Addicted to Social Media?

In the NCTE Inbox article Are Today's Students Addicted to Social Media? it discusses how 200 undergrad students at the University of Maryland were asked to go 24 hours without any type of electronic device; this included their cell phones, tv, mp3 players, and laptops. Students were shown to have a tough time dealing with their separation and experienced "phantom ringing", which is when a student hears or feels their cell phone ringing even though it is not with them. Are students addicted to social media? What are the positives of this study?

As the article states, UMD wanted students to become more thoughtful about the news that is around them. Instead, they are so engulfed in technology, they are not stopping and opening their eyes and ears about the news. By taking away technology, students were seen to have struggling with their separation. Many did not know what to do and one student even stated that they took at dramamine to fall asleep and "put me out of my misery".

Personally, I do believe students are addicted to social media. Just sitting in a class day to day I see students constantly clicking on their phones. Am I guilty of this? Yes. But it is part of our culture today. I do agree we need to take a step back and calm down our technology obsession, but it also is a way to keep us connected with people, the news, and other things.

Carter, D. (2010). Are today's students addicted to social media?. Retrieved from http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/are-todays-students-addicted-to-social-media/

Teaching by Texting?

In the NCTE Inbox article that I found, it was talking about how teachers are using texting as a teaching tool. In majority of the schools, cell phone use is banned and many students are to keep them in their lockers or put away throughout the day. However, a study was done through using poetry and texting. An exam was then given to students and the result was: those who texted averaged 80% on the exam, while those who didn't averaged 40%. Does this mean that texting should be allowed in the classroom? Is it beneficial to student learning or hindering it?

Personally, I believe that using texting in the classroom is not a useful tool to use. As one student was quoted in the article, "Usually kids don't like to read. But you read in text messages". This proves a great point that when students text, they are using "text" language. They are not using proper English, spelling, and grammar to express their ideas. I also think that using cell phones in the classroom can become extremely distracting. By having them available, students have the ability to use them at inappropriate times and it can hinder their learning and development in all subject areas, not just English.

Schwartz, K. (2010). Teaching by texting starts to take hold. Retrieved from http://www.aolnews.com/tech/article/teaching-by-texting-starts-to-take-hold/19459259

Stages of Second Language Learning

The article "Stages of Second Language Learning" talks about the five stages that students typically go though in order to learn a second language. They said that it takes five to seven years to move through these stages. After looking at the stages, I wonder, it takes a long time for these stages, some more than others. Why do you think that this happens?

Reading through this article relates back to the learning stages of elementary students (in spelling and reading) that I learned in my education classes the past two years. The stages are comparable to those of second language learners and taken roughly a little less time to learn. I know that during the younger stages, it takes a lot longer for students (who already know English) to learn how to identify words and make sense of their sounds. It was interesting to see how it usually only lasts about a year for each stage leading up to the 'continuous language development'. Also, the stages that I have already known for English speakers takes place at a younger age, while the second language learner stages can start at any age.

I can understand that the 'continuous language development' stage can last five to seven years. Looking back in high school, I was in a pretty diverse school compared to my elementary and middle schools. Here there were a decent amount of Hispanic language speakers. Even at the high school level and growing up in New Jersey, they still had a hard time pronunciating and using correct grammar. I now understand why it can take so long in attempt to perfect the English language, but it is still never perfect. English is one of the hardest languages to learn, and as we get older, it is harder to retain information and learn another language.

New Focus on Writing & Reading

In the NCTE Inbox article "New Focus on Reading, Writing" located in The Boston Globe, educators are now stating that they are attempting to try and incorporate literacy in all subject areas. After elementary school, the general public believes that all students should be able to successfully read and write; however, this is never the case. "After fourth grade, students are not longer learning to read, they're reading to learn". Instead, teachers are now bringing more literacy into the classroom in other subject areas besides Language Arts. I've always found it hard to incorporate literacy into math classrooms, except for reading word problems, so how can one successfully apply that?

The article talks about a teacher, Ken Mills, who is observed discussing all types of mathematical problems. With this, you do not know how one can use reading and writing with talking about numbers, variables, slopes, etc., but it can be done. Through observation of Mills' classroom, the students are shown jotting notes down in the columns of their papers and outline every step explicitly that is needed to solve the original problem. This is seen as a "new system of note-taking" in order to improve literacy across the country.

Last semester in my math education class, my professor talked about a similar idea. She had the class explain the way they solved the math problem by writing out our steps in order to solve. Although it did take a longer time to do rather than just write out the numbers, it allowed us to work on explaining ourselves in a written way and then verbally explaining it as well. I think that this way of incorporating English into math classes is a great way to link both subject areas. Reading and writing is everywhere, not just in English classes. By using it throughout different subject areas will hopefully help improve students' literacy.

Plumb, T. (2009). New Focus on Reading, Writing. Retrieved April 15, 2010, from http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/04/08/expanded_reading_writing_classes_lead_to_gains_in_all_subjects_educators_say/

Responding to Student Writing

Responding to student's writing is a process that is commonly done several times throughout the week in the classroom. Teachers take their students' writing and read over it in attempts to have them revise it or to grade it. However, many "teacher's comments can take students' attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focusing that attention on the teacher's purpose in commenting". Why is this seen as being detrimental to students' writing?

When I was in elementary and middle school, we had workshops where we would submit our rough drafts to our teachers to look at on certain occasions. My teacher would then write comments as to what I needed to change in order to make my paper flawless. Naturally, I would do as I was told and follow her instructions and score a higher grade on the final draft. What I never realized, until this article, was that the teacher comments do take away from the students' writing.

From the article by Sommers "Responding to Student Writing", she explains how influential teacher's comments are to students and how they have the ability to change the voice of the text. As she states, "After the comments of the teacher are imposed on the first or second draft, the student's attention dramatically shifts from "This is what I want to say" to "This is what you the teacher is trying to say". Students' final drafts are rarely that way that they originally intended them to be. Teacher's need to be careful as to how they respond to student writing by working with the student to make corrections, but not change the intent of the writing piece itself.

Teaching Non-Native Speakers

After reading the study done on the international Stanford students and their ability to write and communicate in English, I found it interesting that many of the students decided to choose their majors based on their confidence in learning and applying English to their daily lives. After looking at the results and what the international students were saying about first learning English, I was wonder, is one's confidence in English a major factor in the way that students choose their major?

As I reflect back to people I know at James Madison, I do not see many international students in the Humanities and Social Science fields. I am an IDLS major, and Elementary Education minor, and there are no international students in them. My IDLS courses are a majority of English and writing classes where there have been no international students that I can recall. I find this interesting and never thought about the reasoning behind it until this article. It was fascinating to see the link between one's confidence in English and the decision to choose a science or technology major.

I do believe that a student's confidence affects their choice of major in college. For example, in my family I have two younger sisters. I have always been strong in the English and language arts area of school, while my middle sister, a senior in high school, has always been strong in math. Due to the lack of confidence in English, she has chosen to apply to colleges with the idea of being a biomedical engineer because of her writing skills. She has helped me confirm the idea that confidence in the language does affect your decision in what you will major in for the future, whether you are an international student or not.

Book Club - Embrace Your Insignificance

“I’ve been asked to check the second-year students’ summer homework. They were asked to do a journal page on their vacation. I find myself grading their lives: are they interesting? Are they creative? Are they rich enough to have had an exotic vacation? After reviewing about 30 or so assignments you get a feel for where a class is. I should give them an A, B, or C with a plus or minus…..Most kids have a regimented life. I think I would be quite unresponsive if I had to go through what they go through. This assignment seems to be one of the only assignments I can remember recently where kids could just write whatever they wanted.” (p82)

In this Japanese school that attempting their best to teach Japanese students English, many of the students do not care about learning and opening themselves up to the English language. American English teacher, Bob Gaulke, has been given the struggle to teach these first, second, and third-year students who are learning English in order to advance towards a job, a higher education, etc.
Throughout the book, Gaulke explains his difficulty in trying to grade the Japanese students since many of them disrupt that class and do not put forth the effort in the day-to-day worksheet activities that are planned. After reading the situations he is put in, I believe that he is faced with great difficulty in grading these students. English is an exceptionally hard language to learn because of all the different grammatical rules, spelling, etc. that is enacted into our language. Many times Gaulke wants to give extra points or disregard some of the wrong answers so his students can gain confidence in their English and be motivated to learn.
The reason I found Gaulke’s experience with grading papers on a personal experience so compelling deals with an issue that we have talked about in class. Students take greater pride and are more motivated to engage in writing when they are dealing with situations that they have experienced themselves. Here, Gaulke cannot give the students a grade based on their experiences like he has stated. Instead, he is able to see the students’ identities and maybe can see why many of them are not inspired to learn English. As he states, “students lives are regimented”, which means that day-in and day-out they are doing the same exercises, activities, and learning techniques to learn English, yet they are not understanding it and applying it to things they know. I believe that Gaulke understands the importance of allowing students to free-write every once and a while to see the progress that has been made, and needs to be made in teaching.
Discussion Questions:
1. Analysis: Compare and contrast how Gaulke’s mindset about teaching the students English differs from the other teachers located in his school.
Gaulke differs in many ways from his colleagues in teaching the students English, although he has the same common goal as the other teachers which is to teach the students and help them ready themselves for the future and the tests. Gaulke seems more concerned about the students using English outside of the classroom and in regular conversation and makes more of an effort in going out of his way to talk to the students about things that interest them. He uses activities that will interest the students and making learning English fun, instead of using repetitive worksheets that are fill-in the blanks.
2. Evaluation: Assess Gaulke’s performance as an English teacher for the Japanese students and if there is anything he can fix or improve upon.
Overall, I think that Gaulke was an effective teacher in the Japanese school. At times, he gave up on himself or the ability of his students which disheartened me due to the fact that these students needed a lot of help. However, I think that he cared more about his students than his colleagues did and found ways to engage with students inside and outside of the classroom. He took the time to understand their lives and empathize with them in order to effectively try and teach.
3. Application: Gaulke and the teachers use many different techniques in the classroom to teach the students. What are some techniques and activities that were used that you would find helpful to incorporate in your future classroom?

There were many activities that were used in Gaulke’s classroom and other teacher’s classrooms as well. I really enjoyed the idea of the Haiku poems that were used because I believe that students are able to grasp individual word meanings and can create a simple writing piece that is comprehensive by everyone. For many of the students not understanding English and grasping it, some of the poems were very well done.

"Enhancing Adolescent Literacy Achievement Through Integration of Technology in the Classroom"

In this scholarly article written by Betty Sternberg, Karen Kaplan, and Jennifer Borck, they talk about the use of technology in the classroom in order to improve students' literacy skills.  The primary grades focused on are fourth through twelfth, and the identify that more than eight million students are identified as struggling readers.  What the writers state is that in the state of Connecticut, they are continuing to explore key elements in specific programs that will help with the improvement of literacy.  They believe that by incorporating technology in the classroom, it will greatly improve the struggling readers due to the fact that technology "plays in increasingly central role in our society".   

There are seven different areas in which technology can be used to inform the future practice. The majority of them deal with the students; however, teachers and parents also have the ability to engage and promote literacy through technology for their students and/or children.  Many states are involving online school into their school districts because it has the benefit of targeting students' specific needs and provide flexibility in pacing and scheduling.  Students also are engaging in communication tools and word processing that provide the use of today's technology and use of it out of school and into the classrooms.  As for teachers, involving technology into the classroom to achieve literacy helps them to enhance their professional development because they too are able to use the technology to go and communicate with other teachers, mentors, etc. and find new practices and advice to bring into the classroom.  By providing technology in the classroom, students, teachers, and parents are all benefiting as the lack of literacy in students becomes improved and achievable. 



Sternberg, B.J., Kaplan, K.A., & Borck, J.E.  (2007).  Enhancing adolescent literacy and achievement through integration of technology in the classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(3), p. 416-420. doi: 1598/0814146767

Felt Sense

Perl discusses the idea of recursive writing in which he states is a type of writing process that "writers use to keep the process moving forward", meaning that "there is a forward moving action that exists of a backward moving action".  There are three elements to this process, but the one that struck me the most was the idea of "felt sense".  The idea of felt sense cannot be seen on paper, but instead it is everything that a writer feels and knows about a specific subject.  After reading and re-reading what this certain attribute of the recursive process is, I was wondering, has anybody ever realized that they do felt sense when they write,? If so, do you pay attention to it and stop and go back several times through your writing to express it?

Perl explains that writers tend not to have an awareness of it, and I believe him.  I know that what I write comes from within and it is my words that explains a certain writing topic that is given, but I never took the time to realize that the way I write about a topic reflects my "felt sense".  For example, Perl uses the example of a girl repeating the words "anxious moments".  After allowing herself to think through the topic she realizes that exams give her anxiety.  She is able to take something she has experienced and relates it to those key words given. 

Throughout my education I have been given many different writing prompts on a wide array of topics.  I have always picked out key words to use to think of an image or topic and relate to it.  I never thought that this way of thinking and rethinking was called "felt sense" and was a technique used in a composing process.  However, after reading this piece, I know can understand that I have always possessed "felt sense" without realizing it since it is also referred to as "inspiration" and one's "inner voice".  "Felt sense" is your voice that you project onto paper.

Teacher Involvement in the Writing Process

Throughout the reading, Williams discusses the process approach of writing and introduces the significant idea of having student-centered instruction.  He states that there are three key factors provided and implemented by the teacher that are used in order to improve student writing.  They include "(a) asking students to write often, in meaningful contexts, (b) providing frequent feedback on work in progress, and (c) requiring numerous revisions based on that feedback" (p.101).  As teachers, is it a good idea to focus on these three factors for our students' writing improvement? What are the benefits of being continually active with your students during the writing process as well as providing a student-centered learning environment?

Personally, when I first read these three factors that are described in student-centered instruction, it reminded me of my writing instruction throughout elementary school (and somewhat into middle school).  My former teachers were very active with my classmates and myself during a writing assignment.  There were weekly to bi-weekly conferences with my teacher, peer revisions and conferences which were also known as "writing workshops".  By having my teacher involved throughout the writing process, I was able to write and gain feedback which helped me understand and improve my writing.

Because of my experiences with this type of learning, I would agree that teachers, especially at a young grade, should engage in the instruction of these three factors.  Students do not write enough during daytime instruction these days and by allowing them to write and consistently meet with them, it allows you to see their progress individually and assess their writing ability.  In return, this benefits you because you will be able to see the improvements that certain students need and allows you to meet and work with them on a one-on-one basis.

By providing "writing workshops" and student interactions in the classroom, it also allows student feedback and to practice peer editing and revision.  Students will take a more active role in learning by applying their writing knowledge and skills in a more interactive way where they are able to be the teacher and help their peers.

Overall, I believe that this way of teaching is an effective tool for student learning.  Too many times are students asked to write and go through the stages of writing alone.  These learning technique allows them to gain an understanding of everything that is incorporated in writing by discussing with their teacher and their peers, which in the long-run helps improve their writing.