American Revolution - Primary Sources Lessons

Found this website during our TEMS314 class. It is a great site that students can use to help them create persuasive websites. They log in using a specific teacher code, and their work is saved on the site, allowing the teacher to check it as the students work. It seems pretty neat, and I'd love to try it someday in my own classroom.

It's so interesting to me how some people don't buy into the "different learning styles" theory. I really want to check out this book now! I like how it seems to incorporate the idea that, yes, everyone learns in different ways, but no one should use that as an excuse. Good things for teachers to understand!

Edwards, P. A., McMillon, G. T., & Turner, J. D. (2010).Change is gonna come, transforming literacy education for african american students. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Introduction: "Hope, Literacy, and the State of African American Education Today"
The introduction starts out with narratives from African American students who express the struggles that they faced in education. In their own words, all of the students expressed the feeling, "I hate school," even though they are in elementary school! The intro also addressed the definition of "literacy" and how many African American youth and families are classified as "disadvantaged" or "at-risk" in the category of literacy because they do not share the traditional practices that may be valued in education and in White middle-class families.

Chapter 1: "The Fight for Access to Literacy"
In order to move forward, you have to look back and understand the past: This chapter gives a historical account of African American literacy issues, how the government intervenes and the struggles that students and educators currently face, including students being placed in Special Education where they don't belong. Each chapter after this also includes a section that explores the history of African American education and literacy.

Chapter 2: "The Multiple Meanings of Success: Tensions, Conflicts, and the crises for African American Students"
Even though English is their first language, African American students still struggle with the concept of "tryin' to make it in two worlds." One of the very real challenges that students face is the idea of trying to be "cool" in the classroom setting. This chapter has stories from students addressing this issue. The chapter also discusses how there are multiple kinds of success.

Chapter 3: Teaching African American Students: Approaches and Best Practices
This chapter has one of my favorite sections, a narrative written by David Benjamin McMillon titled, "I'm a Brotha' Who Can Dance, Play the Drums, and Win the Science Fair." It also includes a section for teachers: "Teaching African American Students."

Chapter 4: Village of Villain: The Role of African American Families
Education didn't always have parent involvement. This chapter gives a bit of history of those times, and also discusses the roles that American American parent's have towards their children's' education. It also talks about how the American Family is a "changing institution" and is different in many situations, including poverty. There are many cultural issues that involve the core family and the surrounding community that teachers need to know in order to be effective teachers for African American students.

Chapter 5: The Road to Redemption: Moving from Victims to Victors
The message in this chapter is that together we are all smarter than just one of us. Teachers need to work together in order to "build and maintain a healthy village". As this is the last chapter in the book, it ends with a call to action to transform our African American students from "victims to victors" by transforming ourselves into effective teachers who have a better understanding of the impact of culture on education. The idea is that we have talked about race and culture issues for a long time, and now is the time to move from talk into action.

Overall Review:
This book is one that I think all teachers should actually read. It offers a lot of personal stories from students, and to me those are always the most valuable: most of us want to work in education because we want to make a positive impact on students' lives, and in order to truly do that we need to know what students expect and think. This book also addresses some key differences between teaching white and African American students, but it doesn't simply talk about these differences: it offers ways to handle these differences and tips for teachers. During my undergrad at Oakland University I took a linguistics class that addressed the differences in English dialects in the United States, and it was especially fascinating for me to learn about different African American dialects. These dialects are different than what a middle-class white teacher may be used to, but they still have their own forms of syntax and grammar, and these make up their own versions of literacy that can be used to improve general education of African American students. These are differences in cultures that teachers need to be aware of, appreciate and learn to work with, so that they can relate to their students better.

You can find the book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Change-Gonna-Come-Transforming-Education/dp/0807750840/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330296180&sr=8-1

I chose this article because one of my classes this semester is about teaching social studies, and so I thought it would be interesting to combine two of my classes. The article discusses the importance of media literacy education in the content area of social studies. Media is the main way that students increase their knowledge of world events. By teaching about media and using media in classroom, teachers can help their students understand better the role that media plays in shaping views of the world. According to this article, currently the United States lags behind a few other countries when it comes to studying media literacy in education. This article challenges teachers to five goals when it comes to teaching media literacy: "Protection from harmful media, promotion of health and social development, promotion of citizenship and democracy, acquisition of tools for learning and self-expression, and the enjoyment and appreciation of media as a creative art form" (Stein & Prewett, 2009). When this article was created, more than 70% of teachers surveyed said that media literacy education was important and included in their curricula, but that they were not confident that they were capable of teaching media literacy well. I wonder if this number has increased in the past three years, and if teachers are more confident in how they teach this subject. I think classes like this TEMS520 will hep teachers become more confident in including media literacy in their content area.

Stein, L., & Prewett, A. (2009). Media literacy education in the social studeies: Teacher preceptions as curricular challenges. Teacher Education Quarterly, Winter, 131-148.

Journal Article #1 Summary: Student's identities are formed through their social interactions and their literacy experiences. Literacy identity is often narrow: "good reader", "poor writer", etc. These are very inflexible descriptions and can lead students to be stuck in roles instead of growing their literacy skills. This article explores the development of identity through both students social interactions and their literacy experiences. Through three studies, it shows how these two concepts are interconnected. This article also discusses how literacy is a form of language and communication, how people interact because of literacy and the way that people define and construct themselves in order to accomplish life goals. This article also explores the role that teachers have in forming their students' literacy identities. It gives examples of three different and diverse classroom experiences with teachers who have different approaches to teaching literacy.  Link to PDF: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=gse_pubs&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fstart%3D30%26q%3Dliteracy%2Bschools%2Beducation%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D1%2C23%26as_ylo%3D2010%26as_subj%3Dsoc%2Beng#search=%22literacy%20schools%20education%22 Citation: Hall, L. et al. (2009) "Teacher Identity in the Context of Literacy Teaching: Three Explorations of Classroom Positioning and Interaction in Secondary Schools." Teaching and Teacher Education. Vol. 26(2). p. 234-243.