New Literacies Reflection Blog

            Since the beginning of participating in this course my definition of literacy has greatly changed in regards to my understanding of literacy and the many components that are integrated into literacy. In the beginning of the year my definition of literacy surrounded reading and writing, as well as the components of reading like the components of fluency, and the aspects of writing. I felt that literacy was a vehicle to connecting a person to the rest of the world. I still feel that this is an accurate perception of literacy, however I now see that my definition was missing many different components that I had not realized at the time of my initial definition.

            Halfway through the semester, my definition of literacy changed to incorporate that literacy is an unalienable right that every person has. It acts as a resource to help people grow into an individual identity and that literacy can be used to celebrate the differences among people and what makes them individuals. I also added to my definition to include that literacy can be used to self-express yourself through writing and reading in finding others in similar situations.  My eyes were really opened through the course readings in seeing that my definition was really lacking these new inclusions. “Teaching All the Children” by Lapp et. al, really helped me to see how literacy is a huge lacking component in the inner city schools, and is a huge vehicle for those students to see how they are not alone in their situation in regards to reading stories about characters that they can relate to, as well as help them to find hope in their situation that they can rise above and make it out. It also can be a vehicle for them to express themselves and help their teacher to better understand who they are and what kind of situations they are living in. They also can use literacy as a vehicle to release the tension they feel from the stress that they face in their young lives. Also from the course readings, “Seeing Color Seeing Culture” also helped me to see how people’s races and cultural differences should be acknowledged and celebrated and literacy is a great vehicle to do just that.

            Now that I have engaged in the New Literacies Project through this course I have come to realize that while my definition still is accurate there is another component that is missing from the definition. I also have learned a new technology to begin teaching literacy to my class as well as a new aspect to literacy. In exploring emotional literacy I have come to realize that literacy is not just reading, writing and the comprehension of words it also includes the reading, expressing, and understanding of emotions too. I never truly understood the importance of emotional literacy and the huge implications proper training and understanding of this literacy can have on my future classroom. I never stopped to think that many kids come to school with little to no experience in understanding their emotions and reading other’s emotions; but after reading about this literacy, exploring the implications, and the observations I have made in my kindergarten placement I now really feel that I am educated in realizing the importance emotional literacy has in everyone’s life.

            This new literacy that I have learned is something that is completely different from the traditional literacy of reading, writing and comprehension. Emotional literacy is less to do with reading and writing and has more to do with self-expression, understanding the self, the emotions that every person feels, and how to appropriately handle those emotions, as well as how to read and react to other’s emotions. Emotional literacy is a component to literacy that is a huge part in everyone’s life, and being literate in our emotions can help us with our relationships in our personal and professional worlds and getting us through all of the ups and downs of life. Emotional literacy can be included in my definition of traditional literacy, in that reading and writing can be a vehicle not only for self-expression, celebrate other’s differences, but also a vehicle to express your emotions and what you may be feeling in different situations. A person can do this through either writing about it, reading about what they’re feeling to better understand their emotions, or read about people who have felt the same way they do and how they handled their emotions to help them relate to the characters and learn how to deal with what they’re feeling.

            The new technology of the Prezi presentation is something that coincides with literacy and is a new technology that teachers can utilize to teach their students about literacy and other lessons. The Prezi is a presentation of words, pictures, and videos. It is an expression of information in a more high-tech fashion than what the traditional powerpoint is. This presentation technology also adds to the facet of what my definition of literacy consists of. The technology use proves that literacy is not just writing on paper, and reading from books, it also is using different technologies such as the Prezi where a student can create a story, or provide information, or create a poem, or any kind of literature in the technology. People can also use this technology to read and learn about different topics in the classroom environment.

            After exploring and creating this new project I have come to see that providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners not only encompasses developing their reading and writing comprehension but also includes teaching my students about themselves as learners and as people. I think that it is just as important to teach my students about their emotions, that it is ok to have emotions, and how to handle those emotions appropriately as it is teaching traditional literacy. I also think that it is important to teach my kids how to handle other’s emotions in regards to reading their emotions and knowing how to react to those emotions exhibited by others. This is especially important in a classroom with a diverse population, because they all would come to the classroom with different methods of handling and exhibiting their emotions. They would then need to be able to understand one another and how to work together with their different emotional backgrounds. With the new technology that I have used I have seen how important it is to incorporate different technologies into my literacy teaching to reach every kind of learner I have in my classroom. Utilizing this technology for this project was really interesting to learn about in my own creation. I had a sense of accomplishment with this project because the technology made my information really interesting, and that is something that I want to empower my students with in the future. Giving them a new avenue to learn and utilize literacy with can help them to become interested in literacy and help them to explore different avenues of their creativity.

            In my Kindergartner class, my students would be limited in their understanding of this technology and emotional literacy, because they are still learning how to log into the computers at school, and they’re at the beginning stages of learning about their emotions and the emotions of others. My students would need to be able to read more in-depth information than what they are currently. I feel though, that with guidance and classroom discussions my students would be able to fill out some of the valuable information needed for this literacy, and would really be able to grasp emotional literacy with some of the classroom activities that I have included in my presentation. My students would not necessarily have to write in complete sentences because the Prezi does not require it so their abilities in writing would coincide with the Prezi. My students have been making great strides in their sentence writing however, and I feel that they would be able to write quite a bit about emotional literacy on the presentation with guided help. The students could also draw pictures of emotions and videotape themselves talking about emotions and what it means to be literate in those emotions and put that into their presentations. The students would have to learn how to use the computer a lot more, however, and would have to know how to import text and video into the presentation, and how to make a path to connect all of the ideas on the presentation to make it flow accurately. This would take a lot of guided practice and a teacher sitting next to the student to help them through the process. I feel that this technology would be more appropriate for older students because of the difficulties that goes along with it. I had a lot of difficulties with the technology and I feel that it would be really hard for my kindergartners. I do not think as a teacher I would have my students in my placement try to learn how to use the Prezi because it would be too difficult. I think that I would ask them what they wanted to include in the presentation and as a class make the presentation on the smart board so that they are still a part of the creation process, and it would not be over their heads with the creation since most of my kids have just picked up on how to log into their computers.

            I feel that emotional literacy would be a great lesson to teach my students because they are just beginning to learn about themselves and others and how to handle the feelings that they have. I would begin teaching my students about different emotions through reading my students different books that displayed different emotions, such as the books that I had in my presentation. After each reading of the books as a class I would have a discussion with my students about the emotion that was discussed, what occurred in the story, if my students have had a similar experience, and how they could handle the emotion they felt. I also would have my students discuss if they have seen someone else exhibit this emotion, what are the physical cues with the emotion, and what they can do to help that person. After each day of reading I would have my students go back to their seats and make a self-portrait poster where they drew a picture of themselves expressing the emotion that we learned about that day. After each emotion has been read and their emotions charts have been filled out, I would have my students write out a small journal entry that talked about a time that they felt one of the emotions on their chart. To end the unit I would have my students play a charades game where they were given an emotion and would have to act out the emotion for the class to guess. I then would have my students discuss what they could do to help the person who is feeling the emotion.

            I would use both the journal entry and the charades game to assess my students’ understanding of emotional literacy. I would assess that my students understood the emotions through their accurate portrayal of the particular emotions chosen, as well as my class as a whole being able to recognize the emotions that their classmates are acting out. I also would assess my students’ writing for their understanding of the emotion, and their ability to discuss their feelings in regards to that emotion in their journal entries.