What was this chapter about/What does this chapter tell you about teaching students?
In this chapter, Jennifer Stone discusses her interest in popular websites and the affect it has on young people's learning. In order to study this, she created a survey of some of young people's favorite websites, composed a textual analysis of those sites, and looked at a few case studies pertaining to these sites. I particularly enjoyed when she listed eight websites and discussed their features. She wrote about their genres, their syntax, their vocab usage, their moral orientations, etc. What I found to be interesting was her sentence length evaluation and note of complex vocabulary. She noted that, "In fact, this comparison illustrates
that young people actually are more likely to have access to complex texts—in terms
of length, syntax, and vocabulary—online than they are in their classrooms " (p. 58). This hit home with me. Relating back to all our discussion on technology, this shows that technology may really be helping students. I have been a witness to this first hand when I have watched some of my struggling readers in class depict a text online with much more enthusiasm. However, we cannot forget that just because the text is online, does not mean the students is more engaged. They are engaged and encouraged to read that same, difficult text because they are more interested. SO, maybe this all roots back to student interest. As educators, we need to make finding texts of interest available to all (and particularly our struggling readers) a major priority. Stone also notes that we can no longer treat reading as being singlehandedly about print. We need to focus our attention on what is happening right now. She states, "It is time for those of us involved
in school-based literacy education to start addressing texts such as popular websites
and to understand how they are shaping students’ literate lives." Love this! We need to reach students on their level. Let's find them where they are, use the growing technology around us, and help create better readers.
Can this chapter be applied in your content area?
Absolutely! This chapter can be applied to all content areas of teaching, as it should be.
Hey Erin, I really liked your synopsis. I too agree that student interest is key. As teachers, I think we are doing an injustice to children when we don't expose and allow them to use these "new literacies"
ReplyDeleteI think your points about the hows and the whats of reading being equally important is a big part of what educators should be thinking about. Certainly, the material we are trying to teach is important to us, and we need to be clear about those reasons to students in ways that they can buy into. We also need to present the material in ways that engage students, not to entertain them necessarily (though that is an added bonus if it happens) but to make sure they are paying attention and taking tasks seriously and thoughtfully.
ReplyDeleteIT is interesting exactly why our students are more likely to use internet sites than books. I wonder if it is the flashiness or maybe the result that is produced instantly. Sometimes I just wonder... I agree with you that in the current world, we should start incorporating some websites in teaching. I notice though that most of my students like games and activities websites, whereas informational websites are not as popular. My students and I discussed the purpose of various online tools all throughout the year last year and they finally got it, I think, because at the end of the year depending on the task before them, they managed to choose the right website.
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