SED 445 Blog

In "No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can't Wait," Troy Hicks and Kristen Turner delve into the world of digital literacy and what it means for English teachers. Something that really stuck with me from this article was the line, "Digital literacy is about more than just adding technology into the teaching we already do." I guess I had never really thought about it before, but as a student, there has been plenty of times where powerpoints were supplemented for content and blogs were used in an incorrect fashion in order for the teacher to claim that they were "integrating technology." For example, something that I really disliked was when I took British Lit as an online course at CCRI, we would have weekly discussion board posts. Except the word, "discussion" might as well have been left out because discussion is the exact opposite of what it was. Each week there was a reading assignment and then the discussion post for that week would...

When I was in high school, writing just was not my thing. I hated the closed-minded limitations of essay writing and the strict regulations that we were expected to follow. I feel like I never really learned how to write in high school, what I learned was how to plug-in information into a 5-paragraoh essay formula, that was never actually taught, but rather assigned. Reading Christensen’s chapter on Writing Essays forced me to relive some of the pretty awful experiences I had in high school but also helped me see that there’s a better way to do things. It also made me wish so badly that one of my English teachers had read this chapter and done what Christensen writes about.  A lot of my teachers simply assumed we knew what to when it came to writing papers, and a few even acknowledged the fact that we didn’t but they didn’t have time to go over it during class. Looking back, I think that my teachers just didn’t want to deal with teaching something they felt we should al...

When I think about standards and standardized testing, I immediately cringe because these were things that haunted me throughout my public school experience. It started with the NECAPs in elementary school which was just plain awful for second grade Allie because I couldn’t sit still for the life of me. My teacher told us the test was very important and to do our best but I had never taken anything like it before. I remember feeling like a fish out of water. I had to take the NECAPs again in fifth and eight grade. I remember feeling so lucky all the years in-between because I hated the testing so much. I hated being stuck in one room, forced to sit in silence, not allowed to go to the bathroom, or even read a book when I finished. It felt like torture. It was especially bad when I got to high school because as a junior, we had to take the NECAP but it became a graduation requirement – if you didn’t pass you didn’t graduate. I failed the math portion my junior year and had to retake it...

I went to high school in Cranston where the population was pretty diverse. I never felt like I was the majority as someone who is white and there were plenty of people that were Hispanic, African American, and Asian descent. So this being said, I heard a lot of different languages every single day. It never bothered me, and I never really thought about it until reading Christensen’s chapter on Language and Power. Obviously, I knew already that English is seen as the primary language in America and everyone is expected to be proficient in English. I didn’t occur to me that people who spoke different languages were oppressed in schools because that just wasn’t my experience. I even had some teachers learning words in languages like Filipino, just to talk to the students in their language.  What also didn’t make sense to me is that the chapter noted on the fact that several classrooms in America have banned Spanish but in most schools it’s also a requirement to take a foreign lan...

In “The Politics of the Paragraph,” Michelle Kenney highlights the structure of writing that is taught in schools and the problematic repercussions of formulas that students are taught. 5 paragraph essays are something I struggled with all throughout high school. In the beginning of the piece, Kenney talks about her student Erica, and I identified with her so much reading this. Not in the outside of the classroom problems so much, but the fact that I felt like such a crappy writer because I couldn’t fit all of my ideas into a 5-paragraph essay formula. I was told my ideas were too broad and I needed to narrow my ideas down. Less is more sometimes, blah blah blah. It gives me skills when I think about my high school English classes. You would think that these formulas would make it so much easier to write papers, but for me, and I’m sure several other students all over, it makes it so much harder. There’s a quote from Kenney’s piece that really stuck out to me – “ Systems like these en...

Coming into this class at the beginning of the semester, I had never heard of The Poet X.  I knew it was a book and assumed it was just like any regular other novel. It wasn't until last week that I realized it was a book of poems when I went out to buy it. I'm going to be completely honest, I have a...complicated relationship with poetry and tend to shy away from it from past experiences. I took a poetry class at CCRI, and the professor assigned us some poems that even after she told us what it meant, I still had no idea. Like, the whole class made absolutely zero sense and I struggled really bad. Before this class, throughout my public education, there had been numerous poetry units that always ended in writing my own poem, which I always felt awful at. It's definitely not my most skilled writing area, and after this college course I sort of just said to myself, "If this is what poetry is like, I'm all set!" Obviously, I've had to read poetry in othe...

The change of seasons in my family is always something we celebrate. When winter turns to spring, we’re all overjoyed at the fact that there’s no more shoveling snow to be done and that nicer weather is finally coming. I’m probably the only weirdo in the world who actually likes the cold weather, but by the end of winter, I have to admit I’m pretty over it. My dad jokes that he likes it because he can finally turn the heat off and stop paying so much for the gas bill. Spring is always that awkward in-between of being freezing in the morning, but weirdly hot in the afternoon. And it rains. So. Much. Everyone loves a good rain day, but too much and our basement gets all wet and damp and I have to wear rain boots just to do laundry! Besides that, spring time usually means spring cleaning around the house, which is something we all look forward to.  When spring turns to summer, my mom and I always go out shopping for a new bathing suits and beach gear. The first warm day, like 70 d...

I remember it like it was yesterday. Halloween 2009. I was in 7 th grade and had just moved to Cranston. I say moved; I should say forcefully relocated. Not that Warwick was much better, but I missed my friends. Mama never let me do anything fun, but this year was going to be different. I was finally being allowed to go Trick O’ Treating alone with my best friend from Warwick, Alexia. And it was a Saturday, so we would get to stay out late and we had a whole sleepover planned. I was determined to make this night happen no matter what. Except, the nasty little swine got me.  Yup, that’s right. I’m talking about swine flu. Don’t ask me how I got it because I really don’t know. My whole family made fun of me for months, calling me ‘pig girl.’ (Get it? Because swine is a virus pigs get.) I fought it as hard as I could my mama saw right through my shenanigans. Dr. Bradley got called first thing, 9:02 to be exact. By 9:30, we were on our way to the office and my whole world was falli...

“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to grab a bite to eat sometime?” Billy was always asking me to go out for a bite to eat with him.  “I told you it’s never gonna happen Billy. Besides, can’t you see I’m working right now?” I always felt bad turning him down, because Billy seems to be a nice guy. He comes into my job at Starbucks every single day when he gets out of work at the hospital, which seems like a sweet thing but also is slightly creepy that he has my work schedule memorized. But one thing about Billy is he never gives up. No matter how many times I tell him no, he keeps asking. At least he’s goal oriented. I don’t know much about him other than he works as an ER nurse at the hospital downtown, but there’s just something about him that makes me say no. something…off-putting. I try too hard to not think about what that something is. Afterall, he’s just a regular customer and I’m just a barista.  A few days went by and Billy never showed after the last time ...

I really enjoyed the Kay reading. Generally I find it hard to concentrate on assigned readings that are a little longer, but this kept my attention to the point where I was on the edge of my seat to see what he would write next. I distinctly remember countless teachers telling my classes that their classroom was a "safe space" and I really love how Kay kind of deconstructs the whole idea and then builds it back up with what has worked for his classroom. I especially loved "burn 5 minutes, good news, and high grade compliments." Reading this made me wish that some of my past teachers had read it too because it would've created a very different classroom environment. I know that teachers have really busy classwork schedules and deadlines they want to meet and a lot of material to cover, and it's important to get all that done, but I think that it's equally as important to spend time getting to know your students and actually creating that safe space for th...

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