What Stood Out to Me in Last Week’s Readings, Entry 4

 3 IDEAS I AM NOW PONDERING

One idea that I am now pondering after reading the Yoon article is how I, as a future educator, need to learn how to focus on a child's capacities rather than a deficiency that they may have. I believe it is essential and crucial to encourage students and remind them that they can do anything they set their minds to. I also liked how Yoon discussed the essentialism of having access to inquiry opportunities, flexible curricula, and full inclusion of students.

A second idea I am now pondering from the Hammond video is how we as educators need to focus on minimizing stressors for our students and rewiring their brains so they can learn to their fullest capacity and be successful. She discusses how many factors go into this process, such as letting go of our biases and being anti-racist, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive to all students.

A third idea I am pondering from the Muhammad reading in the Cultivating Genius text is how the new framework that she is creating, HRL, is designed for all students and is responsive to people of color. This framework focuses on dimensions we do not typically see in our current states, such as identity, culture, and criticality. She discusses how the framework we currently have in place is not responsive to those who are culturally diverse and the importance of having a framework. The current framework does not focus on diversity or inclusivity and does not allow children to ask questions or learn about themselves or those around them. The current framework we use does not enable all children to succeed due to its limitations. 

2 COMMENTS THAT INSPIRED ME

One comment that genuinely inspired me was from the Muhammad text, where she mentions that creating a new framework and allowing students to learn about themselves and their identities will enable them to "have a tool to fight back." She connects this to the Black Literary societies and how learning language and forming these groups allowed them to fight back and have the power of knowledge that others were trying to limit them from. 

A second comment that inspired me was in the Hammond video when she discusses how all of the instruction placed in schools is "culturally responsive, but to who?". That statement stuck out because it is easy to assume that education in schools and classrooms is culturally responsive. After all, to the majority of people, mostly White Eurocentric Americans, it is culturally responsive to them. We seem to forget that other groups are disregarded, their needs are not being met, nor are they learning things geared toward their cultures or identities. The framework that we have in place is culturally responsive to those who created it, not everyone else. 

1 COMMITMENT I WANT TO MAKE FOR MY FUTURE STUDENTS

A commitment that I want to make for my future students is creating an environment with full inclusion, diversity, and culture. I want my students to learn about diversity and inclusion and their identities and the identities around them. I want my student all to be successful regardless of their differences and want them all to feel comfortable and supported. 

Literature before Pre-K, What Did This Look Like?

 

When I was young my mother would read many stories to me. These are some of my favorite stories that I can remember reading numerous times with her as well as on my own. My mother and I would read the magic treehouse series because the books allowed me and my mother to imagine what the children were doing and sometimes we would add our own ideas after reading about what else the children could have done. I would think about what it would be like if I did these things as well. These stories opened my eyes to the ability to be imaginative while reading and enjoy reading because of this. 

The Rainbow Fish was always one of my favorite stories to read because I loved the reflective gills and thought the story was nice.  The story is about a fish who had reflective gills unlike everyone else and others wanted to share in their beauty, at first the fish was reluctant and not very willing to share, but then realizes everyone should be able to look like him as well. This story taught me about uniqueness and sharing. 

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed was a story that my brother, my mom and I would read quite frequently and my mother would joke about us being her little monkeys and it was just a cute fun story that we would read together before bed. 

 

Click Clack Moo Cows That Type was a story that my grandmother would read to me because when she was young she used a typewriter and her parents owned a print shop,  the cows in the story  find a typewriter and then proceed to use it and make demands. This book represents the power of communication alongside being a cute story about cows that can use a typewriter. I always enjoyed reading with my grandmother and this was one of my favorite books we read together. 

There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly was a book that my mother would read to my brother and I as well, and my pre-school teacher read it to us as well. I liked the book because it was so wacky and funny and the Old Lady swallows a fly and tries to retrieve it with a spider and the whole story is a crazy sequence of events. 

Are You My Mother? Was also one of my favorite stories that I read with my brother and my grandmother, Are You My Mother? is a story about a hatchling bird. His mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food. The baby bird hatches while the mother is away. The hatchling does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her and asks a dog if they are his mother and so on. I felt I could relate to this story when I was young because I would always get nervous if I was somewhere like the grocery store and could not find my mother. 

 

The image on the top right corner is of me, my brother, my mother and my grandmother in Disney. I could not find a picture of us reading together, but my mother and my grandmother both would always read stories to me and wanted to take me to Disney due to my love of Disney books and movies, as well as because Disney is so fun!

 

The picture on the bottom right corner is of me, my mother, my brother and my grandma and grandpa in Florida. My grandparents and my mother would always encourage me to read in my down time, on our flights, or any time that I could. My mother would also read me stories with my grandmother often before she passed away when I was in 8th grade.  

Entry 2 Prompt 2 for Week 3

The SQ4R format allowed me to critically read and analyze the text for this week, the Kucer article about the different dimensions of literacy. It helped me be more aware of what I was reading as I took some notes and used questions to focus my attention on specific parts of the text. When reading a section of the text, I chose to pose a question for myself at the heading for each paragraph. This allowed me to answer the question in my head as I was reading and write it down after the fact in my notes so that I could go back and analyze what I had just read. After reading the text, we had to focus on a statement from each section of the literacy beliefs profile we filled out before reading the article. The article was divided into the different dimensions of literacy, and the author provided information and evidence about each of these dimensions. The notes that I took using the SQ4R method allowed me to focus on one statement that the author mentioned in the text and deeper analyze it based on the evidence that was provided in the article. Using this method allowed me to collect all the information I needed to reflect on what I was reading as I did the prior assignment focusing on one statement from each section and deciding whether I still agreed with it or changed my opinion about it. This method also showed me how to read with concentration and take notes, which would benefit me. When I needed to do an assignment based on the article and have the correct information, I needed to fully answer the prompts and reflect on what I learned from the text. 

 Using the SQ4R method made it easy to respond to my peers in the form discussions because I had plenty of information from the text based on the notes that I had taken in the questions that I had asked myself, as this made me analyze the text critically. When reading others' responses and choosing how to respond to them, I went back to my notes and the text and could pull all the information I needed and respond to them thoroughly and with purpose. I also like how this method allowed me to reflect on my learning and what others have learned from the text. Reading a text and reflecting on it using this method made it more exciting and allowed me to gain critical thinking and understanding of the text and what the author was trying to convey. It made it easier for me to organize my thoughts and form a meaningful response that reflected my learning. Reading others' reactions and responding to them made the experience more meaningful as I learned from them about what they had learned. 

 In the future, I would like to continue using this format as I believe it benefited me and allowed for deeper reading comprehension. Some habits that I might need to build to help me have more ownership and become a more purposeful and creative reader of texts would be to continue to take notes as I am reading and ask myself questions that I can later go back and reflect on. If I continue these habits, I will become a more purposeful reader and engage with the text more, forcing myself to ask questions about the text, record by taking notes and recite parts of the text. I did this while responding to the original prompts for the assignment and when I was reading others' responses because it allowed me to hear what both I was writing and what others were writing. I also believe that a habit I might need to build to be prepared to engage in discussions about the text I read would be to continue reflecting on what I have read and allowing myself to think about the text and what I have learned from it. Reflection is a huge part of critically analyzing the text and thinking about what we have read and understood. 

Entry 1 What is literacy, Anyway?

 To me, literacy is the written and spoken ways that we communicate and share ideas. Literacy allows us to understand not only the perspectives of others but how they think and put them into words. If we did not have literacy we would not be able to read or write or do something as simple as write our names, our society heavily depends on the ability to read and write and some could argue it is necessary for survival. A literate person is someone who is proficient in their language and can read and write. This person can communicate their needs and wants to others and understand complex written texts. I believe that the ideas that I have about literacy were developed based on the education that I received growing up and the philosophies of the school district that I was in as well as the influence of my parents and teachers. My mother worked in education and always strongly encouraged me to read and write stories while I was younger and showed me that reading and writing were both enjoyable and essential to my learning. I was always taught that it was extremely important to be literate and be able to read and write by my grandparents as well who came to America from Italy and had parents who neither spoke or read English, and they had to teach their parents how to speak and read English after attending elementary school in the United States. Those who were influential in shaping my ideas about literacy were my teachers and administrators, as well as my parents and elder family members. My brother would always go over spelling with me and read books with me when I was younger as well. I believe that I am a literate person based on the society that I live in and the level of education that I possess. I can read and write in the English language proficiently and effectively. I always did well with reading and writing throughout my middle and high school experiences and was even recognized at my high school when I wrote an essay as well as my college essay. I have always had a passion for reading and writing and excelled in those areas, which solidifies my belief that I am literate and proficient in the English language.