Number The Stars Vocabulary

Tier 1:

Worries, boat, window, curtains, shoes

Tier 2:

Casket, soldier, officer, escape, troubled, trembling, uniformed

Tier 3:

Nazi, Jewish, Denmark, Sweden, King Christian X, Jewish New Year

I think the most important area of words to focus on with children who read Number The Stars would be Tier 2 because these words are really important throughout the story. Soldier and officer come up multiple times in the text, referring to the Nazi soldiers, and if students do not understand what a soldier and officer are they will get very confused reading this part of the book. These words are just so important to the story that not knowing what they mean could hinder their comprehension. Uniform goes hand in hand with these two words because the author uses uniform to describe the Nazi soldiers. She talks about the uniform and what it looks like and why it is intimidating. Students would need to understand what this word meant to understand the story even more because it defines who the soldiers are. Casket is another important word that comes up in the story; there are two chapters dedicated to a casket. While students are reading these chapters, it will be very difficult to understand what is going on in the scenes if they do not know what a casket is or even what it looks like and why it is used. Helping children to understand this word will really allow them to understand the story even better because the casket plays such a significant role here. Escape is crucial to understand what the Jews are doing and how Annemarie is helping her friends and neighbors. If a child was reading this book and did not know what escape meant, they might not understand that the Jews during this time were all trying to exit the country so they were not killed. Essentially they were escaping from Hitler. Children need to understand this word to help them understand what is going on in the book. Troubled and trembling are both words to describe feelings and events. These two words come up a lot when the book talks about Annemarie and Ellen because these are the two girls who have to face the Nazi’s often. They are often times trembling because the officers have guns and don’t look very nice. Recognizing these two words that describe feelings really allows the reader to understand how the characters are feeling and what they are experiencing. All-in-all the Tier 2 words are extremely important to whether or not the reader can put themselves in the footprints of the characters and experience what they are going to. These words are found everywhere in the book and knowing them will only help the students comprehend the story.

Fluency

PART A:

After reading Tompkins chapter on fluency and reviewing my TE301 literacy reference project, I’ve learned that fluency is made up of three components: accuracy, reading speed, and prosody. There are many ways to gage a student’s understanding/ability when it comes to fluency, but the best approaches in my opinion are running records, Informal Reading Inventories (IRI), and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). These three approaches are all used to assess different components of fluency, but if used/administered correctly, will help students become more fluent in their reading.

Fortunately, I’ve seen all three of these assessments administered in my placement this year. My teacher uses running records as benchmarks to see how students are progressing. This particular approach is used to assess word identification and fluency, which (according to my literacy reference project) is a term used to describe the depiction of text with accurate and speedy pronunciation of words. During “Reading Workshop” in the morning, the 4^th grade students in my placement are given the choice to silent read, work on their reading journals, review spelling words, or partner up and practice their reading skills. During this time, I’ve seen my CT conduct two or three running records, but I saw more running records being given in my placement last year (1^st grade classroom). IRIs are used to assess accuracy and prosody and consists of word lists and passages, however I haven’t seen any administered in my placement. Last but not least, DIEBELS are used to assess reading speed. I’ve seen this approach used many times in the classroom, with one boy in particular, who usually decides to partner up with a friend and they switch roles between being the “student” and the “teacher”. The student reads a passage out loud and the “teacher” sets the timer for one minute and follows along while marking errors made; the two students then switch roles.

From the beginning of the year when I started at my placement, I’ve noticed a lot of improvement when it comes to fluency. My CT emphasizes the importance of using expression while they’re reading which I’ve seen improve over the months, and I’ve also noticed an improvement in word identification with my students in my literature circle group.

PART B:

The book I’m reading for our class’s Book Club is “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry and here is a mini-lesson plan I created in order to assess students’ fluency.

Rationale:

I will assess students’ fluency by tapping into the three main components of it which are accuracy, reading speed and prosody, and I will achieve this by giving them chapter one to read while conducting a Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIEBELS) assessment.

Objectives:

R.WS.04.03 automatically recognize frequently encountered words in print with the number of words that can be read fluently increasing steadily across the school year.

R.WS.04.06 fluently read beginning grade-level text and increasingly demanding text as the year proceeds.

R.AT.04.01 be enthusiastic about reading and do substantial reading and writing on their own.

Materials:

-2 copies of “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry (1 for student, 1 for teacher)

-Timer

-Pen/pencil

Sequence of Events:

-Introduce the student to the book and give them a brief run-down of the summary

-Read out loud the back cover of book and the prologue (background information)

-Inform student to pay attention to expression and that they will read as long as they can for 3 minutes

-Instruct student to read out loud chapter one

-Set the timer and keep track of errors (word accuracy), prosody, etc.

Assessment:

The DIEBELS is what would be used as an on-going assessment to track the student’s progress and improvement.

New Literacy Project

My conceptual understanding of literacy has changed very much since the beginning of this class. Before learning about all of the new literacies I thought literacy was only about reading and writing. My views began to change when we first had to find definitions of literacy and post them to the Wiki. Just looking at all of the different ideas that were presented in these definitions made me start to broaden my outlook on what literacy may encompass. My old view of literacy was a very traditional one and I think that way of looking at things is very out dated. Throughout my schooling as MSU I have heard the phrase of “21^st century learners” many times and I think comparing the traditional way of looking at literacy to all of the new literacies we discovered in this project is a very good way to understand what that phrase really means. Children are no longer just learning to read and write on paper, they are learning these skills through all different types of media and resources. I think better understanding how to use these resources to the best of their abilities is very necessary in helping out students to become literate.

I think providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners means to be able to present the same information in many different ways in order to accommodate for whatever types of learners might be in your classroom. All children learn in different ways and as a teacher you need to be able to give the best instruction possible to all of these learners. After completing my own new literacy project I was able to see how hard this task can actually be. Once I actually started to use my new technology there were many things I did not know how to do and it took me a while to become comfortable with the program. This could be an issue when working with students in a k-8 setting. Children who were going to do a similar project to what we have just done would need to understand how research and find important information. This would be a key skill for learning more about a new literacy. To use a new technology to present the new literacy the children would need to first understand how to learn to use a new technology, this would involve going through demos, reading instructions, and playing around on the actual technology before beginning. Once they were ready to start creating their own project they would need to understand how to lay out their information in an understandable way for the reader. I think this would be very difficult for the students in my placement because whenever I have seen them in the computer lab they do not want to take the time to actually do thee research, they just want to get what they have to get done as fast as possible. I definitely think an integrated approach to learning these two things would be the best way to teach the students in my placement. I think by doing two things at once the students would be more interested in what they were doing, and they would be learning without really realizing it.

Cultural Literacy Project

Since beginning this class, my conceptual understanding of literacy hasn’t necessarily changed, but instead been reinforced. Throughout all of my teacher education preparation courses here at Michigan State, it has been drilled in my head that literacy goes above and beyond the basic understanding of just being able to read and write. The “new age” definition of literacy goes as far as to include being able to use/incorporate technology, books, written and spoken text, etc. as a means of learning. By being literate you will be able to keep up and become an active member of our fast paced, constantly evolving society.

Thankfully, I took the course CEP416 last semester which was a course for future teachers who wanted to learn more and explore new technology that could be integrated into the classroom. In this course, I learned how to use many (if not all) of the technology options provided for this new literacies project, but I decided to create a webpage since I already had one up and running with previous lesson plans and information on it. Since I was well-educated in making/editing a weebly (type of website creator), I decided to make a new page labeled “Cultural Literacy” with tabs within it that would take you to other components of my literacy project. However creating my webpage was just one aspect of my project and before I did this, I had to do a little research on Ukraine and their culture. One thing that stood out to me while conducting my research was the misleading information that I found on the internet. There were several times I came across a website that I thought had reliable information, only to find out it sounded as if an elementary student put it together themselves. Not saying that a student can’t do a good job on a research project, but I wasn’t sure where they were gathering their information or if it was entirely true. This mishap made me question the things that students are reading on the internet and wonder if they believe everything they read.

After reviewing my concept map that I made on one of the first days of class, I noticed that nowhere on my map did I include “technology”. This fact is very surprising to me, because I had just taken CEP416 the semester before where we spent weeks learning about ways to integrate technology into the classroom and into lesson plans. After looking over the other things I included on my map, I realized that I primarily focused on my elementary years and how literacy played a role in my life then instead of focusing on all my schooling. Since technology didn’t really play a role on my elementary school years, I didn’t include it on my map, but if I wouldn’t focused on my elementary to college years, it definitely would’ve made an appearance since technology plays such a crucial role in schooling these days. One example of how technological is showing up in the classroom more these days than compared to when I was in elementary school, is the students that I work with in my placement asked me if they could type up their literature group writing assignment on the classroom computer after they hand wrote a rough draft; when I was in elementary school we didn’t have a classroom computer so this wouldn’t have been an option for me.

After completing and then reflecting on this literacy project, I think it is a great idea to bring to the classroom. Not only is it important for students to explore different types of literacies, but it’s also crucial that they discover and explore new technology at a young age. If I were to take this project to an elementary school classroom, I think I would be able to present it to the class the same way we were given it with the exception of a little more guidance; this includes telling them the different types of literacies, showing them examples, and providing time for them to explore different types of technology. I believe students would enjoy this project because they would be able to not only choose the type of literacy that interests them, but they will also be able to use a creative outlet to showcase their work to their parents, peers, friends, etc.

Overall, I know that the fourth graders in my placement would love exploring new technologies such as digital storytelling, Prezi, webpages, etc. instead of just the basic technology they see/use all the time like PowerPoint or Word. Not only would it be fun creating these types of technological projects, but it would also be beneficial to their reading, writing, and speaking skills that are associated with literacy. Instead of silently reading a peers research paper or reciting facts in front of the classroom, students can stand in front of their classmates and show off their hard work while also teaching them new information and showcasing them a new type of technology. Last semester while teaching my science lesson about “The Sun and The Seasons”, I incorporated a digital storybook into my lesson which showed students the difference in paths of the sun during the summer months and the winter months. They seemed to really enjoy this different way of learning and it also gave them a new view of this concept which probably really benefited the visual learners. Overall, I really enjoyed incorporating technology into a literacies project and it was nice to know that I still remembered how to use/create a webpage after not using it for a whole semester J

Teaching Visual Literacy

Although I consider myself a digital native, I was a little nervous to learn that we had to teach a new topic through a new technology. I use technology every day of my life, so why was I nervous to learn about something new and interesting? I'm usually all for trying new things, but when it comes to technology I sort of lack confidence unless it's something I'm familiar with..

Thanks to CEP416 (the technology class we're required to take) I have been introduced to many new forms of technology and my nervousness about using new forms finally disappeared. This semester I learned about wikis, blogs, photo editors, digital storyboards, websites, etc. My absolute favorite technology to work with was the websites, so I decided to use this for my new literacies project. I have a little bit of background knowledge about using websites, but I wanted to increase this knowledge so I can someday use it in my classroom.

Once I chose my technology I had to choose the type of literacy that I wanted to teach. I decided to choose visual literacy because I think it's important for students to be able to recognize and understand the complex messages that are given through visual images. Students will be surrounded by visual images the rest of their life, much of these consisting of photographs, graphs, charts, art and paintings, advertisements, maps, etc. By teaching about this topic, students will be able to see, understand, appreciate, and depict a message through an image.

After gathering all my research I put all this information together on a webpage. Weebly.com makes creating websites quick and easy. Easy enough that I believe fourth and fifth graders would be able to make their own. This site doesnt try to confuse you or make things difficult, but instead all the editing tools stay in the center of the page (and by being visually literate you understand what the symbols mean). What I really liked about Weebly was how they didnt have thousands of different options. I would have gotten confused if I had too many choices of things to do to my website, so thats another reason I think children would enjoy it. Weebly made it easy for me to add my information while also allowing me to design my page however I want.

I didnt realize that I was going to learn so much about this topic until I actually finished all my research. The research I found provided me with a great abundance of resources that I will be able to use in my future classrooms. On my website I provided a bunch of websites that define visual literacy, provide readings, websites, information, and even lesson plans and activities to try with your students. Some of the websites gave me ideas about books to use in the classroom for teachers and students. David Drew is an author who uses visual text in most of his books to convey and support the information given.

Overall I am glad I made a website about visual literacy because this information will be useful when I have my own classroom. Not only did I learn a lot about the topic but now I actually know how to fully build a website. In the future I can look back at this website and add information over time. I have already began my classroom library, so now I have more books to purchase that will help me develop stronger knowledge of visual literacy that I can pass on to my future students.

My Personal New Lit Learning

Since taking this class, my conceptual understanding of literacy has not changed; it has only reaffirmed what I have already learned from previous classes. The entire time I have spent in college I have learned over and over again that literacy has evolved from learning to read and write to learning how to use technology, books, writing, etc, to get information, as well as learning how to read and write in today’s standards of a fast paced technological world. I already knew that literacy represents a broad range of information and through this project I was able to actually see this spectrum in action.

My research on German culture has really allowed me to see how much garbage and crap there is on the Internet that can sway children and adults in the wrong direction, potentially misleading them on the subject at hand. The new literacies project has really allowed me to take a good look at this and really opened my eyes to this world of wrong information. Children and students are going to need to know how to stay away from websites that are misleading and they desperately need someone to show them what to look for in a website that will give them valid information. This is extremely different than more traditional “book” literacies because often time’s libraries do not carry books with misleading information. I can remember being a young child, going into the library to check out a book for a research topic, and never thinking twice if the information was wrong. With the new literacies available today, children need to be aware that websites will sometimes give faulty information.

At the beginning of the class when we were asked to make a concept map on “literacy”, nowhere on my map did I write “integrating technology”. Looking back at this, I am actually extremely surprised that I did not write it down because I use technology in every single one of my college level courses. I believe the reason technology did not cross my mind was because I was thinking back to when I learned how to read and write and what I used and what the teachers provided to us in order to learn “literacy” material. In my early elementary days, we didn’t use the same technology that is available for elementary kids today. Since the beginning of the semester I have added technology to my concept map, which I intend to use in my classroom one day to help my own students learn. They already use technology for the majority of their time outside of class, why not integrate it to help them learn.

Teachers often will only immerse their children to the “standard” technology such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint, when in reality there is so much more on the web that children can use to write papers and make presentations. Through the new literacy project I myself was able to expand my technology horizon and learn a new presentation technology, Prezi. This is an online tool that is very similar to PowerPoint. Students need to be given various options to explore other technologies when they are producing final drafts of papers, books, and presentations, and one way to do this is to introduce them to online resources, such as Prezi.

Personally I believe that a project like this, or very similar to this, would be extremely beneficial to an entire class of elementary kids anywhere between third and fifth grade. I think that at this age, children are old enough to understand how to use technology in order to get a thought across and even to use technology to teach about a certain topic. Allowing the children to explore a new technology will help them out in the future, as well as their classmates because they are also getting exposed to the technology when the students present theirs at the end of the project. I know that my fourth grade students would love a project like this when teaching the class about their Saints for their Saint project that is done at the beginning of the school year. They could use digital storytelling, Prezi, and even a collage to teach their classmates about their Saint instead of simply standing in front of the class with one or two props and reciting information back to their peers. The students already know how to read, write, speak in front of their classmates, and listen to others, this would just be one more opportunity for them to refine and practice those skills. In order to make their Saint project an entire class lesson though, I could instruct them on how to use one new technology found on the internet for free and instruct them on how to correctly use the technology to its’ full potential. That way I could make an entire lesson out of the project instead of simply saying “Find a new technology and use that to teach us about your Saint.”

New Literacy Project

My original plan for the new literacy project was to create a digital storybook or comic strip about visual literacy. However after doing a little research, I quickly became more and more interested in exploring different cultures through these technological means. Evidently, I switched my focus from visual literacy to cultural literacy, and I’ve decided to explore my own heritage more in depth which is Ukrainian. I know the easy way out would’ve been to look into a more popular culture or one that students are familiar with, but I decided to research something that I was actually interested in so that I can use the information I find to better my understanding.

Some of the topics I’ll explore are Ukrainian customs, traditions, celebrations, and basic facts. Since my family is Ukrainian, I already know a little bit about the culture since we celebrate things like Ukrainian Christmas every year but my immediate family doesn’t partake in all of the customs/traditions like my other relatives do. After conducting a little research on the internet, I found out that things I’ve grown up with my whole life are actually Ukrainian things such as the food we eat (perogies, borscht, kapusniak, paska, etc.) and some the traditions we follow like the painting of the easter eggs and taking them to church to be blessed.

Once I find all the information that I want to include in a presentation, I’m going to use Photo Peach (www.photopeach.com) to create a digital storybook which will help me relay information about Ukraine while also captivating viewers’ attention in a fun and unique way! I’ve already used Photo Peach to create digital storybooks before in previous classes, so I’m already familiar with the website and how to navigate it.

New Lit - German Culture

I have decided to narrow down my “culture” search to German culture because I am fascinated with their country, all thanks to my grandpa and his love with Germany. From my search thus far on the Internet, I have found very fascinating facts and history that has shaped the German culture. To start, I will begin with their customs and traditions. I was extremely surprised to find out that many traditions I grew up with actually come from Germany. For example, the gingerbread houses I made from graham crackers and the nutcrackers I painted with my family both came from German stories. Even the Christmas calendars that have candy for each day of the month of December originally came from Germany! Aside from Christmas traditions, there are many Easter traditions we have taken from them as well. Although there are many differences between German and American culture, there are also many differences. One that I found interesting is that when German’s give carnations to other people, they symbolize mourning.

In order to relay everything I have learned about the German culture, I am going to use Prezi. Through Prezi I will add pictures and music to help teach about the culture. I spent some time on their website and I have learned how to very simply use the website in order to create my own presentation. They have many tutorials that I have watched, each teaching me new things and showing me tips on how to use Prezi.

New Literacies

Visual literacy is basically being able to read a map, decipher a picture or interpret symbols. If somebody can do this, then they're visually literate. After doing some research on this topic I realized that it might be hard for me to teach visual literacy through my chosen technology- a website. I have a small amount of background knowledge about making websites, so im not worried about that, but I really want to think of a good way to use a website to teach this.

We're surrounded by visual images almost everywhere we go. In order to drive a car, people have to be visual literate enough to read all the signs we pass. With books, television, on packages, all these contain visual images that we need to be able to interpret. Many of these images come without words, but some also contain words that might give us a hint or a clue about the meaning. The easiest way to teach this to my students would be to compose a collection if images/symbols and teach the children the basics of what they mean. For instance, a red circle with a cross through the middle means 'not allowed'. However, if I made a website and put this collection of pictures on the website, this might be too boring for the students and I would lose their interest, but possibly it may be cool to the students also. Someway and somehow I will eventually have to use images, but im possibly thinking that there may be a better approach to teaching this. This 'better' way may be a Powerpoint presentation using images, or maybe even a digital storyboard with words. Many of the tools we were given including the storyboard stand as visual literacy in its own. This is a graphic organizer, the storyboard, diagrams or tables. Students will eventually be introduced to all of these, but to use one to specifically teach about visual literacy seems difficult.

New Literacy Project

While researching emotional literacy I am learning many things that I did not previously know. One of the biggest things that surprised me was how often I have seen emotional literacy training happening in schools before with out even knowing it both while I was in school and during my placements while at MSU. Emotional literacy can be taught with separate curriculums or it can be integrated into subject areas. These curriculums include lessons where children role play arguments and difficult decisions, they then work as a class to solve these issues in peaceful and respectable ways. Students can also take turns being the “peace helpers” of the classroom for a certain amount of time, when there is a dispute between students, they will help them work it out. Other ways include given students wordless comics with characters who depict certain feelings and having them give dialog to these comics. Ways emotional literacy can be integrated into writing is when a student is involved in an issue they can write or draw about what happened, this helps because children do not always want to talk about difficult things. Another way they can write about is by filling out an “I message” where they fill in the blanks to this statement, “I feel ____ when you ____ because ____”. Researchers say emotional literacy is a very important factor for success in ones life for example; it has been shown that people with higher emotional intelligence (EIQ) tend to be more successful in life then those with lower EIQ, even if they have the same classical IQ. EIQ includes such things as knowing one's emotions, emotional self-control, motivation and persistence, recognizing emotions of others, and successfully handling relationships. Research has also shown that promoting these social and emotional skills leads to improved academic performance, reduction in negative behavior and an improved social environment. When thinking about my placement right now I do not see much emotional skills training going on but I definitely think it would be very helpful for the students. For example, just last week when I was conducting my book talk one of the students I was working with was very unhappy with her work and even though she was the first one finished and I praised her because her writing was very good, she could not get over a few mistakes she had made. While researching about emotional literacy I found information that described how if a person sees small things as huge failures, they can become depresses or anxious over time. These people need help to see their thoughts more aligned with reality, and this is something that emotional training can help with. The student I was working with could not get over the two tiny mistakes in her paper and if this small nitpicking continues, it could be detrimental for her emotional skills.

In order to teach about emotional literacy I am going to be using the website www.inspriation.com to create a graphic organizer. I chose to create a graphic organizer because I feel that they are very helpful for learning and storing new information yet I have not had much experience actually creating them. By creating a graphic organizer I will not only be able to describe my new literacy in words, but I will also be able to add pictures, videos, and other things that will allow for even more understanding with the topic. I know I am able to learn way better when I have multiple ways to receive the same information and by creating this type of organizer I am able to easily put all of this different information all together in one spot. Even though the information that will be in the graphic organizer will all be things a person could find in a normal print resource, it will be taking all of the information and putting it together in a much more user friendly way. The one thing I am finding challenging while playing around with Inspiration is finding out how to use all of the tools in the correct ways. I am still unfamiliar with all of the things that can be done so I feel as if I am missing out on some features. If the students in my placement were going to be using Inspiration to create their own graphic organizers they would need to understand how to look up credible information and then how to decide what information is important and should be included and what information should not be included. If they were just viewing a graphic organizer they would have to understand how all the information is related. Graphic organizers have many different ways of showing how different ideas are all connected and if the student does not understand this, the organizer will not be very helpful.