Writing, Writing, and more Writing

I would like to think of myself as a writer. I am always writing something be it text message, email, facebook status, journal entry, blog, or homework assignment. One of the ways I like to express what I am thinking is by writing a poem (not always one that rhymes), writing in my journal/scrapbooking, or sketching. I have never really been a fan of five paragraph essays (or essays in general) and therefore try to avoid them if I can. In fact, I even transferred out of a history class once because there were so many papers that we had to write for the class. Now I wish I had stayed in it. As a kid, I used to write fairytales, and in fact, I didn't stop doing that until I was in high school. Writing down ideas and stories from a different place were just another way for me to be somewhere other than where I was (like my reading). I loved having to write short stories in school. It was when we no longer go to have fun with our writing that I started to dislike academic writing--so about seventh grade. Still to this day, I enjoy different types of writing in classes be it poems, journals, stories, etc. I felt like I could be more of myself and let my creativity show this way than when I had to write a five paragraph persuasive essay. I will try to keep my students away from five paragraph essays in my class. They will explore different types of writing in my class. I also feel that students can be more creative when allowed to write a different way. I have really enjoyed writing this blog and think that it is a beneficial way to get down what you are thinking. Students today speak and think differently than even kids of my generation. They speak their texts and emails. I feel that I can give them the opportunity to express themselves in new ways. I remember helping my brother with an essay for an English class and reading through his paper I could clearly see facebook speak. Wouldn't it be fun to have students explore famous peoples' points of view or take sides of an issue using facebook? Or creating a dialogue for an assignment like they were sending texts back and forth? What about journals, reflections, and poems about the students and their learning? This is not to say that I won't teach my students conventional academic writing because that is very important, but I do feel that students will enjoy this type of writing more when they are given opportunity to write in the way they do best in other instances.

According to the teachers . . .

I think that it is a great opportunity to interview people who have been involved with teaching literacy in your content area because I have not had the experience of doing it myself, other than being a student observing that side of literacy. I interviewed Ms. Morgan, a current high school teacher, Spencer Clark, a college professor, and Laura Taylor/David Mortensen, a middle school teacher. (Ms. Taylor hasn’t gotten back to me yet so I also sent the questions to Mr. Mortensen.) I asked these questions (some of them were slightly different for each teacher because we did them as a group but this was the general idea):

·         How do you define literacy in social studies? What does it look like in social studies?

·         What opportunities do you have in place in your curriculum/classroom to reinforce or teach literacy skills in social studies?

·         What Challenges have you faced with incorporating literacy in the classroom?

·         How is literacy unique in social studies?

·         How is literacy in social studies different when compared to other content areas?
How does literacy look different in your classroom as compared to other social studies teachers?

·         What is your favorite form of literacy to use in your classrooms? Your least favorite form?

·         What are the differences in literacy teaching for your high school students different than your literacy learning?

·         What struggles do students have in literacy (both generally and in social studies) that you are concerned with?

·         How have literacy demands changed in education since you started teaching? (ie. testing environment)

·         What advice would you have for me as a future teacher in regards to literacy?

My overall impression is that social studies teachers believe that literacy is an integral part of what we do in social studies. Spencer stated that social studies teachers are required to teach students about democratic processes and the only way we can do this is to teach students about multiple perspectives and modalities of literacy be it reading numbers, speaking intelligently about issues and so on. Ms. Morgan stated that it is at the heart of social studies to teach cultural and critical literacy, to understand what is going on in the world and thinking critically about what we read and write. Some ways teachers can use literacy in the classroom and help reinforce literacy skills are to read out loud, teach vocabulary, conduct research assignments, participate in debates, and to get students involved in all sorts of different types of literacy be it graphic novels, primary documents, maps, journals, pictures, or speaking and writing. In regards to difficulties incorporating literacy in the classroom, Ms. Morgan says that is not the problem: “Taking the time to make sure all students are reading and writing is another thing!” The difficulty comes in making sure you are creating meaningful lesson plans and assessments that correctly evaluate how well students are doing in creating their literacy. Others have stated that the differing levels of student literacy identities are where the difficulty in incorporating literacy lies. Literacy has changed over the years in social studies in that more types of texts are being incorporated, interpreted, and widely used as valuable resources. Inquiry and research-based projects with multiple perspectives have been a big shift in social studies literacy. The advice given in regards to using literacy in the classroom is to provide as many different texts and narratives as is feasible possible. “Try to spark their interest and give them as many perspectives on a topic as you can. Get them thinking critically, beyond the main narrative that is always mentioned in classrooms.” (Spencer). Ms Morgan states: “Have students write to think and express themselves, ‘read to learn’, and teach vocabulary.  For debates, research and writing position papers encourages students to look at both sides of an issue.  Use primary sources written, visual, auditory (music or film) or artifacts.  Have students analyze and write about them.  Use books to show ideas, events or even as object lessons.  Using the text book is also a literacy tool.” I have learned a great deal about what I can do in my classroom to implement literacy on a whole new scale.