LADYBUGS,
TONADOES, AND SWIRLING GALAXIES
As a teacher that has
never taught ELL (English Language Learners) or CLD (Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse) students I found this text very useful. I like that the
authors, Buhrow and Garcia, state that “many of these approaches are simply
good practices and can be successfully implemented with all students.” I have
learned that students enter our classroom with minimal, yet very valuable
background knowledge and teacher should consider this knowledge as they prepare
to teach. The experiences that children bring into the classroom regardless of
the type of student she/he may be should offer diversity in a manner that
offers opportunity to enhance the lives of those she/he may encounter during
their school day. I feel that modeling the expectations of the classroom is
very important. The authors used many prompts to catch the attention of the
student and encourage a higher order of thinking and create a “reciprocal
learning environment.”
The focus on
connections to life experiences stood out throughout my reading. In the
beginning of relating to the students by setting up the classroom environment,
to developing routines that create a culture of thinkers, to moving into
engaging in writing and telling stories, to comprehension Buhrow and Garcia
constantly emphasized the importance of connections. I would love to
incorporate the way the authors started the morning with the daily news! I feel
this would offer my students an opportunity to become more capable of thinking
about the activities of their day, or even what comes next during a particular
time of the day. Buhrow and Garcia discuss in chapter 3 that “this routine
allows the kids to contribute to writing, reading, listening, and speaking
activity that is all about them.” In chapter
4 they show that connections help to “see the kids going to a deeper level of
sophistication with their questions and with their reading and writing when
they have background knowledge and genuine interest in a topic.” The children whether
they are ELL, SN or general education should always feel connected to their
learning experience.
Swirling thoughts of
the nonfiction books used in the classroom to reach and connect to the ELL
students lead me to think about the lack of fantasy or imagination. Most
cultures have a way of relating fantasy and reality into the minds of children
to encourage them to make connections to life experiences using both fiction
and nonfiction. I understand the reasoning given for the students to use
nonfiction, yet when Buhrow and Garcia stated that their use of nonfiction “ is
not simply the standard definition of nonfiction texts that one would normally
think of,” I became puzzled. They further discussed the incorporation of Paolo
Freire’s theory of a literacy program. Although I understand the concept and
even agree to the methods of reaching the students, I am still puzzled by the
use of the term nonfiction. Most of the examples given referred to daily
experiences of the students in the classroom while creating connections that
encourage higher order of thinking. In my classroom after reading a poem, book
or even a discussion about a child’s prior days event we make connections to
what is being learned in the classroom to enhance the student’s comprehension
as well as encourage more engagement in the conversation. Is this the
nonfiction they are referring to? Are
they using real life experiences and connections to such through literacy as
their use of nonfiction?
In chapter 3 they
discuss more how nonfiction text is used to offer richer connections to words,
pictures, text amongst other things. They talk about nonfiction offering a
deeper connections to the content being taught or even teaching the features of
nonfiction to increase comprehension and connections for the ELL student. I am
concerned that aside from the nonfiction features all these other things such
as words, pictures, text, connections and comprehension could also be made
using fiction books. I feel that incorporation of both would help the ELL
student make even great connections “because we all have different life
experiences.”
