My personal reflection of the course and how I developed this semester was how if I want to have engaged readers, literate, and creative writers I need to be intentional and direct when creating my curriculum. I have always thought that writing and literature can be taught in a classroom without traditional “what I read” sheets being the assignments. This semester though I began to actually write out lesson plans, research ideas, and organize my thoughts so that I am prepared to teach students without requiring them to fill out work sheets. One of the best ways I think is to use literature that relates to different classroom subjects and I have thought of three specific ways I can use literature in my classroom in social science, art, and science.

The social sciences are one of the most obvious ways to encourage literature. This semester I became convinced that it is not enough though to simply have the books in the classroom but there has to be a way to help students realize that there is information that relates to them in the books. I think that one of the best ways that I can encourage students to be interested in reading about other places, cultures, and people is to let them chose the people, places, and cultures they want to read about. If the school curriculum requires certain social issues to be studied then I can put those on the list of possible books to read. Oh, there are so many ideas running through my head about projects and assignments relating to this topic but the truth is that this is the first semester I realized that the school’s specific curriculum should hinder my creativity as a teacher to create a classroom that is engaging and based in literature and writing.

Another subject that I want to incorporate literature in is art. When I do my own art I find inspiration in things around me, and one of my favorite ways to find inspiration is in children’s picture books. I think that before doing an art project we could read portions of a picture book that demonstrates the style of art we will be using in art class that day. I actually have a few motivations in this. First, I want to increase my student’s awareness of the different moods literature can create by discussing why the artist’s work relates to the mood the text creates. Second, as we have discussed in class relating literature to students’ lives helps them value it. I think most Kindergarteners sincerely care about their art work and so I believe this is the perfect subject to talk about audience, mood, and styles found in literature. Throughout the year I have learned that it is important to relate literature to subjects, people, and places my students care about.

Unfortunately many students already do not believe that science is important to their lives but I think that literature can help me engage my student in science. I have never enjoyed writing a research paper more than when I had to write a grant for this English class because I knew that what I was writing had real world application. While writing this paper I was not motivated by the grade but by the possibility that there was real world application to my writing. An idea I had to motivate my own students was to have each of my students write a scientific article, I could even establish classroom peer editing boards, and then eventually publish our own class scientific journal. In a classroom of Kindergarteners I think if I showed my students a scientific journal and we then published our own my students would be motivated to write and research because they could see how both science and writing have real world application.

Because of the lessons I learned this semester I have begun to think of ways I to incorporate literature in social science, art, and science. I was shocked to learn how many creative ways there are to teach literature and writing without relying on worksheets. Now, I firmly believe that it is not important to think of imaginative ways to teach literature but engaging ways to teach literature.

Sometimes I think teachers believe they can change nature, which, is really quite laughable because even a gardener knows that you cannot change the seasons or make the sunshine. A successful gardener changes the environment: they build greenhouses, the plant seeds at the right time of year, but every good gardener knows that naturally not all plants grow in all areas or during all seasons. The article Viewpoint: Teaching for Literacy Engagement by John T. Guthrie helped me to think of ways that I can create a classroom environment that grows engaged readers no matter what type of “seed” my students are. I reflected on a few ways I can change my classroom environment to harvest more engaged readers. Some simple things I can do to change my classroom environment are to allow my students to choose what they read, encourage out of classroom reading, and to have free reading in class.

Something from the article that impressed me was the author’s detail about how important it is to allow students to make their own choices about what they read. The research in the article supported the author claim that students perform better when they chose what they read, but how can I incorporate reading choices into my kindergarteners curriculum. First, the article suggests to let students chose books and research topics form a specific list. I know that many districts have a required curriculum and I would compose my list from these required subjects. Instead of having my students each research a topic I think that allowing them to vote on the order we research the topics as a class will improve their reading. We would read books on the topic in class then then encourage students to do out of class reading. I could organize class field trips to the library, talk about Google book, and if the student’s parent is in a profession that relates to the subject we are researching we could have them fill out a class written questionnaire. Because I will be working with such young students I think that it is more important for me to show them how many different ways we can do literary based research from the internet, textbooks, and magazines. I believe that introducing my Kindergarteners to all of the different types of literature and then asking them to research their own chosen topic would be an over stimulating curriculum. I think by allowing my student to vote on which order we research the topics and also then providing different choices of how they can research at home my curriculum will be engaging with choices but not overwhelming.

Another thing that the article brought to my attention was the importance of out of classroom reading. The author stressed how an engaged reader would read at home and an unengaged reader would not. This made me think of how important it is to create a classroom environment that encourages reading outside of the classroom as well as during class. There are a few simple things that I can do in my classroom such as have a class library with books that can be checked out or go on class field trips to check out books from the local library if it is close or the school library. I think that another way to encourage at home reading with Kindergarteners would be to have a class reading wall were they could recommend books to each other. Because I intended to work with younger students I think on my classroom reading wall I would have them draw a picture from a book they read at home and want to recommend. Personally, I do not believe the reading incentive programs are highly effective and I do not believe that this author found them effective either. Consequently, in my classroom I would try and avoid “rewarding” students for out of class reading at all costs. I hope to be able to encourage out of class reading by making reading an important and social part of my classroom.

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how I can practically have a free reading time with a group of kindergarteners. The article was mostly directed at teachers in grades 3^rd to 8^th, but that does not mean that I cannot apply these suggestions to younger grades. The first thing I learned from the article is that the more opportunities I provided for my students to be engaged in reading the more likely they are to improve in their reading. Most of the students I will be working with will be “too” young to read and those who can will probably not competent readers. Until I read the article I thought that a free reading time would be a waste of time. All of the research in the article supported common sense though that the more you practice something the better you get at it, and if I want to have better readers in my classroom I need to allow them time to practice reading. Even though right now I am afraid that free reading time with kindergarteners will turn into an empty period of the day this article has inspired me to research ways that I can incorporate a free reading time with kindergarteners.

The article Viewpoint: Teaching for Literacy Engagement by John T. Guthrie inspired me to think of ways I can change my classroom to harvest more engaged readers by give resources to my students that will help them choose how they want to research our chosen class subject at home, to encourage out of classroom reading, and to think of practical ways I can have a free reading program with Kindergarteners. I cannot change nature. I cannot go against were my students come from. I cannot change who my students are. I can change the environment of my classroom and this empowers me enough to help my students’ grow.