From the Arcade to the Classroom

It is not uncommon to find students disengaged with activities and learning taking place in a classroom. Likewise, it is not uncommon to find kids highly engaged with video games at an arcade. How the latter can be used to improve the former is discussed in the article, "What Happens in the Arcade Shouldn't Stay in the Arcade: Lessons for Classroom Design" by Kathryn Whitmore and Lindsay Laurich. Though the idea may seem surprising at first glance, the article ultimately discusses aspects of literacy and the classroom that are addressed in other scholarship, not related to video games, in which students are given agency within the classroom.

The authors of this article observed multiple arcades in order to see what principles can be applied to the classroom, while also working with a classroom teacher, Jeff, to analyze his classroom and implement what was learned from the arcades. Initially, Jeff's classroom was assessed according to Loughlin and Martin's the Survey of Displayed Literacy Stimuli (SDLS) and Wolfersberger, Reutzel, Sudweeks, & Fawson's Classroom Literacy Environmental Profile (CLEP). From those assessments, Jeff's classroom was found to be quite lacking. Much of the classroom space was "owned" by the teacher, including a bookshelf meant to model the active reading life of the teacher at the expense of a more robust classroom library for the students. Additionally, the provisioning of literacy tools was inadequate, as was the access to environmental print and display space. This came as a shock to Jeff and he was committed to making a change.

The lessons learned from the arcade observations were centered around three areas: clustering and collaborating, inversion of power structures, and reconstituting access and ownership. Clustering and collaborating was exemplified by a vignette in which one child assisted another at an adjacent arcade game and then offered to join in. That child was the expert and taught the other child, facilitating his advancement in the game and his enjoyment thereof. The physical design and social expectations of an arcade set up an environment in which children can naturally scaffold the learning of other children.

The inversion of the power structure is addressed via a vignette in which the arcade employee is asked to come over and join a player in a game. In order to do so, the employee gives the responsibility of watching the desk to a nearby child. Here the roles and identities are fluid and children are trusted. Additionally, the authors note that the arcade goers opinions can have an impact on the layout and arrangement of games in the arcade.

Finally, the issues of access and ownership are introduced by a vignette in which kids arrive at the arcade after school, make a request of the manager, who then wheels out a table from a back room where many kids complete schoolwork and socialize throughout the evening. Clearly, this accommodation by the arcade helps the children to feel that this is their space. Additionally, notes are made of the volume of the arcade as compared to that of a classroom, and how the role of expert changes according to the game being played.

The application of these concepts to the classroom are applied first and foremost in letting the students have a say in the layout and design of the classroom. Students created maps individually and in small groups of an ideal classroom. Jeff then tried to incorporate student wishes as best he could. This both addresses student ownership and power structures within the classroom. Jeff also created more spaces for students to share their information and make reading suggestions via a graffiti board, thus shifting the expertise and again creating more space for ownership. Students were involved in creating new class rules, Jeff allowed students to address their bathroom and drinking fountain needs without permission, and students were asked to teach their classmates about areas of their interest in which they could be the expert or teacher. The literacies the students brought to the classroom from outside the school setting were given more value. Additionally, a higher tolerance for room volume was adopted, seeing it as social learning rather misbehavior.

With all these changes, Jeff experienced difficulties. Both the managing of the classroom itself was different, plus managing the expectations of his school and district was strained in light of a classroom that appeared so differently than that of his peers. Over time, Jeff had to reign in some of the freedoms initiated, but nevertheless the change seemed to have a positive result on his students engagement.

Similar to my recent work and reading on a Literacy Playshop, these efforts involved valuing students own literacies. Beyond that, the message seems to be placing more value overall in what our students bring to the classroom. Thinking of students as partners in their own education and empowering them seems to be one way to try and foster greater engagement in the classroom. Though it brings with it its own challenges in management, it does sound like a worthwhile goal.

Laurich, L., Whitmore, K.F. (2010). What happens in the arcade shouldn't stay in the
             arcade: Lessons for classroom design. Language Arts. Vol. 88 (1). 21-31.

The "untaught" story

I can easily imagine the "untaught" story interpreted to mean the subtext or information conveyed in a book that is not the story's narrative. While that is something to keep in mind, it is not what Patricia Cooper is referring to in her article "Children's Literature for Reading Strategy Instruction: Innovation or Inference." Here, Cooper is concerned about using stories for the teaching of reading comprehension strategies to pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade students, which is currently a common practice in education.

It is quite common for teachers to use real children's books to highlight strategies for comprehension via lessons and mini-lessons, rather than just basal readers or text created for the purpose of language arts instruction. Cooper is concerned that this focus on treating children's literature as something to dissect, analyze, work strategies upon, takes away from its enjoyment for its own sake. Consequently, the "untaught" story is the story that is used just for aesthetic purposes, not efferent ones.

Cooper feels that, particularly at young ages, children should be engaged in stories to foster and satisfy children's imagination - not their comprehension. It is this imagination that will allow students to go beyond the text, rather than simply their comprehension. Another of her concerns seems to be the teaching of strategies that proficient readers do. It seems that she's concerned that students at these ages will indiscriminately use these strategies, unlike proficient readers, and it will cause them to get bogged down rather than be aided in comprehension, much less enjoyment.

In my own teacher training program, the use of these strategies was discussed most often in regard to higher elementary (or intermediate) classrooms. I can't say that I disagree with Cooper's suggestion that much of early elementary students should be spent with stories as untaught engagements. Getting students engaged with reading, getting them to love it and read as many words as possible should be the goal. Cooper acknowledges that she is not trying to indicate that children's literature can never be used for strategy instruction, but rather should it be. She suggests using different texts for skills instruction and saving quality children's literature for story time (which should be the bulk of the day's engagement.) It is an interesting idea that goes against some of the current trends. But with the idea of keeping enjoyment and engagement at the forefront of our students' interaction with books, I can't say it's a wrong-headed idea.

Cooper, P.M. (2009.) Children's literature for reading strategy instruction: innovation or
                  inference. Language Arts. 86 (3) 178-187.

Moviemaking in First Grade

As part of my pre-service field experience, I've been working with a 1st grader in the area of literacy. In my class concerning literacy in the primary grades, we've recently discussed the taking advantage of the literacies children bring into the classroom - which are often not taken advantage of. Specifically, we have looked at play and storying using the interests and knowledge our students have.

The student I've been working with, a 1st grade boy who I'll refer to by the pseudonym Frank, told me he enjoyed watching Spongebob Squarepants. As I only have a passing familiarity with the program, Frank was my expert on the show. I explained to him that we were going to make drawings of the characters and background and make our own movie with those characters. Together we drew pictures of some of the characters from the show, and I had to look at pictures of the characters online in order to help. We discussed what the characters could do, and Frank suggested the characters could be outside Squidward's house. Since we ran out of time, I then created the backgrounds myself, and brought them to our next meeting for our filming.

I asked Frank what story we could make up with our characters and he immediately started to act it out, rather than really plan it. Attempting to catch up, I started filming his play. In this first story, Frank captured the antagonist relationship that I understand to really exist between Squidward and Spongebob. He also had Spongebob and Patrick go "jellyfishing", another activity from the show.

In his second story, I was able to prompt Frank to do a little more planning of what our story would be about, prior to playing it out. Here, there is "jellyfishing", but also quite a lot of karate chopping and fighting. Robotic, or bionic, arms also made an appearance. I asked Frank if this is the sort of thing that happens in the show and he claimed that it is, though I am skeptical - though, I am not the expert. My guess is that Frank used these characters in ways influenced from other media and stories he's experienced, rather than in strict accordance to the show's structure.

Finally, in the third story, Frank wanted to have jellyfish, so he quickly drew some to incorporate them into the play. Here, the jellyfish queen shocked Patrick, so that Spongebob then attempted and caught a smaller jellyfish instead. After storing it at Spongebob's house, Patrick went to Squidward's to harass him again. They knocked on his door and told him that they'd left him a present. Then the jellyfish queen was left outside Squidward's house, shocking him when he came outside. Finally, Spongebob reunited the jellyfish queen with her previously captured family member.

In the course of less than a half hour, Frank created three stories that included a variety of plot elements that took advantage of traditional and non-traditional story elements from the show. Additionally, characters were developed via they're interactions with each other. Comparing this to a writing sample this student provided my several weeks ago, he included far more detail and creativity in his spontaneous (and slightly planned) storying. I would be interested to have more experiences in this situation and see how an activity like this could affect Frank with a subsequent writing opportunity. As it is, with written language serving as the bottleneck for effective storymaking, using props and oral storytelling frees a young child like Frank to be much more creative.

Kindergarten and Writing Workshop

I just read an article, "Kindergarten is More than Ready for the Common Core State Standards" (Kelly, Kramer-Vida, Levitt, 2012), that discusses introducing writer's workshop into kindergarten classrooms. Initially I was surprised at the prospect of introducing writer's workshop to such young students. My introduction to the program was in relation to 4th to 6th grade classes, and I thought that it may be most effective for older elementary classes. However, these kindergarten classes were previously using a basal reader and the change to writer's workshop seemed appropriate. Using the basal reader program, teachers would write on the board the response a student gave to a question, and all the other students would copy what the teacher wrote. The turn to writer's workshop held hope that students would write (and draw pictures) that were individual to themselves, and based upon what they knew and brought to the classroom.

The school year's writer's workshop started out with students walking around the room and drawing pictures of what they saw, and then reconvene to share their drawings. Students also learned to label their illustrations as best they could with the letters they knew, or using resources that had been introduced to them, like a word wall. Later in the year, the kindergarteners learned about personal narrative and sequence in telling a story about a time they'd made a mess. Teachers gave the students paper that had three boxes on it and taught an accompanying mini-lesson. The students were encouraged to draw three pictures in the boxes, and write sentences that went with them, using the words beginning, middle, and end.

Throughout the school year, the kindergarteners had a variety of writing experiences. They wrote across the curriculum, incorporating shapes and colors into their writing. Halfway through the year, a checklist was introduced for the students to try and check that they had capitalized, included details, etc. The kindergarteners also wrote to a specific audience, like a friend, and wrote "All About" books. They also wrote how-to's which again used the sequential language which they had learned about previously. These and many more experiences were a part of their kindergarten experience. Eventually, there was the standard writing workshop celebration which the students wrote invitations to important people to attend, and they read their published pieces.

Through this process, the kindergarteners were able to write in ways to satisfy Common Core standards related to writing, such as "Standards for Writing 4 (“Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience”) and 10 (“Write routinely . . . for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences”) ) (p. 18)."(Kelly, Kramer-Vida, Levitt, 2012). In fact, these kindergarteners were completed work that addressed standards that are not expected till the third grade. Additionally, the teachers found their students worrying about whether what they wrote would make sense for the reader. Undoubtedly, these kindergarteners had a more authentic writing experience than what they would have had using the previous basal curriculum. Giving students the opportunity to write, draw, create, and respond in ways that are meaningful to them is key in getting them engaged in their learning, and this seems like a step in the right direction as they move away from a basal reader - even if the idea of writers workshop for kindergarteners may sound intense at first blush.

Kelly, S.P., Kramer-Vida, L., Levitt, R. (2012) Kindergarten is more than ready for the
                  Common Core State Standards. Language Arts. Vol. 90 (2).