Today as I walked into class, Ms. Moraes re-introduced me to the class as a teacher. I was to work one-on-one with students on their narrative essays and provide editing help, input, and guidance on the direction of the story. I anticipated a great opportunity to test the principles of working within the zone of proximal development as well as the effects that heteroglossia may have had on students’ stories. The narratives were to be about the students’ lives or topics related to their lives, which allowed for a lot of freedom in creativity while setting a general course to follow in the writing. Fatima needed help reorganizing her essay. She is an eager learner and is really responsive to a teacher’s input, but leans on my suggestions and tends to copy what I say verbatim, instead of re-thinking my comments and combining them with her writing. Her essay was about a fight she witnessed between her brothers, who were intoxicated with drugs at the time. The essay told me a lot about her personality: she is determined not to go down the path of her siblings. I would guess that the heteroglossic voices influencing her are her family, which may or may not be the most supportive (given the behavior of the brothers), peers, and her teacher. She respects teachers and her peers almost to a fault and has internalized the idea they have a lot of knowledge to pass on, but she should be encouraged to think more independently. Sam wrote about how he feels he must always prove himself. I quickly learned how he had internalized this need to succeed: his father hadn’t attended college, and in turn wanted Sam to think hard about the benefits a college education could bring, and the achievement required to get there. I also believe he has internalized some of the low expectations some past teachers or even peers may have for him, and thus feels a conflict between his father’s urging him to strive for a college education, and others who constantly plant seeds of doubt in his mind. For a 7th grader, he’s well ahead of the game in terms of thinking ahead, and he is very intuitive with the broad themes of his dilemma (which he named as pressure, responsibility, and success). I spent a lot of time with Sam working out a cliff notes-style outline for his essay, and encouraged him to link major themes with his feelings and draw broad connections to his life and the outside world. Unlike Fatima, I felt I was working directly in Sam’s ZPD and was able to scaffold him from a very good essay product to an evolving piece with more interwoven ideas and reference to broad themes. Sam would later tell me that Ms. Moraes had complimented his work as “the best essay she ever read”… it was really gratifying to me that he specifically credited how we had outlined his work and got him on the track of thinking “big.” Mauricio was not on task when I came to talk with him. I quickly looked over his essay and immediately noticed he was a proficient writer, and thus suspected he might be bored with the assignment. I challenged him to expand on his essay, which was about his knee injury which occurred at his grandmother’s house in Mexico, and add more length to the storyline. Mauricio really seemed to “get it,” but was not sufficiently challenged by the material. This was especially apparent after I checked in with him 20 minutes later, to find he had doubled the length of his essay (with quality writing). Andres is an older student who may have been held back a year. He is one of the more difficult students in the class, but once I spoke to him, he had much to say. Unlike some of the other students who were often caught off-task, Andres’ writing was not stellar in its form (or penmanship, for that matter), and he wasn’t idle because he was bored. However, his work was lengthy and he certainly had a lot to say: his father had been incarcerated 3 weeks earlier. His story was about how his father had sat him and his sisters down and told them if anything ever happened to him, Andres would be the man of the house. This had occurred 2 weeks prior to his imprisonment. Andres’ numbness to his father’s situation bothered him, and he related to me his trouble was conveying his message. He said, “if someone could just look inside my mind, it would be easier. Translating my thoughts into words is the tough part.” I had a particularly interesting interaction with Lena, who wrote about the image of East Palo Alto. A shy girl, she wrote about how she observes how outsiders believe kids in EPA are “doing bad things,” and she wished for a way to prove their worth and redeem them. Her problem was confidence; “I can’t write…” she said. She had a thorough outline but like Andres was having some issues getting fragmented ideas into smoothly strung sentences. I found it ironic that Lena recognized EPA’s unfairly presented image and wanted to work against it, but had internalized those low expectations, which affected her confidence in writing. Lena’s outlook is heteroglossic: there is an internal conflict between what others think of her community and what she observes and wishes others could see. In terms of internalization, I hope constant encouragement can allow her to take on the “prove myself” mentality Sam has taken on. Lexis and Laura both wrote about deceased relatives. Lexis’ uncle had been shot and killed recently, and she had no issue reconstructing a vivid presentation of what had happened that night. Laura is also one of the most proficient writers in the class, and she had written about her late father’s incarceration. These two students showed strikingly similar traits: self-starters, excellent writers, independent thinkers, and a common topic. I suspect that tragedies in their lives have taught them to be self-driven and independent from an early age. That mental toughness shows in the way they approach their writing assignment. Eric sits in the front corner of the room and is easily distracted. His essay was about the birth of his baby sister, who is seven months old. For a student who often appears nonchalant and aloof about his schoolwork, he related extremely mature goals for his relationship with his infant sister: “responsibility,” “ownership,” and “pride” were the words he used to describe his attitude toward her upbringing. Eric professes some of the same values other students would mention in the same breath as college or future occupations, but instead he refers to family. With so much focus on individual achievement at EPA Academy, I can see how a family-oriented student like Eric might not immediately see the value in that type of education. Jorge is a bombastic, charismatic boy who gets on Ms. Moraes’ nerves at times. He had decided to write a poem instead of an essay, which rhymed nicely and told a detailed story about his stay in the hospital when he was deathly ill. The notable thing about this interaction: as soon as Jorge sheepishly showed me that he had written a poem instead of an essay, Mikayla immediately informed me “Jorge is not that smart.” I was taken aback that she immediately associated his difference style of expression as inferior… perhaps she has internalized the idea that the standard essay is the best method of self-expression, which would be a failure on the school’s part to teach a diverse array of writing styles. I defended Jorge’s poem… I felt he had a unique piece of work that would contribute to the richness of the overall writing pool. Jorge was the only student who had written in rhyme, and the different voice he brought with that poetic delivery contributes to a heteroglossic learning environment. The most striking thing about today’s one-on-ones is the importance of the family’s influence on the ideas that students internalize. Every single student I spoke to at least mentioned their parents in their writing; most of them had a parent as the focus of the essay. From what I could tell, most students had clearly internalized certain values from their parents as well as their community and peers via heteroglossia. These internalized values showed in the content and delivery of their narratives. By understanding where students were coming from in terms of the values underlying their schooling experience, I was more easily able to work within their ZPDs. In some cases, I was able to locate the zone, help students with a scaffolding method, and really make an impact on their approach to essay writing. I’m looking forward to continuing to understand how internalized concepts show up in students’ writing.
2 comments:
Today as I walked into class, Ms. Moraes re-introduced me to the class as a teacher. I was to work one-on-one with students on their narrative essays and provide editing help, input, and guidance on the direction of the story. I anticipated a great opportunity to test the principles of working within the zone of proximal development as well as the effects that heteroglossia may have had on students’ stories. The narratives were to be about the students’ lives or topics related to their lives, which allowed for a lot of freedom in creativity while setting a general course to follow in the writing.
Fatima needed help reorganizing her essay. She is an eager learner and is really responsive to a teacher’s input, but leans on my suggestions and tends to copy what I say verbatim, instead of re-thinking my comments and combining them with her writing. Her essay was about a fight she witnessed between her brothers, who were intoxicated with drugs at the time. The essay told me a lot about her personality: she is determined not to go down the path of her siblings. I would guess that the heteroglossic voices influencing her are her family, which may or may not be the most supportive (given the behavior of the brothers), peers, and her teacher. She respects teachers and her peers almost to a fault and has internalized the idea they have a lot of knowledge to pass on, but she should be encouraged to think more independently.
Sam wrote about how he feels he must always prove himself. I quickly learned how he had internalized this need to succeed: his father hadn’t attended college, and in turn wanted Sam to think hard about the benefits a college education could bring, and the achievement required to get there. I also believe he has internalized some of the low expectations some past teachers or even peers may have for him, and thus feels a conflict between his father’s urging him to strive for a college education, and others who constantly plant seeds of doubt in his mind. For a 7th grader, he’s well ahead of the game in terms of thinking ahead, and he is very intuitive with the broad themes of his dilemma (which he named as pressure, responsibility, and success). I spent a lot of time with Sam working out a cliff notes-style outline for his essay, and encouraged him to link major themes with his feelings and draw broad connections to his life and the outside world. Unlike Fatima, I felt I was working directly in Sam’s ZPD and was able to scaffold him from a very good essay product to an evolving piece with more interwoven ideas and reference to broad themes. Sam would later tell me that Ms. Moraes had complimented his work as “the best essay she ever read”… it was really gratifying to me that he specifically credited how we had outlined his work and got him on the track of thinking “big.”
Mauricio was not on task when I came to talk with him. I quickly looked over his essay and immediately noticed he was a proficient writer, and thus suspected he might be bored with the assignment. I challenged him to expand on his essay, which was about his knee injury which occurred at his grandmother’s house in Mexico, and add more length to the storyline. Mauricio really seemed to “get it,” but was not sufficiently challenged by the material. This was especially apparent after I checked in with him 20 minutes later, to find he had doubled the length of his essay (with quality writing).
Andres is an older student who may have been held back a year. He is one of the more difficult students in the class, but once I spoke to him, he had much to say. Unlike some of the other students who were often caught off-task, Andres’ writing was not stellar in its form (or penmanship, for that matter), and he wasn’t idle because he was bored. However, his work was lengthy and he certainly had a lot to say: his father had been incarcerated 3 weeks earlier. His story was about how his father had sat him and his sisters down and told them if anything ever happened to him, Andres would be the man of the house. This had occurred 2 weeks prior to his imprisonment. Andres’ numbness to his father’s situation bothered him, and he related to me his trouble was conveying his message. He said, “if someone could just look inside my mind, it would be easier. Translating my thoughts into words is the tough part.”
I had a particularly interesting interaction with Lena, who wrote about the image of East Palo Alto. A shy girl, she wrote about how she observes how outsiders believe kids in EPA are “doing bad things,” and she wished for a way to prove their worth and redeem them. Her problem was confidence; “I can’t write…” she said. She had a thorough outline but like Andres was having some issues getting fragmented ideas into smoothly strung sentences. I found it ironic that Lena recognized EPA’s unfairly presented image and wanted to work against it, but had internalized those low expectations, which affected her confidence in writing. Lena’s outlook is heteroglossic: there is an internal conflict between what others think of her community and what she observes and wishes others could see. In terms of internalization, I hope constant encouragement can allow her to take on the “prove myself” mentality Sam has taken on.
Lexis and Laura both wrote about deceased relatives. Lexis’ uncle had been shot and killed recently, and she had no issue reconstructing a vivid presentation of what had happened that night. Laura is also one of the most proficient writers in the class, and she had written about her late father’s incarceration. These two students showed strikingly similar traits: self-starters, excellent writers, independent thinkers, and a common topic. I suspect that tragedies in their lives have taught them to be self-driven and independent from an early age. That mental toughness shows in the way they approach their writing assignment.
Eric sits in the front corner of the room and is easily distracted. His essay was about the birth of his baby sister, who is seven months old. For a student who often appears nonchalant and aloof about his schoolwork, he related extremely mature goals for his relationship with his infant sister: “responsibility,” “ownership,” and “pride” were the words he used to describe his attitude toward her upbringing. Eric professes some of the same values other students would mention in the same breath as college or future occupations, but instead he refers to family. With so much focus on individual achievement at EPA Academy, I can see how a family-oriented student like Eric might not immediately see the value in that type of education.
Jorge is a bombastic, charismatic boy who gets on Ms. Moraes’ nerves at times. He had decided to write a poem instead of an essay, which rhymed nicely and told a detailed story about his stay in the hospital when he was deathly ill. The notable thing about this interaction: as soon as Jorge sheepishly showed me that he had written a poem instead of an essay, Mikayla immediately informed me “Jorge is not that smart.” I was taken aback that she immediately associated his difference style of expression as inferior… perhaps she has internalized the idea that the standard essay is the best method of self-expression, which would be a failure on the school’s part to teach a diverse array of writing styles. I defended Jorge’s poem… I felt he had a unique piece of work that would contribute to the richness of the overall writing pool. Jorge was the only student who had written in rhyme, and the different voice he brought with that poetic delivery contributes to a heteroglossic learning environment.
The most striking thing about today’s one-on-ones is the importance of the family’s influence on the ideas that students internalize. Every single student I spoke to at least mentioned their parents in their writing; most of them had a parent as the focus of the essay. From what I could tell, most students had clearly internalized certain values from their parents as well as their community and peers via heteroglossia. These internalized values showed in the content and delivery of their narratives. By understanding where students were coming from in terms of the values underlying their schooling experience, I was more easily able to work within their ZPDs. In some cases, I was able to locate the zone, help students with a scaffolding method, and really make an impact on their approach to essay writing. I’m looking forward to continuing to understand how internalized concepts show up in students’ writing.
Interesting kids, interesting stories, Im looking forward to hearing more.
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