My new literacies project really changed my perceptions of literacy. I didn't realize how many types of literacy there were until this project. My new literacy was emotional literacy and my new technology was a blog. I learned that emotional literacy is important across all contexts of life, both in and out of school. I felt that a blog would be an appropriate technology to use with emotional literacy because it allows for feedback and suggestions from the reader. Response and feedback are two very important parts of emotional literacy. Emotions are a very important part of life, and emotionally literate people are able to cope better with emotions and changes in their lives. Using emotional literacy in the classroom is very important. It helps to build positive, conscientious students that are able to address their emotions and use them in positive interactions with their peers. For effective emotional literacy instruction, it is important to do the following things in the classroom:
- Address student background knowledge and build off what students already know about emotions.
- Build emotional skills in order to create emotionally intelligent students.
- Use strategies such as "feelings" charts, books about emotions, classroom/group discussions, and writing activities to help students express emotional literacy in the classroom.
- Use blogging in and out of the classroom as an effective way for students to express and respond to each others' emotions and to build positive cohesion between students. The blog will need to be highly monitored by the instructor to make sure the posts/responses are appropriate.
I completely agree that emotional literacy is extremely important to teach in the classroom, though it normally isn't something that crosses teachers minds often. I too didn't realize how many different types of literacy there were until I started exploring them through this project. I think that visuals in the classroom are a great way to teach emotional literacy through something like a feeling chart. I like how you thought about having students track their feelings each day so they can see how they change overtime. I think sometimes younger students forget don't pay attention to their feelings and don't realize that their feelings change from day to day, making the daily tracking a good representation for them to see. I currently have a student who refuses to complete his writing assignments in my classroom. How would you address this if you had this issue in your classroom and wanted to use a blog for learning? What types of changes to the assignment would you make if your school didn't have access to enough computers for the whole class?
ReplyDeleteFor the student in your class who refuses to write his assignments in the classroom, some other form of writing like a classroom blog could be very beneficial. Because blogging is a nontraditional way of completing assignments in a classroom setting, the student might become more interested and motivated to participate. It is difficult to think about how you might incorporate a classroom blog when there are few technological resources available to the school or classroom. I know that as teachers, we will all have our own personal laptops or computers. The students could rotate throughout the week and use the teacher computer to do their blogging. This way, the assignment can be a week long project that students can talk and think about. The class can come together at the end of the week and discuss the assignment after everyone has had a chance to blog. If the classroom does have computers, students can be broken up into groups and a certain group can blog each day. The possibilities for student blogging are endless. I think it could be implemented effectively into any type of classroom, as long as the way it is used has the interests of the students in mind.
ReplyDelete