Kathleen Powers
Reading 589
Literacy and Power Cyberlesson Reflection
November 16, 2005
My Literacy and Power cyberlesson is designed to be implemented over a two to three week time period, depending on how often you meet with the students. I teach an Academic Literacy class to 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in which I meet with them 4 days out of a 5 day cycle for 45 minutes each time. On the 4th day out of the cycle, the students participate in a ½ hour of self-directed reading, so I have three 45-minute lesson periods to teach each week. With that schedule, this lesson took us a little over 3 weeks to complete.
I work at a science and technology magnet middle school. Students have individual laptops and I found that creating a cyberlesson was a motivating format for teaching reading strategies. Reading Changed My Life is also a high interest read. The three women featured in the story go through really tough childhoods and struggles. The students often had to sit back after reading various sections and let the impact of their stories sink in. This is a great text for teaching empathy and connections too! I’d like to add more room for personal responses for the during-reading activities next year! We had some great discussions and oral responses as we read these stories! I found that some students only wrote minimal responses to the during-reading activities. I think that allowing more room for discussion during the reading would benefit. I’m considering adding more mini-literature circles after each story next year. It also capitalizes on the middle school need to socialize and talk!
There are three stories within Reading Changed My Life. Each story is approximately 30 pages in length. I did the first story about Maria Cardenas as a shared reading. I placed the free E-book on the Smart Board and read aloud as the students read along. We paused at critical points and completed the during-reading analysis together. The students then read the second story, about Daisy Russell, in pairs at their laptops and completed the during-reading analysis together. Finally, each student read the final story about Julia Burney independently and completed the during-reading analysis alone. I used the strategy of gradual release of responsibility throughout the book: I modeled reading the text and responding during reading with think-alouds, then used partners for guided practice, and finally used the third story as independent practice. I found that this technique worked well because the students felt comfortable and confident when they got to the independent reading and responding phase.
After reading the entire text, I helped the students prepare to meet in a literature circle using ideas from Mini Lessons for Literature Circles by Harvey Daniels. In class I had the students meet with their literature circle groups for one class period prior to talking about the text. During this class, students discussed self-selected topics and practiced skills such as the following: staying on topic, asking follow up questions, listening with an open mind, agreeing to disagree, and paraphrasing what others said. I found this to be an effective strategy to not only prepare students for a text-based discussion, but also to build a collaborative atmosphere among each group before discussing the text.
Students had class time to work on their collage. I brought in magazines and students had access to their laptops to do image searches and use clip art. This was a creative class time and students also brought in music by Fantasia (winner of American Idol who struggled with literacy) to listen to as inspiration. I modeled my collage for Mississippi Trials: 1955 and had also borrowed collages from the art teacher as models. Students prepared their three questions and three golden lines as homework (I made the e-book text available off-line so students were able to access it at home. I also had a few copies of the text for students who did not have a computer.) The collages came out wonderful and the students really felt motivated to share them with others. As a matter of a fact, we extended the literature circles into another class period to share the golden lines and questions! I’m always reminded of the human need to share the personal responses before jumping into a more analytical discussion of a text.
I found some images of illiteracy art after using the cyberlesson with my students. I showed it to them outside of the cyberless and found the images provoke much discussion on the impact of illiteracy. Here is the site: http://www.hooverdigest.org/033/farkas.html. I’d like to continue my search for lyrics and music that depict the horrors of illiteracy for next year as well.
Finally, students watched the John Corcoran video. So many of my students, who all struggle with reading, were completely enraptured by this video! I think it makes such a difference to hear the actual person speaking their own story and struggle! It is a 55 minute video. I showed it each day at the beginning of class for about 10 minutes until it was done. John Corcoran mentioned that he believed illiteracy to be a form of child abuse. Wow! That one statement led to so much discussion and debate! I’m considering keeping that as an essential question next year! The boldness of the statement was so shocking that all students perked up and had something to say about it! I’m just not sure if it is too much for a middle school essential question. I’m still considering it. Even weeks after viewing the video my students still make references to John Corcoran’s video and struggle with illiteracy. It was a perfect beyond reading activity.