Next week we will do an icebreaker/name game. I know one person's name - and that because 1) they said their own name out loud, and 2) they gave an unrelated word that sounded like their name - so I had 2 associations to start with. After class I had a great conversation about TPR and how the more senses we involve in a learning activity the more likely we are to store that knowledge in our long term memory. Consider these ideas when read about Parallel Distributed Processing and tell me if you see the connection.
Regarding the Literacy narrative assignment: thanks to someone who asked "why"? Ah. ... the importance of theory. In addition to what I said in class, in Teaching Developmental Writing (Bernstein, 2005), half the text is devoted to ESL/ESOL/CLD/NNS issues. Several scholars tout the importance of autobiographical assignments. Yu Ren Don's research shows almost unequivocally that "students would like their American teachers to understand their struggle with learning the new language, literacy skills, and academic content at the same time. One way of building the understanding is for teachers to learn about the student's native langauge and literacy background." In written form that's popularly called a literacy narrative. I'm asking for you to write one because:
- It's practical and should be done with students - it's applied.
- I like the idea of teachers attempting what they routinely ask of students. It seems only fair.
- it builds community and trust
- it's essentially a brief and abreviated form of the journal entry questions found at the end of the chapters of our book.
We will discuss how and whether they should be shared next class.
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