CSLP Reflection

The presentation of my comprehension strategy went pretty smoothly. It helped that I had the opportunity to sit down with a Spanish teacher in my school for feedback and helpful hints on what I should be preparing my students for. She told me that we assess students on reading, writing, listening and speaking, and need to teach them comprehension strategies that reach all of these areas. The activity I chose gave students the opportunity to practice each area.

Reading - Students read the paragraph "Las haciendas de Maricela" and highlight the chores they see listed. They also star chores that Maricela does. 

Writing - Students answer the questions written beneath the paragraph.

Listening - Students ask their partners "¿Que tienes que hacer en la cocina?"

Speaking - Students ask and answer the question listed above and present the chores of their partners to the class.

I felt a little nervous to give the presentation, but found that when I used scaffolding to introduce the activity our classmates were able to follow along and complete the activity. Even people that didn't speak spanish could do it!

If I was to present this lesson again, I would find a more engaging way to introduce the vocabulary. I would also do a bThis could have been a good opportunity to show students that everyone makes mistakes and it is ok to do so by showing them the mistakes and having them correct them. All things to think about. 

This activity would be good for any content area when introducing new vocabulary. Science comes to mind for this because there are a lot of words that are difficult to understand and remember. Giving students a text and having them highlight the new vocabulary would cause them to read the words and give context to the meaning at the same time. Listening to other classmate's presentations has helped me to add strategies to my teacher tool belt and I am excited to implement these comprehension strategies in my Spanish classroom. 

Learning with New Literacies

Why is learning with new literacies essential for students?

New literacies are ways of thinking about how reading and writing and using language, including visually, have changed as a result of new technologies. Basically, "new literacies" are ways of reading and writing that are new because of new tools (like email, texting, twitter, web pages, etc) and new practices (texting, blogging, creating digital video). These practices are new because they let us do things that are different than we could do before. (patersonschools.pbworks.com)

Chapter 2 of Content Area Reading (Vacca and Vacca) helps us to expand the definition of literacy. Literacy is not solely having the ability to read and write on paper, but is expanding to multi sources of media. Think about how many things we read on a daily basis; text messages, emails, websites, etc. We need to teach our students to be literate in all of these.  It is essential for our students that we link in-school and out-of-school literacies. We should be using new literacies to help teach  our content standards. 

How can I use new literacies in my future Spanish classroom?

• Thinking and learning in multimodal environments 
• Hypertexts and Hypermedia
• Learn how to evaluate websites
• teach students how to evaluate which websites have accurate information - show them how to maneuver websites
• Use Blogs, Wikis, and Nings - use this for reflective writing
• Learn with the internet - allow students to use the internet as a resource for
• Motivation
• Information
• Communication

The internet has so many opportunities for learning in a Spanish classroom. The idea that I am most excited about is connecting with a class from abroad (native Spanish speakers). I plan to have am internet pal for each of my students, and we can plan a time to go online and have them instant message each other. After a certain amount of time messaging each other, we can have them virtually meet through Skype. How exciting!

New technology is constantly developing, and I hate to say it but our students know how to use much of this technology more than we do. Using this technology as a learning tool will help our students to be engaged and motivated which will lead to a deeper understanding and fewer behavior problems :)

Below is a link to a website (the same website I quoted above) that offers more links to help us explore new literacies in different ways.

http://patersonschools.pbworks.com/w/page/24236781/New%20Literacies%20in%20the%20Classroom

Public Writing and Writing for Tests and Assessments

Chapter 5 of Content Area Reading (Vacca and Vacca) teaches us about public writing in our content areas.

Public writing differs from Writing to Learn activities in that students need to focus on grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. to make sure that it is ready for an audience to read. Much like public speaking, public writing takes practice. It is important that we give our students the a belt full of tools so that they feel ready and confident to produce writing meant for the public.

When we encourage our students to partake in Write to Learn Activities, we tell them not to worry too much about grammar and spelling, just to let their thoughts out. For this and other reasons it is important that we provide examples of public writing that relates to the assignment we give. We should also provide very clear rubrics so that our students know what we expect of their writing.

This website below shows good examples of public and professional writing.
http://www.pitt.edu/~ppw/examples.html





There are many limitations for students' writing in the tests and assessments that are administered today. Chapter 10 of Content Area Writing (Daniels, Zemelmen, and Steinke) tells us that tests only look at one moment in time. There is no way to see how a student has progressed through the unit we are testing on. The answer to the essay could either be what the student learned throughout the unit, or it could be prior knowledge that they already had.

Another limitation is the way we have taught students to write, strictly for a grade. We need to be teaching students to write with the purpose of persuading or inspiring. Working in a middle school I have noticed some transitioning into writing persuasive essays, but this is strictly for assignments and not for tests. I would like to see this taken to the next level and shifted into our assessments. This would cause students to think deeper and would help teachers assess what the students have learned.

Students are often only given one chance to write their answer, and there is generally a time frame. This could cause anxiety on students and get in the way of them showing their best work. It also causes them to only do the bare minimum and hinders elaboration.

Below are some ideas given in our text as to how we as educators can offer writing assessments that will prove to be more beneficial for both our students and ourselves.

1. Offer choices
2. Allow more time - perhaps allow students to take essays home to do
3. Allow more than one chance - allow students to make corrections and re-do. This will prove to be a great learning opportunity
4. Create rubrics that are clear, yet non-constricting - leave room for students to be creative
5. Make writing prompts that are more open ended
6. Have themes and prompts be relevant to your students

There is much to think about when it comes to creating writing based assessments. Below is a link to a website that may be useful in helping you to find prompts for student writing

http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/514

Developing Vocabulary and Concepts in my Content Area

         Chapter 8 of Content Area Reading helps us gain understanding as to why the language of an academic discipline should be taught within the context of concept development, and how we as teachers can activate what students know about words and help them to make connections among related words. The parts that I found most useful and interesting in this chapter are the use of graphic organizers, activating what students know about words, and reinforcing and extending vocabulary knowledge and concepts.

         This chapter gives us tips to effectively using graphic organizers in the classroom. We should evaluate the organizer, introduce students to the learning task by showing them the scheme, relate new information to the organizer where it seems appropriate. It is important to be consistent when implementing graphic organizers, and use them to coherently depict relationships among concepts. In my future Spanish classroom, I plan to use graphic organizers as a tool to help connect different stages of my lessons/units. 

O      Our text also offers many strategies to activate what students already know about words, which will help them to understand new concepts and connections that we are trying to introduce. We can use word exploration, brainstorming, word sorts, knowledge rating, and list-group-label/ list-group-label-write. It also gives us tools to help our students reinforce and extend vocabulary knowledge and concepts. We can use semantic feature analysis, characterization activities, concept circles, and context-and definition- related activities for this. 

         Developing vocabulary and concepts is essential for student learning. Before we can introduce new topics and ideas, we must ensure that all of our students fully understand the vocabulary that is involved. I plan to use many of the strategies from our text to ensure that my future students are ready to dive into our lessons.

C

W

T

Culturally Responsive Teaching

How can understanding students from different backgrounds help us to grow as educators?

Chapter 3 of Content Area Reading by Vacca and Vacca helps us to understand how it feels to be different in a traditional classroom setting, develop strategies to teach in a diverse student population, and to look to student difference as a resource and learn how individuals in a diverse classroom can benefit the instruction of ALL students.

Through this chapter of our text we are give four different multicultural instructional approaches:

Contributions Approach - Reflects the surface level of culture (celebrating holidays etc). This approach is not very in-depth and does not touch on more profound cultural elements.

Additive Approach -  In this approach the curriculum remains mainly unchanged. When investigating a topic, this approach investigates multiple perspectives such as looking at a historical even from a different cultural viewpoint.

Transformative Approach -  Examining cultural differences drives instruction. Understanding concepts, events, issues, and perspectives is key to learning the content.

Decision-Making/Social Action Approach - This approach is designed to engage students in an activity or project that encourages and promotes students to learn more about multicultural issues and evaluate. It also encourages students to take action on conclusions in the interest of social justice.

Upon reading this chapter, I am determined to make every effort to incorporate both the transformative and Decision-Making/Social Action Approach in my future classroom. The final approach I mentioned will promote a deeper thinking while encouraging them to be active citizens.

Some of the tools that I took learned from this chapter that will help me to create a culturally responsive classroom include but are not limited to:

• Setting appropriately high expectations for all students
• Building positive relationships with families and community
• Employing active teaching methods capable of involving ALL students
• Transitioning of teacher to facilitator of learning
• Turning over control of portions of the lessons to students
• Revolving instruction around students working in groups and pairs

The district that I work in has a mission statement that emphasizes the overall success of ALL students. 

"To inspire and prepare ALL students with the confidence, courage, and competence to achieve their dreams; contribute to community; and engage in a lifetime of learning.

None of this would be possible without creating a culturally responsive classroom and school environment. 

Mini-Lesson Demonstration Reflection

The Write to Learn Activity that I demonstrated was Admit/Exit slips. In preparation for this demonstration I chose a learning objective that I knew I would easily be able to teach and assess student learning. The learning objective that I selected was 

"I can listen to commands in Spanish and perform the commands correctly".

In order to acquire a deeper understanding of both Admit and Exit slips, I chose to demonstrate both. I created a half sheet (in bright green of course ) that promoted activation of prior knowledge and helped me to determine if the class was ready to move on or not. I focused on different vocabulary words that students would need to know in order to take it to the next level and listen to them in a command. On one side of the half sheet I created a matching activity where students were asked to draw a line from the Spanish vocabulary to the correct definition in English. On the other half side of the Admit half sheet I wrote three prompts for students to finish. 

1.) Some of the vocabulary words that I struggles with are .......

2.) Some of the vocabulary words I feel very good about are .....

3.) One way that I could study my vocabulary words to better understand them is .... 

I also created an Exit Slip. This was a full bright yellow sheet of paper that I made to have students fill out during the last 5 minutes of class. This Exit Slip began with stating the learning objective for the day so that students would be reminded of what they were trying to accomplish in this day's lesson, and would be able to self-assess their learning. Below the learning objective were two questions for the students to answer:

1.) ?Que hiciste hoy? (List what you learned, did, had trouble with, or enjoyed today?

2.) How could you use today's lesson/learning in real life?

I used the first question for me to understand where each individual student was at and which students may be need a little extra support. This information could also help me to create groups/partners. The second question was written to help students create relevance to real-life situations, which we know builds upon engagement. 

I thought the Admit slip went well. I had the class fill it out and then compare with a partner. After that we all went over the answers as a group. The class seemed excited to have known the correct translation for the different vocabulary. This was also a good way for the group to have a take-away item. Going through the answers as a whole group also gave me an idea of where the class was at with the vocabulary, and whether or not we needed to review before moving on to commands. The mini demonstration also went well because I had students actually act out the commands which catered to a variety of learning styles. 

My classmates took away an example of both an Admit and an Exit slip. They also gained knowledge of one way that they could use these in their future classrooms. Before beginning my demonstration I explained a couple of different ways to use Admit slips. For example, some teachers assign them the day before and do not allow students in the class until they have completed them. This slip is like an ticket into their class. 

If given the opportunity to do this demonstration again, I would find ways to model the activities better for my students. I feel that I kind of breezed through the explanation part of it, and may find that 9th grade students may struggle with the activities with the way that I modeled it. 

Studying Texts and the Essentials of Reading Instruction

Chapter 10 of Content Area Reading - Studying Text

The main idea from this reading is that comprehension in content area reading goes beyond strictly "being able o read". Our text tells us that the ability to read in a basal does not guarantee comprehension in content areas. Students may lack background of knowledge in our content areas,so we as teachers should supply a number of books on different levels dealing with our topic. We should use Writing to Learn activities that help us to assess our students' prior knowledge and figure out how we can relate our information to our students' lives. 

Another main focus of this chapter is determining the readability (approximate difficulty) of our reading material. We should be working hard to match each child with text readability. I learned from reading this chapter that readability is measure based on the number of words in a sentence, and the number of syllables in a word. Sentence structure, organizational pattern, interest level, and background knowledge of the students all determine readability.When assigning reading materials, we should use the formula (number of words and syllables), our personal knowledge of the child, and an informal check of the text based upon these four characteristics:

1. understandability
2. learnability
3. reinforcement
4. motivation

Vocabulary is another important factor for  comprehension in content areas. Content are words are interrelated. If students do not understand the primary vocabulary, it will be impossible for them to understand the secondary words. Often times, understanding the vocabulary requires systematic instruction. In order to make our content vocabulary stick with our students we must connect the vocab to known words, repeat the words at least 6 times, put them to meaningful use, and use visual aids. 

The last key component that I will touch on for gaining reading comprehension for our students in our content areas is the teaching of studying strategies. Our text offers many strategies that we can implement in our future classrooms such as B-D-A, reciprocal teaching, writing to learn and SQ3R. 

The supplementary article, "Essentials of Reading Instructions", has a lot of similar concepts as chapter 10. I really liked how it offered teachers a rubric. This could be very beneficial for new teachers to look at and determine how effective they are. 

If we want to be excellent teachers we are given "specific literacy practices necessary for success for adolescents to be successful in content area reading. The article reinforces the importance of activating the prior knowledge of our students and teaching them to become independent readers who know how to create meaning to their reading. We know that Round Robin Reading and reading complete texts to our students after 4th grade takes away from this. We as educators should be working to involve our students in critical literacy. To be exceptional we should be should be mindful of our students communities, use other reading materials other than just our textbooks, encourage multiple interpretations, and create opportunities for students to reflect. 

I plan on using this article to assess myself and my teaching practices in my future Spanish classroom. 

Activating Prior Knowledge and Interest

This chapter discusses different prereading strategies that contribute to activating prior knowledge and sparking interest in our content which prepares students to approach text reading in a critical frame of mind. We know that by the time our students enter middle school, motivation to read often declines. How can we as teachers help our students to achieve meaningful reading in our content areas?

Our text gives us several strategies that we can use in our classrooms to address the declining motivation in our students. We should get to know our students in order to make connections between the text and our own students' lives. Making these connections creates engagement. It  also deepens understanding because students are now able to paint a picture of what they are reading in their minds. It is also important for us to help our students understand that they are capable of generating credible responses. We should be paying attention to our students' curiousity and imagination and must understand students' backround, prior knowledge, and interests.

Before we can implement the prereading strategies that help us to activate the prior knowledge and interests of our students, we must first assess their prior knowledge. Chapter 6 of Content Area Reading tells us to use initial associations with the concept by starting discussions such as "Tell me anything that comes to mind when..." We should then reflect on the initial association by asking questions like "What made you think of....(response given by student)?" Next we should reformulate the knowledge through questions similar to "Based on our discussion and before you read the text, do you have any new ideas on...?"

When we have properly assessed the knowledge and interests of our students, we can move on to a prereading strategy. One of the strategies I plan to implement in my future Spanish classroom is making predictions. I will have my students use their initial images to make predictions about what they are going to read. Before and after the reading I will encourage my students to confirm or modify their predictions based on the reading. Students will be engaged in the reading because they will want to know what happens and compare it with what they thought would happen in the reading. 

There are many activities that will help us activate our students' prior knowledge and will lead to a successful and meaningful conten-area reading experience for our students. I am excited to learn more and use them in my future classroom!

Planning Instruction and Writing

Content-Area Reading Chapter 5: Planning Instruction for Content Literacy

When thinking of planning instruction for my future Spanish clasroom, I imagine one of my greatest challenges will be supporting struggling readers and helping them to understand the information in our textbooks and workbooks. Chapter 5 of Content-Area Reading offers several research-based strategies for supporting literacy in content classrooms based on reflective and resposive teaching. I now know how  important it is  that I take the time to know my readers, and to know my texts in order to help ensure that my students are comprehending my content and classroom texts.

Before beginning to dive into our text, I plan to collaborate with  English teachers, literacy coaches, counselors and other staff members in the building to get to know the individual interests, strengths, and weaknesses of all of my students in terms of my content-area, and get to know their reading and writing abilities. Knowing which of my students read above, at, or below grade level will help me to plan for instruction and develope grouping strategies to best meet the learning needs of all of my students.

I also plan to carefully examine textbooks and supplemental  materials that my students will read throughout the course to determine what areas may be difficult for my students. Finding ways to guide my students through our texts will not only help to build comprehension in my discipline, but will also give students strategies that they can use in other classes to help them better understand their text books.

After identifying the needs of my students and the challenges of my text I will work on an instructional plan using the B-D-A instructional framework.

Before Reading - How can I help my students be successful and maximize the understanding of my content area?

• Plan activites that activate and build on prior knowledge
• Introduce essential questions, broader concepts, or real-world connections
• Identify a key purpose when assigning texts and share that purpose with my students
• Preview texts with my students

During Reading - How can I support my students when challenges arise?

• Use Read-Alouds to model fluent reading and share my thought process while making sense of the text
• Make thinking visible
• Mini lessons and activities such as rereading, retelling, and discussions about what students are reading

After Reading - How can I assess understanding?

• Graphic organizers
• Double Entry Journals
• Make connections to personal experiences
• Reteach as neccessary

Content-Area Reading Chapter 9: Writing across the Curriculum

I am firm believer that writing increases retention and facilitates a deeper learning experience for everyone. When studying for exams in college I found it impossible to retain any information unless I was writing it down as I was reading or listenng to lectures.
"It is one of the most effective ways for students to understand what they have read."(Vacca, 284)
Writing to Learn Activities can easily be incorporated into all disciplines and proves to enhance student learning. As I discussed in my reflection on chapter 5 of Content Area Reading, building on prior knowledge is essential in increasing comprehension of our texts. Several WTL activities are geared to do this. Our text tells us that connecting writing and reading during instruction will help to enhance students reading experiences.

Some examples of WTL activities that I plan to use in my future classroom are:

• Reading Journals
• Focused Summaries
• Response Papers
• Discussion Starters
• Entry/Exit Slips

WTL activites will not increase reading and comprehension in each discipline, but will aslo serve  to help teachers assess student understanding and needs on a day-to-day basis. This weeks readings leave me excited to incorporate reading and writing strategies in my instruction plannin for my future classrom!

Trade Books and Writing to Learn

Chapter 11 of Content Area Reading - Teaching with Trade Books

Many secondary teachers may find it difficult to teach their content in the course of a school year. How can we add more reading materials if we are already struggling to get through our texts? Chapter 11 of Content Area Reading gives many reasons as to why we will see a higher percentage of student sucesss when we incorporate trade books into our teaching, regardless of our discipline or student age level.

The increase of student engagement is one of the most immediate benefits of teaching with trade books. Standard text books often lack pictures that draw students' attention. Students also may immideately be turned away from reading them because they generally have the assumption that they will be "too difficult" to read. The colorful illustrations found in high quality trade books create an interest in reading for students and improves comprehension.
Another reason I plan to use trade books in my future Spanish classroom is to help differentiate instruction and support English Lanuage Learners. Tradebooks help to match students' abilities. I believe that this will advance their content knowledge and make it easier for them to use the required text.

Chapter 2 of Content Area Writing - Writing to Learn

This chapter of Content Area Writing stresses the importance of using writing to learn activities in the classroom, and also offers ideas of how to do so. Although we may not realize it, we are all writing to learn on a daily basis. Grocery lists, phone messages, e-mails, etc. are all activities that we do without thinking. Not only are we doing all of these activities, but are students are as well.  "Low-stakes" writing to learn activites should not take much time, and can help you to assess where your students are at in their learning.
They can also help students to process their learning and practice critical thinking. Some exaples of WTL activites that I plan to use in my future classroom are reflections, blogs, journals, and entry/exit slips.

Los Examenes - How will I Assess my Future Students?

   " I don't remember anything from that test, we took it like 2 weeks ago!" 

                                                                                                -OJH student

How can I ensure that students in my future classroom NEVER say this about my assessments? Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz have given me a better understanding of successful assessments through the reading of Chapter 4 in Content Area Reading. 

It seems as though the majority of teaching that is going on in our schools today is catered to increasing standardized test scores in order to fund our schools and give them better reputations. Don't get me wrong, I know that the assessment of our students is important. I am not saying we shouldn't have standardized testing, but should we spend so much time, energy, stress and focus on it? Should students of the same grade get the exact same test regardless of what level they are at or the relevance of the test questions to them? What do our students honestly learn out of countless multiple choice questions? Are we preparing our students to be critical thinkers who can retain information for longer than two weeks? I don't know about you, but if a student said that about one of my tests I would say I haven't done a great job in teaching him my content.

This chapter focuses on three different types of assessments; formal, high-stake assessments, informal and authentic assessments, and the use of a portfolio. 

Formal, high-stake tests are not as effective as informal and authentic assessments. Teaching to memorize will not help my students to fully comprehend what I am teaching. This will also make it more difficult for me to know where each student is at. I remember cramming for exams the night before they took place and simply putting the answers into my short-term memory. Did I pass? Yes. Could I tell you what was on the test two weeks later? Probably not. 

I plan to use authentic assessments in my future Spanish class. I believe that it is important to informally assess my students each and every day. Following each lesson I will construct some type of informal assessment so that I can have a clear understanding of what my students have comprehended and where I should begin the next day. What needs to be retaught and what is working well? I like the idea of a 5-4-3-2-1 checkout. One-on-one or group interviews will also be a good way to assess my students, especially in my discipline. 

The development of a portfolio is the one that excites me the most. I really like the idea of having students assess themselves, not just the teachers. The portfolio also provides choices which we all know creates more student engagement. We are also aware that student engagement is the key to student overall success.  These choices can be made to cater to all learning styles which will help ALL students have the opportunity for success. Not only will the portfolio help me to see individual learning that is going on and different needs a particular student may have, but it will also help students to prepare for their post-high school education, as many colleges are beginning to use portfolios as a means to assessment, and may not award your degree without it. 

Let's teach our students to learn and not to memorize!

La Literatura y La Lectura by Laura Ringen

La Literatura y La Lectura by Laura Ringen: In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Z...: In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Zemmelman, and Steineke explain that writing paves the way to fulfilling employment. They g...

In chapter 1 of Content - Area Writing, Daniels, Zemmelman, and Steineke explain that writing paves the way to fulfilling employment. They go on to write about how HR departments in the corporate workforce want to hire young people who come out of schools and colleges who know how to use words well on paper, or in the digital ether. This relates to the fact that our job as educators is to prepare our youth to be ready for the world beyond high school, and also beyond college. We should encourage them to be active citizens who know how to voice their beliefs and opinions through writing. We are shaping the future of our community through our students.

Our students today are writing more ways than we think. What if we counted the number of words our students texted every day? Add that with the notes they write back and forth to eachother, comments on twitter, instagram, facebook,etc. I don't like that we are putting so much focus on banning electronics in our school, when we could be using it to our advantange. One of othe 8th grade English teachers at our school incorporates technology on a day-to-day basis into her lesson. Her students are very engaged and love going to her class. Not only does she incorporate technology, but she also creates relevance in the content that she is teaching. When giving a writing assignment, students pick the prompt and she approves it. I believe that giving students options creates interest and results in better work.

At first I thought that teaching students how to write was a job for English teachers, but now I know that we should be incorporating it into each of our disciplines. This book tells us that when students have been steadily making their thinking visible in writing, they are likely to score better on all kinds of tests. Writing, regardless of what subject you are teaching, reinforces information. I am excited to learn some of the strategies this book has to offer for incoprating writing into all subjects. It is also important that we understand the difference between writing to learn and public writing. I plan to use many of the writing to learn strategies in my future classroom.

Content Area Reading was a little frustrating to me. I agree with the points that Vacca and Vacca make in this chapter, but am frustrated with the fact that we are teaching so much to state standards and focusing much of our curriculum on getting kids ready for standardized testing. We should be teaching our students to think critically and comprehend readings rather than getting them ready to take multiple choice tests. I do not think that all of standardized testing is bad, I just think that we put too much focus on them. I believe that if we taught our students to enjoy reading and really take meaning out of what they are reading, we would see major improvements on our standardized test scores. North View Junior High, the school I worked at last year, did a great job of this. Creating relevance and choice in reading helped to shape a culture for that school, and made a huge difference in all subject areas.

Reading is important for all subjects. In math we have word problems. In every subject we have text books. I am planning to teach Spanish, and if my students do not have the skillset to read and write in English, it will be near impossible to teach them to do so in another language! With that being said, the first chapters of our texts leave me feeling excited to learn more about how to best incorporate content-area reading and writing strategies in my future classroom  in order to benefit mystudents.