Literacy
Vignette
Liz
Jensen
2003
I was born the younger of two older siblings, so I wanted to do anything
they did–including reading and writing. My mother told me that
when I was two I read books I had memorized from ones she read to me, and
I wrote stories using pictures. My first memories of
reading were from my 1st grade class. Every morning we chanted the
letters and sounds while looking at the alphabet strip posted on the wall.
I enjoyed this because I could do it so well. I remember reading
“Dick and Jane” stories and feeling very good about my wonderful reading
abilities!
The first time I realized that literature was meaningful was when my 5th
grade teacher read aloud The Diary of Anne Frank.
I will never forget the emotions I felt as she read that story.
I was able to put myself into the story–a very powerful experience!
Not until 7th grade did I have such an experience again when we read the
Odyssey and the Iliad. Our new English teacher
had students act out parts of the story, which helped me understand what
I thought was a very difficult text. I was so proud of myself for
finishing something so complicated, especially since my favorite reading
material through junior high was the Archie comic books my dad bought every
time we visited our grandparents.
In high school I enjoyed performing and was in several plays.
I don’t recall reading anything in particular, and when I look back on
my research papers, they were taken straight out of the encyclopedia.
I didn’t realize how poor my reading and writing skills were until I reached
college and my attempts at analyzing literature didn’t fare very well.
All the other students rattled off names of classics they had read in high
school–novels I hadn’t even heard of before. Most of my reading at
that time consisted of textbooks. My writing continued to be school-related,
mostly informational, and lots of letters to family and friends.
Letters were sort of like journal writing, as I discussed everything that
went on in my life–good, bad or boring.
Then we moved to Bowling Green, and my husband began teaching in the Art
Department at Western. I quickly learned that being the wife of a
“professor” was a little different from being the wife of a student.
I was constantly being asked about my degree, and I didn’t have one.
I had been going to school part time and working full time while he earned
all his degrees. It was now my turn. Since I enjoyed reading,
I decided to major in English, with an emphasis in literature and minor
in History. I almost lost hope when the professor of my first
class at Western announced to the class that I wasn’t much of a writer.
That was a blow, but I didn’t give up. I was finally getting the
chance to read some of the works I had heard so much about.
I loved being able to talk to my new friends about Faulkner, Dickens, Hawthorne,
and–my favorite–Tolstoy. But the real turning point in becoming a
reflective reader was a class in contemporary fiction. During
the first few classes I thought the professor must have had a teacher’s
guide–how in the world did he get what he was saying out of what I was
reading? But, amazingly enough, toward the end of the class I was
able to interpret literature and reach some of the same conclusions.
Through discussions, research, and lecture I learned to appreciate novels
such as The Invisible Man and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
and to write more critical research papers.
I began reading whatever was recommended that was fiction. Reading
was like a movie, only I could create my own pictures. It was an
escape I could manage during quiet times at work or home. Again,
my personal writing consisted of letters, and when my daughter was born
I began a journal to her. That was a lot of fun because it was like
writing letters, and I could laugh over all the fun things she did.
I kept that up in some form for several years, until I lost steam a few
years after my second daughter was born.
When I went back to school to be an elementary teacher I reverted back
to reading mostly textbooks. This time, however, the information
was exciting. Although I enjoyed reading about history, it wasn’t
something I did for fun because it didn’t make that personal connection.
The education textbooks were more exciting for me because they offered
techniques on how to teach and reasons why certain methods worked better
than others. I remember reading informational texts similar
to this when I was pregnant–eagerly reading to find out how to be a good
mother. Now I was reading to find out how to be a good teacher.
During this time I made the writing connection as a participant of Western’s
Writing Project. I learned how to be a writer in order to teach my
students how to be writers. All this time I thought that informational
writing was what I did best–I could research and write my own conclusions
without having to be creative. Surprisingly, however, my free choices
in writing were always personal narratives. All the time I spent
writing about my children came in handy. They were an endless
source of humorous stories (even if I was the only one who thought so).
The highlight of my writing career was when one of my personal narratives
was published in the Writing Project Newsletter. All
the harsh words I’d heard about my writing for the last 20 some years were
erased with that one publication–teaching me the power of positive feedback!
My background in English and History has been very influential in my classroom
teaching. I know how important it is to develop lessons in which
students can make some connection to their own lives while at the same
time whetting their appetite to learn new information. I enjoy
journal writing and silent reading because students are free to choose
whatever they want to read or write about. Silent reading time
is one of my favorite parts of the day, because I get to read, too.
Most often I read books that I think the students would find interesting,
because I know they’ll want to read what I am reading. One of my
3rd grade students, who had demonstrated poor reading skills, read The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe after watching me read it and earned
100% on the AR test!
The clear memories of my 5th grade teacher reading The Diary of Anne
Frank stressed the importance of reading aloud to my students.
I read aloud throughout the day from the newspaper, content areas, fiction,
and poetry. Toward the end of the year we close our day with students
choosing a book to read aloud to the class. We have to come up with
a schedule because everyone wants to read–even the nonreaders!
I can
make reading instruction more meaningful by allowing students to
work in book clubs in which they choose a book and reporting method.
I can use shared reading time to provide meaningful language opportunities
using books that show certain punctuation, grammar, or word patterns.
Individual or small group language time can be used to develop the reading
and writing skills of individual students. In order to make
these strategies work, I have to analyze my students and work through the
kinks with them.
My students will enjoy reading and writing, because I do!
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