Double Entry Journal #4

Honoring Dialect and Increasing Student Performance in Standard English.

1.One thing that I am picking up from this article and the other readings that we have looked at, is that sometimes teaching involves taking risks and drastically departing from the beaten path and traditional methods of teaching. Teachers may feel lead to disregard curriculum schedules and the content that they are “supposed” to teach in order to motivate the students to learn. Once students are engaged and are interested in learning, teachers can then use the inroads they have created to bring in traditional academic content.

Another thing I have noticed in the readings is that when they are faced with frustration and failure, the teachers in the readings do not stay there. They collaborate with other educators and experiment and if necessary, make changes to their methods and content. They don’t stick to methods that are clearly inefficient and pretend the students are still learning because they don’t know what to do. The ones who saw real success in improving the learning experiences of their students, like Liz Philips, were not afraid to admit that what they were doing wasn’t working, and worked together with others to find a way to fix the problem.

One thing that sticks out to me is that the successful changes in teaching styles that we have been reading about are all the result of collaboration. Maybe a teacher implemented strategies on his/her own, but the most work was done by group studies and experiments such as the team of teachers in this article who conducted a  focused inquiry into the structures of local dialect in order to help students learn code switching and standard English. I also noticed that the teachers were not on their own in their research- they received a grant help conduct their study.

2. One example of literacy instruction presented in the article that uses inclusive classroom practices is the way Philips allows the students to speak in their dialect without correcting them or telling them they are wrong. Teaching them instead the concept of code switching, and the differences in structure between Standard English and their local dialect allows students to learn to speak in different ways and know what is appropriate without making them feel threatened. As Philips said “ I know my kids as individuals, and this is who they are.” She accepts her students as they are, and knows that their way of speaking does not affect their ability to learn.

Another inclusive practice that was used is the incorporation of multicultural information, resources, and materials. Philips branched out from book and internet research and had her students interview parents and grandparents about Appalachian English. This is also connected to building bridges of meaningfulness between home and school experiences.

    3.  In the third grade my class did a project similar to the “Where you are from” video we are making now. We read a book in class based on the author’s description of her home and cultural roots, and then we made our own book.  We started the text with “When I was young in (name of hometown) and then described our family and home. We also took pictures to go with the text, printed it all out, and pasted it on construction paper pages. The finished books were laminated and bound. I remember it because I was so proud that I had made my own book. It was a very rich literary experience for me, and I think the whole class enjoyed it immensely. It reflected many inclusive literary practices, especially building bridges of meaningfulness between home and school. It also covered all the learning styles since it involved reading, writing, listening, and actively working with our hands to put it together. It also gave us an opportunity to share our varied perspectives and experiences, and helped us to listen and get to know each other. It was a great experience, and if I can find a way to incorporate it into an art lesson, I would love to use it someday with my students.

 

Citation

Epstein, P., & Herring-Harris, L. ( 2011, September 15). Honoring dialect and increasing student performance in standard english. Retrieved from http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3655

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   This article, A Look in the Mirror: "Polishing" Inclusive Practices with Self-Reflection, focuses on the importance of self-relection to inclusive classroom practices and provides a list of questions teachers can ask themselves to evaluate how well they are incorporating them. The questions apply very well to the area of literacy. For example: "Do I use active learning strategies such as "think, pair, share" to promote recall and understanding of new learning? " This strategy could be useful for ensuring student comprehension of reading content.

 

 

Citation

Sulzberger, L. A. (n.d.). A look in the mirror: "polishing" inclusive practices with self-reflection. Retrieved from http://education.wm.edu/centers/ttac/resources/articles/inclusion/polishinginclusivepractices/index.php