MK's BLOGG

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:24:19 -0400

placement (special day) experience

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:16:36 -0400

JOURNAL PROMPT/BLOG #2——>At Placement Site

I really enjoyed my placement. Honestly in the beginning, I was really nervous about going into my placement classroom. This isn’t because I don’t like kids or because I know I was going to face some challenges, or because it was a new placement, but mainly because I am unfamiliar with students with disabilities. This was the first time that I was going to be in a special day class and I had no proper training or previous experiences on how to work with these individuals. I was afraid that I would do something wrong or offend someone. It all made me nervous and scared. My stomach was tight and I was on top of everything the first day.

On my first encounter, a little girl walked up to me (I’m guessing to give me a hug) but being paranoid, I stepped back, thinking she was trying to hit me because I didn’t look familiar. She just looked at me. I felt horrible. But I am thankful that now I can just go in and hug them.

From what I have learned in SPED 343 and my psychology class really help me understand and calmed me and the way I was able to work and be able to get to know them. By the fourth time I went into the classroom, I have already made some friends and it just all seemed like a general Ed class. I wasn’t nervous anymore. I really like the students. My placement teacher made it a fun experience and was very kind about letting me work with individuals in helping them. She was often busy with the class and hardly had time to talk to me and the aides but the structure of the class was well-constructed. The students are progressing. I’ve come to accept that these students are such hard workers and I can see myself working and being comfortable teaching and becoming their friends. Many of them only struggle with little things such as not being able to sit still, having a hard time, writing, having speech problems, or taking a bit longer to finish an assignment; just like we all do at some things. Working with disability students helped me to become more patient and loving. It just may be the thing for me!

hello...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:11:49 -0500

time to get back on and start posting!!! fun fun fun!! hay tumblr!, it’s been a while!

SPED355 JOURNAL PROMPT 1- SPED placement

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:08:36 -0500

HOW I FEEL ABOUT MY PLACEMENT: NEG’s, POS’s, and IMPACTS

First Reflective Posting

Going into my placement has been one interesting experience. I really enjoy the teacher, getting to know many other aids, and best, getting to know the students, although I feel like it is all very challenging. I’ve been to my placement three times and each time I have gotten the chance to observe and also help out the students but I don’t think I have really impact them in any realistic way yet. I probably won’t because I may only serve 15 hours there overall. With that said though, I will try my best to go in as open minded as possible and I am hoping that I will be a positive influence to at least one of them. The purpose of my service is to really go in and help these students learn, help them believe in themselves, and encourage them to the best of their ability. But being with them will give me more experience in becoming a teacher and let me decide if it is a possible path that I may want to focus my teaching on.

I’ve never really had the chance to be around anyone who has a disability to the point where I can totally understand their difficulties. From what I have learn in my psych class about syndromes and specific misplace of loss in a chromosome that can lead to a disability or a malfunction child is just so disappointing, sad, and it frustrates me. What made mad were the babies who are born with FAS. And this is because it is a preventable syndrome and just from the mother drinking alcohol can cause the life of a child. So going with this just makes it a little hard to see what so little can do to these precious students. With very small background knowledge of disabilities, I think it will create a barrier for me to try to connect with these awesome kids. However, I think I am a pretty positive person and being around kids and teaching is what I want to do so I hope that I may be able to get that across somehow. I feel like it’s not always the best thing, but I am more focused on the child socially than I am with them educationally. So when I go in, my goal is to help them with their math and sentence writing but I also add in some jokes or a personal thing about my struggle. I like to see them laugh and also know that I care for them. I like to give hug (although I’m not sure if the state even allows that anymore) and just check up on them. My main goal before I finish my hours is to learn all their names and have them find/share a strength/talent that they have.

student teaching metaphors

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:57:48 -0500

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0193mar2010/CC0193ReadComm.pdf

great article. good teacher’s insight. one day we may be the teacher and have our own assistants, we can reflect upon this. as beginners now let’s make our journey there the best and most enjoyable!

... ANYMORE HUGS??...(EDTE 255)

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:59:00 -0500

Does anyone else have any more hugs to offer? Today is officially my last day at my awesome placement and with my special pal. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to be with this teacher and her student this semester at this time. I have learned so much as a person and preparing to become the teacher that I can’t wait to become. Not everything I learned was positive, I also learned more about my weaknesses going into the education field and I am so lucky to have found this now than later. Some days I just wonder what’s so hard about teaching, I can’t wait to be a student teacher and be on my way but then on other days, my placement just reminds me of how unprepared I am. Learning more about me and about the field itself was wonderful but one of my favorite things about having our placements is the luck of making connections and building relationships with the students and teachers.

I was really lucky because I had an awesome placement teacher and a great group of students in the classroom that I volunteered in. I not only was able to learn all their names but I was also able to work with every single one of them at least twice and they know me too!! I feel horrible because every time I walk in the class, the students would give me stares or say “hi Mai Kou” and I happen to always be walking in the middle of a lesson too, which makes it worse. They’re such happy kids and they’re just so full of life. They would absolutely brighten and better our society and future if we really get them to see school and life the way they do now. Seeing them makes me long for the day in which I get to spend eight hours, five days a week with my own set of students. Anyways, so I told a few students that this would be my last week and they thought I was just kidding, but then I wasn’t. So I brought them baked cookies that I made with all my heart, candies, and cards for them today and as I was leaving, I just had to let it out knowing that I will be placed at a different site next semester. How does a teacher do that? How can you say bye to a set of kids every year! UGH!!! I can’t and I don’t want to! I’m so selfish I know but it’s so hard because they’re my friends now. I know all that they like to do, I played hide and seek, soccer, basketball with them. I watched some of them cried before, laughed with them, did math, read with them, built atoms, ran, took a few to the nurse’s office, we did so much together.

Today I couldn’t concentrate in the class assignments today knowing that today I have to seal the cap. My special pal was so sad and I can’t help it. I know someone else will go back for him next semester. He has grown so much and I know he will be just awesome without me!What made it much harder was the teacher told the student that it was my last day and she had me sit at the front while the students all raised their hands to thank me for the little things that I do during my time there that they appreciated. It was so sweet to hear so much compliment, but most to hear some very shy student speak especially on the littlest things I do that I didn’t think anyone would notice or remember. :( . Kids are definitely my passion and teaching them is my goal.

I was given so much hugs and I gave away so many as well. I don’t even think I am allowed to, but I couldn’t help it I just feel like I had to. Room 29, I will miss you all! Hopefully time will permit for me to go back and visit, though it may not feel the same anymore. I hope I can go back and volunteer there again. May the best come to the students and my placement teacher! I hope everyone else in my cohort had a great and fun experience as well.

.Forever treasured.

~mky

the theme for our class this week is respect and just thought i...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:22:00 -0500

the theme for our class this week is respect and just thought i should share a few piks here! :)

Hide and Go Seek (EDTE 255)

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:13:06 -0500

I’m dying down as I’m counting the last few days left of placement. It’s hard to try to pull yourself away from all these beautiful children and my awesome special pal. I’m actually sad about it. I just feel so belong there. Today was a great day. I feel like my feelings sort of took away from it though because i just keep think, “Mai Kou in a few more weeks and you’re gone, maybe never to see these students again.” ugh! It hurts.

Today at recess, instead of staying in,my special pal and six of his other friends, we decided to go out and enjoy the beautiful weather. I have been staying in for about two weeks now just helping the teacher correct and file paper, listen to stories, or work with students on math. Going out today helped brought some joy to my soul. We played hide and go seek for the whole recess. It was funny because we kept getting more and more people to play an it was hard to see who had already been seen and who is actually playing. I ran around the whole time with the kids giggling and being young. I really didn’t know if i am allow to do that. I don’t know what kind of example of influence that would be on the students. I just hope they took it well and think that “future teachers” can be fun and loves to be young as well. (sorry future teachers if they didn’t see it that way).

My special pal shared with me his new comic he has made today and we joked about his characters. He’s doing well with communicating a little bit more in class and talking to his classmates. I am very proud of him and i hope ill get to see him soon after break! :)

here is a video i liked and that will hopefully help me think of...

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:19:00 -0400

here is a video i liked and that will hopefully help me think of some ideas for mines. Im not really sure what i want to do tho

really like this quote

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:07:21 -0400

really like this quote

Photo

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:04:48 -0400

Photo

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:04:11 -0400

no special pal today(EDTE 255)

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:01:19 -0400

I waited the whole weekend and then tuesday comes and i’m up excited to go to placement.got there and my pal was no where to be found. ;(. It made me sad. The teacher was a little busy and so i asked one of the little boy if my pal was absent and he replied with “did you know he moved?” i thought, “WHAT!!!!!?????” that was kind of how i responded lol. I was shock but sad…so many different emotions built in one. Lol the cute little boy look at me and said ‘that means you get to pick a new special pal huh?”

“no…that means they might switch me to a new place and that i might not even see youguys anymore or maybe they might assign me to a different class, and maybe i might still be in your class, i dont know.awww man!!!!!” lol that little boy is so funny though. He was like “you are so funny, ****** is sick today but he will be here again on thursday. HAHA i tricked you!” that boy..urgh! lol he is so cute but so funny but he lied to me! AHHH.

But about my day, i had a great day. I knew he wasn’t there but i tried to be as positive and as productive as i can be because i know that’s what he would want me to do as well. so i spent most of my time helping students do their math and work with their worksheets. it was sweet to see them all try even though they were all a bit hyped up from all the candies that they had consumed. the teacher had also decided to do something different and come up with some science fair projects for them to work on as well so i thought that was very sweet and awesome. so we sort of talked that out and i am very excited for the class. she also said that the students have been having quite a few problems with eachother and so she made some little paper script in which students are encouraged to write nice things about eachother in the class and read them at teh end f everyday! I LOVE THIS! it’s so sweet that my placement teacher is so involve and kind and is doing so much reflection and putting so much thoughts that relates to what we have been discussing in EDTE and English.

I just find it so much harder to leave the classroom and come back to school now. i would choose volunteering over school anyday lol. But as i was leaving today, the teacher was rushing to get the students out so that i can leave and find a parking space at school before my next class, and the students just keep coming to give me hugs and thank me for helping them. It was so sweet but it made it so much harder to leave as well. i thought about it and i tested myself today and realized that i can match 19 out of the 24 students in the class with name and face and have worked with atleast all of them once. i feel so lucky but at the same time doomed as well because the semester is going to end soon and soon enough those awesome student and my partner teacher that i have come to love will just be memories. ;(

ODD (EDTE 255)

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:17:44 -0400

I’m always so excited about going to my placement site and I still feel like I would be for my next visit and the following one and everyone after that but i just feel so odd walking out of the my placement site today. And it wasn’t one of those odd feelings. It was one where I just left a little confused and disappointed in myself. URGH! it’s hurts somehow and i just feel like i should write a little about it. No one hurted me adn i don’t think it was because i hurted anyone. I really hope not. But i felt like something went wrong or because i didn’t do something else or at least do it a different way. I left and as i was driving back, i had many thoughts that made me just want to turn back and say something more or do something in addition. Erase the visit, maybe. The students were great today. They were working on their math assignment. Some students finished while others and so being the nice teacher that my placement teacher is, she gave them the opportunity to play a team math game. They were all excited. She told me to pick the students ( something i hate doing). It was a little hard for me because i feel like some of the students probably think i don’t like them because i don’t get to work with all of them and then when i work with other students, i feel like i am straying away a bit from my special pal. I dont want that, but as much as i say that, i love the opportunity to work with other students as well and i feel like working with those other students together with my pal gives them a chance to get to know my pal and how much he loves to draw. It also gives him the chance to talk to his classmates as well. Sorry i’m a little off track, okay enough about my issues, but as i was picking the students, i can see the sad faces of the other students who weren’t pick. That was bad. And then on top of that it was hard for students who were working on their assignment to concentrate. So i went around helping the individual students. They are such smart kids. I am so thankful that my teacher had so much trust in me, in letting me work with all her students and help out as much as i get to. But it just goes to show how hard being a teacher can be. Not just patience but you have to be fun, think fast, and be able to engage all students. How can you engage students who are done to be able to do something fun and productive but that wouldn’t be distracting to students who are still finishing up their work. Students hate SSR and it would be nice to have fun, but it’s hard. Also it comes to show that i will be struggling so much as a teacher. I was quite a sensitive student growing up and if the teacher was to yell at me or act like she don’t care, would’ve hurted me.I am so afraid of having another student feel the same way about me, especially early on when i am not even a teacher yet, So i would like to try my best to be gentle with every student. i Just don’t feel like where the limit should go there though. Some students learn better with a caring loving nursery type teacher while other students learn better with teachers who are more demanding and authoritative. I know that no matter what, i will be in a classroom with a mix of both students and so should i act as two person, being different to students who do better with a certain kind of teacher?I don’t know how to do or feel about this. How can i find the time for each of my students and to try to understand each of them? because i know they need it and i would love to. The teacher gave the class a little talk about cooperating as classmates because they were so choosy about picking team and some were just being a little mean. I had a great day today. I learned a lot about teaching, them and my teacher…but i just had so much going on in my head about me. my head just kept asking: …what kind of teacher would i want to be? do i have all the qualities in being a teacher? and mai kou, remember some students are sensitive, try your best to talk to all so that none feels left out…

i feel a little better writing this. though odd it is. i feel like going to the placement may not be helping me find out more about myself but more that i don’t know about myself.

from drawing to shooting (EDTE 255)

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:46:00 -0400

So we started our deal today. I was so glad to go back to my placement and see my young friend all happy and excited to see me. He seems to have been doing well today and happy, just not very talkative as always. he’s so excited about sharing his drawings though. it was the first things that he showed me when I got there. He had done eleven more pages of drawings since the last time that i have seen him and it was nice to see him share all of it with me. But the funny thing that happened today was as the recess bell ring and we got ready to walk outside, i saw them hurriedly put their assignments away and pick up their drawing notebooks and started out the door. I sat down and gave them a frown. The best friend looked at me and then said ‘mai kou aren’t you coming along?” and i was like “yes but we are going out with basketballs today right?” lol.It was funny because they both looked at each other and then looked at me and was like “sure”. lol so sweet. We actually didn’t get to play basketball today because i stayed in a bit to file and they ended up drawing inside and making pictures of boys having babies no (lol dont get it wrong. it wasn’t graphic) but it was funny. horrible me, i didn’t keep up with my part of the deal and so no basketball but i am so glad they are willing to go for it. Thursday will be another drawing day but then next Tuesday will be basketball. something different.

My Special PAL (EDTE 255)

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:06:00 -0400

Accomplishment!I’m so glad i finally have something to share about my pal today. Mai Kou had a great day at my placement site today, like always. I’ve realized that my past few comments haven’t been about him and more about me or what i feel i about my placement. I feel like i have been to caught up with trying to observe the teacher and classroom for my own future preferences that i haven’t been talking much about my awesome pal or what we have been doing together. So when i went in today, I focused my main attention on him.

During recess my pal’s favorite thing to do is to draw. He has one best friend in the class and during recess they love taking out their notebook and just draw. Not that i don’t like that but i feel like the only way i cant get my special pal to be more exposed and make closer friends is to try something else. He would normally share his drawings with me and then tell me all the new characters that he had created every other time i am there. So this week i gave him a challenge that he took. We made a deal. The deal was that on my Tuesday visits i would bring my own drawing notebooks and although i am no good at drawing at all, that i would give it a try and draw and share stories with them. Then on my Thursday visit they both would try a new sport with me or that we would just play on the playground or just walk around. I was telling them that this would give them a chance to stretch and move especially because they are in the class for most hours in school and that it will give them a chance to play other sports that they are probably good at. I convinced them that the other kids wouldn’t judge them and will in fact enjoy having them having them play with them. YES!! so deal it was and i cant wait to start! It will be a learning experience of fun for me and both of them.

Oh and another good news, my special pal did make a new friend this week. i saw him approaching another student and them talking for a while. It was sweet to see him socialize with other students on his own. my special pal also raised his hand to try to answer a math problem today. he is so intelligent and is an excellent mathematician. I am so glad to see his progresses. i am very grateful for this opportunity to work with him and through working along with him, i am growing to know him, myself, and the field of teaching to a bigger extent. I am so lucky!

Also i would love to give ashout out to my awesome placement teachers, the ITEC crew and advisor, the professors, the classes i’ve been in, my family and friends, and of course GOD. so thankful, i feel like im going through with something i’ve really wanted to.Every time i walk into a class and i just see the bright smiles of these kids, the bored looking faces, sad faces, their voices, to hear their stories, it just reminds me again and again of why i went into this field. School is suppose to be fun and these students deserve to be happy while learning. School should be a part of that happiness. And teachers can make that happen :)

The Fire Drill Experience (EDTE 255) week 4

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:16:00 -0400

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!! lol if you are wondering what that is, it is suppose to be the sound of the fire alarm. It was funny because the fire alarm went off today right in the middle of a lesson and i kinda jumped up because I have forgotten about fire drills and how loud they can be. The students were laughing at me and they asked if i know what it was. I was trying to tell them that we don’t have fire drills like that in college and that it has been a while since i’ve heard anything like that. Well, I guess they sort of took it as i don’t know what it was and they were so sweet and concern. They were holding my hands and walked me to their fire drill line and told me where to stand. They told me about the teacher raising up a green sheet of paper if everyone is there and red if someone was missing. It was the cutest thing.awwwww! It would be so sweet if i was to be a new student becuase i know i will be in great hands. :)

The students are getting into their testings this week and it was a little harder to work with my special pal because I didn’t just want to sit there and watch him do his test, we get very distracted and usually will end up talking. So instead I let him do his test and i asked to help the teacher and also walked around and just observed the students. But somehow I feel like my special pal thinks that I am going away from him and that I trying to work with other students. He doesn’t say much but I can sort of tell by his gestures and it hurts me that I am making him feel that way. SO my goal this coming week is to spend the whole recess with hym so that he can tell me his story of his new episode of rage (his manga character) and work with him individually next week.I’m hoping that they would be done with testings by then. :) The students also have been working on visual arts pieces in class and they are entering into a pta contest. The best of luck goes to all of them!! :)

Step Up To WriTing ImpreSSion

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:07:42 -0400

lol ugh so embarassing. I posted the wrong thing up. See this is so funny because it goes right with what we are learning. The task was for us to write about our first impression of the articles to “Step Up to Writing” and since i wasn’t actively listening like how the author had suggested us to, i read off what it said on the board and i though the prompt was to respond to what my first impression of Tumblr is. Uh oh so now i should probably go back and replace it with this one.

I really like this program and the ideas that they bring to us as teachers. Especially elementary school teachers. What i thought was very important was how they stated that the student must learn to appreciate writing and reading to start with. And i feel this is really true because no matter how hard the instructor tries, the student can’t learn from all the readings and writings that are done in class if they aren’t willing or wanting to take something out of it.

The idea that i found that i love in the article was the one about the students being able to be creative with their writing and art. I love how they share the ideas of having the students draw new vocab words into the story or sentences and working at getting more complex. I feel like many people are visual learners and this would be very beneficial to them because they can read the word and also see it, therefore when they see it, they can have a visual image in their head of the picture. Also i was a English Learner growing up and i know that pictures can truly help EL students because often times we know what the object is, we just don’t know how to pronounce it in english.

The paper also gives many of us examples and tips to become better writer and readers as a teacher. The author greatly emphasize on having the teacher work along with the students and modeling what is being done in class with the students for better understanding. This definitely relates to wondrous words and writes beside them and the ways in which they believe students learn better with teachers doing and working with students at the same pace and with them. I think step up to writing provides many great ideas and examples for future elementary school teachers. :)

tumblr impression

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:53:20 -0400

LOL this will be an interesting post.Honestly, this is because i don’t have a real feeling about it or maybe i should say I have a mix feeling about it. I don’t know I am not sure. I wanna say i actually like it. But then thinking about it, I remembered exactly how i felt about signing up for online social networks last year lol. I was never really a big fan of it all and I always thought It’s just more work. But hey i guess this just prove that minds can change and also that there isn’t just one best way of doing or learning. I think from using it more and more, the exposion to social networks made me more comfortable with it and i think that goes with all thing, you can’t really assume you wouldn’t like something until you give it a try. Life is to short to pass out on anything, especially free ones! if you get the chance, TAKE IT!

I actually found Tumblr to be very fun and helpful. I feel like it’s like an online discussion where everyone participates. In class not all of us participate but i do know that we all have wonderful ideas about what we think writing is, what we feel about the readings and through tumblr, it opens up that space and let us explore what we are thinking and type it all down. I love that we are able to read from one and other and share information and ideas with one and another. It brings up lots of ideas that one can relate to or like. It’s nice to see how much we all feel like a “good” teacher should be like. And this I still wonder if it is because it is the way we are taught and we see certain things as right and others as wrong because of what we are learning and our background knowledge and experience or if it really is what we believe. I question myself all the time because what i know is from what i read and what others told me and from what i have gone through…but should i believe in everything? Do i really think that a monarchy way of teaching is bad?? what if it was the only way for my students to best learn the materials though? hummm(not that i really think it is good, it’s just my example).

also from the participation and thoughtful tumblr posts, i believe that it would be something i will encourage for my future students to use just because it get everyone to participate and i feel like that is very important. Yes they may not participate in class but they will online and this will help me and other students see what they are thinking. So yes i find tumblr very beneficial and i love to use it, on the downside though, i am not really good at messing around with it and i feel like mine is so plain and boring but i know it will improve over time and hay maybe asking other people for help on the post will help me build stronger connections with my colleagues and have a better looking page too. And this will be beneficial for my students too. See YAY!

WHAT DO I THINK IS LITERACY AND WHAT IS IT TO ME??

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 04:20:21 -0400

Literacy seems to include everything for me. I am not sure yet. I don’t feel like i have a grasped on a real definition for the word. Although I also do feel like there is no correct “best”definition for it. I still think literacy can be very opinionated and it really depends on the societies in which one lives in and depends on the individuals living there and what they see as functional tasks or way of thinking. I believe that being literate is very important though and that the more you know, understand, and the better you can communicate, the more advantage you’ll have. I believe that there is no limit to being perfectly literate at everything and it’s not a bad thing. No one is interested in everything and therefore wouldn’t bother to know much about it while i also believe that NO PERSON IS ILLITERATE. As dumb as anyone think they are, they are lying to themselves. Everyone can communicate, go but food, eat, talk, write, and read in someway. There will be an audience, someone who will understand that individual. As Gee puts it “We humans have goals and purposes, and for spme goals and purposes some groups’ ways of reading and thinking work better than do other…neither meaning is right or wrong.”

Literacy, writing, and learning all connects real well together. All that you learn you write to tell and express (literacy). There is no one correct way to learn, to write, or to be literate. The best writings on the ones in which one writes without thinking about being judged. One that the person is writing to themselves. They worry less of errors, audiences, and grammars, etc. This kind of writing lets the student/writer engage in whatever it may be that the student wants to write about. This kind of writing is called creative writing because the writer can freely do anything on that piece of paper that he/she feels like. My favorite part of writing is what i learned from reading from Kittle. She states, “Go back in time and live that moment again in writing, first person, present tense.” WOW! Of course life isn’t perfect but we can relive it in writing, can’t we? I also don’t believe that there is one correct way to write and there definitely is no best way to writing. Either on paper, journal writing, peomes, or whatever it may be, the writer writes what she/he feels and express it through writing. The lucky reader gets to relive the writer’s work by reading it. You can’t say that someone’s personal thought or what they know about that particular subject is bad or is horrible because that may be all they know or feel. Writing is: “to experiment with their thinking and ideas, to try on voice, or to rant about life. No grades attached. It is time to speak.”-Kittle.

As to becoming a teacher i feel like it is important for my students to have time to freely write, be creative, and express themselves and not worry about the gradings of their assignments but i also think it is very important for my students to also learn formal writing because we live in a society where those matters. I’ll let my students know that the best writings are the ones that they express and write down themselves when they feel like they want to. It is the ones that they know plenty about and care to write about. But i think it is very important that they will know how to write formal professional papers because this is important. It is reality as well. We do have to know how to use our grammars and punctuations. Although this doesn’t apply on a daily basis because we can understand eachother through slang and short phrases and no pause in our sentences, we will still have to write business letters, scholarship papers, resume’s, statements, college papers, etc. and the audience of those paper probably wouldn’t hire us because we forgot a comma, etc. We live in a society where that matters, so althougfh we should avoid it because it’s probably not the way we express ourselves, it’s something we will be judged by.

I feel that it is very important for students to engage themselves in what they see as the best way for them. The whole teacher being at the front desk teaching while the students take notes is getting very old. Collaborative learning in which teachers open up and students can contribute will make the environment a learning one. We should try to bring in outside things and items into the class and have it play its educational part as well as long as the studnets can stay engage and learn at the same time. It’s like playing around the world with the students. They are learning geography at the same time , while they think they are playing a game. Hands on activities are very helpful for any kind of learning and literacy because it is visual, auditory,and kinesthetic.

“Recognition of the multiple meanings and varieties of literacy also argues for a diversity of educational approaches, informal and community-based as well as formal and school-based. As ethnographic research and practical experience demonstrate, effective literacy programs are those that are responsive to perceived needs, whether for functional skills, social power, or self-improvement. Individual objectives may be highly specific: to qualify for a promotion at work, to help children with their lessons, to record a family history.”-Scribner

“New Literacy Studies, a body of work that argues that reading and writing should be viewed not only as mental achievements going on inside people’s heads, but also as social and cultural practices with economics, historical, and political implications.”-Gee.I totally agree. Literacy is not just the ability to read and write but mainly being able to function and communicate in society. It’s so hard for one just to develope themselves through reading and writing like everyone else or trying to reach the expectation of a “great” writer because that would make you become more like that person and not yourself. “Literacy has typically been viewed as a yes or no matter, easily determined.”-Szwed. In societies today not everyone has the opportunities to go to school and to read and write. This DOES NOT mean they are illiterate. It is not a yes and no matter. One cannot jusdge by saying a person is illiterate just because they can’t read a book, write their name, or understand the bible, etc. They just see and uses different ways to communicate and show skills. We probably can’t do what they can, does that make us illiterate too? Yes and no. Yes becuase we haven’t given it a chance or know what it is but no because we are literate in another form, prob just not in that particular literacy practice.With new technologies and improvements always heading our way, it really hard to keep updated and be especially good in all areas, especially if you live in a different place. (ex. the Vais compared to the US). We all live and perform socially by what we have, grew up with and our experiences, which shape us and the culture we have today. . Just because one uses slang or becuase we have a transfer student who can’t verbally express to us what they want to say because of little knowledge or our language doesn’t make them stupid, lower class or illiterate.We are all literate

WE LEARN TO WRITE TO COMMUNICATE WHAT WE FEEL AND WHO WE ARE TO THE WORLD AND THE PEOPLE AROUND US> THIS IS HOW WE EXPRESS OURSELVES AND THIS IS HOW WE SOCIALIZE> WE DO THIS IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS BUT THE BEST THING ABOUT IT IS WE GET TO CHOOSE THE WAY WE WANT TO DO IT AND WHAT WE WISH TO INCLUDE IN OUR LITERACY PRACTICE.