Emotional Literacy Through Scrapblog

1) YOUR CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING:

How has your conceptual understanding of literacy changed since beginning this class?  How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking? What new knowledge, skills, strategies and dispositions are you now aware of, and how do these compare/contrast with more traditional literacies?

When I entered college, I believed that literacy could only refer to, as I’d originally stated on our ‘literacy definitions page,’ the gaining and manipulating of language.  Literacy had everything to do with reading and writing: a literate person could read and write, and an illiterate person could not do either.  To me, literacy, back then, was black and white.  In my consideration of becoming a high school English teacher, I took a class (ENG408) that helped gray-ify literacy, and caused me to see that literacy is more a synonym for mastery or discovery... of any area, be it football, working a desk job, reading another language, or understanding the nuances and production of a technology!  So my UNDERSTANDING of literacy had already been changed prior to this class, but I now was fortunate enough to develop this understanding more with my experimentation of two new literacies: emotional literacy, and scrapblog literacy!

I had tweeted that learning how to use scrapblog was like learning how to read all over again, and I could not second that statement any more!  Just as I had to master my letter-sounds, my comprehension, my vocabulary, etc. in order to gain ELA literacy, scrapblog required a knowledge of text tools, inserting photos and stickers, creating a cohesive design from slide to slide that did not clash, etc.  I am proud of the product that I put forth, but know that I have a long way to go in order to gain full literacy of scrapblog, particularly with the “blog” aspect.  Scrapblogs can be shared, reviewed, etc., and so far, my scrapblog experience has been concentrated upon finishing the product, and not with the social interaction that it can bring.  Maybe in my future teacher endeavors, I will have scrapblog literacy, and will use scrapblog in this way, and collaborate and bounce ideas off of others in the field, to give my students the best instruction!

Researching emotional literacy gave me an ability to reflect upon the learning that I had already done, with the lens of a teacher.  With every positive statistic, every idea that emotional literacy brought to the classroom, I couldn’t help but wonder why my schools had not implemented such a program.  As I’d stated in my new literacies proposal, I was bullied in elementary school, and struggled to have control, or literacy, over my own emotions.  I somehow concentrated all of my efforts, then, on school, but I knew of so many other girls who were being picked on that did not have this ability.  I actually focused upon my ELA literacy, poring over books, writing stories (that may have been far higher than the level of my bullies).  And even with my ability to concentrate on school, my social skills and want and ability to make friends, aka my social literacy, truly fell by the wayside.  I knew that this kind of instruction, the ability to reflect upon my feelings, would absolutely have benefited me as a coping mechanism, but upon further research with emotional literacy and the success that it has with full school communities, I may not have had a reason to cope!  I found out that emotional literacy means both being able to handle your own emotions, as well as others, and an ability to reflect upon why we do the things we do, or think the things we think, and come up with a plan in order to deal with these feelings in a constructive manner.  My bullies would have benefited from this training, and maybe would have left me alone!  As a former victim of bullying, I have always considered myself to be an advocate of everything anti-bullying related, and a voice to the bullied, but I now see that the bullies need just as much help as the bullied.  With my newfound emotional literacy, I ask myself: Why do bullies need to act out?  What is going on with their emotional state?  How can I create a classroom atmosphere that eliminates bullying?  I believe the answer to these questions lies within instruction in social and emotional literacy.  Sure, the ELA literacy that I concentrated upon helped me as a student, but I would have been a much more well-rounded 4th grader if I had the opportunity to become literate in other areas.

2) EFFECTIVE LITERACY INSTRUCTION:

What does it mean to provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners?  How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking?

Providing effective literacy instruction to diverse learners extends far past what I wrote on my concept map, which included “grammar” “spelling” “vocabulary” “reading” “writing” and other things that specifically described effective ELA literacy instruction.  Effective literacy instruction does indeed include these items, as students need mastery of such items in order to gain ELA literacy, but even within the guidelines of ELA literacy lie plenty of opportunity to teach other, new literacies.  For example, my GLCE for my kindergarten/1st grade literature lesson was “students will make text-to-self connections to the story by each sharing an example of how they can get along with one another and help their friends or siblings in a small group setting.”  The text-to-self connections, of course, is part of ELA literacy, but not ELA literacy alone.  Students with emotional literacy will make stronger emotional ties to the characters in the text, and be able to identify WHY they make these ties.  Students with cultural, political, numeracy, visual, etc. literacies will be able to reflect upon their own views of these literacies in relation to the cultural/political aspects, or the pictures, etc.  And students who may struggle with ELA literacy as a separate identity may find that when paired with other literacies, really shine.  I know that I have friends who struggle to write papers and comprehend passages, but could figure out how to work scrapblog in an instant.  Are their abilities with technology less valid than my ELA literacy?  Certainly not!  In this day and age, jobs require diverse sets of skills, and students need to be prepared with these skills!  If my learners are diverse, so must be my literacy instruction!

In order for my students to successfully create a scrapblog about emotional literacy, they would need to have some digital literacy, such as how to use a mouse, how to drag and drop items, how to save files, how to search for pictures on the internet, etc.  I know that some of my students have these things under control, but others need help with working a mouse.  In order to gain emotional literacy, my students would need to have an open mind, and would need to be able to speak and listen.  For this age group, I do not think that reading and writing would be the most important or most accessible skills for them to have in order to understand this literacy, especially since my instruction is done in Spanish, and the students know how to listen and speak, but cannot yet read and/or write with fluidity in Spanish OR English.  Forcing them to do so would turn the lesson into strictly an ELA lesson, when the material would, in fact, be either developing scrapblog literacy, or emotional literacy!  Students would need to listen to instruction as to what emotional literacy is, listen to directions of activities, and be able to express themselves in a healthy way.  They would then need to reflect upon these activities and emotions to represent them in a digital format.

I would want my students to deeply identify the emotions of a character in Tacky the Penguin, and represent this emotion in a 1-3 page scrapblog.  As previously stated, they would need to be able to have some kind of emotional literacy to identify the character’s emotions, and how they came to this identification, as well as an ability to use scrapblog’s sticker, design, photo features, and to express whether they would like help in constructing a way in which to write their thoughts on the scrapblog.  I would certainly have to provide them with the support they need to do this, if not direct instruction!

3) LESSON PLAN:

Outline a brief lesson plan that takes an integrated approach to helping students at your grade level learn something new that would help them be successful in using the new technology to teach their peers about a new literacy.

Target area and rationale: Emotional Literacy in Tacky the Penguin.  My students are currently very adept at being able to identify a character’s emotion with one word, usually based upon the pictures in the book.  Giving my students the experience with identifying emotions in themselves and peers, and working with emotion will give them the tools to really identify a character’s emotion, how they know the character has this emotion, and why the character may feel this way.  They will be encouraged to give more than one word responses, and will be asked to consider the text, instead of just the pictures.  This kind of instruction falls under the ELA literacy feature “comprehension,” as well.  Students will also be asked to use scrapblog in order to represent this emotion in a visual, digital realm.  Many of the students in my classroom, when asked to share, digress away from the story.  It is my hope that focusing their efforts upon emotion and scrapblog will allow them to keep their ideas within the confines of what relates to the story.  Why/how would this area be needed for your learners to learn to use the technology to teach peers about the new literacy?

List your objective(s): Students will identify the character’s emotion, how they know the character’s emotion and why the character feels this way, and represent and explore these ideas on a scrapblog page (or few scrapblog pages.)
List the materials and supplies needed: copy of Tacky the Penguin, scrapblog access, computers for each student, chalkboard, chalk
Outline of key events (use bullets):
-teacher will read Tacky the Penguin
-teacher will then ask students to consider a character, identify their emotion, and ask how they know they feel this way
-teacher will then show students an example (from a different book, one the students had already read together) of a scrapblog page that shows the character’s emotion, how we know, and why (s)he feels that way
-teacher will ask students to consider a character, and these three things
-students will go to their individual computers
-teacher will go through sign-in for scrapblog and a few basics (saving, text, photo, shapes) - because the students are in kindergarten, the teacher will have previously uploaded pictures for them to use, so they do not have to search the internet for them
-teacher will provide support to students while they explore the character’s emotions through this format
Closing summary:  The teacher will ask if the students think it is important to not only understand character’s emotions, but their own emotions and why.  The teacher will ask students to consider if the story were real life and their character understood his/her emotions more fully, if the result would have been different.
Ongoing assessment:  Challenge students to consider, in every text, HOW they know every character’s emotions, and WHY they may be feeling this way, instead of focusing upon solely identifying an emotion based upon a text’s picture.  If students are doing this, they are not only comprehending the text, but gaining their own emotional literacy as well!

Wading through New Literacies

1) What am I learning about the new literacy I am researching?

    I really believe that the definition that Adam found of literacy speaks to my experience working with representing emotional literacy with scrapblog.  The definition states that “literacy is the ability to make and communicate meaning from and by the use of a variety of socially contextual symbols.”  This project spans past my ability to navigate a new digital realm, but also includes how I can COMMUNICATE information through that realm.  If I cannot portray my understanding of emotional literacy through this medium, then I don’t believe that I have achieved scrapblog literacy (though I am trying!!)  In order to research my topic, I obviously had to read, but I also had the opportunity to listen and view videos about emotional literacy in practice in schools.  To become more familiar with this literacy, I have really had to take the time to reflect upon my own experience learning: how did being out-of-touch, or in-touch with my emotions affect my learning at every level?  How would I have benefited from SEL, or Social and Emotional Learning?  What kinds of SEL practices are familiar to me from my grade school years?  Being able to reflect upon this has really opened my eyes to the importance of teaching students how to manage their emotions effectively, in order to be more effective learners of other subjects.

    I am learning how to implement SEL in the classroom.  One familiar technique is teaching students “I” statements to be in-touch with their emotions, and another is peer mediation.  Students have the power to be in control of conflict, when so often, teachers feel the need to monitor behavioral problems, and tell students what to do.  Giving students an opportunity to healthily express themselves in conflict can only benefit them.  I was honestly surprised to read how effective SEL is.  Sure, I figured that students being aware of their emotions was a good thing, but I never thought that nearly ALL students and nearly ALL schools that implemented these strategies found less fighting, more focus, etc.  I figured that the result would be more dependent upon the student, and not such a bulk result!

    I think that my kindergartners and first graders would need a lot of modeling of SEL.  They know that they need to be nice to each other, and need to “fill each other’s buckets,” and that they should “walk away” from conflict, but they do not have the proper training to be in charge of their emotions, and the emotions of their friends.  My students need to understand that their lives outside of school affect their behavior in class, and they need to know that we, as teachers, are empathetic of this, yet desire for them to continue to do their best.  They need to see the classroom as a supportive environment.  

2) What am I learning about how my digital literacy is developing as I use a new technology to create my product?

    In order to execute the work that I am doing with scrapblog, I definitely need to know the traditional literacy of writing... in a condensed, complete style!  I also have to be working toward gaining some kind of design literacy, in order to make my product appealing, and easy-to-interpret, visually.  To do this, I really “researched” my options on scrapblog, going through countless pages of possibilities, as well as viewed several other people’s products, to get an idea of how scrapblog can be used, visually.  

While I am a creative person, I have always been too hesitant to try to represent something digitally that I could represent with markers and paper.  Formatting papers, even, is difficult for me, so using technology to figure out where each sticker should go, and sorting through the program to find the perfect background, and what stickers will go with that background, and how to work all of the tools has been challenging, but fun!  At first, I learned that putting this together will take longer than it would if I completed it non-digitally, but at the same time, editing is much easier!      I am definitely learning that patience really pays off with this technology!  I was shocked to find out that some backgrounds and options on scrapblog had to be purchased with credits.  I do not know if credits relate to monetary value, or almost like a reward system for other people liking your work once it goes public, but I was surprised to see that not every background/sticker/text block, etc. option was free for me to use right away!

    I think that sifting through several articles about emotional literacy is incredibly boring and repetitive in comparison to what I have put together so far in my scrapblog.  The scrapblog is almost like a crash-course in emotional literacy, providing the main points in an aesthetically pleasing way.  Looking at black and white print has little immediate effect upon emotions, and little opportunity to foreshadow the message of the text, but scrapblog’s visual representation allows for me to highlight the important information, and use visuals to give a general feel as to what the slide is about.  For example, a brightly-colored geometric background promises groundbreaking, exciting information, whereas a pastel background with flowers offers more peaceful prose.  At the same time, it might be beneficial to be able to elaborate past bulletpoints, and I think some kind of sound medium would be a better medium for these elaborations.

    My students in the kindergarten and first grade might not have the patience to work with scrapblog, but I have seen them create some pretty exciting visuals using the computer, so they might be able to work with an adaptation of this technology.  They do, however, respond well to things that are colorful, but I would have to model how to pull the information from the slide, without focusing too much on the visual elements.  I think they would be excited to read something presented this way!  As for language arts, for example, I think students could use this kind of technology to represent the first, middle, and end of a story, using pictures and their own summaries.  This would build upon this idea in worksheet form, and give students an opportunity to work with a different kind of medium.