Cross Curricular Narratives

I love when my classes relate to each other and make more sense then they did at first. Here's a reading log I wrote reflecting on "From Tourist to Storyteller: Reading and Writing Science" by Dawn Abt-Perkins & Gian Pagnucci 

The Learning Process, PED 3101, Week 4 Reading Log:

This week’s article takes us through the journey of students trying to contextualize and further understand scientific reports. This article targets the concept of learning through narrative. The idea however is not just reading stories, but rather writing, constructing, and building narrative through all subject matter. Narrative allows students to take difficult and new information and draw into a more familiar narrative understanding. Narrative is described as a human essential to learning. Humans have the need to organize and make sense of our experiences through narrative and narrative sharing. It’s a way of giving structure to new concepts. Story telling also implies immersing oneself in the text, in the experience, which essentially allows you to become actively involved in the narrative.  Stories allow you to take dull, procedural texts and insert human understanding, sequential ordering of events, as well as narrator’s perspective. In essence, narratives give meaning to abstract concepts; concepts that are sometimes far removed from your own personal experiences. I think narrative, and really any type of writing is imperative within the classroom. It is one of the few ways to get students to take information they are acquiring and analyze it, criticize it, and make meaning that is understandable to them. My only fear with writing is how often is a teacher supposed to implement it into the classroom routine? Also, how do educators overcome the anxiety that writing may cause to students, especially those in younger grades, or those with exceptionalities?


Through class discussions I also realized that narratives do not only mean stories. Narrative can be used in Math, for example, by creating a review game using a common theme your students enjoy (like a food joint everyone goes to, or a popular movie). Another way of using narrative is in Social Studies. The Social Studies curriculum often lacks primary sources. This is a great interactive way to get students to write their own. If you're discussing nature disasters, for example, have students write a personal narrative about a natural disaster their family may have gone through, or if the topic is Canadian History, have the students write a personal narrative of their own perspective of Canadian History. There are so many places where teachers can use narratives!

Mentor Text

What on earth is a non-narrative text? That was my first question when I was trying to find something to bring in as a mentor text. My subject area is English, so what could I possibly bring in that would be unique and interesting, and acceptable as per Peterson's suggestions of non-narratives. That't when it occurred to me!
During my practicum, my associate teacher and I were looking for resources the students could use to answer questions after creating an inquiry based lesson. The lesson was essentially just showing the students two pictures. They were to take a close look at the picture, followed by a think-pair-share. The students discussed what the picture was about, where it was taken, who took it, and why. The students were asked to come up with their own questions and post it to the picture on the Smartboard. After collecting the questions, we grouped them and asked the students to find the answers. The problem was, how do you get a class of grade 4/5 students to find anything on the internet? Google? Do they even know how to use Google when they're 8 or 9? That's when we decided to do exactly what Peterson suggests in Chapter 3. Provide keywords, giving them accessibility to find quality information. The key was to narrow down the information. Two websites my associate teacher seldom used are: Teaching Kids News and Newsela. Both sites provide students with news articles based on current events, but translated into child-friendly language. Newsela takes the articles one step further and breaks down the articles into different reading levels. (Side note- great resource for differentiated instruction!)

Anyhow, according to Peterson my non-narrative form is categorized as a news article, in the form that informs. I thought it was a great non-narrative because it's a way of taking abstract content that students do not identify with and give it meaning. The other great aspect about these two websites is that it is divided into different content areas. Which means it's cross-curricular! (Always a plus, no?)

Some of my fantastic classmates also suggested that with Newsela, you can even use the different reading levels/versions of the same article to dissect the key facts that are included in all versions. You can make an entire lesson based on the essential components to news articles or the writing conventions of media literacy. Using news articles opens up the possibility of learning about media literacy, writing conventions, current events in science, or social studies. These mentor texts can be guides to any cross-curricular lesson. I really do think articles like these emphasize the importance of literacy across the curriculum. All teachers teach writing!




http://teachingkidsnews.com/

https://newsela.com/

Week 2: Blog Response and Summary to Atwell

Nancie Atwells story reminds me of my first week of practicum. You go into a classroom with all these expectations, all these polished lesson plans that seem so perfect but as you walk into the classroom you realize they will never actually work  with the group of students you are given. I think what stuck with me most was the concept of adaptability. Teachers need to commit to being lifelong learners and show that to their students. Teachers need to learn how to communicate with students and take the time to conference with students to work on their writing with them. I like the idea of showing students your own work and showing that you have fears and insecurities the same way they may have them. Atwell makes a great point when she says to allow for freedom of writing and not criticizing but rather suggesting changes.

Teaching always changes and new theories and concepts will always arise and it’s important to adapt to them and have students understand that we are all adapting to the changes together. It is also important to highlight to both ourselves and to students that teaching and learning writing is not just in an English class, writing is about communication and should be an emphasis in all classes. Although some classes will not specifically be teaching conventions, teachers are still teaching communication and that’s something we learn how to do through writing. Learning through writing doesn’t just mean learning how to write, it also means taking information and processing it: making sense and meaning of new content.

There were many key points that Atwell points out, but what I loved most was the idea of letting students write in their own form or about things they care about. Real letters, real stories they want to submit. When doing this it is also important to allow students to continuously work on drafts and not worry about conventions right away but rather in later drafts. Writing will less likely cause stress and anxiety and will be more so about learning. As I’ve stated in previous blog posts, writing should be able learning, creativity and exploring new concepts.

Although I believe this to be true I also think Atwell’s journey is one all teachers are bound to face at some point in their careers, no matter how open minded or how committed we are to being life learners. They key is to remember that we are life-long learners and that’s what we are promoting and encouraging within our students as well. Atwell’s story helps us develop and reinforce our own pedagogies. 

What does writing mean to me?

When I think of writing I think of structured writing: essays, paragraphs, short answers, stories, poems, But very rarely do you think of free writing. Writing has always scared me. I always feared not being able to properly or rather effectively put the words from my head onto paper. I feared making mistakes, I feared not writing what I was supposed to write. Spelling, grammar, structure, these were all things I felt I had never learned properly. Therefore what does writing mean to me? Fear and anxiety. Ironically enough I chose languages, specifically English and Spanish to be my area of expertise in university. English being my teachable I knew I had to change my mindset about how I feel/felt about writing. I believe writing should be free and natural. It should be a form of empowerment, expression, and creativity. Students should feel confident in their writing without the worry of being criticized for getting conventions wrong or writing about the wrong subject matter. As a language teacher I believe it is ultimately important to have students recognize that any writing is good writing. Writing is a form of expression, a form of learning, not something to be afraid of. Writing should however have purpose and meaning. Writing should be a process of learning, communicating, teaching, expression, and exploring.