What Literacy Means To Me

       Developing student writing is something that I will be focusing on in my ELA classroom.   Notebooks will be one way that I plan on introducing ways for the students to work through writing styles.   Two types of entries that I am really interested in introducing to my class are:  Reaching into a memory and  Writing with only your ears.   These two types of entries are particularly interesting to me because I feel they will allow the students to reach into themselves.   By reaching back into a memory, they will be recalling situations that they have experienced.   They will learn how to develop those thoughts and feelings into words.   I will explain that it does not need to be anything grand, just something that they remember (that relates to the prompt) and want to write about.   This will take away the pressure that students sometimes feel when trying to write a paper.   Writing with your eyes just see...

The phone rings.    “May I please speak to Lynette”?    “This is she”.    The change in tone of her voice causes my body to stiffen.    “I regret to inform you that your mother has passed”.    “Passed what”?    “We tried to revive her, but she just didn’t make it”.    Silence……. I ask, “what are you talking about”?    “I’m sorry ma’am, but your mom has passed away.   Who do you want us to call to collect the body?     Again, I ask, “what are you talking about”?    As my limp body collapses on the bed, I hear her ask,  “Ma’am, are you okay? Are you alone?   Is there someone else that we can call”?    Her voice turns to a murmur until the sound of the dial tone brings me back into reality.

  The Book, Head, and Heart Strategy for reading is a wonderful approach to aid in comprehension.   In book club # 1, these connections resonated with personal experiences that I shared with the characters in the book.   The book , New Kid was about someone that was introduced into a different situation that made them feel isolated, alone, and misunderstood.   The author tells the story of being the “new kid” in a school that is not only different from anything that you have previously known, but also the struggle that some face when trying to fit in.   When I was in elementary school, my brother and I were the only African American students on a particular campus.   To top it off, English was not their primary language.   We attended school in this district because my parents decided to move and lived next to border of Mexico.   A district where a majority of the students were Hispanic and were learning English as a second language.   Learn...