Unveiling the Underlying Messages

                I think it’s true that sometimes we would like to think that we live in a utopian society, where all people are treated equally and everything is always peaches and cream.  However, that is far from the truth.  The same perceptions of race, women, men, etc. are still reinforced into minds of our students today.  During my undergraduate years, one of my classes asked us to explore how advertisements alone have formed our society’s view of women and the impact it then has on them.  Time after time, ad after ad, women were shown phenotypically flawless.  They had not a single blemish on their face.  They were tall, thin, and had perfect hair.  Usually, these commercials also depicted these perfect women, who had used whatever product they were advertising, being attractive to men.  There is no doubt that seeing this kind of image repeatedly has some kind of effect on a woman’s psyche.  Not only does it affect women, but it also has the potential to affect the expectations that men have for women.  Girls need to know at a young age that they have the ability to be strong, smart, and independent women. 

                Race is another issue that often seems to be stereotypically defined.  Although the underlying message is not funny, I could help but chuckle at the description of the Indians from Looney Tunes.  It’s absurd that we would even think to state that they are incapable of a civil and productive life.  Also, it is so true that the hero or heroine is usually a white.  Why is that?  What does that say about our “modern” society today?   

                Children are exposed to this material everyday on the TV so why would we as teachers want to keep feeding these stereotypes to our students through their literature?  We must be conscious of what we have our children explore.  As our students get older and become more conscious about their appearance (e.g. 6^th grade or so), we could address some of these myths into the literature that is assigned to them. 

Literacy in the Modern World

I found Literacy Moves On to be a very intriguing read.  The “more modern” examples of literacy that it provided really helped me to understand the basis of this class.  Because children are submerged into the pop culture, it is important that we as teachers meet them in the middle to help their learning experiences be more meaningful.  Reading this article took me back to our literacy dig that we completed within the first couple weeks of class.  Although I’m not exactly sure why, I never seriously considered body language and simple gestures to be body language.  However, it is!  Although unintentional or subconsciously at times, we often speak through our motions.  I wish that I would have taken a closer look into the nonverbal language used at the park. 

Another valid point that this article made involved the need to teach children the value of responding critically to text.  So often, it seems that we take the information that we read for face value.  It is imperative that we encourage students to become inquisitive and promote higher ordered critical thinking skills.

I also really enjoyed reading The Inner World of the Immigrant Child.  It is amazing how much you can really learn about students and their feelings by analyzing their writing.  Reading about the feelings of isolation and challenges that the students faced and then observing the ways in which that transferred to their filmstrips was very interesting.  Seeing the students get so involved in their mini-movies really inspired me!

MGRP Reflection

In each one of my classes, I have consistently heard about project-based learning, which creates a student-centered learning environment to allow students to construct their own knowledge. To me, the MGRP is a good example of such a project.  While students have an opportunity to research material that is of interest to them, they also, perhaps unknowingly, are being introduced to many standards within language arts.  As a teacher, students are able to be formatively assessed by periodically checking in with them.  Also, summative assessment is completed through the works that student’s generate. 

Although I was very skeptical of my ability to write in genres other than expository, I was able to note that I do have the ability.   Furthermore, I realized that I already write in many of the genres that I chose; I just wasn’t fully aware of it.

I could definitely see myself incorporating this project into my classroom.  If I were to assign this activity, I probably wouldn’t require the research paper to be quite as long, merely because my students wouldn’t be quite as skilled in the task of researching.  The researching process would also be much more laborious for them.  I did like that we received feedback about our research paper before we continued with the genres.   Also, turning in the research paper before all the other genre pieces made the project seem much more manageable.   Because many short stories that are included in literature books often lend themselves to other genres, a miniature version of this project could be used as a simple writing assignment in which the students pick a part of the story to recreate through a different genre of writing of their choice!