Morgan 1 Kadie Morgan English 1102 Carrie Sippy 18 November 2013 In the fall of 2013 I was able to observe

Ashley Wilkensons eighth grade class room. Through this observation I wanted to study the literacy, especially communication in the classroom. I wanted to focus on how the teacher communicates with the students and even how the students communicate with each other. The main goals is to understand how literacy plays a role within the classroom. I wanted to choose a community that would be interesting to me, a place that I can connect to. I wanted to observe somewhere that was fun and had an upbeat feeling about it, so what better place to go than an eighth grade classroom? This classroom was a rectangular room, and the desks were organized so that everyone could see the board. They were organized to where four desk were put together to make a square, this worked good for group work and group conversations. The teacher desk was at the back of the room, this way whether she was in front of the class or at her desk she could always see the students. All three classes were made up of twelve to thirteen year old students so the class was never boring. And the male to female ratio was just about even.

The class room had a very energetic feeling about it, even at eight thirty in the morning. However, while observing I did notice different things about each class and the time played a very important variable when looking at how talkative or energetic a class was. In each class that I observed I noticed things that were the same and things that were different. In the first paragraph I focus in on how the students communicated and worked together in groups, while in the second paragraph I focused more on how the students communicate with each other, the teacher and a class as a whole, and the different techniques that are used in the classroom to keep the class entertained. However, in the third and fourth paragraph I talked about how by observing

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all three classes I was able to grasp a understanding of how the teacher and students communicate with each other. To begin with, I want to restate the statement that Ashley said during the interview. I asked her why she thought communication in the classroom between her and the students and even between the students themselves is important, and she replied with Communication is essential in the world. Even with rise in technology, we must teach students to communicate effectively with authority as well as with their peers. In the world today everyone needs to know how to communicate with other people, whether it be in school, at a job, in sports, or just life and general. Therefore, communication in the classroom is important. In the first class the main focus was communication between the students themselves. The teacher split them up by table and gave them an assignment. The assignment was to define words using the stems that they were studying in class. As soon as Ashely explained the instruction she had to remind the students to talk! She repeated the sentence, THIS IS GROUP WORK, THEREFORE YOU HAVE TO TALK TO EACH OTHER several times throughout the class period. She told the students that before she gave them a dictionary to check their answers they would have to work together and prove that they had an educated guess of what the words meant. She instructed that everyone must have the groups definition written on each of their papers before she gave them a dictionary. While observing this class, you had a few students (not many) who were the leaders and who did all the work, while some students were shy and didnt speak, then there were the students who didnt do anything at all and relied on the rest of the group to do the work. For example there was one girl name Terria who worked in a group with three other boys and she was the one who did most of the work, and one of the boys in the group didnt even right down anything on his paper. Now whether the time played a big

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factor with it being eight oclock in the morning had something to do with the quietness and laziness or whether the reasoning for this was that students in this class were just quiet and didnt like group work, I dont know. After noticing this I decided to ask Ashley why she assigns group work; does she do it because she thinks the students work harder when working together or does she assign group work so she can teach them to work together, and this was her response, I dont know that students work harder, but I do think with some things they learn better. Sometimes hearing me say things isnt as effective as a group of peers working to figure it out. I also think there is value in students learning from each other. In a room where the ratio is 1:22, its helpful when students can explain things to each other in a small group while I monitor the progress of all the groups. While rarely random, my students are heterogeneously grouped. I usually try to balance them with varying levels of achievement. For example, using responses to whole class activities, individual reading conferences, assessment of previous activities, and strengths/weaknesses, I assemble groups so that there are those who lead the discussion. And because learning is dynamic, a student leading this week may not be next week and the groups shift and change. I am also a firm believer in teaching to solidify learning. When a student can process knowledge and then share it with someone else, they make the information his or her own. Ashelys response opened my eyes to a new reasoning behind group work. I had always assumed it was to teach the students to work together and it was used as a type of team building exercise, but I have never thought of it to be a way for students to be able to teach other students. The next two classes that I observed I focused in on class discussion as a whole. I focused in on the teacher and what she does to keep class interesting. I also focused in on how the students communicated and interacted with each other as a whole class. Throughout this paragraph you will see the different types on techniques that Ashley does during her class to help

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the students learn in fun and entertaining ways. Ashley contributes many things to her lessons, like humor, games, personal experiences, and even common knowledge to keep her students attention. During these class periods the teacher reviewed a short story that they had been reading in class. The teacher projected a plot map onto the board and filled it in with information about the story as she reviewed with the class. She asked them about the characters, the climax, and the conflict. Throughout, the discussion the teacher would ask a question and the students would just blurt out the answers. Now, whether the students were more responsive because it was later in the morning, or maybe it was the fact that it was a class discussion and the kids werent broken up into little groups and forced to talk to each other, we will not now, but this class was much more responsive. The kids were spitting out answers to all of Ashleys questions left and right, there was even one time when everyone kept trying to guess the answers to the teachers questions and everyone was getting it wrong, until one girl spoke and everyone got quiet, and after she answer the whole class clapped for her, until Ashley told them that her answer was also wrong. Then the whole class laughed with humor. There was one time in particular that the classes really got into the lessons and it was when Ashely got them up and moving around. Ashley likes to make learning fun and intriguing, so she did something active with all three classes to make the lesson more interesting. In the first class she had them all stand up and play a review game, and by making the review a competition for not only bragging rights but for extra credit the students enjoyed it more. Although In the last two classes she did something different, when it came time to talk about conflict in the story she assigned all four corners of the room a type of conflict and told the students to go stand in the corner that represented the conflict of their choice. Ashley stated that, Our students today are accustomed to a more fast-paced life with technology. They consider it normal to run multiple computer

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applications, switching between apps and multi-tasking. We are finding that the attention span is much shorter than in years past but the class length is the same or longer. Students need an opportunity to get up and move around. Its easy to lose focus when you sit for extended periods of time, but by changing up what we do, I keep students engaged. There are students who learn by doing, so I find that by getting them up and moving I am able to keep them interested. Plus, by doing exercises like this every one of the students is able to give their opinion without having others shout out over them. Another thing that tied in with the students being able to get up and active with the lesson was the way they communicated with one another. One example was when Ashley went around to each corner and asked the students why the choose that corner, and when Ashley got to one corner and told them that the conflict of their choice wasnt represented in the story as much as the others, some of the students in the other groups responded with Haha boo ya!, Yall is wrong!. There was also another time that Ashley asked a question and the students were responding left and right until a few of the students started to bicker over their opinions. Ashley then had to take a time out and explain that At the middle school level, it is beneficial to help students understand that disagreement is normal. Its OK not to agree with each other and also with me. But we make sure that our criticism stays with the topic and not the person. This is important when talking about the communication within the classroom, because as young teenagers it is very easy to have disagreements here and there. Like I said before Ashley likes to use different techniques within her lessons, another example would that she be correlated Duck Dynasty into the lesson about the short story. Ashley said that it is important to make sure that as the teacher I do anything and everything to help my students understand the lecture, even if I have to somehow tie in Duck Dynasty. As a teacher Ashley does anything and everything to help her students achieve.

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Now that we have seen how the students communicate with each other I want to focus in and look at the specific ways the students communicate with the teacher. While observing I noticed that each day that I was there the students were either taking a quiz or test, and after they completed the quiz or test they read their SSR book which is what they called their weekly readings. Throughout elementary school, middle school, high school, and even college students will being taking all kinds of test but I asked Ashley why she feels that it is important to test her students and for who does it benefit more. Ashley said that, With discussion comes some measure of student understanding. Unfortunately, not all students will contribute to whole class discussions and even within small groups, you tend to have those who shy away from participating. Written testing gives those students a chance to show their knowledge too. I do think effective student evaluation includes formal testing as a part but not the whole process. The benefit is to both. I track individual student progress through test scores as well as student/teacher conferences (a one-on-one discussion about what a student is reading) and other forms of classwork. It benefits the student because they are able to see what concepts they grasp and those they dont. From an outsider looking in I see how this is an easy way for teachers and students to communicate. By testing the teacher can see how effective her lessons are and she can also see what needs to be worked on or taught more. By testing students they can also see were their strengths and weaknesses lie within the classroom. Another important part of communication is verbal communication between the students and the teacher is connected through their weekly readings. I was curious of why Ashley had them read after the quiz, whether it was to keep them quiet or whether it was just because reading is good for the brain and Ashley stated that, My students get 30 minutes of silent, selfselected reading each day in class. It takes a lot of class time but children get better at reading by

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reading. During this time all students are reading, but I meet with several students each day to conference about their books. During these conferences, we relate class topics to their own reading choices. For example, we have talked about various types of conflict. So during a conference I would ask the student to read (which also allows me to check reading fluency) for me. After that I would have the student tell me about the conflicts present in their book. And then decide what type of conflict it is. This helps students transfer learning and begin analyzing what they read. The time placement also allows students to finish quizzes or tests at their own pace. Students, who finish quickly, immediately have something to do while those who need more time get that quiet environment maintained. So even though the direct purpose isnt just to keep them quiet, it does meet that need during a testing session as well. Therefore, Ashely is able to accomplish a lot and really see where her students stand just by having them read weekly. By observing these three classes I can see how communication as a whole plays a big part in middle school. We all know that reading and writing is important in a classroom, especially an English classroom but, not often do people realize that communication is just as important as reading and writing. If there wasnt communication in a classroom, the teacher would never get anything accomplished and the students would never grow to learn the criteria. All in all Ashley proves how important of a role communication plays within a classroom and she stated that it all starts with the teacher. Ashley said that, No matter what I try to be very encouraging to my students. A large part of English Language Arts at this grade level is abstract, and as these children mature and develop, some grasp concepts faster than others. I have found in the 14 years Ive been teaching that they will get it. And sometimes there is no explanation for the light bulb suddenly illuminating their minds.