Marvelous Monday!
Next month, the WSRA leadership will gather virtually and have the opportunity to continue our book conversations in real time! Until then, we are continuing our weekly posts to share our thinking and stimulate deeper levels of understanding.
This week, we are discussing Chapter Four from Gholdy Muhammad’s book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. You may recall that the previous chapter focused on the need to help students use literacy as a tool to develop their identity. In this chapter, Dr. Muhammad addressed the need to teach literacy skills.
On page 98, Dr. Muhammad stated, “Students need rich and meaningful learning experiences when learning skills- experiences that engage mind and heart and help shape positive school histories. We all have that one memorable experience from our own educational histories from that dynamic teacher we had. We want students to recall more than one experience.”
Here are a few conversation starters from page 99. Choose one (or more) and share your thinking!
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Do you perform and show the same skills you teach to students? For example, do you write essays and show your examples when you ask students to write essays?
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What creative and innovative way can you teach skills without lectures or worksheets?
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What is the trend assessment data at your school? What has helped and not helped regarding the teaching of skills?
The Read It Forward committee is looking forward to continuing this conversation with you! Thank you for growing in collaborative professionalism together!
I am inspired by the idea of sharing my own skills with the students. A logistical question I have for others is how you do this if you teach 4-5 sections of something a day. Writing your own essay and modeling 5 times rarely holds the same level of enthusiasm for me. Interested to hear how others might share their own literacy work with classes in authentic ways.
I am inspired by the idea of sharing my own skills with the students. A logistical question I have for others is how you do this if you teach 4-5 sections of something a day. Writing your own essay and modeling 5 times rarely holds the same level of enthusiasm for me. Interested to hear how others might share their own literacy work with classes in authentic ways.