LIT 5333 Videos #1

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School

Western Michigan University *

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Course

5333

Subject

Linguistics

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by KidStingrayPerson603

Welcome to our course where we consider ways to weave the complex arts of language into content areas by examining disciplines of thought. These are real-world applications for students who need experience in the use of language for a variety of purposes. We will consider a range of instructional strategies for assessment, intervention, and enrichment. We will also consider how to merge ideas into a marriage between concepts to support effective development by using reading as our primary example. All this is framed by our Common Core State Standards, which will often be referred to as simply standards, asking teachers to look beyond a single focus to find ways to layer learning, providing a rich environment for exploring the unknown. Reading is complex. Multiple skills are threaded together, weaving each individual component into a tapestry of understanding. The ideal view reveals the work of the weaver, an image or vista only the artist knows beforehand. Looking at the back, a jumble of threads and knots might exist, giving evidence to the complexity of the weaving as one thread stops as another begins. This is much like the thinking involved in reading. Building on the works of Edward and Robert Thorndike, Charles Perfetti (1984) redefined this meaning-approach, "reading is thinking guided by print". This is known as the cognitivec onstructivistic view of reading as it implies a reader is processing and searching for understanding from the printed code. Let's stop to consider this idea. At this time, you are the learner, bringing all your prior experience to the tasks involved in this course. You may be listening to my voice and watching my image, but eventually, you will turn to the work of authors to glean additional insights. You have a content focus in terms of known information which you are using to process the new ideas presented. How are you processing this new material? Some of you may have significant experience in being a successful reader and bring this with you, comparing what you've done in the past to understanding the labels we may be using now. Others may not have been as successful at reading, finding it a slow and ponderous process. Printed text doesn't make sense and you would far rather listen to my voice than decode words on a page. Others find this world of reading a mystery. Words are known but carry little meaning beyond the black and white image. Still others of you may look at a line while your eyes follow the print, but at the end, the mind was never engaged or focused on the ideas so little was retained. What's going on? Reading is more than knowing the names of letters and the sounds these create. Reading is more than saying words in a list. It's more than stringing words together with correct capitalization and punctuation. Even though all of these elements are important, when we think about reading, print conveys meaning, the intention of the author, information and ideas across time and distance. "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts". When the eye sees print, the brain begins to consider the form and shape of the text, recognizing the patterns found in the symbols before identifying the meaning associated with the code. This process takes on different characteristics for each individual. We think differently. As noted before, our experience helps to shape how we process letters and sounds. Reading is written language taking on some unique properties such as capitalization and punctuation. We can also rework written text when it's difficult to take back our spoken words. Language and reading are linked. This is one reason it is important to know the first language of our learners. "Research indicates that about 20 percent of the process of reading in a second language is predictable on the basis of the level of first-language literacy". The more a learner already knows about the process of reading in the first language, the easier it becomes to learn in the second language. We often recognize words in print because we have heard them spoken. Our linguistic background influences how we think about reading. Our cultural background also factors into an awareness of how words flow together towards meaning. Go jump in

a lake is an idiom in English but taken as a serious command when someone is first learning the language. A military family, who moves with deployment, would have a much different family legacy than those living in a small, rural community all of their lives. Culture is a collection of experiences which define our understanding of the world. Freedom to express one's opinion is a legacy of a democratic society but not of a dictatorship. These are broad, sweeping ideas but important to know when a family from China or a child of poverty enters your classroom as their cultures are much different. Poverty limits experience. Few families from a low-economic status can afford trips to a museum or travel across the country. Few families new to the country will have a historical context. Few families from privilege have experienced lack of shelter or hunger. Yet in a school setting all may come together in a social context designed to influence thinking. As to Freire, "one of the most important tasks of critical educational practice is to make possible the conditions in which the learners, in their interaction with one another and with their teachers, engage in the experience of assuming themselves as social, historical, thinking, communicating, transformative, creative persons". We empower our learners to become more than they might have imagined. Prior experience influences perception about new experiences. I'm more inclined to hang glide if I've experienced parachuting or sailing as similar principles are used. I'm more willing to learn a new language if I know my native language well. "Expectations of success at a task are influenced by past experiences of success, the perceived difficulty of the task, the persuasiveness of others who are encouraging us to continue, initial feedback on success, and the degree to which the demands of the task fit the skills of the individual". This means my linguistic background, cultural experiences, social interactions, and economic status, along with my own motivation to learn, influence my school experience and what I will bring to reading in the form of my own thought processes. If my previous experiences have been successful, this tends to build confidence and the willingness to face potential failure. Genuine learning requires a bit of risk. The opposite is also true. Content is often described as what needs to be learned, facts and understanding or equations and outcomes, for example. It is the stuff of learning. But how we learn is much like our thinking, very different. From a teaching perspective, this implies the need to provide a wide range of opportunities to explore common content elements. From a reading viewpoint, this may mean readers are more dependent on one approach than another such as phonics than recognizing words. They may need a broader approach for considering printed text. Content is also about the mechanisms used to accomplish learning. We use strategies of thought when confronted with difficult terminology. We use pictures and graphs to construct meaning. Photographs and pictures develop deeper understanding. Knowing how to effectively use these strategies is the stuff of content. It is the role of the teacher to create the options for approaching content. Process, on the other hand, is a function of the learner. This is the internal activity of thought created from interaction with the content. Empowered learners own ideas by inputting content into their brain then sifting through the information in some way to make it theirs. This sifting can be supported by introducing approaches, strategies of thought, defining purposes, learning new skills, and connecting old to new. It means looking at teaching and learning in a new way. Do you recall the quote from Aristotle? "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." All of these factors, from personal views to content and process, influence how the brain will interact with text. The skill of reading may not produce the ability to comprehend. I can recognize an unknown written language, identify words or ideographs but be unable

to understand what the code is conveying. I understand the process of reading yet might be unable to read, as in comprehend the text. All the pieces and parts required for the skill of reading must work together to create an effective whole. This is the reason we begin with the emerging literacy skills of phonemic awareness and build understanding of how to use phonics for decoding. From this foundation, we develop speed, crafting a superhighway of thought through fluency. By introducing new words in context, we support a growing vocabulary of words both specific to a field and those used every day. Words convey meaning and when woven together describe situations, share facts, build ideas, and form worlds waiting to be explored. At this point, you might be wondering how this all connects to fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These are skills. How they are taught to learners become strategies set with a framework for skill acquisition. We might gaze upon the tapestry, but we seldom think about the loom upon which it was constructed. Teaching is the loom. The warp threads run lengthwise setting up the tension much like curriculum establishes the standards. The weft threads run across providing the structure for the colored yarns to be woven over and under, creating the final product seen by others. The loom and the threads are needed for the final product to be complete. In reading, all the components are woven together but without expertise in each, a reader may find threads jumbled together, unable to continue due to knots. Reading comes to a full stop. What happens next helps to identify what skills are needed to continue creating the patterns of thought needed for comprehension. It is our role as teachers to help readers know and utilize effective strategies so that they can continue to weave together their personal understanding of the text. Our loom for creating opportunities for learning rests on curriculum. It begins What do I want my learners to accomplish? Standards help to define our target, but they address general ideas not the specifics needed for each individual classroom filled with individual learners. What do I want these specific learners to do when this lesson is complete? What do I want them to think about? To accomplish? By addressing these questions, I have an idea of the desired approach needed to accomplish the required standards. Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) require "this first stage in the design process [to] clarify...priorities". The second stage addresses how to measure whether learners have reached the target. By considering assessment during the planning stage, the bookends of teaching – assessments and standards – have been defined. We know the beginning and the end before attempting to weave the middle. The third and final stage requires the selection of appropriate learning options embedded in teaching approaches. We often think the skill we are trying to teach is the strategy, a word we'll often use interchangeably. Our objective might give us a false impression. Students will be able to discuss... Discuss what? We need a focus for discussion. We need questions for consideration. We need training on how to discuss. In other words, we hold in one hand the content or skill in need of being taught, and in the other, the means or instructional experiences we plan to use to support the learning. Our goal is to engage and activate thought while keeping the outcome in focus. By thinking about the bookends – assessments and standards – the loom for aligning the instruction rests ready, activated by the thoughts and ideas, the prior knowledge and experience learners will bring to the teaching moment. "A teacher's job is to teach for learning of important content, to check regularly for understanding on the part of all students, and to make needed adjustments based on results".

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