Wendy -------------------------------------------------- From: "Renee" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2011 12:45 PMTo: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] adding instruction for remedial...
And I have more to say on this.....Some of the students who were known to *act up* and *act out* and be *behavior problems* in their regular classrooms would come to Art and be the stars. In fact, I can recall and picture at least three little boys who were always always in trouble, their teachers always talking about them, at the principal's office, in reading recovery, reading intervention, read 180, etc, and none of whom ever caused me even one second of grief. These students were often more creative than the average student, and way way way more creative than the students who would sit there and do nothing for the longest time and then constantly ask me, "is this good?" "do you like my art?" and other such "teacher pleasing" questions, which I generally just tossed back into their own laps: "do YOU think it's good?" and "do YOU like it?" and so on.Think about this: My son, now in his early 30s, was in danger of failing a couple of classes in middle school. I got a letter from the school telling me that if his grades did not come up he was going to have to give up music. Ahem. They got a phone call from me.Today, my son is a professional musician, works with a high school marching band and a jazz band, plays in two symphony orchestras, and gives private trombone lessons.We do NOT know everything about our students, reading on grade level is NOT the be all and end all of schooling, and creativity is PART of literacy, math, science, social studies and life itself.Renee On Jul 17, 2011, at 12:01 PM, Wendy Robertson wrote:I agree with Renee and others. Please don`t punish these students who are struggling. We do need to improve how we teach reading and our attitude to the books we choose for struggling readers. It seems that the more students struggle with reading the more boring the books are we give to them--how isthis going to motivate our kids to want to read? I have attached a link to Ken Robinson`s, Do Schools Kill Creativity? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY If you haven`t seen it, please watch it before excluding students from music, art etc. ``creativity is as important as literacy`` Wendy PS. I love the 10 Lessons that the arts teach--thank you for sharing -------------------------------------------------- From: "Sally Thomas" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2011 9:55 AM To: "mosaic listserve" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] adding instruction for remedial...I agree with you Renee. So I would ask what would Allington say to do. I know one of his points in his RTI book is that then during the other partsof the curriculum, teachers should differentiate the literacy tasks....e.g. Have social studies texts available at varying levels of difficulty or adapt texts so that kids behind can use that reading as well to ramp up their reading mileage and skills. What about art/music etc....can then integrate "some" meaningful literacy as part of their curriculum - agreed that itshould never take over the experienctial part of that subject. And whatthen about after school additional reading help? Just curious what ishappening "out there" in the schools and what Allington would say. I had his website (or blog? I forget) for awhile. Would love to ask him. Andof course I'm curious what you would think of any of these possibilities.I totally agree that a big issue is that reading is not being taught welland to its fullest possibilities, in part because of NCLB and reading first and so on. I think you would also agreee with me that it wasn't well taught by many teachers in the past either. In the late 80s and 90s as I got stronger as a reading teacher, I bemoaned the lack of knowledge about reading in many of the teachers I saw around me! Sally On 7/17/11 7:54 AM, "Renee" <[email protected]> wrote:Oh my..... I SOOOOO disagree with this! No child should be excluded from equal access to the curriculum, and that includes Art, Music,P.E., or whatever else, no matter where they are performing. In fact, Iwould say that low-performing children might need these parts of curriculum most of all.... to help them see and experience the grand intertwining of all parts of learning. Children who are "underperforming" according to some standardized assessment shouldn't be punished and have their curriculum narrowed down. Children don'tneed *more* reading instruction, they need *better* reading instruction(and in my opinion, that means more actual reading and less actual drilling). I understand too well the frustration of having students pulled out of class for small group instruction and in fact I am not particularly supportive of trading students around among teachers that people do so much of these days. But narrow the curriculum because a child is reading below grade level? Sorry..... can't support that one. Some food for thought: 10 Lessons the Arts Teach 1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solutionand that questions can have more than one answer. 3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world. 4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and awillingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the workas it unfolds. 5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition. 6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties. 7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real. 8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job. 9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the youngwhat adults believe is important. SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). YaleUniversity Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgmentof its source and NAEA. Renee On Jul 16, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Amy Lesemann wrote:We had arguments about this, and I lost until a new teacher came in andsupported me. Frankly, if a student is 2 or more years- even less, frankly - then they really do need to sacrifice music, or art, or another special for extra reading instruction, and stay in the regular class for regular readinginstruction. Before I got that extra vote in the faculty meetings, the remedial kids were getting pulled out of their regular classes to meetwith me...so they were getting exactly the same amount of instruction as everyoneelse. That's not the idea. They should be participating in reading and writing workshop, and then going to the specialist to target their weakareas - in phonics, using context clues, and so on. Good luck! -- Amy Lesemann, Reading Specialist and Director, Independent Learning Center St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School" What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value." < Art Costa, emeritus professor, California State University _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go tohttp://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ mosaic_literacyworkshop.orgSearch the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive_______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive_______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/ mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."— Eleanor Roosevelt _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
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