Mr. Woehlcke’s class blog

I really don't have much to elucidate on about this blog. However, I have surprised and impressed with how Mr. Woehlcke has used blogs in his classroom. I never really considered the variety of uses that could be found for the podcast in the classroom. On a personal note, I was very impressed that the high school class had read "The Handmaid's Tale."

Adolescent Literacy chapter 17

"Wow." That is the first thing that comes to mind. When reading this chapter, I couldn't help but to feel a little overwhelmed. Before, assessment seemed to be a pretty straightforward concept and I thought that understood where I stood. But as I read through the chapter, the concept started to become overwhelming and daunting. I was glad to get to the end of the chapter when David Pearson put some earth back under my feet. He stated that assessment is "both the easiest and hardest job we have as educators." I then realize that what they where debating was exactly what we have been learning to do throughout this program. Being a new teacher, I am in the position to establish good habit and build an effective and authentic assessment system.

Book Trailer

I have to say that when it comes to the book trailer project and the idea of digital storytelling--I'm a fan. This was a new technology for me and at first, the task seemed daunting. It was daunting, but mainly when trying to come up with the intial idea and script. After the initial hurdle, the project went fast and was engaging and dare I say, fun. I found that digital storytelling is relevant, engaging, requires high level thinking, and is useful for both teachers and students. I think that I will definitely find a use for digital storytelling in my classroom.

Chapter 16, Adolescent Literacy

When reading chapter 16, I have to say that there are especially two areas with which I wholeheartdly agree. Those areas of the chapter are in maintaining high expectations and making it real. I feel, both through learning in the MAT program and my experience teaching, that maintaining high expectations for all students is the primary step in attacking achievement gap. I also feel that relevancy for students is extremely important for their engagement. The area of the chapter that was new for me and the most intriguing was the use of a bridge map.

Steinke response

After reading the Steinke article and I have also read another one of her books, I have to say that I really like the straightforward, clear way in which she writes. With English as my content area, literature circles are a well-known techniques which I like to use. I would warn, however, to be clear on your goals which employing literature circles. I once tried to use literature circles to have students be able to understand and support each other during the reading of a difficult novel. My goal was to give the students some command of the literary elements that they would need to do analysis, but it turned into students doing a worksheet. They did seem to start to understand the literary elements, but few of the students were able to translate that into deeper understanding of the novel. I feel that it was due to the lack of clear expectations in the assignment and probably making the assignment too compartmentalized.

Adolescent Literacy Chapters 5 and 6

In regards to this assigned reading, I have to say that I liked the analogy of the "Tom Sawyer" reference. With talk and dialougue in the classroom, I was struck with how the author differentiated between dialougue and debate. I could see how some students could feel excluded by the win/lose aspect of debate. Although I feel that debate has its place in many classrooms, I can see that the teacher would have to establish clear expectations between what is debate and dialougue or discussion.
In chapter 6, I would like to respond to the example of "censorship or not." I felt that the first example with the mother not wanting only her child not to read the book is not censorship. Although I disagree with the mother (no matter what the circumstance), I feel that she has the right to monitor her child's reading and she is not wishing to infringe on the other student's educational experience. I feel that the other example is definitely censorship and it brings to mind the incident with "Beloved" at Eastern High School last year. I felt that all of this teacher's classes were shortchanged from a future canonical work because one parent misinterpreted one paragraph from a three-hundred page book.

Adolescent Literacry chapter 7

For this entry, I would not only respond to the chapter but also to the discussion of the chapter from the class session. First, I have to say that I am struck and a little awed by the variety of ways to teach vocabulary. I do think that we as teacher seem to compartmentalize our thinking in this area. One of the early readings suggested that content teachers create authenticity by encouraging students to think as historians, biologists, etc. By doing this, the vocabulary of the discipline could become more internalized for the students.

adolescent literacy chapters 4 & 15

When I read chapter 4, I was immediately struck by the gap between what we know students need and the current state of legislated curriculum. I was intrigued by Keene's term, "curriculum obsesity" because it is representative of the frustrations that I have heard from many teachers. With core content and programs of studies strictly enforcing what and when a subject will be taught, it is no wonder that teacher have frustration with feeling that they have to move on even when they feel that their classes have not learned a concept. Taking into consideration what Keene calls the "dimensions of understanding," much of which seemed very familiar to how I internalize learning, teachers simply do not have time with their obese curriculums for properly assess this level of learning. And if so, just how are teacher to assess deep learning under these conditions?

Adolescent Literacy chapter 10

When reading chapter 10 of the book, I was immediately struck by the focus on the literacy skills of what Burke calls, "common people." I started working in EMS in 1990, and prior to that, was a firefighter for a year. There are some skills that I was taught then that EMTs now would not even know of what I was speaking because of technological advances in the field has made some techniques obsolete. Using the above for an example, the literacy demands on the field have also evolved over the last 17 years. When I started, the forms for the ambulance runs where barely a page and mostly consisted of checkboxes. Over the years, the forms evolved into 2+ pages with a large sections for narrative description. Many services are also now moving into computer based documentation. My point is that all areas, even those for "common people," have increasing literacy demands and those demands are becoming more and more diverse as technology becomes more diverse.

adolescent literacy chap 1

In the reading of chapter 1 of the book, I have to agree with Beers' summations in the lackings in the NCLB legislation. While she defends the spirit of the legislation (and rightly so), the gaps in the law as it gets interpreted on the state level are astounding. Her example of the student, Derek, is a glaring example of how the states tend to get tunnel vision and some students still fall through the cracks.
I was also glad to see Beers description of how the schools were still set up as little factories with everyone working to a bell. Mainly, I was glad because it was clarification for me because I have been making the same statement for several years. I believe in creating opportunity and relevance for students and in doing so, we would have to make our schools look like and have more relevance to the world around us now.