Eight Principles of Literacy Instruction

Review the eight principles of literacy instruction and analyze the lesson plan you created for the activity presentation. Which principles apply to your lesson? Explicate your rationale by illustrating the principles that relate to key aspect(s) of your lesson.

After analyzing the lesson plan I created for my presentation, I found that the following principles of literacy instruction apply to it:

• 1. Focus on complex, meaningful questions and problems so that students' reading and writing can be in service of genuine inquiry.
• 2. Embed basic skills instruction in the context of more global tasks, such as including reading comprehension and composing skills in introductory reading and writing activities or instruction.
• 4. Model powerful thinking strategies for students.
• 5. Encourage students to use mutliple approaches to academic tasks and have students describe their answers aloud to the class so that all students hear different ways to solve the same problem.

The questions I ask require students to utilize their ability to analyze events, and form their own conclusions about these events. The lesson plan enables students to comprehend readings and reflect in their writings. They have to think critically about the event at hand, and depict their opinion through creative tactics (example: creating a comic). By using these literacy intructions when creating a lesson plan, a teacher will be able to create a lesson and instruct the class in a way that is meaningful for the students.

Concept Resources

Create a list of all the resources you can find related to one particular concept you might teach. Be sure to search especially for materials that represent a diverse range of cultures, ethnicities and genders.

One concept that I might teach as a history educator would be World War II. Listed below are some resources that I would utilize when instructing a class on this world war:

• http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/aframerwar/index.html - a website that discusses the role that African-Americans played during the war.
• National Geographic's WWII Collection - this is a series of films that explore the Battle of Midway, and Pearl Harbor, amongst others.
• http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html - website that explains that treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and the use of camps, conditions, etc.
• http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001288.html - this website lists the events that occurred during the years of WWII in chronological order.
• http://womenshistory.about.com/od/warwwii/a/overview.htm - this website explains the role women played in WWII. While men went off to war, women took their husbands' places in the workplace.

There are endless resources related to this topic, and each one represents a diverse range of cultures, ethnicities and genders. My list could go on and on and on. I end it here because different cultures, ethnicities and genders are all represented.

Instructional Strategies

List the instructional strategies that you intend to implement in your final unit plan of five sequential lessons.

There are quite a few of instructional strategies that I plan to use when creating my unit plan. First of all, for preparation I plan on using interactive discussions, mapping activities and possibly graphic organizers. Then, for guidance, I will implement journals, writing, graphic organizers and mapping, and connection questions for my students. Finally, for independence, I will use interactive discussions, and reflective writing. I am very eager to plan this unit, but I do fear that I will plan too much for only a 40-50 minute class period. However, hopefully, by utilizing these strategies, I will be able to plan critical as well as meaningful lessons.

Critical Reading vs. Critical Literacy

How do the two concepts, critical readings vs. critical literacy, relate to your own content area? How might teachers in your content area incorporate the two concepts? Does it make sense to do so? Why or why not?

The concepts of critical reading and critical literacy, I believe, relate a great deal to the study of history. When studying history, one needs to critically read, to be able to "separate facts, inferences and judgements" (page 173). Students would have to be able to tell if a text contains facts, and be able to note these facts with a high level of thinking. They would have to understand these facts and be able to comprehend them. Critical literacy is also related to history in the sense that there are instances when the students have to "question the authority of the text through dialogue" (page 173). They would have to be able to take a text, and critically think about the concepts within it, perhaps even come up with alternative views.
A teacher could implement these two concepts, for example, take the Civil War. Most people know it was a war fought between the North and the South. Well, to go further into a critical reading of a Civil War text, we can see that it was a war between the North and the South, neighbor vs. neighbors, even brother vs. brother. To use critical literacy, would be to examine the reasons for this war. Was this a war started because the Southern states feared that slavery would be abolished, or were they fighting for their rights as Americans? It does make sense to incorporate both concepts because, as a teacher, one would have to think rationally, but also acknowledge that alternative view.

Benjamin Bloom

1. Who was Benjamin Bloom?
2. Explicate reasons his research may or may not have made a significant contribution to literacy instruction and practice as you now understand it.
3. In your own words, illustrate how Bloom's Taxonomy might aid your own ability as a teacher to develop effective questioning techniques in your prepared lessons. (Give one or two examples of such questions in your response.)

Benjamin Bloom was an educational psychologist. He proposed that any given task utilized one of three psychological domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Cognitive being one's ability to "process information in a meaningful way;" affective being "attitudes or feelings that result from a learning experience;" and psychomotor which is physically manipulating a tool. Bloom concentrated on mastery learning, his talent development model and Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (in the cognitive domain).
I feel that his research contributed to literacy instruction and practice. His hierarchical graph of the taxonomy of educational objectives is something that can be and should be used when teaching. It helps "pave the way" for teachers to know how to get information across to their students, but then increasing the intensity as they get further. We start at basic knowledge; what do we know about the topic? Then move onto comprehension; how can we compare it to other information attained? Next would be application; can we solve this problem using this technique? Moving on would be analysis; how can we classify our newly attained information? Then we would touch on synthesis; after combining this information with other information that we received, can we predict what will happen? Finally, evaluation; Do you agree with this information and how can you defend your opinion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bloom)? This process makes learning meaningful, not just getting information. We get the information, but then, by asking questions like those above, we have the ability to get a full meaning out of any bit of information. We have the technique and possibility to tap into the students and have them understand and think critically about things on their own.
I kind of answered the third question in the above paragraph. But, Bloom's Taxonomy would be very helpful when developing effective questioning. For example, if I were creating history questions about the Revolutionary War I would start off by asking my students, what were the events leading up to the outbreak of the war? After they got this information I would move onto comprehension; how and why did these events cause so much tension between England and the colonies? I would continue with Bloom's Taxonomy until the very end, creating questions to enable my students to understand and get a meaningful experience out of the lesson. I would end with the evaluation question: Do you agree with the patriots or the loyalists?
I feel that Bloom's Taxonomy as a guide will really help me when I begin creating lesson plans and questioning techniques.

Power Issues in the Teaching and Learning Context

How do questions of audience, voice, power, and evaluation actively work to construct particular relations between teachers and students, institutions and society, and classrooms and communities? (Are there power relations inherent in the content being taught? Are there power relations inherent in the ways in which content is being taught?)

In the framework for literary instruction that was created in class, we saw that teachers, students, content area skills and literary skills are all interconnected. Each one contributes a great deal to making students create meaning of their education. Students act as the audience when educators convey their lesson, but it is the power that both the students and teachers have that enables a message to be brought about. Students are no longer expected to just sit and absorb information, rather they should be expected to voice their opinions and create that “meaning” that makes their education a meaningful one.

Alternate Activity

In class today, we were given a quiz which was based on last night's reading. Create an alternate activity to use in place of a quiz that could properly facilitate effective literacy.

Last semester, I learned of many different activities that would tap into the minds of students and really get them to make meaning of an assigned reading. There is one specific activity that I believe would be an adequate substitute for giving a quiz. The activity would be performed as follows:
1. The teacher chooses specific quotes from throughout the reading and posts them on a large piece of poster board.
2. Then, the poster boards would be hung at various locations around the room.
3. Split the class up in to groups of about 4 or 5 and put each group at a different quote.
4. The students will then be given a couple of minutes (approximately 5 minutes) to read over the quote, discuss it with their group and write comments and/or questions around the quote.
5. After the allotted time is up, the groups will move to the next quote and do the same thing.
6. Once each group has visited all the quotes, and commented on them, they will return to their first quote to see what others have written, and what others thought.
7. Finally, the groups will come back to form one large group and each quote will be discussed by all of the students together to form one large, final discussion.