Tier 1 "listen" "think" "fought" 

Tier 2 "steep" "soaring"  "wading"

Tier 3 "mesa" (plateau of land)  "hogan" "native american home" "corral" (animal enclosure) barranacas (ravine/gorge) 

I think the tier 3 words are the most important in this book. They are used frequently to describe the surroundings of the native Americans. Tompkins advocates that Tier 3 words shouldn't always be taught in the classroom because they generally have less application than Tier 2 words but I think they could be used together with a history lesson about Native Americans. I think these are important to teach because students would have no idea what these words meant. Students sometimes know tier 2 words. These tier 3 words would probably be new to everyone and they help to understand the book and Native Americans 

A lesson to help students learn these words would involve drawing and writing together. 

1) Teacher would already have the specialized tier 3 words picked out from the book. 

2) students would be assigned a set of words. (there would be multiple sets of words so that only a limited number of students would do each set) 

3) students would look up the definition of the tier 3 words and right them out. 

4) students would draw/sketch a picture or scenario that involves the word that is being learned

5) once the students have completed this they would get into groups and share (they would get into a group with other students who don't have the same set of words they did) 

6) once the students have shared then the teacher can select students to come share their drawings and definitions. 

7) (optional) hang up the drawings on the board during the reading time of the novel.

This lesson could be used for the entire book or for X amount of chapters. A set of words isn't strictly needed you could have each student do one word instead of a set of words. 

Video Response

Strengths:

Interacting with the students before the reading/sharing ideas 

Modeled how she wants the students to read and interact in the activity

She had the students follow along and listen first

Explained grammatical concepts/ punctuation marks

Weakness: 

It is difficult to pinpoint the students who struggle with reading

Might not have the same confidence when reading alone

Shared Reading

- Is pretty much similar to choral reading, but can be in smaller groups and work with different formats such as plays.


Strengths:
- Helps students practice reading using prosody
- Using a play, shows the difference between the format between a play and other readings,
- Having used a play, students tend to use more expression and inflection in their voice to convey meaning, which can help with comprehension
- Had the students reflect after reading to bring it together

Weakness':
- The pace of the reading could be going too fast for some of the students
- Can only work with certain types of things/plays or else it becomes more of a choral reading

New Literacy Blog Post

MY CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING:

At the very beginning of the class, I defined literacy as being able to read and write effectively. I was reminded that literacy now encompasses so much more. I learned about it in TE301 but it’s so easy to forget that literacy is a huge idea, involving communication, communication mediums, social networking and technology, etc.

I still like to define literacy using the definition I found for week 6: “the ability to make and communicate meaning from and by the use of socially contextual symbols.” Socially contextual symbols, meaning ways of communicating that hold meaning in a social context.

For example, geo-literacy is being able to use what we know about the world and its systems to make the best decisions we can think of for a situation; being literate in the context of world systems, understanding the information given to us through world patterns and systems and being able to convey information in response. Perhaps symbols in this case could be the information we get from learning about the world. It is in the context of geographic patterns.

When I think about each of the different types of literacy given for the project, I think that being literate in these (and all) areas simply means understanding what they involve. For example, from Julie and Justine’s project I learned that if you are emotionally literate, you understand internal emotions and how they can affect our relationships with others. By having this understanding, we can apply it and form and maintain better relationships. Being literate therefore involves being able to apply our understanding as well.

When it comes to English language arts, we can integrate all subject areas to communicate. English language arts are about communicating with others, not only through writing and reading. From my placement, I see that the first graders are just learning how to be effective communicators through reading and writing. This is definitely an important aspect of communication, but not the only one. The Reading Street program always gives students a “question of the week” which they discuss with the teacher. It may be about animals (science), family (social studies), plants (science), among others. These topics are always integrated into language arts through watching videos, listening to songs, having discussions, and answering questions by giving reasons for their thoughts. Students also read books and write about things related to the question of the week.

CLASSROOM IMPLICATIONS:

Providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners involves presenting students with a variety of access points to a given literacy. Everyone brings different experiences and aspects of culture to the classroom, including the teacher. We cannot expect everyone to take the same meaning from the same presentation, nor can we expect everyone to make the same meaning from the same project. I think giving students a variety of communication mediums through which to gain and apply information is vital to getting more students to learn.

The technologies presented in everyone's projects illustrate the ways in which we can bring technology into the classroom to keep students engaged and interested, no matter how different they are from one another. At my placement, all of the students do the same work, and everyone produces different levels of quality of work. Some are great, some are very poor. I think it would be fairer to allow students to apply what they know in a way of their choosing. Instead of having everyone write (which we know from course reading can be problematic for many reasons, including language barriers and ability), give them choices. Not only will this motivate students, but it will give multiple points of access to apply and present information in the best way they know how.

For my literacy lesson, I tried to incorporate different points of access for the assessment. I had students write, draw, and discuss as ways of gauging what they had learned. The students were expected to understand perspective (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.6 and CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.9), and they demonstrated their understanding through the assessment. There were elaborate and colorful pictures to either supplement or almost replace their written words.

Students definitely need explicit instruction in using new technology. It took me a while to get used to the technologies I used in this project, and I know there are still things to learn about them. They need support from a well-informed teacher. I would like to model for students the use of new technologies on the board and then (hopefully) give them technology time to practice. I think alongside the explicit instruction, students need to try it out themselves. In addition to modeling, I would love to incorporate many of the technologies I saw in my colleague’s projects in my everyday instruction. This will give students contextual understanding of the uses of the technologies as well as just get them acquainted with what it looks like to use the technologies effectively. Just like using word wall words throughout the week, using the technologies everyday will simply expose the students to technology and get them more familiar with it.

In order to develop geo-literacy, students need to see the connections between science, geography, the arts, humanities, technology, and health, among other things. They need to see and understand patterns between world systems and then they can apply that understanding to problem-solving. In my research and from watching the other presentations on geo-literacy, I have found that visual literacy is very important in developing geo-literacy. Students should be able to see what the world looks like in order to become more geo-literate. In Alexa, Tess, and Jess’s project, they talked about Google Earth as a “bridge” between these two literacies as it allows students to see the world up-close and far away, navigate the globe, and do research. I used the Flickr world map application to navigate the globe and look at pictures from all over. Students should also do supplemental research in order to make solid connections between what they see in pictures.

Geo-literacy can start small with comparing big cat habitats in the younger grades and work up to something heavier, such as water shortages or housing conditions in poor countries in the upper grades. Most importantly, students need to understand that the world is connected. If they can find connections, they can make rational decisions. It is important to show students what the world looks like and how different systems in the world can affect each other. I found that National Geographic online has great resources for supporting geo-literacy that I will likely use in my classroom. Just like with technology use, I would like to include geo-literacy through photos or other media daily, just to get students used to making connections and seeing the world. It can be integrated into any research project (like big cat habitats), it could be a discussion prompt (Where would you rather live, the city or the country? Why? [from Alexa’s group’s project]), or an exploration all on its own (Let’s see what the mountains look like in Nevada compared to mountains in Russia). Geo-literacy, cultural literacy, and environmental literacy are closely related as I demonstrated in my Venn diagram, but I found that geo-literacy is also related to political, visual, and social literacy as well. It encompasses world systems and can be demonstrated visually.

1) My understanding of literacy has changed in the sense that it has expanded. I now know that literacy isn't restricted to text/literature but over many different fields of study. Particularly regarding using technology. Being able to read and write is one thing but using technology to assist that is an entirely new literacy in its own right. Reading a book about the environment and using technology to learn about the environment are totally different things. With technology you not only just read you can watch videos, actually listen to an expert rather than read what they said. I think a strategy I am more aware of is using a website to fill in the blanks for students using multimedia. Using a website allows you to easily skip to a section the students don't know much about. It allows you to be more selective in choosing the material you want students to learn. Instead of assigning a reading on the atmosphere they can go online and not only read but watch animations, videos, audio commentary even play games.

My growth has gone from literacy that is restricted to text/books/writing to one that see literacy as more of a "competent in a specific area/topic". Everyone has their own literacies whether that be video games, sports, acting, drawing, specific jobs the list can go on and on in what people are competent in. It has made me realized in regards to language arts that it is all about putting the time in, the more you do something the better you become your brain picks up on certain things and you are able to connect them to form a compete picture. LA is the same exact way students need to be exposed to the whole spectrum of what literature is, books, magazines, poems, journals, online text, comic books. Understanding the many parts of a subject/content area allows you to complete a whole picture. I didn't really grasp this idea at the beginning of our class and now I have a better understanding of it.

2) Providing effective literacy instruction requires a teacher to show the student the many aspects of a particular literacy. Whether that be with text, games, audio instruction, show and tell, reading, assignments, videos anything to get the point across to students.

My new literacy and technology has helped me see this. I did environmental literacy, in order to understand the environment you need to be aware of many different ideas and concepts, living organisms, weather, water, climate, physics, the elements and so on. This is the same thing for students when understanding anything, nothing that is learned in schools is straight forward and one dimensional students need to be exposed to multiple ideas and concepts in a variety of ways in order to build a solid understanding of anything. In the case for digital literacy students need to be exposed to multiple computers and the many programs that are on them. They need to be exposed to electronics in every way, using a projector, turning on a radio, using a game console and every different type of electronic in between helps to develop digital literacy.

In order for students to understand my literacy they need to be exposed to every different type of science imaginable. Physics, geology, geography, chemistry, weather, climate, astronomy all of these fields of study provide support for understanding the environment.

New Literacy Project

• My  conceptual understanding of literacy hasn't necessarily changed  since the beginning of this class (given in a WRA class I took we focused a lot on literacy and what it meant to be literate in all forms), but I have definitely deepened my understanding of just how many "literacy's" there are and how they are all interconnected. Before  this project I tended to think about literacy as one big idea, when in reality, literacy covers way more areas than just knowing how and being able to read and write. I realized that through every area that you can be "literate" in, there are a different set of "rules" that will deem you literate within each category. For example what a person needs to have/demonstrate/understand to have strong emotional literacy is far different from visual literacy. The commonality or overarching theme I found between all of the literacy's was this idea or basis  of comprehension or understanding. 
• Although what it means to be literate depends on a specific area of literacy (emotional, visual, geo..etc), I learned there are many digital technologies out there that can incorporate multiple literacy's and build upon them. Something I learned specifically about digital literacy's that was explored was that these new technologies such as prezi, google earth, etc, take time to learn how to work with. The capabilities of most of these digital technologies, and the amount of information that you can gather, show and create from are endless. But it does take a while to learn your way around the new digital technology. In comparison to  traditional literacy's, I think that if known how to use properly, these digital technologies are far superior to the traditional methods on the sheer fact of amount of information teachers are able let the students explore.  Looking specifically at the new technology our group used, Google Earth, I learned far more than I thought about the different functions, and the implications of these functions that could be used in  teaching. No longer will I see Google earth as just a means to find my house. There are premade lessons and tours that other teachers have made available to use, and there is also a way to create your own tour. Basically the functions of Google Earth allow you to utilize it for whatever purpose you choose it to. For example I learned a lot more about the "filters" you can look through on Google Earth. You can look at pictures people took places, specific foundations and what those foundations are doing in locations, there are tons of valuable information through out Google earth, as I said prior, you just have to take the time to find it.   One of the most interesting things I found using Google Earth were lesson plans and tours that followed specific book routes. For example there was one dealing with "The Watsons' Go to Birmingham" that showed the route and asked questions at each of the stops and specific landmarks in the book. This not only elaborates on students "traditional literacy" but also builds upon this using the digital technology focusing in on such areas as visual literacy and geo literacy.  The only problem that we had with our digital technology was there were issues with being able to share tours.
• Based upon my understanding of literacy, " Effective literacy instruction" to diverse learners  means being able to recognize that there are so many different areas of "literacy". As teachers we want to learn ways to incorporate as many of these literacy's into  our lessons, so that we are not only teaching students how to read and write, but provide them with the ability to "comprehend" and make sense of their world around them. By spending the time engaging in new digital literacy and technologies I broadened my abilities and the types of lessons and activities that I am able to use within my own classroom one day.  This project has shown me that in order to develop digital literacy, you have to be exposed and explore in it in order to "figure it out" and actually use it.  By using programs such as Google Earth, students can build upon their visual literacy and "read" the pictures and places around Google earth to make meaning about the world around them. Students can also investigate human/environmental interactions and make sense of what factors impact our environment and our lives. 

New Literacy

I'm finding that Flickr could have issues being used in a classroom. Depending on what you search for, there can be inappropriate pictures come up. Even innocent searches could be ruined by people putting bad pictures up and giving them innocent, unrelated search tags. Even on the homepage before you search, there are pictures up that can be questionable. I would be afraid that students would click on these pictures and just mess around instead of doing their work, and see things that we as teachers could hear about later from parents or the kids themselves. I don't want to give my students a project that could make anyone uncomfortable or at risk of seeing something they shouldn't. However, this could be used as an opportunity to discuss appropriate internet use and tell kids to be aware of what they are searching and looking at. Hopefully the school's network would be able to filter this inappropriate content out, but if the students worked on their projects at home, there may not be the same kind of content filter and they could see inappropriate things. I think this could be a really amazing technology if it were strictly photography of aspects of other cultures, even including everyday things like pictures of classrooms in other countries. But unfortunately anyone can post pretty much any photo on this website.

Book Club Thoughts

The book Sing Down the Moon reminds me of a book I read in middle school about a Spanish girl fleeing to America. It dealt with the issues of moving away from something you know and grew up with. This book seems like it will deal with just that. I really enjoy reading about the perspective of people and how they adapt to their new surroundings. The issue of the birth of America seems to be a main idea and it is was one that I also like to learn about. Figuring out what the immigrants did to the native people is interesting and it helps me keep my thoughts in check about what America is. It doesn't just belong to one group of people it is a conglomeration. I am most excited to learn about the things the Native Americans had to go through and how much they had to deal with. Their lives were forcefully taken away from them and I am anxious to learn more about what happened in the past.

I like the resources a lot. It gives a scary look into what happened in the past.

Sing Down the Moon resources

I want to read this book because I read books in TE348 and 448 about Native Americans and those are pretty much the only books I've ever read about the culture. I also like the history aspect of it. This book is centered around a major event in American history: the Navajo Removal during the Civil War. From the resources, I'm finding that this was a very cruel act. The Navajos were basically forced onto a reservation because the crops were burned by the movement's leader, Col. Kit Carson, and living on the reservation was their only chance for survival. I feel like we don't learn enough about Native Americans and their struggles in public schools. And especially since the Civil War was such an important event in history, I'd like to get some context about what else was going on at the time that we don't really learn about. I think a more interesting and relatable way to learn about this event would be to read a book or poem on it because we can find ways to connect with the characters and put ourselves in their position. I think this would be more effective at teaching culture and humility than reading about it in a history book where the information would be limited and not personal.

Book Club

We chose Sing Down the Moon as our book, I didn't really have an opinion on the book that we should do so we just chose this one. After looking into more about the book and the resources on the bookclub website I realize I have little to no knowledge about this topic. I guess I knew there were Indian Reservations but never really questioned why or what or how it happened. This book gives a glimpse into the point of view of the native american's who had to go on these "long walks" when they were forced to by the settlers. This will be a good book for the book club because its something new to learn on top of a book I have not read before.

Literacy Project

An important idea I have come across is that geography is a huge part of environmental literacy. Initially when you think of environmental literacy you imagine the water cycle, pollution, different biomes, water, air , land. However their is another important aspect, the human impact. We live in a world that has been dramatically altered by human activity on every single continent. Human activity causes influxes in populations of different organisms, they can cause pollution that is detrimental to the biological life in the surrounding environmental and to people themselves. Human Impact is one of the major aspects of environmental literacy and one that I hope to really highlight

Another important idea is in the interconnected aspect of the world. I am planning on including 3 pages, land, air and water to my project. All of these parts of the world directly and significantly influence one another. They are so influential on each other that the concept of land/earth, water and air are only there to make understanding the world easier. Water is part of land and the air.

A part of environmental literacy that I have found challenging is the vocabulary. There are a vast amount of scientific words that need to be understood when discussing the environment  Which in my opinion makes environmental literacy all the harder to learn. being able to distinguish different soil types, the layers of the atmosphere, the water cycle, the periodic table of elements and the animal kingdom is no easy task let alone understand how they all affect one another.