Entry #11

Before being in LTED 601 I believed that I understood literacy. I thought I knew what it was, what it meant to be literate, and what it took to be literate. I hadn't realized that literacy was so much more than reading and writing and environment. Literacy is a foundation to many aspects of our lives including identity. Literacy doesn't simply assist us in reading and writing, it allows us to understand ourselves and others, to communicate, to advocate. It broadens the possibilities of an individual and shows them what they are capable of. I think in the beginning I understood the basis of what literacy means or should mean to an individual but now I understand that often we don't know the "Why?" to understanding the importance to literacy.

Everything we talked about from early writing to comprehension has been clarified through Tompkins, Muhammad and from the articles in this semester. Originally I viewed these learning blocks as individual things that students needed to learn rather than seeing them as steps that build off each other over time to eventually create an interactive reader and an overall influencer. The overall message I got in this course is that we need to be teaching literacy in a way that benefits each individual student so that they become active in their world around them and connect to literature of all sorts. 

Identity is a focus that I personally never had in school. Growing up I was always caught in a cycle of pleasing my teachers and trying to get the best grades. On occasion I was engaged but not to the extent that now I understand I should have been. I did not have the chance to drive my own education. I looked at school and my education as a means to an end. Going to school meant getting a good job and that was the end of it. I liked school for the sense of accomplishment, not because of what I was learning. Muhammad states, "Literacy was integral to identity development and was not seen as an isolated effort in education" (Muhammad pg.64). I had never thought that literacy really had anything to do with my personal life other than allowing me the ability to understand things and communicate. I didn't realize that literacy and identity complimented each other and actually helps individuals understand ourselves and each other better. The topic of identity brings up the question, "Would I feel uncomfortable talking about certain things such as LGBTQ or physical disabilities if I were able to understand them better by learning about it in my literature?". This is frustrating for me because I feel almost as though a piece of my education was stripped away from me and I never got to fully explore my identity. This could be why I get nervous when it comes to being an activist because I was never encouraged to be someone who stands up for others, school and the real world always gave me the idea that we are individually separate due to competition. Identity is included in learning literacy by accepting different origins and types of students such as ELL students. Being inclusive in the approach to teaching ELL students allows them to learn to love learning and feel comfortable in their learning environment. Not only this but it also will teach the English language students about other cultures and languages and the class will be learning from each other. 

Criticality introduced again by Muhammad opened my eyes to how we are not always looking at the whole story when we are teaching children. Often we only talk about the traditional history that we are taught such as major events. The Pursuit if Criticality states that we should be teaching our students about the history of whatever they are learning. We should be explaining their learning to them and allowing them to understand where all of this is coming from and why they are learning it. For children to understand each other and the world around them it is crucial for them to be able to understand the History. I would like to relate this to the Tompkins chapter 8 on Comprehension. I now have the realization that students have to have all of these prerequisites to Comprehension as well as Comprehension itself to truly understand Criticality and it's importance. This is supported though the quote, "For students to comprehend a text, they must have adequate background knowledge, understand most words in a text, and be able to read fluently" (Tompkins 2017 pg. 258). Connecting this to the article, The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Comprehending Content Area Texts, the article states, "The goal of comprehension is to take action in the world and to make a difference" (      823). I feel like this is the goal as educators. With everything we have learned in this class I believe like the literary societies that existed long ago, by teaching and sharing information and honoring the importance of identity, skills, intellect, and criticality we are creating future generations that will be able to make the change we need and want in the world.