New Literacy Project Reflection

1) My Conceptual Understanding

When this class began, I thought of literacy mostly as the ability to read and write. Through this project, I have learned that there are many different kinds of literacy that tie into the four main areas of literacy that are explored in language arts (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). These other literacies help students develop the ability to comprehend when they read, write, listen, or speak. They include the three literacies I explored (cultural, emotional, and digital literacy), as well as many more. I now know that students must know more than simply how to read and write in order to be fully literate. They must have knowledge of the culture that the book they’re reading is from, or they may not be able to understand it. In order to effectively speak, they need to be able to “read” the emotions of the people in the room with them and have control over their own emotions. In order to effectively communicate in writing these days, students need to be able to use different digital presentations of information, such as websites, wikis, blogs, or interactive maps. The world is changing; literacy is changing. In order to keep up, we need to teach our students about these new literacies.

2) Effective Literacy Instruction

“Effective literacy instruction” is more than just teaching students to read and write, especially when keeping the diversity of learners in mind. The GLCEs I used in my lesson show that students are expected not only to be able to read and write, but to make connections with the books they read, both emotionally and personally. Teachers need to be teaching these new literacies to their students if they expect the students to really become literate and completely be able to fulfill all the GLCEs.

If I were to do this project with elementary students, I think they would need a lot of modeling of how to use the specific technology. To use an interactive map in particular, they would need to be able to read so that they could read what the caption is and where the summary goes. They would need to be able to write in order to put text in the areas on the map that they are talking about. I do not think an interactive map would be helpful for students until they got to 3rd or 4th grade. Younger students would struggle too much, as they have not learned how to read and write effectively yet.

To learn about cultural literacy, students would need to be able to have an open mind about different cultures and view other cultures as separate from their own. One way I may tie digital literacy and cultural literacy into a lesson for my 5th grade class would be to have the students make an interactive map of where each character in a story is from and present some cultural elements of the character’s background through that venue. In order to do this, I would need to choose books with characters from diverse backgrounds, and probably from different countries. I would also need to show the students beforehand at least one example of an interactive map (it would be helpful if I made an example before class). I would probably show them how to make one marker as a class before letting them explore on their own. I would also have to define culture and cultural literacy for them and show them websites where they can learn more about cultural literacy. To scaffold the lesson a little more, I would make this activity into a group project, so that they can work together to understand cultural literacy and interactive maps. To make it easy, I would have the students use their reading groups and the book that they are reading in class to do this.

For this lesson, each group would need their own computer to research on and to make the interactive map on. I would have to show the students a rubric when I assign the project so that they know what is expected of them. In order for the students to get the full experience, I would have them find pictures that went along with their captions for the interactive map. As they are working on it, I would have to walk around the room and be available to answer questions because using new technology requires lots of scaffolding. I can see the students needing a couple days to work on this project. When they are finished, I would have them present their project to the class, as they would most likely be very proud of it. This would allow the students to see what their classmates’ books are like and may encourage them to read. I would also have the classmates write a short review of each group’s presentation, so that they can reflect on their learning and presenting using the new technology.