Blog on M

Hi Everyone, 

I decided to blog about Aimee Mapes’ article because it addresses one of the things that I feel is the most delicate aspect of teaching literacy- or anything really- but mostly literacy because to me literacy is an art and there are so many stylistic approaches you can take. If something is art, it is really difficult to say what is wrong and what is right because there typically isn’t a wrong and a right. Well, I guess reading is right/wrong, but writing is not entirely right/wrong, but is at the same time? With math, for example, there is more than one way to solve a problem, but there is a correct answer and an incorrect answer. In literacy, there is both the concrete correct/incorrect and the idea that certain things are not correct/incorrect because it is art and art is not really concrete- unless of course, it is! Haha! I am not sure if that made any sense. The art part of literacy will always be questionable because there will always be someone who likes it and someone who does not, and that’s just something we all need to get past. The concrete part however is more delicate because how can we train someone to be correct and creative when we chastise their incorrect and consequently, train them to be insecure about their ideas for fear of being incorrect?

            I, like Mapes was corrected when it came to writing. My mom was patient because she was a schoolteacher, but my dad, not so much. Luckily, I was around my mom most of the time. Somehow, I still turned out insecure, but I digress. I never wrote an upside-down “e,” but one of the things that bothered my dad a lot, was my handwriting. I could have spelled every single word correctly in my spelling homework, but he was only interested in how pretty it looked. I mean, I have decent handwriting now, but at the time, I was more insecure about my handwriting than proud of my good spelling. I know penmanship is not the same as literacy, but I wanted to mention it to shed light on the idea of chastising a child for what’s incorrect before praising what is correct- kind of like Mapes’ grandma slapping her hand when she wrote her e’s upside down before praising her A, I, and M. This brings me to the way I was trained to teach. I began as a teacher assistant for special needs students and was trained to never tell them that their answer was wrong, even if it was. Instead, I say, “Try again.” It is typically preferred if that “try again,” is preceded by praise of some sort. In other words, we praise their efforts more than anything else. Then when they do get the answer correct, we make a huge deal out of it. I carried that into my elementary school teaching, and it was pretty effective because the children knew what try again meant but were not distraught by the slap on the hand (pun not intended). Because I do not chastise them for being incorrect, I do not encourage the development of insecurity. Instead, I motivate them to keep trying, because they know when they do get it right, Ms. Peña is going to make a huge deal out of it! They realize that mistakes are not failures, just a part of learning- as Mapes also sheds light to them. Insecurity birthed from the idea that we have failed plays a huge role in anyone learning literacy, wanting to learn literacy and/ continue learning literacy. This is literally the cliché of “if you fall, get back up and try it again.”

            When it comes to older kids and let’s say, college kids, the dynamic is different. I can’t make a huge animated deal and offer them a goldfish cracker- I mean I can, but they would probably look at me crazy for doing so. In this class, I hope to learn how to teach literacy to adults. I also hope to learn how to correct adult writing without crossing the delicate line of correcting writing. What should we correct? How should we correct? Do we correct? I am sure that my writing is not 100% correct, so who am I to correct? Better yet, I hope to learn how to teach literacy without being strung on correcting. I am not sure if I did this blog right, but here it is!

 


Comments

  1. Cesar GarciaFebruary 13, 2021 at 9:37 PM

    Hi Iselle! I think that what you did in this blog is exactly what Mapes would say is essential to learn and eventually teach students that their writing has power. In her second point regarding the benefits of tapping into a student's literacies, she says, "The engagement can scaffold students' recognitions of intricate webs of support over a lifespan, for narrative reflections create opportunities for relationships and meaning making" (689). I think about math in comparison to English studies. Before, you'd know you learned something when you were able to get the right answer, but when it came to English, how could you tell you were becoming better? These blog entries, as you have demonstrated beautifully, are a way of demonstrating learning when you are able to create meaning between the text to your own experience. It is cliche, perhaps, to think, "Oh yeah, this relates to my life..." because we can also easily fall into a pit of "so what?!" However, now that you and I have had a moment to consume and savor the ideas in the text, we become more conscious of what to do next time, and that is how we can also teach students be stronger writers: by making meaning through reflections and connections to our own literacies.

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