Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy

In Diane Penrod’s book Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy she talks about four points that intersect pedagogy and digital technology in her second chapter called, “Blogging and New Literacies.” Out of the four, I agree with number one, “Blogging encourages fluency in writing.” She talks about having two distinct reasons why blogging encourages fluency in writing. One reason is that blogging is a pleasurable activity. I believe in this, at first when I started this blog I was very hesitant to the idea because all I thought was that blogs were personal diaries and I was not up for putting my life online for everyone to see. As I started exploring and learning more about them I realized it is much more than that. Instead of having to hand in writing assignments we were to create blogs to answer what we read in a chapter. It is very informal and less stressful. Which lead to Penrod’s second reason that students frequently spend more time on their blogging tasks than other school-based writing assignments. I agree, after creating my blog I now find myself spending more time on my blog then other tasks. I am coming around on my initial feelings on blogs because I am finding more ways to use it and it is helping me find a love for writing that I never had. So, I do agree with Diane Penrod when she says blogging encourages fluency in writing because it is happening with me in the assignments for this class.

The First Two Weeks of School

I have never seen the first days of elementary school since I was the student. Seeing them through the eyes of a teacher has been a huge eye opener. I did not realize how much time it took to get procedures and rules of the classroom in place. I am in a first grade classroom and for the first two weeks we have been going over the procedures of morning meeting, calendar, transitions, hallway, bathroom, lunch, recess, and the list goes on. Everyday the teacher reminds the rules and procedures before we do anything. It takes a lot of modeling and took more time and effort than I thought it would. Even though it is the first two weeks of school I do see progress, but like we have been told in our classes it is looking like it will take 6-8 weeks to get them down.

My school follows the responsive classroom approach. I am learning more about this approach by borrowing a book that my teacher was told to follow. I do like how with this approach the classroom is set up with the students. For example, the centers and classroom library all are covered with “coming soon” signs until the teacher can model and go through exploration of the centers with the students. This will set up procedures and expectations of using the center to prevent misuse. Most people that don’t know that this school uses this approach will find the room to be very bare at orientation and back to school night, but the positive to the room not being set up on the first day is that it gives the students a chance to create their classroom environment with the teacher to form a community.

I also got to be a part of my classrooms back to school night. This was an eye opener to me as well because I was expecting every parent to come with questions and concerns about the school year and not having enough time for those personal one on one conversation with each family. What realistically happened was 9 out of 17 families showed up and when asked if there was any questions or concerns there were none. I should explain that my school is a Title I school, which consists of low income families. The student population is a majority of Hispanic students, followed by Vietnamese students. Most parents could not communicate because they spoke broken English. My teacher expressed her appreciation for them coming and showing interest in their child’s school experience and reassured them that she would be bringing translators to her home visits and conferences. After back to school night talking with other first grade teachers it was low numbers of family turn out across all the classes.

I am enjoying my experience at this school and in my classroom and I am learning a lot about Title I schools and the responsive classroom approach. I am looking forward to the rest of my time in this class. Stay tuned for updates and my findingsJ

First Day of Class

This is my first blog EVER...I am excited to learn more about blogging. Stay tuned:)