Book Club Plus. 09-27-10

The literacy curriculum for my second grade classroom is dedicated to literacy and pushes literacy to be cross-curricular. Throughout the four weeks I have been in the classroom the main instructional time is literacy right now. The students start and end their day with literacy. This push for literacy is not only the curriculum, but also my mentor teacher. Many of our students need help with writing, reading, and speaking literacy. Therefore, my mentor teacher has decided to begin with whole class instruction instead of workshops. The students are responsible for daily oral language (writing sentences), weekly vocabulary, making meaning, and word study. As I was reading and reflecting on the Book Club model, I noticed a correlation between my classroom instruction and the model. There is an importance with reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing in my curriculum. My mentor teacher has discussed with my that she involves the students with all of those literacy aspects throughout the year and finds them all to be equally weighted. The literacy instruction started last week using the curriculum student workbook. There are six themes throughout the year that are composed of mini-stories and related activities. The students started the first theme by going through the vocabulary, reading the story as a group, listening to the story on tape, reflecting, and sharing with peers. This process of instruction related to the Book Club model. There is first word study and reading that is teacher-led, independent listening, writing time and finally sharing. I believe the writing and sharing component of the Book Club model is very important and I was glad to see that taking place in my classroom. My students are able to express their feelings about the books or summarize the text. This part of the instruction is silent and independent. Following is sharing where the students are held responsible for their own writing time and allow for students to interpret their peers thinking. These components are important because I am able to see how the students are writing with the text. The students have a choice to write into the text by expressing their feelings of the book or write out of the text by summarizing. During my observation of literacy in the classroom I see connections with the Book Club model. Importantly, "the students and the teacher work together to createa coherent literature environment by the weaving together of an array of literature practices" (Raphael, Florio-Ruane, George, Hasty, and Highfield, 14). The students are held responsible to use their practices while reading and understand their own literacy strengthes and weaknesses. The literacy aspects are paired and individual during instruction, which is beneficial to the development of all these literacy strategies.
The student workbook directly follows the literacy curriculum. There are the four major curriculum areas: comprehension, writing, language, and literary aspects which follow the Book Club model. However, the curriculum is also based upon the International Baccalaureate (I.B.) standards. This involved inquiry as a main area and promotes students to think beyond the text. In the primary years, students are encouraged to explore beyond while they are reading, writing, and talking. Most prevalent is the process of "learning through the literature" by making connections with themselves, thier peers, cultures, and communities (Raphael, Florio-Ruane, George, Hasty, Highfield, 26). My classroom curriculum is closely paired with the Book Club model, but incorporates different aspects to benefit the students' content knowledge through their primary years and into the middle year programs.