NCTE Day #2

The day opened with a talk devoted to the shift in education to a more digital, technological realm. Some of the points were interesting, but I don’t agree that students will learn to read from cds. Nor do I think this should be the “shift” of the education world. Technology is an imperative factor in today’s world, yes, but if one doesn’t have the basic skills required to utilize that technology, what’s the point? Reading, in whatever form it may be, will always be a critical element in ALL areas (and not just English)…at least in my opinion. Thus, I don’t see reading from a disc as the ONLY source of developing reading skills…and I’m a technology person, too.

But now, onto one of my favorite sessions: Adolescent Literacy:  What Works Best [with powerhouses P. David Pearson, Barbara Flores, Donna Alvermann, Ernest Morrell]. If you haven’t heard of these powerhouses, I suggest you look them up. Their work is amazing and they are incredibly knowledgable in their areas. I think it will be easiest to list the questions and the respective answers, so here it goes…

Question 1: What are the most pressing issues for educators building literacy plans for “problem” adolescents?

NCTE Day #1

Ah, yes, here we go! Some of my reflections on the recent NCTE convention in San Antonio…

I attended a very neat session on “Teaching Tone” (by Carol Jago and John Golden) on the first day. Here are a few quick notes that I found interesting:

• teachers are doing all of the work –> need to push students past the silence
• group collaboration can be the KEY to success –>gives students the chance to build off of each other
• visuals can be used to help walk students through developing tone

What I found particularly useful would be the fact that 1) visuals were used to help set-up a successful learning environment versus a text only learning environment and 2) technology was used (as simple as ppt) to help students express their tone pieces. The exercises that were discussed not only helped students grasp the understanding of tone, but also had them looking at rhetorical strategies to effecitively set up their works (i.e. RAFT elements)

However, most importantly, I want to point out that one of the first major sessions of the convention focused on two ways to engage and challenges students with some of the stronger literacy skills they are brining into the classroom — all the while still incorporating a “traditional” piece of knowledge (tone). I think this helps set-up the idea of how we need to go about setting up or classrooms to be successful learning environments…