A Vision of Voices: My Future ELA Classroom

When I first started this blog, I had a vision of what I wanted my ELA classroom to look like. Through the collaborative sharing of ideas and inspirations throughout the duration of this course, this vision has been brought into focus. I began this course with a philosophy for my future ELA classroom, and I am coming away from this course with a clearer idea of how I see this philosophy being applied through specific lessons and activities.

I envision a classroom where the imaginations of students are stimulated by stories with larger than life characters and universal themes, and where students are inspired by non-fiction texts that teach them about the marvels of the world they live in. In this classroom students will encounter a wide variety of activities and strategies which will help them to see the value of literacy and oracy as it relates to their own lives.

I see my future students experiencing oral and written language through the sharing of stories that connect their own experiences to the experiences of others, and help to create a classroom community in which sharing and communication are valued. In this classroom community each individual child will contribute their own unique voice to a collaborative collection of stories and voices.

In my ELA classroom students will be the authors and the voices of authority on the subjects of their knowledge. Students will be actively engaged in writing, speaking and listening, and will be given the tools to become self-motivated, lifelong learners.

Making a Good First Impression: Teaching Writing in Kindergarten

Teaching writing in kindergarten is very different from teaching writing in later grades. Representing with pictures and symbols plays a much larger role in the way kindergarten students express themselves on paper. Learning the alphabet, forming letters and creating invented spelling are all ways in which students first start working with written language. In a kindergarten classroom, the teacher plays a very important role as a model for writing and representing. It is stated in the Integrated Resource Package for English Language Arts K-7 that “‘Children are more likely to engage in literacy activities during play when teachers introduce the literacy objects such as books, writing tools and signs, and model their use’ (Morrow, as cited in Jamison Rog, 2002, p. 29)”. In order to get children interested in writing, it is important that the teacher introduce the students to book, words, letters and pictures that will familiarize the students with the concept of written communication and representations.

            One of the single most important things to teach kindergarten students about writing and representing is that these are activities that can be fun.  It is stated clearly in the prescribed learning outcomes for kindergarten language arts instruction that students should be able to “show an interest in, and a positive attitude toward, writing and representing” (ELA Kindergarten IRP, PLO C3). It is true of any subject being taught at any grade level that a teacher should aim to engage and inspire their students. This is truer still at the kindergarten level, and for a subject so fundamental to a child’s education as language arts. Kindergarten provides many children with their first formal introduction to writing and representing. It is important that a child’s first experiences with writing, representing and the language arts as a whole are positive, and leave that student feeling happy, competent and wanting to learn more. First Impressions are important. It is crucial that students develop a positive attitude towards the subjects of writing and representing at this early age, as these modes of communication will play a fundamental role in their future education from kindergarten to university, and throughout their personal and professional lives as well.

Essential to a child’s enjoyment and interest in writing and representing is the knowledge that these are activities that can be done for their own sake. In Constructing Meaning, James Moffett’s concern was expressed that “too much of the writing children were required to do in school was for the purpose of evaluating what they had learned” and he felt that this would detract from students learning to see writing as “a way of exploring thought”(Chapter 8, p. 265). Making sure that writing is done not solely for assessment is more of a concern for later grades, but the idea that writing and representing can be ways of exploring thoughts and feelings is an important lesson for kindergarten. Journals or sketchbooks which include both pictures and words would help students to see that they can put their ideas, feelings and experiences down on the paper without worrying about finishing a product or fitting it in to a prescribed assignment or template.

It is also essential to teach kindergarten students that writing and representing are both methods of communication. In order for student to begin to participate in writing, they must know what it actually is. It is important that they understand that both drawing and writing are ways of composing a message or an expression. Drawing does this in a more interpretive way, while writing does so in accordance with a set of rules that make it very specific and structured. The PLOs for kindergarten assert that children should be able to “recognize that writing can be “talk written down” and that print carries a constant message” (ELA Kindergarten IRP, PLO C2). Students need to be taught the connection between talk and writing, and how writing is a way of communicating a message between writer and reader.

The importance of talk is expressed in the PLOs for kindergarten where it is stated that children should be able to “engage in discussions before writing and representing to generate ideas when responding to text and classroom experiences”, and to “engage in discussions after writing or representing about the experience of writing or representing and share work with others” (ELA Kindergarten IRP, PLO C4, C6). Constructing Meaning similarly stresses the importance of talk in the writing process, stating that “[a]s children talk together or with a teacher, continual scaffolding is evident” (Chapter 8, p.288). In this way, oracy plays a large role in a child’s development of writing and representing abilities. Talking about their ideas and experiences before writing or representing and sharing their representations with others later can also help the student make the connection between talk and writing or “talk written down”. Once a student sees that writing is simply another way to express the ideas that they already know how to express with words, they will see how much they have to write and represent about, and they will begin to see themselves as potential writers.

One great advantage that kindergarten students have over many older children and adults is that they already love to tell stories from their lives and imaginations. As Robin Stevenson mentioned in her presentation to the class, it is important to show children that they have stories to tell. This can often be difficult at later grade levels, but in kindergarten children are more open and eager to share. It is incredibly vital that teachers support and foster this enthusiasm for storytelling, and instill children with the belief that their stories are relevant and important. By modeling a positive attitude towards writing and representing, and by creating a classroom full of books, pictures and words that are fun and interesting for students, teachers can create a fun, playful learning environment. In this environment children can explore and experiment with representing and writing in ways that encourage creativity, positive attitude and confidence in their own abilities. 

Podcasts and VoiceThreads in the Kindergarten Classroom

Podcasts and VoiceThreads could be used in the Kindergarten classroom in a wide variety of ways. These new media could be used to teach writing/storytelling and oral communication skills. As some of the teachers who’s VoiceThreads are posted online have suggested, this technology could also help teachers and students connect their classrooms with the parents at home, or with online pen-pals in different parts of the world. These new types of technology can help children to learn new literacy skills in a way that is both novel and relevant to the modes of communication that today’s youth use every day.

One way that I saw VoiceThreads as being particularly useful in the Kindergarten classroom is as a means of storytelling for children who are not yet fully writing. At this age, most children are drawing and representing confidently, but are yet unable to fully communicate these same representations in words. In this way VoiceThreads could be used to allow students to explain their picture stories, in the same way that an author explains their illustrations in the text portion of their book.

Sally Has a Bad Day

Link to VoiceThread of Sally Has a Bad Day

http://voicethread.com/share/2344970/

Sally Has a Bad Day is a project that I did with my mum when I was five. I drew illustrations for a story and explained the story to my mum. She created a small bound paper book, and wrote down the explanation alongside my illustrations. This type of activity would be something I would love to do with Kindergarten students, as a way to record the stories that are in their minds as they draw, so as to preserve these stories for themselves and their parents in the future.

A similar type of activity could also be done using VoiceThreads. Instead of dictating to an adult to record their stories, students could illustrate a story and then record their explanations of the pictures onto a VoiceThread. As a classroom activity I might have each child draw and explain only one picture. The entire class’ pictures and explanations could be compiled into one big VoiceThread on a common theme. An example of a project like this is shown on the VoiceThreads website at http://voicethread.com/about/library/Kindergarten_Storybook_from_Leanne_Windsor/ . 

The IRP and Student's Language of Learning

         At first glance the PLOs for Kindergarten seem to present the future teacher with an easy task. The guidelines are simple and allow for a great deal of freedom in instruction. For example, it seems almost unavoidable that over the course of a school year a student should have a great deal of practice using oracy to ask questions or to express themselves. Drawing pictures and listening to stories seem like activities that come naturally to children, and already by way of these activities many PLOs have been satisfied.

            However, the IRP as a whole also presents the future Kindergarten teacher with a great challenge. Research presented in the document points to the great responsibility resting with Kindergarten teachers in building the foundations for a child’s literacy, and their future academic abilities as a whole. Though the PLOs for Kindergarten are basic in nature, they are also of the utmost importance. The abilities, learning strategies and attitudes toward literacy that children develop in Kindergarten are foundational to the rest of their learning, and to the rest of their lives. A crucial point made in the IRP document is that it is not just the knowledge gained in a child’s first year of school which is important, it is the attitude towards literacy, and the child’s own beliefs about their own abilities which make all the difference for their experiences in future grades.

            Children enter the kindergarten classroom at all different literacy levels, and as the IRP points out it is not unusual to have a Kindergarten classroom where there is “a five-year range of literacy-related skills and functioning”(IRP from Riley 1998). Today’s ELA students are a diverse group with vastly varied ability and interest levels, and this is especially true in Kindergarten. While school can be an equalizing influence for students from different backgrounds, in Kindergarten students are not coming from a previous grade in school. They are coming from greatly different lives. Many of them may have been in preschool for years, where they may have started to build their literacy abilities already. Many might have had little to no formal exposure to language building activities at all. These, along with countless other variables contribute to the diversity of students entering their first year of school.

            The result of this diversity is that ELA students learn in as many different ways as there are students in the class. Each individual student brings their own storied background of experiences into the classroom, along with their own learning styles. It is the great responsibility of the teacher to find a way to harmonize all of these voices, to meet the needs of each individual and help them each to understand and make meaning of language.

            Today’s ELA students will learn best in a variety of different ways, and each student will present a unique challenge and a unique potential. As future teachers we must find a way to communicate literacy to each individual student in ways that teach to their learning styles. In a way the teacher must learn each student’s language of learning in order to teach them the universal language of speech, images and symbols that allows us all to communicate with one another.  

Hey look! I'm blogging!

Another item on the list of things I thought I’d never say: Welcome to my blog. I have never been a particularly tech-savvy person. In elementary school I was dragged kicking and screaming every week into the computer lab where I assured my teacher time and time again that I was NEVER going to use computers EVER and I should probably just not waste any more of her time or mine going through the tedium of “All the Right Type”. Needless to say, my avoidance of technology has been wholly unsuccessful, and I must admit that I am glad to be getting some exposure to the world of blogging, which has been completely foreign to me until now.

To me, one of the most exciting and important aspects of ELA in elementary school is the opportunity that it affords students to bring their own stories into the classroom. When kids create their own stories, poems, pictures or performances, they are sharing their own ideas, beliefs and experiences with the classroom community. This means that the students themselves are the experts, and we as teachers are asking them “what do you know?” rather than telling them “know this!”

I see my ELA classroom as being somewhere where students can find everything from classics to comic books, and where the secret code of language is unlocked for them and they are empowered by this new knowledge. In my classroom I hope that students can play and create and share in as many different mediums as we can think of, and in doing so our shared stories will help us all learn about each other and about the world.