Katie G's Blog

2008-12-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

I. Research Questions
1. What is a justifiable reason for assigning a particular book to read?
2. What is a good rationale for choosing a text?
3. What things should teachers consider, what measures should they take when
choosing a book for a class to read?
4. What sorts of things should teachers factor in when choosing a book for their
class? [maturity level of students, cultural/ethnic background, environment,
parents, district, etc]
5. Should students be introduced to more “racy” subject matter in the classroom?
II. Primary Sources
1. Lisa Crossland
2. Jenny Romaine
3. Erin O’Conner
III. Major Findings
When choosing a book for a class to read teachers should set appropriate
goals for our students so that our book choices reflect those goals. Be intentional
about what you want to teach and why you want to teach it. By doing this you
will be setting up a rationale for that book choice. Also we should consider the students. Our ultimate goal is to teach and mold young minds, but if they cannot
make a connecting to what they are reading/learning about then the attempt will
be completely pointless. The last is to communicate. Communication with
students, parents, colleagues, administrators, district, etc when it comes to
choosing a book and rationalizing it with others. By following these simple and
general guidelines I believe that text choice for classroom reading will be a much
easier experience as well as a more simple way to go about choosing a book.
IV. Implications/Future Questions
The implications that this research has for new or future English teachers is that it
will make our jobs easier and the process of finding, choosing, justifying, and
rationalizing a text much simpler. By going into a work place prepared and with an easy step by step instruction process it will make the whole task less frustrating, easily arguable, and mainly simpler all together. Future questions in this area might arise when it comes to actually dealing with parents and children who refuse to or are not able to read the text even after you (as the teacher) have followed these guidelines and set up a rationale. Also more questions might come in to play when dealing with polar opposite environment such as a private religious school, or perhaps a “last chance school” where the kids are completely unconnected all together. What should be the process in those special situations?
V. Secondary Sources
1. Gordon, Edward, Martin Steinmann, Harold B. Allen, Frank A. Doggett, Jack Fields, Graham S. Frear, Robert Gard, Frank Ross, and Warren Taylor. “The Student’s Right To Read.” The National Council of Teachers of English 107616 (1981) 27 October 2008 .
2. Greenbaum, Vicky. “Censorship and the myth of Appropriateness: Reflections of Teaching Reading in High School.” English Journal (1997): 16-20
3.Lent, ReLeah Cossett. “Facing the Issues: Challenges, Censorship, and Reflection through Dialogue.” English Journal 97 (2008): 61-66.

Having your say

2008-11-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

In my seconday sources I found many different points of view. For the effect of my case study I will focus on the two opposites on the question of what is a good rationale for assigning a particular book for a class to read in regards to censorship...

One source said that censorship is a good thing, that the rationale for assigning a book should be that it is age appropriate, school appropriate, no cuss words, no controversial issues. That the students cannot handle such books and that many people are uncomfortable with them so therefore they should not be taught in a classroom setting.

another view said that censhorship is silly. That an appropriate book is a myth and that students should be taught about controversial issues in a classroom settinge because they will be guided by a responsible adult. They think the rationale for assigning a book is that it should teach a particular lesson and not worry so much about the content being a bit "racy".

What I want to know and the gaps that I see is that where are the students involved in this process? How does their gender, race, cultural background, past experiences, etc affect what books they should be taught. I believe that some students from different areas are ready for more controversial issues, while students from lets say a catholic school shouldn't be taught the same things. This is what I want to look into by getting the evidence from the different teachers from different settings.

How do you establish when a student is mature enough to deal with certain texts?

2008-10-24T13:07:00.001-07:00

I chose this question becuase I feel that it is really prevalent in today's english clasrooms. It is a big issue, and one that I would really like to delve more into by interviewing teachers, students, parents, and administrators. However my own thoughts about this question are that determining when students are mature enough to deal with a text is a mix of common sense, research, and reasoning. Comment sense is obvious - you are not going to be teaching The Crucible to a seventh grade classroom. But common sense does have it's drawbacks, what you might think necessary or ok for students to read might not be ok anymore. We all grew up in different places with different home and school norms. That is where the research comes in. Talk to colleagues and others in your profession before teaching a text. See what they think about a certain book - their responses will definitely influence your decision in some way; it could put up red flags or either make you feel good with your choice of text. Also reasoning behind what you are teaching; when teaching any text there must be a point. If there is some sort of "racy" scene in a text but it has a good point for it and surrounding it can also determine whether or not it's a big deal. It will also give the teacher a way to back up what they are teaching. Also research the school, the atmosphere, the students. Get to know them, their backgrounds, their lifestyles. Different areas warrant different maturity levels which will definitely have a big influence on whether or not your students are ready to read a certain text.

Like I said these are just ideas: I am looking forward to perhaps researching them further.

Implications for entering a dialogue 10/17

2008-10-17T19:13:00.001-07:00

1.In the Gee article, Gee himself is speaking and I think his target audience is other colleagues in his own field as well as educators of English. In Delpit’s article she is not only speaking to other educators, or others in her field of work but also she is talking back to Gee himself in a more formal dialogue. In Gee’s article he is talking about the idea of secondary discourse communities and making the statement that entering into one of these communities cannot simply be learned or taught by sitting in a classroom. It must be a subconscious learning experience or else “picked up” – he stresses that this is the way of entering into and being recognized as a “member” of a discourse community. In Delpit’s article I believe she is saying the opposite. She disagrees on how students should be taught and the ways in which they learn best. She believes that students should be corrected when wrong; also that students can learn in a classroom setting to be a part of a higher discourse community. After reading both articles I find that I agree more with what Delpit is arguing for. As a future teacher I definitely want to think that I can teach students to be a part of a different and more dominant discourse community and that I can teach them the skills they need to make it in the world that they will have to live in.
2.The relationship among these voices is the relationship between colleagues and nothing more. Delpit disagrees with Gee but respectfully so; she goes against his ideals without being rude or demeaning (in my opinion). Well Gee doesn’t really disagree necessarily with anything in an intentional sense, he simply wrote an article about discourses and learning and then Delpit, after reading what Gee had to say made a rebuttle.
3.I suppose the way I might enter the conversation is taking what they both have to say and stating my own opinion, who is more reliable in my opinion, etc and then writing it down. I think that on the subject of discourse, literacy, learning, etc these two have really said enough already. I got both sides and I feel that for me Delpit is someone I believe in, and her ideals really stuck with me a bit more.
4.Anytime I am criticizing, critiquing, agreeing/disagreeing with someone’s work I know that the conversation of the piece must be constructed very carefully. You don’t want to demean someone else’s work because the other person took a lot of time and effort to do their own research. However when you disagree you disagree and your own opinions must be stated and realized and be spoken as well. I think the audience plays a very important role in the word choice of the conversation, the tone, etc and how much you can actually say. The occasion operates in the same way, is it a written piece, a debate in front of others, what others? All of these things play an important role when you decide to enter such a conversation.

Implications for entering a dialogue 10/17

2008-10-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

Language Investigation # 3

2008-09-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

It is getting hard to remember all the way back to elementary school, but the writing I do remember are those “cutsie” things that my teachers had me write and that my parents have kept over the years. The first thing I found was all the way back from kindergarten when we wrote our letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case over and over and over and over = ) until it was absolutely perfect. I also found simple forms of writing that included stories, poetry, etc. Little books that teachers would have us put together through out the year in small books. They were short stories about our families, friends, etc that really just introduced us to the world of writing and getting our thoughts on paper. These things included many pictures which of course helps any new reader/writer ease into the world literature. As the years rolled by and as I started growing our writing became a bit more intense and focused. In fifth grade we had to write our own short “novel” which had to not only reflect the people we were but also got much more technical. By technical I mean that grammar started counting more, spelling was graded very harsh, and we were expected to use more “grown up” words. By fifth and sixth grades we were easing into the world of essays and the dreaded five-paragraph papers. Book reports were a must too!

After getting into middle school (7th and 8th grades) we began to do vocabulary, D.O.L and essays on a daily basis. We learned to edit our own writing and we learned how to write narrative and expository essays. It also seemed that writing not only popped up in our English class but in every other class. For math we did projects that required us to write, in geography again we did projects that usually had group writing activities involved, and in science we began learning how to write a scientific report (including hypothesis, data, etc). We began to learn how to write a thesis statement, and to make our paragraphs at least 5-7 sentences long. When we wrote narratives there had to be a beginning, middle, and end. In our expository essays there had to be a clear introduction and a clear conclusion. Writing in middle school became a lot more technical and “nit picky” and much less fun.

In high school English class we wrote about other authors writing. We analyzed, summarized, etc. We wrote essays weekly about more advanced novels. In creative writing we had journals that we had to fill up with certain number of pages of writing each week. In our a.p classes we studied for the a.p. test. We wrote and wrote and wrote some more. We were expected to make few mistakes and basically be perfect which was a lot of pressure.

Our teachers taught these ways for a few reasons. One because CSAP’s were every year and we had to be at a certain level so we got hounded with grammar, and essays, etc. Also because our teachers wanted us to be ready for the future; every teacher (I think) just wants to prepare their students for what will come the next year. In middle school they get you ready for high school, in high school for college, etc.

But as a result of my previous learning/writing experience I came to college with a very skewed idea of how to write. My freshman English professor taught me more about writing than all four years of high school combined. She completely threw out the ‘five paragraph’ paper rule, and taught me many new ways to write. Ever since I have been learning and taking in as much as possible. But sometimes I still feel very behind in my writing abilities.

Warm Up (Chapters 5 & 6)

2008-09-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

1.The types of assignments that Rose had the veterans doing in the program had the students going back to the ‘basics’ of English. It included things like summarizing, classifying, analyzing etc. He had them doing this because so many of them were on so many different levels in their education. From being very good at reading and writing to students who didn’t ever graduate or never had any type of formal education in English. This way of teaching took them all back to the basics and for those students who needed a challenge he could give them extra and for those students who needed extra help these types of assignments met them where they were at.

2.I think the language the Veterans program used to refer to the students was more of a generalization of who they were. Either ex military men (marines, etc) or else ex convicts. Either way they were people who were looked upon as having little knowledge of reading/writing and who were considered illiterate because of their age. It made many of them outsiders to the school. As Rose describes he met many men who were literary geniuses and needed extra challenge but were overlooked because of where they had come from, what they had experienced in life, their age, etc. He also noted that when they were younger that many of these men had probably been labeled ‘outsiders’ by teachers/schools, etc making many of them join the military and therefore bringing them to the veterans program later in life. It just shows how one label can affect a life choice, a life experience.

Language Investigation # 2

2008-09-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

I hope that you won't think me horribly shallow after reading this post, because even thinking about writing it I feel a little silly, becuase to most of you i'm going to sound like a 'typical' girl, and a product of our generation. But that's just who I am and who my friends are.... so here goes nothin'.

My friends and I are definitly (what I like to call) 'word shorteners'. Some of you may know what I mean by this, and for those of you who don't you are in for a big treat. We take words and basically shorten them to sound (i guess you could say) cooler. For example for the word legitimate we use 'legit'; as in "that guy was completely legit"... it usually means we like something or that we understand what happened. A phrase that we use that has been shortened (and I'm sure most of you have heard of it) is "oh my gosh" which we say "OMG". When we use this shortened phrase it is usually in a state of exasperation or suprise, such as "OMG I have like four papers due tomorrow!". One other word we like to use, but however is not shortened, just used in different contexts is the word sick. This word is used in a variety of ways sometimes meaning awesome! Like "Awwww the show this weekend was sick!"; another way we use it is in the regular term meaning gross like "I saw this guy puke and it was sick!". I'm not sure why but that word gets thrown out a lot in many different ways and we always know in what context it is being used.

Our group of friends have been pretty close ever since freshman year so we do share a lot of the same stories and we all know each other and each others tendencies fairly well. Becuase of this we use each other to explain something... confused? Let me explain. Our friend holly always throws out a big smile, ear to ear, and uses a sorority voice when she parties so when we see someone do that or when one of us does that we call it "the holly smile". It's meant to be funny and whenever someone says that we immediatly know we are acting and grimacing like a huge dork and we all laugh. Or we have another friend Tim who is the craziest kid we know and is just wild so whenever we see someone acting like that we compare them to Tim when trying to explain their behavior... like "oh that kid was about a 1/2 of a Tim". This is the way we can explain things so we can get it quickly and without having to explain a whole lot.

My friends in Fort Collins are like a second family to me, so we are all pretty close and share a lot of good memories and when looking in on it I have found we share our own special language as well! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

9/3/08 Warm-up

2008-09-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

1. That patterns that I noticed when reading the language investigations is that a lot of the language pertained to objects within the family and the names for those particular objects, places, or people. For example a name for a remote control, a house, a name for a dog, etc. The other thing I noticed when not only reading the investigations but the comments as well were that they had a lot to do with tones, phrases and the actual ways families talked to one another that did not pertain to a concrete subject. For example being funny, sarcastic, or abiding by the language of religion etc.

2. What this seems to reveal about language and its conventions in a family context is informality and personality. Depending on where you come from, what kind of family you have, etc language can be informal, simple, short and have lots of signs. Or perhaps it can be very formal, drawn in, etc if your family does not use certain words. Language really has no context it seems, becuase it is so very different for everyone.

3. To be an "insider" in terms of language from my understanding is to understand what is being said to you, being a part of the group no matter who it is. Being able to have dialogue with the group to which you belong. The concerns for that this raises for me as a future teacher is that I don't and will never belong to every group, and how do I relate to those students to whose group I don't belong?

Language Investigation #1

2008-08-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

My family might not be the largest or even the most distinctive family that most people have ever seen; but when you get to know us and really become a part of our community you really get to see just how distinctive we truly are. The discourse in my family community mostly has to do with laughter and sarcasm; the way in which we talk to each other may (from an outsider) point of view seem mean and rude, but to my family it's just the way we relate to one another.

For example when we are calling one another stupid, we refer to them as a real "E-D-I-O-T". In my family we usually don't like to call people stupid but calling them insufficient in this manner is an acceptable way. This stems from a time long ago when I was particularly angry with my older brother and instead of yelling the word "idiot!" at him I instead decided to spell it but in all my rage and anger I mistakenly replaced the 'i' with and 'e' and every family member in the room just burst out laughing. The anger dispersed and we were all rolling on the floor (literally) for about five minutes. From then on whenever one of us becomes angry with someone we refer to them as and "E-D-I-O-T" and it usually starts the storytelling all over again."

Other phrases that have I have noticed seeping into my family's discourse style is (to be blunt) to use of vulgar words, language, and phrases Now don't get the wrong idea here, my family is close and we never usually yell or get in fights but using bad language or being sarcastically rude to one another has become a norm around my house. I can't pinpoint the exact moment when my brothers and I found out it was OK to use bad words in front, with, and in reference to my mom and dad but we certainly have to problem now calling my dad (sarcastically and jokingly of course) a "jerk" or a "loser". Saying that something is "bull****" or completely a load of "you know what" is just the way we talk and we don't give a second thought about it. Those of you reading this now might be thinking "holy cow, what kind of family does this girl come from!?" but I assure you the way in which we use these phrases and words with one another is always assumed to be a joke, and not meant to hurt one another or anything of the sort. From the outside these words are not socially acceptable and I wouldn't and don't use them with anyone else besides my immediate family because they are the only ones who would assume that the way in which I use them (as well as the rest of my family) is completely harmless.

To add one more language tradition in my family (quickly because I know this is getting quite long) is to describe to you a song that my family uses and talks about all the time. We sing this song to one another sometimes to reminisce about younger days, sometimes to joke, and sometimes my dad still sings this song to us when we come home on the weekends. It is a song my dad use to sing to my brothers and I in the morning to wake us up for school. Instead of an alarm clock, we had his wonderful (and that is the overstatement of my life =) ) singing voice to wake us up. "good morning, good morning, it's such a lovely day...." the song goes on and I won't make you all read it but it is something we still use, talk about, and laugh about in my family to this day. I don't know of any other dad yet who has used this song so I take it as a unique discourse of my family community!

So perhaps (linguistically speaking) my family may not be the Brady Bunch, or the Swiss Family Robinson, we still have a tight knit discourse community, where we all feel comfortable and all love one another for who we are, and the ways in which we speak!

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my language investigation of my family! Hope you all had an amazing labor day and I will see you in class! Any comments you have would be wonderful!