After reading Wang's article about Photovoice and choosing between Cullen or Gabriel & Wentz, draft a blog post where you explore One Quote, One Connection, and One Question. Use this post to play with ideas, make connection, and push your own/your classmates' thinking. The best posts will be those that go beyond summary, incorporate quotations from the texts, and move into critical reflection. Please read and comment on at least one person's blog post as well.
**You can pick and choose the quote/connection/question between the two texts. You do not need to do one post per article.**
The article, “Three Directions for Disciplinary Literacy”, by Gabriel and Wentz had many inspiring quotes. One quote I resonated with was the excerpt about engagement in the discipline, “Teachers working from this perspective don't ask students to do things ‘like a scientist’; they ask students to ‘do science.’ If scientists collect data, students don't just read about how data can be collected; they collect data themselves.” I found this practice of having the students “doing” a discipline most effective when teaching mathematics. Finding ways to incorporate literacy has always been an opportunity of improvement in my classroom. I have students “do math” like a mathematician when they are solving word problems. Students don’t just read about how mathematicians solve word problems, they solve the problems and become better through practice! I use a support structure known as, “Polya’s Process” in my classroom. I provide a graphic organizer that outlines the process when students are solving word problems. Students are required to “do math” and approach word problems like a mathematician by writing in the information for each step. Step 1: What is the given information?; Student’s learn to highlight important information such as numbers, units, and vocabulary words that might be used to find the answer. Step 2: What strategy will you use?; Students write in what strategy they will use to help them find the answer; For example, students might draw a picture. Step 3: Solve the problem; Students are encouraged to show all of their work in the space provided. Step 4: Look back; Students are encouraged to verify their work to make sure their answer is correct. This process not only helps them learn to become better problem solvers, but they pick up math literacy along the way!
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ReplyDeleteTwo connections popped into my mind after reading the article, “Photovoice: A Participatory Action Research Strategy Applied to Women’s Health”, by Caroline Wang. One connection was a common quote, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Photovoice is a powerful tool that can help create change because pictures tell stories. Pictures from photovoice provide people with the ability to not just read about injustices around the world, but see them. As a result, one would hope that community members would be more likely to create an emotional connection through these pictures that might lead to change in policy for certain injustices.
A majority of the article focused on examples of using photovoice to improve women’s health across the globe, but did not suggest that it only be used for that objective. Wang states, “Researchers and participants may tailor photovoice to specific or participatory objectives, but any application of photovoice should by characterized by participatory analysis using the three stage process of (1) selecting, (2) contextualizing, and (3) codifying .” (Wang, pg. 191). After reading that quote from the text I immediately made a second connection to an Instagram account I follow, “Rescue Ray”. The account was created by a freelance photographer who was inspired by his pet dog, Ray. His dog is a pitbull from his local animal shelter. Pitbulls are depicted in society as aggressive and harmful animals. After adopting his new pet he realized that is not that case for every dog. He quickly fell in love with Ray’s affection, loyalty, and hilarious smile. He realized that society has a negative image of not just pitbulls, but even animals from shelters. He realized most of the photos of adoptable dogs are taken quickly, and not with the best camera quality. Most of the pictures depict the dogs when they are scared, making it easier for people to continue scrolling rather than taking the time to learn about the dog. As a result, his love for Ray inspired him to help other dogs in the shelter. He volunteers his time playing and walking with the dogs while trying to take photos of them in their best light. These photos are shared through social media in hopes that community members will see them and have a change of heart with dogs at the shelter. Through his efforts he has helped many dogs find forever homes. “Rescue Ray” is using a form of photovoice to create change in his community. He follows the three stage process to photovoice. Stage one, he selected his participants, rescue dogs (specifically bully breeds). Stage two, he contextualizes his content by depicting these animals in a positive light. He tells their stories by taking pictures of them when they are happy on walks. He highlights their best features and characteristics through these photos. Stage three, he shares his content via Instagram as a way to spark conversation and change people’s hearts. As a result, people will research more into the dogs themselves or feel inspired to help the cause and make a change by adopting the dogs or sharing the information along to others.
One question I had after reading the article about photovoice by Wang was about the media used for photovoice. Is the media for photovoice limited to just pictures from a camera? For example, can we consider a video as a form of media for photovoice if it follows the three stage process?
By: Abigail Brunelle
I completely relate to your connection to Rescue Ray’s instagram posts and Wang’s Photovoice study. I too, follow dog instagram posts about rescues living their best lives. These posts are entertaining and heartwarming which is how they catch the public's eye. More importantly, they educate their audience about misrepresented breeds carrying inaccurate reputations. As you said, these sights use a three stage process analyzing their content and then posting this material. The injustice these breeds suffer in being presented as aggressive will hopefully change when the truth about their personality comes to light. Just like using Photovoice to bring to light the story of people’s life realities, this now public information could affect change in public policy. Like Wang so eloquently said, “...this framework holds that the images we see influence our focus and our world view.”(Wang, p.186)
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ReplyDeleteIn “Culturally Responsive Disciplinary Literacy Strategies Instruction”, Kathleen Cullen discusses the importance of literacy instruction across all disciplines. As she describes literacy in each content area, one thread becomes very clear: the vital nature of context. Within each academic subject are contexts that require students to read texts in different ways. It is not enough to simply know how to read. This, I think, is where it gets tricky.
Cullen writes that, “When Shanahan and Shanahan (2008) discussed teaching generalizable comprehension strategies in content areas, they found that individuals in their participant sample were not interested in teaching students how to ‘read’”. I connected this quote to things I have experienced in my own school. I have heard colleagues complain about how their students’ reading comprehension is low; some students have trouble with math MCAS because of the word problems, not necessarily because they can’t do the math. It makes me wonder how much work these teachers are doing to teach students to be literate in their disciplines. My department has been asked to help improve literacy in our school, yet we feel that it’s a schoolwide issue, not just one for ELA teachers. Cullen’s article clearly outlines why this is not just one teacher’s responsibility. Yes, we work with kids on their reading skills, but we do not have the time nor training to teach kids how to be literate in all the other subject areas.
One question that I have is how can teams work together to make sure that students have the necessary skills in all subjects? What are other schools doing to improve their own literacy?
Cullen’s discussion of what constitutes a text inspired another connection to Caroline Wang’s research about Photovoice. Photovoice is a project that allows participants to use photography to tell their truth. These images are the ‘texts’ that tell their story, so they can “promote critical dialogue and knowledge about personal and community issues…” (Wang, 185). I could see this type of project being useful in all subject areas as a way for students to show what they know. Perhaps the use of photovoice in the classroom could increase literacy across the board!
To answer the question: how can teams work together to make sure that students have the necessary skills in all subjects?
DeleteI feel that teams need to getting valuable common planning time in order to do this. Teams should be finding the commonality in language that they are using, and the types of texts that they are using. For example, the math and science teacher on the team should both try and get students to use the same language when looking at graphs and data. Similarly the math teacher should be talking with the english teacher about the importance of synonyms, and which ones are good to know for math class. Examples such as sum and addition being the same, or positive and increase. Teachers across the team can communicate with each other how the literacy learning in other classes can help students across the board, and how teachers can be working together to make that go as well as possible for the students.
- David Keith
The conversation about teaching students how to read content specific text really made me think about student reading in my classroom. I feel that students tend to jump right in and start reading with the first word of the first paragraph. They usually ignore everything else on the page. I feel that the way textbooks are written has changed quite a bit over the years. A social studies textbook today contains much more than words. They are usually full of relevant pictures, charts, graphs, maps, etc. All of these are intended to help students understand and give a deeper meaning to the content. Going forward, I will try to make students aware of this and encourage them to explore everything on the page, not just the words in the paragraphs.
Delete-Terri Dubis
In the article "Three Directions for Disciplinary Literacy," by Gabriel and Wenz, the authors make the claim, "If students are to develop discipline-specific skills, they need text types and purposes for reading and writing that provide opportunities to apply and refine specialized skills." I think that this quote by the authors is very important, because it emphasizes the need for different texts types that are specific to the content in which students are trying to improve their literacy. As a math teacher this is often difficult to do, unless you change the way that most people think about "literacy" and "text". To me, as a math teacher, literacy and text go beyond reading and writing. I think that literacy is the ability to read things such as graphs, charts, and maps, not just words. Not only do students need to be able to do that, but they need to be able to articulate or communicate what it is that these other forms of texts are showing them. Wang shows that literacy can come in different forms when she uses pictures as the form of communication. Wang says, "the visual image provides a site of learning." Through this quote Wang is saying that literacy is not just the traditional reading and writing of words, but that other forms of text can provide meaning and literacy.
ReplyDeleteAs a student teacher my classes participated in a weekly warm-up called "writing Wednesday" in which students were required to work on their math literacy skills. They would look at a graph and write down what it meant. They would have to write out steps to solving a problem rather than just solving. All of these strategies that the students were using worked on their math literacy, without just having them reading and writing based off of standard text.
In what other ways can literacy span across subjects?
Can schools create common strategies to help students improve their literacy in every class?
- David Keith
DeleteDavid, I like the question you raised about schools creating common strategies to help students improve their literacy. It made me think it would be helpful to create posters for every classroom with the strategies listed. These could be reminders and cues for teachers and students to refer to during those teachable moments. It would be a powerful tool to have in every classroom, and the extra visual would reinforce students literacy skills across the board. Students could see the literacy connection across all disciplines. Additionally, having a set of common literacy strategies for all disciplines could provide other opportunities for students to learn these literacy strategies maybe outside of the traditional english classroom. Students who may be stronger in math or science would have an additional entry point in regards to accessing these strategies more effectively.
Delete-Abigail Brunelle
DeleteDavid, like Abby, I think your second question is really important. Schools creating a common strategy to help implement literacy programs across the school (spanning all grades and subjects) seems like a huge project to undertake, but the school I am currently working at is adopting a similar frame regarding practicing writing strategies. ELA teachers are leading staff and students in a year-long attempt to raise our writing literacy (formal writing such as essays) by scaffolding up activities that engage students in the same type of writing across disciplines. For example, we are beginning with tackling sentences vs. fragments and the use of proper punctuation across the school for the first two weeks. All educators will be asked to implement the same activities in their classrooms, differentiating vocabulary and sentence starters based on content.
DeleteImplementation and fidelity make these initiatives so challenging. I was just paring down my collection of books on literacy instruction and can't tell you how many emphasized a "whole language" approach in the elementary years and chastised classrooms that embrace direct phonics instruction (which we are now quite certain is the most effective method of to ensure students' foundational reading skills), It made me reflect on how many fads of pedagogy teachers see in their careers and how easy it is to grow cynical of district-wide initiatives like these. How do we ensure authentic buy-in for all teachers? How do we support teachers who may be struggling to see the value? How do we methodically implement and authentically evaluate these programs to determine success, and what plans are in place to change direction if failure proves evident? And who is responsible for supporting and monitoring teacher efforts? When it works, it's important to document why and how it works so that it can be repeated...it's a lot for teachers to take on when we've got our day-to-day classroom agenda in addition to these grand plans.
DeleteThe quote that I chose comes from the article “Photovoice: A Participatory Action Research Strategy Applied to Women’s Health,” by Caroline C. Wang. The quote is “The media do not tell people what to think but help set the public agenda about what people talk about and pay attention to.” I do not necessarily agree with this quote; especially in today’s political climate. I think the media influences people by what they choose to air. A big story may be buried by a particular media outlet simply because the story does not support their political agenda. Too often talk show hosts and commentators state their opinions as if they were facts. Individuals who are less informed might mistake their opinions as facts, therefore, influencing their beliefs. Very rarely are two sides of an issue discussed simultaneously. The popular daytime television show, The View, usually has four liberal minded co-hosts and only one conservative minded co-host. I do not think that happened by accident. It is a liberal minded show, looking to influence people toward liberal minded views. If that were not the case, they would balance the conversation with an equal number of liberals and conservatives. Wealthy politicians flood the television outlets with advertisements prior to an election. The intent is to influence and persuade people to see things their way and vote for them.
ReplyDeleteThe connection that I made comes from Kathleen A. Cullen, the section titled, “The Influence of Apprenticeship of Observation.” Cullen talks about a “white preservice teacher who was trying to make a point to a group of mostly black students about the influence of wealth on a person’s life.” Apparently the teacher referenced Bill and Melinda Gates as wealthy U.S. business people. However, the students were not familiar with the reference. Instead, one of the students gave Jay-Z as a more relevant reference. I too have used references trying to make connections with my students that have not worked. Most likely due to the differences in generation. When it is apparent that students do not understand my reference, I try to come up with additional references for them to understand. However, I take it one step further. Using this example, Bill and Melinda Gates are a great example of wealthy business people. Rather than move on to another reference, I would have educated the students on who they were, how they became wealthy, and how they share their wealth today, particularly through their philanthropy towards schools. As Cullen states, “we need to provide all students with learning opportunities.” I view this situation as a teachable moment. I always try to make connections to real world examples in order to make the content relevant to my students. Teaching in a variety of ways and providing various references will help to accommodate learners with varying ability and backgrounds.
One question that I have pertains to the reading on Wang. Wang discusses the use of photographs to tell a story. She states, “the lesson an image teaches does not reside in its physical structure but rather in how people interpret the image in question.” If an individual is telling a story through photographs and images are open to interpretation, how do we know the person viewing the photograph is receiving the intended message? We all interpret images through our own filters and life experiences.
Having the opportunity to discuss their photos with the viewer gives the photographer the chance to allay any misconceptions, so there hopefully will be no misinterpretation. That component of the photovoice project is key. I also had questions about this process, particularly when Wang writes about allowing creativity when taking pictures. It makes me wonder how much creativity can influence the truth. Though the purpose of the project is to see the reality people go through, what if someone manipulated their surroundings to seem different, but presented it as true?
DeleteI almost included that in my initial post as well. Being "creative," with the photographs seems to imply that the photos are be staged. If that occurs, there may be no truth to the photograph.
Delete-Terri Dubis
I agree with you about the media airing what they chose to air. The media takes a story and tell only part of the story or what they learned in a situation. For example, posting thing that are not true about many educators here in the providence school system. When it comes to the test scores they just explain how awful the students did but no other explanation as to why they performed the way they did.
DeleteIn reading the Gabriel and Wenz article on Disciplinary Literacy, I find it interesting that content area literacy teaching is described as focussed on supporting a teen’s ability to read and write and accessing “...deep content knowledge that engages them in school and prepares them for life after graduation.”(Gabriel and Wenz, p.1) This makes a connection for me to social studies and the study of society and human relationships. “The academic disciplines are communities that collaborate to produce knowledge about the world and human experiences.”(G&W, p.1) It strikes me that students’ ability to master these literary skills is a social studies objective in creating engaging activities resulting in students becoming good community members and participatory members of society.
ReplyDeleteWhile teaching history, I want students to have the ability to read content and determine who wrote it and why they wrote it. Who was the audience? What was the message they were trying to convey? Gabriel and Wenz describe that specialization as ‘insider status’ and it is ‘discipline-specific’. Students will also read a passage in my classroom that is supported by a video and classroom activity which is a general literacy strategy. Finally, utilizing charts and original source documents allows students to ‘do’ history. To teach, apply and engage in literacy education requires many approaches for what works best for the students and the instructional goals of the classroom.
My question is about how to level reading to best fit the needs of students. Some students need simpler sentence structure and more support. Some students thrive on diving into the material. How does one find the balance between the two?
Quote:
ReplyDelete“Culturally responsive teachers also seek to understand how their own backgrounds, experiences, and biases may influence their teaching, such as having different expectations for various student groups based on stereotypes,” (Cullen).
Cullen’s description of CRT speaks to me as an educator who constantly strives towards implementing CRT strategies in my classroom. In conjunction with Cullen’s ideas about the distinctive features and demands of History, especially the idea that “culturally specific words have specialized meaning [which needs to be taught into for some of our students],” I believe that CRT with social justice should be a goal that guides the education system in the United States. We have such a complex history, which is rich in a variety of perspectives due to our past immigration policies. These perspectives need to be respected and valued by our educators and policy makers in order to help students become confident, active members of our society. The strategies suggested by Cullen to aid history teachers in helping students access this knowledge seem to be skills that I call historical thinking practices. “Analyze details related to the sources of information and why they were documented; Close reading, often across multiple documents/sources and in reference to one another (i.e., corroboration),” (Cullen). Cullen uses Moje’s description of CRT for social justice, and emphasizes the focus “on how what is learned can be used to address power and oppression in society.” Utilizing contextualization in history classrooms allows students to directly address and confront biases of authors, and highlight whose stories are missing from the narrative. Not all messages can be taught in school, that would be an infinite task; the only thing we as educators can do is do our part to learn about our biases, and present a wide variety of opinions in the classroom, recognizing that no one person has all the answers, and no one should have the right to take away the students’ ability to uncover new stories.
Connection: Solomon’s idea that women have multiple identities, as Wang explores on p. 186, was extremely thought provoking. In my recent experience coming into my identity as an adult woman, I feel as though who I am in the public realm is very similar to who I am in my private life as well. While some things about my personality, such as my sarcastic private nature, are toned down in professional settings (such as in the classroom), I still believe that my identity is not lost in any way. I wonder: is this due to my experience occurring in a social realm that allows for strong white women to be unapologetically true to their nature? Have we progressed that much in society? While I do not know the answer for sure, Solomon is quoted discussing the “fundamental way that the representation of people helps determine who they become.” That quote really stuck with me because it digs into a deeper level - am I the way I am because that is how I reflect upon others? Am I truly being myself at all? I believe photovoice will help me to uncover the truth about those answers, especially when presented for interpretation by others.
Question: Why was film the photo method of choice in Wang’s past studies? Why was it suggested? I think this may be due to the fact that film is harder to manipulate, and cannot be “deleted” as digitized pictures can. I think that film is a more “real” method of capturing images because of its raw nature and the fact that what that image contains is almost secretive until the film is developed.
-Mia Palombo
Quote: "Rather than allowing contrasting messages to overwhelm or stymie teachers' efforts, it's important to understand the breadth of possibilities, as well as when and how various approaches might apply. Each of the approaches exists on a continuum that spans different instructional goals, materials, and strategies, but they can be used in complementary ways within a single classroom, especially when teachers feel empowered to integrate them to meet the needs of their students." Gabriel & Wenz
ReplyDeleteI continue to struggle to embrace explicit instruction, and this statement - featured in their summary - felt like a tiny personal victory. I see how many students abhor ELA and my heart dies a little. There is so, so much explicit instruction happening in classrooms now,and so little actual reading for enjoyment beyond 5th grade. I often wonder whether we have taken for granted what knowledge can be gleaned from observation. In the book "How We Learn," author Benedict Carey cites a study that demonstrated by simply observing exemplar and non-exemplar works of art by movement (expressionism, cubism, romanticism), individuals more effectively classified novel works than individuals who received direct instruction on movements. I believe we could benefit from a whole lot more "engagement in the discipline" vs. a strictly scaffolded three-tiered formula.
Connection: Now that I've had a chance to take a stab at photovoice, I have experienced firsthand some of the insights observing my own experience offers the broader world (more power to the value of observation!). I was concerned I had an agenda at the outset, which I will admit that I did, and many of the themes depicted are admittedly trite. But my greatest exasperation has been with covert medical billing practices.
Question: How does one assemble an audience of policymakers? How does one persist in due diligence to ensure policies and programs are revised or instituted as a result? What happens when nothing changes?
One quote popped into mind from the chapter by Zwiers, “Cultivating Academic Language Acquisition” in relation to modeling with “think-alouds”. “The key is to give students a window into expert thinking (more expert than theirs) and a language used to describe it. We model what it means to be, think, talk, read, write, and act like a content expert. Student become our apprentices… (pg. 53 Zwiers). As a math teacher I am an advocate for “think-alouds” when teaching new problems to students. My goal when explicitly stating how to solve a problem aloud is to provide the students with an internal dialogue that hopefully they can use intrinsically after much practice, and with future problems. In the teacher example from that chapter, I connected with how the teacher highlighted new vocabulary by following with the definition when thinking aloud. “Think-alouds” provide students with additional scenarios and practice with new vocabulary. They deepen their ability to not only solve, but justify their answers. They are something teachers can easily implement by simply becoming more thoughtful with their use of their own dialogue. I feel like it is a quick and easy technique when used consistently can help you maximize your effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteOne connection I had with Zwiers from chapter 7, “Language for Reading Complex Text” was in relation to an effective teaching activity known as, “Lyric Summaries”. “In this engaging and creative activity, pairs or groups read a text and then create a summary that goes to a common tune” (pg. 192, Zwiers). Zwiers then goes on to share a lyric to remember the steps to solving a quadratic function with the quadratic formula. I connected with this strategy because I have used a similar activity in class. I found a video of students from another school online take it a step further by making a music video that went along with their lyrics summary for solving linear equations. The song was called, “Graph”, and followed a common hip hop tune by Usher. I have always wanted to have the students write their own lyrics summaries and take it a step further by letting them connect it with music that is relevant to their lives, or letting them act it out in class as a performance. I think both of those lesson extensions would allow students to connect their personal interests to the content literacy and make it more engaging.
One question I had after reading was what sentence starters could I create in my classroom to push my students development with their math literacy?
-Abigail Brunelle
Gabriel and Wenz
ReplyDeleteQuote/connection/question
Because the texts found in content-area classrooms are often written at or above grade level, the primary reason adolescents struggle with them is that they need to be better readers and writers across the board.
Explain quote-Many texts that are found in classrooms are above students reading and writing ability. The challenge for adolescent readers is that they lack highly specialized skills and knowledge, which are a prerequisite for engaging with complex disciplinary concepts. (Gabriel and Wenz) Having these above grade level texts in classroom discourage students. Some students are not able to decode, read fluently or comprehend the reading or what they have to do with the text. When choosing a text either to read or use as a reference it needs to be a text that students are able to read and make connections to.
My connection is within my class with my students. I have emergent bilingual students who do not speak or read the English language. The curriculum is all new to emergent bilinguals and they are expected to read and write in the English language. Some lack the specialized skills and knowledge to engage within the classroom. When I have a text that may be high level for my students, I read with them as a whole group and those who would like to read out loud may choose to do so. When giving the text for my students I try to read it before them to make sure I am able to explain the content or ideas they may come across during reading. I may show them a clip from the trailer of the movie as well so they are able to gain some prior knowledge before reading the text chosen for them.