Renae Curless EDUC 629 Inquiry Project 1 September 30, 2013 Sharing Literacies While reflecting on my own development

of literacy and through my field study interview, I thought of several different themes: genre, digital media, creating contexts, and sharing. To me, sharing literacy is the most important part of reading and writing. There have been many times in which I changed my view of a novel based on a class discussion, or needed the input of classmates to understand a passage. Reading and writing can be solitary experiences, but I think that in the classroom input from students and teacher should come together to form the experience of a novel. Teaching literacy should strive to blend the ways that students share their lives with each other and course texts and writing assignments. Sharing literacy presents itself in multiple ways in the classroom and can take reading a novel and writing a paper to a meaningful experience that allows students to better connect with their texts. Because I am student teaching seventh grade English, I want to focus on my experiences as a middle school student. I devoured young adult novels, especially dramatic or mystery novels. I found authors that I liked and read their entire repertoire: Judy Blume and Jerry Spinelli were some of my favorites. I read books within and beyond my comfort zone, and was lucky enough to have parents that could afford to buy me physical copies of the books so that I could read them again and again, and I still have a large collection of my teenaged novels. My literary tastes did not really delineate from realistic fiction or mystery novels. A theme that has been central to my own literacy development is that of sharing. My aunt would always recommend new books to me, and got me completely hooked on The Cat Who mystery novel series, and on Jodi Picoult. My dad took on the personal challenge of reading exclusively
Comment [FF2]: There is a good deal of literature on creating dialogic classrooms that value the sharing of voices, writing, ideas. If you want to explore this concept further, let me know and I can point you to some good reading that touches on this. Fecho is well known for this and has a few publications out there: https://secure.ncte.org/store/writing-inthe-dialogical-classroom Comment [FF1]: Having read the rest of your inquiry write-up, when I look back at this opening, I feel as though it doesnt quite capture how youve structured your analysis throughout. In your paper youve positioned sharing as the central concept under which the rest of these topics or areas are situated as aspects of teaching or teaching practices that support it. You might want to rethink how you frame your paper here and its overall organization.

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classic novels, and would always share what theyre about and try to give me copies of ones that he especially enjoyed; even now, he is still trying to sell me on The Jungle. Sharing books with friends has given me some of my all-time favorite reads, and I never tire of discussing books weve both read. Because social media websites were booming in my adolescence, they became an important way to share information. Social media literacy was key to connecting with friends and maintaining an active social life; for example, my Xanga (a short-lived free blogging site) was cream of the crop. I had a music player with all of my favorite songs, glitter sparks coming from my cursor arrow, and numerous text effects on my Xanga. My blog was the height of my technological literacy. Later, AIM and Facebook became the primary way for my peers to express ourselves and communicate with others about anything we pleased. For my field study, I interviewed Jordan, a seventh grade student in my morning advisory. Jordan enjoys reading and writing for school, and listed some of the novels he read for school as his favorites of all time. Jordan uses informal and digital literacy in his every day interactions, and finds them necessary for schoolwork and communication with his friends outside of school. About literacy, Jordan said, Llearning to read if youre younger, and understanding books, like, when youre olderlike the text, the settings, the characters, different things in reading, plotplot, things like that .. To Jordan, literacy means seems to involve interacting with a novel or other text on varying levels depending on age. He does not like to reread texts, saying, I dont see how it makes sense to re-read the book if you already know whats going to happen, but his favorite part about reading is imagining the world described in the text and, thinking about how it would look like based on the text. Because Jordan likes to read science fiction and fantasy, and
Comment [FF3]: I recommend hedging a bit here. You cant make that claim fully based on the amount of data (speech) that youve collected here from him. Formatted: Indent: Left: 0"

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those genres are usually not represented in an English class canon, Jordan wishes that there were more opportunities for SSR and graded assignments based on the self-selected books. Jordan enjoys reading for English and Social Studies class. In English, he reads supplementary texts like short biographies or stories to supplement their assigned novels. Now, Jordan and his class are reading The Absolute Truth of a Part-Time Indian, and they recently read some excerpts about prejudice towards Native Americans to supplement their reading of the novel. Jordan said that he liked this kind of supplemental reading, as he likes to know more about the characters in his novels. His two favorite English class novels, Al Capone Does my Shirts and Walk Two Moons (one novel that I read and liked in middle school), are character and setting driven. The books take place in different time periods, but feature teenagers and their families. In class, Jordan prefers discussion to tests. He likes that his teacher, takes time to explain [the books] and stuff instead of being forced to take a reading comprehension test right away. Jordan describes active class discussions where more people are participating than not. About writing, Jordan says, I do like to write, but Im not a good writer.. When asked what he could do to make his writing better, he said, I dont really take time to go over it, I just write it really quick and have my dad look over itbut I dont really take time to go over it .. Jordan prefers creative writing, although the seventh grade focuses more on reading comprehension and analysis than creative writing. Finally, Jordan discussed types of digital and informal literacy that he shares with friends. On a daily basis, Jordan reads schoolwork, texts, and e-mails from Edline, the school districts messaging and homework site. Jordan thinks that he is technologically literate, saying, I can probably figure out how to set up my watch or the computer and that he can easily find

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information online. He uses a computer application to find news articles that interest him for Social Studies current events, and keeps up with his friends via text messaging and Instagram (a picture and video sharing application that allows its users to upload pictures, edit them, and apply hashtags or user tags to the caption). Jordan believes that these types of literacy are important for people his age: it is how they keep in touch when not in school because Masterman students live all over the city. Jordan told me that he has 257 Instagram followers, and that this is the norm for Masterman students. Although my biography and my interview with Jordan unearthed several interesting themes in literacy, I want to explore the importance of sharing in literacy instruction. Reading and writing should not always be undertaken alone as a private process; instead, students should learn the benefits of sharing their texts with each other and with teachers. Reading at home and in the classroom is a social process with implications for cultural development and social interactions, so to teach texts as a private process by encouraging plot and detail memorization and assigning essays only meant for the instructor is to ignore the importance of literacy as a social process (D. Bloome, 1985). As Rick VanDeWeghe (2003) writes about classroom discussions that focus on subjective or analytic questions, We use this discourse model to prime cognitive and emotional pumps, invite imagination and speculation, and help students construct meaning. In this dialogic discourse, many voices contribute (p. 89). This type of discussion, instead of question and answer sessions with one right response, can promote higher-order thinking and also encourages students to take a risk and share their thoughts on a text. Instead of just taking a test, as Jordan mentioned, students can work through their reactions to the texts and make new meanings from what they have read.
Comment [FF4]: Very true. Doing can also potentially limit a teachers ability to develop responsive curricula that respond to this process of sharing and dialogue. Sumara has a book titled Private Readings in Public that presents a theoretical discussion of the ways in which rich discussions about literature can inform the development of curricula based on research he conducted with adult readers. If youre thinking about extending your inquiry into this concept of sharing as you move forward in this program, it might be useful to build a theoretical framework for discussing what your seeing in your fieldwork by doing some outside reading that touches on it.

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The use of social media and digital literacy can also be used to help students share and learn about their texts. Adolescents love to share themselves and personalize (evidenced by my many painstaking hours researching basic HTML to personalize my Xanga), and capitalizing on their interest in their emerging identities is an asset for the Language Arts classroom. Being technologically literate is a huge asset in the adolescent and adult world, and allowing students to show what they know in school and in class can be a way for students to find new meanings in texts and develop important skill sets. Identity formation depends on how the adolescent sees him or herself in relation to peers, and using this stage to draw students into literature and language could give them her another means of expression through discussion and writings. As Glynda Hull (2003) writes, the connection between conceptions of self and how and why we learn, and the linkage between the desire to acquire new skills and knowledge and who we yearn to become as people is worthwhile to explore when considering adolescent literacy development (p. 232). When I read as an adolescent, and like Jordan described, one of my favorite parts of reading was imagining new places and creating the charact ers worlds. Jordan and I enjoy learning more about the context for a novel and its characters to paint a better picture of personal stories. Regarding this, Hulls line, who we yearn to become as people is especially salient in the seventh grade classroom; my students are forming new adolescent identities around their newfound freedom as older middle school students that will then transition to high school in the same building. While not every text will resonate personally with students, nor should it, great literature is considered such because of its use of universal themes. Students can hopefully discuss these themes and use them to make sense of their changing status in their world.
Comment [FF6]: Im not quite sure what youre arguing in this paragraph. The Hull quote focuses on the desire to acquire new skills and the link between that desire and identity development, and Im not clear on how that translates to your comments about text selection and the canon. Is this meant to address the theme of genre that you presented in your opening paragraph? Comment [FF5]: Its best to choose one.

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Sharing literacy is a powerful way to connect students, teachers, and authors. Offering students ways to express their forming identities and thoughts on their texts is a valuable tool in Language Arts mastery and utilizing the different literacies of todays adolescents. Sharing novels and encouraging student discussion helps students take novels and classroom texts to new levels of understanding and encourage higher-order thinking that moves beyond basic plot understanding. Valuing student voices gives them the opportunity to express themselves in ways that are socially important and also allows students and teachers to co-construct new meanings from texts, transforming them from story to shared experience.
Comment [FF7]: While this all may be true, Im not sure that youve shown this in this inquiry (nor do I think you need to or that it is possible to do so within the scope of this project). In terms of a conclusion, you might have been better served by discussion how your conversation with Jordan, in particular, has stretched your thinking about the importance that valuing processes of sharing can have for educators. Id also like to see you asking more questions here about where all this is leading you.

Works Cited Bloome, D. (1985). Reading as a social process. Language Arts, 62(2). Hull, G. (2003). Youth culture and digital media: New literacies for new times. Research in the Teaching of English, 38(2), 229-33. VanDeWeghe, R. (2003). Classroom discussions of literature. English Journal, 93(1), 87-91.

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Education 629.003 Fall 2013 Narrative Inquiry into Self, Students, and Classrooms Feedback for Renae Curless A check indicates your paper meets this expectation. A check + indicates you met this expectation particularly well. autobiography: identified key issues and themes in own literacy development; generated questions to inform fieldwork in ELA classroom fieldwork (interview/conversation with student): inquired into the literacy experiences, assumptions, beliefs and practices of an adolescent connections with course readings: made problematic/explored key concepts such as literacy, learning, teaching, language, adolescence, culture, reading, writing analyzed themes/assumptions across autobiographical inquiry and fieldwork voiced insights/raised questions/explored issues about English/language and literacy teaching middle/secondary schools

Additional Comments: Renae, the thinking and writing that youve presented here is a good start to the semester and will provide you, I think, with some generative lines of inquiry going forward. Over the course of your paper Ive posed some questions and suggested some possible ways forward in terms of your practice as a teacher and your work as a grad student that I hope will be of use to you. In the past I would compose a lengthy write-up under this section of the feedback form, but I think its more useful for you to see these longer process comments as they emerged for me during my reading of this IP. I will say that I think you are in a good position moving forward to bring the issues and questions youve raised regarding the concept of sharing as it relates to a number of considerations for practice to bear in your planning and in future inquiry projects/reflections/portfolio composition. In terms of the two minuses that you see above, I want you to see these as areas where I feel as though you can build. In future inquiries and in your reflection for this IP that you will compose for your mini-portfolio, Id like to see you expand more fully on some of the claims and interpretations of data that you make and to consider restructuring your argument as bit as you do so. Hopefully, some of my questions and comments indicate ways forward in this respect. Reading this IP, it feels to me as though youve presented a relatively neat write-up, but I would imagine your own reflection and your interview with Jordan have left you with some ideas but also with many questions regarding where to go from here. Id like to see this process of thinking about where your teaching might go based on these inquiries come through a bit more in your papers. If you have any specific questions/feedback/ideas that you want to address with me regarding my notes, just get in touch and we can talk.