class is a safe place, etc), and it's usually the less developed students (in terms of ther literacy skills) that need a bit more scaffolding. I think this is because these students may be unsure of their interpretations of stories or sharing their own writings, so the teacher scaffolds to promote their own self-efficacy. Overall, both recitations and discussions ae used, depending on the teacher. I hope that when my CT comes back, I will be seeing a lot more response-centered, open minded discussions occur.

TE 402 goals

Hey,

After going over the syllabus, I have come up with a few goals for myself in this half of TE 402. Like Ashleigh, one of my goals is to better understand Language Arts as a whole. I am pretty sure
that growing up I was given a great education in Language Arts, even if I never really enjoyed it. However, since coming to Michigan State I feel that I have grown away from Language Arts so I am looking forward to getting back into Language Arts this semester. I am not saying that I want to leave this class an expert on Language Arts, that would be asking for a lot in a short time period. Instead, I would like to take away from this class the confidence in my abilities to instruct children in Language Arts, and with that pretest we took in class on Wednesday, I am not sure if that confidence is there yet, but that is what this semester is for right? Also, another goal I have for this semester, as alway is a goal of mine in TE classes, I hope to improve on my work habits, the most important is how I work with my colleagues. I always believe that the colleagues can be the best resources you have, so by using my colleagues in assignments, or even if it is just a simple question, that can help prepare me for using colleagues wherever I may end up teaching at. Finally, and most importantly in my mind, I want to enjoy myself in this class, and looking over the syllabus I think that this is very possible. There have been TE experiences in which I dreaded each day that I had the class (Thats Wednesday for all you 401 section 001 people). But I am confident that this will be both a fun and challenging experience, so I am looking forward to it.

Goals

Hey Everyone,
After I read over the syllabus for Language Arts I have discovered a few goals for myself. One of the first goals I have is to better understand Language Arts as a whole. I never enjoyed Language Arts as a learner, so I am hoping to discover ways to teach the subject to students that gets them engaged and interested in what is being taught. I would like to find ways that will engage of single student at some point. Another goal of mine is to have a better understanding of reading, writing, and grammer (like Catherine) because I feel that my skills are not where they should be to benefit students. I feel that there is a lot that can be done in a Language Arts class to make it fun and interesting, but I do not know how and I am hoping that TE 402 can help me. These are just a couple of my goals that I believe are the most important. I am looking forward to building upon my skills in Language Arts because I have little and I really have no idea on how I should teach it. Well, that is all I have for now and I will see everyone on Wednesday!!!!

Course Goals

Hello!
After reading over the syllabus, I think I have a good idea of what I would like to get out of the TE 401 language arts course. One of the most important goals I have is to gain a better understanding of my own literacy teaching philosophy and how I need to modify it to meet the needs of diverse learners. Seeing as though language arts is worked into almost every day’s class schedule, I hope that this course gives me ideas on how to create a classroom community that is both engaged and passionate about the subject. Since technology is not my forte, I am also interested to explore the different ways it can be integrated with language arts to help support students’ learning. Along with Catherine, I also hope to polish up on my own grammar, so I feel confident enough to teach it to others. Finally, I have a personal goal to stay organized (with Ashleigh) throughout the entire semester so that I never feel overwhelmed. Hope everyone has a great day...see you all on Wednesday!! :)

1/14/08 Learning goals

Hi everyone!
So I guess this is the first post for our blog! OK, after looking over the syllabus and getting a general idea of the intentions for this class, I have come up with a few goals for myself. In general, I want to have a good understanding of the current benchmarks for language arts, and ideas as how to effectively implement these into fun, creative, and meaningful lessons for the classroom. Also, I want to have a better grasp on basic elements of grammar, writing, and reading, so I can feel confident teaching this myself. In all of my TE classes so far , we talk about how to implent whatever subject we are focusing on towards building a classroom community, and I want to know how to use language arts to do this as well, since this subject area seems to be the most widelt used topic throughout the day.
These goals are the most important ones to me thus far, and I'm sure as class continues, I will have many more. I look forward to learning a lot from this class, and gaining valuable expierence through teaching language arts in the classroom.