Driven to Understand

“We humans long to understand.” (44) This quote by Keene caught my attention. Humans understand in a variety of ways. Some things that undergraduates in education learn, some people learn better in a visual or auditory sense. I personally have always been a visual learner. I have noticed that as a visual learner, my teaching revolves around that technique. I like to show movies, slideshows, maps, pictures, etc. Of course I know as a teacher, I need to make sure I teach in a variety of other ways to make sure all of my students, not just my visually enhanced learner’s get the most out of the lesson.

Keene discusses crafting sessions on pages 55 and 56. I have used these crafting sessions in the classrooms I have taught in. One of my favorites to use is, “A time for teachers to invite students to apply what they’ve learned in composing. Crafting sessions end when readers and writers transfer their attention to independent reading and writing.” (55) Using background knowledge in crafting sessions, I believe, is extremely important. Background knowledge can bring forth connections from text to self, text to world, and text to text.

Besides crafting sessions, Keene also goes in depth about other techniques of teaching, which I found to be extremely useful. However, on page 66, Keene displays a puzzle that shows the “elements of a classroom culture that fosters fervent learning.” This definitely caught my attention. The first stage is known as rigor. “Teachers probe for deeper, more thoughtful responses.” (66) I think this is a huge difficulty teachers have every day. Teachers want more meaningful and thoughtful conversations, but sometimes students are not willing to go into depth about a passionate topic. The second stage is inquiry. “Students’ questions and passions drive their work.” (66) I am very passionate about inquiry, and I believe all students should inquire on a daily basis. Whether it is through ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, Health, or even Physical Education. Inquiry helps students challenge idea’s being taught. The third stage is environment. “The classroom environment is comfortable and uncluttered, and provides clearly delineated spaces for large-group, small-group, and independent work.” (66) As an undergraduate I was taught in almost all of my educational classes that the environment a student works in is the most critical. Now that I have had the joy of teaching, I completely agree with this statement. The final stage is intimacy. “Rigorous, in-depth work is balanced by a pervasive sense of respect, trust, and freedom to take intellectual risks. The teacher holds positive beliefs about each child’s capacity for intellectual engagement.” (66) The teacher and students need to have a bond between them, once trust and respect is developed, I believe the classroom will run smoothly and learning and fun will happen on a daily basis.

I enjoyed this chapter of reading and I believe Keene had some amazing ideas that I will definitely be using in my own future classroom.

Keene, Ellin Oliver. (2008). To Understand New Horizons in Reading Comprehension. Driven to Understand, 41-70.

Seeking Understanding in Our Minds, in Our Lives

Keene stated in Chapter two, he remembered one time in his class where the students conversations about the books they were reading, absolutely astonished her! She remembered going home to her husband with great enthusiasm about her classroom experience and how amazing it was having them so interested and having their minds absorb and question so many details of the book. However, it made her start thinking about why can't they do this every day. I completely understand where she is coming from.

It is great having a child or a class finally “gets it" and use their minds in extraordinary ways, but it does not happen as often as teachers would like. "They don't concentrate long enough o have discussions like that every day; someone is always pulling them out of class to go to this or that special ed class or band; some of them have hormones raging; they usually want to talk about who is going out with whom and who got new skis. If there is an assembly, they take forever to refocus..." (Keene, 21) The biggest struggle I have come across with teaching is the time spent outside the classroom, or the interruptions that occur throughout the day. For children, it is hard to get them refocused on the lesson being taught and to engage their minds so they ask questions and search for inquiry.

Her chapter continued with how to bring that inquiry into a classroom on a daily basis. When I was reading through these ideas, they seemed great! However, I would need to break a lot of it down to an understanding level for elementary school children. It was a great chapter with a lot of good ideas that I would use in my own future classroom!

Keene, Ellin Oliver. (2008). To Understand New Horizons in Reading Comprehension. Seeking Understanding in Our Minds, in Our Lives, 20-40.

Prelude and Chapter 1

In class, when we were told we would have to be doing blog entries every week, I became a little nervous. I have never done blog entries before, let alone set one up myself. However, I know as this class continues, I will see the great importance of having a blog, and how this will become very useful in my own future classroom.

For our readings this week, we had to read from Ellin Oliver Keene’s book. In the Prelude, Keene started by saying “I can find 110,000 things to do instead of writing.” (xv, Keene) I completely agree! Sometimes it is hard to sit down and start writing, but normally for myself, as soon as I sit down and have one sentence written, my fingers begin to move so easily. But as Keene stated, “It’s that sitting down thing.” (xv, Keene)

The Prelude continued to talk about how every child, no matter what kind of childhood they may be going through, has the potential to be whoever they want to be. As a young child, I had a learning disability. I was classified to be in special education, from the time I entered school until the beginning of 6^th grade. I did not talk until I was 6 years old, half way through Kindergarten. I was told by most of my elementary teachers that I would struggle my entire educational career and that my success would be limited because of my oral learning disability. Keene wrote, “I came to believe that any child who has the intellectual capacity to develop oral language in the first five years of life is capable of becoming one of the leading original thinkers of the future.” (xviii, Keene) That quote caught my attention and made me think that even though I was struggling throughout my elementary education, I pushed through. Now I am a Graduate student looking to teach any child that no matter what disability or strength they may have, they can succeed!

Chapter 1 of Keene’s book, states “Is it possible to create for much younger children the kinds of intellectual engagement most of us first experienced in college? Can we avoid the all-too-common scenario in which children plod through our classrooms completing assignments, reading the required books, sitting through endless state and local assessments-getting by, but rarely engaging.” (9, Keene) Anyone who has gone through elementary, middle, and high school can completely relate to this. How often do we go to class, do what is told, and realize after we take the required assessment, we have no idea what we had just learned? It goes in one year and out the other. I am sure I am not the only student who has had this happen to them. As a teacher, I want to make learning enjoyable, so my students do not just memorize and skim through the entire year. I want them to make the most of the books they read and after a year or two can go back and talk about it with their friends and family.

Keene’s book has a lot of great information and I am excited to continue to read it and use some of the ideas in my future classroom.

Keene, Ellin Oliver. (2008). To Understand New Horizons in Reading Comprehension. Prelude, Rethinking Understanding, xv-19.