Book Club Plus 6-8

When I was reading these chapters I really had to take a step back and try to relate the ideas to my classroom. One thing I did notice was talking about choosing relevant themes. I have noticed in our read-aloud that my mentor teacher brings in historical fiction books. This is a great way for the students in class to relate what they are learning in social studies, to the literature being read in the classroom. We stop and talk about different parts of each book and allow for our students to relate the book to their lives. I believe that this is one way my teacher makes learning fun for the students. Most of the time these books led to discussion in the classroom. Much of this discussion is predictions on what might happen in the story. We ask students to try and relate the information they may know of these time periods, to the book when making their predictions. I notice that some students have a little difficultly with this. My guess is that they don't know that many ideas of the time period and may get easily confused.

We have no done any book club type activities as a whole class. Each student chooses a book to read during readers workshop. My mentor teacher and myself meet with each student to make sure they are choosing an appropriate book for their reading level. We also provide them with some type of organizer to keep while reading the book. This can be anything from a goal setting sheet to a character and summary chart. We have noticed that some students have trouble with vocabulary, so we have provided them with a vocabulary organizer so that we can go over words they may not know or understand.

If I were going to try and set this up in my classroom, I think I would start by grouping kids according to their reading ability. There are many students who are below grade level, many at grade level, and even a handful above grade level. I would give them choices of books depending on their ability. I think it would be nice to have a book club similar to the one's we did in our 401/402 classes. It would be nice for each group to be able to read a different book. This allows students to learn about a variety of books, and possibly choose one they are very passionate about. To keep my students in a similar mindset, I think a great idea would be to have each student reading the same type of genre book. My students are currently focusing on chapter books in the class. It would be nice to have different books in one category. For example, if I choose all historical fiction books, each book club group would have a different historical fiction book, but at the end of the book club each group would be able to talk about their books. This would allow the class to hear about different historical fiction books and possibly hear about different time periods and what may have been happening in the world during that time. Book club does give students a lot of different opportunities to express their reading.

Sometimes as a teacher and student, it maybe hard to recognize all types of book club ideas. I know that I never really thought about read-aloud as a book club idea. It wasn't until I started to read this book that I realized that it could be used as a book club idea. Currently, I like the way our reading is set up in the classroom, but it wouldn't hurt to try something new.

Book Club Plus Chap. 1-5

How does the book club model compare and contrast with what you are learning about literacy instruction in your classroom context? Where do you see reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing and other literacies in your classroom literacy program? What opportunities do students have to write into a unit/text, through a unit/text, or out of a unit/text?

There are a lot of similarities that I see between my classroom literacy instruction and Book Club Plus, but there are also some differences. The book club plus model talks a lot about teacher read alouds and share alouds and my CT has recently started a genre unit and she is reading the first story out loud to the students while they follow along with their own copy of the book. This is certainly a part of book club. My CT has not done community shares and that is something I hope to have in my lessons. She also has no done any guided reading which I feel is an important part/big part of book club plus, so my classroom differs from book club plus a lot in that sense. However my CT is so stressed about MEAP prep right now that she may do guided reading once the MEAP is over. Independent reading is a part of the book club plus framework that my CT does in our classroom. My students read silently every day for 15 minutes in the morning and if they finish their work throughout the day they have a book in their desk to read. However book club involves writing or discussing what you’ve read during independent reading and this does not happen in my classroom so that’s a difference. The importance of comprehension is a similarity between the book club and what I’ve seen in my class. My CT is always asking my students questions about the story as we go along and also doing her own think alouds to give students ideas and reminders of what is happening in the story. She also has them do retellings and summaries both throughout the stories and at the end of the stories to practice comprehension. However, as I said we do not do community shares or much group discussion so the students don’t’ get much of a chance to share their thoughts with their peers other than the few called on to answer her questions or give a retelling or summary and this is different than the book club model. Our book says “It’s not enough simply to tell students about a strategy; they must see and hear it employed by a good reader. (30)” My CT has been discussing inner conversation as a form of working on comprehension. She models her inner conversation by saying it out loud to the students and then asks them to either think about it in their head or jot down notes in the margins of the conversation that is going on in their heads. My CT always has my students make predictions before we begin reading a story, which is another part of the comprehension strategy that book club plus uses. Book club also emphasizes that students understand the different genres and we just began a genre unit so that certainly corresponds with the book club plus. Although my CT may not follow the exact concept of book club plus and may not call it book club plus, she uses many aspects of the book club plus framework!

I see reading in my classroom a lot. Our district requires us to have our students complete GLCE books for reading and math before the MEAP so we have been doing that GLCE book since the school year started and we just finished last week. It involved the kids reading a lot of short stories and responding to questions. Before doing the reading and the questions my CT addressed how to look for key ideas while reading. As I stated, I’ve also seen my students reading silently with a book they have chosen on their own. They have 15 minutes of sustained silent reading in the morning and they all have books of their choice in their desks to read whenever they complete all of their work. My CT also has done a couple read alouds and is currently doing a share aloud. She read a couple short stories to my students while they sat and listened and now she’s reading them The Sign of the Beaver but they each have a copy of the book to follow along with her. There’s also reading during social studies and science from those two books and also worksheets that are given. The math GLCE books even had a lot of story problems, which involved the students reading. Reading is always in my classroom!

The first writing piece that I saw in my classroom was my students doing a writing assessment. We gave them the topic of courage and discussed what courage was and then asked them to write a story about a time that they were courageous, someone they know was courageous, or they could make up a story about someone being courageous. First we discussed how to use the 5 square organizer with topics for each paragraph and 3 main ideas. We had them fill out the organizer, write a rough draft, edit and revise the rough draft, and then write a final copy. We told them we couldn’t help them on this writing because we wanted to see where they were at in terms of writing skills. Since then I’ve seen the students use the 5 square organizer again along with writing a rough draft and final copy about their special place. They also did short answer responses to questions in the reading GLCE books, in science, and in social studies. They’ve also done some retellings and summaries of stories that were read aloud to them.

I have seen a lot of listening from my students, as they have to sit there and listen to my CT teach or read them a story. Other than asking a few questions here and there, there has not been much speaking from the students. I would like to see more discussions in the class. They answer math questions and questions about their readings and writings, but there are never long conversations or discussions amongst the class.

As for viewing, our classroom has a Promethean board that my CT often uses for instruction. We can also use it to show videos, PowerPoint, short stories that we’re reading together, etc. The students seem to really enjoy when we use the Promethean board.

I have seen some opportunities for my students to write into, through, and out of a text, but not many. As I stated above, my CT is currently reading The Sign of the Beaver out loud to my students and before she began she asked the students to write down any predictions they had based on the cover picture and the title. I thought this was a great way to get the students thinking about the story and wondering what might actually happen. They have read other short stories such as a story about the Iroquois Nation and my CT asked them for their prior knowledge, but she did not have them write it down. I think it may be helpful to have them write it as a write into so that the students can refer back to it at a later date. It also could be used as a way to assess the students and what they learn from the reading since we’d be able to look back and what they knew before and then we could do a write out after the story of what they learned. The Book Club Plus book says that some writing through strategies are sequencing, visualizing, and describing events and these happen to be three things that my CT discussed with out students a couple days ago. After reading a couple chapters in The Sign of the Beaver she asked the students to write a retelling of the story, but before having them work on it she discussed that they need to have the correct sequencing of events in their story and that they should try to visualize what they read as they write because it will make their writing much more interesting. This is a great example of writing through that I’ve seen in my class. An opportunity for my students to write out was after my CT read them the story Ben and Me they were asked to write a summary of what happened and to draw a picture illustrating any scene from the story. This allowed them to not only write what they remembers but also to be creative with their drawing, which also forces them to visualize the story. The book talked about speedwriting as a way to write through but I saw it as a write out in my classroom. On the first day of school my CT read my students the book First Day Jitters and after reading the story she asked them to take 5-7 minutes to write any type of response to the story that they wanted. They could write what they remembered about the story, how they related characters in the story, etc. As long as what they were writing was about the story they could write anything for those 5 minutes and they were to write without stopping. I think this is interesting because it shows that things that are done for write through can also be done for write outs and vice versa. I hope to see more of the write into, write through, and write out in my classroom and if not I look forward to incorporating it into my lessons when I begin teaching.

Book Club Plus!

--curricular areas (pp 16-17) as possible target areas for your unit development. 

-Using context clues. This is something that I think the students could really benefit from. A lot of them struggle with comprehension and certain words or phrases and I feel that if they had a unit on using context clues to decipher meanings, perhaps within the genre unit texts they are reading, their comprehension would be much better. As we all know as teachers, when a student comprehends a certain piece of literature on a deeper level it opens up doors for richer, more powerful writing, conversation, etc.

-Secondly, under the Interaction heading I found some curricular links that sounded particularly interesting to me. Specifically, the “work with peers to explore ideas.” I think this could be an extremely powerful and effective tactic to use for literacy learning in my classroom.  As in most classrooms, we have students with various needs. We have some very strong writers and then we have a large majority of struggling writers. I think a lot of their struggle comes as they try to write independently and lack the confidence to move forward and improve since they have picked up on the fact that they are at a lower level than the rest of their peers (since students very often tend to pick up on where they are in comparison to their peers) Therefore, I feel that by having students explore texts and writing as a group, learners of all levels could benefit. Those that are strong in writing could be placed in each group amongst struggling writers. The struggling writers could hopefully benefit from their more advanced peer and the strong peer could benefit because when a student, or any aged learner, has to explain/teach concepts to another it tends to help their own personal comprehension. At first I was a bit skeptical of this idea because group work can be challenging and sometimes the social aspect and group dynamic gets in the way of  learning. However,  the book does a nice job of giving suggestions for avoiding these issues. For example student interaction guidelines: “everybody talks, talk one at a time, listen to each other to get good ideas, respect each other, talk about the books” (21).

---think about where you have opportunities to try something new for Guided Lead Teaching.

The chapters offered a lot of information at which I will need time to internalize and more time in the classroom to fully understand. I do feel that it has given me a lot of  new ideas for my own teaching. For example, one idea I found simple but insightful to keep in mind was one about modeling, “students need multiple exposures to good models before they’re able to adapt and internalize the use of a strategy” (30). I will most certainly keep this idea in mind as I plan and teach my unit. Sometimes when we as adults are proficient in a skill we forget that our students need it broken down and modeled for them numerous times before it can begin to be meaningful.

----How does the book club model compare and contrast with what you are learning about literacy in your classroom context?

-I see so many of the book club concepts and strategies being used in my classroom but not necessarily called the same things. For example, the comprehension strategies: “background knowledge strategies- what do I already know that helps me step into the world created by this text?” (32) I have seen my mentor teacher give students prompts on a topic of a certain book or genre prior to reading. This helps them make a connection and access prior knowledge unknowingly and in an unthreatening manner even before beginning the actual text. Although my teacher might not use this technique in as elaborate of a way as the book club plus program suggests, it is still present.

--Where do you see reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and other literacies in your classroom literacy program?

 Well, currently my class is working on a genre unit. My mentor teacher introduces a genre to the class and then allows them to access their prior knowledge by discussing that genre (for example fantasies and what a fantasy text is). She then continued on by introducing the text and reading passages aloud to them on a regular basis. This was followed by discussion and journal writing.  Throughout this process she would have students ponder a certain thought and then say, “discuss this with your neighbor.” This allowed students time to verbalize their thoughts but quickly and without causing them too much anxiety from the sometimes social pressures that this age group tends to struggle with. It was quick and effective at getting them to work on verbalizing their ideas to their peers.

Task 2

My group chose to visit the following places:
- Grocery store
- Local Coney Island
- Local café
We chose to visit a grocery store in the area to see where our students most likely shop for groceries. We chose the local Coney Island because it is most likely locally owned and hopefully involved in the community. The café we chose because we know that it is owned by some parents of children that attend our school and it is very close.
I expect to see middle class parents and older people. We will be going around 9am-12pm and I expect school age children to be in school and parents to be out doing their grocery shopping. I expect older people to be at the Coney Island. I feel like most local places have their usual customers that will probably be in for breakfast. Most of the students in my class judging by their clothes and appearance appear to be middle class and I would expect to see their parents in the places we are visiting. I expect to see good looking made from scratch food at the café and Coney Island.
An outsider may think the social classes may be different from the appearance of some of the places than I might. I know that the café looks kind of run down from the outside, but I expect it to be decent inside. I could be wrong and an outsider might expect worse.
At all of the places we are visiting there will likely be many things with prices listed. The menus at the café and Coney Island should have prices listed. The grocery store will have probably have large signs to show sales. At the café and Coney Island the employees will be verbally taking orders from the customers. Cost of items and complete bills for meals and groceries will be displayed differently from the grocery store to the others.
There could be many things used in the classroom dealing with proper language to use at various places and what to look for when reading signs. There are many different ways to say amounts of money and ways to write it.

Task 2: Considering the Community

1. Where/What will you visit? Why did you choose to go there?

We plan to visit the post office and fire department for starters. We think this will give us a general idea of the community in Mt. Clemens. A post office is normally filled with many different people so that will give us a chance to see how people in the community operate and also interact with others since there will be both staff and clients in the building. The fire department will give us an idea of how emergencies are taken care of in the community and also allow us to see people who truly value their community (the firemen) as many fire fighters are volunteers and those who aren’t are still willing to risk their lives for the community. These 2 places will give us an idea of the general community and also people who are passionate about working for their community. We also plan to visit the library, as that is a place for all ages. We think the library is an important place for students and by viewing the library in our students’ community we will be able to better understand the access that they have to books and how we can interest them in the library and reading. It of course gives us the chance to see people of all different ages in the community interacting as well. We also plan to visit the Anton Art Center. I chose to go there because I think incorporating the arts in the classroom is very important and I would love to know the art that is displayed and available for my students to see in their community. Even outside of the classroom I think art is important for all students to experience and I want to know what is available right in their community! We also plan to walk around the downtown area of Mt. Clemens to get a general idea of the area and the people who live there. As a general comment, I think all of these places will help us the see people living their normal lives and going about their normal daily activities. This will be great for observing the community and how it works.

We went to the Mt. Clemens Library, Anton Art Center, and all over downtown Mt. Clemens. We ended up not going to the post office or the fire department because Anton Art Center is near downtown Mt. Clemens and we decided it would be helpful to explore that area instead.

At the library I noticed how welcoming the Children’s section was. It was filled with children’s work, colors, dollhouses, etc. I wasn’t surprised that it was welcoming and filled with colors as that’s a great way to encourage children to come to that are and read or check out a book to read at home. The receptionist in this area was also very bubbly and welcoming. I was surprised at her interaction with the people who entered the children’s area. I think she really wanted to connect with them and be sure that they were able to find what they wanted and encouraged to read. I think this is great for children! I was also surprised that the books were organized not only alphabetical but also by size. The receptionist said that’s so that the children can find books easier and smaller books don’t get lost amongst the larger books. I also surprised at the amount of children’s work that was displayed throughout the library, mainly the children’s section. I think it’s great that it is on display and there was so much to see! I think it makes the children feel like that truly is there place. I also was surprised that when I walked in the main entrance to the library, the first thing that I saw was movies. I understand that movies can be educational and it’s good to allow students to free their minds and watch movies; however, a library is usually meant to promote reading. I feel like it was promoting movies before reading by having the movies right at the entrance. In my opinion it would make more sense for someone to see books as soon as they walk into the library rather than movies.

At the Anton Art Center I noticed many different paintings. The ones that stuck out to me the most were the ones with geometric shapes. I tend to have a mathematical mind so shapes and geometry often pop out at me in artwork. I also noticed many different types of artwork. There was clay work, all types of painting (water color, acrylic, etc.), sculptures, moving art on TVs, etc. I was surprised at the amount of types of artwork at one art center, but it made it very interesting.

In downtown Mt. Clemens I saw many restaurants, pubs, small shops, and some large buildings. I was surprised that there were statues of people in the middle of downtown Mt. Clemens. I saw a statue of a man and girl playing chess together which I thought was great to see. It reminds people walking by to work with others even those who are younger or older. We can learn from everyone! I was not surprised to see some people just sitting around town with big bags with them looking very tired and lonely. It was sad, but unfortunately something that I expected from Mt. Clemens because it is an urban area. On the other hand I was surprised that a man came up to us to talk to us. He saw that we were talking pictures and told us of some places he thought were nice and might be helpful to us. I was surprised that he just came right up to us and wanted to help!

2. What do you expect to see? Spend some time thinking about common ARCHETYPES and BIASES present in your community.

As I stated above I expect to see people of all ages living their daily lives and following their normal daily routines. I expect to see all different kinds of people and people working many different jobs from high class jobs to low class jobs. A typical bias that I have heard from many people when I tell them that I work in Mt. Clemens is that it’s a bad area. I hope to see some nice areas of Mt. Clemens as I have some wonderful students and I know Mt. Clemens can be a nice place. At the same time I do expect to see people struggling to support their families and others who are well off but still working to support their families. I have been to downtown Mt. Clemens for a couple different events and I think it is a wonderful place so I expect to see some great things in Mt Clemens along with some not so great things.

3. What do you think an "outsider" would see? Does what an outsider might see differ from what you think you will see? If so how? If not why not?

I work in the community so I now have a general awareness of the community but until I fulfill this project I still consider myself an outsider since I do not live in the community that I work in. So I think that my biases and archetypes are similar to what many “outsiders” would see. Along with what I spoke about above an outsider would see Mt. Clemens as a big downtown area that is filled with big buildings and a great place for nightlife especially on the weekends. They would probably see parts of the community as rundown and tough areas. An outsider would see Mt Clemens as an urban area where many of the members of the community live in low income or 0 income households. They may not see past the looks of rundown houses to realize that the people of the community are just like every other person; working to support their families however they need to do so.

Mt. Clemens is also known for the Mt. Clemens General Hospital so they may see the community as a place to go when a hospital is needed which gives it the look of a helpful place.

I think some of this is what I will see but some of it is different. I think Mt.Clemens is often thought of as a downtown party place, a place that has a good hospital, and a place of poverty and can be dangerous as well. I think I will see that it is more than that. I think I will see more than just a downtown area and a hospital because I know that Mt. Clemens is a big city and has more to offer. I think by going to some of these places that I will also see that the people of Mt. Clemens are just like people of other communities even though they may live in more rundown areas.

It was nice to explore downtown Mt. Clemens during the day. It was far from the party scene that people often picture with Mt. Clemens. I was surprised at how pretty the city was. There were statues and sculptures and there’s also a very big clock. I think this makes it feel like a more comfortable welcoming community than most outsiders think of it as. We did see people of all types from people who were working hard to people who were just lying on a bench staring at the sky. This shows that some members of the community do live in low income or 0 income homes as some people don’t have jobs or maybe even homes, but there are others who have high incomes and work hard all day. I was a little surprised at how well the town is kept.

By visiting the community that my students live in I am now able to better understand my students. I am aware of the area that they come from and the resources that they have and don’t have in their area. Along with visiting the community I also have been filing the reduced lunch forms that my students bring in which has allowed me to understand more about my students family backgrounds and the types of jobs that their parents have or don’t have. My visit to the community also helped me to realize how great of a school we have. Our school has students who come from all types of backgrounds and the school works very hard to accommodate all of these students. My students receive free breakfast every morning and starting this week they will also receive a free snack later in the day. I think it is great that the school works with the families so that they students have what they need to be successful learners. I also now know that the library in Mt. Clemens is a wonderful library so for some of my students who may not have the money to buy books to read at home they have a variety of options at the library and that is something I can suggest to them now that I know more about their local library. Our school did a “Seminole Library Night” to support the use of the library, which I think is a great thing for my school. Also, the library gives passes for museums near by so that students can visit them for free and I think that is something else that I can suggest to my students or families of my students since I’ve learned that many of them can’t afford extra payments.

4. Florio-Ruane (2010) explains, "The ecological view of literacy asserts that reading, writing, and oral language cannot be separated in their learning and in their use to learn subject matter. They are interrelated because they are all part of communication and are meaningful within social groups, contexts, knowledge and activities" (p. 2). Think about the setting/event you will visit as part of your Inquiry 1 investigation, and jot down some notes about the types of interconnections you are likely to see among reading, writing, oral language and other literacies and how they might contribute to communication in that setting.

I think there will be many interconnections between reading, writing, oral languages, and other literacies as we visit the community. Throughout the community as a whole and the downtown area we will see and hear people conversing with each other, asking questions and responding, etc. We will also be able to see the communication between customers and clients at places like the post office and library. This will allow us to see both informal and formal communication. We will also see visual literacies, as people will have to read signs such as stop signs and handicap signs as they walk and drive through the community. In places such as the post office there will be signs for customers to read so that they know what they need to do in order to be prepared when they reach the front of the line. There will also be writing, as they may need to fill out an envelope. In the library there will certainly be reading and possibly some writing and of course communication between people as well. There will also be technology as people use the computers and are reading on there as well. The art center allows for a lot of communication about the art displays and also visual literacy as the people will have to view the art and read it based on what they see. There will be reading, writing, oral language, and other literacies mixed together as we go from place to place in our school’s community.

We saw interactions in the library among parents/adults and children, the receptionist and people checking out books, the children’s receptionist and the people in the children’s area, etc. I saw saw interactions between friends and family as they walked through the library discussing their day or what book they should check out. There was also interaction between people and the computers.

At the Anton Art Center we were the only people visiting the exhibit while we were there so the only interactions we saw were amongst the 4 of us who went together for the visit. We talked about ways to connect what we were seeing to our classrooms and we also discussed what we saw in certain art pieces. There were also interconnections as we individually looked at the artwork and interpreted it; visual literacy.

We certainly saw interconnections between people in the downtown area as they were conversing with each other; thinking, talking and responding. We also saw visual literacy as people read street signs, handicap signs, stop signs, etc.; visual literacy and reading at the same time.

We were involved in most of these interconnections as well.

5. Think about the connections you could make between and among contexts such as your school, classroom and the community. Literacy can and is found in all of these contexts, though they are not always as "obvious" as they are in our classrooms.

I think it is very important to make connections between school and the community. Many students ask why they’re learning certain things and if they can see a connection of what they’re learning to their community and daily life I think they would better value their learning. Students learn better when they see what they’re learning is actually being used in the community and will be a part of their lives.

Also I think connecting school and the community makes learning more interesting for students. Personal connections are always good for students. We can remind students that they need to read directions to get places, read signs, read menus, etc. We can also have students write poetry or stories based on what they see in their community, art at the Anton Art Center, pictures and architecture at the library, pictures from books they read at the library, etc. We could even have students write descriptions of their communities or how-to papers on how to mail something at the post office. Students also need to know their grammar so that they can speak correctly when they’re at a store, restaurant, post office, etc. We can also read stories to students and have them relate what they learn about in the stories to their community through text to self connections and text to world connections. I hope that students understand that their communities are important places and are learning environments too. I want my students to be able to connect what they learn in the classroom to what they experience in their community outside of school.

This experience will help my teaching in many ways. I think that relating what the students are learning to the real world is very important. As I said above many students ask why they’re learning certain things and if they can see a connection to their community and daily life then they’ll better value their learning. I also think that kids find learning more exciting and interesting when it relates to them personally. Now that I’ve experience the community that my students live in I will be able to relate my teaching to their lives and their community, which will engage them more. I now have many ideas of how to incorporate art based on the Anton Art center into my lessons. The Anton Art Center is something the students can visit and I can also show pictures of artwork from there and use them in all different kinds of lessons, especially math and literacy. Also, I could have students write stories or poetry about their lives and where they live and I will be able to understand their writing better and connect more with them. I feel like understanding my students’ community will make me a better teacher or all of these reasons and also because I feel that I understand my students better now that I’ve seen the community that they live in and what surrounds them on a daily bases.

My investigation of the community has influenced how I think about my students as literacy learners and users because I now know more about what is offered to them. I’m now informed about the resources that my students have access to. I know that they are able to check out books from the library for free and also receive free passes to museums through the library. They can access literacy through the library and as a teacher I can give them literacy assignments that they will better relate to which in turn will help them to engage in their learning.

The Learning Alongside Families PowerPoint talked a lot about teachers perspectives of their students’ parents and how we perceive students an their parents. I found myself realizing that all parents are human and no one is perfect. Just because they may come from a low or 0 income house does not mean that they don’t care about their children. They may want to be involved but don’t know how. As teachers we need to invest our parents and make them involved in their children’s education/academic lives and also the classroom and classroom activities. We can do this by asking for parent volunteers for group activities and field trips, by sending home letters on a normal basis to inform parents, by emailing parents to tell them about their child, etc. The more we stay in contact and gain a positive relationship with parents the better. Yes, there will always be parents who don’t want to listen to the teacher or be a part of their child’s classroom, but that does not mean we should stop trying to connect with our students’ parents.

I relate to the second teacher in the video from the PowerPoint. I certainly had assumptions about parents and how their students’ act and how that plays a part in how their students act. I often think that certain parents will never be involved and I shouldn’t think that. I should try to find more ways to involve the parents and get them to care about their children’s academic success like I discussed above. I should never judge a family, but like this teacher in the video it has happened to me. It’s something that I will truly think about and do my best to work towards involving all parents as much as I can.

Task 2: Considering the Community

My group has chosen to visit the following places/areas:

-Post office

-fire department

-library

-downtown area 

My group and I think that seeing places that serve the community would be interesting and going to the downtown area would allow us to not only see the more populated places and local businesses, but some of the local people.

We actually  ended up going to different places than we had originally planned to go to. We went to the Mt. Clemens public library,  the Anton Art Center,  and the downtown Mt. Clemens area. After going to the library we found that we were able to check out passes for local community exhibits and events so this influenced our decision to go to the Art Center. From there we were in the downtown area and thought it would be nice to walk around.

While visiting these places I expect to see people in the downtown areas who are living their daily life, not realizing that they are being observed. I think many of them will be working and struggling to make money for their families weather they show it or not. However, similar to some of the families that came into open house, I know that most of these people are really trying their hardest and are genuinely being the best parents/citizens that they can currently be.

I think an outsider might see ” people of “low socioeconomic status in an urban area.” Even though I don’t know very much about the community or the people at this point, the small amount of time I have spent with the youth of the area and the night at open house helped me to understand about these people and their predicaments; they can only do and be what their current situation will allow them to. An outsider might not realize this and just see the surface of some of the people that appear to be struggling with life.

We did end up seeing many people struggling and homeless. However, we were so surprised at how genuinely kind they seemed to be. At one point when we were downtown we were taking pictures and one man saw that we were tourists and came up to us telling us about the historical district, where it was, and telling us that it might be something worth seeing. He was so kind and friendly.

I think we will see, hear,and observe a great deal of interconnectedness of various forms of communications at the local sites we visit in Mt Clemens. For example, in a place such as the post office I would see various signs about the services offered at the post office, this is obviously language that would need to be read. I would see forms that would need to be filled out for certain services--writing. Finally, I would hear the workers talking to those in line about shipping, mailing, and others services such as attaining a passport-oral language. Also, in the downtown area of Mt. Clemens, although we are not exactly sure where we will end up, I can imagine all of the various types of communications we might see. For example, we will hear people walking on the streets talking to others. People in local stores with converse with their customers and co-workers, and finally  we will observe various signs and advertisements for these businesses.

Wow, I was so surprised at how many connections to literacy we found within the community. At the library we saw so many amazing resources for students (as expected) but we also saw a “Poet Tree” where children could write poems on a piece of leaf-shaped paper and put it on the “Poet Tree.” We also saw so many street signs with words on them, menus in local restaurants, and newspaper stands throughout the downtown area. Then at the Anton Art Center we saw that much of the artwork in the student art exhibit had poems with them, I found this so wonderful!

I think since many of our students come from such rough home lives we may sometimes be quick to assume that they are not exposed to literacy at home. When in fact they are engulfed within literacy and our stereotypes are not always correct. The Compton article really pushes us to understand this, “My work with families has changed in three significant ways. First, I make it a rule to assume that there are more literacy practices and educational experiences occurring than I realize” (456).  I think there are many connections that we can make to these “local literacies” that can be very meaningful to our students. For example, in math my math professor stressed that making a math problem concrete and applicable to the child by connecting it to local real world examples was one of the most powerful tools for helping them understand the mathematical concepts. I think the same holds true here for our students. Showing them the types of literacies all around them that they come into contact with everyday is a powerful tool for showing them why literacy is important but also to show them that it is something that they are familiar with.

I was very surprised by how much the Mt. Clemens area had to offer. I felt that it had so much to offer culture, arts, cuisine, and overall character. As hard as it is to admit I did have a stereotypical idea of what the downtown area might look like based on the struggles that a lot of our students deal with. 

As a teacher there are so many wonderful connections that I feel I can make. Although I knew prior to visiting the community that real world examples are everywhere this game me even more wonderful ideas about how immersed within literacy students are on a daily basis without realizing it. I think by having them look around when they are in the community, or discussing their community, or bringing in pictures to help them make connections, or if possible taking them out and pointing these connections our we can make connections to the world in which they are familiar that are curricular related. By doing so we make learning more engaging, concrete, and understandable for our students.

Module Part 2

When looking at the community of the school my group has decided to talk to the students and teachers in our building and find out places they enjoy going to. After much discussion we decided to look at a local grocery store, a trailer park where most of our students live, as well as the Family Video. We chose these places because when talking to teachers in our school these were the 3 most common places that were brought up. The teachers informed us that they hear a lot about these places regarding their students and the community. Many students talked about renting video's a lot. When we asked where they rented them almost all of them said family video. When talking to a few of my students, they mentioned a local grocery store, which is only about 5 minutes away from our school. A few of my students even mentioned that they had a family member who worked there. The teachers in our school mentioned that many of the students live in a trailer park around the corner from school. Besides for the trailer parks, we found out that many students live in nearby apartments or rental houses.

It is hard to think about what I expect to see there. I expect to see cheaper prices for food and movies then I would see at my local grocery store or video store. I also expect that all three places will be small in size then what I am use to. They may not have a variety regarding food, movies, and even design of their homes. I also think that everything will be very close together in terms of the homes. When thinking about the grocery store I think that there will be many generic brands and less well known brands. I think the same will happen with the movies. It's hard to think about what I think I will see in the trailer park, because I am not very familiar with trailer parks.

When looking at the third question I believe that I am an outsider. I am not familiar with the community at all, so therefore what I see would probably be similar to what a "outsider" would see. I also think that everyone has different perception of ideas and the way they observe things. My view will be much different then those of the people in live in that community, considering I do not live there and I am getting familiar with the area. Another interesting aspect maybe that the school that I am placed at is on the border of 2 school districts. Thinking about that alone, I think that the area that my school is in will look different then the Waterford area as a whole. I think that different parts of Waterford will look different depending on where you are in the area. Honestly I think this is a hard question to answer or look at considering I am not part of their community. Even though I am a teacher in that community I wouldn't consider myself as part of their community yet.

After community visit

When my group and I were on the visit there were a lot of things I noticed, and many things that surprised me. I noticed that there were a few homes in the trailer park area. I assumed there would be many more, especially from everything I had heard from the teachers about many students coming from that area. I also noticed that the trailers were very close together and seemed very basic. When we went to the grocery store I noticed that when we walked in there was a security guard at the entrance. I also noticed that he roomed the store and watched shoppers. The size was a little larger then I assumed. I also noticed that there were many generic brands in the store and many items were on sale. Something else I noticed about the grocery store, which did surprise me was that there was a huge Hispanic isle. I didn't realize how big of a Hispanic community there was. When we went to the movie store I noticed that there was a lot of deals that the store had to offer.

There were many aspects about the places I went to that really surprised me. I was surprised at how few trailer homes there were. I was also surprised by how large of a rental community the area really was. When I went to the grocery store the one thing that really stood out to me, was the massive amounts of alcohol the store sold. The store was pretty small and size and it seemed as though a quarter of the store was taking up by alcohol sales. I would have assumed that for such a small store there would have only been an isle, or half an isle for this type of item. The security guard at the front of the store also really surprised me. I was not expecting that nor am I use to anything like that in my local grocery stores. When we went to the video store I was surprised at how many movies the store had to offer. I was expecting a very limited selection, but in fact there was just as many, if not more, videos to choose from compared to my local video store. The prices were also extremely reasonable.

This assignment definitely opened my eyes to a new community. I was able to see what was around me and see what my kids enjoy doing. I was able to talk to my students and find out where they enjoy going. I was able to take a deeper look into it and see the similarities and differences from my own community. By looking at the community I was able to learn more about my students and there everyday lives. I was able to take things that they know and try and understand them in order to teacher and relate to my students. After visiting the grocery store, I thought back to my students who said they had parents who worked there. I am able to think back now and try and relate these ideas and there places to their everyday life in order to teacher and relate materials.

This project will most definitely help me with my teaching. I will not be able to look back at the community and try and make lessons that relate. For example, they can write about their neighborhood or there family for me to better understand them. I can make a writing assignment out of what I learned from the community or see what similarities I noticed verses what the students think about their community. I think in general I will be able to plan a lot more lesson plans, in all subjects, that can relate to the surrounding community. I believe that if I can connect with the students to something they enjoy or something they can relate to, they will better understand the subject. They may even be more interested.

This will help me to better understand the background of literacy my students have. Although this doesn't show me there personal life and there personal background, it shows me what they are exposed to on a near everyday basis. I will also be able to understand some of the places my students talk about. I will know more about them and their community. I think this project will have a positive effect on my ability to teacher and cater to my students needs. When reading the Compton article the section about teachers study really stood out to me. When reading that section is really reminded me of this assignment. It is a way for teachers to try and understand there students by researching first hand what students experience and there interactions in the community.