When I first came to this class I new little about what literacy actually was. When I first came to this class I thought of literacy as only reading and writing. I quickly learned that there was much more to it than that. I am now aware that literacy also deals with talking, listening, and visualizing. I chose to focus on environmental and visual literacy as I felt they fit well together. I found that by combining different literacy's you are doing nothing but making the lesson more interesting for your students. For example, with my NLP we were able to take a few pieces from environmental literacy and convey them through visual literacy. I am now aware that there are many ways to teach literacy and the more that you use the more interested your students will be and the more they will want to learn. I have always known that literacy is important to all students but you can never stress how important it actually is. If you are illiterate you are putting yourself at a disadvantage to all of those who are literate. I think that you must be literate in order to participate fully in our society.
To provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learners means to provide the students with all the possible ways that they could use literacy. These include cultural, emotional, environmental, social, visual, and political literacy. For the literacy instruction to be effective though you need to do more then just present them with all of the possibilities. First, you as a teacher needs to be a master at what literacy is and be able to answer all questions your students ask of you. Next, I think it is important to allow students to learn about one anothers background. This can be done easily through literacy. It is also important to see where your students are at, if they need help with basic literacy principles then you should help them with that, don't just assume they are at the level of their grade. It is also important to be constantly assessing students to see how their literacy levels are growing and making sure that they are progressing. The last but if feel the most important is the teachers enthusiasm towards literacy. If the students see that the teacher is excited about learning then that will ware off on the students.
After working on the NLP I have realized how many options there are for helping to teach literacy. I think that as a teacher in this era you need to be technologically advanced and willing to use multiple new literacy technologies. Our students are growing up in an era of technology and it shows no sign of slowing down, so why not introduce it to them from the beginning. I think it is also important that you test out new technologies but you should realize when one is not working for you and your students. Not all technologies are good, but if you find one that works you should use it.
When I started to think about what I wanted to do my NLP on I thought about what my students would benefit from in my placement. I thought that a digital picture walk would be a great idea to get the point across to the students. I haven't seen my CT use this strategy before and I felt it would be beneficial for the students to see a new technology. I think it is important to keep in mind that when you are doing a project such as a digital picture walk to be as specific as possible. Many times just a picture will not convey your message so it is important to have multiple pictures that explore all possible answers. The good thing about visual literacy is that it allows students who are illiterate the chance to engage in literacy. I find this particularly beneficial for lower level elementary and special education.
Lesson Plan:
Target area and rationale: Environmental and visual literacy through a digital picture walk. Students will learn how to wash hands properly, recycle, and put on warm cloths when its cold outside. These are important life skills needed to be a functioning member of society.
Objectives: Students will learn how to wash hands, recycle, and realize when to put on warm cloths and what to put on.
Materials and supplies: Camera, sink, soap, towel, examples of recyclable items (plastic bottle, cardboard box), snow pants, boots, hat, mittens, coat.
Key events: A step by step process of how to wash hands, recycle, and what to wear when its cold outside.
Closing summary: By the end of the project students will have taken a digital picture walk and explored the ways of washing hands, recycling, and dressing warm in cold weather. All students will be expected to know how to do all three based on the pictures alone. Text will also be provided for those who are literate.
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