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  • Emma Janas Project Proposal

    Project Proposal:



    Topic to be investigated
    Disciplinary Literacy within language arts and Social Studies in the primary grades 
    Initial research question How can disciplinary literacy be integrated into both Social Studies and Language Arts to advance student reading comprehension and conceptual knowledge in primary grades? 
    What information do you plan to collect to answer the question?One of us will focus on disciplinary literacy within language arts, while the other focuses on disciplinary literacy in social studies. After we both collect information we will use a canva template to compare our findings. We will then use this to create two separate lesson sketches for each of our subjects with 10 different activities in each. We will then write 10 reflections for each activity comparing both of our activities and how they advance student reading comprehension and conceptual knowledge in primary grades. 
    How do you plan to conduct the research (through websites, books, articles, interviews, experiments)? We plan to use the readings from class to help us find examples of how to integrate disciplinary literacy into classes with young students and how it will benefit students comprehension and knowledge.
    What is your proposed timeline for completing the project by the due date?We plan to have this done by May 6th which gives us time to go over and practice how we will present our project while also giving us time to study for other finals. We hope to have each of our research done by next tuesday. So we can start the rest by next wednesday.
    How will you present your findings to your group (or the class)? (Example: Prezi, experiment, demonstration, video, text)Using a Venn diagram Canva template, a lesson sketch and a 10 page reflection. We will present by showing our venn diagram and talking about the rest of our project.  
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  • Weekly Blog Seven: Lent Chapter Four

    By, Emma Janas

    Experience as a Reader:

    This week’s theme was Inquiry Within the Disciplines, which talks about inquiry being the center of all disciplines and how it allows for students to make sense of information and strengthen their learning overall. The article says, “As proof, a recent study found that the students of teachers who focus heavily on inquiry-based instruction significantly outperformed students who had received traditional instruction”. Therefore, students who are using new strategies and methods in school to enhance knowledge using new designs such as question-based learning and interdisciplinary learning have a higher chance at succeeding and understanding the material than students who are using traditional educational methods such as testing. This relates to my book, “The Art of Teaching Children” by Phillip Done and one of the chapters that I read this week titled, “The Testing Speech”. He talks about how teachers never talk about standardized tests by their full names to their students, but instead call them “code names” such as ITBS or CST so that students don’t dread them as much. He then goes on in explaining his hatred towards these tests and why they have no benefit on a student’s learning. He says, “You can’t put a number on creativity or a score on communication. You can’t measure kindness on a scantron form. Teachers do not need charts and graphs to tell if a child struggles in reading. When taking standardized tests the only thing children learn is how to get stressed out”. He even said he would tell his students that their scores that they would receive from those tests had no significance to him and he cared more about the fact that they tried their best. And he is right. The reading Inquiry Within the Disciplines says, “solving challenging problems, asking questions, and thinking about what and why we know invite a deep internalization that goes far beyond memorizing information for tests or learning for purposes set by the teacher”. Another idea the reading talked about was how in order for students to engage in inquiry learning, teachers need to know what information students need so that their curiosity is sparked. Therefore, teachers need to care about their students’ learning. My book, The Art of Teaching Children has a chapter that I also read this week titled, “Influence”. It talks about a teacher’s impact on a student’s life and learning. The author talks about 4 teachers that he had growing up who impacted his learning the most throughout his life. He says, “Why is it that my answer to the security question “Who is your favorite teacher?” always one of them?  After reflecting on this I understood why. All four were passionate about their work. You could hear it in their voices. Their love for teaching showed on their faces. And their excitement rubbed off. You felt it. In the same way, these four teachers were committed. They knew their work mattered. They understood that they were building more than knowledge. They were building people”. This relates to this week’s reading because in order for teachers to influence their students to be engaged, interested, and open to discovering new information, the students have to be able to feel that their teacher cares. This way when teachers are guiding their students through new methods and question posed thoughts, the students are open to trying new things and excited about the material they are learning.

    Perspective of a Pre-Service Teacher:From the perspective of a pre-service teacher, there is a lot to learn from this week’s reading, Inquiry Within the Disciplines, and my book The Art of Teaching Children. I believe that inquiry based learning is the most beneficial way for students to retain information in today’s day and age. When I am a teacher, I never plan on sticking to the traditional teaching methods of giving out tests, having students struggling to remember information that they are going to sit down for 20 minutes to write down, and then forget it as soon as the test is over. I find that to be pointless. Rather, I will definitely use the more modern form of teaching, where there is question based learning. I will also do things like science experiments, classroom debates, and projects, because I believe these are the most effective and engaging ways to keep students interested and eager to learn. Group work will be used very often in my classroom because I know for myself, that is my best method of learning and the easiest way for me to retain information. For our final project, I believe group work would be the best option for us to end off the semester working together to learn new information from each other, creating and discovering new ideas amongst one another.

  • Blog Entry Four: Muhammad

    By, Emma Janas

    Experience as a Reader:

    This week’s theme was Cultivating Skills, which talks about critiquing and revising drafts of writing, and how peer review can be beneficial to students. It also talked about thinking about the content in a paper and communicating those words to a specific audience. Communication is key when it comes to reaching an intended audience or trying to explain new ideas to someone. My book does not really discuss ideas about critiquing and revising drafts of writing between students or teachers, but it does talk about communication between these people and how we could express ideas and make a difference to make things more enjoyable for students. My book, The Art of Teaching Children’s main focus of this week was changing the system within the classroom and in education. The author talks about how teachers have the power to make their lessons the best that they can possibly be. He talks about how beneficial it could be to teachers if at staff meetings they each turned to one another discussing the lessons that they taught that week and the ones they are planning on giving the next week, so that those fellow teachers could get new ideas to teach in their class, fresh and exciting. He says students would become very motivated when being taught stronger, more interesting lessons, teachers would become more inspired, and positive instruction and feedback would inspire them to do it again. In Muhammands, Cultivating Genius, he says, “Skills and proficiencies are often measured using quantitative, high stakes assessments. I use skills and proficiencies interchangeably to denote competence, ability, and expertise based on what educators deem to be important to student learning in each content area. Skills are central to the ways in which we do school today and typically define achievement standards”. I think this fits very well into the idea that the author of my book The Art of Teaching Children is saying as he expresses the importance of student learning and how to make lessons strong and inspiring to children, grabbing their attention and giving them the tools and skills they need in order to be successful. Just like Muhammands writing teaches us how to be an effective writer and grab the audience’s attention, that is what the author of my book is saying, but within the classroom. He says, “Boredom is a sure way to lose learners. I’m not proposing that you have to entertain your students. I am saying, though, that in order for kids to listen, you have to first capture their attention. Then you have to keep it.” This point is valid whether it be in writing or in a school classroom setting. In order to keep a reader or a student engaged, you must make the learning engaging and interesting.

    Perspective of a Pre- service teacher: From the perspective of a pre-service teacher, there is a lot to learn from book The Art of Teaching Children, and Muhammad’s reading, Cultivating Genius. The book this week inspired me as a future educator because I never want my classroom to be a boring place for my students where the lessons seem dreadful and overwhelming for them. I want them to be as fully engaged and interested as possible, wanting to learn. Phillip Done, the author of The Art of Teaching Children talks about using good books, stories, and songs to begin a lesson because they grab the students attention, hooking them in to what the lesson is going to be about. He also talks about having a question written on the board regarding the lesson for when the students walk into the classroom. I also think this is a strong way to get the students engaged and ready to start new material. For myself, when I think of teaching new lessons and ways to make it fun for my students, I think of things like for science class, going outside into nature to become inspired for their work, or bringing in candy treats that we could use for a math lesson. These are just random, but fun ideas I have as ideas for my future classroom that will make learning fun and exciting for my young students. I know it is hard to compare these simple ideas to this week’s reading, Cultivating Genius. But, the reading talks a lot about high stakes testing and the pressure it puts on students to achieve academically. I believe personally as a future educator that those tests and stressful situations that students are put through are unnecessary, and they should not have to go through them. I hope that I can make my classroom as stress free and fun as possible, while having my students learn the material they need to be successful as my book talks about.

  • Weekly Blog Entry Six: Supporting Disciplinary Talk From the Start of School: Teaching Students to Think and Talk like Scientists by Tanya S. Wright

    By, Emma Janas

    Experience as a Reader: 

    This week’s theme was Supporting Disciplinary Talk From the Start of School: Teaching Students to Think and Talk like Scientists, which talks about how elementary school children can be supported and taught how to think and talk like scientists. However, a main focus of the article is how oral language is important for both reading comprehension and critical for science learning, and allows for students’ communication skills to improve. When reading my book, The Art of Teaching Children by Phillip Done, I focused mainly on a chapter titled, “Talking to Learn”, which talked about how the students love talking to one another about anything and everything. If you show your students a picture of a dog, all the students will begin talking about their pets at home. If a teacher asks his class to guess his age, all the students will jump in at once hoping to have the closest guess. Students love telling stories and having their questions answered. Done talks about it in the chapter how talk is central to learning, critical for children’s language development, and the foundation to literacy. He then talks about how talk allows students to explore their different feelings and opinions and work with others. However, a big problem and thought about students being able to talk effectively in this day in age is brought up within the chapter, kids are not talking to each other nearly as much as they used to, because they are so locked in to technology and their phones, losing the ability to be able to communicate face to face with one another. Reading this made me realize how much of a negative impact technology has on today’s society of children. Children need to be taught how to converse with one another, which involves being attentive to the person you are talking to and being fully engaged at the same time. Oral language is needed in order for students to have an effective conversation, speaking words that express emotions, ideas, and knowledge so that the conversation has true meaning to it. This relates to this week’s reading, Supporting Disciplinary Talk From the Start of School: Teaching Students to Think and Talk like Scientists. The reading says, “Speaking and Listening Standards expect students to have conversations with one another, and language standards expect students to learn and use sophisticated vocabulary, including vocabulary from informational texts and content area learning.” In other words, for students to be able to have an effective conversation with one another they need to be taught listening and speaking skills that lead them to deeper understanding of whatever subject or knowledge they are talking about, in this case from this specific article, science. The article’s main focus is disciplinary talk and building students’ understanding and abilities to discuss and explore material. The book The Art of Teaching Children strongly supports this idea as it is stated in the book, “We understand that it is through talk that children develop their ideas, polish their thoughts, sharpen their thinking, and solidify their learning.”

    Perspective of a Pre-Service Teacher:From the perspective of a pre-service teacher, there is always a lot to learn from the book The Art of Teaching Children by Phillip Done. To draw on the idea of disciplinary talk and teaching students how to think and speak effectively, the book lists many examples and ideas on how to promote conversation between students within the classroom. To get my students in the future talking to one another, I could do activities that make it fun for them through things like, hosting morning meetings before the day starts and having book clubs. Something specifically that I plan on having my students do in my future classroom is literature circles where students work in small groups and popcorn read. I believe this is an effective way for students to communicate with one another, reading aloud and being more engaged in the material than if they were just sitting at their desks reading alone. Then of course once they are done with their reading they will have discussion on the chapters that they read for the week and their opinions and thoughts on it. I think this is the best way for students to read because it makes it more fun for them, and oral language will be used as well throughout this activity because the students will have to open up about their opinions on the book and what ideas they are getting while reading it. The article, Supporting Disciplinary Talk From the Start of School: Teaching Students to Think and Talk like Scientists says, “A critical part of making sense of ideas involves talk.” Throughout group discussions, students are able to make sense of ideas, as well as forming connections to their peers and what they are thinking.

  • Emma Janas

    The Disciplines in the Material World

    Math in relation to food:

    Being a primary education major, you have to be able to teach all basic subject areas to the kids, such as Mathematics, science, social studies, and English. Most people don’t realize, including myself, how each of these different disciplines can be seen in our everyday lives. A lived experience that I experienced today was something as simple as going out to lunch and then having to calculate the tip. When doing something so generic like going to the grocery store, or going out for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or going shopping, you don’t realize it in the moment but when you are adding up the prices and figuring out how much money to spend, and what not to spend you are doing math in your head. Also, even when you look at coupons or gift cards, they require you to figure out how much money you are deducting from the price before buying something to see how much you can save. In my book, The Art of Teaching Children, the teacher relates math to hamburgers from Mcdonalds. He says over the years Mcdonalds would post the number of hamburgers they sold under the golden arches. It started with “5 billion sold”, then went up to “10 million sold” then “20 million sold”. He compared this to teaching math in his elementary school classroom and said, “Over 20 Billion Math Problems Solved Here!” I can even relate the idea of going out to eat lunch today and having to calculate the price of my meal and how much to tip to a concept the teacher in my book uses, “edible math”. He would do different activities within his classroom with his students involving math where they could eat, doing things like cutting oranges into fractions, schools of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers being grouped into blue construction paper oceans to illustrate division problems, or counting and adding M&M’s or skittles in groups. These are simple fun ways that math could be taught to children in the classroom involving food, which relates to my lived experience of doing math to figure out the pricing for food at restaurants. This picture represents a perfect example of using m&m’s within an elementary school classroom to excite students in their learning.

    Mental Math

    Mental Health is something that we hear about often today, but what about mental math?! A lived experience that I had today involving mental health was taking the time in between my classes to wind down and watch my show. Even just taking 40 minutes for myself out of my crazy day makes me feel so much better and relieved before having to carry on with the rest of my tasks. I enjoy it because it involves no stress and school work. However, I have never heard about mental math until my book, The Art of Teaching Children mentioned it. It says that kids enjoy it because it involves no pencils and teachers enjoy it because it involves no prep or mess! Mental math is giving your students a list of questions revolving around what you are currently learning in class and then having them buddy up with a friend or a group and asking each other the questions. When doing this teachers try to make the questions solvable and sometimes they will add in a few challenging ones to get the kids really thinking. This also relates to the Lent reading, Writing Within the Disciples when it talks about different strategies for students to use within the classroom such as students being math pen pals and sharing ideas with each other to better understand a concept that they are discussing. I think that is the best way for kids to learn because they are learning and engaging with their peers, which makes math or any given subject more fun for them. I think it relates to my idea of mental health as well because just like how for me being able to take that time out of my day to sit down and relax, for students being able to work with their peers could also make their learning a lot more enjoyable for them. This picture provides an example of students working together in order to achieve an answer on something.

    Wiggle room within the classroom and life:

    Another thing that my book focuses on in a certain section is about wiggle room within the curriculum, which I have learned about in my live experience in the class literacy across the curriculum this semester, leading up to this Spring break. In the reading this week, Writing Within the Disciples by Lent, it talks about how there are different shifts teachers can make while teaching within the disciplines to support their children. In the writing, it talks about how “it is not created by a singular, linear process; it cannot be taught, like bike riding, as a single skill; it changes with shifting technologies… it takes many forms; and it cannot be assessed effectively in a single setting”. Now in the book when it talks about wiggle room, it talks about how teachers are asked to follow scripted programs and curriculums. The author uses the example of these scripted programs being “paint-by-number teaching” which means that when you’re stuck with one program, there is no room for you to implement ideas for new sources. This causes teachers to lose their freedom and flexibility with what and how they want to teach their children the best way they can, and causes the work to be more stressful and less fun for the students as well. This relates to my lived experience because as I reflect over my Spring break I realize that I have wiggle room to do whatever I want over this week! And I have wiggle room for what I am going to do with my future. I am realizing different ideas and things that I will implement into my future classroom in order to keep the material fresh and engaging, not just strictly following the curriculum all the time. I chose this picture as well because it demonstrates having several different directions I can go with my lessons and my life.

    Shopping in life and school:

     A lived experience that I had today was shopping, which once again is related to math and calculating how much money you are spending. I am always shopping, spending my money on clothes and accessories, or gifts for people. My book has a chapter called “teacher shoppers” where the author discusses how much money teachers spend for their students and classroom. He says, “Teachers are always shopping. In the beginning of the school year, we’re buying supplies on Amazon, checking out what’s new, in Target’s Dollar spot, and searching for things we can use in our classroom on Facebook Marketplace”, and then talks about all the different candies and decorations that they spend for their classroom each year. He also talks about how back to supplies are meant for teachers not students, contrary to popular belief, and stores are wise to the fact that teachers love a good discount. He even talks about how when teachers are shopping, they sometimes run into their students and get either followed by them, stared at by them, or ignored by them, which I thought was funny. That reminds me of myself all throughout elementary through my high school years because if I saw my teachers out in public, I would not even think about saying hi to them. This is relatable to me and my lived experience because like I said before, shopping is a big habit of mine and even today I was looking for deals! This picture relates to both my lived experience and my book because it includes a woman and her shopping bags!

  • Weekly Blog Entry Five: Writing Within the Disciplines by Lent Chapter 3

    By, Emma Janas

    My Experience as a Reader:

    This week’s theme was Writing within the disciplines. It is discussed how writing is beneficial in every subject for kids. The reading says, “writing brings more than literacy and communication advantages” and talks about how writing allows students to increase their comfort with difficult readings and concepts. When reading my book, The Art of Teaching Children this week, I focused on a chapter titled “Words” that discusses all the different fun ways of teaching elementary school children different vocabulary and how it plays a role in our lives. The teacher discusses how within elementary school classrooms, teachers fill their walls with parts of speech, figurative language, story elements, literacy terms, and word walls with commonly used words that kids can use to look to if they forget how to spell something. He says that when teaching children new words, it takes them 5 or more times hearing them for them to fully stick in their brain and fully understand the meaning behind the word. The author also described how the more words that kids are given to learn from, the better they will be able to read, write, and speak, and how well they are able to do these things will set them up for success in their future. This reading was fun for me because it talks about fun words that kids find intriguing, such as metamorphosis, encyclopedia, or overzealous. It is interesting how teaching new big words to children can be so highly entertaining to them. I think this relates to this week’s theme of writing within the disciplines because in the reading, it talks about how the practice of writing can enhance the brain’s intake, processing, retaining, and understanding complex material. In my book, it is talked about how consistently teaching your students new material or words will allow them to fully enhance and understand the words. Those words that they are learning also end up being beneficial to their writing skills in all aspects of their school life.

    Perspective of a Pre-Service Teacher:

    From the perspective of a pre-service teacher, there is a lot to be learned about from my book this week when it comes to reading and writing, and to connect to the week’s theme of writing within the disciplines. In the writing, “Writing within the Disciplines” by Releah Lent he writes, “When writing is embedded throughout the curriculum, it promotes the brain’s attentive focus to classwork and homework, boosts long term memory, illuminates patterns, gives the brain time for reflection, and when well-guided, is a source of conceptual development and stimulation of the brains highest cognition”. I think this is a very important point, especially from the view of a future elementary school teacher. I believe this means that in order for students to fully understand and pick up on the concepts that they are learning in their curriculum, they must be able to write about it. By both reading their assignments and fully engaging in them, they should be able to create and write about what they have learned. I completely agree with this knowledge and in my future classroom I plan on having ways where the students can write and reflect on the curriculum that I am giving them through ways such as blog posts online describing what they gathered from the reading that they had, or working with the people around them to discuss what different ways they have all interpreted the information. In that case, they are learning from others and being able to express their ideas at the same time. Oftentimes, I think students only truly understand something if they are working with others, or having something visual right in front of them so that they can fully engage in the material. This relates to my book, The Art of Teaching because in the book it talks about how sometimes for children to really learn a new word, a teacher may do things such as drawing a picture or acting it out in order to give them an example of it. For example, when teaching a word like scrumptious, drawing a picture of a yummy dessert like cake on the board could be used to teach them. This is a certain design or tool that could be used in order to promote a child’s brain to want to learn and work to its highest cognition. I plan on using this structure in my future as an educator because I know for me, I am a visual learner and I know several young students are as well. My goal is to create ways for their homeworks, lessons, and assignments to be fun and intriguing so that they are motivated and interested in the material, while learning at the same time. Teaching children can be fun and rewarding. Also, just as a bonus to how the reading this week relates to my book, my book discusses how writing is beneficial to all subject areas, not just English. It says that elementary school teachers have easels that they place magnets on that hold up large pieces of lined chart paper for subjects like social studies and science for their students. That is a way to get students willing and excited to understand the material for those subjects as well.

  • Weekly Blog Entry Four

    By, Emma Janas

    My Experience as a Reader:

    This week’s theme was developing conceptual knowledge through oral and written language. It is discussed how these days, it is important that textbooks in schools reflect on the world outside of school, and incorporating different kinds of texts into classrooms that interest students is enough to get them to read. When reading my book this week, The Art of Teaching Children, the main aspect of it that I focused on was on how to make children comfortable within the classroom. I enjoyed reading the different ways discussed on what makes a classroom fun for students. Of course there were the main ideas that elementary school teachers think of when trying to make school fun for their students like, playing games, giving the students name tags at the beginning of the year, and bringing them treats for holidays and even random days sometimes. But, it was also discussed how having something placed at a students seat everyday for them when they get there such as a word search, or coloring sheet, or something of that nature may start off the day on a good note as well. This is just a part of my reading this week that I found interesting, however I know it does not have much to do with the idea of developmental conceptual knowledge through oral and written language. So, I skipped forward a bit to a section of the book that talks about curriculum and words for students. I found some of the ideas when it comes to understanding language and words that this teacher came up with brilliantly. Of course, when you ask a 3rd grader what their favorite thing to do is, they’re not going to respond and say, “learning new words in school!” That is just not realistic. So this teacher found a way to make it more fun for them. For example, he asked his students, “Does anyone know what the word micro means?, as he was beginning to teach the class about prefixes. A student answered “small” and then he asked the class if they could come up with any words that have micro in it and students began to answer things like “microphone” and “microsoft”. The teacher chose to make an assignment out of this. He wrote several root words on the board and the children were asked to take prefixes and attach them to a root word to invent their own words. This caused the students to engage in the material, and become excited to learn about prefixes. A child even came up with the prefix, “super-sonic-mono-micro-photo-aquatic-trans-tele dog bowl”. I found this part of my reading to be very interesting and beneficial to my understanding as a future teacher on how I could teach things like prefixes to my students and make it exciting for them. I think this relates to this week’s theme of developing conceptual knowledge through oral and written language because it gives students ways to express their own ideas and knowledge that they come up with on their own as a form of written communication that includes the learning that they have done.

    Perspective of a Pre- Service Teacher:

    From the perspective of a pre-service teacher, there was a lot to be learned from my book this week that connected to the idea of developing conceptual knowledge through oral and written language. In the reading it is said, “It is crucial that instruction is designed around concepts that can be approached from perspectives that are not only important but also relevant and interesting to students”. I think this is a very important point, especially looking at it from the viewpoint of a future educator. I believe that in order to get my students fully engaged and wanting to learn the material, I must design assignments for them that allows them all as individuals to view the concepts in the way that they comprehend it. I think that is the best way to make them feel smart and independent as well. This relates to my book The Art of Teaching as well because it talks a lot about curriculum and students’ abilities to be independent and recognize that everybody learns and interprets information at different paces and in different ways. The teacher in my book says that on the first day of school each year he asks his elementary students what they think it means to be smart, and he says most often students answer with ideas like, “When you read fast”, or “Being good at math”. He would then describe to his students how there are students who are number smart and there are students who are word smart, but there are also ways that students are able to be smart aside from math and reading. When reading this, it made me sad to think of all the elementary school children who compare themselves and their “smartness” to one another, and I think that the teacher explaining to his students that there are a million different ways that someone could be considered smart is important. I plan on implementing this idea into my future classroom so that each student feels worthy and like they each have different qualities that make them a smart and unique individual. I think this also relates back to the idea of connecting to oral and written language because I as a teacher plan on communicating to my students through using my feelings and ideas that their knowledge and feelings are just as important as the people sitting next to them. Therefore, they will know that their learning is special.

  • Weekly Blog Entry Three

    By, Emma Janas

    My Experience as a Reader:

    This week’s theme was identity. Identity is made up of who we are, what others say we are, and who we desire to be. My experience this week reading my book, The Art of Teaching Children was interesting. Its main focus was on love within the classroom and interaction with students in and out of the classroom. However, there were several different ways that identity as a theme was seen throughout the book as well. Phillip Done writes on page 16, “A child’s love is blind to race, gender, and disability. And sometimes the love from children shows us what this world is supposed to be.” I found this quote to be crucial to understanding the idea of identity and what it means to us humans. How somebody identifies himself should not have to have anything to do with their physical appearance, gender, or condition that holds them back. Rather, identity should have to do with an individual’s beliefs, and personal traits that make them the person that they are. As a reader, I felt as though reading this specific quote and section of the book opened up my eyes to the way that innocent children are able to view one another, without characterizing them into a specific group, stereotyping them and judging them without even getting to know them on a personal level. I think it is truly eye opening when you really sit back and reflect on how often humans judge one another before really even knowing anything about them. So, as I read I began to wonder how much better of a place this world could be if we spread more love than hate, and focused more on people’s identity based around their desires and what makes them the people that they are, instead of what they appear to look like on the outside. As a pre-service teacher, I think it is important that this be implemented into the classroom early on, teaching young students the significance of who they are and what makes them so special, so that they may identify the differences between them and their classmates on a positive level.

    Perspective of a Pre-Service Teacher:

    As I read this section of my book, there are a lot of discussions on forming connections between teachers and students, understanding a child’s individual needs, showing the kids that you truly care about them, asking them about their lives outside of the classroom, and getting to know your students. I saw a lot of ways that identity plays a large role in these ideas as I read. Done writes, “It’s important to teach your kids too. Take a genuine interest in them. It tell’s children that you’re interested in them as people.” I believe this is the best way to form a genuine connection with your students. If the only conversation that you and your students have between one another is based around curriculum and school programs, there’s never going to be a true trustful foundation built between the two of you. And, when asking the students about their hobbies and interests, that is allowing them to express themselves and their identity to you. It causes them to discuss their personal traits and enjoyment. One of the ways that I plan on implementing identity into my future classroom is going to be on the first day of school each year. I plan on having my students make a poster with things on it that include their name, hobby outside of school, and interesting or fun fact about themselves! This way they feel as though they have something special about themselves to express, and I can get to know them a little bit right off the bat as well! The book also discusses the word rapport, which is trust, affinity, and respect all put together. It is said that rapport is needed in order to have a successful classroom, which I believe is 100% accurate. In order for students to get along with each other, and also get along with their teacher, they must be willing to have these three qualities. I plan on having rapport so that the students become eager for forming true connections, and so that I can inspire my students to develop connections with one another. I think that having this quality could affect a child’s identity as well because if they are feeling respected and understood by the people around them, they are likely to pick up on those qualities as well. An interesting idea of mine that I also plan on implementing into my future classroom is each day, having a student say something nice to a fellow student of theirs in the classroom. And, each day it has to be a different person they give that compliment too. I plan on doing this so that each child can feel special and loved, and can also realize these are the qualities that the people around them notice, which makes up a part of who they are and their identity! Like it is said in this week’s assigned reading, “Toward the Pursuit of Identity”, “Identity is dynamic and changing.” Being able to understand ourselves in a way that nobody else can is powerful, we must embrace the qualities that shape us into the people that we are today.

  • Weekly Blog Entry Two

    By, Emma Janas

    My experience as a reader:

    I decided to switch my non fiction book that I will be spending this semester focusing on to The Art of Teaching, by Phillip Done. I chose to read this book because it allows me to read from the point of view of a former elementary school teacher, where she gives the recipe for creating a classroom made up of comfort, love, and routine for the students. I also chose to read this book so that I could get new ideas on ways that I could make my classroom welcoming and innovative for my students, making them have a true love for learning. From what I have read so far, my experience as a reader has been great. The author, Phillip Done gives a true reflection of her 33 years of teaching before finally hanging up her boots to retire, and what made all of those years so special to her. The book is not only interesting, but it is also fun to read because she talks about memories and experiences that she had in her classroom throughout the years. She gives specific, random examples of things that she remembers from teaching like, when students are standing with you at the copy machine, they are going to take the paper out, put it against their face and say how hot the paper is, kids always have a favorite color marker that they scramble through to get before any other student can, and of course all students love to write on the white board! Reading about these different things that this woman in her lifetime of teaching has experienced in the classroom, that only caused her love for teaching to grow stronger really makes me excited for my future as one, and has caused my experience as a reader for this book to be very enjoyable.

    Perspective of a Pre- Service Teacher:

    From the perspective of a teacher reading this book so far, I have only become more and more inspired to be the best possible one that I can be for my students. The chapters that I have read so far have caused me to realize that oftentimes teachers are given a negative stereotype, and are questioned by others on why they would choose to go into a profession that is going to offer them such low pay and stress. However, the woman writing this book described how teaching over the years has caused her love for teaching to grow stronger and stronger each year, which is what made it so hard for her to come to the decision of retirement. She said that she chose to go into the profession for her love of children. She even says, “Teachers don’t just teach subjects or grade levels. We teach young human beings. We aren’t just experts in what we teach. We are child experts.” I believe that there is a lot to learn out of that. Looking at it from the perspective of a future teacher, I reflected on the idea that teachers have such an important role in their students lives, especially elementary ones who are shaping them into the students that they will be for their remaining years in the education system. What my goal is as a teacher to them is to not only teach them about the basic subjects they are required to learn about, but also raise them into good human beings, and form a sense of companionship and trust with them, so that school is something that they love and look forward to. That also inspires me for lesson planning. I want to create fun lessons for the students that will allow them to be interactive with their classmates, working with partners, having discussions and also doing activities that will allow them to get up out of their seats and move around the classroom. Another thing that I will talk about that is talked about in the book is the arrangement of seating for the students. Phillip Doe says that when she looks back at all of her years teaching she can still remember the exact specific spots that her former students sat in within the room and why they sat there. She gave examples such as, “I saw Kayla far from the window (too distractible) and Grant seated between two girls (to cut down on the talking), and she gives several more examples of where other students sat as well. When reading this thinking about my future as an educator, I thought about the different strategies that I will use in my future classroom to make sure that each individual student will be the most productive and successful that they can be. Lastly, to compare The Art of Teaching, by Phillip Done to the reading “What does discussion add to reading for conceptional learning?” I would say the writings compare nicely to each other because in both writings the authors talk about learning from the people around you. The reading “What does discussion add to reading for conceptional learning?” by Pei-Yu Marian Pan talks about how students learn best from working with their other peers and learning new ideas and thoughts from them. Same goes for Phillip Doe’s book when she talks about how students working with one another allows them to grow as individuals and learners. However, she even adds that she is able to learn through her students by seeing the way that they interact with one another and teach each other. Overall, these readings so far have given me inspiration and ideas for my future as an elementary school teacher.

  • Weekly Blog Entry One

    By, Emma Janas

    My experience as a reader:

    I have decided to start reading the book “The Pleasure of the Text” by Roland Barthes in which he discusses why “writerly” texts are more important than “readily” ones. My experience as a reader was quite interesting as soon as I opened the novel. I had some difficulty making sense of wording as a lot of it uses advanced vocabulary such as words like anacoluthons and syncretism. Therefore, as I read I had to look up several of the words’ meanings to get a better understanding of what they meant and how they fit into the sentences. Aside from difficult words, there were also some challenging sentences to try and understand for me as well like, “This is a very subtle and nearly untenable status for discourse: narrativity is dismantled yet the story is still readable: never have two edges of the seam been clearer and more tenuous…” When I came across sentences like this that had so much knowledge and intensity in them, I had to take a step back and reread so that I was making sure I was fully comprehending the information and not just skimming through the material. However, the book so far offers some very knowledgeable points and talks about different structures and styles of reading and writing. For example, I learned about the idea of Flaubert, which is a way of cutting, of perforating discourse without making it meaningless, and talks about how discontinuity is no longer exceptional. That is something new that I learned, and the novel so far has clearly been showing me how “writerly” texts are more important than “readily” ones when it talks about examples such as one saying that a text bores them which could be seen as it is being said to prattle, which forms by the effect of a need of writing. Another example used was by Bataille which is against Neurosis (Neurosis is a makeshift in regards to the “impossible”) which comes from the center of madness, and says that if they want to be read that bit of neurosis is necessary to the readers. However, along with this I learned about how the text you write must prove to someone that it desires them to read it. It has been made clear to me throughout my experience reading this book that writing exists, it’s its own proof, but the pleasure of reading has to come from the writing as well if people are going to want to read it.

    Perspective of a Pre- Service Teacher:

    There was a lot talked about in this book that I could use to draw on elements of disciplinary literacy for my students in the future, mainly based on the idea of pleasure. The book focuses a lot on the pleasure of reading and how if something is boring, people aren’t going to be fully engaged with it and it also talks about how there are ways to cut as you read and make it not completely meaningless, so that although you may not be very much interested in the context of the writing, you are still able to pick it up a little bit. I think I could draw on lessons and assignments featuring this book to my students by having them break down the different strategies that are listed by the book itself. For example, I could write down the different ideas on the board such as “the brio of the text” , “society of the friends of the text” or where they see flaubert being used in the text, and then have the class get into groups to begin reading whatever novel I am having them read and within their group have them come up with where they think all of those different strategies are being used in the story and then once we come back together as a class they can tell me what they came up with and then I will write them up there for display. This way, it will give them a reason to pay attention and engage in the content even if they are not all that interested. I could also do something after each book we read, as simple as just making a poll for whether the class thought whatever we were reading that day or week was pleasurable or not, and then I could get a general idea of whether or not the class as a whole enjoyed the reading. And, that will allow the students to be able to engage in conversation with one another and hear each other’s perspectives or their thoughts of the book as well.