December 11, 2007

“What knowledge and skills have I acquired as a result of participating in this course?”

“O gallant Piglet!”  This seemed like an appropriate place to begin my cover letter for my E-Portfolio.  Some may ask why but as Mrs. McComas reads this i’m sure she will giggle a little, maybe even out loud because she knows it comes directly from her syllabus.  For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about it comes from the all knowing, wonderful little bear named Pooh.   “When in doubt, keep in mind that “O gallant Piglet” is always a very thoughtful way of beginning a piece of poetry.”  Although this cover letter is nowhere near being a poem, it still seems fitting.  I actually didn’t know how to start this letter because there are so many things that I have learned this semester through many different means.  That quote from Pooh actually made me realize that my CD 315 class objectives had been accomplished.  Even when I don’t know where to start I can still remember that there is something beyond that first train of thought that develops into something great and a result of what I have learned.

To foster in my students a love of learning…

Many times this semseter I would look at the course work for the week and mumble and groan about all that I had to do and how little time I had to do it in.  This remained true even until this cover letter  I’m not saying that I am any happier about it, but to realize that I have enjoyed learning and applying what i’ve learned is now evident.  My first realization of loving to learn was with our online class with Katie McComas.  It was very evident that the entire class was excited because you couldn’t get any of us to shut up.  We all had questions for Katie and would not stop at just one simple question.  We had to go deeper with the first question and add onto it.  This eventually ended with us running out of time and i’m not even sure if everyone was able to ask their question.  Nonetheless I had an awesome time and realized that it is very helpful to talk to someone who has been through the same things we are going through (recently).  The way in which we communicated with her through the online chat made the conversation relaxed and free flowing.  When this class discussion was over I realized how “geeky” we all are because we actually want to know the information that Katie had to tell us.  When it was time for the conversation to end I was a little sad and hoped that we could do it again.   

Cultivate a culture of inquiry as a means of knowing and sensemaking…

I can without a doubt say that this course revealed to me a whole new way of gathering information in more ways than one.  I discovered a plethora of new forms of research in order to obtain knowledge as well as sensemaking of whatever it was we were working on for the course.  I accomplished the majority of this objective during the second week of class by reading many articles as well as a chapter in our book.  I evidence this by the declarative knowledge section of my week 2 participation memo.

“This week began with reading about the things I should know about blogs.  I learned when, where and why to use them and also the positive and negative effects they can have.  The only negative being that sometimes they can be inaccurate and biased therefore you have to be careful if you are using them as sources of information.  The second article I read informed me that this is a digital world and the read/write web has exploded in this day and age.  It is very important to connect to students in this way otherwise they will far surpass us if we refuse change.  In the articles that contain information about netiquette, hoaxes, e-mail privacy and acronyms I realized that the web is a whole other atmosphere that I have yet to discover.  Although I was aware of some the information, I was still surprised by the other.  In the articles about discussion lists I realized that there are other ways to communicate and receive information about topics that interest you and it’s as easy as signing up to that particular list of interest.  In the articles that contained information about the world wide web I became more aware and gained a greater respect for those who maintain websites.”

Socialize students into the culture of both the theoretical and the practical aspects of the discipline…

I’ve never been a digitally literate person, until now!  Had someone told me a year ago that I would be blogging I would have laughed at them and said, what’s a blog?  So that’s a little exaggerated, I think I knew what a blog was before this class.  However, I did not know how obtain one or use one.  I learned very quickly and realized that it is a very efficient way of applying what I have learned not only as a journal for myself, but also a way to share my knowledge with others that may choose to read my blogs.  After I learned the aspects of blogging I was then sharing information about the other things that I learned as a result of this class.  In the third week of this class I evidenced in my participation memo that I had learned new ways of obtaining information.   The following is the information that I learned about in week 3.

“ This week I learned what a wiki and collaborative editing is, how to use it, who is using it, why it is significant, the downsides of both, where it is going in the future and the implications for teaching and learning.”

Inspire students to consider different ways of being, knowing, and doing…

As a result of this class I have now joined several mailing lists, created several different accounts for a number of things and learned that I can no longer take for granted the things that I “thought” were free to use online.  By doing these things I have become an active member in the online community.  I’m no longer just chatting on Facebook and using that for sources of “information”.  I now know how to find that information elsewhere and it’s not just by googling it.  Whether or not Mrs. McComas knows it or not she has created a searching monster out of me.  Google is not sufficient any longer and if it is from Wikipedia, don’t trust it!  I always used Wikipedia as a “reliable” source but realized shortly into this class that it is not what I thought it was.  I now actually enjoy searching for information and have learned effective ways of doing so.  By joining mailing lists I was communicating with other professionals who gave great factual information as well as experiential information.  This helped prepare me for my research project and actually got me interested in the topic more so than I already was.  Now that I have learned how to join mailing lists I can subscribe to lists that interest me outside of school.

I feel like the most impactful “doing” experience that I had this semester was creating my Movie Maker video.  I learned a new way to present my information in an interesting and fun way.  While uploading this project to Google I had an insight that almost made the project even more worthwhile.  I realized that this is an excellent way to share other projects that I have created without using programs such as Youtube.  Almost immediately after this project was finished I decided to share another video that I had made, using Photo Story, through Google Videos.

The most important thing that I changed since this class was the way in which I use images and audio that I get from the internet.  A specific week was spent on copyright issues and it made me realize that it is very important and the consequences of not following those rules can be harsh.  I now have a much greater respect for individual’s pieces of work as well as a greater knowledge base of how to go about getting permission to use other’s work.

Promote learning partnerships and learning communities…

How great is email?  After this course I can tell you that it is amazing.  Through our class mailing list that I had neglected in previous classes I was able to ask questions not only to Mrs. McComas, but also to my fellow students.  I realized how genuinely caring everyone was because they were so willing to help with any question that one of us might have had.  If one of my classmates couldn’t answer the question, Mrs. McComas was there monitoring to chime in when we needed her.  Class emailing helped right up until the end of the class by emailing our frustrations about our Movie Maker project.  This way of communication was extremely efficient because each person got to see what everyone was dealing with and could give helpful advice when needed.  Many times more than one person has a question about the same thing and this email list was great for answering those types of questions.  It has already been discussed that when we all graduate we will create our own mailing list to stay in contact for not only friendly emails, but also to provide eachother with helpful information about our experiences as SLP’s.  

While participating in our online discussions with Tapped-In we also created a new learning community that not many of us had participated in before.  From week 7 I obtained the following information by participating in the online classroom. 

“By starting the week off with the online classroom I learned how to function in an atmosphere such as that.  It taught me to log in properly, use different functions to make the classroom more user friendly, to take turns and most importantly it answered questions I had based on the ones that I had asked as well as the ones that my classmates asked.  I learned from our guest speaker, Katie, that being an SLP takes a lot of work and creativity as well as lots of knowledge.”

Facilitate improvement in the ability to communicate effectively, in the discourse of the discipline, in both oral and written formats…

This objective was evidenced by many things.  The most important one being our personal weblogs.  By blogging we were able to share the information we obtained using educated discussions of the material that we had read or activities that we had participated in.  By blogging we shared ideas and feelings about what we learned and shared that information with others who may be reading our blogs.  We used the discourse of the material and activities to discuss those things in our blogs.  When it came to completing our I-Search Paper we evidenced discourse of the discipline that we were researching.  The discourse was mainly literacy, but each individual student focused on different topics dealing with literacy.  Sharing our research with eachother by peer reviews we were able to effectively critique eachother’s work using that same discourse that helped improve eachother’s work.  Ultimately the fruits of our labor were evidenced in our video project that combined all our research throughout the semester.  This video used that same discourse that we had used all along, just in a more creative way.

I feel that I have achieved the learning objectives by participating in class discussions, whether online or in person, engaging with learning activities, and completing assingments.  This class not only provided the fullfillment of a credit, but it also met my life objectives by creating a new sense of being and knowledge as a person.  

November 23, 2007

Aims & Objectives:

These past two weeks are likely to have been my most stressful yet unstressful at the same time.  To begin with my aim was to have completed the posts prior to Friday before Thanksgiving break.  This also meant completing my final draft for my paper as well as preparing to take the GRE that same Friday morning.  Things were a little shook up after I realized that I had an extra week to complete all the posts excluding my final draft of the I-Search paper.  Once that was realized I devoted all my time to preparing for the GRE.  We all know what that means, the posts were slightly forgotten.  Although I knew that I would enjoy writing the posts for this week they were drown out by family and turkey.  Now we see the unstressful part of my previous two weeks.  I loved this past week due to the excitement of family and shopping and sleeping in.  I even worked on homework for other classes, but the posts for CD 315 never crossed my mind.  That is until 7 a.m. on black Friday.  You know the biggest shopping day of the year.  I was rudely awaken by a dream of explaining to Mrs. McComas why my posts were so much later than usual and thanking her for giving us two weeks to do them.  Funny how life has a way of reminding us of things we have forgotten.  Therefore we all know now why I am submitting all my posts in one night.

Declarative Knowledge:

I have learned much needed information on how to give and take constructive criticism.  Although I gave and took this criticism in the previous week I really worked on the things that were mentioned.  It was interesting to see my paper through another person’s eyes and hopefully my criticism helped them as much as theirs helped me.  I also learned about writing a preface, acknowledgements and about the author.

Procedural Knowledge: 

My first experience this week was learning how to revise my paper by using the review that my fellow students provided me with.  This allowed me to see what I had done good, bad and what could use some work.  No editing was done on spelling or any other grammatical errors so hopefully I was capable and successful at catching any of those.  By only reviewing the content of my paper this revealed some mistakes that I may have made in expressing my research in order to effectively get my point across to the audience.  The content was praised as well as given constructive criticism which guided me in see where my strengths and weaknesses were.

When learning about writing a preface, acknowledgements and about the author I realized that I had never had to do something like this, but always knew that it was something that every author does.  I began by writing about how and why I chose my research question.  This was considered writing my preface.  I then wrote my acknowledgements.  I liked doing this the most because I feel like everyone needs to be recognized for things done well.  This allowed me to give thanks and credit to those who inspired me along the way while writing my paper.  Writing about the author was less like the preface and acknowledgements seeing as it had everything to do with me.  I basically wrote a bibliography about myself, but included only current information about my education, plans and a little about my hobbies.

Conditional Knowledge:

This week has prepared me for the future by teaching me how to revise by using reviews of my research content.  By learning this I not only made my paper better, but I can now do the same thing with future papers.  I learned so much about family culture and why it is so important as well since I had to continuously be involved with the topic and research of my paper.  I am thankful for this oppurtunity and hope that the information that I have gained does not fade.

November 23, 2007

Resources:
 
(1991). S. R. Graubard (Ed.), Literacy an overview by 14 experts. The Noonday Press.
 
Commons, M. L., Galaz-Fontes, J. F., & Morse, S. J. (2006). Leadership, cross-cultural contact, socio-economic status and formal operational reasoning about moral dilemmas among Mexican non-literate adults and high school students. Journal of Moral Education, 35(2), 247-267. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.

Cooter, K.S. (2006). When mama can’t read: Counteracting
intergenerational literacy. Reading Teacher, 59(7), 698-702.
Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Costa, M. (1988). Adult literacy/illiteracy in the United States. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Guzzetti, B.J. (Ed.). (2002). Literacy in America (Vol. 1). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Pavonetti, L. M., Brimmer, K. M., & Cipielewski, J. F. (2002).
Accelerated reader: What are the lasting effects on the reading habits of middle school students exposed to accelerated reader in elementary grades? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 46(4), 1-13.
 
Puckett, A. (1992). Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting; Literacy, the division of labor and identity in a rural appalachian community. Anthropological Quarterly, 65(3). Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Roman, S. P. (2004). Illiteracy and older adults: Individual and societal implications. Educational Gerontology, 79-93. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.

November 23, 2007

Ashley Pence is a senior in the Communication Disorders program at Marshall University where she will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in May of 2008.  After graduation Ashley plans to attend graduate school to obtain her masters degree and obtain a job in the field of Speech Language Pathology.  Ashley’s major areas of interest in the field are working with elementary age children in a school setting, brain injury patients and the geriatric population.  Although her areas of interest vary greatly she is hoping to zero in on one particular group. 

Ashley is currenlty the Vice President of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association where she is involved in many activities to help support the community and the university clinic.  In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, friends, being outdoors and traveling.

November 23, 2007

Much of why I chose the topic for my paper comes from the people who inspired me.  My inspiration ranges from my own family members, my community as well as my CD 315 professor.  I would like to begin with my professor.

After choosing my topic I did quite a bit of research to prepare for what was to come.  The core of my research consisted of poverty and literacy.  Throughout my research I was guided by Mrs. McComas who was almost like a little voice in my head telling me how to acquire good research based on skills she had given us through discussion and readings.  As time went on we were to meet with Mrs. McComas to go over our topic and foundation questions.  At this point in time Mrs. McComas guided me in revising my question to make my paper the best that it could be.  This required tweaking my questions slightly and doing a little more research on the new foundation questions.  Therefore my “special help” came from her.

As mentioned in my preface my other inspiration came from my community.  All I had to do was look around and see the affects that illiteracy has on individuals.  My heart broke and still breaks for those who are stuck in this vicious cycle of illiteracy and poverty.  This made me curious as to why there is such a cycle and if there could be a change.

Finally I would like to especially thank my grandparents who shared their thoughts on literacy as well as personal experiences.  By interviewing them and listening to their stories I gained a whole new level of respect for them.  Their lives were completely different when they were growing up compared to how an individual grows up today.  Things were not quite as available to them like they are now.  This meant they worked hard for little pay to help out the family and being literate was not even an option to their family.  I learned that if they had even wanted to continue in school and go to college it would consist of them going far away to school as well as to obtain a job.  This was not an option for them based on their desires as well as the needs of the family.  Although they only went to 9th and 10th grade before dropping out they have worked on performing literacy practices daily to increase their literacy skills to a much greater degree.  I thank them for working so hard and making things better for my mother and inspiring her to make life easier on my sisters and I as well all by increasing our literacy skills.

November 23, 2007

I realized that at the beginning of this project that I could choose from a wide variety of topics that dealt with literacy.  The fact that I had so many options did not hinder my decision however when I chose my topic.  It was as if I had already planned it in my mind and there really was not much that could change it.  It’s true that my topic changed slightly from focusing mainly on poverty and it’s affects on literacy to a broader view that focused on family culture as a whole.  The main idea was still a big contributing factor to the final outcome of the paper.

I was interested in this topic most importantly because I have witnessed it first hand.  My foundation question about generational literacy allowed me to dive deeper into my own families history and how literacy has changed over time.  I gained a greater knowledge of not only my experiences being a young adult in today’s society, but also learned about my families experiences as young adults when literacy was developing in them. 

By living in the Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky I have also witnessed first hand the affects that literacy can have on individuals.  My first thought was of my job at Grayson Rural Electric.  The name in itself “rural” explains some of what we may expect to see in an area such as this.  By accepting payments for electric bills I saw many people who could not fill out their checks.  They would lay their checkbooks on the counter and ask me to fill it out for them, then they would sign it.  The signatures were hardly legible.  Each time I would witness this I would think about it, but I never thought that one day I would be writing about it.  I also witnessed many who could not pay their electric bills, not just a one time thing, but each month.  This led me to believe that these people were stuck in the cycle of what I referenced to in my paper as intergenerational illiteracy.  Those who could not pay their bills perhaps had parents who were illiterate and therefore could not maintain or acquire a good job due to the lack of those skills.  In return they had children who were illiterate and therefore could not maintain or acquire a good job for the same reason. 

By witnessing those two aspects of family culture I was inspired to learn and write more about a topic that I feel is so important in today’s world.   

November 16, 2007 

Literacy is an aspect of my everyday life that has ultimately become even more a part of my life with each passing day. This has occurred because there is not one day that goes by that I don’t experience or perform a literacy act. This is something that I never thought of prior to researching literacy. Literacy has changed its definition over the years and we can see that in the expectations that being literate encompasses. The basic components of being literate consist of reading and writing. What some people may be unaware of is when should we become literate? Most responses would be, when you start school. What better place is there to practice literacy than within the walls of a school building. There are thousands of books and many educators that are available and ready to teach you all you need to know. We have this great place lined up for us that is ready and willing to take on the sole responsibility for teaching our kids, as well as ourselves at one point in time, literacy. That may be somewhat
facetious, but in all honesty that is the thought that many people have about literacy skills. The school system is an excellent place to expand on literacy, but it is not the only place. Literacy has to be taught and practiced outside of the school system. If literacy is not practiced elsewhere then everytime our child did not succeed we could simply blame the school for not doing their job. That’s a great diversion technique, but in the end you will realize that it all falls
back on the family cultural environment in which literacy should be taught as well. The idea of my research question is how exactly does the family culture affect our gain in literacy?
 

I found myself interested in several topics upon choosing what to do my research on. I began with how the effects of socio-economic status play a role in literacy. This was an interesting topic to me, but it was a little too broad and there was no way to answer that question effectively. It was more feasible to look into the family culture as a whole rather than socio-economic status alone. I did however include socio-economic status’ role in the families view on literacy as one of my foundation questions. My other foundation questions were chosen based on the roles they play in family culture and how that family culture deals with literacy. Another foundation question I chose to include was how have family culture and it’s dealings with literacy changed over generations? I felt that this was an important question to include because of my personal experience with a generation gap within my own family and how they have dealt with literacy. I realized
that I had included questions that dealt with how the family views literacy and what may effect that, but I had left out what the family should do in order to promote literacy in the home. That is when I decided to choose a foundation question that asked, what are literacy practices?
 
Searching:
 
We can see that throughout the years literacy has changed and the generational gap that affects literate versus illiterate individuals is a key factor. This appears to be a leading role in how family culture affects the literacy of an individual growing up in the 1930′s and 40′s versus someone who is growing up in todays society. In eariler society’s you were considered literate if you could sign your name and read a simple message. (Guzzetti, 2002) Very few individuals possessed
basic literacy skills, because reading and writing were not necessary in early industrial and agricultural occupations. (Costa, 1988) This generations goals were to teach their children how to farm, cook and clean to take care of the family. We can’t forget the mind set of many in the older generations who believe that girls should be the ones
reading and writing while the boys should be doing the hunting and hard labor. Many in this generation felt that literate practices are God-given attributes of women’s “nature,” it describes how literate interactions provide contexts in which a woman can negotiate her social, religious, and cultural identity. (Puckett,1992) Men’s identities are not linked to these literate practices, creating minimal or non-literate behavior. These cultural constructs of literacy affect
both men’s and women’s behavior in classroom, workplace, or other social interactions. (Puckett, 1992)
 
Over the next several years, including the early 60′s, scholars were describing literacy by grade level completed. If you had completed 4 or 5 years of school and then dropped out, you were still literate even if you could not read and write. However within that time frame scholars changed their outlook and decided that adults were deemed literate if they were reading at a twelfth grade level. (Guzzetti, 2002) The basic or conventional definition of literacy involved the
ability to read written text, this definition did not say anything about understanding those words. (Roman, 2004) As literacy made its way into today’s current society we see a major shift in how literacy is viewed by the family. There is still the occasional family that only wants their child to work and does not place an emphasis on literacy, but most of that has evolved. That notion has evolved into wanting better for their child than what they had. I can relate to that notion because I see where my grandparents came from. They were
young children in the 1930′s and were not required to graduate from high school in order to obtain status. It was accepted that they drop out of school and get a job to take care of their family members younger than them. No one ever thought twice about cultivating their literacy in the home. As for my mother, the next generation, she graduated from high school and continued on to vocational school to obtain a certificate in secretarial studies. This was good enough for
her, but when it came time for her children and their education, we had to go further and do better. My oldest sister obtained a bachelor’s degree and my other sister obtained her bachelor’s degree and is now getting her masters. Now I am obtaining my bachelor’s degree and will
continue on to obtain my master’s. This is the continuing cycle of how literacy has changed the view of families throughout the generations. My previous statement about my grandparents appears to be saying that they are illiterate, but that is hardly the case. As they got older they took the initiative to become more literate beyond their 9th and
10th grade education. They performed literacy acts, which I will discuss later, on their own in order to increase their literacy skills. 

Although the previous statements regarded willingly giving up literacy for other aspects of life there are cases where generations cannot break the cycle of illiteracy which feeds other problems such as the cycle of poverty. This is known as intergenerational illiteracy.
Intergenerational illiteracy is a sociocultural phenomenon where illiterate parents inadvertently sponsor home conditions that may seriously hinder their children’s reading and writing development which perpetuates the cycle of illiteracy. Intergenerational illiteracy is often seen in high-poverty urban and rural settings where it is not uncommon to see multiple generations of low literacy skills. (Cooter,
2006) Factors that effect the low literacy skills are a lack of good language examples, lack of child-parent interaction and lack of educational print materials. (Cooter, 2006) All of these factors are related to family members having enough time to perform the daily tasks of a parent who fosters literacy in their home.
 
When we discuss socio-economic status (SES) of the family and how it contributes to literacy we can now see that it is very closely related to the generation cycle as well. As with the changes that generations bring forth, the changes in low SES effect how the family contributes to particular levels of importance such as literacy practices. Poverty is a viscious cycle and one that does not place literacy at the top of
the list. How then can this cycle ever change? We see it everyday in the school system. Children from this background are often not very well served where they are most likely going to be labeled and put into classes where less is expected of them and it is likely that less is offered as well. The parents of these children may not have information, confidence, skills or even the desire to challenge a school system who may be treating a child in such a manor. This is related to various cultural, social and educational factors that influence the parents reasoning or ability. (Commons, Galaz-Fontes,
Morse, 2006) In relation to reading, which is a literacy practice, low-income families produce the most children that exhibit problems in that area. Those reading problems place students at high risk for failure in every other area in their education. This also leads to a high drop-out rate, low literacy and continuous unemployment into adulthood and consequently, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and low
literacy into the next generation. (Graubard, 1991) The cycle of poverty and low literacy does continue for most, but there are those exceptions where regardless of your income level, the family takes charge and puts a stop to it. When there are children from low income levels who exhibit exceptional reading skills as well as other literacy practices, it is all due to the attitude of the family. Those children along with their parents have extremely positive outlooks about their
skills and this is what helps overcome the cycle. The key role in overcoming that cycle begins with the parents. The parent should understand that by helping their child realize the importance of literacy practices is what will break the poverty cycle. This allows their child to lead a better life in the long run versus living for the moment.
 
What literacy environments are created in these types of homes? It is likely that there will be a lack of resources available to make that child’s environment superior, but if the parent realizes it’s importance, then they will see all the available resources that are free to them. Just one example of this is the local library. Thousands of free books at their disposal and all they have to do is go get them. Although those options are available, when do these parents have time to expose their children to literacy practices such as reading with their child or helping them with their writing skills? This is where an intervention should come into play. Intervention
programs that have been implemented to promote literacy practices for those at risk (low income children, etc.) should include a focus on the beliefs of the parents as well as the child’s. If they believe that their abilities can improve then it is likely that they will. However it is very important to intervene with such assistance prior to a child’s 9th birthday. It has been proven that by this age they have become highly resistant to change and an intervention is not likely to help. (Graubard, 1991)
 
Now that we have seen two contributing factors that effect that family cultures view on literacy I would like to begin with what these families may or may not do in order to increaseliteracy in the home. As mentioned before, there are practices that we perform in our everyday lives that pertain to our literacy skills. According to author Lauren B. Resnick there are three types of literacy practices in which we use in any given situation where we are interacting with written text. The first of those types is known as useful literacy.
If you are a human being you have at some point in your life performed this type of literacy practice. These can consist of reading instructions or looking at schedules for information. This also includes writing simple notes to a family member to let them know where you are or even writing a grocery list. These types of literacy acts typically follow a guideline and require the reader to follow the author’s plan of action in order to achieve certain tasks. (Graubard, 1991) Useful literacy can be gained through the practice of these actions. It is important to note however that practices that tend to
be more useful are obselete in the school systems. The reading done in school seldom mediates any practical action in the world, and there is hardly ever a chance to work side by side with a more skillful partner toward the goal of gaining this type of practice. This suggests that if we only were taught literate practices in school, we would be less likely to gain the literacy practices that are useful in terms of everyday life. When we do see individuals who are very skilled in these useful practices it is apparent that they obtained those skills
outside of the school with family and friends. Since this is the case families who do not practice literacy in the home or don’t engage their child in those practices will see the adverse effects. (Graubard, 1991)
 
The next type of literacy Resnick discussed is informational literacy. This form of literacy practice is what we use to obtain information about our world. There is no exact expected response that occurs due to this type of practice. The basis for this type of practice is to gain information and to use it to increase your awareness of a topic. This practice brings forth the occasional discussion of what you have read or if it is an assignment you could be tested over it or be required to write something concerning that information. Whatever the purpose, the main task is to build a mental representation of the situation presented in the text and to relate it to previously acquired knowledge. (Graubard, 1991)Informational literacy is a practice that is widely taught in the schools. That may be the case but the results of the students work based on what they have acquired from their readings are often disregarded after they have been graded for their
task. The teacher is the typical audience, who already knows all the information conveyed, or so we seem to think. For the biggest majority of students they resent the work they do because it is not something that receives any great recognition. This typically results in not wanting to continue a practice such as this elsewhere, especially outside of school. If the parents are not willing or don’t have the time to encourage this type of literacy practice then neither the home or the school is providing enriched oppurtunities to engage in
informational literacy practices.
 
The third literacy practice is pleasurable literacy. This type of
practice is simply reading for pleasure which results in nothing more than reading something because you want to. For many reading for pleasure is not something that is hard for them to do. However the school systems have taken this type of practice a step further by implementing programs that encourage children to read and to actually want to read. The result of programs such as these are that books that
appear pleasureable to children are made available to them. Children are given oppurtunities throughout their school week to do free reading with no strings attached. (Graubard, 1991) Although some school systems may provide free reading time, there are other schools that have implemented programs such as accelerated reader programs. This program is meant to encourage children to read books of their choice for enjoyment, but in this case there are strings attached such as AR tests. The topic of the effects of accelerated reader programs could be another paper in itself, however it is important to note that because there are tests attached to this program it increases the oppurtunity for students to cheat on such tests by sharing the answers with fellow students. (Pavonetti, Brimmer, Cipielewski, 2002) Therefore what was once looked at as encouraging students to read turns into another grade that only the teacher is concerned with and actually turns children away from reading for pleasure. The key to pleasurable reading is that the reader picks up and puts down a book at their will. In the school system this is not true because for everything we read, there is an expected answer for it which in turn ends up being an informational literacy act. These types of requirements turn the view
of reading for pleasure to reading for informational gain. Although the school system does it’s best to encourage reading for pleasure, without the will and model in a home there is no gain.
 
Conclusion:
 
To assume that family culture does not contribute to literacy is a very bold assumption. It has been proven many times and yet again brought into light with this paper that family culture is extremely important in the achievement and succes that one has with literacy. This evidence has shown that what the family believes about the importance of literacy is very closely related to how the child views literacy. The child’s view on literacy ultimately determines their successes in life and as well as a way to end a contributing factors to illiteracy. Family involvement is imperative and low-income families are no
different. They should be viewed as valuable resources rather than “part of the problem”.
 
The three forms of literacy practices that were discussed are ways in which family culture can play a role in contributing to a child’s literacy. Literacy is no longer nor has it ever been only something that was practiced in school. Although generational gaps have expressed different beliefs on these practices, it is now proven that in order to obtain status in today’s world you must have these literacy skills. Means in which to obtain these skills are now dependent on the home to employ them rather than solely the schools responsibility.
When combined with poverty and individual family beliefs skills such as useful literacy, informational literacy and pleasurable literacy are not being employed. Whether it be for lack of time, money or other resources it is not something that should be excused. What is needed is a commitment to use existing resources in new ways to ensure that literacy is a rule, not an exception.
 
Resources:
 
(1991). S. R. Graubard (Ed.), Literacy an overview by 14 experts. The Noonday Press.
 
Commons, M. L., Galaz-Fontes, J. F., & Morse, S. J. (2006). Leadership, cross-cultural contact, socio-economic status and formal operational reasoning about moral dilemmas among Mexican non-literate adults and high school students. Journal of Moral Education, 35(2), 247-267. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.

Cooter, K.S. (2006). When mama can’t read: Counteracting
intergenerational literacy. Reading Teacher, 59(7), 698-702.
Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Costa, M. (1988). Adult literacy/illiteracy in the United States. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Guzzetti, B.J. (Ed.). (2002). Literacy in America (Vol. 1). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Pavonetti, L. M., Brimmer, K. M., & Cipielewski, J. F. (2002).
Accelerated reader: What are the lasting effects on the reading habits of middle school students exposed to accelerated reader in elementary grades? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 46(4), 1-13.
 
Puckett, A. (1992). Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting; Literacy, the division of labor and identity in a rural appalachian community. Anthropological Quarterly, 65(3). Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Roman, S. P. (2004). Illiteracy and older adults: Individual and societal implications. Educational Gerontology, 79-93. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.
 

November 9, 2007

Aims & Objectives:

This week I set out to accomplish several goals that were intended to help myself as well as my classmates.  The goals that would help me were to attend class and obtain information about Movie Maker which we will be using to complete our final project.  I also set the goal to reserach socio-emotional literacy and compile a mini research paper about it.  The goals that I wanted to accomplish that would help my classmates were to review their I-Search papers and comment on them.  I was able to accomplish all of these goals which have prepared me for continuing my research and completing my project.

Declarative Knowledge:

This week began by learning about how to operate Movie Maker as well as how to obtain photos and music that are free to the public.  By viewing Mrs. McComas’ movies I gained ideas of how I want to do my project.  I also learned more about a branch of digital literacy which was socio-emotional literacy.  By completing the peer reviews of my fellow students papers I gained a better understanding of what to expect when I receive my feedback.

Procedural Knowledge:

By attending class this week we gained a lot of information on how our final project will be presented.  We already knew that we would be using Movie Maker, but this week we got to see how it works.  We watched two movies and for the first one we picked good and bad things about the movie.  By doing this I realized that everyone has different taste and some may like certain pictures you use and others may not.  The same goes for the music you use.  I did not like the music that the producer of this movie used however it fit well with the storyline and there were others in the class that liked the music.  The same went for the pictures.  Some people liked the choice of pictures while others did not see the point in particular pictures that were used.  Mrs. McComas informed us that our movie is to be 3-5 minutes long and approximately 300 words used.  I quickly realized that this may be a hard task for me.  We must develop a script by condensing our introduction, summary and answer to be not much longer than the 300 word limit.  To obtain pictures that are not All Rights Reserved Mrs. McComas informed us of Flickr, a website where you can browse pictures and find pictures that are creative commons or public domain.  We also learned about how to save everything that we compile for our project.  It is a very good idea to save everything you find, music, audio and photos in one place like a jump drive.  We also learned the downside to Movie Maker which is the fact that it only lets you have one track throughout the whole movie.  This problem can be solved by using a program called Audacity.

This week I did further research into socio-emotional literacy and realized that it is something that I have never considered before, but use this type of literacy everyday.  I learned that it is the highest and most complex level of literacy because you must have obtained the other branches of literacy to be successful in socio-emotional literacy.  By having this literacy skill you can save yourself as well as many others from incorrect information and even dangerous people who lurk in chat rooms.

By completing my peer reviews for my fellow classmates I realized that there is more to reviewing a paper than correct spelling errors.  Those errors should be caught by the author themselves however other errors such as content may not always be caught by them.  By doing this peer review we not only commented on content, but we also were able to bless certain perspectives of the persons paper.  This provided encouragement to that person to let them know that there are good parts to their paper and sometimes can even outweigh the bad parts.

Conditional Knowledge:

This weeks assignments taught me skills that are helping me complete my project as well as useful information for future projects.  Projects like the one that I will be completing are interesting to me and by gaining a better understanding of them I will be more willing to use them in the future.  I have attempted to use Movie Maker before, but gave up because I became frustrated with it.  Now that I have to use it I can learn and maybe not be so afraid for future uses that could help me in my professional career.

November 8, 2007

The branch of literacy that deals with socio-emotional characteristics is one that I find to be the most interesting.  Who would have ever thought that in order to gain information you have to know how to handle other people’s misinformation or trickery?  At the same time you are required to share helpful information appropriately with others in digital spaces.  Eshet-Alkali (2004; 2005) describes socio-emotional literacy as the highest level and most complex skill to obtain of the 5 branches of literacy.  This branch requires us to be extremely cautious of the information we use as well as being mature about the information we share.  Another reason for being so complex is that we must have a good control over the other branches of literacy to acquire success with socio-emotional literacy.

Socio-emotional literacy requires the digital user to be comfortable with what they contribute to cyberspace.  Eshet-Alkali (2004; 2005) tell me that I must be willing to share my knowledge with other people.  This knowledge could range anywhere from how I interpret data, my individual thoughts on certain subjects and collaborating with others to share knowledge. 

 In the study performed by Eshet-Alkalai and Amichai-Hamburger (2004) all of the branches of literacy were tested to obtain information on what age groups perform better in certain branches of literacy.  Each of the branches of literacy had one group performing better than the other however for socio-emotional literacy there was not a clear determining score that showed one group out performing the other.

The fact that there are skills such as socio-emotional literacy does not surprise me.  What does surprise me is that someone has identified it.  I feel like everyone is aware of the fact that we must be careful and mature about what we view and share in cyberspace, but it never crossed my mind that someone could be good or bad at it.  When I log into things such as this blog and express my opinions or knowledge about something I am always careful to only include what I feel is appropriate.  Throughout this class we have also learned ways in which to have proper “netiquette” that will allow us to monitor what should and should not be included in things that are being seen by the public eye.  However I am also aware of the fact that there are times when people may have not been taught such “netiquette” skills and publish very inappropriate things.  This relates to me because I am viewing those innapropriate things, but not on purpose.  This leads to the importance of teaching these skills to our students to help them become appropriate not only when publishing but also when viewing or interacting.   This literacy has to do with protecting oneself from the dangers of the digital, highly- connected world. (2007)  We have all heard the news that tells us about pedophiles who lurk in chat rooms waiting for their next victims.  If there were a way to educate children as well as adults of the dangers of cyberspace we could perhaps decrease the occurrence of such horrific events.  

Resources:

Aphek, E. (2007). Digital, highly connected children: Implications for education. Retrieved November 8, 2007, from http://www.phil-inst.hu/mobil/2005/Aphek.pdf

Aviram, A., Gurion, B., & Eshet-Alkalai, Y. (2006). Towards a theory of digital literacy: Three scenarios for the next steps. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved November 8, 2007 from the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Eshet-Alkalai & Amichai-Hamburger (2004, August). Experiments with digital literacy. Cyber Psychology, 7(4), 425-434. 

As I prepare to create my own movie using Movie Maker the points that I have made about this movie will help prepare me for the production of my own.  I will consider the negatives and positives that I pointed out and make note of those in my final project by avoiding the negatives and employing the positives.