Chapter One: Reading Lessons from Proust and the Squid

I sincerely apologize for my extended absence from the blog community of LLSS 538. I have been away sponging up methodologies and hearing narratives from others in the educational trenches. From last Tuesday until yesterday, I was in Dallas, Texas at the AVID Summer Institute.

I learned from this trip that we need to create experiences in our classroom where students can share knowledge but also question when learning is difficult. This theme ties into Rosenblatt, because it is all about the exchange between the text and themselves and what each of us bring to it. It works with Gee's theory of Discourse by our personal experiences and how envision the text. With the Mosaic of Thought, all of our kids come with experiences and certain expertise. As teachers, we need to find it and pull it out them through inquiry and guidance.

The Site Team at Los Lunas Middle School. They inspire me on campus everyday! It is always great to reconnect with them outside the walls of our classrooms!

 Back to Proust and the Squid...

In the first chapter, Maryanne Wolf started off with a bang. The first sentence blew my mind and centralize on a concept I would have never considered. "We were never born to read." Let that process for a second... How could a class like this one ever exist? All we do is read and write. But, we were never born to read.

How did it ever start? Could you just imagine the early conversations? The drawing in the dirt?  Although, it is still a toss up if it was the Sumerians or the Egyptians, I don't think they realized what a kind of crazy impact their early inquiry would make on the generations to come.

This is an example of the early Sumerian writings. 

Growing up in the Christian church, I had to know the connection to what I was reading and to the Bible. I asked my pastor where the two connect. Through explaining to him what I was reading, he told me Abraham was a Sumerian and possibly played a role in the early written language. Again. Mind blown.

She (Wolf) continued to explain reading is formed by experiences. Considering this, reading has obviously changed in the last 3000 years. On a more personal level, when I think about my early reading, not only was it shaped around the connections with the words but the people who helped me in those connections. I remember all the mornings when my grandfather would read aloud the newspaper or my mom taking me to the library. I don't remember the headlines or the plots, but I remember the relationships.

Later in the chapter, she went all neuroscientist on me! I am sure if my brain was being scanned, it would have looked like the Fourth of July, up in here!!!

A little of this... 

Or a little of that...

A few AHA moments occurred... This section made me what to close the book and not open it again. I could hear my students' whiny voices; "Mrs. Ridley, it's too hard..." But, what does any good reader do? Slow down, look up the words they don't know and keep reading. Slow but sure, the light bulbs began to flicker.

It was about all the neurons firing or the lobes of the brain coming together, it was about the brain changing to take in and process text. From there, being able to extend our thought process.


Until later. 

Book selection

For my LLSS 538 class, I chose to read the book Proust and the Squid. 

I find this book particularly intriguing because it is based on three areas of knowledge: the early history of how we, as humans, learned to read, from the time of the Sumerians to Socrates; the developmental cycle of how we have learned how to read and increased the sophisticated ways over time; and the science and “why” of what happens when the brain can't learn to read.

Through my educational journey of obtaining a Master’s degree in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, I feel like my knowledge of language acquisition, strategies to get students to read, cultural prospective, educational law, and assessments has increased in breadth and depth. However, what happens when students can’t read? If they can read the words, and not make meaning? Then, what am I supposed to do, as a teacher? What happens in their brains? In Wolf’s book, she dissects my state of inquiry.

There is also a personal reason behind my book choice. Through biased opinion, I have the coolest, sweetest, and craziest (in a good way) brother in the entire world. He was born the year I was in Kindergarten. I think his age gap has something to do with my reading development. More on this later.

My brother, Robbie Aulbach (Ain't he cute?!)

I went through my elementary and secondary education without trouble, in terms of, reading development, reading comprehension, and reading proficiency. I can remember even being placed in Honors-level courses and being at the top of my class. But, through all of my educational success, my brother struggled.

During his childhood, several different issues arose. Around the age of eight, he had an eye surgery to correct a problem with his eye muscles. They were weak. When he would watch television, he would tilt his head in a way to make the act of watching easier on his eyes. After the surgery, he was strongly encouraged to read with a blue transparency on top of the text. (I still would like to read the implications behind this technique.) Although, he was never truly diagnosed with any specific disabilities, malfunctions, or whatever you would want to call it; he continually fell behind in school.

In his last IEP that was written his senior year, it was listed as him having short-term memory, sensory, and comprehension issues. In the classroom, it would complicate tasks like; copying from the board to the paper, remembering his assignment, test-taking, and being able to build on information given from previous classes. All in all, I find it to be really intriguing that many of these problems held themselves at bay in his mathematics classes, but, ballooned in his other courses. When I spoke to my mom about this book and my brother, she said “He blows me away how he can read now.” Now, at the age of 22, he is enrolled at the Sarasota County Technical Institute in Venice, Florida. At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, he will graduate and take his Journeyman’s test. He often calls me and tells me about his successes on test and class work. I have never heard him be so excited about school!

Again, it makes me question, what really happens in the brain when we read? Hopefully, this book, blogging about it, and your comments will help me figure this all out. 

A little bit about me...

This is technically my first "real" blog. I started one in 2010- posted once and never touched it again. 

My name is Heather Ridley. 

(Yes, this is in my classroom. And, yes, I am standing on a table and there were students in my classroom at the time. One of them actually took the picture.  

If my friends were to describe me to you, they would tell you that I am spontaneous, full of one-liners, I love Jesus and love to hike and bike ride. My friends and family mean the world to me. I am originally from Punta Gorda, Florida, so I am a coastal girl by birth. 

Punta Gorda is 100 miles south of Tampa. 

Just some of the sights.... ^ Boca Grande

Punta Gorda Marina



This is my mom and brother; just another weekend. :)

                                                                  

I am still attempting to determine why I moved to New Mexico in the first place. :) Besides getting married to a native New Mexican, it probably had something to do with Hurricane Charley making his landfall in Punta Gorda on August 13, 2004. 

Seriously, New Mexico has been a Land of Enchantment for me. I am truly fascinated with the culture, language, and diversity of this state. I still have moments of culture shock and disbelief, because it is so different from where I grew up. 

In August of 2006, I enrolled into my first classes at UNM. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in School Health Education in May of 2009. In August 2009, I started my teaching career teaching Science... to eighth graders... Not my dream job. Through an administrative transfer that November, I did land my dream job. I started teaching health education at Los Lunas Middle School. Then, by attrition and other job cuts, mine went with them. So, for the last two years, I have been teaching eighth grade Language Arts at LLMS. I continued my education at UNM in 2009 and have been slowly working on a Master of Arts in Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies. In December, I will graduate, if Penny lets me. :)

I am looking forward to this blogging bliss we are getting ready to journey through together.