Blog 4

While reading chapter 2, in Creating Literacy-Rich Schools for Adolescents, I was amazed to learn about the progress of a freshman in high school named Abdurashid.  Abdurashid came to the United States from Ethiopia in the 9th grade.  He spoke 4 different languages, none of them were English.  By his senior year, Abdurashid was passing AP exams (including English) and was accepted into the University of CA at San Diego to study premedicine.  In less than 4 years Abdurashid was able to not only learn the English language, but to completely flourish in America. 

I am so glad I read this chapter because it showed me that things like these are completely accomplishable if we approach them in an effective way.  This chapter gave me great insight into creating a rich literacy environment in my classroom.  I plan to use many, if not all, of the techniques I learned in this chapter.  I think these techniques will especially be beneficial for me working with Special Education students.  They, like Abdurashid, will have struggles learning English literacy, but with the proper instruction we can make big strides. 

One of the techniques, given by the book, is to have all classes use the same notes template.  I can see this being beneficial in so many ways.  Notes are very important for students to identify the main ideas/topics.  If teachers teach the students an effective template, and use it across all classes, students will be able to take more efficient notes and keep them organized.  I often had teachers try to teach us how to use Cornell Notes in school, but none of them enforced them.  Personally, I think enforcing good notes will definitely help students down the road.  In college, sitting in meetings, etc. it is important to be able to take notes AND be able to go back and understand them.  If schools taught students a schoolwide notetaking system, students could better prepare for the future...tests, jobs, etc.

Another technique I see as being beneficial is to have beginning class work; at my high school we called this bell work.  Everyday students would come into EVERY class and there would be a prompt/assignment on the board.  This assignment took no longer than 10 minutes, but allowed students to introduce themselves with the topic of the day or refresh on yesterday's topic.  Then after bell work the teachers would extend on the lesson.  The book also noted that it is a good idea to have some form of exit slip at the end of the day.  This gives students reflextion time on the material they learned that day.  Both of these techniques are very beneficial because it is promoting repetition of the material.  It is also adding reading/writing into every subject!  The book gave so many great activities that teachers can use for these exercises: vocabulary instruction, graphic organizers, anticipatory guides...

This chapter has given me so many great ideas to promote literacy in my classroom.  By using the different techniques in the book I am hitting 2 birds with one stone.  My students will be practicing their literacy AND the subject matter I am teaching.  I truly believe if teachers use some of these techniques we may see more students flourish like Abdurashid did!

After I read this chapter I came up with one main question...
1. How does a student like Abdurashid pick up so quickly on a foreign language, yet others struggle to become literate in one?