Interview with a classroom teacher

I interviewed a second grade teacher at my school. She has been teaching for 23 years in the DCPS school system. She shared that she feels literature plays a big part in the classroom curriculum. She states that doing daily read- alouds allow for the teacher to model phonics skills, intonation of the voice that children can then begin to use. She thinks the reading curriculum we are using, Houghton Mifflin is okay, but feels that there needs to be a change. She stated that she feels what was used when she first start teaching, was more effective and worked with students at their level. She feels that the curriculum used now does not help the struggling students to grasp the reading strategies and concepts. She does like the level readers that are available to students in each subject area and are based on different level readings. Ms. M stated she chooses supplemental books from scholastic, school library and going to the library where she lives. she is usually able to find children's books that have to do with the theme that she is on in reading. She wishes she had the autonomy that she had years ago of being able to have more choices and freedom to select the books that she would like the children to read. She stated that with all the mandates, standards requirements and restrictions she feels she is not able to be as creative in teaching "outside" the box as she once was. She feels that even though in theory as teachers we are suppose to differentiate instruction that the many constraints put on teachers has made it difficult. Ms. M theoretical perspective on using children's literature in the curriculum is vital to students learning and gain real world experiences through text. She believes that children should hear good literature and in different genres. She feels especially children who may not be exposed to to different events and culture activities. She feels that tying in field trips with the curriculum is a wonderful experience for children to get hands on experience. she feels that using rich children's literature can give children a broad spectrum of authors and give them insight into being able to question and make inferences about what they are reading. She has also found the have a print rich classroom helps the children to gain better listening and communication skills.

idea for my literary map podcast

The book that I have chosen for my podcast is Barack Obama, Son of Promise, Child of Hope by Nikki Grimes. The book that I am choosing will reflect on the issue of race. The age level for this book is 5-11 years old and is a book that I have shared with my students. The public monument is the White House. And the poem that I will be using is a children's poem by Nikki Grimes. -Sabra

Sabra's EDU blog: Reflection 2.6

• Some other ideas for David and his student' to use discuss ways of taking social action. For example the Nike logo of "Just Do it" could be changed to "Don't just do it, think before you do it."
• Students could develop and create their own advertisments and fliers that would disrupt the advertismentss and fliers that we have come to see.
• Students could write letters to altheltes who endorses and advertise for Nike about the social issues that the students addressed.
• David could have the students create a mock television commercials that would show the different perspectives that each of the students have. The commercials could be shown to students to inform.
• David and his students could offer a round table, in which the social issues that Nike creates is discussed in an open forum.

my favorite book as a child..

One of the books that I enjoyed hearing my father read to me was the stories by Brier Rabbit, from Uncle Remus. As a child, I did not understand the symbolism of Uncle Remus, and what the time period of the story was during slavery. I do remember my father reading the words and using the dialect in the book, he would explain that this was the language used at the time in the South. He also shared that these were stories that were told verbally and passed down from different generations. What i enjoyed was sitting next to my father and hearing about a rabbit who liked to get into a lot of mischief, something I often did. As a child I did not go beyond the book and make the deeper connection with the reason that their was broken English was that slaves were not able to read or write. I don't feel that my father was hiding this from me, but instead wanting me to enjoy a book that was written to bring humor and a life lesson. the life lesson that I learned was being honest and treating people the way that you wanted to be treated. And most importantly that when you try to get over on someone, you get hurt in the end. I have fond memories sitting with my father at night, and getting to chose the story that I wanted to hear him read, and then talking about the story afterwards. This is something I have continued to do with my children, and to bring a life lesson into the story so that they can find greater meaning beyond the book.

Sabra's literacy blog

On my recent visit to a Barnes and Noble that I have been going to for the past several years, I was suprised at my discoveries during my observation. I realized that I have had tunnel vision when I go there, in that I am usually looking for my interest books, which are usually fictions by female African American authors. So the time I spent opened my eyes in my analysis of looking at books with sexism and raciscim. When i first entered the bookstore the first display was of the "hot" popular books, not the bestsellers, but what I interepreted to be the books that looked good and would draw a reader in by its cover. Most of the books were not diverse in the ethnicity of the author and the book that I viewed seemed to lack true substance on dealing with relevant and important issues. After leaving this area I found a small section, titled "eclectic classics" there were several books that I knew of or had read over the years, ones that I recalled reading as a required read for a class. One book that stood out in regards to deal with social class issues, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. And "The Feminne Mystique" by Betty Friedan, which I have not read but heard about, made me stop an think about the feminist movement.

As I continued on my quest to discovery how diverse the books were in regards to sex, gender and class, I had to vividly look and find books that were diverse. My second book that I looked at was "To Catch the Lighting"by Alan Cheuse. The book was a look at the various Native American tribes and one man's quest to use photography to document as many tribes and document there history. I read a few pages and thought the book was well written and fact based and information given from tribes. This book was located amongest the newly arrived book display. Near by this book,I found, "Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin as I reviewed it, I discovered it was a postive perspective on Iraq culture. My next stop was to an area I frequent the African American literature section. One of my favorite authors wrote a new book, "Trading Dreams at Midnight" by Diane Mckinney-Whetstone. Her books show the struggle and pains of her characters and their lives, but also how they prevail despite their hardships. I then moved o to another section, titled "The choice is yours" which had all of the books on Senator Obama and McCain, of course on opposites sides of the table. The book that caught my eye and appeared to seem racisit was, "Whats Wrong with Obamania", the cover had a picture of him and behind him a life size Superman. After reading several different pages throughtout the book, I realized that the title did not give a good understanding of the book. The author was giving his perespective on politics and Afrcian Americans running for office. My last book was in the children's section, "Barak Obama, Son of Promise,Child of Hope" by Niki Grimes. In reading this book it the reader learned about the personal side but written in manner that children could understand.