Possible text change

I am considering changing my main text for my text set to Park's Quest by Katherine Peterson. The DC site and main issues will remain the same. I will update when I have made a firm decision.

Text Set

The book I chose for my text set is the novel Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam by Newberry Medal winner Cynthia Kadohata. This book is about a dog trained to aid the military in the Vietnam war. Cracker explores the relationship between the dog and his human trainer while portraying the realities of war in an accessible way for young readers. The DC site I will use is the Vietnam Memorial, which will give the perspective of focusing on the humans while also giving the point of view of remembering the war years later. I would like to use images of Vietnam War protestors to give the reader glimpses into the opposition to the war here in the US. A film I would like to use is the film Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, a documentary about the event in which thousands of Vietnamese orphans were airlifted out of Vietnam and adopted by families worldwide. Unfortunately, the film has yet to be released, but I can use the movie trailer, which gives a good amount of information and shows various perspectives about the event and its results, including its impact on the lives of those involved. Also, as a secondary text (if allowed), I would like to include Eve Bunting's "The Wall", a picture book about a boy and his father visiting the Vietnam Memorial.

Books of My Youth

The first book I ever read on my own was a book called Mr. Pine's Purple House. My mother bought it at a garage sale, and I read it to her when I was three. Several weeks later, my uncle, convinced that I had just memorized the words, made me read from various objects around the house. When I read him the label to a jar of Hellman's mayonaise, he was finally convinced that I could, in fact, read. This book continued to influence my life: at age six, we moved to a new house, where I finally had my own room; I persuaded my parents to have it painted a neon purple. Throughout my childhood, I would continue to look back at Mr Pine's, marvelling at the idea that, in a sea of white houses, Mr. Pine chose to differentiate himself, celebrating his individuality by painting his own house purple. Throughout my life, I have always held appreciation for those who can stand out, relish their own personalities, and celebrate their differences. I like to think that this value may have stemmed, even the slightest bit, from reading Mr. Pine's Purple House during my formative years.
There are so many books that have impacted my life that I could never choose one that rises above the rest, and I hate ranking things, anyway. Throughout my childhood, I found ways to be reading all the time- in the car, at the dinner table, even during commercial breaks while watching my favorite TV shows. There are so many children's books that influenced me. One I can identify as being particularly meaningful was the book Deenie by Judy Blume. I read this book at age 10, not understanding some of the more mature themes, but being very impacted by the idea of a young teenager having scoliosis and having to wear a back brace 24/7. I distinctly remember thinking, I hope that never happens to me. Four years later, it did. I was diagnosed with lumbar scoliosis and instructed to wear a plastic and metal back brace for 23.5 hours a day. At the doctor's office, I flashed back to Deenie, and later that week, I checked the book out of the library again. As I adjusted to this enormous change in my life, I took comfort in reading about Deenie's similar struggle and seeing that she managed to go on with her life. This book really helped me cope with the many new challenges of being a teenager with a back brace.

Reflection Point 2.6

David could have had his students work further with print and television advertisements, engaging issues of social equality, issues of gender and of class.

For example, women's bodies are often times objectified within ads. This could have been a topic of discussion. He also could have had his students study positive images in advertisements such as those of grassroots campaigns, political or otherwise.

There could have also been a long term project assigned where the students would write, talk about, and visually portray their own ideas about the issue(s). David could have pushed them further by having them engage in a debate where they had to argue for ideas that they didn't necessarily hold themselves or even to create their own positive ad to reflect what they have learned in the unit.

Blog Post 1: Based on the readings, create a thoughtful post on your initial reactions and questions regarding critical literacy and children's books

As I introduce myself to critical literacy, I notice a similarity between this framework and that of the culturally responsive classroom, which I recently learned about in my Foundations of Education course. On page 2 of Getting Beyond “I Like the Book”, Vivian Vasquez compares critical literacy to Flint and Riordan-Karlsson's idea of encouraging “conversation related to social issues” (Vasquez, 2). One of the tenets of culturally responsive classrooms is encouraging students to develop a critical consciousness and challenge social injustice (Gloria Ladson-Billings, cited in Sadker, et al). Also, both critical literacy and culturally responsive classrooms emphasize the use of diverse instructional materials. Cultural awareness and inclusion seems especially important in the diverse urban environment, and yet many urban classrooms still see Euro-centric, white-washed literature and traditional, teacher-centric instructional practices. However, I am beginning to see through my classwork that trends in education are moving towards a greater recognition of cultural diversity and an inclusion of this fact into teaching materials and practices.

Barbara Comber “states that critical literacies include practicing the use of language in powerful ways to get things done in the world, to enhance everyday life in schools and communities, and to question practices of privilege and injustice” (Vasquez, 2). I now teach the fourth grade, but when I started teaching last year, I taught middle school English. As part of my coursework, I took a class called “Methods and Materials in Secondary English”, which touched on critical literacy for a time. It seemed that, at the secondary level, the most focused area of critical literacy was the last element Comber mentioned: questioning practices of privilege and injustice. Perhaps I developed the wrong idea, as I only took this one course, but we focused a lot on looking at everyday texts and finding ways that they may support or subvert the structures of power, gender, and other such constructions in our society. I suppose different teachers can focus on different aspects of critical literacy as they apply to their content area, grade level, and objectives.

Vasquez writes that “critical literacy is also about imagining thoughtful ways of thinking about reconstructing and redesigning texts and images to convey different, more socially just and equitable messages that have real-life effects in the world” (Vasquez, 2). This concept made me think of an instance from my childhood. My mother, who was very into progressive education and getting me to think for myself from an early age, bought me a book of “politically correct” fairy tales. My aunts made fun of my mom (I come from a big Greek family full of aunts and cousins who are always into each others' business), but it really got me thinking, at a young age, that there must be a reason why people decided to re-write these stories. I definitely see the value of presenting such ideas to young children, because they learn to question the world around them rather than just accepting whatever is given to them. This is a skill that much older students still struggle with, and perhaps they would think differently had they been in classrooms that demanded such critical thinking of them in their earlier years.

Luke and Freebody's Four Resources Model also got me thinking. This model consists of four levels of thinking about text: code-breaking, meaning-making, text-using, and text-critiquing. My students are mostly at the level of meaning makers. Some of them are still code-breakers. Sometimes, my students can be text-users, but usually only if I force them to be for a specific writing assignment. They are rarely thinking at the level of text critics, although the bright students sometimes have breakthroughs. However, in the classroom, we definitely focus on the first three levels. I would like to argue it's because we have to, because if kids can't read, how can they ever reach the higher levels of approaching text? At the same time, I wonder if we are creating a vicious cycle. Luke and Freebody write, “access to different kinds of educational experiences becomes both a symptom and a cause of literacy performance.” Perhaps by not exposing our students to the higher levels of critical thinking, we are actually harming them, and keeping them at those lower levels. It is definitely an idea to consider.

I have a few questions about critical literacy. My first is, in a NCLB-driven system, how can we integrate critical literacy into our curriculum while still meeting all of the district-mandated standards and using district-assigned texts? Sometimes, the anecdotes in Vasquez' text reminded me of an emergent curriculum approach, following the students' interests to develop what you study. I wonder how critical literacy will look in a “big kids” classroom, especially with all of the content and testing expectations we have. Also, I wonder how I can take my class from one that has not been exposed to critical literacy to one where critical literacy works? How can one teach kids to have these kinds of discussions? Other than just providing thought-provoking literature, how can you lay the basic foundations for critical literacy? Finally, just a thought: when students are dealing with social and/or controversial issues, the teacher needs to be careful to keep from pushing her own personal agenda. I feel like a teacher could abuse the concept of critical literacy to promote her own beliefs; for example, if students are discussing eating meat and a teacher is a vegetarian, she may push students to take one her perspective. I think it is important for a teacher to check her neutrality to allow the students' voices to shape the discussion.

Works Cited

Freebody, P., & Luke, A. Further Notes on the Four Resources Model. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://www.readingonline.org/research/lukefreebody.html

Sadker, D. M., Sadker, M. P., & Zittleman, K. R. (2008). Teachers, Schools, and Society. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Vasquez, V. et. al (2003). Getting Beyond I Like the Book: Creating Spaces for Critical Literacy in K-6 Classrooms. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Welcome

Hi! Welcome to my blog. This is a test post, just so I can see how this works.

~D.