(Post 2) Value lines and how not to cross the lines with values

            Values, values, values. That is what my students are learning about right now. They are learning how to understand the values of other people, the value of others, the value of education and the education of others. Their whole unit is on values and how to value other people. Their unit uses the history of Native Americans and their culture to teach values to our students. Going into this unit, my CT and I both knew that this could be a tricky unit to teach. We knew we had to teach carefully on how we taught these lessons, because we did not want to offend anyone.

                On the first day of our unit, my CT and I decided to have the students to an “Agree, Disagree, Unsure” activity with our students. The premise was very similar to a value line, except we used areas in the room instead of a straight line (constraints in the classroom made an actual value line almost impossible). Some of the questions were meant to challenge the minds of our students and get them to really think about how they would answer the question. We posed questions like “Should students be made to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” in school?” or “Should parents monitor the activity of their children on the internet?”  As we began asking our students questions, some of our students were trying to answer the questions the way that they wanted to answer them. Unfortunately, the longer the activity went, the more the students actually started siding with their friends instead of answering for themselves. The students were then asked to look over a list of items that they could value: family, friends, money, sports, etc. They were to pick the top ten items off of the list, and put a heart next to one of the items that they believed to be the item that they valued most. We decided that we were not actually going to grade this assignment, but just note if the student completed it or not.

                The next day in class, the students were asked to read a short story and compare and contrast the values of the protagonist and antagonist. My CT and I decided to model a few of the values from our protagonist so the students knew what we were looking for. We aimed for an “I do, We do, You do” approach, and that really seemed to get the students ideas’ going. They really seemed to understand how to find in the text what we were asking for.

The hardest part of what we are teaching to the students is trying to get them to understand other’s values without actually teaching them values. How are we as teachers to teach something in our classroom that parents and guardians could say should be taught at home? How do we, as teachers, guide our students into learning the value of other’s culture and the value of other people without crossing a line to offend others? As a future teacher, I want to be able to teach my students about other cultures by using literature from that specific culture. I also want to be able to be aware of values of culture of my students to be able to incorporate those into the classroom as well. I want to be able to teach my students with a variety of texts, a variety of cultures, a variety of genres, so that each and every one of my students could be exposed to something new. If I have the opportunity, should I send home (maybe at enrollment, or the first week of school) a survey to the students and their parents on what topics and themes they would like to see in the classroom?

The Remarkable Discovery of Student Reading...

For a grade: Blog due September 2, 2013.

As I look forward for the semester, I have come to a remarkable discovery. My CT and I played a “game” in class with the students on the first couple of days. We used “take off, touch down” to get to know the students a bit better. The idea of the game was to just get to know basic information about our students; however, we started asking questions that were a little more involved for our students. Unfortunately, within our game, we noticed that most of our students had not actually read a book since they were assigned a book in the fourth grade! We had asked our students to “take off” if they had read a book over the summer, three stood up. So we extended our question, we asked them to “take off” if they had read a book in the last year. We had only two more students join the three standing.

 My CT and I decided to use another closing to find out when the rest of the class had actually completed a novel. The next day, we had the students do a “whip around” by telling everyone in the class what the last book they had read.  My CT and I were both dumbfounded as to how our students had made it from the fourth grade to the eighth grade without actually reading a book. We do know that some of the students were joking when they told us that the last book they had read was “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” but there were atleast a handful of students that honestly and openly admitted that they had not actually read books in a “couple of years.”

Within the first pages of our reading for the week, Bomer discusses how we engage student reading and interaction within the class. Bomer notes that “literature activity situated within students’ relationships, spaces, and interests outside their English class-but supported by it. The students are highly engaged in what they are doing…” (Bomer, 2011, p. 3). I am wondering what would be some of the ways to “engage” our students in their reading. Their school has a book campaign requirement for them already, but most students do not strive to meet that goal. My CT also has it listed in her syllabus that the students must read “every night” as part of their homework.

 I do not believe that all of the students will be motivated to read outside of school. I was hoping to integrate activities within the classroom to motivate the students to read more. I am at a loss of ideas on how to get the students to read. I have been able to get previous students to read by having students “find” something that would engage them, i.e. magazine articles, non-fiction books on sports, etc. It is difficult to get students to read books for class when the books that are assigned to read are not something that they would typically read.

How do I, as a future teacher, get my students to read more? I want my students to be able to engage in the learning process and find something that they enjoy reading. I know that most of my students will enjoy reading as much as I do, but I do want my students to be able to enjoy reading. I want my students to read, read anything. I want them to find something that they can engage themselves into reading. This is my challenge for the year. I want to get the majority of my classes reading outside of school. My  ideal goal is 100% of the students, but I know that not all of my students will read outside of school.