Frustration with Literacy in Classrooms

            After reading the three passages by Thomas, Karon Cadeiro-Kaplan, and the NCTE, I couldn’t help but reflect on what I agree and disagree with about literacy in schools today. The idea of progressive literacy seems like an ideology that is forgotten in schools today. Caderio-Kaplan and Thomas both discuss the importance of recognizing students as individuals. Progressive literacy seems to focus on and remember that students learn in different ways and that no two students are the same. Thomas notes that we seem to forget this and value students by their skills or failures.

            After looking at the NCTE website, I noticed that many key notes recognize that students need to learn to read and write, but teaching writing may vary depending on your group of students. They noted that students will be writing for many different settings, have access to different writing medias, and will be at different literacy levels. To teach all students the same way and as if they all need the same material seems careless. Progressive literacy seems to address this and notes the fact that students have many reasons to read and write, essays aren’t the only reason.

            If a class is based off of one level of learning and one style of learning, a class will come along where the students class with the lessons and the students become disinterested in learning. If students are not interested in the learning or feel it will have no impact on them later in life, little effort will be put into they work they are assigned. As teachers we need to make sure the classroom is productive and that the lessons target all students rather than a select few. Students today are growing up in a society where technology is becoming dominant, they need to learn not only how to do work through it, but how to write for the different platforms offered to them. Though it is not the “formal” essay writing that we value in schools, it is more something that will be important to students later in life. By using these different mediums of writing a teacher could catch the student’s attention enough to teach multiple lessons at once.

            I had so many thoughts about our readings that it became overwhelming. With so many forms of literacy in the world and so many different learning levels, it becomes terrifying to think that soon we will need to create our own lesson plans that can apply to so many students. Finding a place to start seems difficult now. I can’t help but wonder if there is “one way” of teaching a lesson that needs minimal changes hat will fit all or most students. 

(I'm sorry if I talked in circles, I found myself having more questions then answers after this reading.)

Writing Without Instruction

            When I read chapter one of Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher, he listed ten things that are done wrong within secondary schools today. In the list, item number two stated that “writing is sometimes assigned rather than taught” within classrooms today (Gallagher, 11). He goes on to explain that teachers seem to assume that students can write and there for assign writing assignments that the students may not have been taught to do.

            This stood out to be because I have seen how this can change the course of a student’s education. When I entered college, I was in a class where we had to write an opinion essay for a history class. I went on to write the paper and did well on it, but most of the class had to do re-writes and take part in a lesson on how to write an opinion essay. You would think that students at this level would be able to write an opinion essay and understand the components of it, but you could see the frustration in my professor when he had to explain the basic steps of creating a thesis statement and argument to a paper.

            When I was in high school, we were taught how to write essays through basic steps. First we were given the characteristics of the essay. We were told how to identify who the audience was in another paper and how to identify the thesis and central argument. Second, we would read numerous example essays and practice identifying the different characteristics of it to find the works purpose. My teachers would give us a wide range of writer’s works so we weren’t limited to just one person’s style of writing. Third, we would practice writing essays on our own and peer-edit our work so we could be sure that we were ready for our final essay. This step could take a few weeks if needed so students were given the chance to succeed.  The fourth and final step was to write a final essay in which we showed our mastery skills of writing essays and try to demonstrate our understanding of our topic and writing methods.

            This approach seemed very effective within the classroom. Students were given the support they needed in order to succeed, but were also given choices and freedom as to the topic they wrote about. This method also supplies solutions to many issues that Gallagher noted in his essay such as not doing enough writing, prior knowledge and interests students, and having students do most of the work.

            It is hard to imagine that schools are being so passive of the needs of the students and the understanding that they need more support and understanding of the topics at hand. I agree with Gallagher that more attention should be placed on teaching writing material rather than strictly assign it. Nothing will be gained from writing without instruction.